Charles Bock - Beautiful Children

This was at odds with all that was truly sexual and erotic to Lincoln. This was the opposite of sexy, something of a totally separate phylum, and without looking away or reducing the pace with which he was stroking himself, he would use his free hand and press a button on the right side of his remote, sending the forms on his screen forward in double-time.

Watching made Lincoln a tacit participant, and so he did not watch.

Even if he did not stop.

A scene was boring. Did that mean he should give up his hard-on and go home?

He'd paid for this tape, right? This tape was his.

Because every once in a great while a sequence would arrive.

A threesome. The copy repairman and the starlet temp and the curvy redheaded programmer. The copy repair guy had the redhead on the table, and was working on her back door. He was covered with sweat, really pounding into the redhead, who had stopped eating out the blonde and was lying on her side. The redhead's face was toward the camera and her eyes were closed, and she was grunting with each stroke and her face was contorting. She was just lying there and taking it up the ass and keeping her eyes shut and her mouth open, simply waiting it out, waiting for it to be over and to have survived, and here, now, for the shortest of snippets, one and two and out, the camera captured the blond woman leaning over, gently stroking the side of the redhead's brow.

Lincoln would watch this and he would have to turn away. He'd have to turn off the videotape. He'd go back to his life and his wife, carrying on like normal, until the next time he needed to view such a spectacle.

At which juncture the tape was cued right up to where he'd left it.

Over and over he watched, until the genuine moment lost its freshness, until the accidentally captured seconds of humanity were devoid of their luster.

Then he purchased a new tape.

He also liked when the guy had the woman's panties hanging from his cock.

And the squishy sounds. A bed's rattle and thump. Balls smacking against a woman's ass.

All sorts of playful things, Lincoln appreciated: frilly G-strings and crotchless panties; a pink nipple at attention, peeking out from the cup of a cheesy bra. A woman driving her female partner crazy, teasing her lips with the humming vibrator. Do you want me? Beg for me…

Or if she stared deeply into the guy's eyes while he was in her mouth, her attention entirely on him — yeah, Lincoln was totally into that.

What was it like for your partner when you pulled lightly on her clitoral stud with your teeth?

What would it be like to be blown by a woman with a steel barbell through her tongue?

Frank moments, that's what he wanted: fleshy boomers jiggling as they were squashed together, putting pressure on the penis head, turning its cover purple…

The woman on top, lowering herself onto him, wiggling and shaking and grinding into him, her breasts full and bouncing up and down while he slapped her ass and spanked her and she screamed— Harder, yeah, fuck my pussy, oh yeah, right there, fuck my pussy right there, HARDER —and he began slapping her right tit and pulling and twisting the long and erect nipple, and the veins in her neck got tense and her eyes rolled back into her head…

There. That's what he was after. Not close-ups of methodical phone-it- in plodding. Not desensitized sex. Certainly not the politically correct wuss-outs where condoms were used — as if anyone wanted to see porn with wrappers, as if anyone watching a porno wanted to be reminded of all the real-world garbage that went with sex.

Not real sex.

Not fake sex.

The way sex should be.

There were carryovers, however. More than once he caught himself staring at how the lace pattern of his assistant's brassiere disrupted the flow of her blouse.

At the panty outlined beneath the skirts and slacks of passing teenage girls.

At belly shirts and exposed navels; the diagonal strings of thong underwear tucking into the low-cut waistline of hipster jeans.

Shorts that bunched up too tightly around some tourist's thighs.

The crease of fabric stuck in a cocktail waitress's ass crack.

The holidays looming. The static cling of cat hair still a reminder of the rescue shelter debacle. Lorraine had moved on to some other sort of volunteer binge. Lincoln arrived home with a few cartons of Chinese, and found a black videocassette waiting for him on the dinner table. The sight knocked the wind from him. Immediately he thought of the video he and his wife had separately watched over and over, only that was impossible. That tape had been eaten by the spools of the machine. The possibility still froze him. A duplicate? A new videotape that captured Newell and provided clues to his whereabouts? He got close enough to read the label and immediately called out his wife's name. Lincoln marched upstairs and the knob on the bedroom door did not give and he repeated Lorraine's name, in a rational voice this time, and tried to explain through the door and almost started pounding. He turned around and walked back downstairs and sat down on the couch and turned the videotape over and over in his hands. He cursed himself for bringing the damn thing home and doubly cursed himself for forgetting it in the machine. The next morning when Lorraine came down she looked as perfect and delectable as she had in Lincoln did not know how long. She moved right to him and put a finger in his chest. It was bad enough he had to go and destroy that video of their son, she said, but if this was what he'd sunk to, he should at least have the good sense to do his dirty business in private. That or the balls not to skulk around and hide like some sort of pervert. Either way he was disgusting. He was weak. The blood drained from Lincoln's face. His jaw clenched and the veins in his neck pulsed. The kitchen was gleamingly clean, the day's promise shining brightly through the bay window. Lincoln answered sincerely and somberly and his words carried the weight of the world. He was at the end of his rope. He was sorry. She locked the door, every night she locked it, and he hadn't known what to do. A man has needs. Lorraine was an icy exterior in response. She was a wall. What had happened, Lincoln continued, what was happening, what they were going through, it was awful, Lor, there was no sense, no reason. But Newell was coming back. They had to believe. And when he came back, Lincoln wanted him to come back to parents who were united and together. They had to stay together, Lor, they had to stay strong. Lincoln put his hands on her upper arms and held her. He talked softly. Maybe it wasn't a bad idea to think about a fresh start, he said. Another kid, maybe? They had to do something. They couldn't let themselves be ruined. Couldn't give up on everything, could they?

How the garbage on that tape represented any kind of act of faith, Lorraine wanted to know.

“Jesus Fucking Christ—”

“Explain that one to me.”

“I'm talking about our lives here and you're fixated on masturbation?”

“Explain that to me, Link.”

“Isn't watching the same goddamn sequence from that pizza party just as pornographic?”

“You fucking bastard.”

“Isn't going and beating yourself over the head with all the missing kids on this earth—”

“You slashed it. I KNOW YOU DID.”

“—isn't that just as obscene?”

“GODDAMN BASTARD.”

“ISN’T THAT JUST AS OBSCENE, LOR?”

Temperatures did not cool down, not exactly. Rather, the heat was channeled in specific, separate directions. Neither party wanted to address what had happened, nor were they willing to apologize, or let it go. They kept their respectful distances and at the same time made sure to keep from making things worse. The Nevada Child Search was trying to raise funds to buy a property, which would become its headquarters. A support center. Beds and laundry facilities and computers for job training. They didn't have a property in mind, nor did they have money, but Lorraine was devoting her energies toward these things. For his part Lincoln found more reasons to stay at work. And then out of nowhere, he came home with news of a few overtures he'd made to get the Khan's banquet room, if Lorraine ever needed it for anything. She was speechless. Hadn't even known he was aware of her activities. She thanked him and the next day when he got home, a roast was in the oven, a plate of veggies and potatoes were in the microwave, and instructions for reheating were on the table.