Edward Whittemore - Jerusalem Poker

I sense a lunar presence in all this too. Next?

The full moon came and I took up my position. It was agony but so great was my love for the princess, I managed it. The month was over at last and the princess was growing eager, I could see that.

I can too.

Awed even.

And no wonder, I say. The third and last task then?

She was secretive, she wouldn't tell me what it was going to be. Return at the next full moon, she said, for a deed that will take forty days to perform.

Lunar presence confirmed and a surprise performance surfacing. How to prepare for such a chronic sexual task of unknown nature?

Haj Harun smiled.

Garlic.

Ah, I was forgetting.

I ate garlic.

You did, it's true.

Whole bowls of garlic.

Of course you did.

Then I ate more.

I see.

And more. Yes.

More still.

Good.

Yet more.

Fine.

And more and more and more garlic, just on and on and on.

Oh God that's enough man, my stomach's on fire already, let's go to the event. The night finally came, the full moon was overhead. What state of mind?

No mind, whispered Haj Harun. I was too hot inside. Fires raged within me and flames shot from every orifice, I swear it.

You don't have to, I can see it happening. You were roaring to explode when the princess presented you with your third and final task.

I was, I truly was. Love had overwhelmed me.

Oh Christ man, on with it. Three hundred women? All at once? I can't stand it.

No, whispered Haj Harun. I was ready for something like that but it turned out I was going to be with only one woman.

One? True? Is that all?

Yes, but that was enough, O'Donoghue. In the princess's court, it seemed, was a very large woman who was round and thick in every part, with a measureless treasure and an inexhaustible appetite to have it filled. All day she lay with half-closed eyes thinking of nothing else, and why? Because this large and round and thick woman, sadly, had never had her treasure filled and her appetite slaked. Never once.

Can you imagine her physical and emotional state?

No I can't. It was a case of many having tried, yet never had the large round woman's eyes closed more or opened less? Is that the way it was? No satisfaction ever? Oh help.

That's exactly the way it was. And my third and last task was to do this woman's business unrelentingly for forty days and nights and thereby bring off success.

Not a job for a casual interloper.

By no means, O'Sullivan.

Who?

O'Reilly, I meant. Well I approached the sumptuous couch of this enormous female creature, breathing my withering fumes, and what a creation she was. Her breasts were as vast as sand dunes in the desert, her bellies were a mass of heaving mountains and at the base of these lofty ranges was an immense dripping tangle exuding the steam and the gases and the juices of a primeval jungle. Although to be frank, I've never really seen a jungle.

In short?

In short she was as magnificent a creature as God ever made, and there was no question she would test all my powers.

I'm tired already.

Ha. I went to work and at the end of ten days one of the princess's handmaidens tiptoed in to see how matters were progressing. She whispered into the ear of my female continent, whose eyes now seemed slightly more open, slightly more alert.

Has he tired yet? asked the little girl.

Nooooooooooo, came the rumbling gurgle from deep down in the mountain beneath me.

Is that the truth?

It is, O'Shea. And when the little girl returned again at the end of twenty days, she could see without asking that my continent's eyes were round and bulging, glassy and unfocused.

Oh my God. At the end of thirty days what further developments?

That's when it began. First a muffled groan from the hinterland, then one vast prolonged spasm moving down her central ridge. And so it was to continue for the next ten days, O'Flaherty, ten full days without rest or interruption. Eyes clamped shut, screams and gurgles and hiccups shaking the jungles and mountains and deserts for ten full days. So long had she been waiting for that moment that when it arrived, it arrived with force and duration.

Amazing.

Yes, O'Regan. Then on the fortieth day, spent, she rolled over and began to snore at last.

At last I say, at last I repeat, agreed. What an ordeal. And the princess accepted you after that?

She did.

Lovely.

It was, O'Leary. In fact it was incomparable.

I can believe it.

Joe stood and lit a cigarette. He walked up the bank.

I think it's going to rain, he said.

Haj Harun turned and gazed at him. He smiled.

What do you mean, O'Geraty? It is raining.

Joe shrugged.

You're right. You know maybe it would be better if you called me Prester John after all. Maybe I could keep track of myself better that way.

As you wish.

Yes.

See here, said Haj Harun as he climbed up the bank and looked back at the muddy pool. Do you realize those adventures I had while winning the heart of the princess were the talk of Jerusalem for centuries?

I didn't, no, but I can understand it. Spectacular, that's what they were.

Later on they even wrote them down as stories in books. But do you know they never once mentioned my name? Not once? They always attributed those adventures to others, to people whose names they made up.

Maybe it's that way, said Joe. Maybe we never hear about the real heroes. Maybe that's what being a hero is.

Like the dents in my helmet, you mean?

How's that?

No one knows how they got there except me.

True.

Curious, murmured Haj Harun.

Hold on there, said Joe, I just thought of something. Haven't you always told me that it was during the Persian era when you began to lose your influence in Jerusalem?

That's right.

Well did it have something to do with the princess and your heroic exploits on her behalf? Were you just completely worn out or something like that? Staggering exploits after all.

Haj Harun sighed.

It wasn't my physical condition that caused me trouble during the Persian occupation. It was the fact that as a result of those sexual experiences, I was incoherent for the next hundred years. I was totally preoccupied with visions of sex, which severely limited my vocabulary. When I opened my mouth the only words that came out were things like cunt and lick and fuck and suck. They hadn't been bad words when the princess and I were whispering them to each other, but afterward, with the general public, their connotations seemed to change. They no longer seemed acceptable. To be frank, I could only use about a dozen words in all.

Limited, yes. I see.

And after a hundred years of that no one took me seriously anymore. Especially my speeches in the marketplace. Before then it had been my oratory that swayed people and made me influential in Jerusalem, but during that hundred years when I was using only a dozen words, people got in the habit of laughing at me.

I see.

So by the time I could speak normally again my credibility was gone. Not that I blame my fellow citizens, it was my own fault. After all, if you said good morning to a person and they always answered by shouting cunt, and then you said good afternoon to them and they always shouted lick, and you said good evening to them and they always shouted fuck, and you wished them a nice weekend and they always shouted suck, how would you view them after a while?

Not too optimistically.

And after it had gone on for a hundred years?

Pessimistically.

Of course, said Haj Harun with a sigh, and that's what happened to me. But if I could go back I'd do it all again, I wouldn't change a thing. I'd love the princess just as I did then, even though I knew it would cause my ruin.