“Yes,” Maytemper said, his belly a billow of fat as he sat back in one of his leather armchairs. “The French painters are altogether incomparable these years-there's quite a host of them…” His voice trailed off. “Do you really care, Victoria, at this moment?” “Not really.” 'Then we really ought to get to bed, don't you think?”
“Does that suit you, George?” He spread his hands as if he were opening a fan. “I think so, Victoria. You're terribly attractive, you know. Rather beautiful, come to think of it. I think you'll grace the stage.” “It's good to hear that from you.”
“Not at all. It really has been a pleasure working with you. I don't think you'll ever be a star, really, but your intelligence assures you of featured roles, at the least.” “Very decent of you, George.” He looked down at his fingernails. “I think so,” he said. He raised his eyebrows. “Shall we get on to bed?” “Of course,” I said. It was a night I shall long remember-for a few choice reasons. One of them was Maytemper himself-he proved to have reserves of a practically interminable nature. I never did learn whether they were interminable or no, for it was I, on each occasion I spent with him, who would throw in the breech. George Maytemper was always willing to go on. Of course, that may have had to do with the fact that, as a sexual partner, he was essentially passive-but, then, I am not completely certain of that. “Aggressive” and “passive” are, really, peculiarly slippery terms, for in a universe where there is, actually, no up or down, where there is never an absence of motion-how can one blithely believe that one individual is at a standstill while another is moving? Seemingly still-that was George Maytemper. Was he? Surely the cauldron of cream that seemed with frequent periodicity to geyser out of his spherical pits-surely they were not immobile… “Victoria,” he said-the first time. “Yes?” “You will have to be patient with me.”
“How so?” I asked. “Isn't it obvious?” “Oh,” I said. “The rolls of suet. Obviously the usual posture is ruled out.” I had supposed, of course, that the strictly conventional might prove difficult but, now that I saw George Maytemper in the pure fat of his naked flesh, it became clear to me that only one method was possible-Maytemper was obliged to lie on his back. “What a pretty picture,” I said, gazing down at him. “What you have there, sprouting from a hollow, so to speak, is quite a lightning rod.” I put a finger to pursed lips. “Do you suppose,” I continued, “that the sensualist Ben Franklin got the idea for his lightning rod from his own genital situation? The female, naturally, being the lightning that strikes from above.” So saying, I straddled my brother's friend.
“Are you about to strike?” he asked. He pouted. I had never seen Maytemper pout before-I supposed that in this sort of situation he pouted aside all inhibitions. “No,” I said. “The lightning is first going to play for a little while about one of your structures.
And it seems a very stout structure indeed, standing as it does without any visible means of support.” I grinned at my wit-I would refine it. “An erection may be defined as any member standing without visible means of support,” I said. Maytemper laughed grudgingly.
“A woman of beauty with humor,” he said. “A most extraordinary combination. Not to mention the saucy manner in which your black hairsprings contribute a small creek to your navel.” “That stirs you, does it?” “Aye, Victoria.” He was being quite candid. A series of throbs, like a powerful pillar being shaken, overtook Maytemper's battering-ram and produced a liquid pearl at the aperture.
“Such effusions can be quite useful,” I said. “How so?”
Maytemper asked as he pawed my swaying breasts, depressing the nipples. This was the first inkling that something had gone wrong-ordinarily, if anyone makes free with my nipples, a dizzying lubrication takes place at my abdomen's black delta and I am straightway an idiot ready to be mauled, pinched, masticated and penetrated by any instrument at hand, be it a male's natural virility or a dildo. On this occasion, however, I felt not in any scintilla erotic, nor did I in any way feel sensations of pain. On the contrary, I felt dry and numb. I frowned. “I can use your perfect pearl,” I said, “to make the tributary to my navel glisten as it never has before.” “Please do,” George Maytemper said. “I am at your service, Victoria.” I did more than make that tributary glisten-I applied May-temper's glutinous substance to my undistended pudenda, another sign that all was not well. My sangfroid was undisturbed.
I took the necessary further steps to prove or disprove the state of my sexual being. But I was in no great haste. George Maytemper was. “Victoria-” “Yes?” “I shall have to urge you to keep pace.” I had been consciously giving the impression to George that I was relishing each individual step. After all, Victoria Collins is, whatever she's not, very much of a human person, and my thespian mentor had been thoroughly persuaded that I was slowly savoring every aspect of our conjunction. Now, of course, I could easily promote the impression that I could ecstatically race down to the finish line. “I will keep pace, George.” “Ah,” said he.
Twice more he said “ah", each time as if he had received a jolt. I wasn't sure. The fabled Shakespeare himself in his plays has used three accented monosyllables in sequence to gain intensely dramatic effects. I myself, in order to convince George, had thrown back my head-I looked all the world like some figure of a female on the prow of a New England clipper ship-and was making some imbecilic sounds in my nose-throat system. Curious, I had never known how imbecilic I must have sounded on prior occasions until this experience with George Maytemper in which I was creating a role of feeling everything while I felt nothing. After his third “ah,” he said, “Victoria-” He sounded as if he were choking, and I did not know what to do about that. I did say, “Yes?” even as I had before, but I did not believe the interchange would be as before. I continued to rise and fall on his elephantine tusk as if I were a special emissary alternating between the down-draughts to Hell and the up-draughts to Heaven, but there was no pounding in my ears. I was as ice.
“Victoria…” He sounded now as if he were gargling.
“What is it, George?” “What is it?” he echoed laboriously, his lips writhing. For the purposes of verisimilitude I thought I had better anticipate him. “Are you there?” I asked.
“Quite,” he said in something of a strangled fashion. “Like Mt.
Vesuvius or some fireplug sprinkler.” “Vesuvius, for God's sake-Victoria-Victoria-Victoria-” His mouth was open and his eyes were shut. He was as if in a convulsion. And, at the proper moment, when I felt his tidal wave break over my apparatus, I screamed.
George Maytemper smiled… I smiled back. I even lingered over his lingam. I made sure-to be vulgar but precise over the matter-that he was cleaned out. He quivered, not once-but many times, then and later. I gave him the extremely clear impression that I coincided with him all the way and that we stopped only when dawn broke not because his testicular production had gone bankrupt but because I was all fucked out-I thought I should have the grace to tell George that, and I did. He beamed-higher praise he had never received.