Leila was waiting impatiently. She was stretched out on her back, and she held her arms up to me as I entered. I sprawled over her eagerly.
The glove of flesh vibrated! The suction drew me up . . . up . . . up . . . The feather tickled me maddeningly! And then the soft machine of Leila’s womanhood went into high gear, and we raced together toward that ultimate pinnacle of passion. But just as we reached it— The door to the bedroom burst open, and my mother came hurtling in like an Indian who’s just spotted General Custer himself in the heat of battle. “Stop what you’re doing when I’m talking to you!” She stood right beside the bed with her hands on her hips.
I looked at her over my shoulder. “Don’t you ever knock, Mama?” I asked.
“If you weren’t always doing such dirty things—-my son the sex maniac -- it wouldn’t matter if I knocked.” She looked around the room and raised her eyebrows, obviously impressed by the elaborate decor. Then she turned her attention to Leila, who was looking up at her in astonishment. “So what’s a bad girl like you doing in a nice place like this?” my mother demanded.
“She belongs here,” I answered for Leila.
“Shut up, you bum!” Mama bent over and peered into Leila’s face. “She doesn’t look Jewish,” she decided. She straightened up and stared down at my naked backside. “Still you didn’t lance the macka? No more stalling! Personally I’m going to take care of that right now!” She reached into her purse and came up with the icepick she’d taken from my kitchen back in New York. Then she lit a match and held it to the tip of the icepick until it started to turn red.
“She’s not Jewish!” Desperately, I tried to divert her back to her first concern. “She’s an Arab!”
“An Arab! AAAIIIEEE!” Mama stabbed with the icepick, and it hit right on target.
“OWWWWWW!” I screamed.
“OOOOOHHHH!” Leila echoed. Pulling away from the searing prick of the icepick, I’d slammed downward, and the movement had finished (for Leila, anyway) what I’d started before. Her whole body shook with tremor after tremor as her lust was released.
Between the pain of my lanced macka and the arousal brought about by Leila’s thrashing body, I was in an emotional turmoil. Not to mention the fact that my mother’s presence was bringing up all kinds of Oedipal guilt feelings. “Mama, what are you doing here anyway?” I asked when I could finally speak.
“When my son is in pain, where else should a Jewish mother be?”
“You’re not a Jewish mother! And you’re leaving!” I fought down all my guilt feelings. I stood up, wrapped a sheet around my lower body, and escorted my mother firmly and forcibly to the door.
“Where did I go wrong?” she groaned as I closed the door firmly behind her and locked it.
“You look tired,” Leila decided. “Lie down.” She stood up and motioned for me to stretch out on the bed. Then she lay down beside me with her head at my feet. Slowly, one by one, she began manipulating my toes.
“What do you call this?” I asked. .
“Where I come from,” Leila murmured, “they call it ‘Around the World.’ ”
“I’ve just been,” I told her. “More or less.”
“You don’t understand,” Leila told me, running her gauze-covered lips lightly up the inside of my leg.
“What don’t I understand?” My entire body was starting to tingle.
“ ‘Around the World’ is not a trip!” she explained. . . .
Notes
[←1 ]
The Tet Offensive by North Vietnam and the NLF (National Liberation Front), was one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War, launched on January 30, 1968, by forces of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese People's Army of Vietnam against the forces of the South Vietnamese Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the United States Armed Forces, and their allies. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam. The name of the offensive comes from the Tết holiday, the Vietnamese New Year, when the first major attacks took place.
[←2 ]
Make love, not war is an anti-war slogan commonly associated with the American counterculture of the 1960s. It was used primarily by those who were opposed to the Vietnam War, but has been invoked in other anti-war contexts since. The "make love" part of the slogan often referred to the practice of free love that was growing among the American youth who denounced marriage as a tool for those who supported war and favored the traditional capitalist culture
[←3 ]
Ngô Đình Nhu (7 October 1910 – 2 November 1963) was a Vietnamese politician. He was the younger brother and chief political advisor of South Vietnam's first president, Ngô Đình Diệm. Although he held no formal executive position, he wielded immense unofficial power, exercising personal command of both the ARVN Special Forces (a paramilitary unit which served as the Ngô family's de facto private army) and the Cần Lao political apparatus (also known as the Personalist Labor Party) which served as the regime's de facto secret police
[←4 ]
Nguyễn Cao Kỳ (8 September 1930 – 23 July 2011) served as the chief of the Republic of Vietnam Air Force in the 1960s, before leading the nation as the prime minister of South Vietnam in a military junta from 1965 to 1967. Then, until his retirement from politics in 1971, he served as vice president to bitter rival General Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, in a nominally civilian administration.
[←5 ]
Nguyễn Văn Thiệu (5 April 1923 – 29 September 2001) was the president of South Vietnam from 1965 to 1975. He was a general in the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), became head of a military junta, and then president after winning a scheduled election. He established rule over South Vietnam until he resigned and left the nation a few days before the fall of Saigon and the ultimate North Vietnamese victory.
[←6 ]
Hồ Chí Minh (19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969) was a Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader who was Chairman and First Secretary of the Workers' Party of Vietnam. He was also Prime Minister (1945–1955) and President (1945–1969) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam). He was a key figure in the foundation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1945 as well as the People's Army of Vietnam and the Việt Cộng during the Vietnam War.
[←7 ]
Parodic reference to the Captain Marvel comics hero, created by Stan Lee and Gene Colan in Marvel Super-Heroes #12 (December 1967)
[←8 ]
Spiro Theodore "Ted" Agnew (November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was the 39th Vice President of the United States, serving from 1969 to his resignation in 1973. He was the second and most recent vice president to resign the office, after John C. Calhoun in 1832.
[←9 ]
Richard Joseph Daley (May 15, 1902 – December 20, 1976) was an American politician who served as the 38th Mayor of Chicago for a total of 21 years beginning on April 20, 1955, until his death on December 20, 1976. In August, the 1968 Democratic National Convention was held in Chicago. Intended to showcase Daley's achievements to national Democrats and the news media, the proceedings during the convention instead garnered notoriety for the mayor and city, descending into verbal outbursts on the part of politicians, and a circus for the media. With the nation divided by the Vietnam War and with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy earlier that year serving as backdrop, the city became a battleground for anti-Vietnam war protesters who vowed to shut down the convention. Confrontations between protesters and police turned violent, with images of this violence broadcast on national television. During his speech nominating George McGovern, Abraham A. Ribicoff , went off-script, saying, "And with George McGovern as President of the United States, we wouldn’t have to have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago." Ribicoff also tried to introduce a motion to shut down the convention and move it to another city. Many conventioneers applauded Ribicoff's remarks but an indignant Mayor Daley tried to shout down the speaker. As television cameras focused on Daley, lip-readers throughout America claimed to have observed him shouting, "Fuck you, you Jew son of a bitch."