Jackie closed her eyes and smiled. “Well,” she said, “you’ve made little missy pussy just a little bit horny, baby, because you talk dirty, and I sure do love a bar pianist.”
“Good,” said Cardell. Jackie held her head still, averted, listening to the songs; then she relaxed and got a sad look. “They play their hearts out in hotel bars where nobody can hear the twelve clever things they’re doing with the harmony.” She pointed. “See the big brandy snifter for tips there on the top of the piano? Not much in it.”
“So maybe we should casually drop a ten-spot in the snifter as we walk on by.”
“When?”
“When we leave together in about ten minutes to kiss and look into each other’s eyes while we fondle each other and tie colorful scarves around our knees. Oops, did I say that?”
“Hold on.” Jackie squinted and grabbed his arm again. “I think it’s coming.” Again she pushed back on the bar stool and turned red. A vein stood out in her neck. “Get behind me again, and slide your hand in my pantyhose and hold it right at my pussyhole.”
Cardell obliged, cupping her bush, which was slick and swollen.
“Good,” she said, “this time it’s really happ—” Her throat squeezed to silence and she made a strained pushing sound, turning even redder. “Now! Uhhhhh!” Something heavy and smooth and warm fell into Cardell’s cupped hand. “There you go,” she said, straightening and sighing with relief.
Cardell pulled his hand from under her skirt. He was holding an egg. It was silver in color.
She handed him a bar napkin. “Wipe it down. Don’t let people see. Put it out of sight.”
“Is it a silver egg?” he asked, pocketing it in his jacket.
“Yes.”
“Is it solid?”
“No, there’s a tiny silver man and a tiny silver woman inside. You can watch them make love if you like that sort of thing.”
“I do,” Cardell said.
“Me, too,” said Jackie, and she giggled and shook herself. “Phew, egg laying takes it out of me.” She ate half of a pretzel. “Cardell, I’m sorry to be a tease, because you’ve been nice, but I’m buzzed now, and I’m going to have to say good-bye.”
“Forever?”
“No, of course not forever. I’m just going to make an excursion to the House of Holes, where I can be a total tramp for a day or two. They let you do what you want there, you know.”
“And what is it you want?”
She leaned forward confidingly. “I want two lovely Brazilian stonemasons in overalls, with huge smiles and warm hands — four warm strong hands that know how to fit stones together — and sad brown eyes.”
“And they can offer you that kind of specificity at this so-called House of Holes?”
Jackie moved her lips to her straw, remembering something good.
Cardell asked, “Well, what are you going to do with these men? I like a woman who knows what she wants.”
She thought, then frowned. “I’m going to idolize their cockpoles,” she said. “I’m going to slide their foreskins back, so that the heads of their cocks pop out all pink and heart shaped. I’m going to gorge myself on as much of their deliciousness as I can stuff into my mouth without gagging. I don’t enjoy gagging. I’m going to look up into their eyes and feel them pump their come down my throat.”
“Yee.” Cardell tried not to look shocked, although he was a little. “Maybe I could tag along and sort of — watch? We could get some dinner first?” He touched a menu.
Jackie heard the brokenness and despair, but also the excitement, in his voice. She took pity on him. “Everybody’s got to find their own porthole,” she said. “It’s harder for men to get in than women unless they pay and pay. Although you’re pretty cute — you’ll have a chance.”
“Any hints on where to find a porthole?”
“Try the fourth dryer from the left at the laundromat at the corner of 18th Street and Grover Avenue,” said Jackie. She waved. “Bye.”
Her face began to blur and liquefy, and then she poured herself down into her straw and was gone.
Cardell picked up the straw and looked through it. There was no blockage. “Jackie?” he said. The bartender stood watching him, holding a glass.
“What just happened?” Cardell said.
“Your lady friend seems to have been sucked into her straw,” the bartender said.
“That’s what I think, too,” Cardell said.
The bartender shrugged. “It happens, man.”
“Well,” Cardell said, “I guess I’ll be heading out.”
“Have a good night.”
Cardell dropped a twenty in the brandy snifter and waved at the pianist, humming along to Hoagy Carmichael.
In the elevator down, Cardell smelled his fingers. Then he felt in his pocket. Yes, the silver egg was still there.
Marcela Admires Koizumi’s Sculpture
Marcela, an art critic, was in the sculpture garden. Koi-zumi, the well-known Japanese artist, was mounting one of her newest wooden sculptures onto its base. The sculpture was of a woman resting on all fours — large thighed and stylized, with a wide bottom and a moon face. She was carved out of black wood with yellow streaks.
Marcela wore a boatneck shirt and white Bermuda shorts. She brushed her hair from her face, watching Koizumi bolt both of the wooden woman’s knees to her pedestal. Then the sculptress pulled out a big manual drill with a kink in it where the handle was.
Marcela opened her notebook. “And what are you going to do with that?” she asked.
Koizumi, a slight woman with a small mouth, said, “Once I get the sculptures mounted, I do the last step, which is to drill this auger bit into their asses.”
“Can I watch?”
Koizumi almost said no. She preferred to work in private. But then, struck by Marcela’s fresh, curious face and generous hips, she changed her mind. She took a metal poker and tapped it lightly into the wooden seam of the sculpted woman’s bottom. Then she removed it and fitted the tip of the auger into the tiny guide hole she had made.
“Now I will drill her asshole,” Koizumi said simply.
She pressed against the handle and began slowly turning the crank of the hand drill. Curls of wood came twirling up off the spirals of the bit.
Marcela walked around to look at the wooden woman’s face. “She looks like she’s enjoying that pressure,” she said.
“She likes to get her ass drilled,” said Koizumi. “All my women do. It’s the very last thing I do with each sculpture.”
Marcela looked around the sculpture garden, and, sure enough, each of the four Koizumi women had a small hole drilled in her bottom. One had a drill bit left in place.
Marcela looked from the moon face of the sculpture to the thin, intent face of the sculptress.
Koizumi saw her and smiled. “Would you like to give it a few turns?”
“Can I?”
“Just apply steady pressure while you turn the crank — not too hard.”
Koizumi put her hands on Marcela’s hands and showed her how to hold the pommel and the handle of the drill.
Marcela leaned and turned the drill and it ground into the wooden woman. A long curl of wood peeled up and fell away.
“It’s rather straightforwardly erotic, isn’t it?” said Marcela. “Are you her, in this case, or are you the drill?”
“Both, neither, I don’t know,” said Koizumi. She raised her hand. “That’s probably deep enough.”