“Oh, that’s me, I better go,” she said.
“Wait,” Pendle said, “I want to try these on.”
“With Heftyshots you have to buy what you try,” said Trix. “Do you know how to put it on?”
“It looks complicated,” said Pendle.
Trix held the suit open. “It isn’t. You put your jacksons in the pouch, and then just hang pete out front, like that.” She indicated how with curled fingers and index extended.
“Got it,” Pendle said. “Can I wear them out of the store?”
“Come to my register, I’ll scan you.”
He could hear her shoes going tap tap tap tap, until he couldn’t hear them anymore. He thought about how amazingly petite she was and how amazingly attractive, and he thought, I wonder what would happen if I gave her a drop of Bohu’s beardwater?
He went to the changing room and stuffed his ballsack into the pouch and tied the waistband of the suit. It looked pretty good, but it felt strange — as if his testicles were trying to sing the song about a horse with no name. He pulled his pants on over the suit, leaving the tag flapping visibly.
At the register, Trix pointed her scanning gun at his pants, and it made the bleep.
“Two hundred and four dollars,” she said.
Pendle pulled out his wallet, and he gave Trix some bills. She handed him back his change. He hesitated. He’d come to the test. Here was the moment. There were so many things that he could do wrong. For instance, if he leaned toward her and said, “Trix, I’d so like to munch on that apple ass of yours”—that would not be good. Even at the House of Holes, especially at the House of Holes, crassness didn’t pay. If he said, “I have half a pound of prime Angus cockbrisket ready for you”—that would not be good, either.
And then he thought, You know, so what? He said, “There’s something I want to say, but I don’t think I should say it. I mean, it’s not that outrageous, it’s just that it’s not something that you normally say at the checkout counter.”
“You’d be surprised at what people say here.”
Pendle said, “I was going to say that I wish I was a man who had a store where he made custom sequin pasties for exotic dancers and you were an exotic dancer and came into the store and ordered a set of spiral pasties and so I had to measure your aureoles for fit.”
“How would you measure them, with a ruler?”
“Probably with my mouth,” said Pendle, “and then I’d measure my mouth with the ruler.”
“I see. How does the bathing suit feel?”
“Intense. Things are definitely hopping down there. But here’s the thing. When I look at you my fingertips actually go cold on me. Your face is that powerful. Do you want to have a bowl of soup and half a sandwich?”
“Sure, I’d like that.”
So at nine o’clock, when Trix got off work, she and Pendle went to a restaurant and had smooth soup and talked about working at the House of Holes. Pendle showed her the little purple vial of Bohu’s beardwater.
Trix said, “What does it do, make you horny? I don’t need much help with that.”
“Me neither, frankly,” said Pendle. “But I think it also makes the sexual experience more intense.”
“Well then, I’ll try a drop in my spritzer.”
“I’ll put a drop in my spritzer, too, so we’re even,” said Pendle. Then they went for a walk down Quim Street and turned right on Loulou Avenue. They talked about shipping lanes, the European Union, Trix’s French grandmother, and what Trix did after she got home from work when she wasn’t at the House of Holes. Bohu’s beardwater was beginning to kick in by then.
“I walk around in my bare feet listening to NPR and eating soy crisps and cherry tomatoes,” Trix said. “Gradually I take off my clothes. I open the fridge and look in the celery drawer, and I sometimes flash the fridge my pussyhair, and the fridge seems to like it. At least, its motor comes on and it gives me a breath of cold air. I like to have my breasts out when I eat soy crisps.”
“And then a little later you…”
“Mhm. Close the curtains. Now here, it’s different. Here I go to a groanroom with a friend. Sometimes I don’t have sex, I just listen. I love sex sounds.”
“I’ve never been to a groanroom.”
“Oh, you should go. The groanrooms are like the darkrooms except bigger. There are four couples in each one, and you can’t talk at all, not one word, and everyone wears a glowing wristband and a glowing ankleband. That’s all you can see. Mostly it’s just juicy sex sounds. I love when people make a surprised sound, ‘ooh!’ Basically I love to listen to people making out. That’s why I don’t understand about cumshots, frankly. Not that it’s bad for you to wear a Heftyshot. But seeing a man squirt out into the air is much less exciting to me than the idea of a man shooting inside me and filling me up with wonderful hot streams of doodle-goo.”
Pendle gave her an eager smile. “Just the sounds of people just — just doing the happy humperdinkle, eh? Just doing it and loving it. Hooooooo.”
“Exactly.” Trix sat forward politely. “So what about you, have you been having any fun here?”
“No fun at all,” said Pendle. He plucked an aspen leaf. “Well, a little. I haven’t been here that long. Lila asked me to be a nipplerider, and I shrank down and rode her nipple for a bit, but I wasn’t good at it. The best time I had was when I went out with this woman for lunch on the terrace, overlooking the Garden of the Wholesome Delightful Fuckers. We were eating melon and blueberries and looking down, and there were all these wholesome fuckers having sex in among the palm trees and the bushes. It was exciting. They really take extra care with the grounds here — the grass is so green and the paths are so carefully tended. I like the landscaping.”
“How many couples could you see?”
“Oh, gosh, eight, nine couples. I think our final count was eleven. I said to her, ‘I have never seen this many couples doing it before.’ She said, ‘Me neither, I kind of like it.’ I said, ‘Do you want to go down and be a part of the action?’ And she said, ‘Well — let’s just sit in the glorious sunshine and watch them being wholesome.’ I said, ‘Okay,’ and we watched for about half an hour. We both got very turned on. I was saying things like, ‘Woo, look at them go, look at them just boinking away like the crazy wholesome fuckers they are!’ And eventually we went up to her hotel room and messed around, and it was okay.”
“No anal?”
“No, should there have been?”
“There’s just so much talk about it. Everybody’s supposed to love assfucking, and live for assfucking, and frankly I just don’t.”
“No, no anal,” said Pendle. “It was good but I don’t think we’re really soul mates.”
“And what after all is a soul mate?”
“A soul mate is when you really think someone is great. You really like her a lot. You like when she explains things to you. You love her. That’s a soul mate.”
“Oh,” said Trix.
“Will you take me to the groanrooms?”
They went to a groanroom, and in the darkness of the entry foyer they put on the glowing wrist and ankle bracelets, which were in plastic packets in baskets just outside the door.
“Just remember, we can’t talk in here at all, only groan,” said Trix, her hand on the door. “It’s like meditation except it’s more fun.”
They went in together and closed the door very quietly.
Henriette Chooses the Cheekpump
Since she’d surfed the lake, Henriette had received two invitations to the Masturboats and visited the Hall of the Penises, but she still hadn’t met a man who really attracted her. Lila suggested that she take a walk down the Man Line. Henriette thought that was a good idea.