“A very good reason which seems to have slipped both your minds,” Penny pointed out. “Remember, Balzac?”
“Remember what?” Balzac was still trying to work his pants down his legs. The way in which Sappho was straddling his lap was making it difficult.
“Remember that you’re a eunuch!” Penny told him with asperity.
“I am?!’
“You are!”
“Oh, yeah. I guess I am,” Balzac admitted reluctantly.
“You see?” Penny turned to Sappho. “It wouldn’t do you any good, anyway. You’ve just worked yourself up for nothing. It would only end in frustration.”
“I don’t see any harm in trying.” Sappho pouted.
“It could do a great deal of harm psychologically. This man came to Lovelights for help, and all you’re offering him is the ultimate in frustration.”
“I’ll settle for that,” Balzac muttered.
“No, you won’t!” Penny told him fimily. “Now, Sappho, get dressed. You can go home now. I’ll stay and see if Lovelights can’t offer some more practical solution to this poor man’s problem.”
“I thought you wanted me to help with the galleys,” Sappho said sulkily.
“Never mind them. I’ll handle them myself. I appreciate your coming in, but now you just run on along home.”
“I still think I could help him,” Sappho muttered as she pulled her panties back on.
“You’re not being realistic,” Penny told her. “Just what could you do for a eunuch? And what could a eunuch do for you?”
“What could a eunuch do for me? The Greeks have a word for it! Believe me they do.”
“What word ?”
“I’m not sure. I could look it up. But why bother?”
Sappho made one last-ditch attempt. “Why not just let me show you?”
“No.” Penny stood firm. “Just you go home now.”
“Boy! The things I do for you!” Balzac exploded when Sappho had departed.
“Well, you wanted to show your gratitude,” Penny reminded him.
“Yeah. But turning away something like that is above and beyond the call of gratitude. It’s downright wasteful, that’s what it is. Who knows when I’ll ever get another chance like that!”
“That’s your problem. For now just remember that you’re supposed to be a eunuch.”
“I sure don’t feel like a eunuch.”
“You don’t look like one either, with that—-that hatrack bulging out that way.” Penny averted her eyes. “Now, just calm down and get back in character,” she told him. “Marie will be here soon.”
“Oh, all right.” Balzac sat down and sulked while Penny returned to the concealment of her darkened office.
They didn’t have long to wait. Marie D’Chastidi arrived promptly at nine-thirty. Fifteen minutes later Balzac had finished his tale of woe, and she was clucking over his problem.
“If only I wasn’t already married,” she sighed, “I might really be able to help you.”
“How?!”
“By marrying you.”
“But I’m a eunuch!”
“Yes. I know. You just told me, remember. But that’s exactly what I mean. You may not know it, Mr. Hosenpfefffer, but you’re my dream man. We could have the perfect marriage. Why, I could practically throw away the key.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t you see? We could have a courtly marriage, with courtly love, ascetic, like in the days of Eleanor of Aquitaine. We could live together as brother and sister, in purity, with spiritual rapport, with no carnal contacts to mar our relationship.”
“I don’t think that’s exactly what I want,” Balzac told her.
“But do you have a choice? Actually, the more I think about it, the happier it seems to me we could be together. Yes! I’ll divorce Vito! For both our sakes. I’ll divorce him and marry you. We’ll live together in pristine chastity.”
“But you don’t understand! Even if I am a eunuch, I don’t want a sexless marriage.”
“All right, then. We’ll compromise. Yes, it could be even better that way. We’ll get you a toolbag. You can toy with my lock whenever you want, and that way there will be sex for both of us.”
“You call that sex?”
“Everybody gets his kicks different ways,” Marie reminded him. “And your choices are limited. Look, give it a chance. Believe me, once you get used to it, you’ll love it.”
“Well . . .”
“Here. Try it right now. Just try it.” Marie perched on a desktop and raised her skirt. “Do you have any keys with you?”
“Yes.” Balzac produced a keyring with a half a dozen keys dangling from it. “But-”
“Come here. Try them.”
“But they won’t fit. Will they?”
“Of course not. But that’s where the fun comes in. Go on. You’ll see.”
“Well, okay.” Balzac approached, stared at the lock confusedly for a moment, and gingerly attempted to insert one of the keys. “See,” he said. “I told you. It won’t fit.”
“Try jiggling it a little.” Marie arched her back.
“All right.” Balzac did as he was told. “I’m not getting anywhere,” he said after a moment.
“Oh yes you are!” Marie was breathing very fast now. “Don’t stop! Can’t you get it further into the keyhole?”
“It’s in as far as it will go.”
“Then try another key.”
“Okay.” Balzac inserted another key.
“Ah!” Marie sighed voluptuously. “That’s better.”
“You really dig this?” Balzac was finding it hard to believe.
“Yes-yes-yes! Turn it now! That’s it! Keep turning! Now you’ve got it! Hear the tumblers click? Ah-ah-ah-ah!” Marie bounced up and down strenuously.
Her excitement excited Balzac in turn, and he once again forgot himself. “Listen,” he suggested, “couldn’t we take that damned thing off and forget about the key bit? I mean, I could really unlock you if you’d give me half a chance!”
“No-no-no! Just keep doing what you’re doing!”
“That may be all very well for you, but what about me.”
“What about you? You’re a eunuch, aren’t you? Isn’t it satisfaction enough just to know that you’re giving me pleasure?”
“Well, no . . .”
Just prior to this, Penny had decided that things had gone far enough. She had sneaked out of her office, undetected, and around to the front door. Now she entered.
“Marie,” she called, deliberately sounding a warning before coming into view. “Are you here?”
“In here, Penny.” Marie quickly pulled her skirt down and motioned Balzac away. By the time Penny came in, she was sitting demurely at her desk.
“I’m afraid I got you down here for nothing,” Penny told her. “Those proofs won’t come until tomorrow. I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right. Oh. This is Mr. Hosenpfeffer. He’s come to Lovelights with a problem. And I think I have a solution for him.”
“I don’t think so,” Balzac said. “I’d really rather take it up with the editor.”
“But—” Marie started to object.
“That’s all right, Marie. I’ll handle it. You run along and grab a cab home now.” Penny waited until she was out of the office before thanking Balzac.
“That’s okay. It was interesting,” he replied. “I hope it was some help to you.”
“I’m afraid it wasn’t,” Penny admitted morosely. “All three of them flunked the test. How can I put a girl in charge of Lovelights who would handle a reader’s problem by trying to steer him into homosexuality? Or by doing a striptease to seduce a eunuch? Or by bypassing his problem and sucking him into her obsession for her own locked-in gratification? No, I’m right back where I started from.”
“So am I.” Balzac’s sigh matched hers.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, as it happens, there is an element of truth to that story we cooked up for them.”