CHAPTER SIX
Delicious! If Llona had known what was happening with Archer at the encounter group, she would surely have savored the sweetest of revenges. She would have found justice in the irony and pronounced it—delicious! However, at the time, Llona didn’t know that the lie she'd told Neva Holdkumb regarding Archer’s potency was developing into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Self-fulfilling prophecies are curious things. An agrarian revolution in Vietnam is labeled Communist and opposed so strongly that the rebels willingly accept Communist control because half a million foreign invaders have closed the door to any of the alternatives with their bombs. Might as well have the name as the game -- sometimes it’s as simple as that. Or, a man without a problem is told he has a problem, begins to wonder if he has, looks for evidence, mulls it over, and by his very preoccupation with the question creates the problem where none existed before. In a way, that’s what happened with Archer.
He’d been brooding over it all day Saturday. Now it was after midnight—Sunday morning, really-—and Archer was still dwelling on his problem. The thing was that he just wasn’t sure whether his problem was that he was impotent, or merely that he was afraid he might be impotent. However, the way things were developing now, it looked like he might soon have the answer.
Having eaten and napped intermittently, the group had gotten its second wind and all the members were now very much awake and ready to resume the encounter. The focus was on Little Gat and Fat Tits. They were engaged in a seemingly “meaningful” dialogue, and Dr. Baariasol and the others were very quiet, careful not to intrude, as they listened and watched.
“Da question is, why do ya stuff ya’self?” Little Gat was saying.
“Because I’m overcompensating for the lack of affection in my early familial relationships.”
“Talk English, will ya! Ya mean ya Poppa an’ Momma didn’t love you enough when you was a kid, so now ya make a pig outa y’self?”
“You could put it that way,” Fat Tits admitted.
“Bullshit! Lotsa kids got it cruddy at home. Dey don't shovel it in like you do. Dat’s just a excuse. Ya ask me, da trut’ is ya just like eatin’. Ya just like ta make a pig a ya’self.”
“But I can’t help it!” Fat Tits started to cry. “I feel empty inside all the time.”
“So eat. Who says no?”
“I do. That’s why I’m corpulent."
“Corp’lent, hell! Ya fat, honey! Jus’ plain fat!”
“I don’t feel fat. That’s the dichotomy. Inside, I mean. Inside I feel I feel like there's a thin girl inside who wants to get out of this fat so some man will want her.”
“Why should he?”
“What?”
“Why should any guy want some skinny rinkeydink hiding inside?”
“But I have to believe that,” Fat Tits wailed. “That’s my only hope. It’s what keeps me going.”
“Den ya problem is ya wanna be wanted for somethin’ dat ya not.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Ya want some man to ‘want ya ’cause ya thin. Well, ya ain’t thin. Ya fat. ’Steada tryin’ ta peddle some skinny dame inside what ain’t really there, ya oughta concentrate on pushm’ what ya really are.”
“But how can I? No man wants an obese girl!”
“Ya mean a fat girl? Why not?”
“Would you?”
“Jeeze honey, could be.” Little Gat eyed Fat Tits. “I kinda like ‘em zaftig, tell da trut’. More to grab holda. An you sure got plenty for a guy to get his mitts on. Like a guy could jus’ dive in an’ maybe never come up for air.”
“That’s the nicest thing any man ever said “to me!” Fat Tits swallowed hard and her eyes filled with emotion. “Are you really saying that you could enjoy making love to me?” she asked in a voice suddenly grown shy.
“Yeah. An’ not to no toothpick inside neither.”
“That makes me feel wonderful.” Fat Tits lowered her eyes demurely; suddenly, she frowned. “The only problem,” she said frankly, “is that your eyes are bigger than your . . . .”
Little Gat followed her gaze and scowled. “Dat sonovabitch! Takin’ away my Luger!” he remembered.
“You’re confused. I’m not talking about your weapon ” Fat Tits told him.
“Twenny years I had it! A man gets attached. But da bosses, whadda dey care?”
“It’s this I’rn talking about." Fat Tits flicked him with her fingernail. “You’ve got to stop equating one with the other,” she told him. “Your whole problem is your tendency to equate your manhood with your profession ”
“Whadda ya expec’? Ya said ya’self it was too small.”
“I said no such thing.” Fat Tits soothed him. “I only said your eyes were too big.”
“Oh, yeah? Twenny-three hits an’ my eyes is too’big’? Twenny-three hits!”
“I wasn’t questioning your job competence. Although,” Fat Tits added, “I do think your profession might be — umm—questionable in terms of its usefulness to society.”
“Is dat so? Listen, what’s da biggest problem facin’ da world today? Ya know what? Overpopulation, dats what! Now in my line-a work, I’m doin’ somethin’ about it. Dat’s more dan most people can say. Maybe it’s just a drop in da bucket dey kick when ya look at da whole shtik, but twenny-three’s better dan nothin’. Hell, it ain’t like I’m a flyboy over Vietnam droppin’ bombs what knock off hundreds at a clip. I’m on1y one guy wit’ a Luger—or leastways I was before I had dis trouble on da job.”
“But you can keep functioning with your little gun,” Fat Tits told him
“I dunno.”
“I’m sure you can.” Fat Tits sat down next to him and began to stroke him. “After you’ve used it a few times, it will seem just as big as somebody else’s,” she assured him.
“Ya really t’ink so?” Little Gat’s hands disappeared in the flesh of her mammoth breasts.
“I'm sure of it.” Fat Tits enveloped him with a kiss.
They fell silent, but became very active. Watching them, Archer was a little shocked. He wondered how far they would go. After a few moments, it seemed as if there was no limit. “Is that permitted?” Archer wondered aloud.
“Any and all sex acts between consenting adults are permissible in the encounter situation,” Dr. Baariasol informed him. ,
“But right in front of everybody?” Archer raised the point.
“There is no privacy here. Sex is a valid encounter. Not just for the participants, but for those who observe as well.”
“All right. I just hope he doesn’t suffocate.” Archer couldn’t see little Gat any more; the Mafioso had disappeared beneath the fleshy bulk of Fat Tits.
Now the redhead drifted over to Archer and sat down beside him to watch the copulating couple.
“Mental health
“Without stealth
“Is a sure
“Way, to cure
“Them—and you
“—-And me too.
“So what say? .
"Let's us play!”
“I don’t know--” Archer started to express his doubts, but the redhead moved in too fast to give him a chance to finish. Wrapping her arms around him, she pulled him back down on the mattress. The points of her streamlined breasts dug into his chest. Her supple thighs slid along his hips. Her lips crushed his and her nails dug into his shoulders.
Job looked from Archer and the redhead to the doctor. “I thought his problem was impotency,” he remarked.
“It is,” Dr. Baariasol told him. “We’ll see.”
“Well, if that doesn’t cure him—” Job licked his lips. He looked at the tangle of arms and legs which was Little Gat and Fat Tits. He looked again at Archer and the redhead. Then he got up, crossed over to Iceberg and sat down beside her. “That leaves you and me,” he said, reaching out hesitantly.