The Nirvana Blues (64 page)

Inside?
People had been shot for lesser heresies!

“It's okay. Just a little bit longer. I want you out here.”

She nipped and slurped at his neck, his collarbone. When her teeth sank into his shoulder he winced and almost cried “ouch!” When she spoke, her voice had changed. Huskily, a trifle humorously, she demanded: “I want you. I can't wait any longer.”

“Oh please.” Joe fought off something that was happening to him—the unthinkable: a tiny bit of disintegration around the fringes of his Perfect Moment. “Let's not rush it.”

“I want that big cock inside of me.”
Ay, spare me such crudity!
The words, her tone of voice, hurt his ears. And here came more of the same: “I want you to fuck me with that iron dick until I scream. Do you think you can do that?”

“Oh don't talk right now. Let's just be quiet.…”

Her teeth again—“Ouch!” And fingernails—“Hey!” Joe had always mistrusted women who let their nails grow that long. Obviously, they rarely used their hands to a useful purpose.

“I want to consume you,” she gasped theatrically. “Come on, let's go inside.”

“I want to screw you here.” Joe had difficulty keeping his voice seductive, cool, macho, unblemished by the first gust of panic goosepimpling his inner flesh. “Let's fuck in the water.”

“I've got some amyl nitrate back in my room. I want to cop it while you ream me. You're so strong. God, it's so big I'm afraid you'll butcher me. There'll be blood all over the sheets.”

Yuuucch!

“No it's not. It's only normal. I measured it once. It's just six and a half inches exactly. The American average.”

She raised her mouth and began slobbering all over his lips, cheeks, chin. Her tongue-tip twirled into one nostril. “You're wrong, Joe. It's much bigger than that. I can tell. It's almost eight inches. It's a real peter. When we get inside I'm going to do everything to you. I can deep-throat it. I'm going to shove three fingers at once up your asshole.…”

Ouch again!

Joe drew back his head, trying to avoid her anaconda tongue. Her thighs churned around his erection … although it wasn't as hard as before. Incredibly, it was dying. “Don't talk dirty,” he whispered. “You don't need to arouse me like that.”

Too late. She had entered a whacked-out trance. “I want you to come in my mouth, Joe. I want that fantastic shlong in my mouth right now, I want to drown in your sticky come.…”

“I don't think I ejaculate all that much semen.…”

“Ooooohhhhh those balls,” she crooned ecstatically, wrenching them painfully. “They are so swollen with jism. I want you to smear it all over my tits. I want you to shoot it up my ass. I want you to shit on my stomach and rub it all over me.…”

Joe said, “Let's go into shallower water.” He led her from the four-foot to the three-foot area. While she kept up her obscene patter, he guided her to the pool edge and got between her legs. But the thing was half-limp now, pathetically rubbery. And all the joyful and sexually urgent sensations had evaporated. In fact, if she kept it up, he knew that for certain—egads!—the thing would die completely, and he'd be staring down the terrifying barrel of impotency.

Impotency!

“Not here.” Iréné shook her head. “In my room. I've got some poppers.…”

Joe fiddled with himself. He pressed it into her thick pubic hair, felt for a hole with his fingers, but couldn't pry it open because it was dry and chalky—underwater? Yup, believe it or not, even underwater. Yet all his life he had thought.…

This was getting clumsy.

“Turn around.” She obeyed, letting his hands manipulate her, even as she repeated: “Not here, Joe. It isn't comfortable.” She shivered. “And besides, I'm cold.”

“It's okay. Just let me…” Oh how had the romance and sensuality fled so abruptly? Desperately, he wanted to make love in the heated pool, under the stars, soothed by the weeping willow, enveloped in the redolence of freshly barbered Kentucky blue. Instead, frantically, Joe shoved his pathetic nub between her perfectly shaped buttocks, and humped away, attempting to revive it. His shame expanded. As the clumsy seconds ticked away, he felt increasingly like a man sweating in a glass booth on television, struggling to answer a sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Teeth gritted, he silently begged God to take a break from such cruel pranks, allowing his humble servant on earth, Joseph Miniver, to reclaim that potent hard-on so that he could stab this gorgeous garbage-mouth before she ordered him, with November ice in her voice and eyes, to get lost.

But no such luck.

Sinking against her, Joe gave up. Reaching around, he apologetically enveloped her breasts. Attempting to sound at least lamely humorous, he admitted, “I lost it.”

“So I noticed.
Now
can we go inside?”

As she departed the pool ahead of him, a soft lump sailed out of the darkness, landing in the water beside Joe. Startled, he heard a scurrying off in the bushes, a grunt, and scraping sounds as a largish person scaled a wall. And he knew, even before he gave it his attention, what the thing that bumped gently against his tummy would be.

Another stuffed, popeyed little monkey, of course. And in a note, protected by Saran Wrap, pinned to its furry potbelly, was the usual redundant admonition:

If this had been a bomb, Joe,

you'd be eating an eternity sandwich

right now!

He had entered the pool raunchy, cool, and cocky—a real bad dude. He exited like a bedraggled kitten somebody halfheartedly had tried to drown. Yet in honor of the Stiff-Upper-Lip Theory of Existence, he maintained an ear-to-ear shit-eating grin—the most painful smile of his life.

“The water's too hot, I guess,” he apologized.

Wrapped in purple terrycloth robes, compliments of the Nuzums, they hurried into the mansion.

“I didn't want it in that damn pool anyway. I tried to tell you.”

An hour earlier, the wall-to-wall white lamb's-wool rug in the kitchen had triggered in Joe paroxysms of decadent ecstasy: such a thrill (unbeknownst to all those who'd listened to his quasi-Marxist patter) to experience total irresponsibility! But on the trip back his toes curdled against the lavish decadence as he slunk queasily through that citadel of imperialist corruption.

Her room was a lime-green sanctuary muffled by drapes and another precious carpet on the floor. Kneeling, Iréné pulled an airline satchel out from under the kingdom-sized waterbed. She zipped it open and rummaged through the contents, removing vials of pills, jars of ampules, packets of powder.

She said, “I hear you're trying to enter the dope racket. But I suppose it's just my luck that you don't toot coke or anything, do you?”

Helplessly, Joe shook his head. He actually stammered as he asked, “Wh-where did you hear th-that?”

“Natalie told me you're sitting on five pounds of pure shit she's hoping to score for the party tomorrow night. With a load like that you could blow this silly little town to Alaska and back.”

Morosely, Joe said, “Maybe you better tell Nancy that I think my … uh … ex-wife flushed it down the toilet this afternoon.”

“You're kidding.” Her jaw dropped.

“I don't know for sure. Maybe she's lying just to get my goat.”

“Ray Verboten will kill you both.”

“You know the man?”

“I met him this afternoon. What is a greenhorn like you doing trying to play in the big leagues? I had a friend in the Apple, his name was Toby. He got mixed up on the dealing end of some smack. You know what they did when he made an independent move on another man's turf?”

Though he felt like a character in a bad TV movie, Joe said, “What?”

“They gouged out his eyes, punctured his eardrums with knitting needles, shot him point-blank in the forehead with a .357 Magnum, cut off his head and his left hand, and dumped the entire mess on the Gansevoort Pier Halloween night, two years ago.”

“I'll be darned.”

“Well, excuse me a sec, will you? I gotta freshen up.”

Iréné zipped into the bathroom. Hesitantly, Joe positioned himself in front of the four-paneled dressing-table mirror and gestured obscenely at his traitorous body. Yet, it didn't look bad. He had good biceps, only minor waist flab, and strong thighs. Though a tiny bit short, his legs were muscular. Same with his hands. He put one behind his back, testing a mono-appended look. His ears could have been smaller. But all in all, for thirty-eight, he looked okay. Not a stud, but no bleep, either. All of a sudden, however, out of a sheer idyll he seemed to be fashioning a disaster. Suppose—God forbid!—that this woman left believing him to be a nerd: impotent, unimaginative, square … maybe even—gasp!—gay? What kind of abysmally cruel overlording factotum out there could play such a joke on this feeble earthling?

FROM JAWS OF VICTORY, MINIVER SNATCHES SHAME,
BLAME, DISGRACE, AND HUMILIATION
! “
I OFFERED HIM THE MOON BUT HE BLEW IT,
”
SAYS FRUSTRATED SEX SYMBOL
.

Not to mention, in the late-breaking editions:

MINIVER BODY, SANS CABEZA, LOCATED IN CHAMISAVILLE ALLEY
!
HEAD DISCOVERED BY CHILD IN PLAZA DRINKING FOUNTAIN
!
COPS CITE
“
TERRITORIAL DISPUTE
”
AMONG NARCOTICS SUPPLIERS
! “
HE TOLD ME TO FLUSH IT DOWN THE TOILET,
”
SAYS WIDOW
!
LAWYER
PAL BARELY SURVIVES MAULING BY TRAINED WILD ATTACK DOGS
!

Iréné reappeared, smiling distantly. Extending a hand, she said, “Let's go.” Her eyes were funny, wide open yet lopsided. Just as they settled onto the wonderful bed, Joe realized he was way out of his league with this woman, in this house, on this bed.

Her arms and legs enveloped him. “Now,” she whispered, crudely coy, “we're going to get it on, you and me. Relax, lighten up, enjoy.”

But how to relax with a head full of regrets and self-recriminations? Suppose Heidi actually had flushed the coke? She snagged his cock and jerked it roughly until Joe murmured, “Ouch, please don't.” Self-consciously he tried to generate an erotic drive in himself by kissing her brutally, biting her lips, crushing her tits. Maybe they could sell Natalie a box of talcum powder and use the cash to fly to Brazil? She urged him on breathlessly: “That's it, come on big boy, hurt me with your teeth, I like that, uh-huh, that's it, bite me
harder.…
”

But the more he tried, the less he succeeded. His teeny nub down there had no feeling whatsoever: in fact, his entire abdomen had gone numb. It wasn't fun; nor romantic. Suppose that junta in Ephraim Bonatelli's hospital room chose to throw him off the Gorge Bridge instead? Or forced him at gunpoint to swallow four pounds of Pop Rocks, and then sat there, cackling, as his body exploded?

Desperately, Joe sucked on her breasts, splashed saliva against her belly, and spent five minutes tongue-gouging her vagina.
Enjoying yourself?
Heidi leered.
Birdy num-num, Joey?
Iréné writhed and jammed his face into her pussy, which was every bit as dry as he was limp. “Please, dammit, Joe, I want you to ram it in hard!”

Hard, already! Heather pointed a mocking finger at him:
Oh Daddy, you're just too weird!

“In a minute.” Joe surfaced, raising his face even with hers. “Can't we slow down and be quieter and more considerate? I need to be gentle.” Tears had gathered at his eyes, but she could not notice. As soon as they commenced, Iréné had shut her eyes.

Incredulous, she said, “Gentle?”

“Just for a minute. I'll never get a stiff like this. It feels forced … and self-conscious. I'm sorry.”

“Whatever you say. You're the boss.”

“It'll be okay soon.” Why wouldn't she open her eyes and look at him? “I just have to get used to you. You're so different.” All they needed was a wad of chewing gum in her mouth, and an electric light bulb overhead.

THE KILLERS KICKED IN THE DOOR, POLICE SOURCES SAY, AND
OPENED FIRE WITH TOMMY GUNS, KILLING THEM BOTH
!

“Is something the matter with me, Joe?”

“No, no, no. I'm just not used to you. You're very beautiful. And also the sexiest woman I've ever been with. You have an incredible body. I feel off-balance, that's all.”

“Don't sweat it.” Her hollow voice came from an insipid, drugged place. Almost feverishly, she toyed with his cock again. “This gig is duck soup.”

Joe placed his fingers on hers to stay the painful hand job. What Bridge was this he was falling off of—the Verrazano-Narrows?

“Let me do you,” she urged tensely. “Why are you so uptight?”

“I don't know.…”

Joe gave up, lying back; he stared at the ceiling. Iréné kneeled over him and began to chew, suck, and lick. His heart swelled with a mixture of shame, sadness, despair. He wished to embrace Iréné, holding her protectively, convincing her that it was all right. To avoid enduring another second of this clumsy tragic scene he wanted to ask for her hand in marriage, suggest they have a child together, buy a cottage in Wilton, Connecticut, groom the kid for Exeter.
Oh Heather, Oh Michael, I hope you never grow up!

“Come on,” she muttered angrily. “I can arouse this bastard, I know I can. Everybody says I give incredible head.”

Everybody says!

But she did. Her teeth never touched. She woggled him in her mouth, doing suction routines he couldn't believe. She had great teeth—braces as a child? They never nicked him. Tantalizingly, she tickled his nuts. And then she drilled one of those long expert fingers right up his ass.