Vox (16 page)

“And then,” she said, “you’d undo your belt and the top button of your pants, and the clink of your belt buckle would be like the little bell signaling the start of something serious, and I would slowly move the zipper over the high lump of your erection, and you’d lift your hips and I’d pull your pants off, but not your underpants, and then I’d slide one knee on the cushion of the armchair, between your legs, against your balls, and the other outside your legs, and I’d let my weight settle on your thigh, so we’re close but facing each other.”

“And first,” he said, “my leg would feel the roughness of your pubic hair, I’d feel it scratching against itself, and then I’d feel you open and I’d feel this wet oval of heat on the muscle of my thigh, and I’d look down at your folded legs straddling my leg, and run my hands up them, and scoop up your shirt again, and this time I’d lift it with me as my hands moved up, and I’d watch them, I watch your shirt rising, the seam of your shirt is over my wrists, and then I reach your breasts and I lift your shirt and your loose bra up just a little more, and, ah, there they are your nipples, finally, and you see my hands reveal them, and I see your breasts moving slightly as you breathe, and
I sit up and bend toward them, and then on second thought straighten and lick my lips and kiss you, and your tongue is very warm and very friendly.”

“Whoo!”

“And I bend back down toward one of your breasts, and I open my mouth, which now finally remembers how to kiss from just kissing you, and I just breathe on your nipple, and the shirt starts to fall down over it, and I nudge it aside with my tongue and then hold it out pf the way with my hand, and now I have your breast entirely surrounded with both my palms, and you feel your breast held this way, completely under my care, and I just touch the tip of my tongue once to the almost flat top of your nipple, which is hard, and then I open my mouth quite wide, and draw my tongue way back, and you arch your back slightly, and so my lips make contact with your breast, surrounding your nipple but
not
touching it, and I suck on it without touching it also, so that you feel the pulling as it’s being drawn into my mouth, and even becoming soft, or losing its definition, from being drawn in that way, and wanting to be directly touched, and then you feel the tip of my tongue just touch the base of your nipple and then paint a warm vertical stripe up over it, and then back down, and then my whole tongue, much wider and fatter, pushes and moves against your nipple, and then I hold my mouth and tongue still and a little looser and with my hands I move your whole breast in circles and back and forth under them, so that you feel its
whole size in my hands, ho, I’m sucking on your breasts …”

“And I’d hold on to your head as you sucked my breasts, and feel your tongue doing all those nice things to me through your cheeks. I am so
wet
.”

“Oh, and I’d tighten my thigh muscle where your pussy was pressing down on it and feel your wetness slide; against me, and I’d look up at you and kiss you again, and slide my hands down to your hips and push down, so that there was more pressure still against your notch, and I’d feel your hips move slightly, adjusting themselves so that it felt best …”

“And while we were kissing I’d reach down and catch my fingers under one leg hole of your underpants and pull it up and over your cock and balls and then I’d hold your balls in my hand for a second and then I’d bring my hand up and squeeze the head of your cock in my fist and kind of pull and push on it while I was squeezing it tightly.”

“And you’d feel my lips making an
oh
shape while we were kissing, with the pleasure of your hand doing that, and, ho, I’d need to suck your clit soon, because I’d feel the come in me starting to want to spurt out, and so we’d shift positions so that you were sitting on the armchair and I was kneeling on the floor, and you’d scoot your hips forward so that your ass was just at the edge of the pillow, and when you glanced down you could see your own breasts, and your pubic hair, and your knees held
together, with my hands on them, and you’d see the glossy wet place on my thigh, and then I’d encircle your legs with one arm, holding them together, and bend toward your bush and breathe on it, the little of it I can see, and I run my fingers just down the long place where the insides of your thighs touch, all the way to your knees, and then I’d let go of your legs, and they’d fall slightly apart, and as my hands started to move up inside them, with my fingers splayed wide, they’d move farther and farther apart, and then I’d lift your knees and hook them over the arms of the armchair, so that you were wide open for me, and in the darkness your bush would still be indistinct, and I’d look up at you, and I’d move on my knees so I’m closer, so I could slide my cock in you if I wanted, and I touch your shoulders with my hands, and pass my fingertips all the way down over your breasts and over your stomach and just lightly over your bush, just to feel the hair, and then I say, ‘I’m going to lick you now,’ and I lick both your nipples once very briefly good-bye, and I breathe my way down, and I pass over your bush this time with my mouth, and I see where the tan stops, and where the hair begins, and I keep going, and your legs are spread wide, and so I kiss inside one knee, and then across to the other, and up, back and forth, and at the end of each kiss I give a little upward lick with my tongue, up lick, lick, lick, back and forth, moving closer and closer to where your thighs meet. And then the last time I turn my head, there’s nothing I can do, my mouth
is just buried in your pubic hair, and I breathe through it, I fill it with warmth, and I open my mouth more, and I bring my tongue out, and I start low, and the underside of my tongue is touching my lower teeth, and I lick slowly upwards, until I reach the place where the skin is more folded, and I find that beautiful clitoris, and I move over it with my tongue, and then when I’ve found it I close my mouth and sort of burrow my way into you so that all your pubic hair is away from my mouth, and my mouth is entirely around your clit, and I hold my hands very high on the insides of your thighs, feeling those stretched tendons, so you feel how wide apart you are, and I suck the skin around your clitoris into my mouth, like I did with your nipple, so that you feel it drawn into my mouth, and when you feel it drawn in I take my tongue, very high, right at the base of your clitoris, where I can feel that little ridge beginning, and I start to go back and forth over it, back and forth slowly over it, and you feel the tip of my tongue traveling down toward the part where it’s hotter, and then I reach the very full part of your clitoris, and you pull your hips in slightly and readjust to that feeling, and I cup my hands under your ass and lift you into my mouth and just
suck
on you, and I shake my whole head back and forth very fast, as if I’m saying, no, no, no, but I’m saying yes to your clit with my tongue.”

“Oh, I’m going to come soon. Put your cock in me, I want to think about your cock in me.”

“Are your legs spread apart?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, and you’re stroking that clit?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so I’d take one last long up-lick on your pussy and then I’d straighten up, and I’d still be cupping your ass in my hands, and you’d be completely visible by now, wide open, sopping wet, and I’d take my cock in one hand and kind of vibrate it over your clit, and you’d slide your hands down and hold your lips apart with your fingers, and then I’d push my cock down and I’d feel how hot you were and I’d have to slide myself slowly all the way in, and then I’d pull almost all the way out again and slide in, into that nice nasturtium, and each time I pulled out I’d be able to see your hand circling your clit, and I’d slide in until my pubic bone thumped against you, and I’d watch your breasts move each time I reached this limit, and we would be fucking, sliding in and out …”

“Oh!”

“And your finger would be flying over your clit, your hand would be lifted and your finger would be flying back and forth, and I’d have your asscheeks cupped in both my hands, so you could feel a pulling on your asshole, and I would be sliding with long strokes out, and in, and out, and in, and I’d see your tits moving each time …”

“Oh!
Oh!
”

“Oh, I’m starting to come for you, my cock is pumping inside you …”

“Oh!
Nnnnnnnn! Nnn! Nnn! Nnn! Nnn! Nnn! Nnn!”

“It’s spurting out! I can’t help it! Ah! Ah! Oooooo.”

There was a pause.

“Oh man,” she said. “Wow. You there?”

“I think so.” He swallowed. “Let me catch my breath.”

“That was—that was—
man,
” she said. “I saw the great seal of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts when I came.”

“I heard you come and I came,” he said.

“Whoo! How long have we been talking?”

“Hours and hours.”

“Hours and hours and hours,” she said. “My mouth is chapped. Too much making out.”

“Is your voice sore?”

“It really is. Whoo! Gee, I’m going to have to call in sick
again
. I’ll sleep all day, mm, sounds delightful. The hiss on the phone is very loud now, isn’t it? That companionable hiss. It’s always louder at the end of conversations.”

“Oh, is it the end already?” he said. “Couldn’t we just fade out somehow, talking and talking? I can’t think of a better way to invest my life savings. Not that I’m much of a saver.”

“You’re quite a telephoner, though.”

“You are too! I mean it! I think really this is one of the nicest conversations I’ve ever had.”

“I liked it too,” she said. “I don’t know, though—do you think we talked enough about sex?”

“Not nearly enough. I—”

“Yes?” she said.

“Do you think our … wires will cross again?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I could give you my number,” he said. “I mean if you still want it. I’ll avoid a possibly awkward moment by not asking for yours. Or we could meet out here again, if you’d rather do that.”

“Out here under the stars? I can’t afford it. Where’s a pencil? Ah, a nice blunt pencil. Tell me your number.”

He told her. She read it back to him.

“Call me soon,” he said. “In fact, call me in a few hours, after you’ve topped yourself off in the shower.”

“You know me too well.”

“Hike you a lot.”

“I wonder what you look like,” she said.

“Surprisingly normal. Maybe someday you’ll know.”

“It’s a possibility.”

“We’d probably be a little nervous at first, if we met. But then …”

“Then we’d start masturbating like ferrets,” she said, “and that would quickly break the ice.”

“That’s right. I hope you will call. You remember I have this pair of cotton pointelle tights. Unopened.”

“Size small?”

“Size small. In faun. Put Leona to work, get those legs waxed, I’m on my way. No. But call me soon. Soon soon soon. I hope you will.”

“All right,” she said. “Let me think about things. Let me absorb the strangeness.”

“What’s strange?”

“Nothing,” she said. “I guess nothing. I think I should probably sign off now, though. I have to put a load of towels in the laundry.”

“Certainly. Okay. Thank you for calling this number.”

“Thank
you
. Bye Jim.”

“Bye Abby. Bye.”

They hung up.

THE MEZZANINE

Startlingly inventive and filled with offbeat wit, this wondrous novel turns a ride up the escalator of an office building into a dazzling meditation on our most familiar relations with objects and one another.

“Wonderfully readable, in fact gripping, with surprising bursts of recognition, humor and wonder.”

—
Washington Post Book World

FICTION
/0-679-72576-8

ROOM TEMPERATURE

Nicholson Baker transforms a young father’s feeding-time reverie into a dazzling catalog of the minutiae of domestic love.

“Sparkling … frequently hilarious.… This is a big novel unfolding … so subtly that one is scarcely aware of its magnitude until the last page.”

—
Boston Globe

FICTION
/0-679-73440-6

U AND I

Baker constructs a splendid edifice that is at once a tribute to John Updike and a disarmingly, often hilariously frank self-examination—a work that lays bare both the pettiest and the most exalted transactions between writers and their readers.

“One of the most entertaining and penetrating studies of literary admiration since Vladimir Nabokov’s
Pale Fire
.”

—
San Francisco Chronicle

LITERATURE/NONFICTION
/0-679-73575-5

VOX

Vox
remaps the territory of sex—sex solitary and telephonic, lyrical and profane, comfortable and dangerous. It is an erotic classic that places Nicholson Baker firmly in the first rank of major American writers.

“A brilliantly funny, perversely tender and technically breathtaking erotic novel.”

—
The New York Times

FICTION
/0-679-74211-5

THE FERMATA

Outrageously arousing, acrobatically stylish,
The Fermata
is a graphic, but good-natured peep into the ethical interstices of time, testosterone, and the furtive male imagination.

“Hilarious … raw, insolent, daring, truthful mostly, unapologetically lewd, and funny.”

—
Philadelphia Inquirer

FICTION
/0-679-75933-6

VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES
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