Portnoy's Complaint - Philip Roth [68]
“It’s entirely up to you,” I say politely.
“All right, take it out of your pants, but don’t take them down. You hear me, because I told him, I’m not doing anything to anybody’s balls.”
“Fine, fine. Whatever you say.”
“And don’t try to touch me either.”
“Look, if you want me to, I’ll go.”
“Just take it out.”
“Sure, if that’s what you want, here … here,” I say, but prematurely. “I-just-have-to-get-it—” Where is that thing? In the classroom I sometimes set myself consciously to thinking about DEATH and HOSPITALS and HORRIBLE AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENTS in the hope that such grave thoughts will cause my “boner”’ to recede before the bell rings and I have to stand. It seems that I can’t go up to the blackboard in school, or try to get off a bus, without its jumping up and saying, “Hi! Look at me!” to everyone in sight—and now it is nowhere to be found.
“Here!” I finally cry.
“Is that it?”
“Well,” I answer, turning colors, “it gets bigger when it gets harder …”
“Well, I ain’t got all night, you know.”
Nicely: “Oh, I don’t think it’ll be all night—”
“Laydown!”
Bubbles, not wholly content, lowers herself into a straight chair, while I stretch out beside her on the sofa—and suddenly she has hold of it, and it’s as though my poor cock has got caught in some kind of machine. Vigorously, to put it mildly, the ordeal begins. But it is like trying to jerk off a jellyfish.
“What’s a matter?” she finally says. “Can’t you come?”
“Usually, yes, I can.”
“Then stop holding it back on me.”
“I’m not. I am trying, Bubbles—”
“Cause I’m going to count to fifty, and if you don’t do it by then, that ain’t my fault.”
Fifty? I’ll be lucky if it is still attached to my body by fifty. Take it easy, I want to scream. Not so rough around the edges, please!—“eleven, twelve, thirteen”—and I think to myself, Thank God, soon it’ll be over—hang on, only another forty seconds to go—but simultaneous with the relief comes, of course, the disappointment, and it is keen: this only happens to be what I have been dreaming about night and day since I am thirteen. At long last, not a cored apple, not an empty milk bottle greased with vaseline, but a girl in a slip, with two tits and a cunt—and a mustache, but who am I to be picky? This is what I have been imagining for myself …
Which is how it occurs to me what to do. I will forget that the fist tearing away at me belongs to Bubbles—I’ll pretend it’s my own! So, fixedly I stare at the dark ceiling, and instead of making believe that I am getting laid, as I ordinarily do while jerking off, I make believe that I am jerking off.
And it begins instantly to take effect. Unfortunately, however, I get just about where I want to be when Bubbles’ workday comes to an end.
“Okay, that’s it,” she says, “fifty,” and stops!
“No!” I cry. “More!”
“Look, I already ironed two hours, you know, before you guys even got here—”
“JUST ONE MORE! I BEG OF YOU! TWO MORE! PLEASE!”
“N-O!”
Whereupon, unable (as always!) to stand the frustration—the deprivation and disappointment—I reach down, I grab it, and POW!
Only right in my eye. With a single whiplike stroke of the master’s own hand, the lather comes rising out of me. I ask you, who jerks me off as well as I do it myself? Only, reclining as I am, the jet leaves my joint on the horizontal, rides back the length of my torso, and lands with a thick wet burning splash right in my own eye.
“Son of a bitch kike!” Bubbles screams. “You got gissum all over the couch! And the walls! And the lamp!”
“I got it in my eye! And don’t you say kike to me, you!”
“You are a kike, Kike! You got it all over everything, you mocky son of a bitch! Look at the doilies!”
It’s just as my parents have warned me—comes the first disagreement, no matter how small, and the only thing a shikse knows to call you is a dirty