Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man - Lawrence Block [34]
“It’s certainly unusual.”
“Yeah.”
“Then what is it, Rozanne?”
“Well, it’s an irrational fear.”
“Oh?”
“I went to a psychiatrist once. Actually I didn’t go to him, I went out with him on a date. We saw Plaza Suite. Have you seen it?”
“No.”
“I didn’t even know he was a psychiatrist when I dated him. Just that he was a doctor. His sister was married to my sister-in-law’s cousin.”
“Aren’t they married anymore?”
“I guess they’re still married. What difference does it make?”
“No difference at all. I’m sorry I interrupted.”
“It’s okay.”
“You were saying about the psychiatrist?”
“Oh. When I wouldn’t, you know, what you said, that I wouldn’t get popped. He told me I have an irrational fear. That’s how he put it.”
“Of what?”
“Pain.”
“Pain?”
“Pain.”
“It only hurts for a minute.”
“I know that.”
“Sometimes, for a lot of girls, it never hurts at all.”
“I know that.”
“Then—”
“That’s what irrational about it. I know all that, but knowing doesn’t help. I lie awake nights thinking about getting popped and I start to cry at the thought. I guess you must think I’m pretty hopeless, huh?”
“Not at all.”
“I know people who have a thing about heights, they won’t look out a high window, they won’t even have an apartment or work in an office on a high floor. That’s another irrational fear. If I had my choice, I’d rather have that. At least I could let myself get popped like a normal human being instead of living like some kind of a nun.”
“You’ve got a problem.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Perhaps someday you’ll be able to face it,” I said gently. “But not tonight.”
“No, I guess not. No, not tonight. But—”
“What?”
“I wish I could do something for you.”
“You can.”
She licked her lips anxiously. I suspect she was thinking that what I had in mind would involve her lips, and I further suspect she was trying to decide whether it was something she really wanted to do. While she played that tape through her mind I took off my bathrobe.
“Oh, my God,” she said.
“What’s the matter?”
“The size of it. Of your, uh—”
“Cock,” I supplied. “It’s average, actually.”
“Honest to God?”
“Well, I never measured it and checked the Guinness Book of Records or anything, but I think it’s about average. It’s nothing exceptional.”
“It’s the size of a cannon.”
“Oh, nonsense.”
“It is. It would kill a woman.”
“It never killed one yet.”
“It would split a woman in half.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can touch it, you know. It won’t bite.”
“It’s as hard as a rock, too. Holy Mother of God, imagine putting this in a fifteen-year-old girl. I didn’t know they were this big.”
“They?”
“Cocks.”
She went on talking like that, handling the subject of the conversation with both hands as she talked. As you may know, Steve, you can tell a great deal about a woman by the way she handles a penis. Sometimes I think it’s a better index to sensuousness than actually fucking her. Bill Adams used to keep an abstract cock on his desk as a paperweight. It was a cylindrical iron bar. Outside of that, there was nothing particularly cocklike about it. Girls who came over to his desk almost invariably picked up the thing and fooled around with it. He did or didn’t date them on the basis of their reactions to it. A pretty good test, he always said. One day a girl picked the thing up and smacked it rhythmically against the edge of his desk as she talked. Paula, her name was, and she was the one he picked out to marry. Which tells you as much about Bill as her behavior told about Paula, come to think of it ….
But to return to Rozanne. She went on with her fondling, doing a very good job of it. Her hands were soft, except for the tips of her fingers which were roughened from typing, which made a pleasant contrast. (Ellen Jamison plays the guitar, which makes for even more of a contrast.)
As she said, “What would you like me to do?”
“Well,” I said, “there is something.”
“Anything,” she said, and her eyes modified the word.
“It’s a little unusual,” I admitted, “but there’s no pain involved, certainly. I want you