Sophie's Choice - William Styron [285]
Pleasant enough little round knockers like plump cantaloupes, but nothing about her approaches the perfection of that ass which, save perhaps for Sophie’s, is the paragon of world behinds, two lunar globes of such heartless symmetry that even in the rather drab Peck & Peck-type flannel skirts she sometimes wears, I feel an ache shoot through my gonads as though they’d been kicked by a mule. Osculatory ability: so-so, she is a piker compared to Leslie, whose gymnastic tongue-work will haunt me forever. But even though Mary Alice, like Leslie, will permit me to lay not a finger on any of the more interesting crannies or recesses of her incredibly desirable body, why is it that I am discomfited by the bizarre fact that the one thing she will do, though in a pleasureless and rather perfunctory way, is to whack me off hour after hour until I am a lifeless and juiceless stalk, exhausted and even humiliated by this dumb pursuit? At first it was wildly exciting, almost the first contact of its kind in my life, the feel of that little Baptist hand on my prodigiously straining shaft, and I capitulated immediately, drenching us both, which to my surprise (given her general squeamishness) she didn’t seem to mind, blandly swabbing herself off with my proffered handkerchief. But after three nights and nine separate orgasms (three each night, counted methodically) I have become very close to being desensitized, and I realize that there is something nearly insane about this activity. My unspoken hint (a very gentle downward urging of her head with my hand) that she might wish to commit upon me what the Italians call the act of fellatio was met with such an abrupt show of revulsion—as if she were about to eat raw kangaroo meat—that I abandoned that avenue once and for all.
And so the nights wear on in sweaty silence. Her sweet young breasts remain firmly imprisoned, rigid in their iron Maidenform behind the chaste cotton blouse. There is no welcome or access to that longed-for treasure which she keeps between her thighs: it is as safe as Fort Knox. But lo! every hour on the hour out pops my rigid rod again and Mary Alice grabs it with stoical indifference, pumping wearily away like some marathon bellringer while I pant and groan ludicrously and hear myself whimpering such asininities as “Oh God, that’s good, Mary Alice!” and catch a glimpse of her lovely and totally unconcerned face even as there rises in me lust and despair in almost equal measure—with despair, however, ascendant regarding this loutish business. It is full dawn now and the serene Ramapo hills are filled with mist and the chatter of birds. Poor old John Thomas is as limp and as moribund as a flayed worm. I wonder why it has taken me these several nights to realize that my nearly suicidal despondency arises at least in part from the pathetic knowledge that the act which Mary Alice performs upon me with such sangfroid is something I could do much better myself, certainly with more affection.
It was toward the end of my stay with Jack Brown—one gray rainy morning with the first chilly breath of autumn in it—that I made the following entry in my notebook. The spidery, uncertain handwriting, which of course I am unable to reproduce here, is testimony to my emotional distress.
A sleepless night, or nearly so. I cannot blame Jack Brown, whom I like so much, either for my discomfiture or for his own misconception. It’s not his fault that Mary Alice is such a thorn to me. Plainly, he thinks that for the past week or so Mary Alice and I have been fucking like polecats, for some remarks he has made to me in private (accompanied by meaningful nudges) clearly indicate that he believes that I have had my pleasure with his beautiful sister-in-law. Coward that I am, I cannot force myself to disabuse him of this belief. Tonight after a fine