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Authors: Edward Lee

The House (30 page)

BOOK: The House
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Melvin squinted at the prospect. "Well, er, no, I think standard intercourse will be sufficient, but I'm grateful for the offer."
She laughed, hitching her shorts down. "You talk funny, man, but that's cool. Shit, pull off somewhere in this cornfield."
Melvin's penis felt more erect than it ever had in his life; it
burgeoned
 in his pants.
The HUM-V lumbered off the shoulder and cut into a service road lined densely with man-tall rows of corn stalks. Shade swallowed them—it was perfect.
We're being cradled by the hands of the world!
Melvin thought.
Hidden, within the delicate cusp of nature, our natural desires summoning us together for this natural act!
That's how Melvin chose to think of it, though they were actually just a john and a crack-whore about to fuck in a cornfield, a first-degree misdemeanor in most states.
Melvin's excitement infused him with a woozy ethereal euphoria. Squirrelly's shorts were on the floor now; she lay back smudged and nude on the Hummer's big burgundy-leather bench seat, opening her legs as nonchalantly as someone opening a newspaper. Truly, her skin was the color of cooked egg whites. One leg draped over the seat-back, flip-flop hanging off a skinny foot; her breasts all but disappeared in this position, the chewed-jerky nipples puckered up like garden slugs sprinkled with salt. And as for the nexus of her womanhood...
Several images might have occurred to Melvin: a woodchuck with an ax-mark in the middle, ground pork in a nest of steel wool, raw chicken livers squeezed through a hairy armpit, stacked corned beef. But to Melvin, this catastrophic mess of a vagina was a visual siren-song, a beautiful, blooming orchid of love.
Squirrelly was so skinny that her pubic bone made a tent of the matt of hair, a steeple. Scarier was the suggestion of what existed beneath the hair, an explicit lippy groove of brown-pink meat. Anyone else would be assailed by the most horrendous question of all: How many dirty penises had ventured into this reproductive maw? Hundreds? Thousands? And what volume of semen had been emptied into it? Quarts? Gallons?
Yet such ungainly and indecorous notions did not occur to Melvin in the least. He was about to make love for the first time in his life.
Squirrelly's hands reached out, beckoning him. "Come on, baby! Stick it in and give it to me!"
I'm about to lose my virginity!
 Melvin thought in near-delirium.
He'd barely gotten his shorts down before he ejaculated prematurely. The orgasm was so prompt that he didn't even feel it.
"Oh, no!" he quailed.
Squirrelly leaned up, brushing some greasy tresses off her brow. "What? You
came?
 Shit, man, you didn't even get near me! You didn't even make it out of your seat!"
Melvin slumped, disgraced, a useless loop of sperm laying like a garland in his pubic hair. "Damn it." What a ripoff! He could've cried.
Squirrelly had her scant clothing back on before Melvin could even get his shorts back up over his dead dick.
"Fuck, man, you come faster than any guy I've been with," Squirrelly calmly informed him. "Have you ever been laid?"
"Of course! Lots of times!"
She popped a brow. "Well, fuck, look, man, since you paid me so much, I'll give you a second chance later." She scratched her crotch again, and shimmied.
"Thanks."
Disappointment and embarrassment radiated off of Melvin's head like the heat from a fever as he got back on the road.
"Don't feel bad, man," Squirrelly tried to console. "There was this one guy used to pick me up in Binghamton—he couldn't come at all unless he was looking at a picture of Sinatra! No shit!"
Melvin didn't feel much better from the information.
There it is,
he thought with relief. The sign loomed: HERBSTER SHOPPING CENTER.
I need a bottle of Snapple bad.
 The strip mall front lot was empty for its entire length but the end seemed to be crowded with over a dozen motorcycles. Then he noticed that the last storefront on the end was actually a tavern. CROSSROADS glowed the dull neon sign.
"Oh, fuck, man," Squirrelly said quickly. "Pull around the side and drop me off. I don't want Chopper to see me."
Chopper. Her psycho biker boyfriend. Alarm rang through Melvin's nervous system. "Chopper's
here?
"
"Yeah, he's at that little shit-hole bar with the rest of the D's. They all just got up here from St. Pete with a
big
 score of smack, crack, and meth. But don't worry, he won't see you."
Jeez, what do I get myself into?
Melvin pulled around the opposite end of the shopping center.
I pay a hundred bucks to NOT get laid, and now I'm dropping the girl off a few hundred feet away from her boyfriend who's probably killed more people than the Hillside Stranglers. It doesn't get any better than this.
"Look, I said I owe ya a fuck but I ain't got time now, man," Squirrelly apologized. "I'll get'cha next time, okay? I don't get in that bar soon, Chopper might get pissed and, like, cut off my fuckin' head or something!"
"Understandable," Melvin said.
"I like you!" Squirrelly chirped. She leaned over and gave him a big kiss, and even slipped him some tongue this time. When she gave his crotch a squeeze, Melvin pulled a spontaneous erection. "See ya!" She hopped out and scampered off.
Great, another boner and she's gone...
He parked out front. A big OPEN sign glowed in the pizzeria's window but when Melvin pulled on the door, he found it locked.
Oh, man...
 Inside, though, he saw an old man peek out at him from behind an open door. He hobbled up quickly and let him in.
"You want a pizza?"
Melvin's bad mood ignited some uncharacteristic sarcasm.
No, I want a basket of fruit and a copy of Gabriel Marquez'
One Hundred Years of Solitude
. Why else would I be walking into a pizza parlor?
"I'd like three large with pepperoni and extra cheese, to go. How come you had the door locked?"
"Those damn bikers, son," the old man complained. "They come up here five, six times a year with their drugs and loose women and carryin' on. Don't want 'em comin' in here. Come back in twenty minutes," and then the old man pushed Melvin back outside and locked the door.
I wonder if I can think of a place where I WOULDN'T want to live more than this.
 The OPEN sign blared in the window of the little grocery store. The door was locked. Momentarily, a fat woman lumbered out and quickly unlocked.
"Let me guess," Melvin posited. "The door's locked because of the motorcycle gang."
"Oh, gracious, yes," the woman yammered. She looked like Aunt Bea on
Andy Griffith.
 "They terrorize this town every time they're here. Make it quick, young man."
Melvin grabbed a few bottles of Snapple out of the cooler and also bought bags of snacks. Aunt Bea all but shoved him out the door once he'd paid. Melvin put the goods in the truck, shaking his head. He stood around with his hands in his pocket, waiting, when an errant glance toward the bar showed him a lone automobile parked in the lot beyond the crowd of Harley-Davidsons.
It was a brand-new candy-apple-red Corvette.
That's not... It couldn't be.
 
Why would Gwyneth drive all the way down here?
It's just someone else with the same kind of car,
 Melvin reasoned; nevertheless, he walked cautiously forward, edging along the store fronts. When he got to the bar, he peeked into the dark window and saw...
Gwyneth.
Buck-naked, she leaned back, sitting up on the edge of a pool table. A blissful grin contorted her face as her nipples, gorged by excitement, stuck out precisely as coat pegs. The rabble of unshaven, leather-jacketed bikers stood round her, cackling, leering, rubbing their crotches. Sitting on a corner stool by herself was Squirrelly, a smirk of disapproval on her face. Somebody barked, "Hey, the bitch needs a tune-up!" The others hooted, clapping. Melvin could hear the rowdy revel from within, for the window stood opened an inch.
"Would somebody SHOOT ME UP!" Gwyneth squealed.
One of the fatter bikers stepped up, grinning through rotten teeth. Poised in his hand was a hypodermic needle.
Gwyneth sat upright, both hands squeezing her left breast. "Right in the tit, lover. See the vein there?"
"Sure do, Missy. I'll fix ya up," the biker assured.
He carefully inserted the needle into a modest vein just under the nipple, and dumped the plunger.
Gwyneth's head reeled back. "Aw, FUCK!" She fell back on the billiard table, shot her perfect legs up into the air, and spread them. "All aboard, boys!"
More hooting and hollering as a line of bikers formed between Gwyneth's legs.
"Just pretend I'm a car at the gas station!" she invited, "and FILL ME UP!"
Melvin wasn't sure how long he watched. One by one, the bikers stepped between Gwyneth's legs, humped for a while, then stepped away, hitching up their jeans.
Melvin gulped.
She's going to have sex with every man in the bar!
For a split-second it occurred to him that he should go in there and get her out, save her from this avalanche of ruffian debasement.
To repeat: for a split-second.
Melvin hurried back to the Hummer.
My God, she really is out of control.
Injecting heroin? Having sex with a dozen dirty bikers?
And she was asking for it!
 he reminded himself in disbelief.
Melvin didn't have a clue what to do. In fact the only thing he knew was what he most assuredly WAS NOT going to do: go in and get her.
She's not my mother, she's my stepmother.
Eventually, the old man in the pizza parlor, came outside, gave Melvin his pizzas, took the money, and locked the door back up. Melvin put the pizzas in the HUM-V, presumed he would simply leave but then...
I have to look again.
He snuck back to the window. His eyes couldn't be wider on the bizarre event unfolding before him.
What in the world...
The gang-bang was over, the sated bikers having retreated back to their spectator's half-circle, while Gwyneth remained the center of attention on the pool table.
She was on hands and knees now. A small twist of what appeared to be human excrement sat on the table's felt just below Gwyneth's face. Frowning, Squirrelly lay on the table too and had impossibly managed to insert her right foot into Gwyneth's rectum to just past the ankle. Then Gwyneth, grinning like a mischievous schoolgirl, lowered her head and began to eat the—
Melvin fled back to the Hummer.
This is really screwed up!
 An understatement, but it was all his clogged mind could generate at the moment. A son's allegiance finally kicked in; Melvin knew he had no choice.
I have to tell my father.
He whipped out his cell phone and dialed.
"Melvin! Great to hear from you," Dad greeted him. "How's that article coming?"
"Uh, fine, Dad, but—"
"Oh, and how's my beautiful wife?"
"She's—"
"Put her on, will you?"
BOOK: The House
13.09Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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