Friday, December 13, 2013

Operaville, the Novel, Chapter Eight: The Queen of Love and Hate


Read the novel here, a chapter a week, or buy the book (Kindle or paperback) at Amazon.com

Eight


The drive around the Olympic Mountains is more of a chore than I’d expected. I end up sleeping on a roadside just north of the Columbia River, near Ilwaco (seriously, where do they get these names?). The next day, the drive down the Oregon coast is sunny and straight, but once I enter California I’ve got a major dilemma: keep driving or face another showerless night.
            My general grubbiness wins out; the last hundred miles is murder. First I have to crawl the stoplights of 19th Avenue through San Francisco (despite the fact that it’s two in the freakin’ morning) and then I have to drive 280 to San Jose with both windows open, singing along with Melissa Etheridge’s Brave and Crazy album, and slapping myself between songs. And then, I have to drive to my cabin.
            By the time I pull in to the twin redwoods, I am in a virtual dreamstate. I stumble up the steps like I’m dragging a dead body (Rigoletto again) and take a swan-dive onto the couch.
            Still, astoundingly, I’m awake. And here is why: all the way home, I have thought of nothing but my non-functioning dick, and finally I have landed in a spot where scientific research is possible. Not only that, in my current position – my face scrunched against the couch cushion – I am looking directly into the regions beneath my coffee table, where lies a DVD titled Conversations in Cum. This groundbreaking documentary records the efforts of Sir Harry Broadstaff, who manages to interview and film a series of eager, buxom models while fucking them. For whatever reason, the sight of a randy twenty-year-old trying to assemble cogent sentences as her producer’s schwanz slides in and out of her pussy (duly recorded by regular downward pans) is enormously stimulating. Who says men can’t multi-task?
            And this I know about my own physiognomy: I achieve my most vigorous erections precisely when I’m nearly dead to the world. So I roll myself onto the floor, take the DVD from its case and crawl like the dog that I am to the player. Soon I am naked on the couch, stroking a film of Vaseline over an enormous stiffy. Maestro Broadstaff is conducting three varieties of intercourse with a stuttering, eye-crossing, lip-chewing brunette from Arizona.
            Take that, o ye gods of erection! But it’s not enough to just get the hard-on. After my irritating failure with La Diva, I’m determined to keep this one going. I work myself toward the point of ejaculation – can actually feel the sperm working its way up my shaft – and then I back myself down with light, calming strokes.
            Then I fall asleep. When I awake, Sir Harry’s got a Romanian redhead, taking his broad staff from behind as she discusses the political significance of Vaclev Havel. The power-nap has diminished my erection not a whit. I work it harder, like a tennis player approaching the net, then slowly back it off. It’s now gaining that special brand of rigidity that comes from long-term stimulation.
            And then I fall asleep. This time it’s a slender Italian woman with long black hair, the young Cher without the schnozz. She steps into the room, spots the producer’s cock and says, “Now that’s what I’m looking for!” She’s wearing a little black dress, the kind you see a fancy fundraisers. I’m expecting the standard fellatio, but instead she takes ahold of the penis, positions it beneath the hem of her dress and slides her way down.
            This one is so good that I can almost feel it myself. She bucks and slides, throws her head back, grabs at her small tits. It's all too much. I put my hands around her hips, I reach underneath to grab her ass and then I gush inside of her for a long, long time. She lets out a husky shout, shakes on my dick like a madwoman, and then I fall asleep.


            The area around the cabins plays host to a healthy population of Steller’s jays. They are always raucous, but this morning they seem to be coming through in hi-def. When a cold draft sweeps over me, I discover that some idiot has left the door open. I stumble to my feet to close it; the sudden motion alerts me to the fact that I need to pee. Remembering little bits of my nocturnal jackoff, this seems logical.
            I take the kitchen route to the bathroom, and open the door to find that someone is already. A long olive-complected arm is draped along the rim of my bathtub, a stream of raven hair hanging to the floor. A pair of black almond-shaped eyes; a fetching smile.
            “I have to say, honey, when you decide to open a bed-and-breakfast, you go all out. The clawfoot tub, the mango soap. This view! And that prefab erection. Best pillow mint ever.”
            This would be my ex-wife.
            “Hi Allison. What the fuck do you want?”
            She grabs her tits and points them at me like six-shooters.
            “The fuck I wanted, I already got.”
            “Yes. Mind if I pee?”
            “Ooh! And a free show with my bath.”
            I flip the lid and soon have a healthy stream bubbling the water. The ease of my lewdness bothers me, but perhaps shamelessness is the one luxury of hating your ex. Alley places her pretty little chin on the edge of the tub and makes a show of watching.
            “Mmm. Firehose.”
            “Pressure washer,” I say. I give a final shake and dab the tip with a square of toilet paper.
            “And so neat!”
            “Well, as long as you’re going to narrate my fucking day for me, this is me taking a shower.”
            She adopts the tense whisper of a golf broadcaster. “It appears that Siskel will now be taking a shower.”
            I’m not trusting the warm water to last, so I rinse myself down, turn off the taps and lather myself from toe to shoulder. After two days on the road, my fresh bar of gardenia soap is a little chunk o’ heaven. I stand there for a full minute, feeling like a human potpourri, then I restart the water and rinse it all off. I advance through the shower curtains to find the last ounces of water circling the bathtub drain. As I proceed to razor, toothbrush and comb, the smell of coffee progresses from hallucination to aphrodisiac. I stop by the bedroom for a pair of jeans and enter the living room to find a fresh mug of java perched atop the case for Conversations in Cum. I ease onto the couch, locate a Giants game on the tube, and an inning later find myself served with a plate of bacon, eggs and home-fried potatoes.
            “Well! What’s the occasion?”
            She sits in an armchair opposite me and crosses her legs. She’s back in the little black dress.
            “I receive goodness. I give goodness back.”
            “Says the woman who strapped my balls to the hood of her Beamer. Oh, wait – that was my Beamer.”
            She grants me a close-lipped smile.
            “Really, honey. Such old news. And I sent your balls back to you a long time ago. Married a rich lawyer? A rich lawyer who fucks around on me every chance he gets?”
            “Business trip?”
            “Vegas. Where he’s got hookers on speed-dial.” She whistles a stream of air over her cup. “Meanwhile, I’m expected to represent our power-couple corporation at the Villa Montalvo dinner, where every available dick is guarded over by some botoxed old-money harpie. And you know how I get when I’m not being properly serviced. Imagine my good fortune, finding your front gate wide open.”
            “Shit!” I slap my forehead. Leaving the gate open could be grounds for eviction.
            “Hakuna matata, honey. I locked it behind me.”
            “This pains me to say, but… Thank you.”
            “You’re welcome. But why were you spanking the monkey, honey? Is it so hard for you day-laborers to find companionship?”
            I’m not about to despoil Maddalena’s name.
            “The women on the DVDs are not so high-maintenance.”
            Allison sets down her coffee and chews on a fingernail. This is the closest she gets to expressing actual emotion.
            “Sad to say, I’ve got to agree with you. Some of the heinous bitches I meet in Saratoga… It was pretty awesome, all that cum you shot into me. Wow.”
            The thought of it draws a hand to her crotch. She opens her legs and hikes up her dress, revealing pussy lips the color of tawny port and a patch of black pubic hair shaved into a heart.
            “Nice work.”
            “Jing-Jao at the salon. She’s the best.” She runs a manicured finger along her slit and dips it inside.
            “What do you say, ex-husband? Fuck the woman who fucks the attorneys? Strike a blow against The Man?”
            My cock is instantly hard. (I really gotta have a talk with that dick.)
            I wave a hand toward the rug. “Why don’t you give me a show, porn queen? Money-grubbing slut? Carnivorous bitch?”
            As my language gets worse, her fingerwork gets faster.
            “Ditch-digger,” she hisses. “Welfare mother. Blue-collar piece of shit. Why don’t you take a good look at the ass you gave up to be a dick-stainer?”
            She crawls onto the rug, pulls her dress slowly upward to reveal her tight little cheeks, then reaches underneath to bury two fingers in her hole. I don’t know why this mutual loathing makes such excellent foreplay, but I am grateful for any mojo that comes my way. I yank off my jeans, take my dick in hand and rub the tip along her entrance before jamming myself inside. Allison lets out an aristocratic shriek, grabs two fistfuls of rug and slams back against me. I am filled with luscious hate.


            If Allison is the antidote to my impotence, Katie is the antidote to Allison. I am condemned to using the next woman to get over the last woman, an endless circle of humping.
            With Katie I am as tender as possible, spending a long time kissing, a long time caressing, and a long time bringing her to an oral climax. After that, we assume the friendliest position possible, sitting on the floor, facing each other, our arms around each other’s backs. After a half hour of this slow squirming, I experience a quiet orgasm, leaking into her as I shiver in pleasure. It’s about as nice of a fuck as one can have, and by now I have thoroughly recovered from the Seattle fiasco.
            Katie has brought along some lovely foodstuffs: two New York steaks, fresh asparagus and one complete pineapple, accompanied by a bottle of Pinot Noir. Afterwards, we sit on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and watch Roman Holiday, which we have both seen several times.
            “How was your trip?” she asks. “Did you see the opera?”
            “Yes. It was great. Beautiful drive, too. Really wore me out, though.”
            “Did you meet anyone up there?”
            Katie is on the trail. Women are amazing at this. But I have put some thought into it, and I’ve decided not to divulge anything until I’m a little more certain about Maddie.
            “Yes! I ran into Cordell. He’s a voice coach, one of the regulars at my blog site.”
            Katie is not swayed. “Because it seems a bit much, going all the way to Seattle for an opera. I know you’re a fanatic and all, but I just thought… there might be some other reason.”
            She’s already jumped from bloodhound to pit bull. This could be trouble.
            “No, I just…”
            “Because you promised me. You told me if some other woman came along, you would tell me. I need to know these things.”
            Pit bull to prosecuting attorney. I am so screwed. I place the popcorn bowl on the coffee table.
            “Okay. Yes. I’ve started seeing someone.”
            “Oh.”
            The tight-lipped response. She stares at the television and taps a tattoo with her foot.
            “Is she pretty?”
            “Does it matter?”
            “Just… curious. Is she nice? What does she do?”
            “She’s an opera singer.”
            “Mm-hmm! So you went to Seattle to see her sing.”
            “Well… yes.”
            We settle into a compressed silence. Gregory Peck pretends that the monster inside a statue has bitten off his hand. Audrey Hepburn screams.
            “I saw a documentary on this. Peck didn’t tell Hepburn he was going to do that. That’s why her response was so…”
            “What’s her name?”
            “Maddalena Hart.”
            Katie’s eyes get bigger. “Isn’t she the…”
            “Yes.”
            “Holy shit.”
            Now that I’ve got her semi-catatonic with my star-fucking, I feel the distinct need for a visit to the ‘loo. I take a good long time, and afterward I give my prick an examination. The head is showing spots of pink and purple from all the activity. This used to freak me out as a teenager (when most of the abuse was self-supplied). I take five minutes washing my hands; I return to an empty living room and the sound of ignition. I dash outside just in time to see Katie’s headlights streaming around the bend.
            I’m really not sure what I will do about this. Continue screwing my ex-wife? But I do have a half-bowl of popcorn, so I sit back down, drink some pinot noir straight from the bottle, and abandon the movie for a replay of the Giants game. I already know that we won (a three-hitter by Cain), so I’m guaranteed a happy ending. What more could a man ask for? The loneliness is deafening.
            My cell goes off. It’s a text message. An unknown number, a strange area code.
            How was the trip?
            I save the number as Maddie and hit Reply.
            Exhausting. How was yours?
            Claustrophobic. Felt like one of Papageno’s birds.
            How could you not love a woman who goes to the trouble of texting Papageno on her cell phone?
            U R Fantastic.
            In what way?
            All of them.
            It’s silly, it’s juvenile, but that’s what text-flirting is all about. An hour later, the Giants are into the seventh inning, and Maddie and I are still at it.
            A pair of headlights sweeps across my windows. I come to the front porch to find Katie’s car parked across the drive. I walk slowly into the clearing, not knowing what to expect. Katie gets out and peers at me over the roof of her car. The tension builds until she bursts into motion, running across the clearing. She lands at my chest and begins to sob. I slip a hand into my pocket and turn off my phone.


Photo by MJV

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