“Strip for the ladies,” Parnell said, pantomiming to make sure he understood.
After a moment of incomprehension, Kirk did as he was directed. A gasp went up from the nine prostitutes. Parnell looked, and looked again, with a “What hath God wrought?” expression of envy on his face. Kirk’s equipment unfurled like a paper favor blown by Gabriel at the last party in the history of the world. His demanding “digit” made undiscriminating Uncle-Sam-wants-you gestures around the room.
Oreo was impressed. Male genitals had always reminded her of oysters, gizzards, and turkey wattles at best, a bunch of seedless grapes at worst. On the other hand, most marmoreal baskets (e.g., the David’s) resembled the head of a mandrill (a serendipitous pun). An inveterate crotch-watcher, she had once made a list of sports figures whom she classified under the headings “Capons” and “Cockerels.” The capons (mostly big-game hunters, bowlers) were men whose horns could be described by any of the following (or similar) terms: pecker, dick, cock, thing, peter, prick, dangle, shmendrick, putz, shmuck. The cockerels (gymnasts, swimmers) sported any of the following: shlong, dong, rod, tool, lumber. Neutral words (member, penis) were applicable in cases where the looseness or padding of the standard uniform made definitive assessment impossible (baseball, basketball, football, hockey, and tennis players). But Kirk’s stallion was a horse of another collar, of such dimensions that he could have used a zeppelin for a condom.
“Are you planning what I think you’re planning?” Oreo asked cautiously.
“Um-hm,” smirked Parnell.
“No-o-o!” the checkerboard Greek chorus chorused plaintively. Parnell silenced them with a glance.
“Does the fact that I’m a virgin get to you?” Oreo asked.
Parnell smiled as at a baby’s funeral. “Just makes it all the juicier.” He gave her the look of the expert. “Besides, you prob’ly lying. At your age, looking like you do? No way.”
Oreo saw that it was senseless to try the usual bullshit. She made a straightforward proposition. “Three things: I get the right of inspection for general cleanliness; there is to be no rimming — just straight-on fucking; and I get to go to the bathroom before we start.”
“I don’t know where you get this what-you-will-do, what-you-won’t-do shit. You better watch your mouth ’fore I bust you right now, bitch. But none them requests don’t make me no nevermind. My man here’s gon do you in, chick. And I do mean do, and I do mean in. So make your play — you ain’t gon get away, dig?” Kirk was getting restless. Parnell stroked his back. “Just a little while now, Kirk. You let the little lady look at you now like a good boy.”
“I hate to be a nag, but I don’t want to touch it. Could somebody else do it for me?”
Parnell laughed. “You a funny bitch. You don’t want to touch it, but it shit-sure gon touch you in more ways than one. But have your fun now. I’m gon be getting my jollies in a few minutes.” He snapped his fingers. Without turning his head, he said, “Cecelia, turn this guy out for the girl, will you?”
In a second, one of the women appeared at his side. She reached down and expertly pulled back Kirk’s foreskin. Oreo looked. Kirk had cornered the market on smegma. “You gotta be kidding,” Oreo said. “He could open a cheese store under there.”
Even Parnell’s eyebrows shot up in distaste. “Take him to the crapper and wash him, Cecelia.” He turned to Kirk. “Go with the nice lady, Kirk, but don’t hurt her. She not for you. This one’s for you,” he said, fondly patting Oreo’s afro.
Oreo was furious. She had been monumentally forbearing so far, out of curiosity — letting Parnell twist her arm, call her “bitch,” and in general dump on her — but now she had had it. She hated anyone to touch her soft, cottony hair without permission. She was having a shit fit, gradually working herself up into a state of hwip-as. Parnell would be the sorriest pimp in Harlem when she got through with him. But she would first take on Kirk and get that over with. “May I go to the bathroom while Cecelia’s taking care of Kirk?” she asked docilely.
“That’s better. Now, if you’da come on that way from the git-go — you and me, we coulda got along. Always got room in my stable for a hot-chocolate filly like you. But first you gotta take your medicine for being a bad girl this afternoon.” He snapped his fingers. “Go with her, Lil.”
A zaftig black girl of about Oreo’s age took her down the corridor to the bathroom. As they were passing a small room opposite the bathroom, Oreo heard a man’s resonant voice say something she couldn’t make out and then a woman laugh. “Where’s the woman I saw this afternoon carrying the shoeshine box?” Oreo asked.
“In there, turning a trick with one of her regular johns,” said Lil, indicating the room of the voices.
Oreo realized that this was the first word she had heard any of the prostitutes speak in solo. She also realized that the regular john across from the john might well be her father. Wouldn’t that be a blip? thought Oreo. She did not know which was more incredible — the possible coincidence or how badly she had to pee.
She went into the bathroom while Lil waited outside the door. In a few minutes, she had stripped except for her mezuzah, sandals, and brassiere (which she had always thought should be called a mammiere, since she had never seen anyone try to protect her arm with one). She left the mezuzah on for irony’s sake, the sandals for comic effect, and the bra (or ma) because she was going to be taking advantage enough of Kirk without adding unrequited lust to his handicaps, an unavoidable state of mind, she felt, once he got hind sight of her perfect twin roes (Song of Solomon 4:5), to say nothing of Parnell’s reaction and — who knew? — a couple of the girls’ besides. Oreo reached into her handbag and pulled out a protective device she carried with her at all times. She wedged it into her wedge. She was ready.
Oreo goes to the mat
Parnell kept straightening the wrestling mat with the toe of his boot — on the theory, Oreo guessed, that anything he did with his hands he was really doing, but whatever he did with his foot was beneath notice and therefore no one could accuse him of performing useful labor. Parnell took Kirk to his corner and whispered in his ear, rubbing his back and giving his behind the athlete’s homosexual underhand slap/feel of encouragement. The women shifted impatiently in their chairs, every once in a while casting at Oreo what she took to be Aristotle’s glances of pity and fear leavened by De Sade’s anticipation of unmentionable acts.
As agreed upon by both parties — Oreo with a nod, Kirk with two floor-pawings — Parnell snapped his fingers three times as the signal to begin. Oreo stood quietly where she was, in the center of the mat. Kirk came out of his corner with his nose wide open. As he advanced, his stallion did an impressive caracole right, a no-slouch caracole left, then majestically reared its head. He threw the unresisting Oreo to the floor, stretched her legs wide in the ready-set position of a nutcracker, took aim, tried to jam his pole into her vault and — much to his and everyone else’s surprise — met with a barrier that propelled him backward and sent him bounding off the nearest wall.
The look of astonishment on Kirk’s face as he gave the dullard’s flat-eyed stare to his bruised cock and muscles would warm her heart’s cockles for all the time she was alive, alive-o. The puzzlement of Parnell, the hoaxing of the whores — oh, Oreo could do nothing but smile her cookie smile.