SECTION THREE
sm
COLUMN
FIFTY-FIVE, JANUARY 1, 2001
(Copyright © 2001 Al Aronowitz)
READING
LOLITA
ON THE 9:25
I elbow
a fat old lady with white hair out of the way in order to get a window seat on
the Amtrak 9:25 Silver Eagle unreserved to Washington.
As I push past her my shoulder bag rams into her side.
Her mouth opens in a surprised "O" but she says nothing,
probably pegging me as violent, confrontational and deranged.
She shakes her head, closes her mouth and moves down the aisle.
A
long scream is rising inside my head but I force myself to keep my mouth shut as
I put my bag under the seat and get out my book. I am traveling down to Maryland to spend Thanksgiving with my
family but I am not feeling very thankful, I am reading Lolita as I have
to lecture on it for my erotic literature class next week. I find this to be
an excellent manifestation of the Jungian law of Synchronicity, for certainly I
am as obsessed, as craven, as whacked out by love as Humbert Humbert.
My lover is no longer in love with me. He is planning to move to Alaska to an
Aleut reservation near the Arctic Circle to study Eskimo creation myths.
Perhaps he was never more than a myth of my own creation, because when I
call him on the phone he says, who are you,
why
are you calling me,
I don't know you,
and slams the receiver down.
I
open Lolita and begin to read. I
am at the place where Humbert has spent his first night of bliss at The Enchanted
Hunters Hotel with his Lolita. Humbert
does not share the mechanics of this coupling .
Instead, he waxes romantic and
says the vision he saw when he orgasmed in her was of a fire opal dissolving within
a ripple-ringed pool
A
woman with her bleached blonde hair in two idiotic pigtails which would be far
more suitable on Lolita pauses in the aisle
and asks, "Hi, anyone sitting here?"
"Yes,"
I grunt, but she does not hear me or pretends not to hear me.
"Goody-goody,"
she says, "I have to take a load off my feet," and she parks her
substantial bottom in the seat next to mine.
I
wonder how much of my anger and rage toward other people has to do with my
failures in love? Is it sexual frustration that makes me want to push this woman
out of the seat, grind her under my shoe? I think that there is no help for me
and I immerse myself in Lolita, although I fear I will find scant comfort
there.
When the conductor comes to punch our tickets he tells us that a magician
will be coming through the train to do tricks as part of a promotion for the
Amtrak advertising campaign, Amtrak---the magic railroad of your life.
My
seatmate bats her overly mascared eyelashes at the conductor.
She is wearing a big, cheese-colored diamond and matching diamond wedding
band. She giggles,"Tee-hee,
tee-hee, maybe I can bring home a rabbit for my kids, but my husband would just
kill me, tee-hee, tee-hee".
I try to imagine the husband, I wonder if he is a
good old boy or a would-be serial killer who wears black nylon panties under his
golf suit. The conductor smiles blandly at the silly woman, moves on down the
car.
I return to my book:
Lolita
reclines on the bed next to Humbert Humbert.
Her soft lips part, she whispers in his ear.
I
wish for an exotic new obsession to replace the would-be Arctic anthropologist,
maybe a twelve-year-old boy à la Mary Kaye Le Tourneau or a sweet
ten-year-old lass with only the
She
has a modest
reputation
as an erotic writer
tiniest
swell of budding breast, her pink nipples the size of a dime.
I have a modest reputation as an erotic writer but for the last few years
my love life has been so meager, puerile
and
so psychotic, I have to do all my research in
my head, the pages of the Tabloids or the amorous confidences
of my friends. I am beginning to feel like a fraud and I am so desperate for
real flesh and blood inspiration but right now all I have is Lolita.
My
neighbor pulls a book from her shopping bag, When Bluebirds Die by
Danielle Steele. We read as the train stops at Newark, at Metro Park, at
Princeton Junction but then my neighbor gets restless, she squirms in her seat like
she has a diaper full of ants. She pushes her elbow into me
and breathes her
tunafish breath into my face.
"And
what are you reading?" she trills in her squeaky voice, and she leans over even
further, almost poking her nose into my chest.. When she sees the Lolita printed on top of the
page, she
starts to squawk:
"Why,why,
…
that's a dirty book!"
I
want to grab her by her twin pig tails and twist her head off her neck but
I control myself and pull back. I
force myself to look hard into her small, glassy eyes.
"You
better believe it," I say grinning ferociously.
I have scared her now. She
cranes her head out, looks up and down the aisle.
All the seats are taken. She
picks up her book, opens it in front of her face, stares at the pages.
We move down through the morning past Trenton.
At
the Philadelphia stop, she gathers up her bag, trying not to look at me, and
moves to a just vacated seat down the aisle.
A
new set of travelers enters the car bustling with suitcases, backpacks, cameras.
A shadow falls over me and a deep melodious voice says, "Excuse me
miss, is anyone sitting here?"
I
look up to see a huge black man. His
hands, visible at the level at the top of the seat, are the size of baseball
gloves. Because he is so tall and
his head is above the luggage rack I can only see his stout neck, but not his face.
The russet corduroy fabric of his trousers is exceeding fine.
"No,
sir," I say, "this seat is not taken."
He
shoves his satchel and what looks like a tripod onto the luggage rack.
"Thank
you, Miss," he says as he sinks down into the seat next to me. I
really want to look at him, to see if the face matches the elegant voice, but I
am too shy.
I
return to Lolita:
In
an effort to amuse and perhaps excite her, Humbert takes Lolita to see the
world's largest stalagmite.
I am
thrilled that the dark stranger called me miss instead of the dreaded "M'am"
which always makes me feel old and spinsterish. Despite
my romantic disappointments, I am as eager and curious for the world as I was
when I was Lolita’s age. I still see myself as a fresh-eyed girl, not a
matronly “M’am”. The stranger did call me Miss
because perhaps he finds me blithe,
artful, a nymphet. I read on:
Humbert
and Lo quarrel because she asks him how long they are going to live in stuffy
cabins, doing filthy things together and never behaving like ordinary people!
I
allow myself to glance over at my neighbor, his heavy lidded eyes are half shut as if in
meditation, his slightly beaked, small nose is a bit too delicate for his broad
face. His large, full lips seem
puckered for a kiss and there is something about the strong foreword thrust of
his jaw that excites me. His skin
is a creamy caramel color but his mouth is darker, almost chocolate.
I wonder if this is the color of his cock.
Perhaps
he likes to be pursued.
Perhaps he would like to be seduced.
What would he say if I leaned over, making my voice sweet and girlish and
blowing my warm breath in his ear as I softly whispered, “please, may I rest my
head between your manly legs?”
Would
he let out a slow, surprised sigh, then nod?
Would he lift the corner of his long suit jacket up so my head could
burrow inside? Would he jump up and yell, “this woman is a sex
fiend!” and
rush away down the aisle? I am not
bold enough to try so I return to Lolita.
It is a bright, fall day and the leaves on the trees outside the train
window are turning red, gold, orange, colors
of passion and heat.
We
cross a long stretch of water that must be the Delaware River.
The sight of water, the slow, undulating waves make me think of the ebb
and flow of sex and I cannot help but steal another glance at my fantasy lover.
His head is leaning slightly forward, his chin resting on his chest.
He is asleep.
His
skin is oily. His face shines like new copper, I want to place my cheek against his and let
his oils make my dry face moist and supple.
His arm, under his brown suede blazer, is as wide as my thigh.
In repose, with his massive frame, he has the dignity of an ancient monolith.
I
close my eyes and on the screen inside my head I see him turning towards me, his
arms open..
Suddenly, I am naked with him on a bed in a dark room lit by a
single candle. His vast self is
glistening, shining in a corona of light. I
am on my back and his huge body covers mine totally. Maybe this is how Humbert
covered little Lolita. My imaginary
lover knows just how to support himself on his elbows and knees so that his
weight is off me. The top of his
big, meaty, cock taps against my pubes, teasing me.
We have been kissing in a tender, lingering way for a long time. His big mouth holds mine open while his tongue dances in my
mouth, a slow, languid rhythm, a samba. He
has one giant hand cupped beneath my ass, the middle finger, high inside the deep
fissure, is moving to the samba beat. He puts a second
She
thinks erotic thoughts
and is about to die
of pleasure
finger
inside and then a third and I want more. I
wonder if I could expand to contain his fist, his arm, his whole being?
Such thoughts are driven from my mind as he buries my whole mouth in a
kiss. Then he moves his great head
down, first he kisses my inner lips, then he sucks them, he kisses, he sucks.
He moves his tongue high inside my vulva. He
finds my clit and tongues it a bit roughly, matching the increasing rhythm of his fingers in
and out of my
butthole. I am about to die with pleasure but then he spares me.
Keeping his fingers solidly in place, he raises his head, his whole body
over mine. He kisses my eyes, my
neck, then very slowly, he pushes his giant flute inside me so I am filled by
him both front and back. I have never been so full.
Inside me, his fingers and cock stitch to and fro as he strings me up on a
thread of fire, but I feel no pain. My
arms cling to him. We
come together, we melt, as he explodes into me. Beneath our magic room the earth
spins to a stop. He holds me,
enfolds me. We sleep.
"Wilmington,
Delaware, Wilmington Delaware," the conductor calls out, "Will
passengers departing the train at Wilmington, please make sure you take all your
personal belongings."
I
return to the conscious world, sweating, my legs spread wide so my knee is
touching his. He is still sleeping, does not seem to notice.
I can smell myself, even through my tights and heavy, velvet leggings. The smell seems to me so strong it could wake him, wake a
pack of wild dogs, wake the world. I
clap my knees together trying to contain it.
The train pulls out of the station, leaving the city spires, the
smokestacks of Wilmington behind.
I
look around for my book, it has slipped to the floor between his feet.
Do I dare reach between his legs to retrieve it?
What if I wake him? I
observe that his breathing is deep and regular, he seems totally zonked.
I decide to go for it. As I
bend down, my arm knocks against his calf muscle which is hard as a rock.
Slowly,
I reach out for Lolita.
My fingers are just closing around the spine of the book, when suddenly
he sighs, shifts in his seat, clamps his legs shut.
He's got my arm and head in a scissor lock!
Right
in front of my eyes, on the grimy gray carpet beneath the seat, is a white
business card with a picture of the top half of a woman whose naked breasts are
the size of basketballs. Beneath
the woman's humongous breasts it says Dial 1-800-Big Bust but what I want
is to dial a genie to get me out of this mess.
I squirm my ass back on my seat and gingerly pull my head out from between his
legs. I think that this has got to wake him
and it does. He opens his
eyes which are a surprising blue.
"Who
are you?" he says, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
I
manage to straighten myself up, scramble around in my head for the right words,
knowing full well there are none.
"I-I-I
dropped my book," I stutter, " I didn't mean to wake
you."
"Nah,"
he says, "You just like to dive between strange men's legs."
He's
not annoyed, he's amused, he's even smiling at me. His teeth are as big as sugar cubes. I like this, I haven't met a man with a sense of humor since
1992.
"That
was a lot better then a ‘Do you come here often?’" he says.
He's still smiling and I realize he’s giving me the old once over.
His eyes rest on my small breasts, made more prominent by my padded bra,
then he eyes my crotch. His
nostrils swell and then, very faintly, he sniffs.
I close my legs tight, try to squeeze my pussy up high inside me so he won't
smell me but it's probably already too late because he sniffs again.
I introduce myself, tell him I'm a writer, start to chatter nervously
about Lolita, which I am still clutching in my hands. I wave it
about as I talk to him but what I'm really
saying is please don't find me ridiculous, please don't take my pathetic chatter
for desperation even though it is.
"I
know Lolita is about an old guy and a young chick," he says, "but I
never got around to reading it, there's got to be more to it then that, what's
it really about?"
"It's
a one-sided love story," I tell him.
"I've
been part of too many of those," he says. "I
know how easy that can happen, Every time I meet someone I like, I want it to
work out so much but then I find we’re not compatible. Yeah, I've been part of
too many of those one-sided things."
Suddenly, I feel,
miraculously, safe with him.
"So
have I," I respond, thinking of the would-be Aleutian anthropologist and
the one before him, the one who would only do me doggy style.
My
seatmate looks at me very seriously, “So, you’ve been around the block
too,” he says, “It’s hard to find someone who sees you how you are and is
not trying to make you into their private fantasy.”
“I’ll
say,” I answer, surprised and delighted at the turn this conversation has
taken, “In a way, that’s part of what Lolita
is about, that and not knowing that real love is about give
and take.”
“My last girlfriend was a real looker,” he says, “she was forty and
she had the body of a twenty-five year old, but her eyes, her eyes were old and
tired, they said, she’d been everywhere, done everything, there was nothing I
could give her.” He sighs, “But
you, he continues, “You have young eyes, like a girl, you’re open to life.
That really attracts me.”
I know this is a miracle. I put my hand out and tell him my name. He
immediately grasps it in his. His palm is sweating, maybe he is as nervous and
thrilled as I am. When I ask him his name, he tells me that it is
Jimmy Horn and he is a jazz
flautist, returning from a concert in Philadelphia to his home in D.C. He says
he collects flutes and has over 80 of them.
"I'
d like to see your flutes," I say.
"That
could be arranged," James says as he pulls a card from his inside jacket
pocket and hands it to me. The card
has a picture of a long, silver flute and his name and phone number.
I slip it inside the waistband of my tights so I won't loose it and James
leans over, leering, trying to peek inside.
He is so cute I want to kiss him but before I can, an unhappy looking man
in tails and a top hat comes down the aisle of the train towards us.
It is the magician promised by the conductor.
When he stops by our seat, he pulls a bunch of red paper roses out of his
sleeve.
"For
you, madam," he says, bowing from the waist, "Thanks for traveling
Amtrak."
I
take the roses from him and then he makes his way down the car.
"Can
I have those roses," Jimmy says, his face opening into a big grin.
"Sure,
but why?" I ask.
"I'll
stick them in my flute to remind me of you."
He
rolls his eyes at me. I want to tell him that I want to stick him in my flute,
but instead I place the bunch of paper roses across his knee.
I put the copy of Lolita, which has been resting in my lap, away
in the pack by my feet. Then I move
closer to Jimmy, put my hand lightly on top of the nice, big, bulge between his
legs and gently as a nymphet, I squeeze. ##
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