Wake Up, Sir!: A Novel

by Jonathan Ames

  “What are you then?”

  “If there were a word, sir, to characterize me or my emotional state, though I'm not sure I need to be characterized, I would say that I am detached, as I explained earlier today, in response to your alcoholism and now your drug addiction.”

  “I'm not addicted to drugs! I smoked a little marijuana. Medical marijuana!”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “All right, Jeeves. Be detached. Detach yourself until you don't know where you are anymore!”

  I stood up in a huff. I didn't know what I was doing. I was behaving irrationally. In retrospect, I realize that I was taking out my frustration about Ava on Jeeves. I went into the bedroom and got my slippers and slammed them down in the hallway. I reentered the writing room. I shouted:

  “I'm off to go drink and smoke more pot! And if you feel like detaching yourself from that bed if you hear someone removing my slippers, I would be very pleased. And if you don't want to catch the slipper nut, then that's all right, too!”

  Before Jeeves could answer, I slammed the door.

  I was aware that I was acting atrociously but I couldn't stop myself. Rarely had I behaved in such a manner. But I guess when we're feeling lonely in life, we attack those who actually do love us. It's one of the things that characterizes human nature and can be summed up in one word: FLAWED.

  CHAPTER 32

  An encounter in the hallThere's something wrong with the worldStallions and babies are having a good timeX. is paid homage toThere's talk of phalluses of various nationalitiesA minstrel stops playing and a flower diesSomebody gets rough and somebody else likes itThe 1973 Mets are brought to life and Ed Kranepool plays a significant rôleThere's no need for dreams

  Poor Jeeves. Nobody likes to be yelled at. But if anybody could take it, it was Jeeves. He knew that I was a complete idiot and not to be taken seriously. If anything, he was probably glad that I had left him in peace to continue his reading.

  Nevertheless, I was pretty ashamed of myself, and so I walked rapidly down the hallway, and up the small half-flight of stairs, running away, as it were, from what I had just done. I was going to go to Tinkle's room, be with my fellow Federation members, and recapture my earlier, happier mood.

  What I should have done, though, was to have gone back and apologized to Jeeves.

  But if I had done that, I wouldn't have run into Ava. She was in a white robe, held tight to her beautiful frame. She had just come from the bathroom on her hallway and was returning to her room.

  “Want to come in a second?” she asked.

  She was inviting me into her room. I was a bad person. I had just yelled at Jeeves. The universe was showing its design: good things happen to bad people.

  “All right,” I said, and the words came out like cement. An incredible pounding was in my temples. There was so much fresh blood in me that I sobered up completely. I realized that I must have misread her earlier mood. Perhaps she had wanted to invite me in then.

  She went first. I followed. She closed the door. She walked toward her bed—an antique four-poster, like Beaubien's. A small lamp was lit on an old, large wooden bureau. There wasn't much light. But Ava looked good in the shadows. I didn't move. Then she turned. She walked back toward me. She was barefoot. Shorter than me. Normal male-female measuring systems were in effect. Her arms reached out to me. I lifted my arms to take hold of her, but I was weak and frightened, each wrist had a small boulder fastened to it, but I managed to get my arms up and around her. She was a big girl, but even a big girl feels small in one's arms.

  Her mouth pressed against mine. Then her lips opened and her teeth opened and her tongue was in my mouth. I didn't feel weak anymore, but I was self-conscious. I started worrying about my breath, all that wine and whiskey and pot and sulfur water. But she kept on kissing me, and I dismissed my neurosis. Her breath was warm and tasted good, like she had just been eating an apple. Maybe she had been. I kissed her and put my hand into her thick, dark brown hair.

  I had the girl I wanted. But no one ever gets the girl they want. There was something very wrong with the world.

  Her nose was against my cheek. My nose was against her cheek. We danced like that, backward toward the bed. She sat on the bed. I stood.

  The robe opened up. She was naked.

  I put my hand on her full, fat breast. Then I put my hand under her breast. Nobody had enjoyed weighing something as much since Archimedes. Her nipples were brown and large.

  I bent down and kissed a nipple, and then I sat down on the bed and took the same nipple in my mouth, like a hungry baby. It must have felt good thirty years ago when I was an infant, and the charm hadn't worn off.

  I put my face between her breasts and inhaled. All wars had come to an end. I loved the smell of her. I pushed both breasts together and was able to get two nipples at once into my mouth.

  We did some more kissing. Then my clothes starting coming off. My boxer shorts stayed on. We lay side by side, kissing. My broken nose was doing okay. Didn't hurt. Then again, I could have had an ax stuck in my back and I wouldn't have felt it.

  I had her pulled tight against me. Her rear in my hand made me as hot as a stallion. Actually, I was already as hot as a stallion. The rear in my hand made me a stallion with a fever.

  She said, “Your mustache is rough, but I like it.”

  I said, “I want to kiss your nose.”

  She smiled. She let me kiss her nose. I ran my lips up and down the bone of it. Then I kissed it lightly, delicately. I followed this up with an experimental suck, but I couldn't fit the whole thing in my mouth. But I liked sucking on it. It was different from sucking on her breast. It was like getting to the essence of her. I took my mouth off her nose. I felt sated.

  “You're perverted,” she said, and laughed. She didn't know the half of it—that there was only one other nose fetishist in the history of human sexuality. Well, recorded history of human sexuality, that is. Certainly there must have been a few unreported cases, though it definitely wasn't common.

  I didn't want her to think I was too crazy, though, so I went back to work on her mouth. Sucked her lips. She rolled on top of me. I had one hand on her rear and one hand on her breast.

  She put her hand down my boxers. I followed her lead and put my hand between her legs. The hair there was soft.

  My shorts came off. She kept me in her hand. I took a breast in my mouth again and nursed. She moaned. She liked my nursing style. She squeezed me in her fist. I was a man. I was a baby. I was a man. I was a baby.

  I couldn't get enough of her breast. I felt like an agitated tapeworm. Too hungry. Too excited. I slid back up and kissed her. Kept a hand down below, but didn't do much else, just warmed my hand there, like over a stove. Wanted to be a gentleman. Sucked on her nose some more and I was in nineteenth-century Germany, living out a dream. I was doing it for X, poor fellow. Hoped he was in heaven watching.

  “What's with all this nose kissing?” she asked.

  “You have a beautiful nose,” I said.

  “Thank you,” she said softly. What I found beautiful, I was aware, may have been a source of ridicule in her life.

  She encouraged, so I put a finger inside her, slow and respectful, like a Jew stepping inside a church. And her hand went up and down on me. We were enjoying each other. I took my slick finger out and rubbed it gently at the top of her sex. She liked that. Little cries escaped from her.

  Then we took a break. The initial fury was over. We had to look at each other; get to know each other. So we just lay there. Side by side. She opened her fist and looked down. There was just enough light to see by. She said, “You're the first white guy I've been with in years.”

  This was unexpected. What does one say to that? I went the simple route. “How many years?”

  “At least five … I've only been seeing Africans since I was thirty. But I haven't been with anyone for six months. I needed to stop for a little while.”

  “You're thirty-five?”

 
; “Did you think I was older?”

  “No, of course not. You look like you're twenty-five.”

  She did. She smiled. “How old are you?” she asked.

  “Thirty … I don't mean to be rude, but how is it that you were only seeing Africans? Were you living in Africa?”

  “No,” she said, and laughed. “I live in Brooklyn. But I've been to Africa three times, mostly Nigeria…. I take African dance classes in New York. My whole life is dance classes. I don't really do anything else. Make art. Teach. But mostly I dance. That's my social life. Keeps me sane.”

  “Where do you teach?”

  “Pratt.”

  “I've heard of Pratt…. You teach art?”

  “Yes, sculpture.”

  I had been going easy on her, but now I threw her a fastball: “Why haven't you seen anyone for six months?”

  She was Mickey Mantle. She ate my fastball. She didn't blink an eye. She said:

  “It was getting to be too much. Everybody knows everybody in that world. The African community. But I like being with them. You don't date. They come up to you and you know what's what. No hemming and hawing. I like it that way. But I fell in love with this one guy, Cholee…. But he had a wife back in Nigeria. They're Yoruba. They don't divorce in their culture. So after him, I had a whole herd of them. Was seeing every African in town. But that wasn't healthy. And I was still in love with Cholee…. So I trimmed down the herd until there was nothing. It's been good…. I was talking to this therapist on the phone. He encouraged me to take a break. It's crazy, but I got his number out of the back of the Utne reader. He said that because my self-esteem was so low, I thought only a poor African would be with me. He said that subconsciously I was a racist.”

  “I don't know if it's helpful for a therapist to call you a racist.”

  “His point was that I didn't think I deserved a white guy, or I thought that a white guy wouldn't love me, so I went to a lower class and this to him is racism…. I don't know, maybe he's right … I'm not calling him anymore. I didn't consciously think of them as a lower class…. The whole thing is complicated…. Sex is a big part of it. I do love their dicks. I don't know if that's racist. But a big dick does feel better. And black men do have bigger dicks. They just do. But I also love their bodies, their skin. They smell so good. They oil themselves up like seals. The men and the women. I don't know why white people don't do that. We should rub that stuff into our skin, they have a million products…. Their skin is like food.” She grew thoughtful. “Sometimes there's a black guy who doesn't have a big one. But it's rare. There was one guy who was small and he was a mess because of it. When you're black and have a small dick, it's really devastating.”

  In light of the circumstances, this wasn't the most encouraging conversation to be having. In fact, I rather wilted in her hand, a cross between a dying flower and an accordion being shut down for the night by a beggar minstrel. And I felt insane and confused. I had been so happy just a few moments earlier. Also, I had heard of the Utne reader magazine, but I had never actually seen one, and who knew that you could get a therapist from its back pages. It was all rather baffling.

  “But I don't always need a big dick,” she continued. Was she talking about me? “Before this African phase, I was in love with a Mexican boy. He was only nineteen. I was twenty-nine. He was beautiful. Had long black hair to his ass. Everyone stared at him. Made me jealous. But he had a small dick. But I still loved him. And before that I was with this Japanese guy, and he had the smallest one ever, but I was crazy for him.”

  I was thinking that maybe I should kill myself. Usually, I have suicidal thoughts when I'm alone. So it was rare to have one in the company of another person. But after this conversation about other men's penises, and the possible inference that I could keep company with her underendowed Mexican and Japanese lovers, there wasn't much left to me, mentally and physically. The flower-accordion, which was still in her hand, was practically inverting. My belly button had greater length.

  “Where do I fit into all this?” I whispered. My shattered ego was gasping for air.

  “I like you. You're weird; I like weird guys.”

  “Weird?”

  “Weird in a good way … And I needed to be touched. I've been lonely at this stupid colony. I had a terrible day today. I went to the track and lost a lot of money.”

  “How much?”

  “A lot.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “It doesn't matter. But listen, I'm attracted to you. I like your beat-up face.”

  Then she kissed me passionately. I didn't say no.

  She drew me on top of her. Her eyelids closed halfway over her green eyes. I could see the pulse beating in her neck. Her breasts, like giant eggs-over-easy, lay on her chest. That might not sound appealing, but I happen to love eggs.

  I had to ask: “Am I as small as the Mexican and the Japanese guys?”

  “No,” she said huskily. “You have a nice fat one. I just hadn't seen a pink one in a while. I'm not used to the color, but you're nice and hefty.”

  That did it. Praise a man's penis and there's not much he can't do.

  So the beggar minstrel decided to unpack his accordion and wait for a few more tourists. He unfurled a long, happy song!

  I was also a little upset. She shouldn't have made that speech about other men. But these things happen. People always say the wrong things. I've done it. And Ava was probably unbalanced. But what did I expect at the Rose Colony? And who was I to judge? I wasn't exactly a Libra myself, if you know what I mean.

  Well, I was on top of her. Straddling her hips. Her legs were closed. My sex was just above her pubis. She looked up at me. I kissed her some more.

  Her right arm was to the side of the pillow, inching up. I could see that she wanted to adopt the position of a woman being taken, and so I raised both her arms over her head and pushed the wrists down with my left hand.

  She had shaved her armpits. They were bare and sexy and hollow. I have always been drawn to women's armpits. Don't know why.

  She arched her back. Her breasts rose into the air. Her lids closed completely over her green eyes. I took the pillow out from beneath her head and threw it to the floor. Her dark brown hair splayed out on the white sheet. She fought against my hand on her wrists, but I was strong. And she wouldn't have wanted me to let go anyway. She wanted the rough stuff.

  I wasn't really myself. But few people are when they make love. It's a lesser self. Or at least, a less thinking self. So I kissed her hard. I took a breast in my right hand and squeezed it. I gave her nose a suck, like taking a hit of adrenaline, and then I sucked her neck.

  I rose up and drew the back of my right hand across her cheek, like a caress, but I was testing something. I did it again. This time she swung her face against the back of my hand. I knew it. So I backhanded her lightly across her cheek. She moaned. She kept her eyes closed. I did it again. She squirmed beneath me, excited. I still had her wrists pinned with my left hand. Then I slapped the other side of her face with my open palm. Not too hard, but enough to thrill her. Delight her. I slapped her some more. She was breathing heavily.

  I let go of her wrists, lay flat on top of her, and kissed her cheeks where I had slapped them. Then I slapped her again. Good to keep her guessing. Then I gave her more sweet kisses, almost like apologies. She opened her eyes and looked at me and gave me little kisses.

  “Please go in me,” she whispered.

  I roughly pried her legs apart with my knee. Rubbed myself against her wetness, her hair. It felt beautiful. I threw her legs on my shoulders and rubbed against her that way. I liked tossing her around like that. “Do you have a condom?” I asked.

  “No. Just don't come. Pull out.”

  We all weaken in these situations. I was no exception. But there was something I had to do first. I was acting tough, but if I went in her, I probably wouldn't last very long, and the whole thing would be a sham.

  So I kissed her face, her nose, her neck, h
er breasts. “Go in me, please, I don't care about the condom,” she said.

  “Not yet,” I said.

  I worked my way down her body. When I was in front of her sex, I lifted up her thighs. Then holding on to the thighs, I rolled her onto the small of her back, lifting her sex off the bed. Her legs were up and open. I held the thighs to keep her legs in place. To the right and left of her mound, I kissed the insides of her legs. Left leg. Right leg. I inched closer to where she wanted me to kiss her. But didn't.

  Then I did give a little lick there, got a taste of her salt, then back to kissing the right leg, left leg, with a stop in the middle. Right leg, left leg, a stop in the middle. She caught on to the pattern and pushed up to meet that stop, wanted more, but I was like the hummingbirds on my tie. Too fast. Right leg, left leg, a stop in the middle. She was crying. Good crying.

  I was teasing her. But I couldn't take it anymore myself. So I put my whole face in there. A baptism. I let go of her thighs and put them on my shoulders, pinning my head in place. She then fastened her legs, imprisoning me completely. She had strong legs. My eyes were closed. I sucked on her. I licked her. The lower half of my body made love to the bed. I took as much of her sex in my mouth as I could, and when it was in there, I licked it with my tongue.

  Her legs squeezed my head tight. I could hear the ocean. I stayed in there a long time drinking from her. I loved it in there, and I knew I was making her happy, which was my insurance if I failed at making love, if I came right away.

  For quite a while, I did only one thing: I licked very fast on the right spot—that little swelling that feels like your own fat lip after you get hit in the mouth. Then finally she cried out, her body spasming. When she was still, I pried open her legs, freed myself, and went and rested my wet face on her chest. I could hear her heart pounding.

  Then she hugged me and kissed me. We were tender with each other.

  “Go in me now,” she said. “Please.”

  I got between her legs.

  “I'm going to have to go slow. I might have to pull out right away.”