The Naughty Bits (11 page)

“Husband, what do you mean?” replied Peronella, “Why now I am worse offended then before. Thou that art a man, walkest every where, and shouldst be experienced in worldly affairs: wouldst thou be so simple, as to sell such a brewing pot for five gigliatoes? Why, I that am a poor ignorant woman, a house dove, seldom going out of my door have sold it already for seven gigliatoes to a very honest man, who, even a little before thy coming home, came to me. We agreed on the bargain, and he is now underneath the pot, to see whether it be sound or no.”

When credulous Lazaro heard this, he was better contented then ever, and went to him that tarried at the door, saying, “Good man, you may go your way, for, whereas you offered me but five gigliatoes for the pot, my loving wife hath sold it for seven, and I must maintain what she hath done.” So the man departed, and the conflict ended.

Peronella then said to her husband, “Seeing thou art come home so luckily, help me to lift up the Pot, that the man may come forth, and then you two end the bargain together.” Striguario, who though he was mewed up under the tub, had his ears open enough, and hearing the witty excuse of Peronella, [came out] from under the Pot, pretending as if he had heard nothing nor saw Lazaro, looking round about him, said, “Where is this good woman?” Lazaro stepping forth boldly like a man, replied, “Here am I, what would you have Sir?” “Thou?” quoth Striguario, “what art thou? I ask for the good wife, with whom I made my match for the pot.” “Honest gentleman,” answered Lazaro, “I am that honest woman’s husband, for lack of a better, and I will maintain whatsoever my wife hath done.”

“I ask your mercy Sir,” replied Striguario, “I bargained with your wife for this brewing pot, which I find to be whole and sound: only it is unclean within, hard crusted with some dry soil upon it, which I know not well how to get off. If you will do the work of making it clean, I have the money here ready for it.” “For that, sir,” quoth Peronella, “do not worry. Though we had not agreed on it, what else is my husband good for, but to make it clean?” “Yes, forsooth Sir,” answered silly Lazaro, “you shall have it neat and clean before you pay the money. “So, stripping himself into his shirt, lighting a candle and taking tools fit for the purpose, the pot was placed over him, and he being within it, worked until he sweated with scraping and scrubbing. This way the lovers could finish that which earlier had been interrupted. And Peronella, looking in at the vent-hole where the liquor runneth forth for the meshing, seemed to instruct her husband in the business, as espying those parts where the pot was foulest, saying, “There, there Lazaro; tickle it there. The Gentleman pays well for it, and is worthy to have it. But see thou do thyself no harm good husband.” “I warrant thee wife,” answered Lazaro, “hurt not yourself with leaning your stomach on the pot, and leave the cleansing of it to me.” To be brief, the brewing pot was neatly cleansed, Peronella and Striguario both well pleased, the money paid, and honest meaning Lazaro not discontented.

—translated by John Florio,
adapted and modernized by Jack Murnighan

from
Giovanni’s Room

JAMES BALDWIN

Perhaps it’s my European wardrobe or the fact that I like to shake my money maker or that I try to be considerate of my women friends (always putting the seat down, for example), but I’m often asked if I am gay. Normally I respond that I don’t think so, for I certainly don’t seem aroused by male genitalia—but this answer doesn’t seem to resolve the issue. I’d like to believe that I would know by now, that the truth ’twould have outed long ago, but the whole orientation thing is so complicated, so fraught with conflicting signs, that it’s easy to doubt, to second-guess, and, finally, to third-guess the second-guesses and start the questioning over. If I say I’m gay, then clearly I’m gay, but if I deny it, I’m likely to be repressed (I grew up in the Midwest after all) and thus probably even more gay. Or so the vicious logic goes, thank you Dr. Freud.

You would think, then, that I could take some comfort in the notion that people’s sexual preferences are said to fall on a continuum of 1 to 10, with the numbers at either end representing complete, unequivocal commitments to a single gender and the middle ones representing leanings either way. But for those of us who probably fall somewhere close to the equator, the continuum is a source of both relief and renewed suspicion. Relief because our sexuality doesn’t seem deviant, suspicion because it’s not clear where the truth might lie. Seven, three? Four, six? Five? God knows. How would I know? Ah . . . but wait. Some people do seem to know, and not only those at the far, unambiguous ends of the spectrum. Take, for example, James Baldwin’s male protagonist in
Giovanni’sRoom,
who, early in the book, has his first sexual encounter— and it’s with a boy. He realizes that he’s gay but then tries to suppress it in the most painful account of unwelcome identity I’ve ever read. Baldwin’s characters (both here and elsewhere) struggle mightily with their conflicted sexualities, bringing to the page the pain and anguish of living a lie, or a truth you are unwilling to accept. It’s ironic that an author so adept at portraying the sexual identities of confused bisexual men would script the moment of realization with such lucidity and precision. But, sadly for Baldwin, that moment was the beginning, not the end, of the questioning.

I laughed and grabbed his head as I had done God knows how many times before, when I was playing with him or when he had annoyed me. But this time when I touched him something happened in him and in me which made this touch different from any touch either of us had ever known. And he did not resist, as he usually did, but lay where I had pulled him, against my chest. And I realized that my heart was beating in an awful way and that Joey was trembling against me and the light in the room was very bright and hot. I started to move and to make some kind of joke but Joey mumbled something and I put my head down to hear. Joey raised his head as I lowered mine and we kissed, as it were, by accident. Then, for the first time in my life, I was really aware of another person’s body, of another person’s smell. We had our arms around each other. It was like holding in my hand some rare, exhausted, nearly doomed bird which I had miraculously happened to find. I was very frightened, I am sure he was frightened too, and we shut our eyes. To remember it so clearly, so painfully tonight tells me that I have never for an instant truly forgotten it. I feel in myself now a faint, a dreadful stirring of what so overwhelmingly stirred in me then, great thirsty heat, and trembling, and tenderness so painful I thought my heart would burst. But out of this astounding, intolerable pain came joy, we gave each other joy that night. It seemed, then, that a lifetime would not be enough for me to act with Joey the act of love . . .

But Joey is a boy. I saw suddenly the power in his thighs, in his arms, and in his loosely curled fists. The power and the promise and the mystery of that body made me suddenly afraid. That body suddenly seemed the black opening of a cavern in which I would be tortured till madness came, in which I would lose my manhood. Precisely, I wanted to know that mystery and feel that power and have that promise fulfilled through me. The sweat on my back grew cold. I was ashamed. The very bed, in its sweet disorder, testified to vileness. I wondered what Joey’s mother would say when she saw the sheets. Then I thought of my father, who had no one in the world but me, my mother having died when I was little. A cavern opened in my mind, black, full of rumor, suggestion, of half-heard, half-forgotten, half-understood stories, full of dirty words. I thought I saw my future in that cavern. I was afraid. I could have cried, cried for shame and terror, cried for not understanding how this could have happened to me, how this could have happened in me. And I made my decision . . .

from
Orlando Furioso

LUDOVICO ARIOSTO

Ludovico Ariosto was the most popular Italian writer of the sixteenth century; when you read the passage that follows, you’ll see why. Although the most popular book of the century in England, John Lyly’s
Euphues,
mires you in its logorrheic cesspool, Ariosto’s
Orlando Furioso
wins you over with high adventure, poetic charm, daring rescues, and dastardly wit. It’s also pretty saucy, which elicited no small amount of blushing from its first English translators.

In this particular scene, one of the heroes, Ruggiero, comes to the castle of the evil witch Alcina, who disguises herself as a beautiful woman to seduce him. Romantic encounters are typical in the tradition of courtly literature, but, as with the Spenser excerpt on page 164, authors couldn’t come right out with the sex and sexuality, but had to mute it within suggestive, though not explicit, descriptions. Spenser had his woman spill red wine on her lap; Ariosto resorts to other clever tactics. First breasts that hint at what lies beyond (there is always a veil, however transparent), then an ingenious explanation of why he can’t describe the totality of their actions. It’s a great rhetorical turn; would that pens could always be so pointed.

[Alcina] was so well formed
that I can not describe her better without a painter’s skill:
With long blond tresses tied in a knot;
Gold itself has no more luster.
Her delicate cheeks were spread
With the mixed color of roses and lilies;
Like polished ivory her serene brow;
and everything in perfect proportion . . .

Snow white was her neck; her breast white as milk;
her neck was slender, her breast broad and full.
Two sour apples, fashioned as from ivory,
Rose and fell like waves on the sea,
When the wind disturbs its peaceful calm.
Of her hidden parts, not even Argus
With his hundred eyes could see,
But one could judge that what lay beyond
Corresponded well to what was in view . . .

[Ruggiero] jumped from the bed and took her in his arms.
Nor could he wait for her to undress,
for she was wearing neither gown nor petticoat—
she had come in a light mantle put over a simple nightgown
white and of the finest texture.
As Ruggiero embraced her, her mantle slipped off,
leaving only the thin, transparent nightgown,
(which, before and behind, concealed no more than
a pane of glass would conceal a bouquet of flowers).

Never did ivy cling so tightly to the stem around which
it entwines than did these lovers cling together,
drawing from each other’s lips so fragrant a succor
as not to be found in any flower grown on scented Indian sands.
But of the great pleasures this couple shared, it would be easier for
them to say,
For often they each had more than one tongue in their mouth.

—translated by Jack Murnighan

from Vox

NICHOLSON BAKER

Okay, I don’t know about you, but the idea of being on a first date with one of your coworkers and sitting side by side on a couch watching a porn video and masturbating in unison without touching one another strikes me as somewhat improbable. Though very sexy. But this is the scenario recounted by one of the protagonists in Nicholson Baker’s
Vox,
a novel consisting entirely of a conversation between a man and woman having phone sex. There are other parts of the novel that are sexy, but this particular narration was so goofy and curious and ultimately erotic that I had to take it for a Naughty Bit.

What’s great about the passage is that Baker articulates the rudiments of an erotics of restraint. Sure it’s fun to hurtle headlong into the sack, to run the Kama Sutra gamut first time around, to alpha and omega sex like you’re never going to get another chance, but there’s also a delicacy, a precise, stinging frisson that accompanies not acting on desire. Luring it, growing it, nurturing it—but not plucking. Perhaps sex benefits most from a combination of hot and cold: the yin of doing balanced by the yang of deferral. Ah . . .

[On the screen there were] two men with ties on are standing on either side of [a woman] . . . and she’s sucking one and then the other. Emily whispered, “That’s it.” . . . We were both stroking ourselves, and I could feel against the back of my hand the blanket pulling with her little movements as I made mine. I sort of clamped the blanket against the top of my cock with my thumb so that I’d stay decent and yet have my left hand free, and I looked over at Emily’s face, and watched her eyes traveling over those double-cock images, and I looked down at her breasts. I wanted to touch them, but I knew this would complicate things, it would have been a mistake. I could have come anytime. But suddenly the scene ended— one man suddenly comes on the woman’s face and breasts, the other pulls out and comes on her bush, with strikingly white sperm. Emily wasn’t fazed. She said, “Do you mind if I rewind a little?” . . . When it started playing, she said, kind of softly, “I think I want to come to this scene.” I said, “Okay.” But again the scene ended too quickly for her, and she had to rewind it a third time . . . She was flushed, her cheeks were shiny, she looked so transformed and sexual and elegant . . . and I said, “Can I touch your arm?” and she nodded, and I put my fingertips very lightly on the inside of her forearm, just above the wrist, and I felt her tendon going and going as she stroked herself, and this indirect feeling of being able to take the pulse of her masturbating was too much, I said, “I think I’m going to come,” and I started to come into the blanket, and when the first guy in the movie came on the heroine, Emily closed her legs and started to come herself, and when the second guy came on the heroine, Emily was still coming, but not with any thrashing around, very focused, but I could hear the shaking of her legs slightly in her breathing.

from
A Man in Full

TOM WOLFE