Never Too Old

What happened next was the sort of event one finds in the rearmost pages of R.F. von Krafft-Ebing. There one might read of the man who drank his own urine, or of another man, of the upper-classes, who achieved transports with a rope. Prepare yourselves, friends: The Crumsovatna joined the jamboree. Without hesitation she began to slide across the mattress on her back to where I remained on my hands and knees; with skill she maneuvered downward and still further downward, until she lay with her head beneath my sirloins. Then, opening her mouth, she took all eighty centimeters of Pan Johnson inside it. Never in my lifetime, and almost certainly not in yours, has such a thing occurred. My feelings were mixed. On the one hand, there were in proximity teeth, molars and bicuspids, which caused a certain alarm; on the other there was a feeling of warmth, and a hominess, such as a snail might experience in the safety of its shell. Glücksgefühl is what we call this sentiment in German.

Ela, menina, que vem e que passa
Num doce balanço, a caminho do mar

Thus sang the Brazilian beauty, while continuing to trod with heels points up and down my backside. March on! March on, missy! Le jour de gloire est arrivé!

Ma-ma-ma-ma—

That was the Crumsovatna, who with tongue and glottis was creating a sensation by humming the Act Two aria from The Bartered Bride.

Picture in your minds Leib Goldkorn, centurian: a damsel in front, a damsel on top, and a damsel below. Might it not be said that, suckling and being suckled, while the armies of Napoleon crossed and recrossed the dorsal plain, I had accomplished what many men dream of but few achieve: the ménage à quatre?

Pashas amidst their harems, Musselmen with their virgins, Mormons and their many wives: none could match in their fantasias what I had grasped in the flesh. Was this the pinnacle? Could man aspire, in the sphere of the carnals, any higher? Nein! Or so I thought until I heard the door to my bedroom open once again.

Who was the eager visitor? A pleasant thought: Miss Esther Williams, my former handmaid and star of Pagan Love Song, had decided to join me across the sea. Better late, Madam, than never!

Come with me where moonbeams
Light Tahitian skies
And the starlit waters
Linger in your eyes.

Or—did I dare dream?—was it Inatukak, the Esquimaux Queen? Heavens! I tried to call her name, but my mouth, as described above, was full. I tried to search out her Inuit form in the dim-lit room: but the lighter-than-air ships blocked my view. I felt the goose feathers of the non-Sealy sink by the foot of the bed. Welcome aboard, stranger! I could sense the mystery woman approach from behind. Something brushed against the crupper. Ooooh. A fumbling at the rectals. Oho, so that’s your game, is it? Tomfoolery? Bring it on! Just then I heard a voice, one that was not unfamiliar, declare, “Hold thtil. Pleathe. Hold thtil!” Abdi! My cousin! The mesomorph!

On the horizon, ladies and gentlemen, the storm of an expostulation was gathering. In the atmosphere there rose a mist of perspirations, oak moss, gardenia, and, from the gentleman at my rear, “Shocking,” by Schiapperelli. Within my own body elasticized cords, growing tighter and tighter, pulled at each joint and limb. Peppercorns were hopping on the griddle. And a spicy sauce, like a mole poblano, poured over my skin. Yet one thing was missing before that storm could break. Above, below, fore, and aft, every inch of my body was receiving pleasure except—yes, you have guessed it, the bottoms of my feet. And no sooner did this vacuum become apparent than, with warm, soft motions against my insoles, and the sandpaper swipes of a tongue, it was filled. Hymena! She had joined the hymenals.

Ekstase. From the convections in the Southern Hemisphere it was clear that Pan Johnson had grown to what I believe was a personal best. The elastics were at the breaking point. The spermary at the boil. See! But see! The top of my head, with its hair-horseshoe, has flown off. Oh, Moses! Oh, Abraham! Sh’ma Yisroel!

Excerpted from Liebestod: Opera Buffa With Leib Goldkorn by Leslie Epstein. Copyright © 2012 by Leslie Epstein. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.

Leslie Epstein, director of the creative writing program at Boston University, is the author of King of the Jews and ten other books of fiction.