House of Earth (9 page)

“I will. I will, Mister Blanket. No. Not yet. It's just commencing to feel good. It'll be a few more minutes, though, before I can work myself up. Besides, Mister Blanket hadn't ought to end his fun before Misses Mattress gets hers. Tell me something to talk about. Wackioooo. Tackiooo. Ohh. About the house?”

“Our adobe house,” Tike said. “Main thing's got me bested is just where, an' just how, an' just when we're a gonna get our hands on some kind of a piece of land to build it on.”

“Yes. I wonder the same. It looks like we keep coming back to this same question, doesn't it?”

“Yeahmm.”

“I've got an idea. And a bright one at that.” Ella May's eyes looked over his shoulder. “A nice, nice, bright one. Ha. It just now came to me. Just like that.”

“Like what? Spill it. Don't try to set on it like an egg an' hatch it. Spill it,” he said.

“Well. First, move a little closer.”

“Closer?”

“Yes. Come closer. I would like for you all, one an'
all, to please gather in just a little bit closer. I will tell you about a sure and certain way to get a piece of land to build yourselves a nice, warm, fireproof, windproof, rainproof, sweatproof, bugproof, foolproof, this proof, that proof, everything proof, nice, hot, cold, warm, cool, airtight, hidebound, cork-tipped, rubber-dipped, gold-plated, high-polished house of adobe earth. Come in just a teensy-weensy bit closer and hug me just a measly mouse warmer.” The sound of her voice was like a street-corner salesman. “Come in. Just a little bit.”

Tike cut her off and said, “I'm already as close as I can get. I'm pushin' just hard as I can, but think I done come to th' end of my rope. Tell your brilliant idea and quit havin' these goofy spells.”

“Ohhh. But, Mister Hackey Jack, Slappy Hap, this idea is a sooper dooper one. It's positively the very best idea that has been given birth to on this ranch so far.” As she spoke, she pooched her lips and moved her body.

“Give birth to it, then, an' f'r Jesus' sakes, don't keep me so much in suspenders,” he said.

“Wellll. Here it is. Get ready.”

“I been ready to come for ten minutes,” he said.

“Hold your horses. I'll be right with you. Now. You want to hear the bright idea? Sure?”

“Whattaya think I'm a-layin' here a-waitin' on? Th' new mornin' train?” he said.

And she said, “Well. Then. Here it is. Here it is for certain this time.”

“Shoot.”

“Don't you dare shoot. Not yet.”

“Tell it!”

“Well, the very next time that one of those big mean old dust storms comes along, why, you wait till it gets just at its worst, see? Then.”

“Then.”

“Then you grab your hat and run out and catch it.”

“Yeeeehh.”

“Then. You put your hand over your hat, like this.” She slapped him in the middle of the back. “Like, so.”

“So ho ho ho.” He acted like he was coughing. “What?”

“Then you run over to the iron water tank, and you stick the hat and all, dust storm and all, down under the water, and you hold it down there till it tames down, and all of the wind and air goes out of it, and it just turns into soil, dirt again. Then you go and you lay it down somewhere, anywhere you want to, and it will be your land. Your farm. Your ranch.”

And Tike told her, “By grabs an' by grasshoppers, I'm a-gonna do that. That very thing. I swear by twenty rows of burnt corn, I'll do it. I'll do it just as sure as I'm a layin' here.”

“Will you, sure enough? Tike?” She opened her eyes wide and spoke in the manner of a fairy poet beholding the folding and the unfolding of a homeless flower. “Will you, ohhh, will you really? Really? Will yooo? Ohhh. Deah. My deah. You don't know, you just don't know, you never
will know, how it would thrill me, and fill me, and chill me and frill me and dill me and spill me and drill me and lil me and hill me and till me and bill me and jack me and jill me. You just don't have any idea, any ideeeaa, my dyeahhh, to see you really do something, anything, anything, just so it was something, anything. Ohh. Ahhmm. Tikus. My little Mikus.”

“My little tokus,” he said. “You sound like one of them screwballs that lives on millionaire hill. You ain't been out sleepin' with none of them bats, have you?”

“Oooo. Nooo.”

“Hush yer trap, then.”

“One has to talk, doesn't one?”

“Yeah … But one's goddang jaw hadn't oughta run plumb off with one. Had one?”

“You've injured my self-esteem. You've dealt a blow, and a sorry blow, to my pride. You've insulted my creative soul. And I refuse to speak to you any longahhh. You have squelched my career. Good-bye. Ohhh!”

Tike did not make any sort of a reply right then. He lifted his face above hers and whistled a little tune. And then when his little tune was whistled out, there was no sound in the barn nor in the hay, except outside there jumped and buzzed a few grasshoppers that had managed to stay alive so late in the summer.

Together they moved, rolled, hugged onto one another on the overalls and jumper and on the lightweight cotton dress.

And after a few more minutes had gone by with no more than the sound of their breath, their kisses, their nips, bites, and grunts, Tike asked her, “Lady. How does it feel? Say.”

“Good.”

“Just good?”

“Just good.”

“I always like to hear you tell me how it feels.”

“Just goody, good, good.”

“I mean, ah, my penis, Lady. How does it feel when it's way up inside your belly thisaway? Huh?” He raised himself up on his hands to see the hair on their stomachs wet and stuck together with the juices and the liquids that flowed from her. “All, all, all th' way in. All, all, all, th' way in. Want me to hold it in a lot longer, Lady? Gosh. I want to do what you want me to do. I can hold it in you all day if you like it thataway.”

“Teeny more.”

“How's it feel? I ask'd you.”

“How?”

“Yeah.”

“I don't know.”

“Does it feel big?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What else?”

“Hot. Big. Slick. Juicy. Close.”

“What else?”

“Everything. Come on. Hold me tight. Kiss me. Ohhhhmmm. Tike. Close. Here. Kiss. Oh. Oh. Ohhh. Squeeze
me tight. Tighter. Tight as you can. And don't talk any more.”

“Comin', Lady?”

She shook her head yes.

“Good. Goood. Come. Come real, real, real good. Let your whole self go. Lady. Gosh. Lady.”

“Kiss me. Long time. Don't talk.”

Back and forth, side to side, they moved on their bed on the hay. Back and forth, side to side, they moved their hips, their feet, their legs, their whole bodies. Their arms tied into knots like vines climbing trees, and the trees moved and swayed, and there was a time and a rhythm to the blend of the movement. And inside the door of her womb she felt her inner organs and tissues, all her muscles and glands, felt them roll, squeeze, squeeze, and roll, and felt that every inch of her whole being stretched, reached, felt out, felt in, felt all around the shape of his penis. So magnified and so keen were her feelings that her inner nerves could even feel the bumps, the ridges, the pimples, the few stray hairs along the shaft of his male rod. And inwardly she caressed, touched, petted, and fondled, squeezed, the whole length and all of the sides of the penis. And this caused her to work and to move and to roll and to breathe hard, to forget her name, her own self completely. She felt her organs fondle, and she felt them squeeze, suck, gently, easily, softly, smoothly, wet, damp, slick, and there was a fire, a heat, a heat that was his, a heat that was only his, and a fire all in her that was his fire, and only his fire, and the heat was him, the fire was in his
blood, the heat, that juicy, oily, stiff hard flesh that was him. The motion of her hips caused the lips of her hole and her passage to suck, suck, suck, suck. And such a feeling, such a fire, such a blaze of warmth and life as she felt her belly suck with all her strength, all her power, suck, suck, suck, with all her blood, all her heat, all her life. As he moved against her to hold it in a hundredth of an inch closer, it felt in her stomach that he had come a hundred miles closer to her. The penis jumped, jerked, and moved up and down against her insides as he started to come. And as the drops of his juice came from the end of his penis, each drop sent her into rolls, squirms, fits, convulsions of a kind past either pain or joy. Every drop that struck against her nerves caused her to feel such a fit of fire and freedom as she could never say in words, nor even imagine in her wildest and hottest dreams. She only desired that her insides suck each and every drop, each and every drop, of this hot juice that shot from his stomach. Her feeling was that as she fondled, stroked, and touched her inner organs against his heat and mixed her own inner juices with his new hot blood, somehow, in an inner way, in a big inner and outer way, all of the scattered troubles, hopes, fears, hurts of her whole existence were following a path, a route, or a way of some one bigger purpose, and in her mind she saw the fires of that higher thing and the way and the path to it, and saw the one big answer to every problem, every question that had ever dealt her pain. It felt like he was her and she was him, and he was in her and she was in him, and that he was all about her while she was at
the same time all about him. The feeling was a vision and the vision showed the way out. And as she sucked the last drops of his blood and his seed into the folds of her innermost soul and self, she felt her whole body lift, pull, squeeze, then lift again, tremble, shake, and quiver, and in her fires of her stomach she strained and moved to bathe his blood into the rumble and the thunder of her own. And then she felt the feelings rise so high and so strong that her body melted into a single note of music to the sky and when the blaze of his heat met with the fires of her fire, then there was such a bright lightness in them both that neither of their senses could feel it, neither of their eyes could face it.

He had held her all of the time that she had moved and rolled and come to her orgasm on his clothes on the hay. He had felt her womb milk his penis, and his feelings had been to him exactly as they had been to her. He was learning a little at a time how to stay until she had come and till she became quiet and still in the few minutes after it. He kept his penis in her even after he had shot all of his juice into her belly. He spent several minutes doing this because she had acted nervous several times when he jumped up and left her. A thousand and one things came back into his mind, things that he ought to be doing, working at, fixing up, getting ready for. His brain commenced to show up moving pictures of all of the jobs he had started, the ones that he had finished, and the ones that had to be started right away. This. That. And the other thing. This, that, and something else. All of this work, all of these jobs, all of this sweat and good labor poured into
a useless bucket and down a senseless drain on a piece of land that did not belong to him, did not shelter Ella May, did not keep them away from the germs, the filth, the misery, did not keep their hides from the heat nor the cold, did not look good to their eyes, and by the law of the land they could not lift a hand to build the place into that nicer one because the man that owned it did not care about all of this. Oh. These. These things. And then a lot of other things came and went, roared and buzzed around in his brain. He tried to dream up some earthly scheme to get his hands on a piece of good farmland to raise up that house of earth on. Ohh. Yes. That Department of Agriculture book was an awful mighty good thing, laying there at her elbow on that hay. But it made their biggest misery even bigger, and their biggest dream even plainer, and their biggest craving ten times more to be craved. A fireproof, windproof, dirtproof, bugproof, thiefproof house of earth. His penis had become limber, and her moving had forced it out of her hole.

He felt the liquids from her womb smeared through the hairs on his stomach, between his legs, over his balls, and felt the end of his penis as it moved limber on the hay and was covered with lint, dust, and fine splinters of straw. After a few minutes of thinking, figuring, picturing, and puzzling out his problem about the house and the piece of land, the lint and the straw commenced to dry in the air and to cause him to itch and hurt.

He stood up with Ella May and they leaned against one another for a few moments to get their wits together
again, and to add up their new thoughts. Their arms bent around each other. They stood without talking. Only a few whispered words passed between their lips, and these were mumbled, stuttered, spoken in ways that meant nothing, each one talking, whispering to his self. A little of nothing and a touch of everything.

A half an hour after that they were back by the same little bench where they had lifted the cream cans three hours before. A pan of hot soapy water threw its steam in the air as Ella May stood and held her dress above her stomach to wash between her legs with a rag. Tike said curse words about the splinters of hay and straw that had dried and stuck on the hairs and the skin of his stomach, crotch, and legs. “Wonder what it'd be like for me to put this in you with alla these straws an' stickers on it? Lady?” he asked her as they both washed. “Huhhh?”