House of Holes by Nicholson Baker Page A

mattress, moving down a dimly lit hall. Two nice-looking naked men with towels around their necks were pushing the table by its railing. To the first naked man, Marcela said, “Where is this?”
    “This is the House of Holes, where you can do whatever you want.”
    “Whatever I want? For instance, I can just reach out and hold your penis right now if I want?”
    “Bono, wait up,” the boy called. “She wants to hold my peeny wanger.” He paused and stood with his hips canted forward, his peeny wanger close to her hand. “Go ahead.”
    She rose on one elbow and held the cock like the handle of a trowel and pulled slowly on it. She felt it thicken and was filled with longings in various directions.
    “What’s your name?” the nice-looking young man asked, gasping slightly.
    Marcela decided to make a name up. “My name is Lucky Eyes,” she said. She pointed his cock up and then kissed its tip and filled her mouth once with it.
    “Oh, please don’t do that cause I’ll shoot for sure in two seconds. I’m real full of come cause your tits make me hot.”
    Marcela lay down and breathed. “Where are we going?”
    “Into the massage room.”
    “Oh. Who will be massaging me?”
    “Lanasha, the head masseuse, while Bono and I watch in the other room.” He pointed to a one-way mirror. “Then we’re supposed to take you to the groanrooms.”
    “Oh.”
    In the massage room there were Japanese screens and a pile of folded cloths, and bowls of water and liquids. “Is it okay to leave my bra on?” said Marcela.
    “Lanasha will take care of everything,” said the boy. Then he shyly squeezed her and said, “Thank you for holding me. It felt really good. I’m Ross.” Some trance music came on, and Marcela lay on her stomach feeling very peaceful, still in her bra, with a towel covering her butt and throbbing cuntspot. Soon she heard the sound of a sliding paper door.
    Lanasha, a large Filipina woman in a red dress, came in and sat in a chair next to her table.
    “I am here to give you a teaching massage,” Lanasha said. “What would you most like to learn?”
    “Everything, I think,” said Marcela. “I’ve not been to a sex resort before. Last week I let a man hold my breasts, but besides that I’ve been pretty darned nonsexual lately. It’s been almost a year. I’ve started to worry about it, actually.”
    Lanasha unhooked Marcela’s bra and tickled her back with the loose ends of it. Then she began making odd paddling motions over her shoulder blades and down the small of her back. Once, she lifted the towel. “You have a very lovely bottom—all men will like it,” the masseuse said.
    “Thank you.”
    Lanasha squirted oil on Marcela’s bottom.
    “Do you know what the Gumuz boys sing in the Sudan?” she said.
    “No, what?”
    “They sing, ‘My girl’s got big boobies and a big soft ass; she is the shapeliest woman in the world.’ ”
    “Catchy song,” said Marcela. “Can I ask you something?”
    “Sure.”
    “Do you enjoy having a man behind you? Because I miss seeing his face make those nice twisty expressions that I see men make in dirty movies.”
    Lanasha smiled. “What you do is you send your whole self back to your bottom. Your bottom has a lot to say to him, by its shape. To him it doesn’t feel cold. It feels as if you are talking to him in a new round soft language.”
    She pushed the cheeks of Marcela’s bottom together as she said this, and then she released them. Then she pushed her thumbs deep into the muscles.
    “Wow, that’s a deep massage,” said Marcela, pressing her delta bone into the thin mattress.
    Lanasha made a growly sort of sound, and then her hands went back to Marcela’s back, and she began kneading the younger woman slowly down each side of her spine.
    “Tell me a sexy thing a man did to you,” said Marcela.
    Lanasha’s hands paused for a moment. “One time I was giving a massage to this short man who was very fit,” she said. “He was like a