Portnoy’s Complaint

What Sally couldn't do was eat me. To shoot a gun at a little quack-quack is fine, to suck my cock is beyond her. She was sorry, she said, if I was going to take it so hard, but it was just something she didn't care to try. I mustn't act as though it were a personal affront, she said, because it had nothing at all to do with me as an individual… Oh, didn't it? Bullshit, girlie! Yes, what made me so irate was precisely my belief that I was being discriminated against. My father couldn't rise at Boston amp; Northeastern for the very same reason that Sally Maulsby wouldn't deign to go down on me! Where was the justice in this world? Where was the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League-! "I do it to you," I said. The Pilgrim shrugged; kindly she said, "You don't have to, though. You know that. If you don't want to…" "Ah, but I do want to-it isn't a matter of ‘have’ to. I want to." "Well," she answered, "I don't." "But why not?" "Because. I don't." "Shit, that's the way a child answers, Sarah-'because'! Give me a reason!" "I-just don't do at, that's all." "But that brings us back to why. Why?" "Alex, I can't. I just can't." "Give me a single good reason!" "Please," she replied, knowing her rights, "I don't think I have to."

No, she didn't have to-because to me the answer was clear enough anyway: Because you don't know how to hike out to windward or what a jib is, because you have never owned evening clothes or been to a cotillion … Yes sir, if I were some big blond goy in a pink riding suit and hundred-dollar hunting boots, don't worry, she'd be down there eating me, of that I am sure!

I am wrong. Three months I spent applying pressure to the back of her skull (pressure met by a surprising counterforce, an impressive, even moving display of stubbornness from such a mild and uncontentious person), for three months I assaulted her in argument and tugged her nightly by the ears. Then one night she invited me to hear the Budapest String Quartet playing Mozart at the Library of Congress; during the final movement of the Clarinet Quintet she took hold of my hand, her cheeks began to shine, and when we got back to her apartment and into bed, SaUy said, "Alex…I will." "Will what?" But she was gone, down beneath the covers and out of sight: blowing me! That is to say, she took my prick in her mouth and held it there for a count of sixty, held the surprised little thing there. Doctor, like a thermometer. I threw back the blankets-this I had to see! Feel, there wasn't very much to feel, but oh the sight of it! Only Sally was already finished. Having moved it by now to the side of her face, as though it were the gear shift on her Hillman-Minx. And there were tears on her face.

"I did it," she announced.

"Sally, oh, Sarah, don't cry."

"But I did do it, Alex."

"… You mean," I said, "that's all?"

"You mean," she gasped, "more?"

"Well, to be frank, a little more-I mean to be truthful with you, it wouldn't go unappreciated-"

"But it's getting big. I'll suffocate."

JEW SMOTHERS DEB WITH COCK, Vassar Grad Georgetown Strangulation Victim; Mocky Lawyer Held

"Not if you breathe, you won't."

"I will I’ll choke- "

"Sarah, the best safeguard against asphyxiation is breathing. Just breathe, and that's all there is to it. More or less."

God bless her, she tried. But came up gagging. "I told you," she moaned.

"But you weren't breathing."

"I can't with that in my mouth."

"Through your nose. Pretend you're swimming."

"But I'm not."

"PRETEND!" I suggested, and though she gave another gallant try, surfaced only seconds later in an agony of coughing and tears. I gathered her then in my arms (that lovely willing girl! convinced by Mozart to go down on Alex! oh, sweet as Natasha in War and Peace! a tender young countess!). I rocked her, I teased her, I made her laugh, for the first time I said, "I love you too, my baby," but of course it couldn't have been clearer to me that despite all her many qualities and charms-her devotion, her beauty, her deerlike grace, her place in American history-there could never be any "love" in me for The Pilgrim. Intolerant of her frailties. Jealous of her accomplishments. Resentful of her family. No, not much room there for love.

No, Sally Maulsby was just something nice a son once did for his dad. A little vengeance on Mr. Lindabury for all those nights and Sundays Jack Portnoy spent collecting down in the colored district. A little bonus extracted from Boston amp; Northeastern, for all those years of service, and exploitation.

IN EXILE