Naked Came the Stranger

ANSEL VARTH

Ansel Varth walked as though he should have had a staff in his hand and a tribe of Israelites trailing him. It was, Gilly thought, bizarre in a man in his early thirties. There was a grotesque quality about him that had aroused Gilly's curiosity – and, concomitantly, her libido. She needed something different. Ernie Miklos's ice cubes, Paddy Madigan's mini-member, Arthur Franhop's aberrant innocence, Joshua Turnbull's flying leap – all these encounters had left Gilly jaded. She was looking for a pick-me-up.

She had noticed Ansel Varth about the streets of King's Neck. She had seen him standing beside the gasoline pump in the Shell station, seemingly absorbed in the roll of the high-test meter. She had glimpsed him leaving his home on Frigate Lane with his plump little wife beside him. And she had seen him sometimes at the post office. She had heard that Varth was an accountant who worked out of his home, and he apparently conducted much of his business by mail. It was at the post office that Varth was at his most grotesque. When he approached the slots, he had the furtive quality of a small boy who had dirtied himself and had decided to brazen it out by walking as if the lump in his trousers did not exist.

They reached the slots at the same time, and Gilly made contact. "Excuse me," she said, brushing against him. "I want to send this to Manhattan. Do I use the out-of-town slot, or the local slot?"

"The out-of-town slot," Varth answered, speaking with the careful enunciation of a second-rate comedian attempting to imitate a Harvard homosexual. "The out-of-town slot is for all mail not to be delivered within the unincorporated area of King's Neck. Any mail that is to be delivered within King's Neck goes into the local slot. I usually use the out-of-town slot."

Bingo! The voice was unmistakable. There was simply no question about it. Gillian knew immediately where she had heard it before. Gotcha you bastard, she thought. Then she started laughing. Of all people, she thought, Ansel Varth. Why he even wore a homburg.

"Well, I'll tell you one thing," she said. "I never thought it would be you."

"I beg your pardon," Varth said.

"Come on, you know who I am. I'm Gillian Blake. God knows you've spoken to me enough times."

"I don't believe I've had the pleasure, Mrs. Blake. I'm Ansel Varth from Frigate Lane."

Gillian stared at Varth and trapped his eyes. She smiled her sweetest smile. "Oh, we've had the pleasure," she said. "I've got a pair of big ones, and you're jack the F*cker."

Varth's mail bag plopped to the floor. He looked as if he were going to cry.

"What was it you told me the last time you called?" said Gilly. "Oh yes, you came to a point. And you said I was a whore."

Now Varth looked as if he might be sick.

"Don't worry," Gillian said. "It was kind of nice, having a crank caller, all my own. Besides, you've heard of Madame Pompadour. Well, I'm her cousin, Lady A*shole."

"Please… " said Varth.

"Don't worry," she said.

"You mean you're not…."

"No," said Gillian. "Actually, it interests me."

Ansel Varth took off his eyeglasses. "Holy shit!" he said.

"That's better," Gilly said. "Why didn't you tell me it was you making all those phone calls? We would have met long before this."

"Son of a bitch!" said Varth.

Varth hastily stuffed his mail into the slots, and asked if they could go somewhere. Gillian suggested a motel. She was having a marvelous time. Ansel Varth might be just the tonic she was looking for. She was going to have this coitus-crazed accountant make an entry. Maybe even a double entry.

Varth loosened up during the drive to the motel. He was still talking as they entered the room. His conversation was full of words like cunt and snatch.

Gilly was enchanted. Nobody had ever talked dirty that way to her before.

"I'll tell you one thing," she said. "You certainly don't sound like an accountant."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, you can enunciate like one, but you'll have to admit that your conversation isn't what you'd expect from an accountant."

"What do I sound like?" he asked.

Gillian laughed. "Like a crank-caller," she said. "Or like someone who writes dirty books."

Varth, who had just shucked off his topcoat, dropped on the bed and stared at her.

"Cocksucker!"

"What's the matter?" she said.

"You're fantastic. You must be psychic or something."

"I don't understand you, lover."

"Well that's what I do, don't you see?"

"I'm afraid you're losing me."

"That's what I do. I write dirty books."

"You what!"

"I write dirty books! I mean, that's it. That's how I really make a living."

Now it was Gillian's turn to drop to the bed. "You're putting me on."

"No, no. Honestly. I really do."

"Son of a bitch!" This time it was Gillian. She shook her head. She had the look of a woman whose bra had just been snapped open. What a tonic, she thought.

Gillian had never met a professional pornographer before, and she questioned Varth almost as if she were doing an interview. For his part, Varth seemed genuinely relieved that somebody knew his secret. For the first time in his life, he was telling a stranger about his hidden life, and his voice filled with pride. "No one suspects," he said. "No one. Not even that idiotic wife of mine. She really thinks I'm an accountant, that I take care of all my work through the mails. Actually, I haven't been an accountant for years. I don't keep books. I write them."

Gilly sat close to him and nibbled his car. "An honest- to-goodness pornographer," she said.

Ansel Varth shrugged with pride. "The best in the business," he said.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," said Gillian. "Listen, you'll have to autograph one of your books for me."

"Certainly," said Varth. "With my prick." Gillian laughed. "Beautiful," she said.

"You're some piece of ass," Varth said, as he watched Gilly's blouse come off.

"It must be fascinating work," Gillian said, slipping unconsciously into her radio style. "I mean, where do you get all your ideas?"

"Nature," said Varth. "From nature. Like any other writer, I draw from the human condition."

"I should have guessed," Gilly said.

"My pen never runs dry," said Varth.

"I can imagine," said Gilly. "But what started you? I mean, what was the catalyst?"

"An interesting question," said Varth. "I would have to say that it was my wife."

"Your wife?" said Gillian, as she took off her skirt.

"Yes. See, when I first married Astrid, that's my wife, I was in the Navy, and I used to bang the hell out of her when I was home on leave. And when I first got out of the service, she still gave me all I wanted. We even did it in a night club once, with her sitting on my lap. You know, in rhythm to the music – as I remember, it was a rhumba. Another time we did it in a rocking chair, and once we even did it in a snowbank."

"Mmmm," said Gilly. "All I've ever done in the snow is ski."

"You didn't have the right poles," said Varth.

"But I still don't see how your wife inspired your career," said Gilly.

"Oh, yes. Well, the thing was that, after a few years, she started turning me off. I guess she never really liked it that much, if you know what I mean. And when she did screw, she was like a cold clam. It was like playing with myself. In fact, I did start playing with myself, and that was better than Astrid. That's when I wrote my first dirty poetry. It was a four-line poem that went: 'I don't care if I go crazy/ long as I can beat my daisy/ four times eight is thirty-two/ three more pulls and I'll be through."'

"That's got a nice rhythm," said Gilly.

"Yes," said Varth. "It's a beater's meter. But that still didn't satisfy me. As a matter of fact, I never was really satisfied. The thing is that even when I was banging Astrid all the time, I wasn't necessarily enjoying it that much. Before Astrid, there were just a Negro woman in Port-au-Prince who looked at me as if I were a fica, and an old lady in a West Side hotel who had a breast missing. And I guess you would have to count Mr. Bagadello, my home room teacher in junior high school."

"Yes," said Gilly. "I think early sex experiences are especially rewarding."

"It's amazing how you understand these things," said Varth. "Well, to keep from drawing it out, I became bored with masturbation. And I found that I had become quite shy in terms of personal contact. I was all right on the telephone, but I never really did anything. Anyway, I started writing stories for kicks. Then I got the idea of selling them. I put ads in the right magazines, and began building up a mailing list. One thing led to another, and I met Solly Madchen."

Gillian had hooked a hand under Varth's trouser cuff and was caressing his left calf. My God, she thought, he wears garters. Then the name brought her up short.

"Who?" she said.

"Solly Madchen."

"You mean the Solly Madchen?"

"That's him," said Varth.

"No kidding," said Gillian. "He's the pervert the police are looking for."

"I know," said Varth. "But they'll never find him. Old Solly. What a character! You know where he is? He's hiding out in a kibbutz in Israel. No fooling. Old Solly bought his own kibbutz, and for all I know he's back in business. He's probably trying to sell cola-flavored hormones to the Arabs."

"I forget the whole case now," said Gilly. "Why was it the police were after him?"

"It was the LSD thing," said Varth. "That was strictly Solly's operation. He mixed LSD with Spanish Fly. We were netting close to $10,000 a week on it, but I always told him there would be trouble. That's dynamite. The thing blew apart when a woman in Corpus Christi impaled herself on a fire hydrant, and a kid in upstate New York mutilated himself in a milking machine. Luckily, the police only got Solly's name."

Gilly was up now, removing her pants, and Varth's eyes fastened on her golden triangle. "Now the business is all mine," he said. "I have outlets in thirty cities. But I stick to books and movies. My first book was called The Captain's Wife. It was a classic. The captain is a sea captain who gives his wife a German shepherd pup just before he leaves on a long voyage. By the time the pup is eight months old, he is getting down on her. You can imagine what the pup is doing to her when he's full grown. And then I wrote a book about a wandering gypsy who travels around the countryside with six earrings in his foreskin."

Gilly was on the bed now, stretched out, her naked body beginning the motions that had become second nature to her.

"Another book I wrote," said Varth, "it was about this squirrel monkey who had an enormous dick. This monkey's keeper used to take him around to bridge clubs and charge the housewives for his services."

"Shhh," said Gilly. "That's enough for now."

Varth slowly took his clothes off, folding each garment neatly on a chair. Then he stood nude alongside the bed.

"Come on," said Gilly.

Ansel Varth, pornographer, never moved. Suddenly, he turned his head away.

"Come on," Gilly said again.

Varth shivered. "I can't," he whispered. "I can't."

"You're Jack the F*cker and I'm Lady A*shole," she said.

"No," he said. "I'm Jack the Phony. I can't. Don't you understand? I haven't had a woman since I stopped doing it with Astrid. All I do is write books and make phone calls. I can't get it up any other way."

Gilly made a brief visual examination. He was telling the truth. The poor bastard was positively flaccid.

"Come to Gilly," she said reaching for it. Nothing.

"Poor Jack the F*cker," Gilly said.

"Oh God!" Varth yelled. He leaped away, ran to a dresser and furiously started opening drawers.

"What's the matter?" Gilly cried.

"I'm looking for a pencil," he said. "Pencil and paper. I told you, all I can do is write books."

"Look," Gillian said, holding out her nipples. "I got a pair of big ones."

"I can't," Varth screamed. "I can't get the goddamn thing up!" He was still looking through the drawers. Gilly tried to trigger him with words. "Cunt!" she yelled.

"Pecker!"

"Dick!"

"Suck!"

Varth had found a pencil and was jabbing at the air with it. "Paper!" he screamed. "Where's the hell's the paper?"

Just like that, the answer hit Gillian. "Ansel!" she shouted. "There's a way."

"What?"

"I know how to do it."

"No. No. I can't get it up."

"You can, Ansel. You can. We'll act out a story." Varth looked at her.

"Yes," she said. "We'll act out a story."

"How?"

"Well," Gillian was thinking fast. "Let's make believe that I'm a lady chimpansee and you're a big horny camel."

Varth dropped his pencil.

"See," shouted Gilly. "I'm a chimpanzee." She scratched herself under the arm and chattered. "See."

Varth saw. He leaned over and loped toward her as if he were indeed a desert beast. "I'm a camel!" he shouted. "I'm a camel."

Gilly hopped around chattering.

"I'm getting it up!" Varth yelled. "I'm getting it up." Gilly chattered faster.

"I'm a camel!" Varth screamed. "I'm a camel!"

"Hump me!" Gilly shrieked. "Hump me!"

Varth was on her, grunting, gasping, humping. They heaved together on the white sheets faster and faster and harder and harder. Ansel turned to thunder, and the surf broke warm and dark on Gilly's beach. Again, it broke. And again.

Two hours later, Ansel Varth dropped off Gillian Blake at her parked car near the King's Neck Post Office. He told her that he was mad about her, that he couldn't wait to see her again, that she had changed his whole life. He said that Gilly had given him fresh inspiration. He was a real man. This time, he would surely write the great American dirty novel.

"I'll call you tomorrow," he said.

"Sure," Gilly said. "Sure."

As he drove away, Varth affectionately made an obscene gesture at Gilly. She laughed, and then she turned away from her car and walked into the post office, where she slipped into a telephone booth.

"Hello," she said in a disguised falsetto voice after she had reached her party. "Is this police headquarters? Fine. Are you still looking for Solly Madchen's partner?"



EXCERPT FROM "THE BILLY & GILLY SHOW," MAY 4TH

Gilly: I'd have to agree with you, Billy. Fidelity is the key to a successful marriage.

Billy: Yes, it may sound corny, but when I read about all these wife-swapping clubs and such, I wonder what the world's coming to.

Gilly: I know, and the ideas some of our young people have about, well, sex. I mean, it's almost as if they advocate promiscuity.

Billy: I suspect that there are more moral people around than you think. It's just that the others get all the publicity.

Gilly: You may have something there. And I'II tell you something else. The men who do philander, well they're the ones with problems. I think they doubt their own virility.

Billy: My wife, the psychiatrist.

Gilly: No, really. Actually, I don't think there's anything more attractive than a truly moral man.