You know, a few years ago it would have been hard for me to tell you this story. Then again, a few years ago things were different. We weren’t straight with each other.

Yeah, we’d joke about jerking off—each time in a way that would leave an out for the conversation to go somewhere else, should one of us become uncomfortable. You’d joke about jackin’ it to Betty Boop. Joke, right, but I always wanted to ask you flat out. By that time though our talk moved on to Cab Calloway and all the others who provided those hip soundtracks, and to extol the glories of early animation where anything could morph (no such word back then, though) into something else, and how great that was.

Nowadays the mechanics of fantasy are used in much the same way that a reporter uses words—make the point, and place the final period. Cartoons are dull, much the same way that porn is dull to me. There are no secret formulas left to titillate; everything strives to be as expected, sometimes better, sometimes worse. But no surprises.

Don’t you wish we lived in a world where erections went boing and smiling serpents slithered into caves? That, in the middle of goofy talk one of us would feel free enough to whip it out and say Eh? Eh? Lookit dat piece o’ meat and be waving a big old weenie in a bun? That a woman’s legs could spread so far apart that she’d double in on herself and became some gleefully perverse Visible Woman? Don’t you wish?

The somber nature of our desires is stultifying.

But we go with it, go along, and yeah: that magazine is hot, especially the pics near the centerfold. You don’t have to make any excuses about taking it into the bathroom with you. When you’re done, it’s my turn.

So here is a bond between brothers who aren’t brothers by blood, one bond finally recognized. No need to hum The Old Man of the Mountain anymore, or St. James Infirmary in the middle of our conversations. There were moments when Betty turned me on too—the garter, the skirt, the free-spirited adventures. But at least I knew it to be a cartoon—for what that’s worth—even while I was enjoying it.

But Brother, I still wouldn’t feel right if you watched me. I want to get to that place where my eyes roll back in my head, and the little noises I make are scary. I want my body to shake, and my breath to abandon me momentarily. I suppose I’ve made an art of my masturbation, albeit an imperfect one—one not ready to be shared, even with a self-professed member of a sympathetic school.

That’s a man-to-man thing. It’s different with Gloria. I’ve always wanted her to watch me, and I’ve always wanted to watch her. But up until recently that wasn’t possible. We couldn’t even talk about it, and she would never admit to me (as I did to her) that she did herself, much less speak about how it was done or how she felt.

But recently, it’s been different. Last night in our bed she placed my hand upon hers and made me believe I was guiding it down to the moist spot between her legs. She pushed my fingers inside; then released the pressure and waited. With that hand I played with her; with my other I gripped myself and began pumping. Her body began to roll upwards from her sex; her fingers twisted a nipple. I continued fingering her, moving fingers both inside her and upon her clit. She closed her eyes.

It was soon evident that whatever I was doing wasn’t enough. Her bucking slowed and ceased; her eyes opened once again. The violence and beauty and transformation of our animated state once more turned into a long scene of cartoon talking heads. No tweeties, no stars—only another stale conversation timidly started, and as difficult to maintain as our prior movements had been.

Even though our bodies still touched, I could feel her moving away from me. This was the most haunting detail of the scene, even now as I remember it. There was movement in near stillness, and it was not from joy, or excitement. I didn’t want to stop, but felt that going on was pointless. After years of living together, I finally had that flash I had always dreaded having: we had only been going through the motions. I didn’t really know Gloria at all.

I became a bit irritated and, of course, frustrated by my incomplete arousal. I took my hand from under hers and used it to guide her own fingers into herself as smoothly as I could so as not to betray any of my anger or sense of failure. At the same time I took her other fingers away from her nipple—now hard, lifted away from the softness of her breast—and replaced them with my selfish, sucking lips. I harshly muttered an order—Watch me—into her flesh, as I began pounding myself once again. When she was slow to do so, I lifted her head to be sure she could see.

At once everything was in motion, as the houses and flowers and trees wave happily in the background of a primo cartoon. The road of our lovemaking wound though hill and dale, town and country, and the inhabitants of this cartoon playing itself out inside us were sightseers’ dreams—joyous voyeurs, slowly becoming familiar, so greedily attentive. I personified each of our moves, gave it all a soundtrack both furious and marimba-melodious. I was having a ball: there weren’t even commercials.

She never came. After years of anticipation of this mutual self-pleasuring I never did get to watch her finish. As I became lost in her cooing and grunting, I heard words replace the sounds. First it was what most would consider the usual in moments like this: some fucks, a few oh gawds, even an occasional pump it harder. But at some point I heard another word, hard to make out at first, then difficult to reconcile with our actions, and finally chilling.

It was your name, Brother. And soon, she didn’t even bother to whisper it. Small world, eh? Small as a cartoon, and nowhere near as entertaining—at least not like in the old days.

But I continued jerking myself off before her, rising to my knees between her legs, ignoring her voice. I Meep Meeped, did Daffy, Yeehawed with my free hand waving wildly in the air as if to have it shoot away from my body into the semi-dark of the bedroom. And every time she whispered your name it was like that ten ton weight, dropping unconcerned upon my sweaty hair, flattening my flushed face.

My orgasm was good. I shook and gurgled before I shot; and when I did come I was thankful that both the quality and quantity of my ejaculation (all over her body now still in shock) rivaled a scene from a twisted animation I might have watched on the big screen as a prelude to some B-movie. Gobs of opaque white dotted her belly and breasts, and a spray of strands created a little roadmap over her closed lips, slack and silent now.

Varmint, I can’t be too upset with you. I don’t know your side of the story—who roped whom into what. But Brother, I’m glad we finally fessed up to each other, man-to-man, at least about one thing. Jacking off is a lot of fun, isn’t it? I’ve been doing it for years, almost daily, and many times even when I didn’t know that I was. Gloria has her repressed side but I guess when situations change—as they seem to have recently—everything changes along with them.

Maybe in a few years you can come all over her too.

Somber, our fantasies; and, no matter how odd or agitated when we dream them, they are over in what seems to be six or seven minutes. They never play out as we expect them to—too many writers, damn digital imaging.

Like I said, years ago I couldn’t tell you this story. The story then was another one, more tentative, a pastoral scene. But at some point, Varmint Brother, it took a turn. There wasn’t much to tell before. Gloria said no more about it, but she knows I know—just like we all know that the Coyote will never catch that Roadrunner, but we’ll still watch cartoon after cartoon anyway, learning to insulate ourselves from another’s pain—learning to laugh at an art that in the end is ours too.

So, Buddy, if you’re done with that magazine give it here. We’ll both have some privacy for a few minutes, eh? And I, for one, will be glad that one thing, anyway, will never change.

© 2003 by John E. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.