My Life as a Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

the Maiden Bereft when Sherman left home for the navy, and the descent of Sherman himself from glamor boy to orthodontist. With Sharon, he had only to allude to some sexual antic or other, give the slightest hint of an interest—for he was not without inhibitions—for her to fall into the appropriate posture or turn up with the necessary equipment. “ Tell me what you want me to say, Nathan, tell me what you want me to do —“ As Zuckerman was a highly imaginative boy, and Sharon so anxious to please, there was, that June, very nearly something new and exciting to do every night.
    The sense of adventure that surrounded their lovemaking (if such is the term that applies here) was heightened further by the presence often of the four pa rents in some other part of the house, or out on the back terrace, drinking iced tea and gabbing. While buggering Sharon on the floor beneath the ping-pong table in the basement of her parents ’ house, Zuckerman would call out from time to time, “ Nice shot, ” or “ Nice return, Sharon ” —even as the feverish young girl whispered up from the canine position, “ Oh it ’ s so strange. It hurts, but it doesn ’ t hurt. Oh Nathan, it ’ s so strange. ”
    Very spicy stuff; more reckless than made him comfortable (Al Shatzky hadn ’ t risen to the top of the zipper industry by being a gen tl e or forgiving fellow), but irresistible. At the suggestion of the adults, they would go off to the kitchen late at night and there like good little children eat oversized syrup-covered portions of ice cream out of soup bowls. Out on the terrace the adults would laugh about the appetite on those two kids—yes, those were his father ’ s very words—while beneath the table where they sat, Zuckerman would be bringing Sharon to orgasm with his big toe.
    Best of all were “ the shows. ” For Zuckerman ’ s pleasure and at his instigation, Sharon would stand in the bathroom with the door open and the overhead light on, performing for him as though she were on a stage, while he would be seated in the dark living room at the other end of the corridor, seemingly looking in the direction of the television set. A “ show ” consisted of Sharon unfastening her clothes (very slowly, deftly, very much the teasing pro) and then, with the little underthings at her feet, introducing various objects into herself. Transfixed (by the Phillies game, it would appear), Zuckerman would stare down the hallway at the nude girl writhing, just as he had directed her to, upon the plastic handle of her hairbrush, or her vaginal jelly applicator, or once, upon a zucchini purchased for that purpose earlier in the day. The sight of that long green gourd (uncooked, of course) entering into and emerging from her body, the sight of the Zipper King ’ s daughter sitting on the edge of the bathtub with her legs flung apart, wantonly surrendering all five feet nine inches of herself to a vegetable, was as mysterious and compelling a vision as any Zuckerman had ever seen in his (admittedly) secular life. Almost as stirring as when she crawled to him across the length of her parents ’ living room that night, her eyes leveled on his exposed member and her tongue out and moving. “ I want to be your whore, ” she whispered to him (without prompting too), while on the back terrace her Mother told his mother how adorable Sharon looked in the winter coat they ’ d bought for her that afternoon.
    It was not, it turned out, a complicated sort of rebellion Sharon was engaged in, but then she wasn ’ t a complicated girl. If her behavior continued to exceed understanding it was now because it seemed so pathetically transparent. Sharon hated her father. One reason she hated him—so she said—was because of that ugly name of theirs which he refused to do anything about. Years and years ago, when she was still an infant in the crib, all five brothers on the Shatzky side had gotten together to decide to change the family name,