Having an affair with the Episcopalian minister's daughter seemed so natural to Aldwin. Relations with underage Alice, named after Munro, came close to surpassing internet porn. He and her father, Paul, had been college roommates. A photograph of them, class of '83, tipsy from Hennessey, hung in Paul's study.
Cyber-surfing had destroyed Aldwin's marriage, and his wife Melissa finally left with the two children. She vilified him, denouncing his all-night sessions in front of the monitor as a lewd, sneaky way of adultery. She hadn't known about Alice, though.
He'd stood in the book-lined study, where Paul composed sermons, and opened first editions of Munro's works: a sophisticated man, Paul. It amused Aldwin that daughter Alice once tried to read an early Munro, a true Canadian first edition, but ripped the dust jacket. "I wore those damn green fingernails," she told him. "They're sharp as razor wire."
Aldy loved how she scraped his balls with those "fangs," as he called them, in the backseat of the Toyota hybrid, how she tongued and slurped the nails sticky with jizz afterwards. On her eighteenth birthday, celebrating with him, sitting on a vinyl chair in a motel room, Alice made a declaration: No more fangs. "I don't want to wreck Dad's firsts, and bring him grief."
Today, Aldwin made sure he checked every room before locking and securing the office building. Last week, high on MDMA, Alice stowed away overnight in the bathroom. He found her the next morning, naked and asleep, curled around a toilet. Her plan had been to have sex in the vacated office, computers screens backlighting hardcore videos. Even though the Dewhold's were out of town for the weekend, taking Alice with them, compulsion dictated he search every crevice before leaving.
Later that day he found her in the office bathroom. Close to nightfall, they watched porn mpegs in his Toyota parked behind a stand of trees outside of town.
"We're actors, too," she said. The "actors" were naked men and women who screwed on Aldy's laptop screen. He and Alice sat fixated in the backseat. Moving well beyond Stanislavsky's system, the performers lacked emotional identification with their characters, since "characters" no longer existed.
Alice observed the guy reaming a MILF's anal highway had a smaller dick than the other man's bone stretching her pussy.
"'A signifier that has lost its signified has thereby transformed itself in an image,'" she said. "Have you read Fredric Jameson's Postmodernism and Consumer Society?"
"No. Are 'signified' and significant other the same?" he asked, referencing Melissa.
"Maybe, in your case," she said.
"That's why I watch porn," he said. "Everything's image."
The alternative energy company Aldwin started would've suffered an image problem had Kathryn, his associate, found Alice before he had. A motherboard of watchfulness, Kathryn might've blackmailed him, asking for higher salary and benefits than Aldy could afford. She could've informed the Dewhold's about Alice-naked-in-bathroom-land, and his hardcore-Alice-relationship. She knew Gwen, Paul's wife. She hadn't ratted him out, though. He shouldn't niche Kathryn. Maybe she was more open-minded than he assumed. He wasn't certain. ("But I've grown older and wiser/And that's why I'm turning you in/Love me, love me, I'm a liberal": Phil Ochs).
However, today, Kathryn toned down. Her voice crooner-smooth, deeper than before, lightened up on him. She knew that Alice would be disappeared for the weekend. How could she compete with Alice, who wore jean shorts camel-toeing her crotch? Alice's white athletic socks and red sneakers ratcheted up Kathryn's jealousy. She'd seen him with Alice before. He assumed Kathryn hadn't known about his online porn habits. But he couldn't just walk into a clinic and withdraw from his porn jones. Where were those rehab facilities?
Driving out the lot, he saw a green van parked across the street. "KYRB Diagnostics" was written on one side. Its driver spoke into a mobile. Rare: All vehicles left by seven.
Home, he ate two micro-waved soy burgers, steamed organic broccoli and asparagus tips, opened a bottle of organic apricot juice. Afterwards, he booted up the computer. He went to a free all-hand-job website. Some females looked younger than Alice. He never paid. Why should anyone have to pay when it was free for all? But that destroyed poor Al Goldstein, the founder of Screw magazine. He'd made three million dollars thanks to the pioneering success of Screw beginning in the late sixties, selling hardcore openly at newsstands in Manhattan. He should've moved online, but hadn't caught up to new technology. Now he sold bagels from a cart in Times Square.
Once, after watching twelve straight hours of porn, wanking both hard and flaccid the whole time, Aldy's head spun, making him vertiginous. Voila: He finally got it. Masturbation by the planet's first mammals had been the genesis for every conceivable sexual act. Nothing wrong imitating our primogenitors, fancied Aldwin. He tried visualizing the first Homo sapiens jacking off: The premier absurdity of the human race. In darkness, viewing a woman fucking in ripped pantyhose, Aldy couldn't fathom earth's most evolved male mammal yanking off without external stimulation. He chortled, the cable light flashing in the dark.
Then, he remembered Melissa, the two children she bore. Parthenogenesis played no role at all. He had something to do with it. Jerking was for Onans, not fathers. His giggling trailed off, getting excited as the onscreen man was ready to ejaculate on the woman's panty-hosed foot.
Aldwin had tapped into gratification's deep well, the pleasure zone: Porno a benign hobby. Ask Wilhelm Reich, the Austrian psychoanalyst. He wrote that sexual repression was the origin of all irrational behavior and neuroses. So why should Aldwin stop being healthy?
Reich thought that without complete orgasmic release, no humans freed themselves from the bondage of materialistic civilization. Aldy wanted every molecule of sexual fluids set free from their prison in one stroking session. Reversing the trend of ethnic cleansing, he wanted a thorough removal of all fascism, both black and red kinds described by Reich.
Aldwin read about The Night of the Long Knives, when Hitler ordered the execution of SA leader Ernst Rohm and officers who threatened Nazi domination. That night would be the paradigm. Aldy's noble, liberating cumshot future historians might coin, The Ne Plus Ultra of Wanking Night. Difficulties lay in definitions of that 1934 event. Less Husserl and Heideggar, more Gurdjieff and the Kabbalah. Aldy realized he over-intellectualized the basic sex drive. Any historical analogy would make him the most stupid and lamest delusional asshole of the 21st century.
He walked naked through the spacious house, lights turned off. Darkness allowed greatest concentration, no distractions from the multitude of sexual categories he enjoyed. Baroque, not High Renaissance, churned his emotions. Tintoretto and chiaroscuro vivified, not Monet and Impressionism. Though he loved his wife and children, these nights he yanked alone seemed freer. Now that Alice turned eighteen, maybe they could sit together, seeing View-On-Demand videos. His favorite genre at the moment was "Fully Clothed" sex, while Alice's choice was "Strapons," females sticking artificial boners up guys' rectums.
Now single, maybe he'd ask Kathryn over for a Saturday date. If he coaxed her enough, he felt certain she'd be fascinated seeing aggressive women in business suits force male employers to have sex. Shifting their relationship into pure sex rather than infused with office business would be a major achievement if, indeed, he could pull it off. Empowerment meant much to her. She used that word often, though called "Femdom" on websites. Expensive fine wine would set Aldwin back, but the gains would be incalculable. What price orgasm?
He came back from the kitchen with bottled water. He drank lots of it since dehydration was a side effect of long stints before the monitor, continually pulling his pecker. Damn, that car engine outside was much too loud. He peeked out the curtain. When would that driver stop bouncing his foot on and off the accelerator? This wasn't exactly Daytona 500 country. If that guy parked in front of his house wanted to be the next Jeff Gordon, move to Florida, for crissake.
Aldy sat down, ready to watch mpegs of legal-age teen girls audition for acting roles in "straight" films. Apparently, the girls still believed in upward mobility no less than Aldy, whose fortunes could only ascend in this petroleum-addicted age. Or was this "audition" site a hoax, Monopoly-Capital USA seducing him just as it had the girls, sowing confusion, making it more and more difficult to distinguish realty from The Matrix? He'd seen the first one, and was impressed.
Whenever sites had 18 USC 2257 and 75 CFR at the bottom of the screen, all those appearing in hardcore sex were at least eighteen at production time. But he'd seen only 2257, barely discernible, sometimes. Meaning proceed with caution, he figured. For a long time he paid no attention, watching sex without any disclaimers.
Recently, Paul had spoken behind the pulpit against child porn on the Internet, how underage and often homeless runaway girls got coerced or kidnapped into the sex trade. Paul told the congregation that while he hadn't seen any internet pornography himself, any person who'd seen the girls' scared eyes knew they were sex slaves. Paul formed a group supporting new laws to raise the age of consent to twenty-one.
Paul had always been a strong believer in First Amendment freedom of speech. Aldy hadn't been to church in years, but regular attendee Kathryn informed him of Paul's about-face. What about that vibrator and double-pronged dildo in Alice's dresser drawer? Had he seen her strip video she'd uploaded to goodgurlzgonebad.com? Better check out the home front, Paul, before castigating the entire adult film industry. Jesus' parable of the mote and the beam: Everything had gone to Biblical proportions. Wake the fucking up, screamed Aldwin internally.
Caught in a sudden downpour, Aldy scurried across the street, unexpectedly joining Paul. They waited for a break under a movie theater's marquee. Each grabbed show bills placed outside, reading the coming attractions. Paul seemed his usual amiable, bright self, chatting about Alice's new-found interest in high school drama class. Stress crept between each syllable, belying his enthusiasm about Alice's latest discovery. Aldwin said he regretted missing opportunities to see stage plays, preferring movies instead. Uncharacteristic silence followed. In the vacuum, Aldy told Paul if he wanted to see for himself, the eighteen and nineteen teens he wished to save looked happy onscreen.
"It's difficult passing judgment on people enjoying themselves when you only hear second-hand gossip," Aldy said. Paul's face reddened, was about to say something, but changed his mind. He told Aldy that he had to chair a meeting, and walked away.
In the darkness, Aldy grew impatient with that. He drew the browser down, methodically clicking each girl's audition. The last mpeg failed to include a cumshot. He expected one. He hated to be cheated, like Melissa leaving on short notice.
Moving the browser to letter "B" category, he clicked "Bukkake." Was that last woman Melissa? The silvery, thick gel coating her face concealed her features, producing a generic woman, indistinguishable from the other three-plus billion. Special effects might've taken over XXX videos, competing with Pixar. Strange, how Bukkake had for once made him harder. It bored him previously. He switched to "M," clicking "Mature."
An up-thrust of anger came. He recalled how much it hurt being left behind. No, the LaHaye rapture books hadn't influenced him, but real pain in his solar plexus had. The screen clock read 2:14 a.m. He heard air brakes going on and off. He snuck a peek into the dark street. An eighteen-wheeler, lights from atop its cab to the green, red, yellow, and orange lights up and down the length of its trailer illuminated the night. A surprise Christmastime. The air-brake noise overtook the neighborhood. Front doors opened, people outside talked on mobiles. The driver's face couldn't be seen through the tinted glass ( "Where the executioner's face is always well hidden": Bob Dylan.). Twenty minutes later the truck moved from the block, its air horn shrieking.
For whom the bell screams, it screams for thee, Aldy thought, all the while jacking his semi-flaccid member. Standing beside the curtain, the monitor irradiated the dark living room. The monitor's sound turned up, a female voice told a male she'd do anything not to get a spanking. Anything? He hadn't downloaded that. Damn those broken links. Too many times that happened. Nothing "entire of it self" remembered Aldy from college. Who the hell screwed with the computer? Aldy hated that survey course, but John Donne got it right. No privacy existed anymore. Aldwin acknowledged that, transfigured by thedense, onscreen pixel-glow. That insight came as if he finally deciphered a zen koan.
Vehicles streamed past his home the rest of the night. What was this, a convoy of damn morality police? Loud-ass mufflers, whining, screeching fan belts, beeping horns, a police car's siren in the far distance growing louder and louder, shutting off exactly in front of his home. Car doors slammed, at curbside men talked loudly, a voice hollered, "Fuckin' A," as a vehicle drove slowly past. He lived there twenty-one years, and the neighborhood had always been quiet. At sunrise, Aldy dumped his load on the rug. He could've dry-jacked forever, like those women instructed on tutorial videos, teaching orgasm denial to guys so they'd make better lovers.
