Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man by Lawrence Block Page A

thing.
    Don’t get me wrong. I approve of the change in morals. Seduction as a steady diet is a bore. Artificial as hell, and hard on the nervous system.
    Once in a while, though, I miss it. Maybe it’s ninety percent nostalgia. Still, once in a while I miss it.
    So I took a long and lazy time with Rozanne. I inspected every bit of her body, turned her this way and that, kissed her here and there. A dozen times along the way she was within a couple of yards of the orgasmic goal line, and each time I would change the subject and throw her physically offside and penalize her half the distance to the goal. I kept building her up and letting her down, until she reached a point where her blood-pressure level was dangerously high.
    Until finally I said, “Now I’m going to eat your cunt.”
    And she said, “Thank God.”
    I’ll do the Victorian novelist number and draw the veil here, old buddy. The modesty bit. Let’s just say that she got what she came for and came what she got for.
    And liked it.
    A little while later, after she had stopped talking about how divine she felt and how she had dreamed about this but had never, even in her dreams, imagined it would be quite this good, after she had finished bathing my ego in a salve of words, she said, “But what about you, Larry?”
    “What about me?”
    “I know men have needs.”
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    “But aren’t you—”
    “Frustrated? Tied up in knots?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Of course I am. Don’t worry about it. Let’s talk a little.”
    “Because there must be something I could do.”
    “Later, perhaps. If you want.”
    “Of course I want to help you.”
    “But first let’s talk. Why is it that you’re so afraid of getting popped?”
    “Getting popped?”
    “Of not being a virgin anymore.”
    “Oh, getting popped.”
    “Right.”
    “I didn’t know what you meant at first.”
    “I understand. Is it that you’re afraid of getting pregnant?”
    “No, it’s not that.”
    “Because they have pills for that sort of thing.”
    “I know.”
    “And they’re a hundred percent effective.”
    “Oh, I know. It’s not that.”
    “Some kind of sin thing? That good girls have to stay virgins until they get married?”
    “No. I don’t believe that anymore.”
    “Thank God.”
    “I lost my faith. I suppose I’m an atheist.”
    “So am I, thank God.”
    “As a matter of fact, I guess I’d respect myself more if I wasn’t a virgin. I mean, it’s abnormal, being a virgin at my age.”
    “It’s certainly unusual.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Then what is it, Rozanne?”
    “Well, it’s an irrational fear.”
    “Oh?”
    “I went to a psychiatrist once. Actually I didn’t go to him, I went out with him on a date. We saw Plaza Suite .Have you seen it?”
    “No.”
    “I didn’t even know he was a psychiatrist when I dated him. Just that he was a doctor. His sister was married to my sister-in-law’s cousin.”
    “Aren’t they married anymore?”
    “I guess they’re still married. What difference does it make?”
    “No difference at all. I’m sorry I interrupted.”
    “It’s okay.”
    “You were saying about the psychiatrist?”
    “Oh. When I wouldn’t, you know, what you said, that I wouldn’t get popped. He told me I have an irrational fear. That’s how he put it.”
    “Of what?”
    “Pain.”
    “Pain?”
    “Pain.”
    “It only hurts for a minute.”
    “I know that.”
    “Sometimes, for a lot of girls, it never hurts at all.”
    “I know that.”
    “Then—”
    “That’s what irrational about it. I know all that, but knowing doesn’t help. I lie awake nights thinking about getting popped and I start to cry at the thought. I guess you must think I’m pretty hopeless, huh?”
    “Not at all.”
    “I know people who have a thing about heights, they won’t look out a high window, they won’t even have an apartment or work in an office on a high floor. That’s another irrational fear. If I had my choice, I’d rather