Chapter 15
During the next few days, in the course of instruction, it was necessary for great Grindle to enter the adorable girl with his member any number of times. It was decided, too, that because of her need for periods of uninterrupted meditation, it would be best for Candy to remain permanently in the grotto, rather than return to the camp. Grindle would visit her there from time to time, bringing food, checking her progress, and carrying on with the instruction.
On the sixth day though, the girl seemed apprehensive when Grindle arrived.
"Are you really sure," she asked, wide-eyed and darling, "that you willed out all the... the spermatazoa from the semen?"
"Certainly," said Grindle with a show of impatience, "why do you ask?"
"Because," said Candy, lowering her voice and blushing deeply, "my... my period is late. And it simply never is!"
"Ach," said Grindle, with a grimace of distaste to reassure her, " nothing! That is nothing in fact, it is a good sign of spiritual advancement. You have transcended the need of it, you see. You have willed it away."
"Oh but I wouldn't," said the girl, most convincingly, "I'm terribly worried when it's late!"
"Well, we shall see," said great Grindle.
The next day he brought her an airplane ticket for Tibet.
"Yes," he said, "your spiritual advancement now is such that you are prepared for the highest enlightenment. You shall walk with the lamas of the holy East."
"Gosh," said Candy, so awed by the idea that she forgot for the moment her earlier worry-though then was quick to remember.
"But Good Grief-what about my period?"
"That is of no concern," said Grindle, with a frown of annoyance. "Spiritually advanced people do not become, how do you say, 'pregnant.' Besides, what does it matter? It is merely a philistine concern."
"Well..." began the sweet girl uncertainly.
"Think no more of it whatsoever," said Grindle, "your thoughts should be on a much higher level. You are about to walk with the holy of the holy-such thoughts would shame their very shadows."
He glanced at his watch.
"Your plane is at 7.30-I believe we have time for one or two more exercises before your departure."
"...oh gosh," sighed Candy in resignation, getting into her basic yoga position: it was certainly no joke, this mystical business, and far from being the easiest of paths for a young impressionable girl.
Forty-eight hours later Candy was standing in the mail line at the American Express in Calcutta.
"Anything for Candy Christian?" she asked brightly, and beamed when the dark-skinned clerk handed her two letters, one postmarked "New York City," the other "Racine, Wisconsin."
She went in to the lounge, and after getting a cold coke from the dispenser, took one of the green leatherette easy chairs near the window overlooking colorful Zen Boulevard and settled comfortably to read her mail from home.
She was sure the New York letter was from Derek, so she decided to save it till last, and she opened the other one, a delightfully scented lavender envelope addressed in the fashionable backhand of her Aunt Livia. It read:
"Gittin' any? Hee-hee. You know I used to travel quite a bit myself. Yes, indeed; when I was in
Italy! Brother! I had so much of that hot greaser dago cock that I stopped menstruating and started minestroning!
Well, if you can be serious for a second (which I doubt-not with your little clit thumping away a mile-a-minute!) I'd just like to tell you that your fuddy-duddy old daddykins is missing in action! That's right, kiddo, he took it on the lam, split the scene, cut on out! Where, who knows? 'Cherchez la tight-pussy femme,' as Colette used to say. Anyway, due to an absurd 'mix-up,' it was your Uncle Jack who was there in the bed during our last bit of funfare at the old h"pital. Natch I was hip to the lay the moment I dug his joint-you may recall I conked on it, only to come up an hour later with an ass full of needles at the hand of Doktor J. O. Heeby- Jeeby himself! Well, you can bet your hot little tushy that he didn't get off easy! He had exposed himself, and I dug that de-frocked ding-dong of his (which I've no doubt you know only too well!) and shouted: 'Stripped for action, eh Doc? Then let 'er rip!' He was all right-a bit self-conscious though to my way of thinking. Kept wanting to 'jay-o' too. But then when it was in the goodie he changed his tune quickly enough and no mistake! I put those puppy- dog tongues on him and he said: 'Good Christ! Good Christ!' Then I hit him with my snapping-turtle just as he was getting his big soulful Hebe nuts off and he yelled at the top of his voice: "CHRIST WAS A JEW!" Flipped him completely, you dig? I felt pretty good about it myself-I mean, me being thirty-four, and him a young soulful-looking cat, snapping his wig like that on account of my tight slick goodie-know what I mean? No, I don't suppose you would. Well then let me just tell you that if a woman don't function, she ain't shit. Think it over, kiddo.
Anyway, I just wanted to put you in the general picture here in Racine. Do let us hear from you, Can-baby-all the best, and don't take any wooden organ!
AUNT LIVIA."
With the letter's early reference to 'menstruation', Candy had been sharply reminded of her own problem in this regard and hardly took in the rest, skimming it with disapproval because of some of the questionable phrases. She put the letter away and had a few sips of coke before opening the other. It read:
"Caught up in the sickening coil-spin of this lewd city-the waiting in bistros, the feigning, the crooked smile and the cold grey winter of sodden remorse, the bone-dry jacked-off emptiness of everything-hardly the trappings for a frothy letter of affectionate concern... and yet, with a nightmare grimace of hilarity frozen onto my heartbreak, do I take pen to hand and say how very much I would like to have some of your snapping-turtle puss.
A FRIEND."
Candy read and re-read the letter. Was it from Derek? Parts of it, of course, were pure poetry, and Candy wondered if it hadn't after all been written by Jack Katt or Tom Smart, perhaps the only persons in the Village capable of real poetry. And yet, it may have been automatic-writing or stream-of-consciousness from Derek! She was terribly excited at the idea, and finished her coke in two gulps. Then she got up and went downstairs and out on to the boulevard. She had just begun walking along when she felt a sudden damp warmth down inside her little honey-pouch, and she knew her dear period had finally come!"Thank Goodness!" she said, and looked at once for a drugstore where she could get some junior- tampons. She finally spotted an herb-shop and went in. The ancient native keeper was squatting on the floor smoking hemp and could not undersand her at all. Candy, the shy precious, would not make the necessary gestures to convey her meaning, so at last had to leave and go back to the American Express, where she borrowed a tampon from one of the secretaries. It was not a junior-size but a regular, and the adorable girl fretted about whether or not it would go in-but she did finally manage somehow, and then, happy and secure, she was off to the great temple at the end of Zen Boulevard.
On the way she passed the ageless 'holy man' who had been pointed out to her already as being the most advanced of India's mystics-an ash and dung-convered old man wearing a simple loincloth, he seemed in a state of complete oblivion as he inched his way along. Evidently, he was going to the temple too. A number of American tourists were following him along, taking pictures of him, trying to get him to pose, smile, or react in some way by offering him money and bits of bread. He seemed quite unaware of their presence however, shuffling along like a man in a trance, and when a cute little girl of six was sent up to him by one of the mothers to get his autograph, he appeared not to even see her. This caused a certain amount of bitter feeling in the crowd of tourists.
"Well, I think that's taking it too far!" one woman was heard to say with indignation, "to jus ignore that cute little child like that! 'Holy' or not, that's just plain not nice!"
"Hole-in-the-head is more like it if my guess is any good!" said the little girl's father, trying to comfort the child now. "It's all right, Doreen, he's just not a nice man!"
It made Candy furious to see these tourists wandering around, gawking at the temples and the holy men.
"They advertise that they want tourists," one of the men was saying, "they tell you you'll be welcome in their country-then we come over here, pour plenty of good dollars into the economy, and what happens? We get the cold shoulder from a bum like that! If it was the cold
shoulder I was looking for, I could of gotten that in Newark! By gosh, somebody ought to punch the guy one in the snoz!"
"Oh Tom," said his wife, touching his arm, "he just doesn't know any better! Didn't you see how he refused the money?"
"Well, he's not too old too learn, is he? He's a nut, if you ask me!"
Candy wanted to scoop the holy man up in her arms and run to the temple as fast as she could. Fortunately though, at that moment the tourists began turning away towards one of the picturesque side-streets.
"We saw the Hindu rope-trick this morning," one of the women was saying, "a little boy climbed right up into the sky and out of sight-Goodness, I'll bet he hadn't had a bath in a month! Why they let their children get so dirty is beyond me!"
"There's a guy down this street supposed to have a 'flying-carpet,'" said a big-stomach man wearing a floral sport shirt and smoking a cigar, "... gives six rupees to the buck too-I don't like the black-market idea myself, but with these prices, who's gotta choice? Know what I mean?"
All this sort of talk just made Candy wring her hands in grief-she only hoped that the holy man hadn't heard and become upset. She wanted to kiss him, or in some way reassure him, but was uncertain whether she should and so merely walked along slowly behind him.
Although they were only about a block from the temple, the holy man's progress was so astonishingly slow that an hour passed before they reached the great steps-whereupon the holy man, like a snail coming to an impasse, merely turned away and began to inch along in another direction. He wasn't going to the temple after all! 'Good Grief!' thought Candy, and at just that moment the temple clock sounded three and she remembered her appointment with the travel office-where she was to complete arrangements for her journey to Tibet-and she had to fly back down Zen Boulevard to the American Express.
A week later, Candy had gotten herself a little attic room in Lhasa, the holy center of Tibet. The American Express in Lhasa had been extremely helpful in finding her a place where the landlady would bring Candy a bowl of porridge each morning in exchange for the girl's assistance two hours a day in winding yak-yarn onto a spindle.
The house was only a short distance from the fabulous temple of Zen-Dowa, and Candy went there every day for meditation, sitting before the huge image of Buddha and focusing all her attention on the nose-tip of the great idol.
When she arrived at the temple this afternoon, the sky above Lhasa was overcast deeply to the hue of rich slate, and Candy paused on the steps of the temple to look out at the snow- peaked mountains against this backdrop of foreboding; the white-top mountains appeared to her allegorically as the bright pinnacles of hope in a trouble-darkened world. She was extremely happy in her new life and did a little twirl of joy now on the great temple porch. The precious girl was still wearing her simple Cracker garment, which, as she twirled, billowed out to permit a glimpse of her darling dimpled knees and a marvelous and tantalizing bit above. It was then that she noticed, sitting in the corner, the holy man she had seen in Calcutta. How on earth had he gotten to Lhasa! Had he inched his way up the Himalayas? It looked as though he might have-he was enshelled in a crust of mud, dung and ash, his hair so matted that it was more like clay than anything else. Candy was sure that he was in the coveted sixth stage of spiritual advancement-she herself was still always fresh and sweet; she had had six more of the simple Cracker shifts made and so she had a fresh change each day.
She could not help staring in awe and reverence at this holy dung-man, who, as in Calcutta, seemed entirely unaware of her presence, either now or earlier when her twirl of joy had flashed a dazzling stretch of superb ivory thigh.
Then it suddenly began to rain. The holy man was sitting near the edge of the porch, only half sheltered and drops of rain were falling on him. Despite her shyness, Candy couldn't bear the idea of his saintly dung-crust being damaged and she rushed over to him impulsively and began to pull him up and away toward the temple door. He was quite thin and pliable and made no resistance whatever, allowing himself to be taken inside the temple, and then seated beside the girl in front of the great image of the holy Buddha.
Candy began her meditation at once, concentrating all her attention on the single spot, the tip of Buddha's nose. It was wonderful for her-all her life it had always been she who had been needed by someone else-mostly boys-and now at last she had found someone that she herself needed... Buddha! And yet, because of her early orientation, of always being the needed one (except by Daddy!), there was something vaguely dissatisfying and incomplete about it-if only the Buddha needed her! But she knew of course that this was a silly feeling and would be in time overcome. She had already begun to think of the Buddha in a personal, almost human way. 'My big friend,' she sometimes said to herself. She glanced at the holy man sitting beside her. He seemed to be paying no attention to her or Buddha, but was simply gazing ahead, into infinity it seemed, while on the roof of the temple now the rain beat down terrifically and an occasional gigantic clap of thunder seemed to make the huge structure shudder to its foundations.
Candy returned her thought and concentration to the Buddha's nose, and put every last ounce of her little meditative power into it-and at that very instant a fantastic thing happened: an astounding crash of sound that seemed to split the earth itself and a tremendous flash of fire which filled the great vaulted roof of the temple while everything around seemed to sway and crumple as though the end of the world had surely come-for the great temple had been struck by lightning! Above them the huge Buddha loomed uncertainly for a breathtaking moment, then, in monumental slow motion, it toppled forward, pitching headlong to the temple floor in a veritable explosion.
Although it seemed to fall right on top of them, Candy and the holy man were miraculously unscathed, and were left bunched together, half buried in the rubble. In the tumult of the crash, Candy had been flung against the holy man frontally so that now they were pressed tightly together lengthwise. It was extremely awkward, for the young girl's shift had been forced well above her waist and her shapely bare limbs now were locked about the holy man's loins. She struggled to free herself but this only succeeded in agitating her precious and open honey-pot against the holy man's secret parts-which were now awakening after so many years and slowly breaking through the rotten old loincloth that swaddled them! 'Good Grief,' thought Candy, when she realized what was happening, and in fact, felt the holy man's taut member ease an inch or two into her tight little lamb-pit. She quickly turned her head to see behind her and to determine what was pinioning them there. And she saw that a part of the huge Buddah had just missed them by inches, and was pressing firmly against her back; it seemed to be balanced in a precarious way and in danger of slipping-and, even as she thought this, she saw that it was in fact slipping, forward, and against her; it was a section of her beloved Buddha's face-the nose! And a truly incredible thing was happening-it was slipping into Candy's marvelous derriere!"Good Grief!" said the girl, half aloud, trying to move forward a little-which merely had the effect of securely embedding the holy man's member deeply into her ever-sweetening pudding-pie.
Above them the lightning bolt had opened a sizable hole at the top of the roof and the summer rain was pouring in on them now in torrents. It had wetted the tip of the Buddha's nose, which did seem, thus lubricated, to be undeniable as it moved slowly into Candy's coyly arched tooky-the warm wet nose of Buddha, the beloved spot of her meditation! Not a wholly unpleasant sensation for the adorable girl as it gracefully eased into her perfect bottom; and it was then that she realized, with the same lightning force of miracle which had split the roof, that wonder of wonders, the Buddha, too, needed her! And so with a sigh of indulgence she stopped her shy squirming and gave herself up fully to her idol, one hand behind her, stroking his cheek, as she gradually began the esoteric Exercise Number Four-and only realizing after a minute that this movement was having a definite effect on the situation in her honey-cloister as well, forcing the holy man's member deeply in and out as it did, and she turned to him at once, wanting to tell him that it wasn't meant the way it seemed certainly, but she was stricken stone dumb by what she saw-for the warm summer rain had worked its wonders there as well, washing the crust of dung and ash away completely, leaving the face clean, bright, and all too recognizable, as the eyes glittered terrifically while the hopeless ecstasy of his huge pent-up spasm began, and sweet Candy's melodious voice rang out through the temple in truly mixed feelings:
"GOOD GRIEF-IT'S DADDY!"