The Chinese Egg

Chin in hand, one knee flexed slightly over the other, she lay on the large bed, watching him untangling the wires.

"What's that?" she asked.

"A surprise. Something to make you feel good."

She laughed. "I already feel good," she said and in a sudden, lithe movement raised her uppermost leg straight into the air and held it in a dancer's pose, toes pointed, stretching. He looked up from his work, eyes narrowed, gazed at the dark delta between her legs, the black hairs damp and curling, the lips still a flushed pink. His fingers paused.

She caught him staring. "Excuse me," she said primly. She brought her leg down, pulled her knees toward her and placed an elbow around them. "Please go on with what you were doing."

"This can wait. I have a better idea." He groped for her ankle and she pulled it away, drawing her heels tightly against her buttocks.

"Oh, no, you don't. No seconds. I have to be at the auditorium in 45 minutes. Now, be a good boy and tell me what that thing you're working on is."

She was in town to address a convention of the Illinois state Democratic party. He had come along because she didn't like staying alone in strange hotels and because, as she put it, he helped to maintain a sense of perspective.

He sighed a bitter martyr's sigh.

"It's something to remind you of me when I'm not with you." He thought for a moment, then snickered. "No, it's more a like a bookmark. Here, look."

He held out his hand, palm up. On it was a small flesh-colored egg, perhaps an inch and a quarter in diameter. From one end coiling wires led to a box, also flesh-colored. On it was a small red switch. His finger moved the switch and the egg began a jittery dance on his palm. There was a very slight humming noise. She leaned forward, fascinated by its movements. Their eyes met.

"What is it?" she asked.

"My surrogate," he said, smirking. "When, for whatever reason, from pressing engagement to simple exhaustion, I can't be inside you, this will keep my place for me."

Still uncomprehending, she searched his face, looked down at the egg, then understood. "Why, you egotistical bastard!" she said, and began to hit him with a pillow. "You're God's gift, all right. What the hell makes you think I want to be reminded of you, anyway?"

"Hey, careful!" he said, laughing, alarmed. "This thing cost me thirty bucks. And the wires are fragile."

The egg jittered off his hand and disappeared among the disordered sheets of the bed. She joined him in searching for it. A moment later he held it triumphantly aloft.

"I don't want to be remembered. I just want my interests protected. It's sort of an updated chastity belt. It's to keep you so exhausted you won't have the strength to go out looking for it when I'm not here to give it to you."

He shut the egg off. She looked at him coolly.

"Oh, come on, Katie. I'm joking, for God's sake. I have here in my hand the secret of the inscrutable smile worn by uncounted generations of Oriental women, and all you can do is give me that look of yours."

"And what look is that, pray?"

"The one like I'm some sort of exotic bug, and you can't decide whether to be fascinated or disgusted."

"You might have asked me first, David."

"Asked you? Asked you what? It was supposed to be a surprise. I thought you'd be pleased."

She turned away, crossing her arms under her breasts, hugging herself. "I think we make love rather well together."

"So do I. What's that got to do with anything?"

"Then we shouldn't need one of those sex aid things for people who are bored with each other, should we?"

He put a hand on her shoulder, shook it gently. "Hey, this isn't like you. I just figured you might get a kick out of it, that's all. If it bothers you that much, I'll get rid of it."

"Why do I have the feeling that you're the one getting the kick out of it, I wonder?" She looked at him appraisingly. "Oh, go ahead, tell me the secret of the unscrewable Orient. I'm dying of curiosity." She brushed a straying bit of hair out of her eyes and poked a cautious finger at the egg.

"No." He pretended to sulk. "Plenty of frustrated women out there would love to know the secret of the egg. And why Asian ladies take those little teeny steps. It's not the tight silk skirts." He laughed. "Only this egg is even better. Theirs weren't motorized."

She looked at him coyly.

"Do you do what I think you do with that?"

"Uh huh. Just exactly what you think."

"What do you do? I want you to tell me."

"You know. You put it up there and then-"

"No, say it. I want you to say it. Tell me exactly what you do with it."

He looked at her, beginning to be exasperated, then saw the smile she was trying to hide.

"Okay, you put it in your cunt. Just push it right up your cunt and then turn it on whenever you want a good time," he said, very slowly, as if explaining something to a child.

She frowned. "You know I don't like that word."

"What word? Cunt? Okay, pussy. Quiff, quim, twat."

She laughed. "Twat. I never heard that one before. Sounds like how I feel about it some days. Twat."

"Okay, so you put it in your twat, then."

"Don't you have to lubricate it, or something?" She put her hand to her mouth, giggled, her eyes sparkling.

"I suppose that depends on how interested the woman is in what's going on. Maybe, maybe not. We'll just have to try it."

"Gee, that's fascinating. Too bad we don't have somebody we can try it on." She began to edge away from him.

"Oh, but we do, my dear. You. Here, I'll show you."

He lunged for her, caught her by the ankle, then pinned her leg with his chest. Holding the egg aloft in his left hand, he groped his way up her leg with his right, handhold by handhold. She gave a little shriek of laughter, began to kick at him. His fingers left red marks on the even white satin of her thigh.

"Whoa, Katie! Slow down! Jesus, you're gonna break it yet. Do you want to try it or don't you?"

"I don't know." She hesitated. "I guess so. It's not going to hurt, is it?"

"No, it's not going to hurt. Look at it. It's not even as big around as I am."

"Oh. Safe enough for young girls who don't want to compromise their amateur status, then?"

"Excuse me, am I being insulted?"

"What about getting electrocuted? You said it had a motor."

"Katie, it's got a goddam battery. You couldn't even get a shock from it. They have to test these things practically forever before they let people use them. You know, lab mice, rabbits. Monkeys, maybe. Very happy monkeys. The whole nine yards."

"The consumer product safety people test sex appliances? Don't bullshit me, David."

"Yeah, they do. Or the FDA does. Or somebody does. Look, do you want to try it or not? Yes? Okay, then. Lie back and spread your legs. No, more. And raise your knees a bit. And relax. We're never going to get it in you if you lie there like you're made out of wood. Jesus, even your toes are rigid. C'mon, loosen up."

Fractionally, she unbent.

And, concentrating avidly, he parted the lips of her pussy with a thumb and forefinger. Delicately, he placed the small end of the egg against the opening. It stuck for a moment, then started in, pulling the labia and some of the silky black pubic hair into the interior with it. He frowned, pulled the egg back out. He brushed the hairs away from the orifice as well as he could, then traced the delicate palisade of the labia with a finger, making sure of the lubrication. This time, he stretched them wider. But again the egg pulled the damp hairs into her vagina.

"Katie, you're going to have to help with this. I need more hands. It's pulling your pussy hairs into your pussy with it."

"I thought you were the expert. Secrets of the Orient and all that."

"It didn't come with any installation instructions. You don't want a bunch of hair in your snatch, do you?"

"What do you think happens when you fuck me, idiot? Are you worrying about hair when you're pushing your thing up there?"

"Don't be crude. Come on, Katie. It looks unsanitary, or something. Just hold it open until I get this thing started. No, use two hands. One on either side. Yeah, like that."

Using just the index fingers of both hands, she pulled the labia apart as far as she could, enlarging the opening for the egg. The pale coral flesh, thin as a bird's, stretched nearly to translucence, revealing her urethra and vaginal opening.

"Good. Open wide and say 'ah'. Hold it just like that." He pushed the egg slowly into the opening. "God, you're still soaking wet. Shame to waste this on a lousy egg."

"Most of the wet's your fault, my man."

He applied steady pressure. A third of the egg disappeared. He pushed harder, felt her flinch. Carefully, he inserted a finger into the opening below the egg, pulling the floor of the vagina downward to make it larger.

"Ouch!" she said. "You're hurting."

"Katie, you have to relax. I can feel you tensing up around my finger. You've had bigger things than this up there. And no smartass comments."

She laid her head on the pillows, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I'm trying. Is that better?"

The widest part of the egg was slowly consumed by the pink opening and then, quite suddenly, it was in, the vagina closing around the wires. Her toes gripped the sheets.

"Is it in now?" She raised herself awkwardly on her elbows, trying to see. Suddenly fearful, she drew her knees up as far as she could, fingers fumbling for the wires.

"Hey, don't do that!"

Their hands met. He gripped her fingers, hard.

"After all the work to get it up there, don't you at least want to see how it feels?"

She laughed, shakily.

"Sorry. It reminded of something that happened to me when I was about twelve, the way it just suddenly disappeared that way."

"Yeah? What happened?"

"Oh, I was playing with myself, using a plastic lipstick case, and it slipped out of my fingers. Same sort of oops-it's-gone feeling."

"I didn't know little girls played with themselves."

"Don't play dumb. They just don't make a career out of it, like little boys do."

"Did you come?" he asked, interested in that morbid way lovers are about the unformed time before they met.

"No, I didn't. I got scared when I lost the lipstick. I was terrified that my mother would find out, that I'd have to go to the hospital or something to get it out. That sort of spoiled it."

"So, did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Have to go to the hospital to get it out?"

"No. I couldn't reach it with my fingers. I didn't know you could put your whole hand up there if you relaxed- your gynecologist has a hard time talking you into that the first time. I didn't know what else to do so I just tried to squeeze it out. That was the beginning of the fabulous muscle fuck you're always raving about, by the way."

"And telling all my friends about."

"Pig. You'd better not be telling."

"Nobody believes me anyway. Well, with this you can relax and just concentrate on how it feels. You probably won't want to take it out. But if you do, all you have to do is pull on the wires and out it comes.

"You said the wires would break. Liar."

"Shhh. Here goes." He pushed the red switch, looked at her face expectantly.

She frowned slightly, brought her knees together. "Mmmm," she said. She folded her hands across her stomach, closed her eyes and let her breath out.

"Hey," he said after nearly a minute had passed. He tugged gently at the wires. "Are you still there?"

"It's still buzzing," she said in a rather faraway voice. "But you can't hear it. You can just feel it."

"Does it feel good?"

"Yeah." She was quiet for a long moment, until he was about to tug the wires again. "It isn't quite like having sex, you know, with all of it going on between my legs. This is more all over. I think it might be touching my cervix.

"Look!" he crowed, pointing. "I'd say it felt good! Your nipples are standing up like posts!"

She opened her eyes, passed her hands slowly, caressingly, over her breasts. The nipples were hard little buds under her palms, deliciously sensitive. "My God," she breathed wonderingly. "So they are. So they are."

She stirred languidly in the rumpled sheets, turned on her side, curled up and hugged a pillow to her belly. The wires trailed from her exposed sex.

He watched her hungrily. "Hey, remember me? I want to play, too," he said. He switched off the box and prepared to pull the egg out.

"No-o-o,," she protested, curling up still tighter and trying to slap his hand away. "Leave us alone. Go away. I don't need you anymore." She regarded him through half-closed eyes. "I could get used to this, you know. No more men sweating all over me and getting wet spots on the bed. Just me and my egg. Turn out the lights when you go, will you please, darling?"

"Like hell. Who bought the damned thing? Anyway, it's just a labor-saving device. Cuts out all that tedious foreplay, but when it's time to finish the job, you want a real man."

She sat bolt upright in bed, hand to mouth, eyes wide.

"Time? Oh, my God! What time is it?"

"Jesus, 12:10. We better hurry. You're on in twenty minutes."

She knelt on the bed, tugging frantically at the wires.

"No, wait a minute. Leave it in. It won't hurt anything."

"Don't be ridiculous. Help me get it out. Oh, shit, it won't come! Just like when I was twelve. David, this is all your fault. I'll never forgive you if I'm late because of this thing!"

"Take it easy, take it easy! It probably created some kind of vacuum up there, if it fits tight enough. If you pull the wires out of the egg, you're really going to be sunk. You have to do it slow and easy."

"I don't have time to do it slow and easy, goddammit!"

"Then just leave it in. That's what they're for. The Orient, remember?"

She stopped, looked at him, considering. "What if I have to pee?" she asked.

"No problem. We can run the wires the other way, up the crack of your ass, like this. The battery box clips onto the back of your skirt, or somewhere.

Do

you have to go to the bathroom?"

"No. Not right now."

"Okay. And if you have to do the other, you have to take your pants down anyway, right? And the box can come down with them."

He helped her dress, to save time. He stood behind her, holding the box up and pulling the wires between her legs, tucking them into the cleft of her buttocks as she leaned over and stepped into her panties. He kept the wires out of the way while she gathered and tugged her pantyhose up first her right leg, then her left, and finally wriggled them over her slender hips. He watched the nylon stretch and pale at the backs of her thighs as she bent to straighten the ankle of her right stocking. He put his hand between her legs, firmly tracing the line of the wires between the lips of her sex, now separated from his fingers by two layers of cool cloth, then up the cleft of her buttocks. She grabbed his hand, pushed it away.

"Don't, David. I mean it."

"Just making sure everything is staying put. How come the crotch of pantyhose never fits right up into your crotch? There's always about an inch gap."

"It fits close enough. It doesn't need any help from you. Ish," she said, as she pulled her slip and then her skirt up. "I didn't even have time to wash myself. I'm going to have a bad case of sticky panties. I don't stink, do I?"

He clipped the battery box to the waistband of the grey flannel skirt, making sure it wasn't going to fall down.

"Just like a pager. Very vintage," he said, stepping back to survey his handiwork. "Every busy young career woman should have one. No, you smell wonderful. Like sex. Let's see, you don't need a bra. With those little tits, I don't know why you ever wear one. Where's your blouse?"

She glared at him, grabbed the cream-colored heavy silk blouse off the chair back and drew it over her bare arms. Glimpsed below her armpit, her taut, perfect breasts barely swayed when she straightened her back. He helped button, reaching around her and watching their two sets of fingers in the full-length mirror on the closet door. He tucked in the back of the blouse while she tucked in the front, being careful not to dislodge the box from its perch. She stepped to the other bed in the room, where the open suitcase rested atop the tightly tucked-in spread and began to hunt through the pile of jeans and casual tops. With a small exclamation of satisfaction, she found the matching grey flannel jacket under a violet tank top with a downward-pointing arrow and the legend 'This End Up' in yellow and threw it over her shoulders.

"Hey, be careful!" he warned, knotting his tie in front of the mirror "You'll knock the box off."

"Oh, fuck the box!" she exclaimed savagely. "Why did I let you talk me into this? Where are my shoes?"

Half hopping toward the door, stepping into the black calfskin low-heeled shoes as she went, she motioned at the attaché case lying on the table. He grabbed it and his suit coat, and followed her out the door. An instant later, he reached back in and shut off the light.

In the cab, he watched the traffic on Michigan Avenue while she went over her notes, a look of furious, penitent concentration on her face. His only attempt at conversation had been met with a pointed silence. She had very nearly slapped him when, to get her attention, he had slipped a hand behind her back and turned on the egg. Her startled jump and the cabbie's knowing smile in the rearview mirror gave him considerable satisfaction. There was much fumbling and angry whispering before they got it shut off again, muffled as the switch box was by several layers of clothing. Now he smiled at his reflection in the glass as she crossed first her left knee over her right, then right knee over her left, and finally sat rather awkwardly with her knees about six inches apart while she read. In a matter of minutes, they were at the hotel where the convention was being held.

At first, walking at the state chairwoman's side with David trailing them at a neutral distance, she took little mincing steps, as it seemed to minimize the egg's motion. But this required an awkward scamper to keep up with the woman. Consciously, she lengthened her stride. The movement of the egg increased. It was a sort of squirming and sliding deep inside her, surging with the swift tidal sweep of her legs past each other again and again, mildly irritating and exciting at the same time, a bit like clumsy foreplay and a bit like having to go to the bathroom. And no one knew. That was the beauty of it, just as he'd predicted. It was a sort of wicked masquerade that made her different from what she seemed. Rather wicked and dangerous and free, like wearing a short skirt and no panties. She felt like laughing aloud. It was crazy, she thought, but this small plastic egg at her center somehow made her more sensuously aware of her whole body. She felt the nyloned swish of her knees passing each other, the shock of her heel hitting pavement and being transmitted up the back of her leg to her buttocks; felt the soft wind stirring the loose hairs at the back of her neck and the slight bounce of her breasts with each step. As they hurried into the auditorium, she found it hard to follow the nonstop chatter of the chairwoman and made an effort to concentrate.

"And is there anything you would particularly like me to mention in my introduction of you, Katharine?" she was asking. Kate couldn't decide at that moment whether she particularly wanted it mentioned or would die rather than have it revealed that she was wearing a Chinese sex appliance while she spoke. Get a grip, kid, she thought. Nearly showtime.

They seated David next to Kate on the dais and introduced him as her husband, which annoyed her greatly. They had both assumed that he would be sitting somewhere in the audience; obviously, the idiot hadn't objected. In a show of supreme self confidence or simple oblivion, he was smiling and nodding benignly at everyone on the dais. Turning slightly away from him in her chair, she made a show of studying her notes while the chairwoman read her introduction. Before the polite applause had fairly begun, while the chairwoman was still turning, holding out an arm in her direction, Kate was already on her feet. But David, prompted by some dim chivalric memory, rose with her, placing his right hand in the small of her back to propel her lightly forward. And accidentally turned on the egg.