CHAPTER 4: Epiphany (preclimacticus)
Whereby, in accordance with the Principles & Techniques of Superprotracted Foreplay, the author attempts to stretch his readers' fortitude to the breaking point on a literary rack before fully satisfying their prurient curiosity over how a starknaked sexgoddess helped him write the first sentence of Morons Awake! in the following chapter.
FRANKLY, DEAR READER, I can't tell you for certain how that Eldorado and its nude driver made their way to the corner of Hollywood & Vine. What I do remember with photographic clarity is this: I was listening to the 4th (Adagietto) movement of Mahler's Fifth Symphony playing on KUSC when the sound suddenly changed from stereo to quadraphonic. And, when I glanced to my left through the Winnebago's open window to locate the cause of that additional amplification, there she was—a vision of female glory, sitting starknaked behind the steering wheel of her pristine 1959 flamingopinkmadeinDetroitDreamMachine with its top down and radio tuned to 91.5 on the FM dial! Like yours (should have done), my mind flashed immediately back to the dinner conversation I had with that Moronic acquaintance of mine about the chances of just such an event (sans the starknaked sexgoddess) actually happening.91
My recollection of what happened just before I turned to see what I saw is, understandably, somewhat hazier. After all, even when a man of my extraordinary aplombG actually witnesses a spectacle as stunning as the one that greeted my eyes it's not surprising if, momentarily, the equilibrium with which he normally ruminates on such erotogenic phenomena from the safety of his armchair is temporarily shattered. Therefore I can only speculate on precisely how that automotive mirage of classic mid20thcentury Americana—and its equally atavistic driver—came to occupy the lane next to mine. Even so, since my conjectures in this regard are those of someone who did in fact perceive the subsequent events with his own eyes, they should, I think, be given the benefit of any doubts you might have about my objectivity. Having said all that ,you will, no doubt, be surprised to learn: It is my carefully considered opinion the Eldorado Biarritz and the Jayne Mansfield lookalike driving it did not "spontaneously materialize" at the corner of Hollywood & Vine. Nor, for that matter, do I think they were "deposited" there by the "theatrical" machinations of some celestial "stagemanager."
No. After cogitating on this matter for a substantial period of time I am persuaded both the Cadillac convertible and its driver were not figments of my imagination or the conjuration of some divine magician. What I saw was indeed a miracle—but one made from stuff that couldn't have been more tangible and/or of terrestrial origin. Steel, chrome, glass, rubber, paint, wax, leather—and the alltoo actual flesh of a very real female. Such were the earthy ingredients from which my epiphany was made; an epiphany whose unfolding might have been scripted by that raciest of filmmakers, Federico Fellini. And, while destiny may have set the stage in such a way as to make my meeting with that barebreastedplatinumblondesex goddess inevitable, those 345 horses harnessed beneath the gleaming hood of her appropriately marqued92 chariot played a decisive role in making our rendezvous the fait accompli it became when they maneuvered her to the corner of Hollywood & Vine with, as it turned out, not a moment to spare.
After repeatedly promising you this would be "the longawaited consummation to all of your climactic expectations," my dear reader, you must be asking yourself: "What conceivable reason could there be for the author's obsession with these tiresome 'metaphysical' questions surrounding the nature of his socalled 'epiphany'—and his equally infuriating habit of paying more attention to her '59 Eldorado Biarritz than he does to the exhibitionistic (and probably nymphomaniacal) 'sex goddess' driving it?"
Believe me, dear reader, I would like nothing better than to report what happened to me at the corner of Hollywood & Vine in the simplest terms—and the shortest time—possible! Like you, my own climactic expectations have been stretched to a such a painful point I'm beginning to wonder if any pleasure, no matter how sublime, can ever compensate me for it. And, it must be remembered, unlike you I suffer the additional torments of authorship! Torments which include my responsibility for not simply satisfying your prurient curiosity with a cheap novelistic thrill but in a way that will exalt the Literary Masterpiece as that most satisfying of all erotogenic art forms.
But, dear reader, have no fear! The Grand Finale to all your novelreading anxieties is at hand! Whether you realize it or not I am already in the process of orchestrating a crescendo to end Book One of Morons Awake! with an eruption of ideosexual pyrotechnics that will, I promise you with the utmost sincerity, be nothing less than volcanic!
Still, despite its italicization, and no matter how sincerely it is sworn, you are bound to ask if I can be trusted to keep that promise when all the others I've so far made turned out to be false—ar at least misleading? It's a fair question. It is, indeed, the same question every woman in the 4th, 5th or 6th hour of foreplay puts to me when her blind faith in my lovemaking mastery lapses from the sheer fatigue of repeatedly believing she has been brought to the very brink of having her Sleeping Beauty dreams culminated—only to be told by me that their finalization must be postponed yet again. As a matter of fact, if such a crisis of faith doesn't arise in the course of trying to satisfy a woman's sexual cravings it can be taken as evidence of foreplay malpractice! And, since this topic has been raised, I should point out to you that, from a masculine perspective, extended foreplay is an unmitigated act of sexual charity. In those 6 or 7 hours it takes to make one frustrated female's dreams of extramarital bliss come true an expert foreplayist like myself could easily ravage his way through an entire harem of less demanding females!
Why have I chosen to introduce this "sour" note regarding the decidedly nonegalitarian (ease of orgasmwise) nature of the way males and females are created into this otherwise lofty discussion concerning the methodology of novelwriting? I did it to highlight the fact that: The altruistic heroism demanded of any man who sacrifices himself on the altar of female sexual frustrations is identical to that needed by a novelist seeking to nourish his reader's mind as he satisfies her craving for romantic junkfood. While it's true even the greatest literary masterpieces have been written to please the ordinary people who read them, it is also true the average reader is blissfully unaware of the sacrifices made on her behalf by the author in doing so. Just as the foreplayist shouldn't be surprised when, no matter how Herculean they might be, his labors bear him only the bitter fruit of ingratitude, so too a novelist must expect those who profit the most from his "martyrdom" to complain the loudest about the "purpleness" of his prose or the "petty pacing" of his plot. Despite their eventual praise for my amatory expertise, I carry the scars of the scorn, ridicule, insults, curses, bites, scratches, punches and miscellaneous mental and physical abuse inflicted on me by those thousands of women into whose lackluster lovelives I brought a ray of romantic sunshine during my 50 years in Moronia. What the beneficiaries of Superprotracted Foreplay—and the readers of a Literary Masterpiece—find so difficult (if not impossible) to comprehend is: while she is unquestionably the principal object of such an exercise, that fact doesn't entitle her to sit in the driver's seat.
ALL OF WHICH BRINGS US to the reason why, having arrived at the very edge of this expectational cliff, we are now taking one last backward step before hurling ourselves headlong into that climactic freefall from which there can be no retreat. When elevated to a fine art the ultimate purpose of practicing Superprotracted Foreplay on a woman is not merely to approximate that moment of ejaculatory bliss all men enjoy as their sexual birthright, but to attenuate the rather more (as it should be) ladylike consummation of her climactic expectations for as long as it is (super)humanly possible to so do. In my own case I've been known to prolong a female Moron's version of an orgasm for up to a staggering 45 minutes! And, having mastered the techniques by which I achieved such an unprecedented feat of lovemaking, it occurred to me those same techniques might be applied to art in general; and especially to writing a literary masterpiece like Morons Awake!. As it happens, one of those techniques involves discussing the nature of a woman's climactic expectations with her while she is actually in the process of climaxing them. And, since the relationship of a foreplayist to his clientele is indistinguishable from the relationship of an author to his readers it is only logical that, as you stand poised on the brink of having your literary expectations climaxed, we should discuss the nature of what you are reading as I am in the process of writing it. Some might reject this suggestion as going far beyond the bargain a reader makes with her author when she accepts his proposition to engage in a tete-a-tete whose objectives are "strictly intellectual." Others will assert that, while foreplay is a fundamentally physical affair, the writing and reading of a book couldn't be more platonic. A few of you will even claim that for the same reason they are incapable of ejaculation, females are biologically prevented from appreciating the pornographic nuances of fine art.
These objections all arise from a basic misconception regarding the true character of foreplay. What most authors (and wouldbe foreplayists) fail (or refuse) to comprehend is that a woman's amorous aspirations (whether she knows it or not) are, in point of foreplay fact, considerably more cerebral than gynecological. If I've learned anything from my half century of spreading preorgasmic rapture throughout the female populace of Moronia it's this: The most effective foreplay techniques aren't those applied to the erogenous zones of a woman's body; but those which exist within the realm of her mind. But this axiom of Moronic foreplay also explains, does it not, the addiction American women have for the reading of romantic novels? Why else do they continue their loveaffair with a genre that should be deader than a dodo in these days when any randy housewife can slip an XXXrated video into her VCR and, with a remote control in one hand and a vibrator in the other, sprawl on a couch to wallow mindlessly in the mud of an "art form" that leaves virtually nothing to her imagination?
IT IS THIS INFATUATION AMERICAN WOMEN (God bless them!) persist in having with books (no matter how trashy) that convinces me the lessons I learned perfecting the art of Superprotracted Foreplay are applicable to writing the Great American WakeupCall. In addition to the previously mentioned technique whereby a foreplayist openly discusses the nature of her orgasmic expectations with his client while she is in the process of climaxing them, there are several other aspects of the foreplay and/or novelistic modus operandi which deserve your attention at this preclimactic juncture. The most important of these is probably that quantumG contribution I made to the field of climaxenhancement known as "Goldberg's Gestalt Principle"—or The Theory of Total Foreplay. This principle deals with the role played by ambient factors in improving a woman's prospects for having her precoital requirements completely satisfied. The methods for enriching that emotional milieu in which the fullest flowering of her sexual desires can be cultivated include such an apparently trivial matter as the way a foreplayist sets the stage upon which the psychosexual drama he is plotting will unfold. For instance the furniture most likely to assuage the inhibitions of a first time adulteress (or virgin) is that of Louis XVI which, even to women oblivious of its pornographic provenance evokes subconscious memories of Marie Antoinette and the Marquis de Sade. Scrupulous attention must also be paid by the foreplayist to not only what is hung on his bed chamber walls but in every room of his "lovenest." Personally I find Beardsley's illustrations for Lysistrata, Manet's Dejeuner sur l'herbe, Picasso's Bacchanalian etchings and any Modigliani nude particularly effective in establishing an atmosphere even the most uncultured females find irresistibly seductive. [See Appendix O for examples]
The same discrimination should, of course, be used when choosing those other objects d'art with which the foreplayist embellishes his amatory decor. In this regard, to supplement the usual assortment of contemporary sculptural erotica, I suggest a generous deployment of those fertility icons from Africa, Asia and preColumbian South America whose sexual symbolism doesn't require an advanced degree in cultural anthropology to be appreciated. As for the effect of the books lining one's library shelves and adorning one's coffee table, whether their pornographic core is hard or soft they should reflect the impeccable taste of their collector. In any case, the novels of Anaïs Nin, Henry Miller and D. H. Lawrence should be prominently displayed. This is especially true when your client is an American whose suspicions of foul (fore)play could be aroused by what she might otherwise perceive as the pathological character of the sexuallyexplicit reading material in your collection.
Even the food and drink provided during those not infrequent pauses for the mutual rest and refreshment of foreplayist and client alike should meet the highest standards. No expense should be spared in procuring the best champagnes, wines and hard spirits. Nor should the cuisine be unworthy of that set upon the plate of a genuine princess (or "QueenForADay"). While these culinary details might seem inconsequential—especially when they are lavished on some CountryBumpkin93 who can't tell a truffle from a turnip—it is the cumulative effect of such details on a woman that creates the orgiasticG sense of occasion to which she believes herself capable (and worthy) of rising. Concerning the foreplayist's vocabulary and grammatical style: These should be sufficiently exalted to impress the average woman with his towering intellectual superiority without being altogether incomprehensible. The trick here (and it's not an easy one) is to speak (or write!) in a way that seems to be conversational while, in fact, you are talking about the most esoteric ideas. There are several methods for doing this (examples of which permeate Book One of Morons Awake!). For the most part they involve repeating words not commonly associated with casual conversation (or trashy reading material!) in a variety of contexts until their meanings are, more or less, understood by the listener to be those the speaker intends them to be. It is also good practice when dealing with complex ideas whose expressing requires a syntax of commensurate convolution to punctuate one's sentences with colloquialisms—especially those resonating with erotogenic overtones; such as: "the art of foreplay," "orgasmic expectations," "barebreastedplatinumblondesex goddess," "erotogenic overtones," etc.
IF THIS REMINDS YOU OF THE METHODS A teacher uses on her students to put some "fun" into a Latin or algebra lesson it's no accident. When all is said and done about its obvious pornographic connotations, in the final analysis Superprotracted Foreplay is (or should be) an educational affair. Hence the time I devote to edifying my clientele on such subjects as comparative anatomy, the history of Western Civilization, cultural anthropology, semantics, metaphysics, martyrdom and, of course, the appreciation of fine art. All of which help elevate the average Moronette or -ess' mind to that minimum plateau of erudition needed before she can begin to understand exactly what it is I am trying so laboriously to do to (and for) her.94 This tutorial process is not unlike the "expository hoops" through which the reader of a novel must jump before she is capable of fully enjoying whatever plans the author has in mind for satisfying her "romantic" needs. In the average gothic novel these preliminary matters are normally disposed of in the first few paragraphs (if not the initial sentence). The assumption being that any female addicted to reading such claptrap is in no mood to wait 40 or 50 pages for her fictional fix. The truth is, of course, just the opposite. Those housewives whose literary thrills are derived from speed reading their way through the bestseller list of fornication fantasies are driven to do so because the very hastiness of their real sexlives leaves them with an overabundance of free time on their hands. It is precisely this state of marital affairs (or the lack thereof) whose lovemaking vacuum Mother Nature has rectified with the advent of virtuosic foreplay, as pioneered by practitioners as myself. If this analysis is applied to the assumptions (erroneously) made by most gothic novelists about the limited intelligence and abbreviated attention span of their readers, it's not unreasonable for me to hypothecate the existence of a literary void just waiting to be filled by a monumentally turgidG book like the one you are now reading.
And last, but by no means least, there is that background factor without which the escalating frenzy of foreplay can never be properly nourished—music. According to the conventional wisdom, all that's needed to put a woman in the appropriate mood is an album or 2 of TinpanAlley ballads "crooned" by Sinatra, Eckstein or Torme. Unfortunately, the results of such a simpleminded strategy are just as conventional as the "wisdom" on which they are predicated. In my experience the music most likely to light a fire within the loins of an average housewife is the "long haired" variety which she has been brainwashed into believing women of her Mainstream Moronic or American mentality are incapable of appeciating. Consequently, those "tunes" occupying the top 10 slots in my Superprotracted Foreplay Hit Parade aren't written by Irving Berlin, Hoagie Carmichael and/or Cole Porter but by Richard Wagner,Franz Schubert and/or Gustav Mahler! While the erotogenic effects of Tristan und Isolde or Mahler's/Beethoven's Fifth Symphonies on a Moroness can't be precisely replicated in a literary format, by weaving repeated references to works such as these into Morons Awake!'s thematic tapestry it should be possible to produce at least a psychic echo of their musical resonance.
As we approach the Grand Finale of our story how fitting it is that this discussion of the similarities between foreplay and literature should end on a musical note. Throughout Book One I've made no secret of my scheme to "orchestrate" its writing in overtly symphonic terms. And now, having done what I set out to do, all that remains is the unleashing of those "motifs" I have marshaled so methodically for the tumultuous "crescendo" of your novelistic expectations—a crescendo that has been gathering itself relentlessly since you read the first sentence of Morons Awake! and is presently about to climax in that volcanic eruption of seminal pyrotechnics to which I alluded earlier in this chapter. Hence my emphasis now on brassier elements like that of the platinumblondesexgoddesssittingstarknakedinherflamingopinkmadeinDetroitvintage AmericanMusclemachine. There is also the increasingly relentless (Bolerolike?) effect of these comparisons I keep drumming on95 between the art of foreplay and the foreplay of art. The (virtual) disappearance of all those "irksome" footnotes96 is yet another feature of the accelerating orchestral momentum that indicates the onset of a symphonic crescendo.
Yes, dear reader, it's true! At long last the beginning has come to an end and the ending is about to begin! The stage is set. All the instruments are poised. The audience holds its breath. A hush of preclimactic expectancy falls. The conductor's baton is raised—
Time itself seems to stand still.
The novelist's sentences grow shorter.
And shorter.
Until—
Book One Chapter 5 Part 1 Return to Index
Footnotes
91 In case you've forgotten, the gist of that conversation went like this: Since neither of us had ever heard anything but the trashiest kind of "musical noise" coming from an adjacent vehicle while our own cars were stopped at a traffic light we were both more or less skeptical either of us would ever witness such a "miraculous event." Nevertheless, for the sake of argument we asked ourselves if indeed either of us ever did hear Mahler's Fifth Symphony (or its equivalent) playing on another motorist's radio whether it might portend a positive change in the calamitous state of Moronic culture —or turn out to be just a statistical fluke, similar to that whereby: Given enough typewriters, stationery and time, a literary masterpiece like War and Peace would eventually be written by a collegeclassroomful of chimpanzees.
92 As defined by Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary—"El Dorado [Sp. lit., the gilded one] (1): a city or country of fabulous riches held by 16thcentury explorers to exist in So. America (2): a place of fabulous wealth, abundance, or opportunity." [Italics added by author]
93 ie., a rural Moronette or -ess.
94
If I've left you with the impression my "educational" efforts in this regard
resemble those of a predatory college professor seeking to pave his lecherous
way into the pantyhose of some impressionable coed with the persuasive power
of his superior intellect (and grading prerogatives) I did so inadvertently.
Given its unmistakably prurient character, any theoretical discussion of
foreplay is bound to seem inordinately obsessed with the
salaciousG aspects of those techniques for maximizing its orgasmic
consequences. In reality, as with a good striptease, the most profitable
foreplay results are those which are achieved with the barest minimum of
fullfrontalization—or with a virtuosic flare for deceit which imbues
the most flagrantly indecent acts with the appearance of wholesomeness. A
similar case could, of course, be made for (or against) discussing the seductive
techniques employed by an author who slyly entices his reader deeper into
the plot of a novel with inducements that are not without their prurient
allure.
But whether or not one confesses, as I have candidly
done, to applying the techniques of seduction, foreplay and/or lovemaking
to the writing of a novel, manifesto and/or literary masterpiece, the
quintessential relationship between art and sex (or sex and art) is inescapable.
So, the only thing I'm "apologizing" for right now, I suppose, is not the
mistaken impression I gave you of my "psychopathic preoccupation" with obscene
metaphors but the toll this footnote itself must be taking on your dangerously
depleted tolerance for the pettiness of my storytelling pace. Although, it
must be added, pausing at a point of such preclimactic pregnancy is not without
its eventual rewards for those whose orgasmic expectations can survive the
strain.
And, dear reader, since we are in this "confessional"
mode, let me unburden myself even further by admitting I share your
frustration and your fatigue over what seems like the endless attenuation
of our mutual desires for closure! Even the writing of this footnote has
left me in a state of such profound mental exhaustion a weekend of rest and
recuperation will be needed before I can even begin to gather the strength
it will take to complete what little remains of Chapter 4!
95 Some would say this is a motif I have beaten to death.
96 Like this one, the 3 previous footnotes in this chapter were put there for purposes which are not inconsistent with the occasional decrescendo used by composers to lengthen the last movements of their symphonies—or, for that matter, the anticlimactic devices a foreplayist employs to further tantalize his client before she is brought to the final throes of her epiphanal bliss.
Glossary
aplomb noun Self-confident assurance; poise. See synonyms at CONFIDENCE. [French, from Old French a plomb, perpendicularly : a, according to (from Latin ad-). See AD- + plomb, lead weight (from Latin plumbum, lead).]
quantum (jump) noun 1.) Physics. Abrupt change from one energy level to another, especially such a change in the orbit of an electron with the loss or gain of a quantum of energy. 2.) A quantum leap.
turgid adjective 1.) Excessively ornate or complex in style or language; grandiloquent: turgid prose. 2.) Swollen or distended, as from a fluid; bloated: a turgid bladder; turgid veins. [Latin turgidus, from turgêre, to be swollen.] - turgidity or turgidness noun - turgidly adverb
orgiastic adjective Of, relating to, or characteristic of an orgy. [Greek orgiastikos, from orgiastês, celebrant of orgies, from orgiazein, to celebrate orgies, from orgia, orgies. See ORGY.] - orgiast noun - orgiastically adverb
salacious adjective 1.) Appealing to or stimulating sexual desire; lascivious. 2.) Lustful; bawdy. [From Latin salâx, salâc-, fond of leaping, lustful, from salìre, to leap.] - salaciously adverb - salaciousness or salacity noun