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Orifice

Orifice is now available as an e-book, for $2.99, at:
The Amazon Kindle Store
The Barnes and Noble Nook Store

Orifice was my ninth novel, and a difficult one to write. I began it in Aguascalientes, Mexico, living in the Mina Hotel and going every morning to the Excelsior Cafe. For three months I wrote pages and pages, none of which seemed right. Finally I returned to California, brooded for a while, tore the pages apart—and reorganized what I had until it made some sense to me. Then I hopped on another Mexican bus, returned to Aguascalientes...and at last got some serious work done.

I imagined a man, an aging, world-weary traveler, living in the ruins of a whorehouse deep in the jungle in Central America. He has with him Lola, a young American girl, blonde, slender, innocent in the way only American girls can be innocent. He has her act out his memories—perhaps his dreams, his fantasies—of the whores he had known here, in this same building, as a young man. She strolls, naked except for her high-heeled shoes, down decrepit corridors smelling of rotting wood. She slides stockings onto her legs. The ghosts of whores-past revile her and taunt her....

Orifice became the first novel in what I now call my Lola Trilogy. The others are Autobiography of a Wanderer and Hag, also available as e-books. Hag is also an illustrated paperback and a full-length movie.

My regular publisher rejected Orifice, complaining of its sexuality. I sent it to one other publisher, who praised the novel for its style and skillfully evoked atmosphere—but felt too uneasy about its content to publish it. The problem, I think, is that it does not fit easily into any genre. It is too sexual for the literary presses, and too literary for the porn trade. This leaves it in a kind of existential limbo, which I am trying to remedy by publishing it myself, first as the e-book and, later, in an illustrated paperback edition.

“The building is shaped like a fat cross. It widens in the center. The room here is circular. Lola drifts slowly from right to left. She is naked except for her shoes which have narrow five-inch heels. She is quite golden in this dim light, this light which flows from the burning oil lamps. She moves uncertainly like a ghost from my memories. The past has vanished but wraith-like it returns to visibility around me. Are there secrets in my past? Secret doorways, secret passages that I did not recognize when I passed? Can I find them now? Will they open themselves for me? Dont stop, I say to Lola, keep walking, slowly, counter-clockwise, against the flow of time, now right to left, then left to right, a golden body bereft of garments, breasts exposed, damp lips exposed, even the downy triangle of hair shaved away, nothing hidden there, surely, her eyes dipping as she pauses at the niche where once there stood—I remember it exactly—a pasta de cana figure of the Virgin Mother, a blessing on our house, savior of women, even fallen ones. Like this? asks Lola, one hand trailing as she looks over her shoulder, her eyes meeting mine. Cheeky, I say, watching her cheeky buttocks rise and fall with each high-heeled step. Her eyes veil. They become cloudy, then opaque. I hear her heels click in the otherwise silent room. I shut my eyes and listen."

“The building is in an open field at the edge of the jungle. I found the building years ago. In those days it was a flourishing brothel. Or so I recall. Memory is tricky. I was hardly more than a boy. Was it there that I met Atani? I may have confused the place. Perhaps it was in Manila. Or Mombassa. Or Morocco. I visited brothels everywhere I traveled. Malay girls in silk sarongs. The cages of Bombay. I cannot remember if the brutal Atani was African or Indian. Well, memories are like anything else, they get jumbled together. Perhaps the Atani I recall is composed of two or three women. She had a florid groin, so she could not have been Indian. Or did all that hair belong to someone else? I remember the way she minced in her high-heeled shoes. She was one of several near-nude women in the pit. The women milled about, showing their teeth. One squatted and peed in the mud. Where was it? A pit, oil lamps burning, teeth flashing. Atani’s stockings were as sleek as silk. I will never forget how she tasted, wherever we were. She growled, throwing herself against me. Her yellow eyes glared at me. It was like riding a storm. I was tossed from wave to wave. I remember a cubicle with earthen walls. Perhaps it was here. I have wandered through these corridors. I sniffed at the musty air, seeking her scent. In the eastern wing adobe bricks have turned to mud. Blackened timbers arch into the air like the ribs of a dead animal. Beetles scurry underfoot. Larvae, pale yellow, as yellow as Atani’s eyes, seethe in the corners. I found the remains of murals. Once all these walls were painted. The murals are more easily visible in the western wing and on the walls of the pit in the center of the building. It is not really a pit. I call it a pit, because we descend a few steps into it. I like to think of it as a pit, like the muddy pit I saw long ago. The floor is flagstone paving. The interstices are filled with the knobby vertebrae of cattle: polished white bones. Once there were statues in the niches. The ceiling is arched. Is this where I selected Atani? one of several near-naked women milling together? I remember it darker, slick with red clay. All she wore were the high-heeled shoes and nylon stockings. Sweat ran down her flanks. Her stockinged legs felt cold, reptilian. I stroked them—they were cocked over my shoulders—while I stroked within her silken vagina. I remember breathing heavily. I was desperately excited. She grabbed me around the throat and shook me as I came. Then she threw her arms to her sides. She huffed and panted. One of her shoes had fallen off. I picked it up and put it back on her—after I stroked the slick surface of her sole. I watched the foot arch and wriggle as she fitted it into the shoe. I was still inside her, ebbing. She pulled at her stocking tops, then pinched my cheek. You are a good boy, she said, and laughed. I felt very small—thin and white—next to her massive flesh."