Lewd and Prude at the Gotham Book Mart

Lew looked around the store, his gaze passing over all the mementoes, the framed Edward Gorey drawings black-silhouetted on the walls, the racks of books. So many books. He smiled at Pru, the wrinkles in his face falling into their old accustomed patterns. She smiled back at him. She was looking very good, very well preserved for a seventy-year-old, he thought. Well, they had an active lifestyle. “Now, what do I think I would find particularly corrupting today?” he asked. “Any hints?” “Hmm,” she said, “I’ve heard that Lost Girls is supposed to be a masterwork. Of course,” and she tossed her head, her long hair moving over her back, “it is a perverse graphic novel which should be criminal to sell or even to own under the provisions of the PROTECT ACT, since it contains ‘an obscene visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct’, and therefore is no better than the worst child pornography.” “Ah. Comic books,” he said, “well, doubly corrupting then.” They exchanged another amused look and he rang it up at the counter. He sometimes wondered what was in all those books. He’d never read a pornographic novel, other than a few chapters of that one the day he and Pru had gotten married, so many decades ago. Pru would read them and sometimes she’d get a particularly wicked smile on her face and somehow they’d be trying something that they still hadn’t tried yet. Of course, that was much less often now that they were getting old, but they still managed somehow. He suddenly slipped the book into her hand and she blushed a little.

They went walking, hand in hand, out around the nearby streets. Lew frowned a little and reaching into his pocket and pulled out the piece of paper, now crumpled, that that silly Earth Defense Squad nun had given them. He managed to unfold it. Yes, there was the letterhead in bold: “For Great Justice.” That was going to get old. He scanned it quickly: invaders from Twin Earth were apparently plotting to replace water from the Hudson, which had some kind of value in their world, with their water, which was almost indistinguishable from Earth water but had a strange chemical composition and did exceedingly odd things to Earth life. If it ever got into the Hudson it would be a catastrophe. He shrugged and folded up the paper. He didn’t know why the EDS bothered giving them these things; they’d blunder into it anyways.

Pru caught his eye. He followed her gaze and there it was: two people looking distinctly paramilitary and out-of-place by the entrance to a shabby building. They went into a nearby shop, out the back, through a few twists and turns and a freight elevator and there they were; there was some kind of underground installation. “Air vents look too small to crawl through,” he noted. “Good thing, too, muttered Pru. “I’m getting too old to crawl through an air vent any more.” He shrugged, and they waited a bit for a shift change and just followed the off-duty guards in. They quickly turned away from the heavily-guarded control room, found a shabby computer tech’s office, and sat down with a sigh to read the manuals.

He tapped away at a computer console while she looked things up. “What do you think we should get Emily for her 35th?” Pru asked. “A bassinet?” “She’ll probably want to pick out her own special cosleeping one,” he said. “Mmm,” she said, and he thought about it for a little. Good god, their youngest child was going to be 35. “Have you figured that out yet?” he asked, raising his eyebrow. “It’s confusing,” she said, “their name for their water is just water, even though it’s a different substance than our water. I keep getting them mixed up.” “For convenience, you could just put a “t” before anything from Twin Earth,” he said, “so we’d call their water twater.” They exchanged a long, wordless look. “I think that calling it Twin Earth water will be fine, dear,” she said, and they both laughed. She found the right part of the manual and he typed in the program. He started to test it, but then a surveillance camera suddenly swiveled so that they were directly in its view. “I think that we’d better do it now, dear, now that we’re on camera,” Pru said. So he pushed the last button and she picked up her shopping bag and they strolled over to the nearby dimensional interface room.

All sorts of security alarms began to go off: “Tweeep! Tweeep! Tweeep!” “Have you ever heard an alarm that sounded like that?” Pru asked. He shook his head, laughing; he was something of a connoisseur of alarms. Ever since they’d gotten married, the crises they’d gone through had seemed to have more at stake, somehow. Lew thought about the big international incident after that slave-labor scandal where they gotten locked in a room for two days translating Chinese into more modern Chinese according to formula, even though they didn’t understand Chinese. How Pru had fumed when she found that they’d been inadvertently translating the Jin Ping Mei! Or the crises where they’d just hold hands afterwards, exhausted, as a sick child got better… guards were surrounding them from every direction, he noted. He wasn’t quite sure how they were going to get out of this one.

They stopped in front of the dimensional interface. Guards with shouldered weapons were standing all around, and their leader stepped forward. “Do you know what happens to your system when the safeties are taken off and it’s set to liquid-only transfer and a solid object is put through?” asked Lew politely. The Twin Earth leader peered at their faces, then suddenly leaped back, yelling “Lew and Pru!” The guards all gasped and leveled their rifles. Pru tossed the copy of Lost Girls through the interface.

There was a low rumble, and everyone froze for a moment. The dimensional transfer machinery began to disintegrate. Lew laughed and said “Did you really think we’d just let you destroy everything?” “I mean, really,” Pru sniffed, “we have grandchildren.” The Twin Earth leader opened his mouth to order them to be shot, or something, but he and all his men were fading out as the dimensional transfer machine went. Their expressions as they were sent back to Twin Earth were so comical, Lew and Pru both laughed, together, their voices pealing out in unstoppable mirth, not cruel, but triumphant. So what if there was a seemingly endless supply of corrupt charismatics, interdimensional monsters, crazed “Flying Man” mystics? They would all come crashing down.

Pr dusted off her hands. “That’s one that’s not coming back,” she said with satisfaction, looking at where Lost Girls had disappeared. “Add one to my score!” Lew was about to reply when the interface made one last burp, and as it snapped out a book came flying through to land on the floor. Lew rushed over to look at it. “It’s a Twin Earth copy of Lost Girls!” he said. “Same words, same colors, even though it’s printed in tink! You’re still going to have to read it, Pru!” He laughed and laughed. His gaze fell on the drawing of Wendy on the cover. “Printed in tink,” he muttered, “clap your hands if you believe.” Suddenly he felt an awful pain in his chest. He found himself sitting on the floor, Pru holding his hand with a lovely, calm look on her face as she met his eyes. She’d always been so brave, he thought muzzily. He’d never be able to keep himself from panicking if he saw her collapse like that…

They knelt there, holding hands, and he felt the pain in his chest fade. “Oh, that’s better,” he said, “it’s going away. Probably nothing.” “No more laughing it off,” she said as they stood up. “We’re going to get that checked, right away.” “Yes, dear,” he said meekly. “And if a normal doctor isn’t good enough,” she said, “we’ve met any number of unusual medical practitioners on our travels. Some of them decidedly odd, of course.” Lew laughed a bit, imagining what he might end up with. The rest of the chest pain went away and he stood up, feeling relieved. It was going to happen some day, of course. But not now, not today.

She dropped the Twin Earth copy of Lost Girls into her shopping bag. “The EDS will probably want to study this one,” she said, “but that wouldn’t be fair. I’ll have them give me a normal one in exchange.” “Add one to my score,” he murmured. As they walked out, she said “You know, Lew, I was at one of those lectures, and I met a nice Indian gentleman. He asked me how you and I had met, and I told him something about those books – nothing indecent, of course. And you know, he seemed to think that there was something – illiberal, about the arrangement. Do you think so?” Lew met her eyes, and they kissed, and then they both had to laugh again. And they walked out, arm in arm.

For Sherri Puchalsky
Valentine’s Day, 2009

” What would she do – Lew must be so experienced – she looked around and saw the copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. “Did you get that for me?” she asked a bit wildly. “You want it now? Um, sure,” Lew said, and handed it to her. ”

should be:

” What would she do – Lew must be so experienced – she looked around and saw the copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. What had been said about it? Oh yes, “A book ‘written by a man with a diseased mind and a soul so black that he would obscure even the darkness of hell!’ Did you get that for me?” she asked a bit wildly. “You want it now? Um, sure,” Lew said, and handed it to her. ”

Because in each one of these, Pru quotes some actual statement by some censor.

Last one tonight or tomorrow, hopefully.

I’m sticking to my position that both Conservatives and Liberals enforce sexual contracts; it’s in the allowance of the creation of sexual contracts where they differ. And, obviously, prohibiting the creation of contracts between mutually consenting actors isn’t liberal, but that’s why they’re not Liberals. Which is why I think this story isn’t much a refutation of Liberalism. However stupid the agreement is, it is illiberal to prevent them making it. It’s not like Prude is making Greg Down The Road give Prude all of his books.

Populists and many Conservatives object to the creation of sexual contracts

Not at all. They may object to non-marital sexual contracts, but most convervatives are quite forthright about believing that wives owe their hard-working husbands sex, and that is certainly one element of the traditional marriage.

Lewd and Prude on Holiday

Lew sat in his hotel room, half-turned in the window box, one leg propped up on a chair and the other kicking idly at a chair-leg, looking out the window occasionally. Nothing was happening outside, just as nothing had been happening the last few times he’d checked. He looked at the copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover lying on the bed and sighed. It appeared that Pru really was going to be gone for a couple of weeks. She wasn’t going to be around for him to give the book to. He might as well read it.

He picked it up and disconsolately turned to the first page and started to read. The silence started to weigh on him. By a few chapters in, he decided that talking to himself was better than nothing. “Gosh!” he said at one scene. “Wow, that’s really sexy!” he added loyally. He tried to feel corrupted. This book was really rather a yawner, wasn’t it? He looked out the window again. No zombie invasions, not even someone formed by lightning from the swamp or something … and no Pru. The book slipped unheeded to fall to the carpet.

He wondered if perhaps he should go out, try to pick up a woman, bring her back. It shouldn’t be too difficult. He imagined various women, ending with the showgirl on that last trip, that time they’d gone to the circus, the trip that Pru had said she’d wanted to take a holiday after. He sighed again; this was no good. He jumped up and started to pace. He’d been such a fool. Pru was – well, whenever she was around, it was like whole factories of fireworks going off at once, like a mad mesmerist pulling glorious flowers out of the air, like spaceships crashing. He frowned – wait, those spaceships hadn’t actually crashed, had they? They were the ones with different-aged twins getting out, and really they’d just landed – but whatever. He paced more rapidly. God, how wonderful Pru had looked when she’d faced down that lion. And now she’d said that maybe they needed some time apart. To his alarm he found himself starting to cry. Oh, this would never do; Pru could never like a man who cried. Positive action, that’s what was needed. He wiped his face off with his hands. It was time to get Pru a different kind of gift. And if she wouldn’t accept it, he’d cheerfully go and throw himself off a tall building. No, that was stupid; he wouldn’t do that. Maybe he’d take up drinking. He found his step and rushed outside, determined.

Pru was sitting at a desk in the rented manor house, writing an article of literary criticism in progress: “Theories of the Picaresque as a Model for Formalist Analysis of Obscene, Disgusting Works.” How Lew had smiled when he’d seen it; he’d said that she’d have to change the end of the title if she wanted to get it published, and perhaps she would, but for now it stayed. She thought about Lew’s smile for a little while, and smiled herself, then got herself back to it.

A little while later she stopped writing, stretching her fingers to uncramp them. It was too bad that Lew had never given her a copy of Tropic of Capricorn—not that she liked the degraded filth that the man wrote about, but he could certainly write, and it would interesting to check her thesis – could she hint to him, maybe? No, probably not… this place was such a bore. And it came with a groundskeeper who was the worst bore of all, always mooning around after her. Didn’t he have anything to do?

Not that she had anything to do, really, since the bequest, but hadn’t she and Lew, oddly enough, managed to save hundreds of lives by now? That was work, she supposed – although Lew sometimes talked up his supposed low, working origins, saying proudly that that was why he was such a crude person, even though she knew full well that they’d both grown up middle class. She laughed, thinking about it; the foolish things he did were somehow part of why she loved him. Wait, what was that? She shook her head to clear it; maybe she was just missing her friend. “Gosh,” she said experimentally. Suddenly she wondered whether he was with a woman. Well, of course he probably was. There were drops of water landing on her written pages; was the roof leaking? No, she was crying. Oh, she was such a fool. Of course she loved him. She pictured his laughing face, the whole jaunty stance of his body, just after they’d defeated the Evil Consequentialist – a saintly Tibetan monk whose thoughts and actions were impeccably virtuous but who always ended up somehow harming people – Lew had distracted him while she sneaked up from behind and knocked him out by hitting him over the head with a hardbound English translation of Thérèse Philosophe. How Lew had looked then! How could she possibly not have seen that she loved him?

Determined, she got up and wiped her eyes and hurriedly scooped up her papers. She wasn’t going to sit around sobbing. She was going back to Lew – who knows what corruption he was getting up to – well, she could be his friend if nothing else. She almost started crying again, thinking of that, and made herself stop. She marched right out to the car and prepared to drive away. “I’m leaving. I won’t be back,” she yelled to the groundskeeper. “But tha hut’s rented for twa weeks! Ye’ve only been twa days!” he said in that horrible fake accent they must have told him to put on. “I don’t care!” she yelled back, and drove away.

She arrived at the hotel where Lew had said he’d be staying, and had a horrible moment as she approached his room. What if someone was with him? But she nerved herself up and knocked at the door. He answered it quickly, looking a bit haggard. “Pru!” he said, his face lighting up. “Lew!” she said, laughing in pleasure and relief to see him. What was he doing now? He was kneeling, getting some kind of small box – did it contain some kind of miniature medieval erotic text? “Pru, I love you,” he said simply, “will you marry me?” “Oh, of course, Lew. Yes. I mean of course,” she said, stunned. He got up slowly – the foolish man was looking nervous again – she supposed that it was acceptable for fiances to embrace – then she was in his arms. They kissed, and she somehow had gotten her hand under his shirt and against his chest, and if the carpet had caught on fire at that moment she wouldn’t have been surprised.

They slowly stepped back from their kiss, both looking a little frightened. “I guess you’ll want a really big wedding, all done up right,” said Lew, blushing. She made a noncommittal sound. She had to face up to it now. After marriage came the marriage bed. Her mother had never given her that particular talk. What would she do – Lew must be so experienced – she looked around and saw the copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. “Did you get that for me?” she asked a bit wildly. “You want it now? Um, sure,” Lew said, and handed it to her. As the book touched her hand, she felt an odd sudden glow all through her and a bright light of inspiration. Of course she knew what to do! Married people must do all those things – why, she knew quite a few things they could do. Dozens. “Lew, I think simplicity is a virtue in these ceremonies, don’t you?” she said. He looked at her and nodded; all of a sudden she looked almost, well, fierce. “I think we should find a justice of the peace and get married right away. I wish to be your lawfully wedded wife as soon as possible. Urgently.” He smiled and said “Whatever you want, Pru,” and she hurried him out the door.

When he carried her back over the threshold, she was holding him as tightly as he held her, and he looked at her hotly but with a trace of nerves still on his face. “Do you think that a marriage license issued by a philosophical zombie justice of the peace is really valid?” he asked, “I mean, he filled out and stamped it and everything, but he did it without conscious experience, qualia, or sentience…” “Valid enough,” she said with a low laugh. She tripped him somehow, and they both fell to the carpet. She pushed the door closed with her foot. And that was the last anyone saw of them for the rest of the two weeks, except for the people delivering food, who said that it was a chore passing everything around the door but at least the tips were optimal.

A possible way to resolve dsquared’s point about men with guns enforcing contracts: a society of LeFevreians using reputation as money with iterated games of repeat cooperation. You abide by your promises so that the other party will agree to contract with you again. Since I’m not a LeFevrian but an amoral Stirnerite, I consider it only an interesting possibility rather than necessarily of vital importance.

Lewd and Prude at the Circus

“Let me tell you about the original position,” said Lew enthusiastically. Pru looked alarmed. “I hope that this will not be one of your—” she began, but he shook his head and went on. They were sitting in the front row at the big tent, chatting before the next act came up. “I went to a lecture and met this man, Rulls, Rolls, or something. He had the most odd idea,” Lew said. “Has he written a book?” asked Pru. She added acerbically “It might be a change for me. For the last year I’ll I’ve read is your peculiar books, one coming in after another.” “No, he hasn’t, just articles so far,” shrugged Lew, “but here’s his idea: that representatives of citizens might be placed behind a sort of veil of ignorance, so they don’t know who in society they represent. Then they create the basis for a just society, do you see? He thinks they would choose the greatest benefits to the least advantaged.” “It sounds admirable,” said Pru. “I don’t know,” Lew said a bit vaguely, distracted by the performers warming up the crowd. “Gosh. It seems like he thinks the people behind the veil of ignorance might be a bit risk averse, doesn’t he? But I think they might want to risk getting something bad if they got the chance to get something really great, like being strong like that strongman over there. Or graceful like that trapeze lady. Or—“ and he nudged Pru roguishly with his elbow: “—look what that showgirl’s got, Pru!” “Disgraceful,” she sniffed. The woman was wearing a costume that displayed far too much of her natural endowments, in Pru’s opinion.

They were bringing out the lion cage. He glanced down at the book Pru had brought along to read during her cab ride to meet him. She’d made a cover for it out of brown paper so that no one could see what she was reading. “Still reading Jurgen?” he asked. “It’s supposed to be a really saucy book, Pru. I’ve heard—” “I hold with the findings of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice,” she said sternly, “long since overruled through they are – it is ‘offensive, lewd, lascivious, and indecent.’” “Golly,” he said happily. “It is sometimes well written, a remnant of a prior high style that could not be duplicated now,” she admitted, “but it conceals its bawdry in ways that are almost worse than open corruption. There are scenes in which certain actions are implied to take place while the text only displays three dashes.” “Wow,” laughed Lew. “And there are the worst double entendres—” Pru continued.

A sudden burst of yells drew their attention. The lion tamer had staggered and dropped his hoop at the start of his act, and the lion, startled, knocked him down and then roared at the crowd. “He’s drunk!” the showgirl yelled hysterically, “I told him he couldn’t perform!” The man’s hoop rolled across the ground and bumped into Pru’s knee. Without thinking, she grasped it and got up. The lion looked like it was about to savage the crowd. Surely all this needed was confidence. She held the hoop out and said “Cha!” strongly as she’d heard the lion tamer do. The beast hesitated. So did Pru – now that she had time to think, what did she do next? She saw Lew run around the edge of the circle and stand by the cage. They exchanged glances. They’d been through so many of these incidents by now that they hardly had to talk to each other to know what to do.

Pru managed to line up her hoop with the cage, and said “Cha!” again. In one fluid leap, the lion jumped through it, and then walked into its cage as it had been trained to do. It saw Lew and almost got him, but he managed to drop the cage door closed just in time.

She looked at him again, exhilarated, her warm smile meeting his answering one. “Why, Pru,” he said, gazing at her admiringly, “You were so brave! You are – well – dashing!” Pru blushed and, suddenly not sure what to do with her hands, put down the hoop. Oh dear, her hair was all in disarray – she’d thrown off her overcoat – she was sure that she wasn’t standing demurely, and her skirt had ridden up – it had been rather disconcerting, yet enjoyable, when that powerful tawny creature had leaped through her hoop. “Nonsense,” she answered him, “I just—”

But she was interrupted by the showgirl, who, having seen the other circus performers pick up the only-stunned lion tamer, was now approaching Lew. “Oh, surely you were just as brave!” the woman said, her eyes wide as she looked at him. “I’ve never seen something so brave. And, well, you’re quite a handsome man too, if I might be so bold.” She smiled at him eagerly. “I’m so grateful. They would have shut us down. Um, can I give you a reward? Privately, in my tent?” Pru was shocked into silence. The woman’s costume had gotten torn open in the panic, and from the way she was leaning forwards and making no attempt to cover herself, Pru had absolutely no doubt about what kind of reward she was offering him.

Lew smiled back and looked the showgirl slowly up and down, an expression of frank appreciation on his face. Pru closed her eyes in mortification. She knew what he’d get up to. To her alarm, she found that she had instantly pictured in her mind’s eye exactly what he’d get up to with the showgirl – how could she imagine Lew so nude and, so, well, completely?—with continuing variations. Hurriedly she opened her eyes again. She heard him tell the showgirl, “Gosh, thanks! I’m sure that would be lots of fun, and I’d love to, normally – but I’m here with Pru. Thanks for the offer, though!” He walked over and got Pru’s coat and book and then over to Pru and, dazed, Pru wrapped her arm around his waist so that he could assist her. They began to walk away. Pru couldn’t help stealing a glance back over her shoulder to see if the showgirl was watching her walk off with him. Ha! She was!

“I – didn’t think you’d come back for me,” Pru said. “Oh, come on, Pru, he said, laughing, “after all our adventures, you think I’d just leave you there?” Pru looked at him wonderingly. They were out of the tent now, and all of a sudden she found herself very conscious of the sleek flow of the muscles around his hip as he walked. “I – think I need to lie down,” she said. “Gosh!” he said, “it must be delayed shock, or something. Here’s a bench.” He helped her over to it and bunched up her coat as a pillow. She lay down and wiped moisture off her brow. She’d been cool and collected with the lion. Why was she so sweaty now?

He looked down at her with concern. “You don’t seem to be getting worse, anyways,” he said. “I’m all right,” she managed. He looked down at the book still in his hand. “Maybe I should just take this one back,” he said. “It wouldn’t corrupt me too much, probably. And maybe you need a rest…” She looked up into his face. “Give it to me. Please,” she said weakly. He hesitated and then handed the book over, and the touch of the rough brown paper to her hand sent her into an unaccountable burst of shivering. It must be delayed shock, like he’d said.

He was looking nervous now, of all things. She’d never seen him look nervous. Not even that time when they’d been chased by a giant robot and it had been about to step on him and she’d only been able to overload its circuits by showing it a particularly disturbing page from Justine. “Pru,” he said, “Gee. Um, maybe it’s time to pull back the veil of ignorance, you know? To, um, see how advantaged we are, and how it would turn out if—” She suddenly felt panicky for some reason. “Lew,” she said, managing to sit up. “You know that I haven’t studied this Ralls or Rolls person. If I had, perhaps I’d be able to understand your question. But I’m not ready to understand it just now.” He nodded, then smiled at her again. “Well, you’re starting to look better,” he said. “I’m fine,” she said, standing up irritably. “I don’t know what it was.” “I’ll escort you back,” he said, and she took his arm. “I heard more stuff at that lecture,” he said cheerfully. “Have you heard of this Pear-to, Perry-to guy?”

She held his arm and they walked back to where she could catch a cab, listening to him burble happily. It was a good thing that they had this arrangement. It was, as ever, the optimal one for the two of them.