Lightning Rods - By Helen DeWitt Page 0,3

the bottle, but Suzie just kept quietly finishing her nails.

Afterwards the MC said: I’ve never seen anything like it. I take my hat off to you. Let’s just see that again.

The screen divided in half, on one half the heaving buttocks on the other Suzie quietly painting her nails.

MC: Well, I see it and I still don’t believe it. What’s your secret?

Suzie: That’s my secret.

He really liked her. And he always played fair. It was all right to replay highlights of her game career. But she’d won her million fair and square; she didn’t have to play the game again, and he never brought her into any new episodes. Sometimes he’d think of her, out in the world, in her pink suit, with a million to blow. She did what she had to do, and then she did what she wanted to do.

He often wondered whether other men did this. Did they have participants that developed personalities? Did they have a sense of humor? Was there a story that developed over several episodes?

And being a salesman he could not stop analyzing in a really micro obsessive nitty-gritty way what got him off. It’s not what you see it’s what you know. Because it wasn’t the bare buttocks or the thrusting cock into a tight wet cunt but Suzie in her pink jacket painting her nails that sent Old Faithful skyward every time.

For a while, anyway, he went on rerunning favorite episodes in Suzie’s brilliant career, looking in once in a while on current episodes just to see how things were going and then going out from time to time when he felt like a piece of homemade pumpkin pie with ice cream.

Then one day he noticed that the game was rigged.

For some reason he hadn’t noticed it before, but once you knew what to look for you couldn’t miss it. The contestants varied, but there was always one with platinum blonde hair and pink lipstick and big tits in a tight top who had no self-control whatsoever. The thing was a joke. The MC would start the game and suddenly the girl’s eyes would widen and her pink mouth would open with this ostentatious Oh my God, there’s a cock up my twat kind of expression.

Is anything the matter? the MC would say in a syrupy voice and the girl would say No and then suddenly catch her breath or bite her lip or widen her eyes just to make sure everyone knew what was going on. How obvious can you get?

And the MC would say OK, we’ll get on with the show then. Panelists, our stud for this session was Mr. Body for Arkansas four years running. As I speak Clint is giving one of the girls the kind of workout only a serious bodybuilder can provide. Let’s have a quick look at the service offered by Clint, and there would be an inset of the thrusting buttocks.

Well, that’s one bodybuilder who thinks there are no holds barred, he’d say, and the studio audience would laugh. Ladies and gentlemen, your job is to decide which of our lovely ladies is enjoying this magnificent stallion of a man. Heloise, it’s your turn to ask the first question.

And the blonde girl would whimper or shout Oh my God and the panel would laugh. Sometimes the panel wouldn’t take it seriously. It would be absolutely obvious what the answer was but they’d laugh and guess wrong on purpose.

Sometimes he could enjoy it anyway and sometimes it was just irritating. They were only doing their job but sometimes it irritated him anyway, and he missed the days before he realized the whole thing was a set-up.

One day he lay on his side on the bed and they had yet another of these blondes on the show. He lay there wondering where they got them all. The studs today were three guys who were putting themselves through college. They had called the studio’s 800 number in the aftermath of a frat party and left their names and when they got the follow-up call they all thought Shit. But in the end they agreed to go on the show because it was something different and because people only saw you from behind and because it was something to say you’d done, and because of the money. Would they do it again?

Jeff: No way. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed myself today, it’s been a really unique experience and it certainly will be something to