Ero

by Pil Lee

There were two holes in the wall to the men’s room, about chest height and parallel to the floor. Eddie hadn’t noticed them before, but then he’d never used the toilet before. Ever since his redundancy though, he’d found longer and longer hours were spent in his local bar, on the corner of Eighth and Kennedy.

He’d glanced at the holes as he went in, and on the way out, pulling up his fly, he stopped and bent slightly and put his eye to one. It was pitch dark, and there was no way to tell how deep it was. He peered in the other one as well, but it was the same. He looked up and down the hall to see if there was anyone watching, then timidly poked the very tip of a finger in the left hole. He felt nothing, and slowly he pushed his finger all the way in, ready to whip it out at a moment’s notice. He still felt nothing, and the air inside the hole was neither hot or cold. He pulled his finger out and contemplated pushing his whole arm inside to see if he could feel anything. But on second thoughts, he decided to just ask Hervé at the bar.

“Hey man, what’s with the holes.”

Hervé stopped his polishing of whatever it was he was always goddam polishing, and poured Eddie his usual nip.

“What’s up my friend is that we don’t mention them. I’m arse sick of getting the paramedics in here taking away como chicks.”

“Como? Why?”

“Cause whatever’s going down in them holes, the ladies always end up out cold on the floor, that’s why, and it’s a bloody circus for young and old.”

“But what happens, man?”

Hervé shook his head and started his polishing again.

Eddie tried again. “Why don’t you just seal them up if there’s some kind of problem?”

“Cause whoever the perp is responsible for them, he just cuts them again as soon as we’re not looking. So no one mentions them, comprendo. They are NOT there.”

Eddie had no more luck with any of the regular guys. “Hey, you want Hervé to toss you out, Ed? Lay off the holes bud.”

But then he noticed a wicked gleam in old Teddy’s eye as he got ready to leave. “Ask Linda Baleno, Ed,” he whispered. “I remember when she had her little trip to ER.” He licked his lips. “Yessiree.”

Eddie made straight for the diner on Ninth where Linda was just getting off her shift.

“Eddie, I can’t believe you don’t know about the holes,” she said. “I thought the old Ero was your local.”

“Yeah well I’ve never had to piss there have I,” he said. “Now what’s the big secret with the holes? They said something knocks people unconscious.”

“Not people, Eddie. Just the girls. We’ve all had a go.”

“Why? Had a go at what.”

Linda shook her head, and looked down at her feet. “You know, Ed, I’m not completely sure.” Then she grinned. “But it’s one hell of a ride.”

“Then come with me now. Show me what you mean.”

“And have Hervé manhandle me out as soon as I try to go down the hallway. Uh uh.”

“Jesus Linda, just tell me.”

She started to laugh. “Okay, okay, but don’t tell anyone I put you up to it. Get yourself a girl, that’ll be for the first trick for you, babe.”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh yourself sick. And then?”

“Then get her to put her tits in the holes. I’m not saying anything else. Let me know how it goes.”

Eddie was just counting the seconds till the next evening. As soon as it was dark, he hiked on up to Beaumont and Main and went up to the first hooker he could find. She was a dusky latino brunette, about 25, with huge breasts balanced precariously inside a man’s knotted black shirt.

“Hey sister.”

“Don’t sister me, honey. Not unless that’s what turns you on.”

Eddie blushed red. “Want some easy money?”

“Sure honey. It’ll be like a dream. Where you want it.”

“No no, just come to a pub with me.”

“Whatever you say. It’ll be fifty bucks.”

Eddie took her back to his local, and stopped outside. “I want you to go in really casual and ask for the ladies. Then I want you to slip round to the men’s without anyone looking and there’ll be two holes in the wall, about yeh high. Just wait for me there.”

“I ain’t doing nothing with drugs, sugar.”

“No drugs. Just go.”

Eddie waited till she’d been gone five minutes, then strolled into the bar and nodded to the boys. Looking at nothing he sauntered towards the toilets, where the girl was waiting for him.

He swallowed. “Now I want you to take off your shirt and put your, um ...”

“My boobs?”

“Yep, yep, in the holes.”

“And what’s going to happen then?”

“Nothing, nothing, you just put them in, that’s it.”

“No way, honey, you some kind of psycho? What’s on the other side there.” She bent an eye first to one hole then the other.

“I’ll give you double,” said Eddie. “A hundred bucks. Just for 30 seconds.”

She looked doubtful, but Eddie took the money from his wallet and gave it to her. “There, just 15 seconds,” he said.

“Hmm,” she said, but she shrugged and turned her back to him, untying her shirt. She dropped it onto the floor behind her and pressed up against the wall.

“They’re a bit high,” she said, reaching on tiptoe and holding her breasts with both hands. “You’re gonna have to balance me.”

Eddie put his hands on the back of her waist, bracing her and lifting her slightly so she was level with the holes. She guided her breasts into them, and pushed.

“They’re a bit small, these holes,” she said. “I don’t exactly fit.”

Eddie craned his neck over her shoulder to see. Sure enough, only half her breasts were in the holes, the rest of her flesh mounding against the wall around them.

“Do you feel anything?” said Eddie.

“Like what?” she said. “No nothin’. Just how long am I supposed to stay here?

I hope you’re getting your rocks off, sugar, cause there ain’t much excitement from where I’m standing.”

Eddie pressed his whole body against her back, watching her breasts half hidden in the wall. He took his hands off her waist to help her squeeze inside, but she slipped down the wall an inch and fell out of the holes completely.

“Well, is that it?” she said, bouncing in front of him, slight red circles ringing her nipples where they’d pressed into the plaster.

“I guess so,” said Eddie, puzzled, as she put on her shirt. “So there was nothing? You felt nothing.”

“The big N. O., that’s right,” she said. “Is that it?” she asked again. “Another fifty bucks and we can make it worth your while.”

Eddie was tempted for a second, but told himself he still hadn’t sunk low enough to have to pay for sex. The girl left and he went back to the bar and borrowed a lighter from a stranger. Then he went down the hall and lit it at each hole, peering desperately inside. There was still nothing but dark, and no wall or any detail. He watched the flame to try and see a breeze, but it blazed straight and uselessly at each opening.

He met Linda again outside the diner as she was knocking off. “Nothing happened with the holes,” he said. “I took a hooker there and she did what you said to and there was nothing.”

Linda laughed. “I bet you picked a biggie, didn’t you Eddie.”

He felt himself flush, and she laughed harder. “Take her back again tomorrow night.”

“Same girl or a different girl?”

“No no, same girl, has to be the same one. But you better stay out of sight, or Hervé is going to bust your ass for sure.”

Next evening Eddie was waiting on Main when the latino girl started work. “Hey it’s the wall man, girls,” she called out to her friends. “You want a repeat performance, hon?”

Eddie nodded.

“Whoa, you are a machine,” she cooed, laughing and following him as he hurried back to the bar.

“Now exactly the same as last night,” said Eddie. “Just slip through so no one recognises you from last night, and wait till I get there.”

Eddie waited nervously for a good ten minutes, then went inside. He made himself have a drink at the bar, then made his way to the toilet, hand ostentatiously on his fly.

The girl was waiting in the hall, having a cigarette. “Ready, babe, same again?”

“Yes please,” said Eddie.

She took off her shirt and turned to the wall. “Hey, these holes are lower. They’re just the right height.”

She turned round to Eddie, hands on her hips. “You’ve been busy, haven’t you.”

Eddie pushed her aside and looked. They were lower. He pulled her over to the wall and pushed her gently against it. This time her breasts lined up.

“Actually, it’s a little bit low now, I think,” he said, and pushed down slightly on her shoulder. She shuffled her legs apart until she was at exactly the right height, and this time her breasts slid right in all the way.

“Hey, them holes are bigger now,” she said, and Eddie could see that she was pressed up flush with her stomach and shoulders to the wall.

“Can you feel anything,” said Eddie, hands on her back again.

“Nope, just this wall is a bit clammy,” she said.

“Just wait a second,” said Eddie.

They stood in silence for a minute, while Eddie checked down the passageway for anyone else. It was empty, but he was starting to get nervous.

“Anything yet?” he said.

“Nothing, baby. Still a hundred dollars, isn’t it?”

“Yeah sure.” Eddie was trying to think of what else he should do. He certainly couldnt go and ask Hervé, and if he went back to Linda that would waste another night and another hundred bucks. He pressed his body against the length of the girl’s back, trying to push her breasts even further into the holes. She started to move slightly, gyrating.

“Is this what you want, hey,” she asked.

“No, no, I don’t think so,” said Eddie, but now he started to wonder if maybe he shouldn’t get some benefit from his money. He stepped back.

“It’s not working. You’ll have to take all your clothes off.”

The girl pulled back out of the wall. She gave him a sly look and then bent and peeled off her gold spandex shorts. “I think I’ll have to keep my shoes on, wall man, if you want me to fit back in your little holes.”

“Oh yes, that’s fine,” said Eddie, looking down and then looking quickly up again in embarrassment.

“Let’s get in position again.”

The girl waggled her bare bottom at him as she eased back into the holes, then rocked slowly side to side as she inched her stilettoed feet further and further apart till she was a snug fit in the wall.

Eddie swallowed, and started to feel a strange combination of total excitement and sheer terror. He had no idea how to explain a butt naked hooker here outside the loos, her clothes around his feet as he waited for god knows what.

Suddenly the girl squeaked. “Hey, I felt something,” she said. She started to draw away from the wall, but Eddie pushed her back to it.

“There’s something touching me,” she said, and pushed her hands against the wall, trying to get away. Eddie pushed her back again, but she struggled against him.

Eddie tried to push her back in, but then he realised he was practically assaulting a total stranger and stepped away. The girl’s breasts were almost all the way out of the wall when it seemed to Eddie that something grabbed her nipples and pulled her in with such force that her face smacked into the wall. She screeched and writhed and tried to escape. She started to slap and kick the wall, really screaming and Eddie backed away in alarm. Then she was completely still, her arms outstretched with her hands flat on the wall. There was a moment of total silence, and Eddie realised that the hall behind him was full of everyone from the bar, Hervé at the front. He caught Hervé’s furious eye, then turned back with everyone as the girl took an enormous gasp, then another.

“Here she goes,” said someone he didn’t know.

“Bless you Eddie,” breathed another guy beside him.

Spreadeagled on the wall now, the girl started to scream again, but slowly, almost like a moan. Her hands moved along the wall until they were above her head, stretched as high as possible, and they started to pound against the old plaster.

Her legs moved apart as far as they could, until it seemed to Eddie that the only way her breasts were staying in the holes was through the force of whatever had hold of them. Her head started to bang against the wall along with her hands, and her hips bucked violently. Her whole pelvis battered against the wall in time with her head and hands, as her moaning rose to raucous screams. Then her legs started to bend and her feet crept slowly up from the ground, her knees pressing flat to the wall, and her pelvic grinding accelerating to a blurring speed. Her head fell back, so that Eddie could see her face, then her hands fell away, so that her whole body was hanging from her breasts, clamped relentlessly on the other side of the openings, and the hallway shook with her frenzy. Her screams merged into one drawn out howl of agony and ecstasy, and then, without warning, there was complete silence, and she hung there, dripping with moisture, limp and motionless.

The hallway was dead silent as everyone stared, gasping, at the suspended woman, then her breasts slid out of the holes, suddenly released, and she crashed unconscious to the ground.

“Paramedics!” shouted Hervé, then “but cleaners first”, and Eddie, looking around, realised that the floor was covered with mess, and red-faced panting men surrounded him.

“I’m sending you the bill,” said Hervé, as he made his way out behind the paramedics and the stretcher, “and remember, I warned you — don’t ever come back.”

Eddie left in a daze, watching the ambulance pull away with the prostitute inside it. At home that night he relived the moments again and again, the girl’s crazed thrusting filling his mind. First thing next morning he made his way back to the street outside the Ero, a careful eye out for Hervé, and walked back and forwards in front of the bar as he worked out its geography in his head. He realised the hallway to the toilet must run down the left side of the building, and saw adjoining the bar on that side was an old Chinese laundry. The front windows were boarded up, and when he pushed open the street door, he saw that it had become a squat, with garbage and belongings strewn all over the ancient floorboards. He went over to the right wall, which should be up against the bar’s toilets, but there was nothing he could see. No gaps, no cracks even, in the plain plaster finish.

He went back outside to the street and checked again, but then remembered he had to go down a short flight of steps to get to the men’s room. He walked back inside the squat, and this time he went straight to the back, looking for stairs. There was an old broken sink in the corner, with what looked like a linen press beside it, with an old padlock. Eddie pulled at the lock but it was rusted shut, and showed no signs of ever being opened. He scrabbled around under the sink and broke off a bit of old pipe hanging at a drunken angle. Twisting it through the hasp he snapped the lock open, and peered through the door at a short flight of wooden steps.

The dust was thick as he went down them, with no footprints or other signs of life. His hand stretched out in front of him, he came to a dead end at the bottom. He took the lighter he still had in his pocket and waved its flame around the wall, looking for a door handle or a gap. There was nothing he could see, as if the stairs had never lead anywhere. Hefting the broken pipe in his free hand he smashed it hard against the wall, and where the plaster cracked he could see wood underneath. He hit it hard again, and this time it broke right through the rotten wood. Three more good whacks and Eddie could squeeze through the hole into the room beyond.

By the flame of his lighter he could see that it was a long thin room about a metre wide running the length of the wall between the buildings. Putting his ear to the wall at the very end he could hear the slight gurgle of water, which he figured meant he was right beside the men’s toilets at the Ero. Walking towards the front of the building now, he reckoned after about four metres he must be where the holes should be. He held his lighter close to the wall and scanned backwards and forwards carefully, but he could see nothing. Then he switched the lighter off, and leaning forward he very carefully ran his free hand over the wall. Just below his chest height, almost in front of him, the wood under his hand turned to air. He put the lighter on again and could just make out the outline of two circles, about eight inches apart. He tried to push his hand through them, but it was like an invisible barrier.

He backed carefully out of the space and up the stairs, and first thing that evening he was back at Beaumont and Main, finding another girl. This one was a longhaired blonde, taller than the latino girl, with breasts so large that Eddie couldn’t take his eyes off them. The idea of her hanging from them bucking in the air formed a hard, hot fist at the base of Eddie’s brain, and he could hardly focus on his instructions to her. Take this hundred bucks, here’s all you have to do, then there’ll be another hundred to do it again tomorrow night. And there’s another hundred if no one sees you walk through the bar.

He watched her strut off, then almost ran back to the room under the squat to wait. Sure enough, half an hour later, standing silently in front of the holes with a torch on lowest setting, he saw a small female hand wiggle hesitantly into the left hole. There was a brief break, then he saw the top of first one breast and then the other slide down and into the holes, which were much too small for more than a third of them. Moving as slowly as he could he bent down to one shiny nipple and breathed lightly across it. There was no reaction, so, with shaking tongue he licked it slowly. There was still no sign that the girl had felt anything, and he turned to the other nipple and sucked it hard. As he did, the breasts pulled away and then were gone.

Eddie didn’t even consider going home. He curled up on the floor, pushing aside the refuse that littered it, and slept erratically, in a kind of jerky trance, for the next 24 hours. Then there was a rustle above his head and he leapt up, wide awake, thumbing the torch on at his feet, as two huge perfectly formed breasts eased slowly into the holes, higher up and twice as big as they had been the night before. He waited a minute, then bent slowly towards them, but before he could reach them with his mouth they jerked towards him. He could hear a women’s moan of ecstasy penetrate the wall, then her breasts moved as if strong hands were clasping them, kneading the flesh into different shapes. The nipples hardened and stretched, pulled to twice their length, and started to drip as if they were smeared with saliva, while the flesh around them became more and more misshapen. The moaning grew to screaming and Eddie could feel the wall vibrate and echo. He reached out a shocked hand towards the holes when suddenly the noise stopped, and then, as his hand hovered trembling above the breasts, they were gone.

Eddie slumped to the floor, feeling things crunch under him, then took the torch and moved shaking towards the stairs. A flat wooden surface met his hands and he swung the torch over it, looking for where he had broken in. There was no sign of any opening, and he pounded the torch against the wood, shouting at the same time. The torch had no effect, not even cracking the wall, and its light started to splutter out. He staggered backwards and stumbled as he caught his foot on something sharp. The shadow of his head reared crazily across the wall in the last feeble light of the torch as he reeled across the floor of bones.