Doaksie Bisbee

You’re way down,” said Luther Stokes, keeping Homer informed of the bad news every day. “You’re second from the bottom. If you don’t hurry up with that new whizbang of yours, you’ll be gone and forgotten. Have you seen what’s on the top of the nonfiction bestseller list right now? A new stunner by Doaksie Bisbee, You and Your Vagina.”

“Oh, God,” said Homer. “I don’t want to hear about my vagina.”

“Well, naturally, because you haven’t got one. This is strictly for females. I’ll bet Mary would be interested. And say, that Doaksie’s a cute kid. Have you seen her on TV?”

“Unfortunately, I have actually met the woman.”

“No kidding? Well, I suppose all you bestselling writers go to the same snazzy parties.”

“Umph,” growled Homer. It had not been a party; it had been a shared platform, a horrible experience. He had prepared his speech with care, a dazzling account of the squabbles among Protestant churches in the nineteenth century. He had timed his presentation to the required fifteen minutes, cutting out many a choice paragraph.

Then it was Doaksie’s turn. Doaksie had not prepared a speech at all. She had sat on the edge of the platform and talked about her free and easy life—or rather, about the life of her vagina. “Remember the old days,” said Doaksie, “when you had to get married to have sex?”

There were screams of laughter, encouraging Doaksie to further intimate revelations. Profoundly pained, Homer sat on his folding chair on the platform and examined the audience closely for the first time. They were mostly young women, very young women. In fact, they reminded him of the rosy-cheeked little girls who were his graduate students.

“Any questions?” asked the moderator, leaping to her feet when Doaksie had exceeded her allotted time by half an hour.

There were dozens of eager questions about sexuality, creativity, and spirituality. At one point, Homer, like a fool, jumped up to complain that words like creativity and spirituality were too important to be bandied about. “It should be against the law,” he scolded, “to use them more than once a year, or else the word police will get you.” There was a feeble titter as he sat down.

Afterward, Homer told Mary that the poet Dante had neglected one of the chief torments of hell. “Pity the unhappy speaker who has to sit in dignified silence while all the questions are addressed to somebody else. Oh, if only I had a vagina to call my own.” Groaning piteously, Homer strode across the room to his desk, snatched up a sheaf of papers, and tossed them at the ceiling. “Worthless,” he cried. “Not a vagina in the lot.”

Mary snatched some of them out of the air, then ran around retrieving the rest from the rubber plant, the lamp shade, and the basket of overdue library books. Two had slithered behind the desk into a snake pit of wires and cables. “Come on, Homer,” said Mary, “we’ve got to pull this thing away from the wall.”

“Why bother?” asked Homer, but he heaved on one end of the desk, and soon all the flying papers were shuffled together in a stack.

Then Mary took Homer by the hand and said, “My poor darling, it’s a shame that you don’t have a vagina. Tell you what. I’ve got one.” She looked at her watch. “We don’t have to leave for that church in Acton for half an hour.”