CONTO Jack's Pecker

Joe R Lansdale

Jack awoke to find the redhead beside him had thrown off the covers. She looked good lying there, long and lean and white. Well, not all of her was lean. There were parts of her that were full and rounded and very fine, and she had certainly been fine to him earlier, readily allowing him access to the lean parts and the rounded parts. It was a one-night stand that might have one more bonus round available.

As he looked at her body, lean and muscular, lying there on his satin sheets, he realized that he felt nothing. Sure, he had used up a lot of energy, as had she, but he felt certain that he should be able to do the deed at least one more time.

Yet, that should-be-familiar tingling in his groin was absent.

Finally, he pulled back the sheets and gave himself a look.

His penis and testicles were gone. He was all smooth down there. He came out of bed in one leap, yelled loud enough the redhead rolled over, but didn't awake. She merely began to snore.

Jack was of the opinion that perhaps he should scream her awake, check out her vagina, see if it had sucked up his equipment, but then he realized that was ridiculous. He had had his penis and testicles when he had finished with her, and now he didn't. Where had the little bastards gone?

Jack looked in the bathroom, and all about the house, but no dick and balls. Finally he heard the redhead awake in the bedroom, calling his name. He went to the bathroom, wrapped a towel around his waist and went to her.

"Listen," he said. "I've got a problem."

"Problem?" she said, sitting up in bed, nude, tossing back her hair with a slight shake of her head. "What kind of problem?"

"My penis is gone."

"Say what?"

He removed the towel. The redhead let out a scream.

After she left, Jack dressed, felt odd pulling on underpants and feeling no weight there. He went back to the bathroom, stood in front of the full-length mirror and pulled down his underwear, took a peak at his reflection.

No doubt about it. His penis and testicles were gone. They hadn't been hiding behind his ass. They were gone. He looked like a Ken doll. He pulled up his underwear and sat on the floor and wept.

He really liked that penis, those testicles, and now they had deserted him.

In the kitchen, he found a note.

It was written on a note pad page, and he had not noticed it before, partially because it had been covered slightly by a place mat.

He snatched up the note and read it.

Jack,

You keep me way too busy with all the girls.

I like girls as much as the next dick, but you change around too much.

I fear a disease. Besides, to be perfectly honest, I needed a rest.

All the best,

Your Penis

P.S. Your balls say hi.

Jack spent the day walking the streets. He went to all his old haunts, thinking they too would be the haunts of his penis, knowing the penis was the brains of the trio, and besides, what could his penis know that he couldn't know?

But, alas, in all the gin joints and in all the restaurants and movie houses and places he knew, he found no sign of his penis. Girls he knew saw him and said hi, but he was too depressed to wave. He had only wanted one thing from those girls anyway, and now that was over with. You couldn't good time them or good time yourself without a penis. Oh, you had the tongue and you had your hands to do them good, but where was the good for yourself?

The only advantage he had found was that he could walk more comfortably. He had never known his dick and balls had been in the way before, and, of course, he felt light in the trousers, not an entirely uncomfortable feeling.

He went by the police station, placed a missing person report, but no answers there. They said his dick turned up, they'd give him a call.

Sitting home late at night, drinking, feeling lousy, wanting to have the warmth of his privates between his legs—for he discovered that without his equipment, he was quite cool down there, a little on the uncomfortable side—he brooded. Finally, growing colder in the crotch, he packed his underwear with cotton, went back to drinking.

As he sat there sipping, the phone rang. Reluctantly he picked it up.

On the other end was a sound like something smacking, a kind of snapping sound that he knew instinctively was the uncircumcised tip of his foreskin smacking together. The sound came again and again, repeating itself. Jack grabbed up a pen and paper, took notes. There were long smacks and short smacks.

Code.

Then the phone went dead.

Next day, with the help of a book, Jack deciphered the longs and shorts. They were, in fact, Morse code. He penciled down the results.

Miss me? I'm out here seeing the world.

Doing all the things you never had time to do, because you were always using me to satisfy yourself. I have a greater purpose than you've given me, and I've discovered it.

Your Pecker

P.S. Hope this doesn't cause you too much problem when you need to urinate.

Days went by, and Jack did not leave the house. He thought his pecker might call. But the phone remained dead. A week later, when the mail came through the slot in the door he found a post card. It had a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it. On the back was a note. It read:

Having a good time. Glad you're not here. Miss me? Miss what I can do?

By the way, French food is overrated.

Sincerely,

Your Pecker and Balls

The next card was from Germany. On the front was a shot of the Rhine river and the city of Cologne. The note was simple:

Wheeeeee!

Your Pecker

Jack went for days without shaving. He found he no longer had to pee. This was a plus. He kind of lost his will as well. Finally, with a last push of determination, he cleaned up and went out on the town. He met a very nice, but not overly attractive woman in a bar. Fact was, she was kind of pudgy. They sat and talked for hours. He discovered he was really listening. Without his pecker pushing at his pants, he was not preoccupied. He didn't worry about who saw him with her either. Before, just being seen with a not-so-beautiful girl would have embarrassed him.

But tonight . . . well, he discovered that he was enjoying himself. The girl's name was Janet and she had brown hair and she was a little plump, but she was very smart.

A week later he was still seeing her. All they did was hold hands.

Two weeks later he invited her home to his apartment.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "I like you with or without a pecker. A pecker is nice, don't misunderstand me. But, well, it's not like I've been invited to see a lot of them. Not someone plain-lookinglike me."

They were sitting on his sofa, holding hands. He found it very comfortable, and as far as Janet being plain, she had begun to look just fine to him. He was having a hard time remembering what beautiful was or what it meant.

Next day he got a series of photographs from his pecker. In one his penis and testicles had crawled up on the statue of David in a museum in Florence. They had nestled on top of David's stone penis so that the only dick and balls available to view now wereJack's. It was kind of funny. On the back of the photo it read: Yours is bigger.

The other photos were of his dick and balls being held in the palms of young women and friendly men. Jack had no idea who was taking the photographs. Probably some volunteer.

The last couple of photographs showed his pecker sitting on a stack of phone books in a restaurant, a plate of spaghetti in front of it. The tip of his pecker was red with sauce.

The cards and notes and photographs continued to come in from all over the world. Sometimes they were taunting, sometimes merely comical.

Jack discovered he was less interested. He had his mind on other things now. Like Janet. She was smart and he had learned to just sit with her for hours and talk, snuggle in bed. He even used his tongue and fingers to get her off. What he got in return were kisses. He found this was enough.

Fact was, he had come to the conclusion that his dick and balls had been a nuisance. They had guided his life more than his brain, and made him stupid. For the first time in his life he was truly happy. And the reason was Janet.

Janet. Janet. Janet.

About six months later, on a rainy night, Jack was awakened in his bed by a noise at the window. It was raining outside. Lightning was flashing this way and that across the sky and thunder was tumbling. At the window he saw a small shape.

He sat up in bed and strained for a look.

When the lightning flashed he saw that it was his penis, pressing its uncircumcised "face" against the glass, smearing it, dragging his balls around on the outside brick windowsill.

He watched it for a while. It pecked at the glass. Finally it wrote a note on the wet glass backwards, so that it looked correct from inside the house. It was a simple note. It read: I'm back. Let me in.

Jack got out of bed and went over to the window and gazed out at his dick and balls. It was pathetic-looking out there on the sill, like an oversized grub worm with huge warts on its ass and nowhere to go.

Jack thought of all the good times he and his pecker had experienced, and a slight pang of regret moved inside of him. But it moved only a short distance, then laid down.

Jack studied his pecker on the sill for a full minute. Resting on the testicles, the pecker rose up and moved about, and finally grew hard. He thought he remembered how that hard-on had felt, but it was distant memory.

Lighting flashed. The rain pounded.

Jack pulled the curtains and went back to bed. He put his arm around Janet and pushed his face into her hair.

After a little while, he no longer heard his pecker tapping on the glass, because it no longer mattered.

"Jack's Pecker" was originally published right here, on JoeRLansdale.com, on July 03, 2008, in honor of the tenth anniversary of The Orbit Drive-In. "Jack's Pecker" © 2008 Joe R. Lansdale.