Topical Guide 197
Mark Dorset
Erotic Fantasies: Marie in The Adventures of Larry Peters
MARIE, THE PETERSES’ MAID, made my heart go pit-a-pat the moment she first appeared in one of the adventures, pushing the kitchen door open with a beautifully rounded hip, stepping into the dining room on those long and luscious legs, carrying a tray of blueberry pancakes …
Little Follies, “Call Me Larry”
“Oh, well,” said Marie. … “I’ve always thought it would be fun to—you know that big claw-foot tub in my bathroom?”
“Sure,” said Larry. He blushed as soon as he had spoken, for he had on many an evening climbed the apple tree outside the window of Marie’s bathroom in the hope of catching a glimpse of her while she bathed in the claw-foot tub to which she referred, and had, in fact, succeeded on a number of occasions.Roger Drake, The Flying Aspidistras
Most of my ideas about Marie came from outside the books themselves, from other sources and from my imagination. There were, however, one or two scenes in which Marie appeared that have remained sharp and clear and brilliant in my memory. I am willing to bet a sizable sum that any reader of the Larry Peters books will recall one of those scenes immediately and vividly if I merely end this sentence with the phrase tub of Jell-O.
Little Follies, “Call Me Larry”
I’ve often thought that it would be fun to draw a nice hot bath in that tub and then stir in … about—oh, I guess, two or three dozen packages of Jell-O.”
“Jell-O?” asked Larry. His heart had begun to beat at a faster rate. …
“And then, very softly, I would call out, ‘Help. Help me, Larry.’ … And you would open the door of the bathroom—”
“I would?”
“—and you’d be holding—now, don’t laugh—”
“What would I be holding? What?”
“A spoon.”
“A spoon. Oh, my God, a spoon.”
“Not a big spoon. A little spoon, a demitasse spoon.”Roger Drake, The Flying Aspidistras
See also: Erotic Fantasies (Male, Heterosexual, Adolescent and Beyond): Bathing; Wishful Thinking TG 66; Sexual Fantasies, Male, Heterosexual, Adolescent and Beyond; Miss Clam Fest TG 53; Sexual Fantasies: Nymphs; Myths: Hylas; Dark-Haired Girl, the TG 59
The evening’s music:
From today, Valentine’s Day 2022, through Sunday, February 20, you can watch the Callisto Quartet in a concert from Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts for free! In this performance, you’ll hear a world premiere by Nathaniel Heyder, who was inspired by Brahms’s Third String Quartet, which was itself modeled after the Mozart Quartet also on the program. The three works share an unmistakable joy of life and nature. Program
Mozart: String Quartet in B-flat Major, K. 458, “Hunt”
Nathaniel Heyder: Vistas (World Premiere)
Brahms: String Quartet No. 3 in B-flat Major, Op. 67
[more to come on Thursday, February 16, 2022]
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