On page 172, just after Pointsmen has recieved oral sex from Maud, it says, "But no one saw them, then or ever, and in the winter ahead, here and there, her look will cross his and she'll begin to blush red as her knees, she'll come to his room off the loab once or twice perhaps, but somehow they're never to have this again, this sudden tropics in the held breath of war and English December, this moment of perfect peace." Typically oral sex is not seen as an act of emotional intimacy, but rather as an erotic sexual act. I think it's interesting that Pynchon has chosen this as the perfect moment of peace.