Parallel Stories: A Novel (79 page)

There were many questions, but not one of them referred to an entire personality—only to its various characteristics and the ever-shifting basic situation. To how these characteristics could be made to speak without having to exchange a single word with the other man.

To make contact with the other man directly, without an intermediary, and somehow with all the others as well.

Even the most experienced ones kept turning around, like birds, because they feared being exposed and, in their fickleness, had to keep an eye now on this one, now on another one.

Without much effort, I too adjusted my behavior to these rules and open questions, and therefore caught myself doing everything the same way; in the name of pure sensory perception I was just as fickle as the others. Soon there was no situation I didn’t scrutinize and evaluate according solely to my senses, evading morality and reason.

The difference between the two kinds of knowledge became measurable during the night.

I learned continually from and with my sense organs, adding, as it were, to everything I’d learned earlier according to the scales and standards of reason so that I could put each item, sorted by moral viewpoint, in its proper place in my consciousness. But since everything was open, changing continuously, and continuing awkwardly to stay open, I could reach no final knowledge; the most I could do was notice the repetitions, or sense in the rhythm of recurrences vague signs of an elusive natural law. I did not realize it was impossible to find the underlying cause of anything by learning. At best I comprehended it as yet another situation; slowly accepted the reality of occurrences that appeared in parallel within and around me; resigned myself to the possibility that whatever happened within and around me would become a part of my life, after all; and as a result my knees even stopped their humiliating shaking.

But I did not believe we had reached the end of anything.

Several men in the long line showed an immediate interest in me, stretching a bit to see past some of the others, leaning forward, out of the line, but I had to pretend not to notice these summoning signals because I did not belong to these intrusive strangers. They could clearly see that I belonged to this black-haired navvy or stonecutter, to this I don’t-know-who, whose shoulders and chest nearly burst from his checkered shirt, and with whom I had practically nothing in common. I belonged to his mustached assistant also, and to nobody else. With my reticence and obstinacy I signaled to the others that they should expect nothing from me.

But I did not even have to look up to see the cock of the man on the other side of me.

It was exactly my obstinacy, reticence, and hesitation that made him turn in my direction and show me his, immediately.

He was rearing up with it.

He wanted to use his cock to jolt me out of my fickleness. I couldn’t have known what sort of man came with this cock, and he counted on my inability to resist the curiosity that lurks in every single man without exception. Carefully, I did take a good look at it. I decided he wouldn’t have a chance even if I hadn’t been waiting for the giant. Whose black hair falls so flamboyantly on his forehead, and who with his metallically flashing eyes probably follows my every move in the darkness, checking up on my very existence. I had to think quickly of something else to ward off any possible effect of the stranger’s cock on my curiosity. There were no more vacant places, and in the tense silence something had irrevocably ended. Nobody could fit in between the two of us; true, I did not see him and wouldn’t dare look at him by leaning either forward or backward, to see something of him between the strange bodies.

He towered above them all.

I should see his illuminating smile.

At the mere thought, at the mere fancy of the possibility of such proximity, my cock filled my hand and began to grow stiff.

Maybe I should urinate first.

I felt his domination on the nape of my neck, in the roots of my hair. His power gained strength in my hand, my body became the inevitable emblem of his power, and I entered into his service exactly the same way his mustached assistant had. As if my entire life until then had been nothing but a preparation for this nightmare, which caught me while wide awake, with its secret pleasures promising compensation for all my past and future suffering. In the phalanx we stood foot to foot, elbow to elbow, almost touching, shoulders on both sides rubbing against me occasionally, which naturally increased the promise of this unnamable community.

I had no idea how much time passed; it may have been growing light outside.

I had to violate this unnamable common activity because I could not abandon my urge to urinate. Curiously, they watched what I was going to do. For security reasons too, they wanted to know what the newcomer would do because it determined whether they’d continue the games among themselves that they had interrupted at my arrival. I could no longer use some ordinary dissembling to hide the real meaning of my behavior; my overstretched bladder could not relax under such tension, its functioning was also hindered by active waves of hyperemia. It would have been hard to avoid a complete erection. From my left the unknown man offered his own, from the right the blond idiot. Because of bladder tension, I should have avoided an erection and kept to a sensible sequence. Slowly, indulgently, holding their cocks at the root to make them visible in their entirety, both men kept pulling their foreskins over and off their bulbs to steady their strong erections or rather to keep them permanent. With which they not only held themselves in the daze of hyperemia but also showed off to the best advantage the tumescence of their genitals. They were competing with each other but also with the mustached assistant.

They offered a sight from which, theoretically, another man could not escape without excitement. At the very least his eyes would grow round, his pupils would enlarge to take everything in, as if injecting himself into the other man with his look, setting out involuntarily with his head to observe what it would be like to be that other man. And that causes the fragrance of the strange cock to invade his nostrils.

To take that bulb into his mouth, to eat it, to trigger and experience the other man’s pleasure.

The memory of mothers’ breasts surges in the mouths.

He won’t, he cannot do it; some men delay it, defer it throughout a lifetime, but the mere thought of the act makes them breathe faster and hear how the other man’s breath speeds up too. A few steps over, the mustached one was doing the same thing in his own way, while on the other side the gray-haired old man kept turning and busying himself, and next to him stood the giant, but I didn’t know what he was doing.

I didn’t dare look at him.

In a strong, large jet, as if bursting or erupting from me, urine began to gush out. I couldn’t have waited with it even if I had wanted to. It echoed as it hit the tarred wall.

The effect on the others was as if in some polite company I had committed the worst possible faux pas.

I had waited too long and that is why I became
de plus en plus incommode
.

The strong pressure of the liquid opened the urethra despite the mild erection.

I was making too much noise.

At the sound of so much churlishness, the men on both sides stopped what they were doing and hastened to conceal their erect pricks in the funnels of their palms.

I noticed only moving shadows between dark spots because, aware of my improper behavior and incompetence, I shamefully kept staring in front of me. I could see with my sense of hearing that they had indignantly given up on me and turned away. Hearing the splash of my urine, they right away had to look for different prey.

Sometimes, nothing wants to turn out the way it should.

With the unceasing searching and jockeying, everything stretches out indefinitely even though everyone strives to have things happen without delay. So that no one should have to wait another moment for the daily dose of pleasure. And nobody likes disappointing anyone, because he too might suffer the same disappointment.

Holding awkwardly his thick, short, swollen cock with the reddish, pointy little bulb at its end, the blond young man with his nervous, sometimes irritated movements turned unhesitatingly to the mustached one. Who at this very moment realized the possibilities in his dominant position, and probably made a challenging gesture that confused the fellow so busy offering himself.

These men, offering themselves to each other, often hissed or sent signals whose meaning an outsider could comprehend, if at all, only when seeing the resulting action in progress.

They quickly changed places and unexpectedly the mustached one was now next to me.

Something similar must have happened on the other side with the man who just a little while earlier had so startled me with his unruly erection that I hadn’t even wanted to see to whom his cock belonged. He too had been cheated. In his disappointment with me, and after looking through the gray-haired old man still gesticulating with his cock, and through the strange figure next to the old man, an underage, possibly crippled boy, as if they were made of air, he couldn’t turn anywhere but to the giant. He wanted to show it to him if he could not have me. The giant may have confused him, probably with some inviting movement, for he was showing himself not to this man but to me. Not only the giant’s cock but his entire loin was uncovered. Or so it seemed in the poor lighting provided by the thin beams of light filtering through the high windows. The crippled boy wore a platform-soled orthopedic shoe on one foot; his cane, which he could not hold, was leaning against the tarred wall. He was showing his to everyone, offering himself to anyone; a lit cigarette dangled from his lips.

I knew the exposed loins of the giant. And he knew their effect on me.

For five nights in a row, again and again, at different locations and in different positions he had offered me everything. Maybe his specialty was showing not only his prick but also his testicles, hair, belly, and top of his thighs. There was a certain merciless openness in this. The relief of his stomach, thighs, and loins, his head, and his entire splendid figure eerily reminded me of the man with anvil and hammer one can see on the twenty-forint bill. On each occasion, I had stupidly run away from him. To my shame, in the light of day I would take out the twenty-forint bill to see him and be with him. I couldn’t forget him. The only difference between him and his image on the bill was that on the latter the artist had used drapery to conceal the loins. It was because of the giant that I had returned every night.

Because of him, or because of my finally wanting to find someone, anyone, who would love me for my body.

Now, holding his cock, avoiding all other offers, he leisurely started toward me. With his other hand, he had to hold up his worker’s overalls, which had slipped down his thighs.

This did not make him look ridiculous. There was something flamboyant in the entire man, permissive and contented but not self-satisfied, or at least not petty. As if he had not bared the huge muscles of his buttocks intentionally, either, as if it just happened that way. But perhaps he wore no underpants. And that excited me extremely, every night.

Others quickly exploited the changing of places by these two and became active in the darkness. Again, it felt as if a gust of wind had blown across the landscape, only this time it did not pass on. I, or the person standing there in my stead, was the only one who could not move. However ill-mannered my behavior seemed in this company, I was very far from ending my noisy urination. As it kept pouring out of me in an ever larger and stronger spurt, my erection was gaining strength too.

In the meantime, I found myself flanked by the two men.

In my shame I glanced from one face to another. This seemed to them as if I were asking for their patience and their pardon for this unavoidable need of mine.

As if I could keep them away from me with meekness and alarm. Or from the somebody standing in for me. Who was hoping that some kind of distance could be maintained between people.

At any rate, I would be asking something from them, mercy.

They did not touch me, didn’t dare, not yet, but were standing so close that the emanations of our bodies, their heat and odor, flooded and penetrated all three of us. By turns, they watched my cock, the jet of my urine, and my mouth. From this close, the face of the mustached one affected me differently than before because he did not seem nearly so calculating or aggressive as he’d been when seen from a distance. Until now I’d feared some sly cruelty. Now, on the contrary, he seemed gentle, attentive, expectant, and self-controlled, careful not to ruin things with a wrong move or give me reason to flee again. He mesmerized me, as one does a dangerous wild animal. At the same time, there were signs of sadness on his childlike features hiding behind his meaty nose and deeply grooved forehead. Like a person who does not expect much good to happen to him yet cannot give up hope completely. Perhaps there was a chance. Maybe this very minute. Maybe with this complete stranger. Perhaps with him he could return to that elemental joy he had once received, then lost and could not find again.

Our proximity did not alter but rather deepened the beauty of the giant.

He was the same on one twenty-forint bill as on another.

As I turned my head toward him, I could immerse my soul in his real fragrance.

With his incredible smile, he expected nothing, did not hope for or count on anything; he was only giving something one rarely receives.

He gave it with his eyes, his lips, his amazing teeth.

He still had plenty of surplus happiness, he did not have to be thrifty, he could go on giving and giving, he would not exhaust his supplies.

I shouldn’t worry. I shouldn’t rush, should finish peeing at my leisure, he likes to see how I hold my weenie and let the gushing out in a large wide arc. It was not that he was waiting patiently for me; he was caressing me with his smile; he liked to hear it.