Parallel Stories: A Novel (52 page)

The man tried to interrupt. That’s what I mean. As if you’re afraid you’ll lose something forever unless you tell me what you think you have to tell me this very minute. I don’t want to hear it.

But I
will
tell you, whether you want to hear it or not. For two days, I pretended to be doing nothing else except read, but I was continually rubbing myself. She stopped because, despite their previous exchange, she counted on the man’s interest to help her tell the story.

But the man truly wasn’t interested just then in what she had done at boarding school. He wanted to get to his cock at last. And not any more because of the pain especially. His wounded pride was making him angry and he had to pull the foreskin back into place to make his erection subside.

And there was a connection between these two things.

As if deciding enough was enough. He had already given too much of himself. He was depressed by realizing he couldn’t avoid the woman physically, could not properly overcome her or nonchalantly extricate himself from her, and also must suffer physical and mental losses. An abundant and forceful ejaculation was not so desirable for him anyway. At least he allowed it only infrequently. He was convinced his ejaculations were too strong, and they made him deeply depressed.

But if he held them back he could control his mood fluctuations.

He could not admit to himself that communality, or any exaggerated human proximity resulting from mutual and simultaneous ejaculation, repelled and disgusted him.

From now on, nothing would happen against his will. But Gyöngyvér clung to him stubbornly, ardently; and she relaxed her limbs so he wouldn’t find her clinging offensive, and gently, carefully rubbed against him, kept rubbing against him. She was making an effort, mindful not to hurt him too much, but, to be honest with herself, she did not understand what on earth could hurt a man.

No man had ever told her that some part of his body was hurting or could hurt. She anyway thought of them as less sensitive than she.

In the meantime, they were sliding on the bountiful slippery sweat of their bodies, and they both liked this.

Rather as he had enjoyed himself in the dark boarding-school dormitory full of muffled noises; because of the other body’s ceaseless slipping and sliding, his own down-curved cock slowly became flattened against the base of his thigh.

Which made his erection not diminish but increase. His denuded glans continually felt the familiar thigh pressure and at the same time, in unpredictable rhythms, the woman’s taut belly and the prickles of her thick pubic hair; his cock was sliding on her turned-out slippery labia. The air conveys the sounds of a partner’s pleasures. As for him, he could put up with no more of this sharing, this human proximity, at least not in the long run. While Gyöngyvér, on the contrary, could not get enough of there being another human being in the world; she rubbed against him with her breasts, her shoulders, with her neck, her wide-open lap and, leaving nothing out, her hard little belly. Which was at once ritualistic and hysterical. And then, as if the pinnacle of pampering were in order, she wanted to take the cock into her mouth to swallow it completely with her tongue and saliva.

She was aching too.

If she could, she’d have submerged herself in it, rolled around in it, taken on its substance, its odor. But she only stared at it as it was rearing demandingly in front of her mouth. She would have preferred to insert both her hands between her legs, or to rinse herself out with lukewarm water. Or train a shower head on herself, but not from too close. And she didn’t dare touch it, not even with the tip of her tongue, because she felt she would immediately drink it up, would bite into it, would have to suck his blood from it. Although she felt better, she still hadn’t told the whole story she had started telling him, and she had cramps in her womb. The story continued in the empty shower room of her boarding school.

Another time.

When Irénke returned.

She was brushing him with her thick pubic hair, rubbed her clitoris against him, plastered herself on him, but then decided to use her tongue and dug and swept around and into the testicles, with her lips smearing saliva and their other, intermingled excretions, but she did not take the cock into her mouth.

She licked it all around, as if her tongue were taking a stroll. This was no game and did not seem playful. Two sorts of compulsions were appearing at once and with equal force.

She feared for him and she feared her own bloodthirsty desire. And for long, hysterically intense seconds, like a leech, she stuck firmly to the man’s flesh. The truth was that, if only because of Irénke, she didn’t dare take this cock into her mouth. Instead, she bit into the man’s shoulder, at several places into his hard stomach and in the crook of his thigh; she was chewing on him.

And, as if returning to his weakest point, which she had discovered for herself ages ago, she took little bites in the firm chest muscles at the base of his armpit.

Stimulated by the bites, the chest muscles grew taut, the man kept wincing, the muscles of his ass and shoulders contracted spasmodically, his entire body was rebelling, except for the soles of his feet, his loins, and the marrow of his spine. As if begging for mercy, he shouted, no, don’t, and to curb his volume he bit his lip. He would have found it shameful to admit to so much pleasure. He failed to notice that what was happening was the very opposite of what he had decided should be happening. Because, though he did not surrender to the sensual pain and he managed to regain his cock for a moment, which felt very good, with his cock in the powerful heat of his palm, after a long absence, he found his way back to himself. He wanted to keep it, be able to control it, pamper it, cover it, protect it, but in the next instant it became clear he had to grab it and hold it in his fist so the woman, its real possessor, could lower herself on it more safely.

Though she barely touched it.

She could open herself that wide. Then what was she talking about his being too big for her.

And she didn’t let him go completely inside her, as if her intense heat, smoothness, and depth could not possibly be filled up.

At this moment, they both seemed preoccupied more with themselves than with each other. They were sharply separated, maintaining only their contact points; they barely had anything to do with each other even though, in effect, their autonomy had dissolved completely, had ceased to exist. They consciously followed what was happening to them, but the person or persons involved in whatever was occurring seemed far ahead, with them following at a distance. As if they both had a hitherto unknown other self. Their wills also preceded them; only afterward would they say that that was exactly, precisely, how they wanted it. Now they both clearly understood that their own separate bodies were for the most part incapable of union, and something entirely different had, independently of them, already managed to unite.

That is what they both now comprehended.

Listen, this is painful, really, not pleasant at all, the man kept repeating; he would have gladly fled the sight before him, but for now could only paw and finger helplessly the light, hard, incredibly flexible and nimble body in his search for a handhold on something he considered familiar.

Why not put it on my mouth instead, he moaned. I probably did wreck you, I’m sorry about that. Forgive me, he moaned desperately. Please, give it here, I’ll make it all better.

But Gyöngyvér could not be stopped. As if she hadn’t understood what the other one wanted.

Or perhaps she really did not hear him because her body, home of hearing and seeing, was already very far from her. After all, it was the first time that something she wanted had happened, she had initiated, or would have wanted from a man. Or she remained in the boarding-school shower room with her memories, and used Irénke’s sweet tongue and sharp little teeth to penetrate herself and the man. For years, if she wanted to, this little tongue could make her feel like a princess; her devoted servants never looked, because they never had to, for what she wanted, they always knew her wishes. This awareness made her open up, rise high above him, with her labia barely touching the swelling crown of his penis as she arched over and bent down from the heights toward the man’s darkly shining upper body.

She gave back to the man what she had received from the girl.

The man’s beauty filled her eyes, a kind of pleasing proportion her loins could find by themselves. She was brimming with burgeoning praise. She just reached him with her lips. She sucked and patted his strong nipples with her tongue. That’s how she extracted an advance on his cock. She bit down, pulled on him, twice, quickly, which made the defenseless man cry out again. And he would have thrust into her harder but she did not let him. Like a spring, she was bouncing above him, enjoying his obstinacy. She was conducting him with a triple-beat rhythm that radiated humor and jollity.

This brave jollity, for which there was no substitute, she had also borrowed from Irénke.

It certainly wasn’t usual for her, and never with a man. She barely allowed the stubborn head of his cock to touch her clitoris—the second beat; it could just slip inside her vagina—the third, closing cadence. She was filling herself up not with his physical bigness, but with a rhythm of sharply separable beats and chords.

And then it started from the beginning, mercilessly, brutally; everything all over again. She became like a martinet who enjoys depriving a person in her charge of all means of resistance. Later it became clear why she hadn’t taken it into her mouth.

Come on, let me have it, repeated the man impatiently, give it here, as if he were truly thirsty for it, though he knew he had no hope his wish would be granted. Please, I want to do it with my tongue, my mouth, I’ll heal it for you.

He was also driven by a wish, a secret unavoidable thought like a visionary promise of relief, to take back some of his sperm from the woman. To suck and swallow some of it, while it was still possible, to scoop out the last drops with his tongue.

But Gyöngyvér had no intention of obeying him. For some reason she was certain the man was merely trying to trick her. And she was enjoying the hitherto unknown circumstance. She had the upper hand.

She wanted to hear him say he wanted her cunt. She wanted to force the word out of him.

Tell me what you want so much, come on, spell it out.

I won’t say it, moaned the man, I won’t.

Then how would I know what you want to heal.

Don’t tell me you don’t understand.

I don’t care how, in Italian, German, any language, just please say it. And she added angrily, in a low voice, like a person taking her full revenge, if it’s all the same to you.

Her sudden anger, which she underscored with a movement deviating from the guiding rhythm of her vagina, might have had to do with her lack of diligence in learning foreign languages; she’d begun to dabble in German and simultaneously studied Italian, but she bogged down around the tenth lesson. She didn’t even know what cunt was in Italian or German, though she could hardly expect to have a singer’s career without mastery of these languages.

If I’m doing something you don’t like, let me up, replied the man, who didn’t understand what was going on and would have liked to shove her off. If it’s all the same to you, find somebody else, and right away too. Or let’s see what you can do on your own.

A little while ago you wouldn’t let me talk. But this is what I wanted to tell you.

I prefer watching it to listening to it.

She did not respond. Unlike their aroused emotions and urge to quarrel, their loins remained indifferent. And it had never occurred to her to touch herself while a man was watching. Things like that were among her most closely guarded secrets, and she was about to share one with him. And she had never before talked, or been talked to, in the midst of lovemaking, about anything. Suddenly she was gripped by the unexpected realization that for hours, for days, or for who knows how long they’d been talking while making love without her truly noticing it. She didn’t understand herself or the situation; she had no idea who this other person was with whom everything became so distorted and transformed. It seemed impossible that everything could be so different. She thought it was positively repulsive.

She rose along with him, as if fleeing, wanting at the same time to lean over him. And while she sucked his nipple again and cautiously bit its hardened tip, she very lightly drew her vagina across the head of his penis. She was being careful that the man should feel nothing of what was coursing through her own body, the many unsettling thoughts, the alternating hot and cold excitement in her back and thigh muscles. Still, she gave the man the impression that she was bidding farewell to him gently and discreetly. At the same time, he couldn’t possibly penetrate her more deeply or fiercely; alarmed, he realized there was nothing he could do. He wanted to catch up with her; she mustn’t go away. Now he wanted to cause pain. With his entire body, with his hips, with the huge raised and contracted muscles of his buttocks, he jerked, convulsed, and thrust himself into her several times in succession. Several decades of fear and anxiety would have been concentrated in these spasms if the pleasure of violence had not dissolved them. And the woman understood this, precisely: he found himself very close to the moment when standing on the sunny steps at the boarding school he had called after his father, begging him not to leave him there alone. Because she felt the importance of that moment, she did not allow the man’s violent thrusts to enter her. She sensed unerringly the peaks of his unassimilated torments, the heights he aspired to, his frustrated desires. And as if propelling herself up from the familiar depths of sunshine-illuminated water, with her taut body spanning the distance between the riverbed and the faraway surface, she found, among her own images, a simile for what she felt emanating from the man. With a ready-to-bounce straddle above him, she was protecting him, giving him a home, and opening an umbrella over him, but when the man approached she moved away; if he wanted to withdraw she lowered herself on him a little, but never sat completely into him.