* * *
Under the scalding water he rubbed against me, gripping my ass and pressing me against him, his still half erect member knocking against my own. I turned him around to soap his shoulders, his back, his hips, gliding my fingers between his buttocks and caressing the tufts of curly hairs around his anus. His matte skin was covered with numerous little scars, thick enough in places to form bumps, I counted three on his shoulder and could feel a few more beneath my fingers, on his chest and his groin, and also a long forked one at the angle of his jaw. I pressed my sex against his ass and bit the nape of his neck as he leaned against the tiled wall. Muffled knocks sounded on the bedroom door. He broke away, running his fingers along my balls and member, and slipped on a large terrycloth robe before going to the door. I relaxed in the stream of water, bending my neck under the scalding pressure. A powerful desire filled me, stretching my muscles with excitation while leaving me racked with an empty, sated feeling. Finally I turned off the water and dried off quickly, putting on the other bathrobe hanging there without taking the trouble of closing it. Sitting cross-legged on the green and gold bedspread, the young man was contemplating a large tray on which were lined up dishes in lacquered wood, filled with raw fish and pickled vegetables. Two golden beers frothed in tall, slightly tapered glasses. I joined him and began eating in silence. Aside from the clicking of the chopsticks there was no sound; behind the shutters, which, I supposed, looked out on a street or a courtyard, everything was quiet; a lone lamp, by the bedside, lit us with its pale halo, and I could clearly see our reflections in the windowpanes, two slightly blurred silhouettes, draped in white, which stood out from the verdant field of the bedspread. I finished the last little vegetables, pushed away the tray, and began undoing the knot of his bathrobe, sliding my hand between his thighs to stroke his member. He let out a long sigh and fell back on the bedspread. I spread his legs and leaned forward to run my tongue around his balls and then roll them between my lips, one after the other. With both hands, I pushed his knees back, almost to his shoulders, and continued licking him, sliding my tongue along the perineum and burrowing between the hairs, flicking the tip, to finally come and tickle his anus. It had a slightly spicy, sour taste, I buried my tongue in as he sighed and stroked my hair with one hand, pulling his calves even further back. It was very dry in that room, I quickly lacked saliva; I let his legs go and straightened up to drink a little beer, he took the glass from my hands and drank too, then in a swift motion he shed his bathrobe and turned over onto his belly, offering me his downy thighs and powerful, muscular buttocks; I stripped in turn and stretched on top of him, my stiff member pressed between his thighs, I took his chin in my hand and turned his head toward mine, his lips still had the bitter taste of the beer, I lifted his pelvis and with one hand guided my member toward the opening of his anus, but it was too dry, so I straightened up and brought some saliva up on my tongue as with both hands I spread his buttocks, the saliva streamed onto his hairs and his puckered, barely dilated anus, I massaged it with my thumb, which I dug in a little, and also coated my member with saliva. Then I pressed it again in the center of the hairs, he grunted, pushed as well, it opened all of a sudden and I found myself sucked in, glued against his ass, I slid my hands under his armpits and closed them over the back of his neck, gripping onto him and forcing into him with large thrusts, he moaned, his face pressed in the green leaves of the bedspread, I lifted his pelvis some more and turned around: in the panes of the window, I could clearly make out our two bodies on top of each other, the twin moon of my ass and my spread thighs, suspended above his with between them a darker, indistinct mass. Already pleasure was bursting open my back, stretching the skin of my neck; I slowed down; just at that moment, the phone rang, freezing us on top of each other. As I withdrew to pick it up, I squeezed the muscles of my pelvis with all my strength, but it was too late, pleasure had overcome me and my sperm, as I articulated a hoarse “Yes?” into the receiver, spurted out in long jerks, spattering my stomach, the boy’s ass, the embroidered leaves of the bedspread. “Yes?” In the receiver, no one replied. I pressed my ear to it, repeated several times “Hello? Hello?” but I could hear only the light buzzing of the empty line. Still lying on his stomach, the young man was quickly jerking off, I finally hung up and grasped his ass and balls with both hands, clenching my fingers as he came in turn.
* * *
An electrical outage plunged us into darkness as I tried to wipe the traces of sperm from the bedspread with the help of a roll of toilet paper. I lay down next to the boy, who turned his back to me with a sigh that was hard to interpret. I pressed against him, my now-soft member nestled in the hollow of his buttocks. We must have fallen asleep that way. The return of electricity woke me suddenly. My mouth was dry, pasty; blinking, I dragged myself out of bed to go drink greedily from the bathroom faucet, briefly blinded by the neon light that I turned off right away. Emerging from the bathroom I contemplated the boy: he was still sleeping, sprawled out on his belly, his downy legs intertwined with the embroidered cloth. I slowly ran the pads of my fingers along his back and buttocks, tripping over the scars; his skin grated, almost rough; between his legs, my sperm had dried in long whitish trails. I should turn down the heat, I thought confusedly. But I could see no thermostat, no temperature control. Finally I filled two glasses with water and put them on the radiator before turning off the light and lying back down alongside the young man, one hand on his side. Sounds of water emanating from the bathroom woke me completely. The light was on again and I was alone on the bed. I knocked on the bathroom door and went in without waiting for a reply: the young man, standing in front of the toilet, was peeing. I kissed his shoulder and quickly rinsed off in the shower. When I emerged, a towel knotted around my waist, he had just finished putting on his jeans and buckling his belt. With a smile I tapped the bulge formed by his limb: “Nice package,” I said. He chuckled dryly, slipped his t-shirt over his head, pulled a cellphone from his pocket and consulted it: “I have to go. Will you give me the money?” I looked at him with surprise: “The money?”—“Yes, the money. Like always.” He was sitting on the edge of the bed now and was pulling on his socks and leather ankle boots. A dull anxiety was seeping into my muscles; I hesitated, then went to search through the pockets of my tracksuit before returning with a helpless gesture. The boy had gotten up and was standing in front of me, his shoulders hunched a little and his face calm and cold; a threatening feeling emanated from him, not from his face but from his rounded shoulders, the tension of his thighs, the deceptive calmness of his dangling arms. “Well?”—“I don’t have any money, actually.”—“Are you fucking with me, or what?” His arm straightened and before I could make a move of defense he slapped me across the face, sending me into the wall; another blow, with his closed fist to my belly, doubled me over and sent me to my knees in front of him, stunned, my breath cut off. He took me by the hair, straightened me up, and struck me again several times in the face, sending me flying onto the bed where my mouth splattered the heavy cloth of the bedspread with blood. “Are you fucking with me?” He chased me through the room, the towel had fallen and I crawled naked as he rained my ribs and limbs with kicks, which exploded in my body like bursts of fire. Finally he left me sprawled on the carpet, my mouth and nose full of blood, wheezing and struggling to breathe in a little air. The backs of his legs were in front of me, I saw my clothes fall to the floor one after the other. “Fuck, you really don’t have anything, you son of a bitch,” his voice said far above my head as his legs turned toward me. I saw the tip of one of his boots draw back, then nothing. When I came to I was still lying thus, naked on the carpet soaked in blood; fortunately, the color was the same, it wasn’t too visible. I stayed there for a while panting, letting the pain shoot through my body, then I dragged myself to the bathroom where I managed to haul myself up to the sink. I rinsed off my face, my mouth; the water, turned red, splattered the sink and mirror, I delicately felt my nose and my teeth, one or two moved a little but they were all there, my nose didn’t seem broken, I kept drinking and rinsing off until the water ran almost clear. Then I returned to the bedroom where I gathered my clothes with difficulty and sat down like a block on the edge of the bed to put them on, painfully. Finally dressed, I leaned back for a few minutes to catch my breath, then headed for the door. There were in fact two, I hadn’t noticed, and I had no idea which one had been taken by the young man, whom I had no wish to cross paths with again. I opened one at random and went out. Immediately the cool air of the hallway invigorated me, the pain racking my limbs faded away and I began running in short strides, setting one foot regularly in front of the other and breathing with ease. It wasn’t so dry anymore and quickly a fine layer of sweat covered my face and my bruised body; swallowing saliva, I could still taste the sharp, slightly ferruginous hint of blood; I pressed my tongue against my teeth, it hurt but they held firm. Everything was very grey here, my sight remained blurry and I could make out almost nothing, barely, perhaps, a few slightly darker rectangles which could just as easily have been nooks or alcoves as junctions, I tried to remain in the center of the hallway, which wasn’t easy since it kept curving, from time to time I almost collided with a wall and I would stumble as I recovered, but never did I stop running, I set one foot in front of the other while holding out a hand, fingers open, to assure myself of where the walls were, and that’s how I noticed somewhat by chance a metallic object, a doorknob apparently, my fingers closed on it and pushed and the door opened all of a sudden. I followed it and without letting go crossed the threshold. The space that opened up before me, a vast studio, welcomed me like a refuge and I crossed it, staggering, leaning on the walls and the bookcases that covered them, to reach the large bay window in the back, in front of which I collapsed into a black leather armchair. I felt disoriented, empty of thought but terribly ill at ease with myself, it wasn’t the physical pain which had already almost disappeared, no, it was something else, a numb anxiety that bored into my mind and kept me from enjoying the peaceful view in front of me, piles of colorful little buildings, rising in levels in front of the double wall formed by the long blue strip of the sea and the paler strip, veering to grey at the edge of the horizon, of the sky. I stayed there for a long time, breathing through my lips, before hauling myself painfully out of the armchair to stroll through the studio. A disk case was lying on the stereo, old recordings of Mozart piano concertos, but I had no desire for music and I left it there. Everything seemed futile to me, emptied of meaning and interest, the books lined up on the shelves, the reproductions and engravings hanging on the walls. I poured myself a glass of schnapps, drank it down, and poured another before burrowing into the sofa, black leather like the armchair, rolling between my fingers a little cigar, which I didn’t light. An album was lying there on the coffee table, I leafed through it absentmindedly: in oblong format, bound in white cloth, it showed naked women and men, executing various movements broken down into stop motion sequences by a multiple camera setup. I didn’t pause at any plate in particular, they passed in front of my eyes, a frozen series of backs, thighs, and white asses, seized for eternity by the successive triggering of the shutter in poses that no longer formed a single movement but served rather to emphasize these white bodies and what they were reduced to, backs, asses, and thighs.