Awromele submitted to it the same way Xavier had submitted to his circumcision, first as an act of torture, later in a state of partial numbness, and still later as something pleasurable and horrible as well, that, too. Something terrifying that it might be better to abolish. As if he felt that it would compromise him. He knew that the greatest minds had been felled by pleasure, that the memory of pleasure had led them to forge bonds they had never meant to forge, to go down paths they would never have taken in a moment of clarity, because pleasure distorts, pleasure is the biggest liar in this world.
And Awromele knew that he was in danger, that he had never been in danger the way he was in danger now, here in this park, on the ground. He screamed again. Higher and louder than before.
With Awromele’s sex in his mouth, Xavier moved his head back and forth as though it had become a runaway steam engine, as though pleasure now consisted only of that one high scream from Awromele’s lips, a scream that hurt the ears so badly that it could only be a scream of horror. But Xavier heard in it something very different: doubt. Awromele’s cry was more than the cry of an animal, or of a eunuch lying on the guillotine, hearing the knife come hissing down, seeing his life pass before his eyes and realizing that he had done it all wrong. In Awromele’s cry there was more than just horror. Xavier suspected that this was closeness, nothing more than that, this scream that made him think of the slaughterhouse.
Awromele’s sperm flowed slowly into Xavier’s mouth. Xavier went on sucking. He didn’t know when to stop, he had never known when to stop.
Then the movements of Awromele’s lower body told him that the pleasure had turned to irritation, to pain. He raised his mouth to Awromele’s and kissed him, clumsily, but with passion. Neither of them tasted much — nothing special, in any case — at most something thicker than spittle, spicier, too, and of a higher specific gravity.
Sperm Dies Fast
IN THAT SAME PARK, a group of four boys were taking a walk after school, to smoke a cigarette and talk about friendship. They did that quite regularly, smoking, walking, and talking. They weren’t very old, fifteen or sixteen at most. A little younger than Awromele and Xavier. They were likable boys who viewed the five minutes to come with the same fear and trembling as they did the remote future, but who carried on nevertheless, the way boys their age do.
The tallest of them, a boy with a wispy mustache and a gray ski jacket, said: “Hey, do you guys hear that?” He had heard someone scream in the distance. Screams like that weren’t heard often in the park. Sometimes a dog’s name was called loudly. A mother running after her child and desperately calling out her pet name for him — they’d heard that often enough. But screams like the one they’d just heard were new. And exciting.
The boys were fond of the out-of-doors; they had carved their names in tree trunks and sometimes in the benches that had been donated by older, wealthier citizens of the town of Basel. Eternity to them was a wooden bench in a park.
The boys paused to light their cigarettes, and heard more screaming. It wasn’t far away now. Still passing the lighter from hand to hand, they looked at each other. They heard it and they shivered, the way you shiver when you see a needle penetrating flesh.
“Let’s take a look,” the tallest boy said. Life was boring enough as it was; when you had a chance to take a look, you shouldn’t miss it. They were fond of looking. At each other, at other boys, and at women whom they tried to imagine without clothes, or at least in a swim suit. All dreams are a prison, but the sexual dream is the smallest prison of all — a badly lit cell that always reeks of human excreta.
It didn’t take them long to find the source of the screaming. It was a disgusting source, they were in agreement on that right away — no need to waste breath about that. They sneaked up closer and looked at what was lying there on the ground. Two boys. One of them was lying on top of the other. They weren’t fighting, although it looked like they’d fought. But the fight was over now. The one on top had beaten the other. The boys looked at it the way you look at an animal you’ve hit on a deserted country road. What were you supposed to do with it? Drag it away, take it along, drive off? Skin it?
They sneaked up even closer. Horror has the drawing power of a rare butterfly.
What they saw then stirred their emotions. They had never seen anything like this, not in the park, and not outside the park, either.
Xavier thought again, Accept, O Lord, this humble sacrifice — even as Awromele’s sperm was dying in his mouth. Sperm dies fast. He no longer heard a thing; he was absorbed in his thoughts, in the heat of Awromele’s body, in the taste of the spittle, the scent of the earth; that was why he hadn’t heard the boys approach. He was immersed in his illusion. A few seconds, then a few seconds more, just one more moment, please, just a moment.
The tallest boy leaned down and tapped Xavier gently on the shoulder. Xavier looked up. All four of them grinned; you could see their teeth, flawless teeth; they had been raised with fluoride tablets, and they all flossed at least once a week. The tallest one nodded to Xavier reassuringly, as though to say: Don’t worry, we only showed up here by accident anyway.
Xavier swallowed the sperm and rose quickly to his feet. He arranged his clothing, looked at the strange boys, and wiped his mouth, an instinctive gesture.
The tall boy who had tapped Xavier on the shoulder said, “Hi.” And he held up his hand, a clumsy, almost poignant gesture.
Awromele saw none of this; he was still lying on the ground, his pants still pulled down awkwardly around his knees. He was stunned. His thoughts were elsewhere — on the promise they had made, Xavier and he. If we start to feel something, we have to stop. That was how it was, that was how it had to be.
“Hi,” the tallest boy said again. He looked reticent, as though he felt uncomfortable about the whole situation. As though he was sorry about having crept through the bushes, but now that he was here anyway, it wouldn’t be polite to just walk away. The other boys said hi as well. They felt the overwhelming excitement of the unknown.
Xavier had swallowed, but he could still taste the sperm in his mouth. He knew what the boys had seen, even better than they did. He would never forget what they had seen. He took a step back.
They looked at him thoughtfully. They stood in front of him the way people stand in front of a painting in a museum: they’d seen the reproductions, but the real thing is so much more impressive.
“We’re not interrupting you, I hope?” the tallest boy asked.
Their faces were shining with joy. They radiated vitality.
Xavier shook his head slowly, and stepped back a few more inches.
Now the boys took a step forward. The hijinks they had witnessed had given them new energy. They were feeling reborn. They wanted to get closer to Xavier.
“We don’t want to interrupt anyone,” the tall boy said. His friends nodded. The tallest one spat on the ground, and one of his friends, who had borrowed his father’s blue raincoat that morning, pulled the belt a little tighter.
“If we’re bothering you, just tell us,” the tallest of them said. And he spat on the ground again.
They were smoking, all four of them. They smoked and they looked. They were well dressed for boys their age. A little too primly, perhaps, but these boys liked to dress well. They were not afraid of work; what they wanted was eternal friendship, a house, a child, and a wife, no more than that, perhaps a car or two. One for shopping, the other for longer distances. Everything they wanted could be achieved, if only one worked hard enough; that was why they dressed so neatly when they went for walks in the park.