Lust (25 page)

This time the Direktor is in valid order and his wife is satisfied. But tomorrow he may be running riot again, shooting from the hip and buying any ticket at all to who knows where. At least his wife is still protected and desired, though, there are so many paths to be taken, after all, to the theatre, a concert, a season ticket to the opera, opportunity enough to lick the thing which the Direktor reaches across with a whimper and wrap it up anew. Now he has turned her onto her back and is wagging about in her face. A thin thread of slobber dribbles down, and promptly the meatloaf and sauce is brought to the woman's lips, a soft tired suckling. Mmm,

that's just perfect. She is requested to clean away what she has brought from the kitchen for presentation and thawing. First the banks, then the shaft, neat and tidy, all the tiny creases as well, after all there's a little driving still to be done today and we wouldn't want this quick-acting foam all over the upholstery. And then Gerti is expected to kiss the hairy scrotum, mind your eyes. As if he were stripping a snake, the Direktor rips the dress off his wife with a single tear, though at the same time whispering that tomorrow she will get two new ones to replace it. The dress is forcefully pulled apart at the front. Gerti's body is kissed from a convenient height and then belted into the seat again, where it remains caught, returning none of the looks bestowed on it. The Direktor goes on to rip Gerti's petticoat too, exposing her entire dilapidated facade; soon, albeit outside, beyond the battered attache cases, pleasant green will be appearing, one or two months of the yoke still to go! Let the airstream and the one or two stray people returning home take a look at the building if they want, in the warm shadows of which the Direktor has been sporting. The woman does not resemble any film actress, at least none I know of. It is quiet. Michael peers out of the window and makes an effort to grow once again in order to make the most and best of himself. Not everyone has a handsome member to amuse himself with. The Direktor is faithful by nature, that's how it should be. We are the hearth of the household and warm the lordsandmasters if necessary.

The young man, thinking of the countless friends whom he will make the repositories of his adventure, steps under the too needling waterjet of the shower. His senses are all present and stretch out on the floor like dogs lying down to sleep on their appointed blankets. Perhaps his girlfriend will stop by later on, while outside the oppressed take by force what has been granted them. Thus long he has deigned to watch a woman advancing

in years, and thus long will he rest, a child of the world. I think he will even still be asleep tomorrow morning when the people who live in these houses trample each other to death in the bus and riotously batter each other about the head with their belongings.

As if by changing cars they had changed lives, the Direktor and his wife drive home together, one under the protection of the other, tossing from one position in life to the next. These people can fuck fearlessly anywhere at all, whatever they do is always put right again by love and their dear cleaning ladies. The employees are at rest, presently the jangle of their alarms will raise them aloft. Silently the car sweeps the flatland clean. The mountains stand in silence, till tomorrow the sun is again portioned out by the tourist office rep, to delight the sporting folk. And so the directorial couple return home on their great raft, along the federal highway in accordance with all the regulations and at a moderate speed. For a brief while the two of them took hold on their bodies to fill up with fuel, the springs were bubbling up all around them, right, the rich tank up new energy as often as they wish. In the little houses silence reigns, because the people there have to count out the money for petrol first. At most it's violence that reigns, till tomorrow they are under someone else's control again at the factory, these sons from petty homes, and their wives wade by day through the puddles of the powerful sex. Love comes fruity and fresh in its carton, but what does it become inside us?

The toil of the sexes, accomplished today by the Direktor and the Frau Direktor, has made them blossom with a shudder, only to wipe their mouths afterwards as if after a meal wolfed greedily down; and it may be but is not definitely finished for today. Till we meet again tomorrow in the radiant light from the mail van's headlamps, so early, when it's still dark, not to mention

the years ahead! Nothing but those lights caresses the wretched bodies shamelessly confronting us in all their morning stench and exhaust fumes. But just think of the lottery tickets their thoughts are always dwelling on! One has to be able to take it as well as deal it out.

The Direktor stammers managerial, loving words, he announces himself and his programme, this private individual. Already he is in his element again: money. What would he be without his wife, as he insists on calling her. Jovially he embraces her with the arm he's not steering with, taking her body and doing some steering there at least. Like a warm tame animal the mountains lounge above him, he has already sheered them quite bald. They have left the superfluous car standing, put to sleep and locked up like their child. Let's face it, all they were thinking of was jolly sex. The woman can now go shopping for the kind of commodities that suit a woman. Now speculations are made concerning the next day and what it might bring. The Direktor describes the many and various ways in which he is going to screw his wife later and in the days ahead. He needs trouble up top, in the office, if his prick down below is to be satisfied and taken captive by the woman. Perhaps the woman will like something special which she will follow blindly on her shopping spree tomorrow? This man: the unwavering star of his wife will shine above him till tomorrow morning, he nuzzles tenderly at her throat, keep your eyes on the road, don't look away! The droplets fly from the man, sweat and sperm, which makes him no less, no slighter, no smaller. Smilingly he prays to his wife, whom he has held under his jet. His fleshy testicles sit still on their stringy stalk. What a relief, to go out into the spell of night, if one doesn't have to hurry out into the morning dark, one amongst many, dazzled by the kitchen light. If the fire is burning within one, and another, larger one is burning in the engine. Cleansed and renewed, the Direktor will presently be

getting into bed again with his Gerti and making his territorial mark on her bush, no one cocks a leg faster than he does. Maybe the two of them will once again be flooded by the muted cry of their bodies wanting food, who knows? The woman tries to fasten her dress at her breast, the cold is scourging her. But the man demands that she provide a little more entertainment for him and the people who live in those parts in their little domestic limbos, please, Brigitte, I mean, Gerti. The dress, which is covering her now, he parts wide open again, she hasn't quite gone out yet, hasn't Gerti, I'm pretty sure there's still a glimmer in the ashes. The heating hasn't properly warmed up yet, but the man has. He is fast off the mark, on his chin he has a fingernail scratch dealt by Gerti. Not a single walker comes their way, to flower a little with an acquaintance outside the house. No one is out and about any more to witness the brand of power on the forehead of the factory Direktor. And so he at least has to stamp his mark on his wife, to show that she has paid to go in and really did bravely go out in the open from the warmth of her sex. In the kitchens of the poor, only the stove is kept alight.

The man calls the woman his darling, and yes, even the child is included. They live in the centre, the happy medium, the gusset of the village. And the government shrewdly ladles out the special offers to people. So that the owners of companies can take their decisions and come up with excuses for squandering subsidies and human bodies. They can be happy forever amid their possessions, and the rest tell of worries on their towel-sized patches of ground where they promptly plant out fences, despite the fact that their seed is scarcely enough for more than two. Already they have to be thinking of yet another person!

We are there, the child is asleep in his private parts and memories.

Meekly the son slumbers on the lead of Linz Chemicals Ltd. Now let us go to sleep as well, for a foretaste of what comes before death. To do this one first has to lie down, as the poor have long known, they die sooner too, and still the time till they die seems too long to them. The Man nuzzles up once more to the cosmetically caked skin of his wife, presently he will follow her into bed with a bang, like a shot from a gun. In the bathroom there is already a busy noise of waters and movements. Mercilessly a heavy body is thrown into the hot water to make it fit for consumption. The soap and brushes lie on his chest. The mirrors steam up. The Frau Direktor is expected to give her husband's back a good scrubbing, to dip her hand acquiescently into the lather and go on massaging his massive sex, it is entirely in her hands. Beyond the window, the moon slithers. He is already calling for her, the Man and the half kilo of flesh (or, if need be, less) which is his master. Already it is swelling again in the warm water and arising to lord it over the lavish cold buffet of his body. Afterwards he will bathe the woman after the troubles of the day, not at all, his pleasure entirely. All around, mortals are living on wages and work, they do not live for ever and they do not live well. But now they have exchanged their tribulations for rest, the sting is asleep in their breast because they do not have their own bathroom. The Direktor's body just goes in the water, but he still has enough cubic metres of solid flesh left. Once again he calls for his wife, louder this time, it is an order. She does not come. He will have to soften up all by himself in the water. Placidly he slides across to the other side of the tub, should he yell for her to come? How pleasant that water does not change one, and that one does not have to learn to walk on it. Such a pleasure, and so cheap. Anyone can afford it. Let the woman stay where she is, oh take me with you, swathes of heat! He runs the hot tap, massages it and feels peaceful, serene. The waters rush about his heavy body, the hard jaw muscles grinding life up small and

swallowing companies. The poor too fall like water from the cliffs, but at least they stay where they are, in their little beds, and don't go begging constantly, these tedious people wanting danger money paid. One moment all's well, and the next, complete with all the sacred strings their wives have laboriously stretched on their bodily frames, they're blindly getting caught in the machines! All that blood! And all for nothing, including in the end the massive whiplash beating of their hearts, since there is no more blood left to keep them going. And I gather the children are sometimes still out and about at four in the morning. One or two of them, at least, still come home drunk from the disco.

But his son, unpopular here for so many years already, is lying in bed, and the placid moon passes on. He is breathing heavily, the boy, and is bathed in a cold sweat. With tablets of that kind in his juice, his sleep is altogether different. Comfortless he lies there under the eye of his mother, who comes to his bed and smooths the covers. The boy is flaccid and yet he is her whole world: he is silent, and so is her world. He is no doubt looking forward to growing up, like his father's member. Tenderly Mother kisses her little boat sailing around the world. Then she takes a plastic bag, slips it over the boy's head, and draws it tight at the bottom so that the child's breath will perish in peace. Under the tent of the back, on which is printed the address of a boutique, the boy's life force burgeons richly one more time, this boy to whom not long ago growing-up and sports gear were promised. That's how it goes when on.e tries to improve on Nature with mechanical implements! But no, the child still wants to live. Then the son drifts out into the open waters where he is immediately quite in his element (Mummy!) and uses the snorkel mask through which his fellows learn to see the world, as if through goo, from the very start: so utterly was he their boss, a little god of war, at work, rest and play. They see everything, yet they do not

see much. Mother leaves the house. She is carrying her son in her arms like a budding cutting that has to be planted. From the mountaintops where the boy went sledging today and was planning to go again tomorrow (to be exact, the next day has already been impatiently begun on!), the earth bids its farewell. Outrageous imprints in the blanket of snow. Sure, go wandering about near the fire if you will: quite an experience, eh?

The mother carries the child, and then, when she grows tired, drags him along behind her. Discreetly clad in moonlight. Now the woman is at the stream, and the next moment her son sinks in, contented. Perfect peace is beckoning, and sporting people beckon and wave to each other at every opportunity too, if there's an audience. Now, contrary to expectation, it has turned out to be the youngest of the family who will be permitted to see the stupid face of eternity first, behind all the money that runs about at liberty on the earth, for purchases, if no one puts it on a lead. People compete in races, the events are thunderous but they don't want rain. And skiers go into the mountains, never mind who else lives there and might like to win themselves.

The water has taken hold of the child, and bears him on and away, a good deal will remain of him for a long time in this cold. The mother is alive, her time is wreathed and limited, with fetters she has twined in it. Women age early, and their mistake is not knowing where to hide all the time that lies behind them so that no one sees it. What are they to do, devour it like the umbilical cords of their children? Hell and damnation!

But now rest a while!