Péter Nádas - Parallel Stories

A breeze came off the Danube, bringing with it a smell of dampness that over Margit Island had gathered the fragrances of various plants and flowers. They listened as the number 15 streetcar started off with a clatter on the other side of the building, and its bell rang twice at Sziget Street.

Of course, in this building too the tenants neglected to close the main entrance gate behind them, and the glass-covered tubular shape of the stairwell amplified the street sounds.

Mrs. Szemző stepped through the gate just as the lit-up empty streetcar moved on between the trees of Pozsonyi Road, mottled in the spotty light from the streetlamps.

Don’t be angry, but this way it hurts a bit, said the man a little more loudly, but he did nothing to free himself of the weight.

Oh, it hurts me too, the woman whimpered. I think you’re too big for me. Which sounded like fawning that concealed a strong rebuke. She knew what men liked to hear about themselves.

What is that supposed to mean, asked the man, irritated and cool.

It means you’ve rubbed me completely raw. It hurts. One day, I’ll tell you a story. I’ll tell you my most interesting memory. And, after a breath, she asked if he’d like to hear it.

As if, in the meantime, the man had somehow been told by some secret source what she meant to tell him.

No, I don’t want hear it now. Let’s be quiet for a while. I don’t want anything.

Which means that in spite of everything I’ve seriously offended you again.

No you haven’t, replied the man. Only most of your statements make no sense. For example, the color of my eyes is not blue. What can one say to that. And if you really want to know, you are the demanding, impulsive one. I think that’s the cause of your problem.

Moreover, you don’t give anything enough time.

Gyöngyvér froze for a second in surprise. She did not understand the unexpected iciness in his voice. That she wasn’t willing to give time to things. She, whose voice teacher never stopped praising her for her sense of timing. She felt she had tried her best but could not understand what the man was saying, so she shouldn’t bother with him.

Listen, she continued heatedly, once — this is what I want to tell you — once I was left all alone in the empty boarding school.

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.