Peter Pišťanek - The End of Freddy

He introduced himself at the bar: Tomáš Kaluba, a builder. They shook hands. Kaluba introduced him to his wife, who hosted an alternative radio programme whose long name meant nothing to Urban.

“Probably because you can’t get it on your radio,” said Mrs Kaluba.

The new friends had a drink.

“Everything you see here was made by my company,” said Kaluba, looking over the room with a proprietorial eye. “The building belongs to a steel company, but an Italian rents the top. And he gave me the job. I specialise in renovations. You buy, rent, or inherit an old house, a mouldy cellar space with nothing but mess and rubbish and in a few weeks I turn it into a perfect restaurant, or a boutique. Your cousin Tina could tell you all about it. She’s a good friend of ours. The little villa in Střešovice that I’m renovating for her is like surgical work. To my health!”

After this round it was Urban’s. Then Tina came, greeted Kaluba, hugged his wife Marie and pulled Urban away from the bar.

“Let’s go home,” she said. “Where’s your car?”

“Where it always is,” replied Urban. “In the garage under the National Theatre.”

They walked down the romantic, crooked, and poorly lit old-town streets. At each shadowy spot cousin Tina pulled him by his white scarf towards her and fastened her lips to his. It was romantic, even though Urban was a bit unsure if it was spontaneous, or the alcohol at work. After a while he forgot his scruples and enjoyed what chance had sent his way. They kissed like pubescent youngsters and their hungry fingers met in various configurations, and their enlarged silhouettes flashed against the cracked walls of the grotesquely leaning houses.

“Where to, dear lady?” asked Urban as they got in the car.

“Mánes Street,” said cousin Tina.

“Where is it?”

“In Vinohrady. I’ll navigate.”

Luckily, no policeman stopped them. They got to Mánes Street by a roundabout route. Urban searched a while for a big enough parking space and then let Tina guide him to the attic flat where she then lived.

Once home, cousin Tina poured a glass of cognac.

“Help yourself,” she offered Urban. “The ice is in the freezer.”

Urban chose bourbon with ice and slowly mixed his drink.

“So you really liked my dresses?” asked Tina.

“Yes, it was an interesting show,” said Urban, changing the topic and taking a sip. “Though I didn’t see much. I was standing in a bad spot.”

“And what about this dress?” asked Tina, stroking her waist with both hands.

“It could have been shorter,” said Urban expertly.

“How much shorter?” asked cousin Tina. “This much? Look!”

She pulled her dress up a bit, so Urban could admire her slender calves.

“Hmm,” he said.

He was embarrassed, because he could see how this would end.

“Or like this?” asked cousin Tina and revealed her knees.

“Fine,” nodded Urban.

His cousin pulled her dress up to her long thighs.

“Yes, I like miniskirts,” Urban assented, and, since he felt it was his turn to do something, he put his glass on the table.

“How do you like a mini?” Tina asked artlessly. “Like this? Or this?”

The sight of her very long legs amazed Urban. He went to her and pulled her dress even higher. Then he realised why under her tight-fitting knitted dress he had failed to see any panty lines. There were no panties.

Knowing that Tina had been naked under her dress all evening and that only he was now seeing it with his own eyes nearly cost him his sanity.

He pounced on her wildly, blood relative or not. They wrestled a while before he pulled her dress over her head and flung it in a corner. Tina was stark naked, wearing only earrings, bracelet, necklace, and a flesh-coloured strapless bra fixed below her breasts. Her hot skin emitted a wildly alluring scent that could make a man demented. Urban took her in his arms, carried her to the sofa and lay down next to her.

“Let’s not be silly,” said Tina, panting. “We’re related, after all.”

“Cousins are allowed to,” said Urban and was himself surprised that his voice also echoed his heartbeat. “The Bible says so, too.”

“Where?” cousin Tina asked. “In what book?”

“I can’t remember now,” said Urban.

“It’s incest,” Tina warned him.

“So be it,” said Urban: his hands stroked her breasts and all her body.

Cousin Tina was shaking with excitement, or perhaps with the cold. The window was open: the room filled with cold moist air from the Rieger Gardens. Tina hinted that she wanted to undress Urban, and lifted up his shirt. Urban kissed her mouth and breasts in turn, while discarding his bow-tie, cummerbund, shirt, shoes, trousers, socks, and boxer shorts. How lucky, he thought, that instinct had told him not to put on his comfortable favourite long johns. Cousin Tina’s fingers ran feverishly through his hair while his mouth and hands concentrated on her knees, inner thighs and, finally, her moist open crotch. Before he realised, he was in her.

“NO!” sounded Tina’s last psychological barrier.

“Yes,” whispered Urban.

In panic, Tina jabbed her nails into his shoulders and tried to get out of his embrace with violent twists of her hips. But Urban didn’t let her get away so easily. His erection pinned her like an impalement. Tina’s last escape attempts gradually changed into passionate copulative movements.

“But don’t think it means anything,” were her last words before she lost her self-control. “It doesn’t mean anything at all.”

And then she turned into a half-crazed orgasmic she-devil who at one point felt compelled to awaken all Mánes Street with her howls.

Since then, their relationship has been the same: neither fish, nor fowl.

* * *

Maybe it was at this very time that Elena, a strong and wide-cheeked beauty with a pretty face, a black tattoo round her eyes and thick jet-black braids, was hastily untying the wet leather straps of her husband’s boots. Geľo had just come back from Stormy Tooth. He was lying on his back and watching her silently. Elena took off his boots and fur socks, pulled off his sealskin trousers and put them behind the screen to dry.

Semi-naked, dressed just in thin reindeer-calf underpants with the fur inside, Geľo sat down on a soft reindeer pelt. His face was wide, simple, and kindly. The sun had tanned it brown: only round his almond-shaped eyes was there white untanned skin, thanks to his sun mask. His eyes shone quick and bright, belying his simple features. His jet-black braided hair, greased with walrus fat, hung in two plaits over his chest and two down his back. He looked at Elena and pulled her towards him. She yielded, bared her crotch and used her hand to help him inside her.

A little later, Geľo half-sat, half-lay in the men’s corner, alone. He was pleasantly tired. He stroked his mighty muscles as if getting ready for a fight. His wide chest, powerful neck and huge sinewy arms hinted at his extraordinary strength. When his chest muscles rippled, a tattooed herd of walruses began to move. Geľo liked amusing his children with this trick when he was in the mood. And he almost always was.

There wasn’t a man on the north coast who could out-wrestle Geľo. Geľo liked wrestling. He often made his compatriots accept a challenge to a match. But he was always an honest and chivalrous rival.

The men’s corner was spacious. Three lamps burning mineral grease gave a lot of heat and light. Above them hung teapots and a pot of fresh walrus meat. On the cross timbers hung smaller objects: a statue of the Virgin Mary carved in walrus ivory and a filigree carved cross. These objects protected the Todor yurt from misfortune.