Joan and Victor loved each other. Over those dozen years, they'd gotten to know each other like the back of their hand, and over seven years of marriage, they had every right to get bored with each other—but they didn't. They still managed to talk to each other like they did when they'd stayed up all night talking at a campus party. A lot had changed since then. They'd both grown up, grown older, grown more serious. The old world had vanished, crumbled like cardboard decorations, old friends scattered across the globe—and in their place, new situations arose. New problems. But Joan and Victor continued to function—like a well-oiled machine, in which the slightly worn gears still meshed and spurred them on. Ever since they moved in together shortly before their wedding—an arrangement that, for many couples, ends in disaster after only a short time, forcing one party to retreat tactically—Victor couldn't understand how he could have lived without her for several years. It was a shame that he had someone to wash his underwear and cook him a real dinner; Not the kind that pretended to be a meal when poured into a mug and poured with boiling water, but something that required a knife and fork. She was more necessary in this house than air, and any room without her seemed empty.
Only the bedroom was a twilight zone for both of them—a place where nothing happened, not a word was spoken. The bedroom—for many couples, a place where fading love was saved or, in an act of desperation, the corpse of a former passion was raped—now served them only for what a bedroom was created for: sleep. In the darkness, behind drawn blinds, with the lights off, they lost themselves completely—and they had long since stopped trying to grope for each other. Victor was withdrawing into himself, and Joan, sensing this, was losing her confidence. They could lie cuddled up to each other - but they were separated by an invisible shield through which he couldn't feel her touch, and his hands, wandering helplessly over her body, only caused her pain.
It used to be different. They could make love several times a night—no Olympic records, but still. When he met her, he was fascinated by her, her sense of humor, her eloquence—but also, like any man, he wanted to rip off that awful turtleneck sweater and see what she wore underneath. A few weeks later, they made love for the first time—on the narrow bed in his room on campus—and it was perfect. Sure, not very comfortable—but tender and passionate. She wasn't his first—so while there was some stage fright, he knew what he was doing. He never had any problems with it, anyway. He wasn't insecure, frustrated, or resistant. He'd had a few mediocre and less-than-successful relationships back then, but he hadn't suffered more than the average guy has to endure to become a fully-fledged man. In any case, the cause of his impotence wasn't stress or depression. The unpleasant condition stung all the more because it hit a man who was perfectly happy. It was—one might say—a low blow from fate. Victor had a beautiful, loving wife, a nice, big house, a decent car.
And a job that kept him busy.
Sometimes, waking up in the morning, Victor wondered if he hadn't gone the wrong way; if he shouldn't have turned in a completely different direction a dozen years ago and followed it as far as possible. He wondered if he wouldn't have been better off if, instead of going to college, he'd taken the first disgustingly boring, undemanding, mindless job that came along. The kind from which he'd return after a hard day sore and tired—and perhaps angry at himself for wasting time in such a place—but happy to come home and do what he loved. Instead, he pursued his passions professionally. He'd worked tirelessly to meet such a fate. He studied for several years, delving into the theory he'd learned, then earned his doctorate, following the path of revolution—all only to end up impotent. Ironic, considering that his profession was cloning—that is, reproducing and multiplying human beings—because he hadn't had any children himself. He wasn't sterile. Theoretically, he could have fathered a child. Theory, however, has a tendency to not always work. There are special exceptions—and Victor McDonald was one such exception. As for the theoretical basis, to produce a child, an erect penis must be introduced into the woman's reproductive organs and then ejaculated. At this point, the sperm take over, having to find a fertile egg on their own—so to speak. So much for the theory. In practice, things got complicated at a crucial point. A ray that ended abruptly, unable to reach the target point that would complete the circuit. There was a woman and a man, and there were functioning male and female gametes—and no way to mate them. Victor's manhood, which, to enter a woman, had to be taut and jutting upward like a tangent, hung lifelessly between his legs—and there was no way to do it. And yes, there were blue pills—and a whole host of other colorful remedies—that were supposed to help in such situations. But again, Victor was an exception. It wouldn't be so bad if the damn pills simply didn't work. The problem was, they did work—just not quite the way they were supposed to. The doctor had only tried Viagra once. One of Murphy's Laws states that successful experiments should never be repeated—because they will almost certainly fail the second time. Unsuccessful attempts should never be repeated, because they have no chance of success. It ended with Victor seeing blue for several hours and writhing in pain, clutching his groin, his stiff penis burning like a living flame. McDonald cried and whimpered like a tigress trying to force ovulation. Finally, he fainted. He woke up a few hours later. A dull pain plagued him for several weeks afterward, as if Mike Tyson himself had pummeled him in the penis for a dozen rounds.
There was no cure for Victor's condition—and it certainly wasn't the little blue pills. The problem wasn't where it manifested itself. It didn't work downstairs—it started in the head. And even that wasn't solved by medication. There were a whole range of medications that interfered with brain function in varying degrees of severity—but they didn't fix anything. Headache pills—innocent and limited in their effects—did little and did little harm. Psychotropic medications allowed one to forget the worst tragedy and learn to smile—but they didn't cure. They didn't stitch back together a shattered psyche. They simply shut down faulty circuits, forcing one to function based on what was left. They were about as subtle as a spinning top—and just as effective.
Years of experience and advanced medical education helped in a fundamental way: Victor could diagnose the problem himself, free of charge, and conclude that none of the methods he knew would help. Irony, one might say: a doctor who can't heal himself. But how could McDonald do that? He wasn't the proverbial shoemaker who goes barefoot—he was a shoemaker who walks around in the finest leather shoes, completely naked. He knew everything modern medicine knew about his field—replantation. He had a living culture of healthy and miraculously compatible organs for transplantation at his fingertips. If need be, he could transplant a severed limb or a heart instantly. He was such a brilliant specialist that he could do it himself—just like a good barber can cut his own hair with his eyes closed. He could even amputate his faulty penis and reattach another—after all, he wasn't exactly a miracle worker. But that wasn't the problem. It was like putting new batteries in a broken watch and expecting the hands to start moving. Why bother with a new penis if something in your head isn't working? And for now, he couldn't transplant a brain. He wasn't that skilled.
Sometimes, as he got out of bed, Victor wondered if he wouldn't be better off working his entire adult life in a button factory. Wouldn't it be easier now? Sure, he wouldn't have a silver Subaru, but maybe—just maybe—he'd have a normal sex life in return. It's a trade-off. One can speculate. But the truth is, every profession carries risks, and every choice is a compromise. If, instead of working at an institute, he'd sat on a stool, checking that all buttons had four holes, he'd probably have suffered a spinal injury. If he'd become a miner, he'd inevitably have developed pneumoconiosis and died of lung failure. But scientific positions, attained through years of hard work, aren't necessarily safer. Education doesn't make a person immune to radiation from radioactive elements or the deadly effects of viruses that exist nowhere else but in the laboratory. It's quite possible that nothing will happen, and the discoverer of a new element will live to be a hundred years old in good health—but there's always the risk that something will go wrong or get out of control. Playing with nature risks illness and death. At any moment, something heavy could fall on your head—metaphorically or literally. Victor didn't take any chances. He wasn't exposing himself to radiation, and what he was doing didn't threaten him—his health—in the slightest, as long as he was careful. A mask, gloves, apron, sterile instruments. Genetic experiments, conducted in a controlled environment, in closed laboratories, weren't dangerous. They were merely... morally problematic. And playing with ethics risks psychosis. You could say Victor and his colleagues were playing gods. McDonald and his team created humans with their hands. But sometimes, once you learn to do something with your hands, you can't do it any other way.
Psychotherapy was the only option. But as a medical doctor, Victor had a low opinion of brain doctors. He didn't trust them. They practiced pseudoscience, based on speculation and intuition. The human body, if not for the brain, would be the perfect subject for science. McDonald didn't believe anyone could understand him if he couldn't. He didn't believe his problems could be solved by someone who, despite supposedly having experience smoothing out the folds in the human brain, needed a psychotherapist himself and smoked like a locomotive between sessions. All sorts of people trusted and relied on psychotherapists—even frustrated Italian mafiosi—but not a doctor.
Victor hugged Joan tighter, then rolled him over so he was on top of her. He pressed her against him and began to thrust into her mouth, then her neck, and ever lower. At first, Joan froze, surprised, even terrified, because he hadn't done anything like that in ages—but she surrendered to his caresses and reciprocated them. She threaded her fingers through his hair and tugged as he sucked on her swollen nipples. She moaned and writhed beneath him—not from pain, though. Victor pulled himself higher, and they once again engaged in a heated kiss. They hadn't kissed like this in years—but each of them remembered the technique well.
Joan sighed heavily as he began to grind his withered penis furiously against her. He moved it insistently over her swollen clit. He was teasing her, arousing her—but doing nothing more. He was teasing her. He was driving her to pleasure—but he didn't intend to finish. He was bringing her to tears. A few salty drops rolled down her cheeks. But Victor ignored them. Panting heavily, his eyes closed, he showered her with feverish affections. He hurt her as tenderly as he could.
He ran his fingers over her head—as if constantly checking to see if she was still there.
Brak komentarzy:
Prześlij komentarz