That was how Sponsor greeted him, not even trying to feign surprise.
"Yes, I knew you'd show up here with that bag of yours, because everyone shows up here. That's just how initiation works in Liboland."
Speaking, he led him through corridors he'd already become familiar with, yet the impression remained powerful.
Today it was empty. And large, empty rooms always gave Anatol a feeling of unwelcoming cold. He shivered.
"Don't worry, the rooms are much cozier. Oh, here it is, your room."
It was a small, oblong room, painted entirely green. The only furniture was a stylish bed, a classic bookcase, and—to Anatol's utter delight—a massive tower. He immediately ran toward it, incredibly excited, eager to try it out immediately. But something made him uneasy.
"Where are the columns?"
"Ha, the walls are columns.
" "What?
" "Well! Try it."
The walls were speakers… but incredible, I could spend my whole life in this room without moving a single step. But what should I play for the premiere listening session? He looked into his bag and decided unequivocally: for such an occasion, something truly great had to be put on, and he put June of '44 on the player… And indeed. In an instant, the entire room simply swelled with sounds, and the walls seemed to come alive, beginning to bend, breathing in rhythm dictated by the heavy bass. Dazzling. Anatol felt like he was in an aquarium filled to the brim with MUSIC, and like water to a fish, air to a bird, it was for him, and he knew he could no longer turn it off. The heart. The heart of music. He felt it all, touched it, and all his senses began to participate in the listening. They melted in bliss… they touched, looked, felt, heard, tasted, and marveled at the very situation, and the beauty, power, and omnipresence of the MUSIC began to intensify and completely consume the senses, which, unable to defend themselves, unwilling to defend themselves, slowly disappeared, dissolving into this miracle, approaching the greatest ecstasy of Tolki's life. It all finally began to blend and tangle with each other and within themselves, tightening loops and knots here and there, causing a pleasurable pain that only intensified the ecstasy that was just around the corner… And finally, Anatol, not fully aware of what was really happening, could hold on no longer and snapped… snapped… snapped beautifully, like no one had ever snapped before… wonderful… if only he could touch the sky like that more often… to stay there longer, to stay forever…
He lost consciousness as the final bars of "Engine Takes To The Water" played.
After some time (how long??????), he opened his eyes. He lay naked, on his right side, covered with a green sheet. The first thing he saw was Sponsor's face, radiant with a blissful smile, resting opposite Tolk's face, gazing at it adoringly. Before Anatol had even recovered, before he slowly began to associate certain facts and events, before he began to piece them together as a form of reality, before the wind of reality had completely dispersed the night fog from his consciousness, before he realized that there was complete silence, that the music had ended, Sponsor gently placed a kiss on his lips and stroked his flushed cheek with the back of his hand. Then he turned his back, threw off the sheet, stood up, and, completely naked, left the room. All this happened so slowly and in a sense majestically beautiful that Anatol and his consciousness fell apart, unsure what to do with this object, where to place it, how to classify it. These attempts were so arduous that Tolek's eyes were once again covered with the night fog of ignorance and immersed him in the depths of the calm waters of the unreal ocean of unreality.
Unfortunately, life, in its ignorance, is governed by the rules of a merciless tyrant. It couldn't be otherwise (though Anatol, in his greater desperation, proved otherwise), and it was finally necessary to emerge for good. And now, lying there, thinking about what had happened, or what hadn't happened, Tolek still couldn't decide whether what he'd seen in his half-sleep was an apparition, or perhaps something entirely different? He decided not to fight his helplessness any longer and decided that nothing had happened, or perhaps, someday, the truth would emerge on its own. What truth? After all, if it were so black, I'd probably feel some kind of revulsion, disgust, or something? And here? Nothing, absolutely nothing, hmm, even more, I feel drowsily happy. Or maybe this is how it's supposed to be? That these are just some sick, stale myths, with this disgust that, in reality, there's nothing more beautiful? Jesus, that's impossible, although on the other hand, Sponsor is very feminine... "
Good morning."
Sponsor greeted his guest with these words and the breakfast he had brought. He was wearing a silk robe, and his demeanor made Anatol think that he would behave at least as if he were entering the shared bedroom of two lovers. However, he quickly, very quickly, dismissed the thought, trying to focus on breakfast. It wasn't much, just a simple scrambled egg and two slices of toast, but that wasn't the most important thing. The highlight of the morning was soon brought by a servant, a very old and distinguished semi-dry wine. Sponsor, with great skill and grace, opened the bottle and held it to the glass in Anatol's hand. He poured with one hand while the other lightly held the glass. As the glass filled, Sponsor's fingers began to gently caress his hand. Tolek was completely paralyzed, unable to react in any way. He felt so uncomfortable that he couldn't make a move, but even if he had found the strength, he wouldn't have been able to decide what kind of move it should be. Only then did he realize that he was, in fact, naked, barely covered by a green sheet, which unfortunately couldn't conceal Tolek's true emotional state. Anatol blushed furiously at the sight of the rather substantial bulge at his own hips, which Sponsor, in turn, welcomed with great joy:
"Don't be nervous," he whispered, then placed the bottle on the servant's tray, dismissing him with a nod and violently throwing the sheet off Anatol. The move was so sudden that Anatol had no chance to object. Sponsor was then presented with the naked silhouette of an utterly embarrassed boy, who seemed to be burning with intimidating shame and embarrassment, best expressed by his hands, which seemed unsure where to go, mainly because they couldn't cover the most embarrassing part (which is, after all, an involuntary reflex), as his body had suddenly grown alarmingly large. Sponsor merely smiled sweetly and ordered him to drink from the glass he had filled. Anatol readily complied, believing that the alcohol would help him control the situation and, above all, reduce the embarrassing amount of blood flowing into his reproductive organs. Sponsor set the now empty lamp on the floor and, without taking his eyes off Anatol's, placed his hand on his thigh, which now began its upward journey. Tolek was aroused beyond measure and realized that further struggle against passion was utterly pointless. He surrendered to Sponsor, wrapping his arms tightly around his neck and pressing his lips against his so hard that they turned white. This movement contrasted sharply with the slow progress of Sponsor's hand, which now reached his proudly and powerfully erect penis, which, at her first touch, suddenly swelled, stiffened even more (though this seemed quite improbable), and shot forth. Once! Twice! Third! It exploded so immeasurably with that white substance, vulgarly called semen…
"And what about the fidelity we promised at our wedding?" Anatol asked, when it was three times over and they lay naked, embracing each other.
"Dear Tolek, I and everything connected with me are outside the rules of Liboland. It's simple: I invented them, and I bend them to my own needs. Besides, the fact that we sleep together (Tolek mentally shuddered slightly at the expression) is not a violation of that rule at all, but a normal initiation process that takes place between me and every new boy entering Liboland."
Only now did Anatol shudder for good. Only now did the true scale of the abhorrence of the act sink in. If Tolek had been the only one, it would have been a completely different story. Everything would have been far purer, born of the metaphysical bonds drawing these two together, a simple fulfillment of the two men's fascination, which, after all, couldn't be a bad thing, despite its apparent unnaturalness. After all, everything that's wisest, most beautiful, best always arises somewhere in some niche not only unnoticed by anyone but shunned by everyone. This is how Anatol tried to explain everything, and he was so effective at it that, watching the naked Sponsor with impatience and fascination, he waited for it all to begin again, and again, and again, until he was disgusted. And here he was, suddenly with these words: "You're not the only one." And what? Let him boast about how he's fucking with all of Radom. A simple initiation, for fuck's sake, nothing major, just a normal daily fuck before bed. What a son of a bitch. Tolek couldn't stand to look at him any longer, much less lie naked with him. Without a word, he ran out of the room and headed for the building's exit, finding some rags scattered on the floor along the way.
He didn't hesitate for long. He was going home, he wasn't going to live with a faggot, and he wouldn't see any of them again.
Fags!
Alcoholics!
Perverts!
Psychopaths!
His nerves, soothed by Liboland's insults, were still frayed, so Anatol's first action upon entering the apartment was a hearty peacock, accompanied by tears in no less abundance.
The note he'd written to his parents was still on the table, a sign of their continued absence. Phew... thankfully. Now everything would change, everything would return to normal. His parents would reappear and they would see their son attending classes dutifully. He would again sever contact with all his friends, again immerse himself in books and his CDs. He would become unhappy again, in short, return to his natural state.
And it happened again: he remembered Zosia…
And at that very moment the doorbell rang.
Parents?! Damn, they were trying to ruin everything again. But no, it was Madzia. Anatol, with the first impulse of pleasant surprise that it wasn't them, joyfully opened the door, and only then did he realize that she was one of them, that she belonged to Liboland and was just like them all. But it was too late to turn back, and Anatol had to return her hug.
"Oh, Tolek, Sponsor told me what happened..."
"What? Did you know everything perfectly well?"
"I'm sorry..." "
Get out of here! That's it!"
-Tolek, no, calm down, let me explain before you decide anything.
He pushed her away from him, arms' length apart, and looked into her moist eyes, in which he once again found nothing but blind adoration and a screaming plea that this moment wouldn't be their last. He couldn't resist. Anyone would.
Even you.
He led her into his room and sat her down on the couch, sitting down in an armchair himself.
"Let me tell you how Liboland came to be."
"Just don't try to arouse pity in me."
"Once upon a time… I mean, you should know, of course, that I'm the same age as Sponsor, and his name is Roman… and in general, we've known each other since childhood, practically since birth, because I, well, I'm his sister.
" "Shhh…
" "Yes, and I'm a year younger. You see, we're flush with money, thanks, of course, to our parents, who, when they left this world, with a little help from us, left us with this financial burden."
"Impossible..."
"Please, Tolek, no matter what you hear, don't say anything until I'm finished, and know that you're the only person who will know. It wasn't always like this... I mean... Understand that it's hard for me to say this, because this is the first time I've ever talked about it. And remember, it's only because... because I love you and... because I don't want this to destroy us... and..." "
Madzia." Anatol was already calm, he wasn't angry with anyone, he had forgiven everyone, and it didn't matter that he hadn't heard anything yet. Now he just wanted Madzia to calm down and continue being his.
"Okay... I'm calm now." A long breath. "From the very beginning, we were terribly bored with life." There was money, so we had everything, you know. We didn't have to do anything, we had no responsibilities, we had our own personal tutors, who were also paid to give us good reviews, even though they were completely unnecessary. So, lacking anything to do, and yet our modern society hadn't yet reached the level where we could be creatively bored like the aristocracy of yesteryear, we turned to each other.
Anatol listened to this statement with growing fascination; he had never expected to hear such eloquently thought-out sentences from Madzia, as if he were hearing a Sponsor… and yet she seems like a common idiot whore…
"And we started getting to know each other inside and out, but... but mostly... physically... Once we got together, out of pure curiosity born of boredom, there was no end to our intimacies and various sexual experiments. We became famous in the right circles as organizers of the most sophisticated orgies, and of course, we guaranteed absolute anonymity, because we knew we were hosting a lot of bigwigs, and you can't even imagine the potential they held..." (Tolka briefly wondered if their sick antics were pushing the boundaries of his masturbatory mind.) But that too ended, because we started getting bored again. We had everything we wanted again, so again came a kind of idiotic consternation. And again we wanted something more, and more, and more, and something completely new, and so on endlessly, until we finally exhausted, or so we thought, all the experiments we could possibly try. I think the Marquis de Sade himself wouldn't blame us; in fact, he became our role model. Generally, we scoffed at his philosophy and pored over his books, searching for ever new abominations to pursue, but, as I said, we got bored with that too... And always in such situations, we longed for ordinary sexual intercourse, for socially correct positions, and they brought us relief, but not for long. After a while, we started to feel hungry again... And then we came up with this crazy idea... But to bring it to fruition, we first had to help our parents get out of this world; we needed a lot of money, our own, not our parents'. But I assure you, this is a completely irrelevant part of the story and can be deliberately omitted. Therefore, I won't say more about it.
"What kind of idea is that?"
"Shhh, you'll find out everything soon, but please try to take this news with some calm…"
"Okay, okay, tell me finally…" "
Simply put, it was that once upon a time I was Roman and he was Madzia.
" "What????????????????????"
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