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Tidsskriftet Hermes. Ih! Letters from Oskar and Papa. Nature, Arkæologi, Haydn’s Mass in Time of War, hollyhocks, a sermon on responsiveness, a twinge of rheumatism, and some jolly good damson preserves. Oskar into the antinuke protests, a salt-free diet, and a Swedish girl’s knickers. A cycling-capped blond purk, alert blue eyes, pik dangling through his open jeans, smiled a cocky grin from the cover of Hermes. Meget vel! Hugo said to himself of a 15årig inside, splitternøgen and healthy as a horse, heel of right thumb along shaft of distended penis, ball of thumb on glans, fingers curled underneath and partly around, face faunish, nose pert, eyebrows arched, feathery eyelashes lowered in gaze at penis, at least 18 cm, foreskin rolled back of glans in a fat wet crumpled ruck, the thick stalk ridged with callopy wales branched over by a relief of veins, glans in snubby profile glossy with a slick of bulbourethral drool. On his bike, with a buddy. And, three pages along, wilted and content on a sleeping bag on a forest floor, he gazes amiably, with a nacreous splash beside his left nipple, a milky spatter across his midriff, and a puddle of cloudy egg white on his abdomen, with runnels into his scant crimp of pubic hair and into his navel.
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If the Angraecum in its native forests secretes more nectar than did the vigorous plants sent me by Mr. Bateman, so that the nectary ever becomes filled, small moths might obtain their share, but they would not benefit the plant. The pollinia would not be withdrawn until some huge moth, and with a wonderfully long proboscis, tried to drain the last drop. If such great moths were to become extinct in Madagascar, assuredly the Angraecum would become extinct. On the other hand, as the nectar, at least in the lower part of the nectary, is stored safe from the depredation of other insects, the extinction of the Angraecum would probably be a serious loss to these moths. We can thus understand how the astonishing length of the nectary had been acquired by successive modifications. As certain moths of Madagascar became larger through natural selection in relation to their general conditions of life, either in the larval or mature state, or as the proboscis alone was lengthened to obtain honey from the Angraecum, those orchids which compelled the moths to insert their proboscides up to the very base would be best fertilized.
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Kim, the blue bill of his red cycling cap turned up, and Tom, his amiably mussed hair brilliant under the steep pitch of Hugo’s skylight, sat on the bed. Anders, hugging his knees, and Hugo, holding his elbows, head down, listening, agreeing with nods and doubting with his shoulders, sat on the floor. Lemuel, thumbs in the belt loops of his short pants, stood and talked. As I see it, he said, we’ll be just another school club like Botany, Greenpeace, or Hiking. Hr. Tvemunding is, Gud være lovet, our faculty sponsor. Hugo, said Hugo. In class, in the gym, in the quad, hr. Tvemunding, but in the fellowship of the club, Hugo, please. And before we proceed, let’s do what I have my scouts do, all of us hug each other. Us too! said Mariana, arriving with Franklin. Mariana and Hugo with tongues in each other’s mouths, Mariana and Anders with an awkward squeeze, Mariana and Kim friendlily, Mariana and Lemuel warmly, Mariana and Tom sweetly, Mariana and Franklin with a kiss bravely consented to and wiped off. Hugo and Anders robustly, with a soldierly kiss on the cheek, Hugo and Kim timidly but repeated boldly, Hugo and Lemuel tightly, Hugo and Tom sexily, Hugo and Franklin (when caught) recklessly, with squeals.
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Anders and Kim chastely, nubbling noses, until a nej hør nu from Tom, whereupon they kissed with closed eyes and roaming hands, Anders and Lemuel, spiritedly, Anders and Tom, brashly, Anders and Franklin audaciously. Kim and Lemuel confidently, Kim and Tom with madcap indiscretion, Kim and Franklin impishly, prodding each other’s crotches. Lemuel and Tom with easy affection, Lemuel and Franklin outrageously, with hoots and promiscuous kisses and tickles and goosings and a roll across the floor. Tom joined in, capturing Franklin from Lemuel, who captured him back, with the loss of a sneaker. His jersey ruckled to his chin and his britches half off, Franklin, howling that he was being kissed to death, wrenched a gym shoe off Lemuel and tugged Tom’s shirt over his face. Oh ho! Lemuel hooted, pinning Franklin in a hug while Tom deprived him of his britches, and on second thought, unzipped and hauled off Lemuel’s, too. Us against him! said Lemuel to Franklin, and they threw Tom and debreeched and deshirted him.
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Pentstemon Glaber, Pursh. Very glabrous, leaves usually glaucous, sessile, entire, the cauline lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate. Flowers large, in a thyrsoid panicle, sepals broadly ovate, submembranous upon the margin, obtuse or more or less pointed. Corolla bright purple, widely dilated above, the limb shortly two-lobed, with the lobes rounded and spreading equally. Anthers loosely hairy or glabrous, the divaricate cells dehiscent from the base nearly to the summit, but not expanded. Sterile filament short and hirsute towards the apex, or glabrous. Specimens accord nearly with Var. Occidentalis Gray (P. speciosus, Dougl.), having the numerous violet-purple flowers an inch or more in length. Washington Territory (Douglas) and Nevada (Beckwith, Stretch). Frequent in the valleys and foothills from the Trinity to the Havallah Mountains, Nevada, 5 to 7000 feet altitude, May-June. Var. Utahensis. Stems straight and slender, cauline leaves long, oblanceolate, tapering to the clasping base, sepals ovate-acuminate, not at all membranous, anthers and sterile filament hirsute.
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Stitch of bronze midges over daisies, bees working wild hyacinths, butterflies yellow and white nuzzling clover at the meadow’s edge, Kim and Anders glistening wet rolled their shoulders and stretched like limbering gymnasts to dry in the hot light and sweet air from the river. Lovely, hr. Sigurjonsson called from the spit, joining them with Pascal astride his shoulders, a skinny basunengel whose wet eyelashes gave a look of wild freshness to his teasing gaze. You’re like the picture in your room, Anders, he said, you and Kim on that beach. That was last summer, Anders said, when we became friends. And, the housemaster said, you’ve been fast friends ever since. Jacobsen says, I believe in Niels Lyhne, that the tenderest and noblest affection is that of boys for each other. It is both warm and shy, not quite daring to show itself with a hug, a glance, or in words. It’s all tacit, reluctant, anxious. Beautifully, it is a fusion of admiration, selfless generosity, loyalty, and a great quiet happiness. Got it in one, said Anders, sliding his arm across Kim’s shoulders, Kim an arm across his. Opkastig, said Pascal. Do that again. Whereupon the housemaster lifted Pascal down and lay in the sun on the spit. Sludder, said Pascal, and bosh. Pascal, said the housemaster, don’t be a snob.
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Guess what, Mariana said. Mom was out for the night with her friend the toothbrush moustache and I was reading a bit before dropping off. Unge hr. Franklin was mucking around with the stamps and album you gave him, like a lamb in clover, and then here he was in nothing but his nightshirt and best cherub’s grin, climbing into bed with me. So what the heck. A hug is a hug, and the essential differences in anatomy that he explored by hand come under the heading of education. The little devil, Hugo said. And then what did you do? Explored back, she said, and jacked him off thoroughly, but not so thoroughly that he didn’t repeat the pleasure while I hugged him, with the odd kiss on the cheek or a nice puff in his hair. And then we fell asleep. He’s comfortable to have in bed, and smells good. He acted grown-up this morning, and kept offering me things at breakfast, as polite as if feeling his sister’s breasts had civilized him more than all the shouting at him I’ve done over the years. Perhaps we’ve discovered something? He also said, though it’s not the first time, that he thinks you’re great, and wonders if you like him as much as he likes you. Of course I like Franklin, Hugo said, he’s our Cupid.
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Meadow flowers, Kim said, hard yellow buttons, white stars, blue bells tight against stalks, pinks and purples. Nations of gnats, mists of midges sawing through the air. Are you enlisting nature to excite your dick? Rutger asked. He lay drowsy and shirtless beside Anders. Mna, Kim said, my hand strays when I’m bare-assed. It is, now that you mention it, feeling good. Anders beck
oned him with a crooked finger. Ak ja, Rutger said, our englebarn is going to sprinkle the meadow with his own personal dribble, three whole drops. Kim crawled between them, flopped on his back, nestling his head on Anders’s shoulder, sprawling his spread legs over theirs. He gawked at Rutger eye to eye, and at Anders, who licked the tip of his nose. Sunday afternoon in the middle of the meadow, he said to the sky. Rutger slid his hand down Kim’s abdomen, nipped his penis between two fingers, and played it in a wobble. Hejsa! Anders said. Cool it, Rutger said, I’m only being friendly, though it’s interesting that my prick seems to be making an unseemly display of its manly size. Woof! said Kim, you’re good. I’m blushing, Anders said. Rutger sat up, for better purchase. When it’s feeling really lovely, he said, Anders can take over. What a happy grin. Rutger, Kim said, is our best friend, isn’t he, Anders?
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The Bicycle Rider was as unresponsive as God. The young are in their own minds immortal, and assume Olympian indifference to their own deaths. They die drunk on dormitory floors, in automobile wrecks, hundreds a day, on futile battlefields, needles under their tongues, in their arms, in epileptic seizures for want of a fix, but this violent and pitiful mortality does not disturb their liquid minds any more than the screams of the dying at Waterloo caught the attention of the geese in the sky above them.
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Neither la poussière olympique nor the waters of Galilee had touched him. He partook of nothing Hugo could eventually recognize. He had found a new way to be inhuman. His face, a harmony of Scandinavian lines and Slavic planes, gave no hint of his addiction to lysergic acid, from age twelve, or of his cold hatred of his family, of his delight to hurt.
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He was thinking, he said out of the blue the last time he was here to pose, of laying off the acid for awhile. He’d had forty-one hits in the previous five weeks, thirty in the past three. Indulgence, yes, he said, but not indulgence carried to the extreme. Lysergic acid diethylamide, a wheat smut that corrodes synapses in the brain while binding with its tissues, causing the delusions of dementia praecox. Using it is deliberately simulating a senile deterioration of the mind. The pushers on Nordkalksten cut it with strychnine, and with speed. He was willing to endure stomach cramps that bit his guts for days to have these waking bad dreams that he called mind-expanding. Shit was what I said. What else, said Mariana, was there to say?
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He would come home through the vicious traffic of Nordkalksten on his bicycle, carry it up back stairs in an alley. A hovel, when I saw it. Trash everywhere. Britchesless, for the acid was his sex, he would melt a tab of the acid under his tongue, whacking off, beginning to see the world through a tacky snow of purple and silver flakes, lines bending, volumes swelling and diminishing, all colors mixing with yellow. There was a feeling of grand euphoria, of well-being, of success, of being immensely clever and wise and at peace. Drunk, said Mariana. Drunk is drunk.
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Pallets, said Tom. Ak jo, pallets. Aren’t they neat? Yes, said Hugo, but where did they come from? Well, said Tom, you know Asgar Thomsen, third year thickshock cornblond gymnast type? And you know Elsa, works in the kitchen, fifteen or sixteen, with the stickup breasts and sliding eyes? Well, those two fuck their brains out in the laundry room, never miss a day. Elsa knows where all sorts of things are, like a stash of gear from when NFS Grundtvig ran a nursery, and these pallets are from that, nippers’ naptime pallets. They fold up Japanese tidy. Elsa, eh? Jo, Tom said. Asgar says she’s great. She loves giving wee boys their first pussy, and is a good teacher, and likes five or six at a go, but her soft spot is for big Asgar. God knows what goes on at this school, Hugo said. Let’s hand the Otto Meyer here, with the Hajo Ortil, what say? North and South. Swiss Boy Scouts in a summer meadow all daisies, lots of skinny brown legs, three bare butts, two thumb-sized dicks. Norwegian Scouts in Sicily, one of Ortil’s expeditions of teutonsk youngsters big and little. Greek boy with hoop and rooster in the middle. Posters coming from Düsseldorf, Tom said. Anders’s doing, that. Radical Left rights-of-kids’ stuff. Wide-eyed German idealism.
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Tjajkovskij, said Mariana, pulling off a tall sock. I can listen to him. Teach me English. And French. What’s the good of getting laid by a teacher, never mind one with shoulders like the Stock Exchange and a peter like a pony, if I don’t learn something. Kiss, he said, and demonstrated. Kiss on the tit. Plural, tits. You’re slurpy wet, Hugo observed. Because, she said, I was playing with myself waiting for you. Passed out twice. It depraves Franklin, who wiggles out his grub and whisks it to a blur, great egg-beating technique.
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He was, the Bicycle Rider, trying to feel. That’s what makes your hair stand up on your head. Trying to feel. What began with some jaded old fools, Aldous Huxley, a giggling British neurotic, moral idiots like Burroughs and the poet Ginsberg, and the shit-for-brains Timothy Leary, what began for them as a desperate attempt to feel something, anything at all I suppose, became an initiation of the young into feeling. Young who had not yet felt love or wonder or surprise or the use of their minds learning math or Greek or history took their little trips on acid. Death, of course, is something that happens to other people. To talk crazy and act crazy is chic.
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Nose like a buck hare, said Hugo. Square toes. Eyes slyly sweet and sweetly sly. Hugo, liking the world, was an accurate draughtsman. Franklin sat on a chair, elf naked. You see? said Mariana, there’s nothing to it. If you get the giggles, you get the giggles. Hugo can wait. You can kick your heels when he’s drawing your face, and roll your head like a moron when he’s drawing your feet. I’ll tell you what to keep still. What you going to do with the picture? Franklin asked. Look at it when I need to throw up, Hugo said. O Gud! Mariana said, the giggles. It’s going to be a good painting.
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This. He told me. One day in class, listening to me lecture on Greek myth, his mind was following but it was also anticipating jacking off while stoned later that afternoon. LSD, you know, binds with the brain and is a permanent chemical activity of it. It volunteers hits weeks after you’ve had any of it. It rarely volunteers the euphoria of good trips, preferring nightmares. So the satyr’s leer in his gray eyes changed suddenly to cold fear. He was, while still hearing me on the bow of Herakles, facing a classmate who has hit him, cutting his lip, unsocketing a tooth that bleeds salty and hot. He must swallow the blood and try to focus his courage and twining eyesight, neither cooperating, and then a surge of desire drenches his balls and tingles in his lifting glans. He holds back a wave of nausea. The loose tooth bleeds freely. The taste of blood sickens him. He must jack off. He can’t trust himself to stand and leave the classroom. His bowels seem to have a knife through them, cutting. He’ll walk into the wall. The bully who hit him stands nose to nose whispering insults. Fairy, cocksucker, flit. His throat is full of blood. Sissy, morphadite, jerker off. If he could get to the hall, he could puke there, green phlegm that the acid makes. He could jack off in the hall, fuck who’d see him. With acid time is elastic. Class would last another four hours. Or two seconds. And all I saw was a handsome Scandinavian face with a charming vagueness in the eyes.
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Something’s in there hurting, Mariana said, pushing into Hugo’s chest with both hands. Something that needs to be healed. You’re doing it, Hugo said, holding her close. Let me tell you this, and we won’t mention the Bicycle Rider again, jo? I made the one last attempt to make friends with him, to show him a world he could see and feel and live in once he’d got his head out of his ass. I found out where he lived, even went there twice, and I wrote him a letter offering to take him along on a visit I’d planned to Paris, my favorite city. I’d pay for everything. All he had to do was come along. No answer to my letter. I ran into him (he had no phone, naturally) one day a week later and asked him, with some annoyance, if he’d got my letter. O yeah, man, he said, airily. That’s great. Paris, France! You’re a good man, you know. Denmark was such a backward hole of a country. He�
��d always longed to see Paris. He would go with me, and split when we got there, and he’d meet me for coming back. I didn’t believe my ears.
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In our time Apollo is sound asleep.
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You have been my best teacher, he said. I’d love to take your inhibitions away from you. My inhibitions! You’re not free, man. We had a wild talk. He had made me mad, confused me. So I’m a shithead, he said. What’s that got to do with anything? A good exchange of name-calling cleared the air. Generosity, I can see looking back, was simply not in him. He’d put the worst construction on all my friendliness, and now that I knew he was on dope I felt a kind of mission to save him. I insisted that he come to Paris. We would look, walk, see all the beautiful city. I would get him out of himself, his head out of his ass. He would see. I showed him slides, books. He agreed to go. I gave him a big hug, and he froze, saying that he wasn’t used to affection. So what happened? Mariana asked. Nothing, said Hugo. We met a few times, always by accident, as he would never turn up when he would say he would, made plans. I was to meet him here and we’d go together to the train station. He never came.
The Death of Picasso Page 33