Exposure

by Alan Russell

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s the sentimental association?”

  Jaeger paused before saying, “I guess you’d call it my first love.”

  “Ah. That’s sweet.”

  He was rugged, yet romantic, thought Angelica, well spoken, but not effete. Belatedly, she remembered her work. “I better get you your water.”

  She moved with alacrity, quickly returning with the sparkling water and a napkin. “There you are, sir.”

  Jaeger’s eyebrows wrinkled. “There’s something missing.”

  “What?”

  Only she heard his reply: “Your telephone number.”

  In the almost three years Angelica had been a flight attendant, she had been asked for her telephone number hundreds of times. Up until that moment, she had never considered giving it out.

  “I’ll get it for you right away, sir.”

  A minute later, she brought a pillow to Jaeger. As she handed it over, she slipped him her number. He watched her walk away, admiring the way her nicely rounded ass moved. The view had an unexpected effect; Jaeger found himself getting hard. He could have aborted his hard-on by thinking of any number of boring things, but decided the pillow had a use after all. He put it atop his lap, covering up his erection. His condition prompted Jaeger to remember who the flight attendant reminded him of: Greta Reineke.

  Or maybe it was just his erection and their talk of the Veuve Clicquot.

  Jaeger closed his eyes and remembered.

  “It will never be done,” announced Karl Witt at the smoke- and drink-filled party that followed the weekly Convent of the Corps Normannia Berlin. The drinking had worked its usual magic in loosening tongues. Only Jaeger wasn’t taking part in the discussion, but everyone was still aware of his presence. He was the youngest of all the corps brothers, but no one wielded a sword like Jaeger.

  “Never,” repeated Witt.

  He was referring to a challenge that had been thrown down generations earlier, a challenge much discussed throughout all dueling fraternities, but one never taken up. It had been the holy grail of many a late-night drunken talk. To win the challenge, a duelist would have to enter the Mensurboden with an erection, and maintain it during the match.

  Jaeger listened to the alcohol-fueled discussions about whether it could be done. Why anyone would even want to attempt such a thing was never addressed. Men who willingly faced sharpened steel, who dueled, did not ask such questions. Among his peers, the thought of entering the ring with both Schwanz and sword held aloft was considered the ultimate in male expression.

  “For starters,” said Witt, “consider the clothing constraints. When I enter the ring, I feel like a baby who has been swaddled.”

  “And when you leave, you look like a baby who needs to be changed,” said Hildebrand, a brother known more for his cutting wit than his cutting sword.

  Witt ignored the resulting laughter. “The weight of all our protective gear would prevent any Mannerfahne from waving. Except, of course, Herr Hildebrand and his two-meter Steifer.”

  Hildebrand put his elbow on his crotch and waved his arm around to the cheers of corps brothers.

  “The apron alone,” said Witt, “would make it physically impossible to walk into the ring with a Hammer.”

  Oberman, a serious engineering major, shook his head. “Not if you repositioned it,” he said, “or if you cut a strategic hole in the leather.”

  Witt nodded in mock agreement. “Yes, and as you stepped into that small ring and stood an arm’s length away from an opponent wielding a razor-sharp blade, I’d like to see the Steifer that wouldn’t turn into a very tiny Nudel.”

  In a Mensur fought according to the rules of the Berlin Corps, the sword blows were aimed above the chin, but sometimes during the upward cuts the blades dipped dangerously low.

  Witt spoke over the nervous laughter. “Self-preservation would make anyone’s Prengel fall.”

  “Reminds me of something I saw in the pisser yesterday,” said Hildebrand. “At eye level on the urinal someone wrote, ‘Your life is in your hands.’ ”

  The great debate sparked something in Jaeger. He had always liked being dared. As a child, he climbed up to the top of trees that the other boys feared to scale, and as he grew older, he had excelled at all sports, especially those deemed dangerous, becoming expert at rock climbing, hang gliding, and downhill ski racing. The greater the difficulty or danger, the more Jaeger enjoyed it.

  He believed in rising to any challenge.

  Jaeger had refrained from fucking Greta for a week. Three hours before his Mensur, he took her to bed. Their lovemaking had been going on nonstop for over two hours.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh good, good, good, God, God, God, God.”

  Greta was coming again. Almost with dispassion, Jaeger watched as she writhed and bucked. “Come with me,” Greta said. “Come with me.”

  Her panting was rapid, her words shrill. Then her groans cascaded to cries of pleasure. Piston-like, Jaeger kept moving. Greta’s cries lessened in intensity, then changed in tone. “No more. Please, no more.”

  In the relative quiet, Jaeger heard the banging on his door. He pulled out of Greta and made his way across the room. Insensate, Greta rolled over, not caring about her nakedness, not caring about anything.

  “Jaeger,” yelled Hildebrand. “Time to get you ready for the match.”

  “I am ready,” said Jaeger, opening the door.

  Hildebrand turned his head away. “For God’s sake, get some pants on.”

  “I’ll be dueling for champagne today,” said Jaeger.

  Priapism had set in sometime after the first hour of fucking. Now his cock was completely vertical, pressed up against his belly button. He could no longer even feel it. He had withheld from coming until all sensitivity had been lost.

  Hildebrand suddenly understood what Jaeger was talking about. “You can fight the first match!” he said excitedly. “We can hurry things along!”

  Supremely confident he could defy gravity, and whatever came with it, Jaeger said, “There is no need to rush.”

  The emperor had no clothes, and he was proud of it.

  When Jaeger walked into the Fechtsaal—the fencing hall—of the Corps Normannia in Berlin, heads turned. Usually a Mensur draws an audience of no more than a hundred people, but word of his endeavor had gotten out, and more than three hundred people filled the Fechtsaal. The quiet of a Mensur match is akin to the silence of a gallery while watching a golfer standing over a putt, but the normal etiquette of dueling was disrupted by Jaeger’s condition. For a long moment everyone stared, and then the hall filled with noise and ribald laughter.

  Jaeger ignored the crowd. He had eschewed the oblong apron and trousers that duelists traditionally wore, opting instead for a skintight leotard. When a German male waxes poetic about his member, he refers to it as Mannerfahne—a man’s flag. Jaeger’s flag had everyone’s attention. In a way, Jaeger was saluting himself. He had further accentuated his condition by attaching a blue-silver-black ribbon, the colors of the Corps Normannia, to the end of the stretched-out fabric.

  His was the fifth and last duel of the day. There was no love lost between Normannia and Guestphalia, two Berlin fraternities with a long-standing rivalry. The two clubs had split the previous four matches.

  Witt hurried forward to speak with Jaeger. He was wearing a butcher’s chain-mail glove. His job would be to inspect and disinfect Jaeger’s sword between rounds. Jaeger had requested that Witt be an attendant doing the work usually assigned to a Schleppfuchs—an assisting pledge—so that he could be a close-up witness to what he had so vehemently termed as being “impossible.”

  Slapping Jaeger on the shoulder, Witt said, “Waffenschwein!” The word’s literal translation was “weapon swine,” but in the dueling world it was the traditional greeting of good luck and a protection against evil
spirits.

  Centurion-like, Jaeger answered, “It’s a good day to die.”

  “You’re going up against Meyer,” said Witt. “He’s their best, but you wouldn’t know it to look at him now. It appears your tumescence, and your reputation, have quite unnerved the boy.”

  “What’s delaying the match?”

  “The Guestphalia mafia thinks if they drag their heels long enough, gravity will win out over your Steifer.” Witt took a quick look at the situation, and then laughed. “That apparently isn’t the case. I’d say it’s more likely that Meyer will run out of the Fechtsaal before the steam runs out of your dick. Look at him. He looks more like a pledge than someone with ten Mensuren to his credit.”

  Jaeger didn’t bother to look across the fencing floor at his opponent. Soon enough, he knew, he would see him up close.

  “So how do you feel?” Witt asked.

  “Thirsty for champagne,” said Jaeger.

  The promised reward—the long-standing prize that most had thought would never be collected—was a case of Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame to the fighter who dueled with an erection.

  Witt laughed again. “You are the ice man, Jaeger.”

  Jaeger knew that even seasoned duelists entered a Mensur afraid. Some attempted mock bravado, with poses and forced smiles, but those were fronts for butterflies, and dry mouth, and nausea. Most duelists entered the ring with one goal only: to come out unmaimed. They wanted to leave with both ears, to have a smile not extended several inches by the slice of steel. Jaeger never had those fears. The only thing he ever felt was anticipation.

  “God, Jaeger, you almost look comfortable.”

  He was different that way as well. His corps brothers hated being “mummified” for battle. Dressing for a Mensur was as daunting to some as the swordplay itself. Silk bandages were wrapped incredibly tightly around the neck, causing severe shortness of breath; bodies were weighted down by heavy padding, chain mail, and Kevlar clothing; vision was inhibited by the Paukbrille—heavy, protective goggles with steel ridges around the eye openings, and a metal mesh curtain coverlet. The eyes were protected, but at the price of steel cataracts.

  “I am comfortable,” Jaeger told Witt. And it was true.

  “Don’t worry,” said Witt. “Fritz the Cat is about to get this thing going.”

  Local fencing master Fritz Fehrensen—nicknamed Fritz the Cat—would be the umpire for the match. As any of Fritzie’s students could tell you, he had the look and prickly demeanor of an alley cat. His eyes were feral, untamed, and his face was crisscrossed with the scars of his youthful Mensuren.

  Witt was right. Fritz shooed away all the seconds, and then in a voice that brooked no argument announced to the assemblage, “Silentium!”

  The hall hushed, but the silence didn’t mask the energy that was there. Jaeger walked out to the middle of the fencing floor with his second and two attendants: Hildebrand, Witt, and Gross. They were joined by the contingent from the Corps Guestphalia. Pro forma formalities and instructions were offered and received, and then Hildebrand measured a blade’s length between the sternums of Jaeger and Meyer, the distance of how far they would stand from one another—and each other’s swords.

  The Bestimmungsmensur—rules of the match—called for forty rounds at six cuts each. Each round would take between two and three seconds, with the combatants cutting and parrying simultaneously.

  At a gesture from the umpire, Jaeger raised his right arm and angled his Schläger. Meyer did the same. Each man observed the ritual of the Ehrengang—the round of honor, standing motionless in a pose referred to as steile Auslage.

  Meyer was the larger man, both in height and weight. He would have the advantage of a longer reach. But sweat was already pouring from him. Through his fencing goggles, Jaeger watched Meyer’s eyes drift downward to his crotch. Nothing had changed there. Meyer raised his eyes, and was confronted by Jaeger’s smile.

  “First blood,” whispered Jaeger.

  “Fuck you,” said Meyer.

  With combat only moments away, the music started up in Jaeger’s mind. He never told anyone about the music, how before every Mensur he heard movements from Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen playing in his head. The chorus was quickly building to a crescendo; Siegfried was reforging Notung, his father’s famous sword. Jaeger listened to Siegfried’s hammer pounding away: Boom boom-ba Boom boom-ba Boom—

  Hildebrand crouched, locking Jaeger’s hilt with his blade. “Auf die Mensur!” he announced.

  The Guestphalian second offered the ritualized reply: “Fertig!”

  On Hildebrand’s barked “Los!” both seconds tumbled out of the way. Blades clashed and flashed; the hiss of metal made the arena sound like a snake pit. In an instant, sharpened steel rose and fell six times.

  Neither Jaeger nor Wagner missed a beat.

  “Halt!” both seconds yelled, then jumped between the duelists, intervening with their Schlägers, locking their swords under the hilt of each combatant. Their arms were so heavily padded they had a gorilla-like look; a hockey goalie’s pads looked anemic in comparison. As the swords lowered, other attendants jumped in. Like trainers working a boxing match, they all had a particular job, some attending to the equipment, some to the combatants.

  And one to clean away the blood.

  Jaeger had scored a hit. Rote plume was his. The vertical cut along his opponent’s left cheekbone flowed, and didn’t look inclined to stop.

  Another movement from Wagner, this time a chorus from Die Walküre. Brünnhilde and the Valkyries were singing as they gathered the warriors killed in battle. The dead were going to Valhalla. As the Valkyries’ voices rose to a crescendo, blood pounded in Jaeger’s head. He couldn’t wait for the next round.

  Jaeger opened his eyes, aware of a presence. Angelica was hovering nearby.

  “Would you like a refill of your sparkling water? Or another pillow?”

  “Nothing, thank you.”

  “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “I wasn’t asleep. I was just daydreaming.”

  “Are you sure? You had a big smile on your face.”

  “I always smile when I slay dragons.”

  Her smile matched his. “I’ll let you get back to your dragons then.”

  The pillow was still on his lap, covering his erection. It was a convergence of things past and present. Jaeger wasn’t sure if she knew what the pillow was hiding, but there was something almost tangible in the air between them. He wanted to rut with her right there—take her in the empty seat next to his and become a member of what the Americans called the Mile High Club—but there were those dragons to vanquish first.

  When Angelica walked away he closed his eyes again and let his thoughts return back to those days in Berlin. He could feel the corners of his lips rising on their own accord. Angelica was right. He was smiling. In his mind, Wagner started playing again.

  The white-haired doctor stepped in to look at Meyer. He was an unsympathetic old man the students called “the Butcher.” One thing was certain—the Butcher never ended a match prematurely. A combatant had to be bleeding profusely, or cut open to the bone, before the Butcher ruled Abfuhr—the termination of the Mensur due to what was deemed an incapacitating wound.

  “Will he live?” asked Hildebrand.

  “He will if he isn’t subjected to your so-called witticisms,” said Braun, the apparent spokesman of Meyer’s attendants.

  The infighting between opposing attendants was sometimes almost as furious as the swordplay itself.

  “I’m hoping he can go another round,” said Hildebrand. “We have some very special champagne on ice for our boy, but it’s not properly chilled yet.”

  Braun parried back: “I’m glad you have that ice handy. You know how it is when one loses a finger—or body part. You have to put it on ice in the hopes it can be reattached.”
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  The barbs thrown out by the attendants were meant to be overheard by the duelists. Each side was always working for an advantage.

  The Butcher finished his examination. “He’s fine. Get back to it.”

  Fritz the Cat lined up the combatants. Standing at the ready, Jaeger experienced an epiphany: he was born for combat. It made him feel alive.

  “Auf die Mensur!”

  “Los!”

  Jaeger swept his bell-guard Schläger across in a crushing moulinet. The blow staggered Meyer. He tried to recover, but overcompensated, leaving his guard too low. Jaeger punished his mistake with an incredibly quick and hard horizontal quarte, followed immediately by another. The audience gasped. To them, it almost looked as if Jaeger were whipping his opponent.

  “Halt!”

  The two cuts were so close to one another that they looked like one—even if they bled like two. The gash—gashes—were just above Meyer’s left cheekbone. While attendants scurried about the fencing floor, the Butcher examined the wounds, squinting at the obvious.

  Hildebrand announced to the opposing second: “I hope you will remind the gentleman from the Corps Guestphalia that parrying with the blade is considered more acceptable than parrying with the face.”

  “Not in the case of your face,” said Braun.

  The Butcher took a step away from Meyer. “You and I will be getting to know one another very well after this match,” he said, referring to the stitching he would have to do, “but you’re all right to go on.”

  Jaeger had known the Butcher wouldn’t call the match this soon. He liked blood too much. His music switched again. It was Götterdämmerung time—the twilight of the gods—the last of Wagner’s four operas. Death and more death was playing in Jaeger’s ears. The Norns, the Fates, were weaving out destiny. The gods were being toppled and were falling hard.

  Time slowed down for Jaeger. He would open his opponent as an offering to Götterdämmerung. He would give blood to the old gods.