*
Colorful tourists arrive—their skins are gleaming with sunscreen—and take pictures of the beached whale. Photoflashes sparkle.
"Poor, poor thing," the parents say, while their children throw sand in the animal’s small, black eyes. They argue and crawl back into their cars, turning the keys and then disappearing down the roads, while whale screams come out of their cameras.
Dusk oozes from the sky’s wounds. A wind arrives from the sea, dancing a poster onto the shore. As it sticks to the heated rocks, the sign comes legible. Tonight's program: Debussy. Then the hot stone sets the paper on fire and it turns to ashes.
The audience arrives. They gather around the whale in dinner jackets and cocktail dresses. The giant mammal is almost dead—an assembly of ghosts stirs in its fading dark eye. The recently arrived take their seats in the sand, waiting for Debussy—scraping the wax out of their ears, kneading tiny pearls. They hold their breath, and throw the ones whose hearts are beating too loudly into the water. Then the mouth of the whale opens: musicians tune their instruments in the animal’s giant throat-hall. What beautiful acoustics! A lady in the audience pisses herself upon hearing these semitones. A podium stands on the whale's tongue. Shells of hands clap when the maestro arrives. The baton goes erect in his hand, and finally the show begins: music fills the shore—levitating above the waves—in distant hotels, cameras in bags begin to cry.
But then, something interrupts the program. The sound of laughter and whoops, naked boys running between the rocks, yelling, shouting, their penises lashing against their bare thighs. Knives glitter in their hands.
The maestro grunts angrily, and he signals to the musicians to play more loudly. But the waves of music can't wash away the rampage of the boys. The maestro can't bear it any longer, and he shouts: "You're ruining the performance, you rats! This is Debussy!" He shakes with anger, but the boys just keep laughing at him. The audience feels ill at ease, a few ladies die silently in embarrassment, the others, when they notice the sharp little knives in the boys' hands, jump up and run away. The kids don't care about them, they are mocking the maestro, shouting: "Yoouu're ruinining the perfomance, this iiiis Debuuusy!" One of the boys gets an erectionand begins to sway his cock back and forth, as if he's conducting the music. As he rolls his hips the musicians get confused and the music slides into chaos. The maestro hits the podium with his baton and it breaks in two. Then he aims at the boys with his wand, ready to throw it like a dart. (The spines of the sea urchin are poisonous, causing temporary paralysis. The time before the poison takes effect is about the same as the lengthof Debussy's La Mer.) He almost throws it, when the whale suddenly closes its mouth. The boys can hear as the maestro begins to curse inside the mammal, locked in a music-storm. They give the animal a clap, and one of them shouts: "Come on boys, let's push it back into the water!"
So they gather around the dying whale, and start to put their shoulders into the behemoth. The boys' muscles ache, the animal leaves a deep gash in the sand as it gets closer and closer to the sea. The withdrawing waves are helping the kids, and soon the animal's body spins into the foam. The boys are waving goodbyes to the whale as it sprays mist into the dark sky. All of a sudden something blocks its blowhole. It's the maestro, he got caught in there, shouting curses, then the animal blows again, and like a champagne cork he flies into the night sky: "Forgive me, Debuussyyyy!"And he disappears into the depths.
*
Morning arrives, all the boys on the beach open their eyes at once. They stand, stretching as small crayfish fall from their chests. Their morning wood points at the sea, while they kick away the black remains of yesterday's fire. Suddenly, they hear music. It's coming from the other side of the bay. The boys grab their knives and begin to run.
After a few moments, they glimpse the broken-legged piano and the little boy. His tiny fingers are moving on the keys. Sweat is running down his forehead, and his face shines as he plays. The fisherboys give each other a flustered look. The little pianist smiles at his brothers victoriously. They must be very proud of him now. His fingers keep running over the keys, like the needle legs of a crayfish in the sand. As if he weren't controlling his own hands, as if the music were simply nesting itself under his nails.
But then, the oldest boy yells, his voice a knife thrust into the piano-piece: "Meat!"And the other boys don't need any more encouragement: they charge at the instrument and begin to chop it all up, slicing hunks of meat from the piano. The little boy is horrified. He wants to scream and run away, but his legs don't move. He just keeps his fingers on the keys, and he plays and plays, while his brothers throw the meat into bloody mounds, and the instrument slowly disappears beneath his fingers.
CROTCH-COUCH
IT IS DAMN sure that this was the last time I let myself get talked into any furniture buying. Okay, we do need a couch, and it only took us one day to decide that leatherette is out of the question because it is not really durable. Fabric is too average. So we chose leather. The size wasn't a question. We just measured the wall that it will stand against. But picking the color is harder than I would imagine. Right now, my wife is vacillating between jazzberry jam purple and purple pizzazz, but every unknown shade of purple and red came into question already. She talks only about colors for three weeks or so. We didn't make love for almost two weeks. And last week, she tried to tear down the dress from a little girl in the bus, yelling, "This is the color! This is it!"
While the policemen were questioning her, she just cried, and mumbled "I'm so sorry, I made a mistake. It's not that color at all. Looking at it in the sunlight, this red seems terrible; it would ruin our living room for sure."
Instead of going to the movies, having dinner in a restaurant or simply just taking a walk, we go to furniture stores, and I start to believe, that the color my wife is searching for really doesn't exist.
"Please, just one more, just one more store!" she begs, so we step into another one, where a drunk looking man with a greasy mustache stares at us with red eyes. A sign in the shop window assured us that here we will find every possibly shade, so my woman launches into her usual speech about cochineal insects that dry a little brownish under the sweltering sun. The man puckers his eyebrows, then he shouts for his wife. A thin, miserable looking woman staggers out from the office. She could be a poster model for Amnesty International, old punch marks cover her face, nowhere leading maps of healing scars. The shop keeper orders her, "Undress, bitch!", and when she takes off her blouse, a dozen fresh scars come into sight around her bra strap – red, purple and blue ones. My wife leans closer concentrating on the newer marks, finally pocking at one and saying "This is almost good. But it’s not vivid enough."
The shop keeper nods, and then asks for our patience. He locks himself into the office with his wife. The sounds of yelling and smacks emanate from behind the door. I look at my wrist watch and sigh. When they finally return, the crying woman's face is all red.
"This… This is just horrible!" my wife mutters. "It should be a bit lighter."
The mustached man soon gives up, and leaving the store we go home. Lost in our thoughts we walk the streets hand in hand, but really, it feels like I'm holding a stranger's palm. An imaginary couch is standing between us. At home, my wife tells me "Awful, did you notice how pushy and violent that seller was?" she complains. "He almost talked us into a cheap poppy color!"
*
Not having any chance for sex again, I decide to search for some porn on the net. I'm sick of couches and colors, and my dick is so hard I could knock out the wall with it. My saliva is dripping as I watch a teenaged girl working a rolling pin sized vibrator up her tight pussy on the monitor. I'm almost there, when I hear a scream coming from behind my back, "Good Lord!"
It's my wife. I try to cover the screen with my smeary fingers, but she rushes over, pushing my hand aside, and the young girl comes into view. All of a sudden, I would give anything if the girl wouldn't be naked, wishing if she were at a cafe bar, writing
her homework, but of course she's still nude and the dildo still hangs out of her. I'm making up lies in my head, for example, saying that this is just a French art movie, and nowdays all the european films are full of scenes like this, but when I try to explain myself, she interrupts, yelling "This is it!"
I gaze at her confused, asking: "What you mean?"
"The color I was looking for!" She points at the young girl’s vagina. "Don't you see?"
"I see, I see…" I mummble staring away. Looking at another woman's pussy in the company of my wife is quite embarrassing. "Are you… uh… sure?"
"Move aside!" She pushes me away from the computer, clicking on new and new porn videos, licking her lips while staring at the vaginas of the freshly appearing net-whores. I begin to suspect that this whole color thing is just an excuse, and she's turned on somehow by these videos, which will possibly lead to a great fuck session. So I feel rather disappointed when she closes the new pages, and gets back to the paused video of the first seen teenaged girl, saying "I’m sure. This is the one." And tears begin to form in her eye. She falls into my neck. "It will look gorgeous in the living room!" She saves a still image from the video to the desktop, and clicks on print. Soon, the machine spits out a page with the young girl petrified in ecstasy. She hands me the picture: "Be so nice and take this to the department tomorrow. Tell them this is what we want!"
I think she must be joking. Or that this is some kind of childish revenge for catching me watching an adult movie.
"I'm not going to show pictures of genitals in the store!" I growl, but looking at her, seeing her angry eyes, I already know that yeah, that's exactly what I'm going to do tomorrow.
*
Wringing my hands in embarrassment I step into the department store. A spectacled young seller comes to me – he recognizes me straightaway, we've been here at least three times with my wife last week. The porn pic is in my pocket, I smile at him oddly, considering running out of the shop, but of course that wouldn't solve anything – the mad color search, the whole crazy situation at home would continue, this way at least I can put an end to it. So I ask the guy if we could talk somewhere in private. He stares at me suspiciously for a few moments, then he shrugs and takes me to a small office. There I slide the paper into his hands, and I almost die in shame when he unfolds it. The sellers professionalism surprises me. After studying the photo for a while, he smiles and nods, telling me it's soluble and the production time is two weeks. I almost jump for joy, and return home with a big smile on my face.
Some wonderful days come – we don’t talk about the couch anymore, we throw out the home decor magazines, and we make love every night. Now and then I catch my wife looking at the calendar where she circled the day of the delivery, but I don’t say anything, just smile at her.
But the idyll soon comes to an end, when on the circled day some workers arrive, carrying a gigantic human vagina into our living room.
*
We stand side by side, looking at the enormous pussy laying on our carpet. It only takes a few minutes for my wife to burst into tears.
"This… This isn't what I wanted at all!" she cries, and I don't know what to answer. Finally I tell her, "Well, I… I kinda like it."
As it lies on its side, our new furniture could be easily mistaken for the lips of a woman, but of course we both know exactly what it is. A strange, but somehow familiar odor fills the room. I step closer, and poke the pink flesh with my finger.
"It matches with the wall." I mumble, but when the thing begins to leak transparent fluid on to the carpet, my wife screams: "Take it back! Replace it! Buy a new one!"
"Oh no I don't!" I shout angrily. "Do you know how much it cost? And I'm not just talking about money! I'm sick to death!"
"It can't stay here!" she yells back.
"I… I kinda like it." I tell her, and of course this is just oil to the flames. She assures me that it's all my fault, that I fucked up the order.
"Oh really? Why didn't you go to the store then, and stick that porn pic up to the seller’s nose yourself?" She then tells me that I'm useless, and a disgusting pervert. After making that clear, she runs in to the bedroom, returning she throws a pillow at me, saying, "If you like that couch so much, sleep on it!"
She then slams the door. I sigh. Sitting down to our new furniture, I burry my face into my palms. I wonder why we needed a new couch anyway. Later, I begin to curse the sky when I notice that the mysterious liquid oozing out from our new furniture has totally soaked my trousers.
*
Darkness surrounds me. The sounds of stifled crying and soft whimpers coming from the bedroom keeps me awake. I'm listen to it for a while, then I try to cover my ears. After some time, silence broods over the house. Only the ticking of a clock tears the spider web of my thoughts. I'm lying naked on our new couch. My soaked pyjamas are drying somewhere in the corner. As minutes go by, a strange calmness descends on me. Of course I only chose the new furniture just to show my wife that I do like it. But now, I really begin to like it – it's comfy, it's smooth, it’s warm. And yes, wet too, but that doesn't bother me anymore. Long forgotten feelings carry me away – I feel safe, like I was in my mother's womb again. The hot pussy lips lean on me like flower petals, which gives a feeling that I'm sinking. I squirm a bit, just to find the perfect position, every time I move, the whole couch begins to shake in pleasure, its lips become more wet and warm, sucking my body deeper. That familiar sweet smell fills my lungs, and I become erect. The sparks of joy crackle behind my eyes, as the pussy moves under me, sliding me back and forth, like I was a forming pearl in a seashell in the bottom of the ocean. Sometimes traveling to the edge of the furniture I almost fall down to the ground, but then, that sucking power again swallows me back to the depths of the couch. The massage is effective; my body shudders as I cum. Then all the movement stops. Laying, curling up in fetus pose, the waves of a dream drifts me away, and my final thought is that I really, really pleased with our new couch.
*
Waking up with a smile on my face and looking all relaxed just makes my wife angry again. She throws a glass into the dishwasher. Sharp splinters fly everywhere.
"You stink!" she screams running out of the kitchen. Looks like I have to sleep on the couch again tonight. And I really don't mind.
*
A few days pass, and I notice a terrible scream coming from the living room. It's my wife, her face is all white and she's pointing at the couch, yelling, "It's… It's menstruating!"
Indeed, blood oozes out from the vagina, I rush over and quickly roll up the carpet. Bringing a floor cloth I begin to clean up the mess, while my wife can't stop screaming into my ear: "It's bleeding, it's bleeding!"
"Yeah, well, sometimes they do, I don't think I have to explain it to you!" I growl, still cleaning the floor. So much blood. Like if the room turned into some kind of crime scene.
"Throw out that fucking ugly thing!" My wife beats the wall with her fists.
"Don't worry, it will stop soon." I don't know who I'm calming – my wife or the sofa.
"I don't care! I don't want it here!" she cries, and rushes out of the room. I hear the slamming of the front door, and peeping out in the window, I watch her walking through the street, sweeping tears from her face. I'm sure she's heading to her mom. She usually goes to her when we’re having a fight. To tell her what a big prick I am. Never mind, she'll calm down eventually. Till then, I’ve got work to do. I collect some old clothes, mostly raunchy t-shirts and smudgy socks, and I tuck them into the crack of the couch. Later, I decide to rope some of these clothes and form a giant tampon.
Tapping the side of the giant pussy I realize, that I can't sleep on the couch tonight. And I'm still an unwelcomed guest in my own bedroom. So I make my bed on the floor, near to the bleeding vagina.
*
Weeks go by, and we live like total strangers together with my wife – just wandering around around each other, sometimes crossing eachother's field of vision. I really d
on't know why she must make such a big deal about a couch, and sure, I would throw out the damned furniture, just for the sake of peace, if I could forget about that one month madness that preceded the buying.
She's just getting what she earned, I remind myself, and I shlep to the couch to sleep. A crazy dream haunts me. In my dream I take my wife to a restaurant, and when I pull the chair out from beneath the table for her, I discover that it has a giant, brown wooden penis – it throbs and honey like resin is leaking from it. I insist my wife to sit into another chair, but when I pull out another one, it too has a dick – maybe even bigger, than the first one. My wife gets unpatient and sits down on the first chair – I make a grimace when she moans and smiles, telling me, that I should put my butt down, so we can order.
"I'm… I'm not gonna sit on that… thing!" I growl, and I ask the waiter to bring me a new chair. He brings one. And it too has a prick.
"What the fuck? What kind of place is this? Jesus, I'll just stand then." I yell, and when I look at my wife I become jealous. "And you! Stop rocking on that chair! And wipe off that stupid grin from your face!"
I wake up. The dream leaves a strange feeling of guilt in me. I totter into the kitchen, to drink a glass of water. When I turn the lamp on, I find a small note on the table. My wife wrote it. She moved to her mother for a week. "Don't come after me. I'll come back, and we'll talk about the couch."
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