"Techniques on how to have sex,"
Edward said aloud, while in the living room his wife was leafing
through a fashion magazine and having a drink. The phrase drew her
instinctively. That final word had not yet convinced her, it seemed
like one of those medical words that are found on the pharmacy boxes,
but which you never dwell in front of in modesty.
"What do
you say dear?" he asked, moving from the crumpled cushion of the
sofa.
"No nothing, a frivolous article in the newspaper,
nothing new," he replied, pressing his voice against his throat,
sounding hard almost ready to gurgle to hide the words. The tram full
of commuters passed by, pointing out the window, moving the windows
and scaring the Andersons' dog. "Poor flea beast," the
woman thought.
"But did you say sex?" she asked again,
settling her long skirt, certain that she had heard that word. The
intent as if only to have heard the three S lying in a ménage à
trois with the E and the O reminded her of a vague thrill she had
been able to look after over the years.
"nothing, you must
have drunk too much as usual"
She rose suddenly and after
beating her heels to get to the little room where her husband sat to
read the newspaper, to take it with a quick gesture of his hand. She
couldn't, her husband had been quicker, and the smile on his lips had
angered Julia.
"But what do you do? don't you see I'm
reading?"
"I want to know what you said"
"Nothing
important, the usual newspaper advertisements for fools," he
replied, carrying the now crumpled sheet in the kitchen. The large
pot was muttering a rabbit stew and vegetables. Edward took a frozen
beer from the fridge and opened it with a vulgar gesture aided by the
ledge of the table and sent the cap flying into the ground.
"Look
at you Edward T. Malone I don't want to fight tonight, my sister
arrives tomorrow morning from Pasadena and I want to be close to her
after everything she's been through"
"foregone
conclusion" added Edward without specifying what he was
referring to
"what?"
"Nothing, I was talking
about that article" Every word and move was driven by a slight
feeling that had to hide an intent that Julia could not understand.
Until now, she had counted three things that had angered her. That
something was hidden from him, that he was accused of drinking too
much, and that method of opening the beer bottle using the edge of
the table. At this point, however, that half-argument that would soon
be born and of which Edward constantly pushed his shoulders inside to
cheat had lit the fuse that sizzled with phrasings at an
imperceptible speed. Edward himself had difficulty understanding
every single word that came out of his wife's mouth. Over the years
he had understood the trick to avoid quarreling, also because it was
totally impossible to get out of an argument with Julia. But this
time it was different. A certain tremor had shaken him trying
desperately to upset that mute repression put in place by years of
marriage.
He unwled the beer in a single vulgar
sisrose, scattering drops throughout the kitchen. Then the least
sonic and harmonious thing of Julia's entire life came out of her
husband's mouth, a roaring, intense roaring that manifested itself as
a tremendous omen.
"They make this beer heavy," Andrew
said, pleased with his way of doing it, that he had completely untied
himself to become his most grotesque form. The nerves began to shake,
touching the electric madness that would soon be unleashed.
"You
must be completely out of you," she yelled, pointing her finger
at her husband. Previous outbursts were not enough, this one was more
direct less frantic and energetically unchallenged.
"Don't
point your finger at me, you know how much you remind me of your
mother, the hag" She said to finally face the flames that flared
like one and only flame with female shapes.
The first to fly was a
silver tray containing rum chocolates, the noise he made against the
wall, which sounded like that of an orchestra that only makes dishes
exercise. In line to follow a lamp that tumultuted in the burst of
the bulb and the glass ashtray that had all the similarities of a
lethal weapon. She kept circling the couch looking for things to
throw that didn't have a definite emotional value. He feared he
didn't know how to stop the avalanche of objects and words poured on
him.
"It's disgusting never to mention my mother again, a
failed race," he added, trying to make himself heard by all the
neighbors, "You talk then, you're so damned you can't do
anything but judge others and live your miserable life."
"Our miserable life! Remember we
are bound until death separates us my dear the viper" countered
showing faith to the finger as one of those unbearable weights.
Julia
ran into the kitchen and took the pot where her dish was boiling and
threw it out of the kitchen window, dropping it from the fourth floor
where the apartment was located.
"and tonight you don't eat
so at least you drop that crazy belly you carry with you"
The
madness had degenerated creating a subordinate layer of their
marriage where each consistency took on the appearance of their own
negativity. The war ground had been established, the drawing-room.
sharp weapons as sharp words of a hemisphere shared only in part.
Everything that until now seemed normal evolved into precise and
targeted emotional glee. From the displeasure to the most imbued
torpor that from the stomach expanded towards the throat. And the
tears, loving, sweet, then again shale on Julia's cheeks that she did
not understand the heinous psychological instinct. Did she love him?
Did she hate him? Why put up with it again? Could he leave him and
live without it? Without his smile, the brutality of the movement to
throw the briefcase on the newly returned armchair. Without his
shameless sense of subordinate masculinity that often dragged them
through the night in a battle with no outbursts. "God," he
said within himself, wanting it at all costs. Her husband, how the
hell she wanted him between his legs. She would throw her fishnet
stockings in to the air and get on top of any shelf that could
support them. One thought, one of those viscides had just run through
her back, fearless as a war hero who parades in front of the other
emotions disoriented for his own lack of the big party over the
years. He absolutely had to hold back, it was not possible to give in
so hastily and easily to that lust announced by forms marked by
repressed anger and sexuality held caste.
Andrew meanwhile was bringing the
battle to another front. He was in the room packing his suitcase by
sticking everything he could carry.
"what do you do? and
where are you going?"
"away from this house, away I
said! you get it!" he said in a passive aggressive tone, and the
use of his voice first stumbled into that room.
Julia upcharged
the position of the suitcase from the mattress with a stinging
gesture, grabbed her husband by holding it from the soft handles that
popped out from under his shirt and pulled it to himself. They took
themselves in a completely animalistic way, pushing, squealing,
enjoying and kissing all over the body, scaring the neighbors and
letting the dog bark again. The laceration of the clothes had been
the second act of that postponed encounter in time. Missionary her,
devoted him to a passion pitted in the encounter of two bodies. Julia
was proving herself as wild as a lioness and as agile as a gazelle.
Edward stroked his face by palpating every corner of flesh as he had
never had enough, he felt like an octopus, he was sure a Japanese
engraving had seen it. The animal kingdom had finished in a couple of
hours all possible adaptations to their bodies. The imagination flew
free of interpretation, resulting in individual moments of sheer vain
madness that were touching edges and anthries of sexual perfection
that gave Edward the satisfaction of having succeeded in the work.
They were perched above the bed with bedside drawers wide open the
fluttering curtains and the constant howling of the neighbor's dog
that seemed to have reached an intonation of envy. Tiredness snorted
from their mouths like industrial chimneys, sounded the siren outside
the palace. He didn't mean anything, it was just a loud noise. They
stood with their adorms facing upwards panting and rejoicing in what
had proved to be a perfect sexual union without any inhibitory
restraint. They looked at each other, recognising each other.
"What was that newspaper saying at
the end?" asked Julia, snorting a tense asymmetrical laugh.
"He
used to say how to make love to his wife, but I think he didn't
really mean anything"
"whose article is it?"
"of
a p.J. Carraldo, a Sunday scribe, nothing important"
"recite
it," he politely asked, letting all repressed anger disappear
completely.
"not worth it, trust me"
1: Fight
violently with your wife and for no reason
2 pretend to leave the
house
3: If you make love soon after, you will be sure to be two
psychopaths.
P.J. Carraldo