I like your firm back, your broad American football shoulders, the length of your shiny brown hair. And though your eyes are a bit small, they burn brightly like glistening chestnuts. Your legs look slim in pants, but are full and round naked. The red lipstick on your lips a blazing fire made of flesh.

You are highly sensitive and can’t watch drama movies for fear you will break down and cry. You cry often enough, I’ve come to see the inflationary rate of your tears. There’s no sadness in your crying, only the joy of living. With wet cheeks you have the mesmerizing beauty of a sad sea-green mermaid. By the way, you look the hottest, with your sea-green blouse and fiery red skirt.

Sex with you is only perfect if you end up bruised, with islands of blue and purple marking the spots where I claimed you. You’re an easy comer. And you’re an animal. A ferocious glutton. If it gives you pleasure, you have no limits. It’s a miracle you’re still so thin. And it’s a miracle you haven’t dwarfed me and locked me back in your womb. You are that excessive.

When you are with friends, you look like you haven’t been socialized yet. An eternal teenager, ever the playground outcast, your ways are studied, non-spontaneous and crude. You give boys slaps on the backs that twist their collar bones.

And maybe for that exact reason, you make such a lasting impression on people. Men around you, are either too intimidated by your looks to approach, or they turn into little school boys who play the equivalent of pulling your hair, with their verbal teasing. Sexual tension behind every tiny insult they throw at you.

You are everything I could ask for in a woman. Your height dwarfs me, you are a divinely soft retreat from the scary outside world, in your arms it’s suddenly ok to have a fear of life, all I have to do is cover you in continuous caresses, you’re a natural axiolytic with breasts. Tiny breasts in comparison to your height, which arouses me all the more. They look like perfect sculptures with no risk of ever sagging.

Transcendental. ‘Bi-polar opposites attract’, goes the song in the background. I never thought my weaknesses could turn on a woman. I crawl in your pantzer and you close the steel vaults behind me. I love the feel of your protective pincers in the skin of my neck. And you relish the security that I could never hurt you. A feeling you find contradicting, because: ‘I am never attracted to sweet boys. Maybe it’s because I’m the only one with whom your sweetness is not pretended.’

A goddess. A monotheistic goddess. My Isis, your Osiris. You keep me on a tight leash. No glancing at other women allowed. Granted the fruit of your gifts, I will subject myself to you, to you and no other. Or you will shun me and leave me to dry on the beach in the hot callous sand.

You text me about 150 times a day. It drives anyone around me crazy. I’m unable to hold any kind of coherent conversation with anyone any more. Up until the point that people don’t want to meet up with me if you are not there in body and spirit, so at least we aren’t texting.

You are about an inch taller than me. It’s strangely soothing. And subversively pleasurable. People frown at our height difference. Whoever made up conventional male-female roles was a dreadful bore. You wear high heels on purpose to make it even worse. Normally , you were comfortable, sneaker-like shoes.

For months on end we are locked inside each other. And when we wake up, it’s like arising from an opium dream. Eyes still misty and vision still blurry. Head and body slightly numb.

Last week we’ve agreed to have children.

And maybe, just maybe I’ll ask you to marry me.

If you don’t beat me to it, though I think we’ll adhere to tradition in that respect.

You read and criticize everything I write, except this female Alphabet.

‘Why do you have to do that? I at least hope it has some commercial value for a change.’

‘It’s the perfect time for me to muse about bygones, because you’re the last one.’

‘Don’t be so fucking corny, or I’ll have to tie you up for the third time today and beat all the emo shit out of you’

‘Be my guest’, and I hand you the rope.

04-12-2011 om 16:59 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

‘So you like my fledgling breasts do you, my lecherous pedophile?’

 While I suck your tiny nipples, I think:

 A)     You read too much classics

B)      No, I keep cupping them to keep my hands warm, what do you think?

 ‘What do you mean, pedophile?’, I ask.

 ‘Well, you ARE a pedophile, aren’t you?’

 ‘What?’

 ‘I’m 17 and you are what? 24? Ergo: you qualify as a pedophile.’

 ‘My other three girlfriends are adults. I’m a 25 percent pedophile at best.’

 ‘I hope you are kidding, promiscuous pedophile.’

 I am in fact kidding. I only have two other girlfriends. And they are mature in age, but not in spirit.

You are my first groupie. If writers are entitled to have groupies, that is. We started emailing after you read something on some site where exhibitionist writer types post things to beg for attention. Sometimes it gets you exactly that. Most of the time it gets you as much as what your writing is worth. Nothing.

 Are you naked in my bed because of what you read there? Or in spite of what you read there?

 ‘Your self-control amazes me.’

 ‘How do you mean that?’

 ‘This is the third time we are naked, and you haven’t tried to penetrate me.’

 ‘Well, you are a virgin.’

 ‘And you intend to keep me that way? Like a toy you don’t unwrap from its package? Is there some kind of perverse pleasure behind it?’

 ‘No, I just don’t think I should be the one to do it.’

 ‘Why not? Am I not attractive enough?’

‘I’m not sure if what we have will last, so I don’t want to be the first and then leave you.’

 ‘Oh, so you are planning to leave me?’

 ‘I didn’t say that.’

 ‘But you implied it.’

 You sigh.

 ‘What?’, I ask.

 ‘Nothing. I was just imagining what it would be like, if you thought I was so attractive you just had to take me. Even if you knew you’d break my heart after.’

 ‘Sometimes I think you read too many 19th century classics.’

 ‘When I read what you write I start to wonder if you ever read anything at all.’

 ‘Really?’

 ‘Haha, ooh, got a soft spot there.’

 Aren’t groupies supposed to throw themselves at your feet, unconditionally and uncritically?

 ‘You know, if you would just penetrate me and be done with it, you might actually have something to write about.’

 I guess not.

 ‘Look, if you are so bloody intent on losing your virginity, we CAN do it right now, you know.’

‘Yes, it is a bloody intention, I must admit.’

 Now I sigh.

 ‘No, it isn’t, I’ve never seen it to cause any sort of bleeding.’

 ‘Said the expert.’

 ‘Why do you make me feel like I am your study object?’

 ‘Well, I am a psychology student for a reason.’

 ‘You should be studying literature. Avant-garde stuff. Suits you better.’

 ‘That’s like taking a course on how to end up unemployed.’

 ‘I wish I had your insight in the dynamics of university education at your age.’

 ‘Now you sound old. But seriously now, why can’t you just say you are not really that attracted to me?’

 ‘I am attracted to you.’

 ‘Then penetrate me.’

 ‘Fine. I will.’

 ‘Why are you such a slave to what you think I might want or not want?’‘Look, I don’t mind psychological analysis. It’s very fascinating, but it’s not exactly setting a sexy mood, is it?’

 ‘Ok, I’ll shut up. How long do I have to shut up?’

 ‘What?’

‘Well, how long does it take? On average.’

 I grab you at your waist and pull you on top of me.

 ‘You do it yourself,’ I say.

 ‘Ow, and you can wash your hands in innocence, right? Pedophile Pilate.’

 ‘This way I can be sure you really want it.’

 ‘I demand the universal right to be passive during my first time.’

 I nod to my right and you slide next to me again.

 What ‘s the big deal anyway, I ask myself.

 When you got what you came for, apparently, you ask:

 ‘So are you going to write about this?’

 ‘Maybe you should write about it.’

 ‘I don’t want to be a writer. I want to be happy.’

 ‘You are not very fond of writers, for someone who reads as much as you do.’

‘So if I like cars, I should naturally like the people that build cars? One can like books without liking their authors. How new are you to being in the writer business?’

‘What if I told you I already have two girlfriends?’

‘I would say: tell me something I don’t know already.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I didn’t until now.’

Silence.

‘What are they like?’, you ask. ‘No, wait, don’t tell me. They are in your latest story, right?’

I nod.

‘I should do some research. Something about the harem longing.’

‘I think there’s no research needed. Every man wants to have a harem.’

‘No, I’m talking about women longing to be with men who are already taken.’

‘Oh that.’

‘You are making me miss class,’ you say as you give my balls a hard squeeze.

I don’t think you ever started that research.

You are a bass player in all girls band. The lead singer is an Irish cousin of yours. You write most of the lyrics.

I used to read them, to see if you mentioned me anywhere.

But I don’t think you did.

You wrote ‘the only writer I’ll ever like is the one who knows he will die if he finishes a manuscript , knows that the manuscript will never be read by anyone, but finishes it anyway’ with tipex on my laptop screen.

It’s still the most eloquent way someone told me he/she didn’t like me.

04-12-2011 om 16:57 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

'Why so many?'

You lie tied up on the bed. It's like we stole it from some medieval castle, velvet roof included.

Your wrists and ancles look even better, even more enticingly vulnerable, with the thick rope curled around it, like some adamant snake, that seems intent on strangling off your limbs.

I come and lie next to you, repeating your question. For the past two weeks you have been bombarding me with questions about my past exploits. Despite the huge age difference, sex is sort of new to you.

'Why so many, hey?'

I take a deep breath and say:

'I don't know. Every woman is an adventure. A university of life moving on killer legs.'

'What do they teach you?'

I caress you, with slow strokes, my hand barely touching your naked skin.

'Some teach me to enjoy life, to be less tense, some teach me to get a grip, some heal me, some teach me about women in general, how to be good to them, what it is they need. I enjoy pleasing them, I guess it heals the wounds in my fragile manhood or something. Apart from giving me the deepest pleasure I know.'

'What am I teaching you?'

'That the most freedom loving people find it most exciting to give themselves over to the feckle will of an obessed womaniser.'

'Don't flatter yourself.'

I grab your breasts, and kneed them like dow. You want me to come between them.

You are more excited than I am. I prefer to come in different fashion.

When it's done, it's like there is a white jellyfish sucking on your neck. I rub it off with my hand and put my fingers in your mouth.

'Why does it taste like salted coffee?', you ask.

'I don't know. It just tastes like that.'

'Is it because you drink so much coffee?'

'I don't know. Some say you can sweeten the taste of it by eating a lot of fruit. But I don't believe it.'

'Why don't you give it a try?'

'I don't know. It's time-consuming to eat a lot of fruit.'

'Then drink smoothies. You should take better care of yourself.'

I'm tempted to say 'yes, mummy', but given the circumstances, I don't.

'Choke me', you say.

Your sea-green eyeshade looks really hot. It's my fetish colour, but you don't know that.

I straddle your belly and put my right hand firmly round your neck. Do all girls like this? Maybe not all, but I'm starting to think 20 percent is a fair estimate.

You breathe heavily and I move away to go down on you, my right hand still gripped tightly around your neck.

I lick you to the rhytm of the song 'When the levee breaks', by Led Zeppelin.

You come shaking and trembling, the bed moves a few inches.

I untie you, and you lie there, beaming, curled up, like a little child, half awake, half asleep.

I put on 'Summer of 69'

It's meant to tease you. You were born in '68.

You are the best friend of my aunt.

My aunt introduced us. She thought it was exactly what you needed after a 24-year marriage to a guy who tried to plaster his insecurities with lots of booze and lots of insults thrown at you. You have two children. The eldest is already copying his father and calling you 'a limp brain chicken'. You let him, you have no self-defence mechanisms. Your mother was an alcoholic. The world crashing down on you, is your idea of normal every day life.

Apart from a wrinkle here and there and the stretch marks on your belly, you look like you have just turned 18.

When I go down on you again, 20 minutes later, you say 'thank you'.

That's the difference between 18-year old girls and 43-year old girls, the former you thank for letting you go down on them, the latter insist on thanking you.

I say you have nothing to thank me for. To me you really are 18.

My tongue moves so slowly, you almost sound like you're in pain.

I stop and say I give you 24 snail paced licks, for every year spent in a sham marriage.

'You make it almost worth it', you say.

When you come a second time, you say: 'good boy, very good boy, that was...lush'

You stroke through my hair.

A woman who understands dogs, has all the knowledge she needs to keep a man happy.

Before we fall asleep, you say: 'I know I have to find someone my own age, but for the next six months or so, you can give me all the licks I have been missing out on.'

Orgasms do something to the spirit of woman. It makes them more self-confident.

When you kick out your oldest son and send him packing for calling you names again, I say, with a big smile, I think you can move on now.

'What was in it for you?', you ask.

'I never pass on beautiful 18 year old girls', I say.

'You're crazy', you say.

And you smile, with such radiance, I just have to give you one last kiss.

Women often try to fend off a compliment, because they know it's impossible for them not to believe a compliment.

When I close your frontdoor behind me, I'm also smiling.

In the bible of seduction, 'the game,' they say: always leave them better than you found them.

For once, I think I can be sure of that.

04-12-2011 om 16:56 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

We had both started work on a PhD. Different faculty, same building.

We met at the coffee machine. We called him Eddy.

Giving names to things you both use, creates a first layer of intimacy.

You always had some trouble putting together a regular outfit. That day you were wearing

a flowery dress with faded blue yeans underneath. You always looked bored, because everything was just too easy for you. I liked the way you dragged your feet passed my cubicle. You looked so convincingly sleepy, it made me smile.

In a very quiet sort of way you radiated more self-confidence than any girl I had ever met. When we would go for lunch in the garden of a nearby restaurant, you would blurt out things like: 'By that time I will already be head of the department'.

Your cocksure attitude gave me a feeling of peace.

'If you behave I will hire you to serve me coffee. And maybe if you really behave, you can serve me something else too'.

In your attitude towards me, you displayed an uncommon degree of verbal cruelty.

I would say:

'We can have a candle light dinner on the roof of the faculty building'.

And you would say:

'Great, I can throw you off after. Or right before. More food for me'.

'Be sure to make it look like an accident'.

'Oh, don t worry, everybody knows how clumsy you are'.

When we did have the candle light dinner I asked:

'So when do you plan to throw me off?'

'Oh, I have decided it's too soon. I want to torture you some more first'.

We only met when you felt like meeting. Which wasn't often. You took your PhD very seriously –easy work or not – and you had three girlfriends who were entitled to spend at least one night a week with you.

Whenever you texted me to ask if we could meet, everything had to give.

I started rushing as soon as I had put my mobile back in my pocket. A whole battle plan would develop in front of my eyes:

-get home, hit the shower

-change clothes

-perfume

-50 push-ups to pump up the muscles a bit

-buy a bottle of vodka and multivitamin juice to make your favorite cocktail

-buy one freshly baked brownie at the chocolate bar

I never arrived at your door without a sweaty brow.

Friends started to wonder why I had let a girl enslave-kiss me to life, would have been more exact- me virtually overnight. They looked at me like I was volunteering to shovel coal to keep hell's furnaces blazing. I couldn't answer their questions. I was puzzled myself. It had something to do with with the adamant, stern, inflexible look on your face. Like it was sculpted. It was hard to please you. I could almost never do anything right.

I would be two minutes late and I would apologize and say:

'I am sorry, but I had to walk my friend's dog. He is in the hospital, so he can't do it himself.'

'Well, it's interesting to see where your priorities lie.'

I'd bring a bottle of wine from a shop on the outskirts of town where they were supposed to have the best wine North of the Seine and you'd say:

'White wine? To go with spaghetti? Interesting.'

When you did say something nice, it washed my brain with endorphines, because I knew it must have been a very sincere compliment.

What was I looking for? A strict, disciplinary mother or just a hard to please girlfriend? Me falling asleep on your chest and not the other way around, made it all the more worrisome.

I felt like a puppet on your string, but the puppet felt he belonged there. Any other girl would have cut the string and chucked the puppet out of the window. Who can stand someone who passionately pursues the fulfilment of your needs? Who seems to thrive on satisfying you?

You could.

'I never needed anyone to feel complete, but still you complete me. You complete what was complete already. I think the most important thing is that with you I can combine the freedom of being single and have the security of having someone who embraces my uniqueness, without trying to mold me onto something I'm not and you are there when I want you to be there.'

One year into our relationship, friends had to recognize I was a stray bullet who had finally found a direction. You were the only girlfriend they all respected and didn't look at with pity, but with enthusiast glee.

I renamed you Zenobia. After the famous strategist who bested the Roman legions more than just a few times.

The same quiet confidence, dignified realism and unpretentious beauty emmanate from her portraits.

And it starts out with a Z, because my story ends with a Z

It's where our story begins.

04-12-2011 om 16:54 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

Half Japanese. It said so on your T-shirt.

I don't know why a similar taste in music should pave the way for sexual intercourse, but it often does.

You liked Half Japanese, but you said it wasn't one of your favorite bands. The reason you wore the T-shirt was because you actually were half Japanese. Your father was Japanese, your mother was Belgian. At least she was at the time, now we would call her Flemish.

We met on the second afternoon of Pukkelpop. I only go to music festivals when a girlfriend drags me along or to get over one. That time the latter was the case. We were in luck.

Normally I only like the atmosphere in the camping area. When I'm in front of the stages I always catch myself watching the band on the tv screens. Why go to a music festival if you are going to just stand there in a meadow and watch tv? I can do that much more easily at home, without feeling like a cow staring at passing trains. But I like the camping grounds and the smell of pot that gently floats among the tents, like a marihuana sea breeze. I like the bits of conversation that come to my ear and it makes me feel young and free and neo-hippie-like to see people wash their hair out in the open. And I like having sex in a tent with music in the distance and bass beats shaking the earth under your twirling bodies.

You were there, because you worked there. You helped build the stages and you were supposed to take them down after. In the mean time you were free to catch some of the concerts. The only reason you became a roadie. That and the sense of freedom the irregular working hours gave you. You had 'the 9 to 5 world ain't no place for me' tatoed on your wrist. In some kind of very aggressive pink. I guess roadie is one of the few career options open to someone who has that kind of a tatoe displayed in full view.

I was in the middle of getting over a break-up. So when when I was walking back to my tent, after our first conversation, I was telling myself: this time it's going to be different. This time I am not going to make the same mistakes again. Not that you had just agreed to a life long relationship or even a short festival fling, but one can dream, right?

We agreed to meet in front of a stall that sold something that was called Chinese food, but wasn't. You knew Asian food, so I didn't argue. 'You were in China?', I asked. 'Yes, is that strange?'

'Isn't that a bit like a German going to Russia?'

'How do you mean that?'

Yes, how DID I mean that? I wasn't making much sense. The sun, the vibes of the masses, quite a bit of beer (I drink at the end of relationships and at the start of new ones, and here the two situations blended, so yes, quite a bit of it) and the old butterfly feeling was making me blurt out crap.

'Nevermind, I was just wondering how Chinese people look at Japanese people. Knowing what a rowdy time the Japanese had in China right before and during world war two.”

'Right', you said, 'you are one of those guys who read history books.'

You looked at me like you'd just said: 'Right, you are one of those guys who wake up every morning in their own vomit and like to brag about it.'

'Nevermind', I said again.

'Yes, Nevermind', you said with one eyebrow raised, 'great album, though In Utero and Bleach are my favorite.'

'You look like the bass player of Shonen Knife', I said.

'Which one?', you asked.

Right, had to admit

a) I didn't know they went through more than one bass player.

b) I didn't know any of their names.

'It doesn't matter', you said, 'they're all good-looking. So thanks.'

I like girls who can take a compliment. Girls who don't fend off compliments, usually have no trouble stating what they want in bed.

'Do you want to grab a bite?', I said. Being so near to all those food stalls, it was the most logical thing to ask.

'No, I am not hungry.'

'Are you one of those girls who never eat?'

I can't stand girls who don't eat. They don't have calories to burn in bed. Or tent.

'No, I eat. I'm sure I'll git a bit peckish when the sun goes down. It's just too hot to eat anything now.'

'Are you sure? Because you are really slim.'

'Seriously, you should feel my thies.'

You pulled me and my left hand down and put it on your right thie.

'Feel that?'

'It's firm.'

'Maybe. Broad is more the word for it.'

'Seriously, you got a great waist and you got killer legs.'

You were wearing black shorts. So short, the rim barely peeked from under the rim of your T-shirt.

'Ok, ok, enough with the compliments.'

'Sorry, but it's true.'

Grinning and silence.

'Ok, give me an other one.'

'You got a very feline look.'

'Is that a good thing?'

'That's a very good thing.'

'Ok then. Give me an other one.'

How many compliments does it take till you get to the centre of the...?

I didn't keep count, but we put up a seperate tent that night. All the way in the back. You moved out of the one you were sharing with your friends, I moved out of the tent I was sharing with mine. It sort of felt like moving to the far corner of the island to engage in mystical initiating rites, which was a good feeling to have. At least we could make a little bit more noise there. And we were closer to the toilets. It wasn't like we needed to be close to the concert area any more.

'You smell like basmati rice, but better.'

'You talk too much.'

Silence.

'But come on, go on. How do I taste? And please don't say something like hot Sushi.'

You tasted like the most expensive cocktail on the menu, and you don't want to lose the taste, 'cause you can't afford an other one.

You sat on my face.

'Now you have your cocktail on tap.'

When you rolled away, you asked: 'Doesn't it make your tongue hurt?'

'We are those who ache with amorous love.'

'What?'

'It's the title of an album by Half Japanese, isn't it?'

'Yes, I know. Stop trying to impress me. You already have me naked.'

I was really starting to like you.

The tent at the border of the island, seceded from the rest and formed it's own little kingdom. We only crossed back to the main island when we ran out of food. Which we didn't buy at the stalls. We walked all the way to a supermarket.

'I am what you would call a skinflint. I like that word to describe my obsession with saving money.'

'I suppose a roadie doesn't get that much pay.'

'Ow, it's ok. Saving money is more like a hobby. Or a challenge I can't resist. Has something to do with a residue of old Samurai perfectionism.'

Being cheap never sounded so sexy.

I had promised myself not to make the same mistakes again. But it all felt so right, so I copied that habit of yours. And every time I pick up a new habit, I overdo it just a tiny bit. The first month of our relationship, I managed to save over 70 percent of my salary. It's amazing how much you can save if you really want to.

After Pukkelpop we filled the gaps in your tour schedules with fucking. The fucking was long, the gaps were short. Every time you left, felt like the waiter snatched a big dessert I had barely touched right from under my nose.

We texted the skin of our fingers off. Saving money didn't seem to count for our phone bills. Sometimes we even spoke on the phone. Every other day at 11 am. You were very given to routines for a girl who vowed to hate the nine to five world.

There a lot of pauses when we were on the phone. Half of the time there was silence, the other half of the time we were looking for a topic to talk about. We had agreed not to fill telephone conversation by repeating over and over how much we missed each other. I hated missing you, your physical presence and your laughter, so much I drew up a wall between us, to not get too emotioally attached to you.

That's not very smart. Going into a long-distance relationship while rejecting the pain of missing, is like declaring war while rejecting the violence it will cause.

During our last telephone I said: 'Who needs the disappointment of a telephone call?'

'What?'

'It's in a song by Razorlight.'

'I know that. Tell me the title of the song.'

'Why?'

'Just say the title.'

'Who needs love?'

'Yes, if you can't fucking handle the distance, then fucking have the guts to tell me so, straight on.'

You hung up.

Very girly thing to do.

I didn't call back.

Very boyish thing to do.

I still can't listen to Half Japanese without craving your body and wondering in which tent you are sleeping tonight.

04-12-2011 om 16:52 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

I called you the Lady of the questionmarks. You flooded me with questions. It even started with one. We were on a train. You sat across from me and you said: 'I am sorry, but may I ask what you are writing?'

Nothing of any literary worth.

'Ehm, my diary', I said.

'You write a diary?'

Yes, but if you would read two sentences of what's in there, you would run to an other compartment at the speed of lightening.

Of course, I didn't show you my diary and so we managed to have a drink at the train station. More questions came. Normally that's my part of the game, but you didn't even give me a chance to ask you one. It was a welcome change, I must admit. A girl who showed initiative.

You asked my telephone number. You asked me in which part of the city I lived. You asked me if I wanted to go and see a movie.

And then finally, my first question to you: 'When?'

'How about tonight?'

When you woke up in my bed the next morning you asked:

'Why do you have so many pictures of dead people on your walls?'

'They inspire me.'

'To do what?'

Your best question so far.

I went to get you some breakfast. When I got back you had already cleaned my place.

'Do you mind if I tidy the place a bit up?'

You didn't ask if you could move in, but you did. You would only ask if you could put your this or that here or there. My closet started filling up with your clothes very rapidly. That was fine, I'm used to using the floor to store my clothes.

Sometimes you didn't ask questions. Like when you were cooking. You liked cooking. You also liked to braid my hair. You liked to wash, shampoo, brush and braid it. I don't think you were trying to tell me something about personal hygiene. I'm sure you would have asked me something about it otherwise.

When we went out to restaurants, I would pay. You were still studying. You could pick whatever you liked, but you asked:

'Why do you always order the cheapest on the menu and nothing to drink?'

'I am an artist. I don't believe in artists who eat well.'

'Why not?'

'Writers are like mushrooms. Keep them in the dark and feed them on shit.'

'No really, why do you never treat yourself to anything good. You always buy the best for me.'

'If you choose to be an artist and never produce anything of any practical use, you are like a parasite. So when I deny myself some of the luxuries of life, I feel less like a parasite.'

'You don't like being an artist?'

'I love being an artist.'

'I think if you had a different profession, you would invent some other reason to deny yourself the luxuries of life. Maybe you are just not satisfied with yourself?'

I could stand the questions, but the analysis that came with them was something else.

The first time we had dinner with your parents I saw where you got your questioning habit from. Your dad was a cop. He would ask your mother: 'How long was this chicken in the oven? How many degrees? Did you put enough salt and pepper on it? How much does it weigh?'

Where were you at the time the potatoes burned? What were you doing in the bathroom? Was someone there with you at the time who can confirm this?

Any question he had about me, he directed to you. I didn’t have a name. I was this guy. 'Is this guy treating you well? Is this guy good for money? At what time does this guy get up? Is this guy handy with a hammer? What kind of car does this guy drive?'

The answers rolled right out of your mouth. Like you had prepared for an exam.

The only question he ever asked me, was: 'What's your poison?'

Meaning my favorite drink. Apparently you weren't supposed to know anything about liquor.

I knew it wasn't the right thing to answer to the man's question –he had a reddish, strawberry like nose-, but I said I didn't really like the taste of alcohol.

When we were walking back to my place afterwards, you were bouncing up and down and telling me what a good impression I made.

I couldn't understand all this enthusiasm and asked:

'Why do you like me so much?'

You said: 'You are like a cute little bird with a broken wing. I just love taking care of you.'

Wrong answer.

I asked:

'What if you like taking care of the bird so much, you don't want the wing to ever heal?'

'What do you mean?'

I don't know why I didn't keep my mouth shut. I mean, you were good-looking, very girly, very soft skin, nice hips, fashionable, but unpretentious clothes, subtle perfume and you had a sensual walk. I could get used to your cleanliness. Your spoiled me with your cooking, but I liked the time it saved me. And your giving nature was most giving in the bedroom. I was grateful, but tense. I prefer girls who exploit me for their personalized hedonistic purposes. I guess it gives me a sense of usefulness. But still, we had a good horizontal connection.

It didn't make much sense.

All those qualities landed you straight on the list of luxury items I like to deny myself.

'Why do you wanna break up with me?'

'I can't stand being pampered.'

'Why not?'

'Did you ever read the novel Oblomov? You're going to rock me to sleep with all this good care of yours. I'm afraid I'm going to be like a sedated baby eternally sucking at his mother's breast.'

'But I like taking care of you! And it's good for you too. You're finally getting some colour.'

'Look, I don't wanna be your rosy cheeked baby, ok?'

'Is this your way of saying I clean too much? I have it from my mother. I can stop if that's what you want. What do you want?'

I walked out on you then and there,

but thanks for letting me discover, I was never looking for any easy ways out of adult life, but for hard ways in.

It took an altruist to make me see I'm a masochist.

04-12-2011 om 16:49 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

In a relationship there can only be the certainty of choice. The relationship by itself never comes with any certainty. I gave myself the certainty of choice when we were together for about a year.

At one moment I said to myself: 'This is as good as it gets. I choose you and rid myself of all the nagging what ifs'

I remember the moment well, because I was walking back to my place from a night spent in bed with Hilde.

A very fine night it was, and now I have the quietness of dawn in a sleepy city on Easter morning to be torn between feeling elated and being scared out of my wits because you might discover what I did. So no more of that. It's all very clear now. What this fear is telling me, is that the one for me is you.

In choosing you, I wasn't settling for less than I thought I could have. I must be clear about that, in all fairness to you. There was more I could praise you for than there were things I could criticize you for. I am ready to admit that.

You had good taste in everything. A bit posh sometimes, but still, good taste. You looked great. A hardbody. Slim waist. Long legs. D-cup. Very Arian, but with an original face. I especially liked what you called your 'Ukranian slut look'. Tight glitter top, tiny tennis shorts and leather orange high-heeled shoes with lots of kinky looking straps. Purple eye-shade. A one-woman sex invasion.When you walked the streets, you were like a magnificently glistening sword cutting through the masses.

The only reason I stopped telling you how beautiful you were, was because you got it into your head to sign up for beauty contests. When you told me that, I could already see you in glossy magazines, showing off your new slick looking boyfriend. I was sure you would trade me for a famous soccer player the second they put that crown on your head.

You called me while I was jogging along the river. They didn't accept you. I tried to sound empathic. Hard when you're smiling with relief. I said you were too beautiful to enter. You wanted to believe that, but didn't. You said it was the fault of me and my constant compliments that you even tried. I promised to stop complimenting you. You promised to see beauty contests as what they were: the mainstream promotion of a very shallow beauty ideal.

We had a very quiet dinner that evening. It takes a lot of talking to reach a compromise, but as soon as you've reached it, an eery silence can creep in. Silence was new to us. We were never silent before. Always laughing, or talking and if we weren't talking, we filled the room with the sound of your moaning. You were the loudest by far. Your orgasms could trick nearby factories, schools and companies into thinking they were having a fire drill. My dad used to say: 'Something kept me awake last night. It's about 1.75 cm high, blonde and puts a dumb grin on my son's face.'

Yeah, you were blonde. Out the window went my pathetic adolescent boast: 'I don't do blondes.'

I also propagated I preferred small breasts.You asked: 'I can't figure it out. What do you even see in me?'

How much time do you have?

When I first saw you, you were unlike any woman I'd ever seen before. You looked like an angel with developed sexual organs and at the same time you looked like you killed your five previous husbands in a way that would make the most talented Nazi henchman envious. You even said you were a Nazi on our first date. Not that you had anything against jews, but you couldn't stand the sight of weaklings. I remember you saying something: 'Without inflicting pain, I go insane.'

The part of you inflicting it, wasn't quite true. You liked being administered pain. You could reach orgasm by hitting your 'chatte'. You spoke French at home. Which makes it even worse that you beat me nine out of ten times we played Scrabble. We played it in Dutch. As a break in between having sex. Even you and I couldn't have sex ALL the time. Your father often had 'I can't stand losing', playing in his car. I don't know if he did that on purpose, but it was a fine soundtrack to those days.

The moment I chose to be with you for good, I became so scared of losing you, that, instead of talking you up, with compliments I had always meant, I started talking you down, with scathing comments I never even believed I meant.

Why do things become so clear only in hindsight?

You broke up with me, because I got too arrogant. Excellent observation, I must say. Arrogance, a bombastic, yet very fragile shield for insecurity. In all those sex marathons, you, looking so aggressively sexy and independent, giving yourself over to me, so passionately, made me overflow with self-confidence until it turned into blind over-confidence. I was starting to feel infallible.

I was dealing with the same question. I could never quite figure it out either, why did you ever fall for me? In the end I was too arrogant to ask you. I think now, you fell for me because I wasn't a macho, was modest, funny and caring. Walking hand in hand with someone like you somehow convinced me I should be a bigger, better, much more confident man todeserve you and so I turned into the exact opposite of what you liked. How ironic can self-destruction get?

It took me six months and a lot of innocent broken hearts before I stopped trying to mend the cracks in my arrogance. And three years to get over my fear of the certainty of choice.

We're still not on speaking terms, but at least I got rid of enough arrogance to finally wish you a happy life.

04-12-2011 om 16:46 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

What we had was brief, but the memory stretched. Hooking up with someone when you least expect it, has the pleasurable quality of becoming a movie stored in the library of the mind. It usually lasts no longer than one night in real time, but it takes up more memory space than a boring year will.

You were half American, half German, but you felt German. We spoke German. In a park, close to the outdoor reception where we met. The first hour or so we talked about the feeling of guilt young Germans still carry with them. You said you could travel nowhere without someone bringing up the Holocaust. I was no exception. I apologized. You patted me on my shoulder a second too long and said: 'It's ok, I'm used to it.'

You were used to a lot of things. Being compared to your mother for example. The worst one is your father. He never fails to notice: 'It's a pity you don't have your mother's nose'. She was a model when she was in her prime.

You are not a model. Not by rigid 21^st century standards anyway. You hate your nose, you say. I protest and insist you have a very attractive nose. The outdoor reception seems to get more and more distant, but one of your colleagues keeps bringing us wine.

We end up in my bed at around six am. My roommate won't be able to concentrate all day, because he woke up to the sight of your breasts. Very firm breasts you have. Pointy nipples. You are very active, even after a night spent walking through town. Is this an attempt at compensation for an inferiority complex? I don't wanna feed your inferiority complex, but, damn, I like your action.

I walk you back to your hotel around 10 am. When my psychologist makes me associate something with women I spontaneously say: 'lack of sleep'. All the way to the hotel your head is on my shoulder, your eyes are closed and you say: 'You know, my boyfriend would never do this, he always falls asleep right after.' I raise my eyebrows, but am too tired to react.

In the hall of your hotel I ask: 'Can I have your emailadress?' You say no. 'There's no point, my boyfriend and I share the same emailadress.' I ask how long the two of you are together. 'Five years', you say. 'Like an old pair of shoes you are attached to and can't throw away.' I leave it at that. 'You have an attractive nose', becomes my pick-up line for quite some time.

It works best with girls who already have boyfriends.

A girl in a relationship is a girl who hasn't had a spontaneous compliment for the dure of the relationship minus the first three months.

Be proud of your nose, German girl.

It gaves us a night never to forget.

04-12-2011 om 16:45 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

You didn't love me. And that's alright. You didn't really need me. And that's ok. You didn't want to need me. That's fine. I've been loved before, I know what it's like. Being loved scares me more than not being loved.

You were Serbian. I like that about you. You wore a long black fake leather coat and boots with heels like daggers. When our eyes met for the first time, I thought I read: 'Wanna see my gun collection?' But you didn't collect guns. You collected orthodox icons. Your room was full of them. Fucking surrounded by icons is way more disturbing than fucking in the midst of stacks of kalashnikovs and old ammo, I must admit.

Bojana. I thought it meant something like 'battle babe', but boja meant colour in Serbian, your name wasn't derived from boj meaning battle. It didn't change much, I kept seeing you like the twin of Xena, warrior princess. We would meet after work and you'd say: 'my boss wanted me to re-do all last week's invoices' and I would say: 'So you cut his throat with the rim of a plastic cup.'

You didn't like that.

You were distant, yes, and you took everything very serious and looked like you could ram your head through a brick wall if you wanted to, but you only looked that way. You were very sweet actually. Walked your 11-year old dog every day. He couldn't walk very fast, so you skipped lunch at work to take him out. You brought your old grandfather his newspaper every morning. You would knock on his wooden backdoor and yell: 'Are you still alive?' I thought it was funny, but of course you were serious. You were always serious. 'I put my soul into everything I do', you said. And you did. You had a ritual for everything.

You would only put your running shoes on when you were standing exactly in the middle of your doormat. You would make a cross every time you ate something. You ate beans at every supper. No matter what the main dish was, you would warm up a can of beans to go with it. You said it protected you from colon cancer. You sounded so convincing, I started to do it too.

I liked observing you do things. Everything you did was like a prayer in motion. You didn't like me watching you all the time. 'What? What? Why are you smiling?', you would ask while you were folding towels or something.

When you broke up with me, you said: 'You never take anything serious and I don't think you ever will.'

I said I took our relationship serious.

You said: 'That's the only thing I don't want you to take serious. You make me feel like I am your study object. It's exhausting.'

I was confused for months after. With new girls I started behaving like a clown more than ever. They didn't stay either. I texted you and asked if you really thought I was never serious about anything. You answered: 'God, you are like a Martian studying to be human.'

I became passive with women. Just sat their with them, didn't dare say a word, afraid that every word I'd utter would be fake anyway. Passivity turned out to work rather well. It gave timid girls the courage to open up and made them playful. It made extravert women use me like a living dildo. Before I knew it I was being passive on purpose.

And so, as I sit here eating my beans and I keep staring at your picture with the defiant pose (truly sorry, but you really look like you're about to climb aboard an Abrams battle tank and shoot some village all the way back to the middle ages) I have to admit:

you were right once again my serious Serbian girl, I am in fact studying to be human.

04-12-2011 om 16:41 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

You smoke fifty sigarettes a day. It tastes like shit every time we kiss. I soak my tongue in apple juice, but it won't wash off.You should be writing your thesis, but you ride me six times a day. Seven on Sundays. You take the purple ribbon out of your blonde hair and you strap it around my cock. It's the only way to keep it completely hard. Every vein feels about to pop, but the pain drowns in your moans.

To call you impulsive, is to call a nuclear bomb a bit destructive. We go to restaurants at 3 am. I don't know how you find these places. When the bill comes, it kindly says: 'Pay what you think it's worth' Homeless poets crowd our table and pay you with verses to get some of your attention. Little rhymes on pieces of magazines, napkins, cardboard and even wall paper. You plaster the tiles of your bathroom with them.

'I wash myself in street poetry', you say. It keeps me young.' Well, your bathroom sure looks like a temple of punk. For some reason your hands are on the mirror, dipped in your menstruation blood. You have no idea why you did it. 'But it looks pretty cool, don't you think?' You love it when I go down on you when you have your period. 'Good doggy', you say afterwards and then you grab my balls and just squeeze them real hard, until, against all expectations, the pressure makes me come. You only like sex when you are in full control. You like giving blowjobs, but only if you leave your teethmarks.

You always get your way. You once walked up to a girl and offered her money for the boots she was wearing. You got them for 40 euros and a kiss on the lips.I call you Miss Pallenberg when I text you. As in Anita Pallenberg, Brian Jones' girlfriend until she 'eloped' with Keith Richards. You kinda like it. 'I guess we do have the same decadent style', you say. You pride yourself on your decadence. 'Some people they try so hard to get their yaya's out, they go on till it's five to twelve. I go on till it's five past twelve.' To this day I don't know if you knew you were paraphrasing Hitler.

It's too late to ask you. You also 'eloped'. You called me 'too much of a thinker, not enough of a do-er'. That stung. That stung bad. For months after you left, I tried rather obstinately to proof you wrong. But first of all, I had trouble locating these underground go-go's, as you liked to call them, and then when I did locate them the people there looked at me like I was the taxman, about to bust their moonlighting asses, clumsily posing like one of them. I kept falling asleep whenever I sat down during the daytime. I had to admit you were right.

That was hard, swallowing my pride. Getting used to 'normal' sex after you left, was even harder. Like going back from cocaine to cafeine. Sometimes I still run into one of those bum poets. I smilingly throw them a dime. As a small offering to fucking in the fast lane. I often wonder what kind of guy could keep up with you. They say you are sharing a floor of an old factory with a manic-depressive playwright somewhere in East-Berlin. I have a good feeling about that.

When I really miss you, I look at the napkin you left me, pinned on my own bathroom wall.

Stand up and face the music

Embrace madness, everybody is already so frigging normal

embrace madness, but do it genuinely, open your eyes

everybody is already so stupendously

delusionally

blind

embrace madness

it's the only thing that's pure

I go for a jog then, even if it's 4 am and pouring harder than over the Mekong delta. And when cops pull over and ask if I'm in the habit of running so early in the morning and I say, without bothering to look at them, 'sometimes I just feel like it' and they drive off with a wry smile, I feel like you and I really connected at some very deep level. And the eight months we were together suddenly feel like so many life-times. And when my new girlfriends put up some token protest when I want to lick the crimson nectar right off their thies, I just say 'embrace madness' and dig right in.

04-12-2011 om 16:38 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

10-12-2007 om 00:58 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

09-12-2007 om 17:40 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

08-12-2007 om 00:06 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

07-12-2007 om 17:47 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

"Whatever you do, sex always comes up"

Dit zou mijn blog niet zijn als ik Kurt Cobain niet zou citeren.

Gelijk had hij. Niet zo moeilijk om zijn stelling te bewijzen. Kijk maar eens rond. Zelden draait een gesprek niet uit op seks.

Geen idee wat er zo leuk is aan spreken over seks.

Seks hebben, ja dat wel.

Ikzelf heb weinig te vertellen. De personages in mijn boeken, ja die vertellen leuke dingen.

Wat wil je ook? Ben ik soms uit op meer dan één ding?

07-12-2007 om 01:43 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

06-12-2007 om 19:00 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

01-12-2007 om 13:12 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

01-12-2007 om 11:48 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

Real life.

That's what I needed.

30-11-2007 om 23:21 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty  

29-11-2007 om 20:03 geschreven door His Satanic Majesty