These men, offering themselves to each other, often hissed or sent signals whose meaning an outsider could comprehend, if at all, only when seeing the resulting action in progress.
They quickly changed places and unexpectedly the mustached one was now next to me.
Something similar must have happened on the other side with the man who just a little while earlier had so startled me with his unruly erection that I hadn’t even wanted to see to whom his cock belonged. He too had been cheated. In his disappointment with me, and after looking through the gray-haired old man still gesticulating with his cock, and through the strange figure next to the old man, an underage, possibly crippled boy, as if they were made of air, he couldn’t turn anywhere but to the giant. He wanted to show it to him if he could not have me. The giant may have confused him, probably with some inviting movement, for he was showing himself not to this man but to me. Not only the giant’s cock but his entire loin was uncovered. Or so it seemed in the poor lighting provided by the thin beams of light filtering through the high windows. The crippled boy wore a platform-soled orthopedic shoe on one foot; his cane, which he could not hold, was leaning against the tarred wall. He was showing his to everyone, offering himself to anyone; a lit cigarette dangled from his lips.
I knew the exposed loins of the giant. And he knew their effect on me.
For five nights in a row, again and again, at different locations and in different positions he had offered me everything. Maybe his specialty was showing not only his prick but also his testicles, hair, belly, and top of his thighs. There was a certain merciless openness in this. The relief of his stomach, thighs, and loins, his head, and his entire splendid figure eerily reminded me of the man with anvil and hammer one can see on the twenty-forint bill. On each occasion, I had stupidly run away from him. To my shame, in the light of day I would take out the twenty-forint bill to see him and be with him. I couldn’t forget him. The only difference between him and his image on the bill was that on the latter the artist had used drapery to conceal the loins. It was because of the giant that I had returned every night.
Because of him, or because of my finally wanting to find someone, anyone, who would love me for my body.
Now, holding his cock, avoiding all other offers, he leisurely started toward me. With his other hand, he had to hold up his worker’s overalls, which had slipped down his thighs.
This did not make him look ridiculous. There was something flamboyant in the entire man, permissive and contented but not self-satisfied, or at least not petty. As if he had not bared the huge muscles of his buttocks intentionally, either, as if it just happened that way. But perhaps he wore no underpants. And that excited me extremely, every night.
Others quickly exploited the changing of places by these two and became active in the darkness. Again, it felt as if a gust of wind had blown across the landscape, only this time it did not pass on. I, or the person standing there in my stead, was the only one who could not move. However ill-mannered my behavior seemed in this company, I was very far from ending my noisy urination. As it kept pouring out of me in an ever larger and stronger spurt, my erection was gaining strength too.
In the meantime, I found myself flanked by the two men.
In my shame I glanced from one face to another. This seemed to them as if I were asking for their patience and their pardon for this unavoidable need of mine.
As if I could keep them away from me with meekness and alarm. Or from the somebody standing in for me. Who was hoping that some kind of distance could be maintained between people.
At any rate, I would be asking something from them, mercy.
They did not touch me, didn’t dare, not yet, but were standing so close that the emanations of our bodies, their heat and odor, flooded and penetrated all three of us. By turns, they watched my cock, the jet of my urine, and my mouth. From this close, the face of the mustached one affected me differently than before because he did not seem nearly so calculating or aggressive as he’d been when seen from a distance. Until now I’d feared some sly cruelty. Now, on the contrary, he seemed gentle, attentive, expectant, and self-controlled, careful not to ruin things with a wrong move or give me reason to flee again. He mesmerized me, as one does a dangerous wild animal. At the same time, there were signs of sadness on his childlike features hiding behind his meaty nose and deeply grooved forehead. Like a person who does not expect much good to happen to him yet cannot give up hope completely. Perhaps there was a chance. Maybe this very minute. Maybe with this complete stranger. Perhaps with him he could return to that elemental joy he had once received, then lost and could not find again.
Our proximity did not alter but rather deepened the beauty of the giant.
He was the same on one twenty-forint bill as on another.
As I turned my head toward him, I could immerse my soul in his real fragrance.
With his incredible smile, he expected nothing, did not hope for or count on anything; he was only giving something one rarely receives.
He gave it with his eyes, his lips, his amazing teeth.
He still had plenty of surplus happiness, he did not have to be thrifty, he could go on giving and giving, he would not exhaust his supplies.
I shouldn’t worry. I shouldn’t rush, should finish peeing at my leisure, he likes to see how I hold my weenie and let the gushing out in a large wide arc. It was not that he was waiting patiently for me; he was caressing me with his smile; he liked to hear it.
I should dribble for him; I should continue.
There’d be plenty of happiness left when I finished; he’d give me more even then.
From that moment, I couldn’t follow the course of events, probably because the sight of inexhaustible plenty completely overwhelmed me with its promise. Most likely my entire body must have relaxed and my consciousness grown dim because the moment he put his open palm into the urine’s strong jet, to my great surprise, I let out a short, loud fart.
No doubt about it, it happened.
Everything happened at once, all sorts of things happened, and they happened everywhere.
In the silence filled with tiny rustlings, several men broke into brief crackling and popping laughs, and then there was silence again. Undisturbed, the hand went on playing with the stream of my urine; the two men standing closest to me with bated breath were not laughing.
It was probably thanks to the promise of approaching happiness that anxiety left my body. These two did that to me, that’s why they had no reason to laugh. Then, from the depth of the silence full of scraping noises, somebody else responded with another fart. It was not as restrained and inhibited as mine; the sender played it with obvious pleasure, in long staccato sequences, as boys and young men do in boarding-school and barracks dormitories, where, for lack of other means, they entertain one another with sounds produced by the lower regions of the body.
There was general laughter, many echoing explosions of the original guffaws.
They did not even wait for me to shake the last drops of urine off my penis.
My penis had grown so stiff I could hardly shake it anyway.
The mustached one, now behind me, drew me to him with his strong bare arms, embracing my shoulders and back as if wanting to crush me. The giant bent over me, covered me, and grabbed it with his hand still wet with my urine.
They laughed loudly into my neck.
Their panting, their voices, their lips, all in one fell swoop. So much strength and novelty made me very weak, and I was surprised at the unfamiliar hardness of the male body. I laughed along with them. If the mustached one hadn’t supported me with his chest, I’d have fallen backward like a swooning lady in a nineteenth-century romantic novel. Not only was I no longer interested in the appearance of my own manliness, but I was positively amused by giving it up and surrendering myself. It seemed as if he wanted to twist my free hand behind my back; I did not understand why he wanted to do that. He planted a kiss on my eyes with his full mouth and then tenderly, very sensuously, he buried his face in my neck. I was left alone with him, for the giant quickly disappeared.