"Hello?" "You've had an accident." "You need an ambulance." "I'll call for one." "I'll be right back." "Lie still here." "No." "No." "No what?" "I don't need an ambulance." "I can clearly see you do." "I'll call for one." "In that case, I'll be up and gone before you have the time to come back." "That will hurt." "That's possible, but it doesn't matter to me." "I assume you don't want me to call the police either." "Yes, that's exactly right." "Is there anything you want?" "I'd like a cup of tea with some milk." "Well..." "You have to come with me." "I don't serve tea in the street." "Can you walk?" "Yeah." "I've even bought a cake." "I'll wash your clothes." " Not my coat." " It smells rather badly." "It's my coat." "It's your coat." "So what happened?" "Were you robbed?" "It's my own fault." "I'm just a bad human being." "I've never met a bad human being." "Well, you have now." "Do you want to talk about it?" "You wouldn't understand." "Well, try me." "But I wouldn't know where to start." "Why is that ridiculous fishhook hanging there?" "It's a fly." "I caught a fish with it once, a rather big one, strangely enough." "Fly-fishing is about tying feathers and other things to a hook so it resembles something the fish likes to eat." "And then because the fly is very light, you have to have a line that is heavy." "It creates the velocity when you cast." "You fish a lot?" "Well, some..." "But I don't catch much." "When I was young, I..." "I had a book I..." "I worshipped." "It was an old book by Izaak Walton called "The Complete Angler"." "It was like a romantic nature Bible to me." "Maybe I know where to start." "But if you're to understand, I'll..." "I'll have to tell you the whole story, and it'll be long." "Long... is good." "And moral, I'm afraid." "To begin with the bait," "I discovered my cunt as a two-year-old." "At an early age, I was mechanically inclined." "Kinetic energy, for example, has always fascinated me." "And my friend..." "let's call her B..." "Always came up with the ideas." "Playing frogs was one of B's classics." "Joe, are you all right?" "Just a moment!" "Are you done?" "For Christ's sakes, leave them alone." "I loved my father very much." "He was a doctor." "My mother's name was Katherine." "My father called her Kay." "I suppose she was what you'd call a cold bitch." "She always had her back turned when she played solitaire." "I hated solitaire." "When we had P.E., I'd climb up into the ropes and hang there for ages with the rope between my legs." ""The sensation" we called it." "I remember very distinctly this word, "sensation."" "Perhaps the only difference between me and other people was that I've always demanded more from the sunset." "More spectacular colours when the sun hit the horizon." "That's perhaps my only sin." "Why are you insisting that children are sinful?" "Not children." "Me." "I don't see sin anywhere, but then I'm not religious." "That's because you don't know the rest of the story." "And by the way, I'm not religious either." "Why would you take the most unsympathetic aspect of religion such as the concept of sin, and let it survive beyond religion?" "I don't understand this self-hatred." "That's what I said..." " You wouldn't understand." " No, I'm..." "I'm sorry, I'll shut up." "Please continue." "Nervus pudendus." "Nervus dorsalis clitoridis." "My dad loved telling me about the trees and their leaves and considered it part of a good education." "When the ash tree was created, it made all the other trees in the forest jealous." "It was the most beautiful tree." "You couldn't say anything bad about it." "Then in the winter..." "When the ash tree lost all of its leaves..." "All the trees noticed its black buds and started laughing." ""Oh, look..." ""The ash tree's had its fingers in the ashes."" "See?" "You can always tell the ash tree in winter by the black buds." "He especially loved the childish educational stories he told to help me remember what I had learned." "I knew how much he loved telling those stories, so sometimes I pretended I had forgotten them." "Am I boring you?" "No, I'm just looking forward to how you will get fishing weaved into your tale." "You could start with the fly on the wall there." "It's called a nymph." "It would tie in elegantly with your discussion about nymphomania." "A nymph is an early stage in the life of an insect." "As a quite young nymph, it was imperative for me to get rid of my virginity." "Hopla." "I kind of knew this boy J, who had a moped." "So in my eyes, he was rather sophisticated." "I was 15, and perhaps my girlish romantic expectations were a bit high." "But he had good strong hands." "I liked his hands." "Hello?" " Hi." " Hi." "If I asked you to take my virginity, would that be a problem?" "No, I don't see a problem." "So, um..." "Where shall I go?" "It's the fucking carburator." "I just can't work it out." "Can you imagine that?" "That's not very good." " Hmm?" " That's not very good." "No, it bloody isn't." "It ruins the whole idea of having a moped." "You should probably take off your knickers, yeah?" "He shoved his cock inside me and humped me three times." "Then he turned me over like a sack of potatoes..." "Then he humped me five times in the ass." "I never forgot those two humiliating numbers." "Three and five?" "Those are Fibonacci numbers." "That may be." "In any case, it hurt like hell." "I swore I'd never sleep with anyone again." "But of course, that only lasted a short while." "And now to get back to your fishing..." "A couple of years later I was at my friend B's." "And as always, she had a new idea..." "Financed by her younger brother's piggy banks, which she regularly emptied." "We put on clothes later known as the fuck-me-now clothes." "The idea was a competition." "We were to go on a train trip." "B said there was no need for tickets." "The one who had fucked the most men when we reached the destination would win the chocolate sweets." "♪ Get your motor running ♪" "♪ Head out on the highway ♪" "♪ Looking for adventure ♪" "♪ And whatever comes our way ♪" "♪ Yeah, darling, go on, make it ♪" "May I interrupt here?" "What you were doing when you walked down that corridor..." "You were reading the river." "♪ Born to be wild ♪" "Most of the large fish stay sheltered from the current to save energy and to hide from the prey." "Where the fish hides in the stream entails a very complicated hierarchy." "The topography decides where the most attractive places are, and the biggest fish choose the best positions." "Smile and make eye contact." "If you have to talk, remember to ask a lot of wh-questions if you want more than a yes-or-no answer." "Then it'll just happen on its own." "You just take them to the lavatory and you have sex with them." "Oh." "But what if it's nasty?" "Then you just think of the bag of chocolate sweeties." "What... what time is it?" "10:00" "Where do you come from?" "From home." "Who knows where the lavatory is?" "Well, if you take a right, you will arrive at a lavatory at the end of the car." "At the same time, it is so cleverly arranged that if you take a left turn, you will also arrive at a lavatory, since at the end of the next car there is also one." "I'll show you where the lavatory is." "It turned out to be shockingly easy." "In no time, B was ahead, five to three." "And it was exactly right." "Look them in the eye and smile." "But then suddenly it stopped." "That's a very clear parallel to fishing in the stream." "As it happens, either none of the fish are feeding or they all feed at the same time." "They go into feeding frenzy." "All bite." "And then just as suddenly as it started, it stops." "The fish most readily bite at the beginning of a light rain, and I think that's because they feel safe when they swim in the stream." "Because they can't be seen from above if the water's surface is disturbed." "But then it started again, although a bit more slowly." "Yeah, and I think I know how." "Because fly-fishing can be done in several phases." "And if the fish stop biting, you move on to phase two." "And in phase two, you not only imitate an insect but an insect in trouble." "You pull..." "You pull the line." "You tug it..." "Irregularly, so the fish gets the impression that it's dealing with an injured and easy prey." "And then helplessly let the fly float down the river again." "Then half-heartedly make a few jumps forward again." "It can be done..." "It can be done very elegantly." "Are you all right?" "It's Betty." "I was just told that she's very ill." "Is Betty a close family member?" "You could say that." "She's my dwarf hamster." "Dwarf hamster?" "You can't be serious." "Well, what was I to do?" "And then I did have a dwarf hamster when I was young." "That you were very close to?" "Not at all." "A bloody nuisance." "Dwarf hamster." "It would've been worse if it were a person." "Don't say that." "I'm extremely fond of my hamster." "Yes, I think that's a rather cynical thing to say about Betty." "Yes, I had made the cage nice and cosy for her when..." " When I got her." " And Betty liked that?" "Betty was excited." "One of nature's most meaningless creatures." "You're aware that the choice of a dwarf hamster possibly suggests certain sexual connotations." "I can see that now, but it was really not a conscious choice." "Can you show me where the lavatory is?" "I... have to blow my nose." "We were running out of subjects, and B was ahead on points, which led us to S's first-class compartment." "Tickets, please!" "Thank you." "Ladies?" "Tickets?" "Well..." "I think I might've lost it." "Perhaps." "Dropped yours as well, did ya?" "I haven't bought a ticket for your shitty train." "It's so bloody slow, we should've been at the end of the track half an hour ago." "Regardless of delays, you still need a ticket, sweetheart." "£8 each, please." "Oh!" "I accidentally tore it up." "You can't expect me to pay for scraps of paper." " Have another one." " Oh, great idea." "Oh, that one's disappeared too." "I can always just get the police to collect your payment at the next station." " How about that?" " Now let's just take it easy here, shall we?" "Apparently the young ladies have left without any money." "If it's okay with you, I'd like to pay for their tickets." "No sir, it's not." "Just leave your money where it is." " We'll let the police deal with these two." " Actually, we did have sort of an agreement that I was to pay." "I just forgot about it." "I see." "Two first-class tickets..." "For two first-class ladies." "Enjoy the rest of your journey." "Tickets, please!" "Now that you've been so nice to us..." "We'd like to be nice to you too." "Oh, that's very kind of you, but there's no need." "I mean that." "Well, I've already lost anyway." "I'm willing to give you five extra points..." "If you can get that one in there." "I decided, perhaps a bit desperately, that the only thing standing between me and the bag of chocolate sweets was an unequivocal provocation of this man." "Excellent." "An induced take." "When all other attempts fail, a dramatic provocation can get an otherwise completely passive fish to bite." "They will react instinctively to the right provocation, which would not be a fly, but, for instance, a brightly-coloured wobbler, preferably red." "The very best is one we call "the Finnish Weapon,"" "the so-called rapala." "You've bought a gift." "Yes." " It's for my wife." " Oh." "You travel first-class and even bought us our tickets." "Why then not buy a decent gift for your wife?" "I can see it comes from the station." "Of course, I should have..." "bought her something..." "Something better, but..." "Let's just say I was suddenly in a hurry to get home." "Why would a man like you with such an orderly life suddenly have to hurry?" "It has to do with family." "My wife and I have decided that we..." "We miss having children after all, and that if we are to have children, it has to be now." "So my wife called yesterday to say that she..." "She started ovulating." "And all signs point to maximum fertility precisely tonight." "You see..." "That's why I bought her a gift at the station." "I had to get a ticket home as quickly as possible." "Well, I understand now." "What is it you understand?" "Why you didn't have sex with us." "It wasn't because I didn't want to." "Please." "I'm begging you, please don't." "It's okay." "Please don't." "You've been as horny as hell..." "But you wouldn't give up your load." "Please stop." "Oh God." "Oh God." "Wow." "So oral sex became, in the eye of the angler, your... your Finnish weapon." "Is that your only comment?" "What else... what else do you want me to say?" "That I behaved reprehensibly, that already my actions exemplify that I'm a..." "I'm a terrible human being." "That's not the way I see it." "On the contrary, I saw it as a..." "As a very pleasurable and humorous story." "I've consciously used and hurt others..." "For the sake of my own satisfaction." "And what I've told you so far only begins to suggest that." "But when you told the story, you were..." "You were cheerful, full of humour." "The only thing you've done..." "Except giving a few people an experience to remember is that you..." "You relieved S from his load in some... some youthful hubris." "And I read somewhere that if you keep the load too long, the sperm will die." "Or worse, degenerate." "Maybe thanks to you, Mr. S and his wife now have a healthy and well-functioning child." "I discovered my power as woman and used it without any concern for others." "That's completely unacceptable." "Oh, little darling." "Don't you "little darling" me." "No." "What I wanted to say was that if you have wings, why not fly?" "No more stories." "You need to sleep." "No no." "This is beginning to amuse me." "I don't even know your name." "My name is Joe." "I'm Seligman." "What a fucking ridiculous name." "It's Jewish." "You said you weren't religious." "No, but my great-grandfather was." "And my parents gave me the name as a sort of... sentimental association to Judaism." "But we've always been anti-Zionists..." "Which is not the same as being anti-Semitic, as certain political powers try to convince us." "Seligman..." "Means "the happy one"." "So are you happy then?" "Well, I suppose I am..." "In my own way." "Even if I'm the kind of person who cut the nails of the right hand first." "What does that mean?" "Well, I divide humanity into two groups:" "The people who cut the nails on the left hand first and the people who cut the nails of the right hand first." "My theory is that the people who cut the nails of the left hand first, they... they... they're more light-hearted." "They have a tendency to enjoy life more because they go straight for the easiest task and..." "Save their difficulties for later." "So what do you do?" "Always the left hand first." "I don't think there's a choice." "Go for the pleasure first, always." "And then once you've done the left hand, only the right hand remains, and that's the easiest one left." "I've never thought of it like that." "Well, you... you're never too old..." "Never too old to learn." "That's Rugelach." "Mm-hmm." "It's a Jewish cake." "There's that sentimentality again." "No, but it's more than Rugelach." "It's Rugelach served with a cake fork." "Rugelach, in my opinion, is pastry, which there is no excuse for eating with a cake fork." "To serve it with a cake fork is irritatingly unmanly, not to say downright feminine." "However it can bring us further with the story." "I also knew someone who consumed Rugelach every day, almost ritually, with a cake fork." "And although we'll be jumping a bit in time..." "I have to tell you about Jerôme." "As far as I can see, the next chapter doesn't contain as direct an accusation against my person as the rest of the story." "The chapter will also make a sentimental soul like you happy, as it contains observations on the subject of love." "Can I tell you something?" "Sure." "Sure." "Yeah." "Yeah sure." "It might not be important to you but it is to me." "...but it is to me." "I've never had an orgasm before." "Really?" "You're my first one." "You don't know how happy that makes me." "I love you." "You're my first." "Well, I have to admit:" "Quite a lot of girls say that." "The train trip had increased my appetite, and soon B and I started a club that we called the little flock." "Mea vulva, mea maxima vulva." "B, of course, took the lead, as she was the most daring of us." "She was raised catholic." "I'm sure you're familiar with the practices of the catholic church." "Mea maxima vulva." "Mea vulva, mea..." "That's interesting." "Blasphemic, satanic." "The music..." "The interval between B and F..." "It's a tritone, the devil's interval." "It was banned from music in the middle ages." "Well, the vacuum cleaner invented it." "She took piano lessons." "The vacuum cleaner?" "The vacuum cleaner possessed a special talent for floppy cocks." "She had some kind of vacuum in her cunt." "I..." "I was imagining something like that." "It was about fucking and about having the right to be horny." "We masturbated together, that kind of thing." "But it was rebellious." "We weren't allowed to have boyfriends." "No fucking the same guy more than once." "What did you rebel against?" "Love." "Love?" "We were committed to combat the love-fixated society." "I really believed in our little flock, but of course, that was naive of me." "Over time, even the strongest couldn't stay true to our manifest." "Third of the fifth." "My third intercourse this week," " again with Alex." " Third." "Haven't we stated that we fuck each guy once?" "I don't think you can understand Alex." "I don't want to." " Our relationship..." " Relationship?" "There you are." "Do you think you know everything about sex?" "The secret ingredient to sex... is love." "For me, love was just lust with jealousy added." "Everything else was total nonsense." "For every hundred crimes committed in the name of love, only one is committed in the name of sex." "That's quite a statement." "Well, it all strengthened my wish for a serious education." "Glasgow." "Aberdeen." "Why are you smiling?" "Oh, I just pictured how an education would be conveyed in your storytelling." "Well, that's nothing to smile about." "I understand that." "So what kind of education did you get?" "I began studying medicine like my father." "But it was harder and harder for me to concentrate, so I studied less and less till finally I dropped out." "So instead I began to look for a job." "It turned out it was hard to get a job that paid even halfway decently." "I didn't really know how to do anything, so I didn't have high hopes when I applied for a position as an assistant at a printing house." "So could you tell me a little bit more about your background?" " Um..." " Education-wise." "Oh." "Well, I finished high school and decided to study medicine..." "But I didn't finish." "I know it sounds a bit pointless coming here." " Right." " I just really need a job and I've tried everywhere." "I don't usually give jobs to people just because they need one." "What about secretarial skills?" " Do you have any of those?" " No, I didn't think you needed skills." "You didn't think you needed skills for this position as a secretary?" "No." "Can you open an envelope?" "Yeah, I... yes, I think I can open an envelope." "Well, I'm glad to hear that." "I shall discuss this conversation with Mr. Jerôme, my boss." "Do you think there's a chance?" "I doubt it." "Oh." "Well, apparently having absolutely no experience is absolutely fine for this job." "You've got it." "Oh." "Does that mean I should start tomorrow?" "Yeah, I suppose it does." " Good morning." " Right." "Yes?" " Good morning, sir." " Good morning." "I just wanted to introduce you to our new junior secretary." "Joe?" "I believe you wanted to explain her work duties." " Hi." " This is the new junior secretary, sir." "Liz, can I have another coffee?" " Yes, of course, sir." " Thank you." "Hi." "Jerôme?" "Your first love." "I bet you didn't think I'd make something of myself, right?" "And now here I sit, the director's chair of MJ Morris Ltd." "Yes, quite surprising." "Surprising?" "It's a sign from God." "You know, I've thought about you often since then." "Have you thought of me?" " Well..." " Ah." "Usually, you know, my uncle sits here." "Mm-hmm." "But he's developed a bit of a tummy problem, so he's at the spa, taking long baths, drinking lots of water." "Poor guy." "And no one knows for how long, so now I'm the J in MJ Morris Ltd." "How about that?" "We print cards and envelopes and nonsense like that." "It's a bloody complicated business, you know." "I don't understand a word of it." "Come on, I'll show you around." "Yes?" " Liz?" " Yes sir?" "Oh, look, there you are." "Good job." "Every time you do a good job, I say, "Good job, Liz."" " Thank you, sir." " What's her name?" " Liz." " "Good job, Liz."" " Good job, Liz." " Good job, Liz!" "This is Bobby." "Bobby, say hello." "This is Joe." " Hello." " He does the business cards." "It stopped." "Fuck." "Yes." "Well, isn't there an alarm?" "To which?" " Isn't there an alarm?" " Alarm, all right, yes." " Good thinking." " I'll press this." "Imagine..." "You look just as great all these years later." "Oh no." "No." "No?" " Wha...?" " No, Jerôme, this won't work." " Which won't work?" " This." "Why not?" "You're not really my type." "That's how it's gonna be?" " Yes." " All right." "Fuck's sake." "Okay." " Umm..." " Give me your hand." "In a fireman's grip." "Ooh!" " You okay?" " Yeah." "Why didn't you have sex with him?" "I'm not quite sure." "I've shagged lots of idiots." "I suppose he fired you then." "No." "If he had fired me, then he would've lost." "As I didn't recall anyone having defined my work duties," "I decided to clean up in order to smooth the waters." " Good morning, Mister." " Any calls?" "No sir." "What have you done?" "Oh." "I cleaned up." "You cleaned up?" "It... it was quite messy and..." " Liz?" " Yes sir?" "She cleaned up." "I know..." "I didn't know, sir." "I was away from my desk." "Are you completely mad?" "What is the tea and pastry doing here?" "I thought that's what you wanted for breakfast." "You thought?" "Mmm!" "You're not supposed to think." "I don't pay you to think, do I?" "This is a do-over." " A do-over?" " Right." "Pick it up, take it outside, and do it again." "One moment." "Come in." "Would now be a good time for some tea and cake?" "Sure, why not." "Where the fuck is my cake fork?" "Cake fork?" " Right." " Well..." "I would've got you one, but it just... feels inappropriate." "Unmanly." "Feminine." "On the other hand, you must say that a cake fork is..." "Is a rather practical tool." "It's like a cross between a knife and a fork." "The point is that you're supposed to be able to hold the cake dish with one hand, and then cut it with the other..." "And then eat it with the fork." "It's not feminine." "It's at least bourgeois." "It's said that the..." "The Bolsheviks during their rampage through Russia, to separate the men from the boys, or rather the..." "The bourgeoisie from the proletariat, they brought a boy, and before burning down a house they sent him in to make sure they had cake forks." "That's not true." "I don't have the story first-hand." " Hello." " Hi." "Hi, I was wondering if you could help me." "It's suddenly gone very dirty." "See, you put your dirty fingers on there." "Maybe we should wash your hands." "Yeah, better." "Mm-hmm." "You must be very talented." " Yeah sure." " Mmm." "If you had asked Jerôme, he would've said that I was the one who had declared war." "Many times he'd take me into town, just so I could hold his coat." " There." " Where?" "There, behind the green car." "It's not big enough." "It is, there's plenty of space." "I saw it." "It's not enough space." "I'm telling you there's plenty of space." "No." "Can I try?" "Can you try?" "I'm a wizard at this." "I just tried it." "There's not enough space, Joe." "You just saw me do it." "There's not enough space." "Okay?" " Can I try?" " You wanna try?" "Why not?" "It was about this time that a dramatic change happened inside of me." "I could suddenly see a kind of order in the mess." "It was all very very wrong." "I wanted to be one of Jerôme's things." "I wanted to be picked up and put down again and again." "I wanted to be treated by his hands, according to some sophisticated principle that I didn't understand." "His strong hands?" "Yes, but now it was no longer just about his hands." "It's as if everything about him was different, which of course it wasn't, and I knew that in my head." "And I scolded myself for seeing him in this new light." "Love is blind." "No no no, it's worse." "Love distorts things." "Or even worse, love is something you've never asked for." "The erotic was something I asked for, or even demanded of men." "But this idiotic love..." "I felt humiliated by it..." "And all the dishonesty that follows." "The erotic is about saying yes." "Love appeals to the lowest instincts, wrapped up in lies." "How do you say yes when you mean no, and vice versa?" "I'm ashamed of what I became, but it was beyond my control." "You know what you're doing now?" "No, what am I doing?" "You're defending your personality." "I thought the point was to reveal it." "At this time I took up walking again." "I walked in the forest." "The forest of my childhood." "I took the same walk again and again." "Right turn after the gatehouse, and right again by the ash tree, which has the most beautiful leaves in the forest." "And further on past the lady with her poodle and the old man on the bench." "I couldn't free myself of the image of Jerôme and his careless elegance." "And during this time, when I was with other men," "I forbade them to touch my body with their hands." "And soon I stopped having sex altogether." "I tried to meet him all the time." "I found out where he lived, but of course never dared ring his doorbell." "I worked for a long time on a letter in which I told him about my feelings for him." "A month would pass before I had built up enough courage to deliver it." "I'm sorry." "Isn't this Jerôme's office?" "I'm happy to say that this never has been and never will be Jerôme's office." "But my nephew has been standing in for me while I've been unwell." "Was that a letter for him?" "Yes." "Give it to me and I will make sure he gets it." "I can't promise when that might be, as he's long gone." "How the young finance their irrepressible desire for travel is a mystery to me." "So he's gone?" "Deserted us, yes." "Raving about a trip around the world" " and married and all." " Married?" "Married, yes." "Flown the coop with my secretary." "Liz." "And your job?" "It turned out that Jerôme's uncle demanded a bit more knowledge about the business, so..." "That was the end of love then?" "Well, maybe it's not quite as simple." "But more about that later, as they say in the novels." "And Jerôme just disappeared?" "Yes, though I tried to keep him, in my own way, mentally, as I masturbated on the train amongst other people." "You masturbated on the train?" " On the seat?" " Yes, of course." "I did a jigsaw puzzle." "A jigsaw puzzle?" "I found details in the other passengers that reminded me of Jerôme." "But in the long run," "I couldn't hold on to the details of him, no matter how hard I tried." "Maybe that's how it is with memory." "You..." "You remember silhouettes, the essentials." "But that's not necessarily a bad thing." "Of course, as silhouettes in the winter," " the trees are difficult to tell apart." " See these buds?" "My father wrestled courageously with his flora and tree type guides." "It's actually..." "The souls of the trees we see in the winter." "In the summer, everything is green and idyllic, but in the winter, the branches and the trunks, they all stand out." "Just look at how crooked they all are." "The branches have to carry all of the leaves into the sunlight." "It's one long struggle for survival." "My father surprised me by calling the naked trunks the souls of the trees." "A poetic thought that was rare for him, as by his own account he preferred the empirical sciences." "And after Jerôme?" "I reacted..." "Well, let's just say, aggressively." "How?" "By intensifying my hunt for men." "You know these supermarket doors that open and close by way of some kind of sensor?" "Now compare these doors to my cunt and add an extraordinarily sensitive sensor." "My sensitive door opening gave me an opportunity to develop my morphological studies from leaves to genitals." "I embarked on a trip through what, in the lingo of children's books, one might call the country of the big black cocks..." "The country of the small yellow cocks, and so on." "And most of all, I battled my way through an untold number of circumcised cocks." "By the way, did you know that if you combine all the foreskin cut off through history it would reach to Mars and back again?" "Mrs. H." "By now I had built up a sizeable circle of men..." "And was starting to have trouble remembering who was who." "Hello, sweetheart." "Want to meet?" "It's fisher." "I'm lying here, thinking of you and what you said." "I'm not angry at all if that's what you think." "Hi, Joe, it's rob again." "I had a really good time seeing you." "Give me..." "Give me a call." "Hi, Joe, I left a couple of messages." " Is everything all right?" " I quickly gave up trying to remember the individual relationships." "It was impossible, and impossible to predict what they wanted to hear." "So I invented a method." "It was all based on chance." "A one meant an overly loving answer." "A two, not quite as passionate but still positive." "And so on up to five, which was a complete rejection." "And six, no answer at all." "Hey, Eddie, it's me." "Listen, I've given it a lot of thought and I've come to the conclusion that we're done." "Bye." "The trick with this method was that I didn't have to worry about the individual relationships..." "Hi, Patrick, it's Joe." "...but instead became completely unpredictable, which of course drove the men even wilder." "You're quite annoying, so I don't want to see you anymore." "Please don't call back." "That sounds rather stressful." "Yes, actually it was." "But fortunately I had my little book of comfort." "When I needed comfort or peace," "I took out my herbarium and looked at my favourite leaves..." "Ash, trembling Aspen and Lime." "When you're dealing with a larger group of lovers, as I was, there will typically be a difference in their qualities." "H was a sticky bastard." "You have to leave." "I've got guests for dinner." "But he's not coming until 7:00." "No." "But 7:00 isn't that far away." "Do you love me?" "A was to arrive at 7:00, and I needed to get H out of there." "I love you too much." "You keep promising, but I understand now that you'll never leave your family for my sake." "It's sad, but..." "It's your choice." "It's not satisfying for me that I can't have you completely." "Which is why we can't see each other any longer." "Goodbye." "Look, I..." "And have a nice life." "Oh." "Ugh." "Wow." "My darling, I'm yours." "I've left her." " Has he gone inside?" " Yes." "Is the door closed?" " Uh, hello." " Hello." "Apologize." "We... had promised not to come up." "We just wanted to make sure he got here safely, now that he's made the big decision." "May the children see him inside?" "What a nice place." "It's... so bohemian." "Oh, that's right." " You need the car key." " Uh, no, I don't need the car." "Oh yes, you do." "He likes the car." "Here." " No, please." "Just take it." " I don't want it." " Just take it." " I don't want the fucking car!" "It's all right." "We'll get the bus home." "The children might as well get used to public transport now, right?" "Of course, their standard of living won't be the same anymore, but..." "Hey." "What's this?" "It's a present." "A pillow he has embroidered himself." " And who's it for?" " Daddy." "I do hope it's all right if the children call their father "daddy" here." "If you prefer, they can call him "him"" "or simply "the man"." "To be honest, my first thought was never ever to let either of you see the children, but then I changed my mind." "I thought it only right that their father be confronted by the little people whose lives he has destroyed." "Give daddy your present." "It's a car the little dear has embroidered." "I'm aware that not everyone can see it, but but with the heart one can see much, however unimportant that information may be to you." "Would it be all right if I showed the children the whoring bed?" "After all, they also have a stake in this event." "You need to see it, right?" "Let's go see daddy's favourite place." "Come on, boys." "Oh!" "So this is where it all happened." "You should try to memorize this room, especially the bed." "It'll stand you in good stead later in therapy." "Here I sit, rambling on about therapy without a thought of what it might cost." "I do hope you don't think we're here to beg." "I'm sorry." "I'm sorry." "I'm being silly." "Mommy's being silly." "Let's have a cup of tea." "The children's father likes two lumps of sugar in his tea." " I'll get it." " Hm-mmm." " No no no, please please please." " Mmm." " Hello." " Hello." " Yes?" " Uh..." "Oh, how nice!" "Lovely." " Boys." "Come here." " Is Joe here?" "This might be interesting." " This is my son." " Yes." " Yes." " Hello hello." "Good boy." "Look him in the eyes." "I'm Andy." "Hello." "Friend of Joe's then?" " Yeah." " You known each other long?" " Um, not that long, no." " Not terribly long?" " No." " Oh." "A ménage a trois." "It's all so exotic." "So... broad-minded." "On that point..." "I failed." "No doubt about it." "Boys, now is the time to be alert and ask all the questions your hearts desire, because..." "I hope that you shall never have to encounter such people or be in such a situation ever again." "Well?" "Hmm?" "You don't have any questions?" "No?" "Well, I'll start, shall I?" "Approximately how many lives do you think she has time to destroy in one day?" "Five?" "Fifty?" "Or several hundreds?" "Look, this is just a big misunderstanding." "Boys..." " I don't..." " I don't love your father." "She's just saying that to make us feel better." "I'm sure you understand that." "Because if it were a joke, I mean..." "If... this were really a joke, then it would be a joke so cruel." "No one can be that cruel." "To destroy a mesh of feelings woven over 20 years is no joke, I can assure you." "Well..." "If three's a crowd, then seven must be a bit of a challenge for the pretty miss." "I must say I have a hard time picturing her enjoying loneliness." "I think we'd better grab the chance to get away, before things become grotesque." "Come on." " No, dad!" " No." "No." "No." "Get back." "You wouldn't want to give your father a guilty conscience now, would you?" "So how did this episode affect your life?" "Not at all." " Not at all?" " No." "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs." "Oh, that's true." "Some people... blame the addict." "Other people feel sorry for the addict." "But I was an addict out of lust, not out of need." "You would say that, wouldn't you?" "And lust that led to destruction around me, everywhere I went." "Well, addiction sometimes leads to an absence of empathy." "You can't fight a lion and blow the noses of your children at the same time." "For me, nymphomania was callousness." "You're very stubborn." "But what about yourself?" "How did you feel during all this?" "Did you feel good, or did you feel bad?" "Mrs. H was right about the loneliness." "I'd be lying if I said it hadn't been my constant companion." "So you were with all these men and you still felt alone?" "I didn't want to tell you about it, but you've led me into a trap." "It was a certain feeling." "Oh, how awful that everything has to be so trivial." "When I was seven, I had to have an operation." "Nothing serious, but it did require anaesthesia." "I had already been pre-medicated and was feeling all right." "But when I looked into the room where the doctors and nurses were preparing for the operation it was as if I had to pass through an impenetrable gate all by myself." "It wasn't just that I missed my mom." "I don't think I missed my dad, even though he was the nice one." "It was as if I was completely alone in the universe." "As if my whole body was filled with loneliness and tears." "And I'm still not allowed to feel sorry for you?" "Shall we go on?" "What are you reading?" "I'm not reading really." "I'm just reacquainting myself with Edgar Allan Poe." "I don't know him." "No." "Well, he was a very anxiety-ridden man." "He died in the most fearful way you can imagine, in something called delirium tremens." "It occurs when a long time abuse of alcohol is followed by... by a sudden abstinence." "And your body goes into some kind of a hypersensitive shock." "You can see the most horrifying hallucinations, like rats and snakes and cockroaches coming out of the floor and worms slithering in the walls." "One's entire nervous system is on high alert and you have a constant panic and paranoia." "And then the circulatory system fails." "But the panic and horror remains until the moment of death." "I know what delirium is." ""During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year," ""when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens," ""I had been passing alone, on horseback, "through a singularly dreary tract of country," ""and at length found myself," ""as the shades of the evening drew on," ""within view of the melancholy House of Usher."" "Hey, dad." "Hey, love." "How are you?" "I fought with mom." "She's..." "She's not coming." "You ought not to fight with her." "You know Kay's fear of hospitals." "I know she's not coming." "We already said everything we needed to say." "Kay and I said goodbye at home." "I don't want her here at all." "I can't accept that." "You'll have to." "She's a cowardly stupid bitch." "No, she's not." " Yes." " No, she's not." " Yes." " No, she's not." "Yes, she is, and you've never understood that." "Mmm." "Doesn't it scare you?" "No." "No." "How can you not be afraid?" "I've seen so many die." "Then there's that..." "Epicurus quote about not fearing death." ""When we are, death has not come." ""When death has come..." ""We are not."" "We know what's going to happen." "I also know all of the drugs the doctors have to offer." "So no..." "I am not..." "I am not afraid." "Hmm." "A beautiful girl." "Beautiful dad." "K-Kay!" "Daddy, it's okay." "Kay?" "Daddy." "Hey." "It's gonna be okay." "Don't you want to take a little walk?" "I'll stay with your father in the meantime." "You'll stay?" " You'll stay here?" " Yes." "Ash tree leaves." "Where did you find them?" "They were in the park." "It truly is the most beautiful tree in the forest." "But, dad..." "How do you recognize it in winter?" "I've told you a hundred times." "But I can't remember." "When the ash tree was created..." "It made all the other trees in the forest jealous..." "'Cause it was..." "It was the most beautiful tree in the forest." "It had the strongest wood." "It was the world tree in Norse mythology." "You couldn't say anything bad about it." "And when all the other trees... saw the ash tree with its... black buds..." "They all started laughing." ""Oh, look..." ""The ash tree's had its fingers in the ashes."" "Dad." "Daddy!" "Dad." "Daddy, what's wrong?" "Daddy, what's wrong?" "Come on, what's wrong?" "Daddy, it's me!" "It's me, daddy." "It's me!" "Help!" "Help!" " Daddy, it's okay." " Okay." "Okay." " It's okay." "Okay." " Help me!" "It's okay." "It's all right." "It's all right." "We have to fixate him." "What are you doing?" "What are you doing to me?" "Joe!" "What are you doing to me?" "Joe!" "Help!" "Joe!" "You should take a break." "Help!" "Excuse me." "Can you help me to clean... um..." "Oh." "Okay, mister..." "Don't worry." "Just..." "I need some help." "We're going to have to change the sheets." "Ready?" "When he died," "I had no feelings left." "Well, that's certainly understandable." "No." "I don't know what happened to me." "It was very shameful." "Shameful?" "I don't understand." "I lubricated." "I know you like to present yourself in a negative way and that you have this kind of dark bias that you're worse than everyone else." "But this story doesn't add to that belief." "It's extremely common to react sexually in a crisis." "It may be shameful to you, but in literature there's many worse examples." "You listen to music, I see?" "Yes." "I like it a lot." "Shall I find a tape?" "No, if there's a tape already in the machine," "I'd like to hear that." "It's something I've been listening to a lot lately, though it's not an entirely complete recording, unfortunately." " What is it?" " It's Bach, from his little organ book." ""Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ."" "The theme is originally a hymn, but Bach rearranged it and embellished it a little." "He was the master of polyphony, if you know what that is." "No." "Yet another thing I don't know." "Well, polyphony is from the middle ages." "It's an entirely European phenomenon." "It's distinguished by..." "By the idea that every voice is its own melody but together in harmony." "Bach's forerunner Palestrina, he..." "He wrote many works for several choirs at the same time, wallowing in... in polyphony." "But in my eyes, Bach perfected the melodic expression and the harmony." "And also..." "Also mixed up with some... rather incomprehensible mystique regarding numbers, most likely based on the Fibonacci sequence." "You know, the one that starts with a zero, and then comes the one." "The sequence is created by adding the two previous numbers to create the new one, so it's zero plus one makes one, and one plus one makes two, and two plus one makes three, and three plus two makes five, and five plus three makes eight," "and eight plus five makes 13." "The sequence has an interesting connection to Pythagoras' theorem and the golden section." "It was all about finding a divine methodology in art and architecture." "A bit like the way a tritone, which was played on the piano in your little club was supposed to be a satanic interval." "The sum of the numeric values represented in Bach's name is 14, a number he often used in his compositions." "The clever thing about Bach's name is that the numeric value of the individual letters are all Fibonacci numbers." "This piece has three voices:" "A bass voice..." "The second voice played with the left hand..." "The first voice played with the right hand." "That is called cantus firmus or "can-toos feer-mus"." "And together, these three voices create the polyphony." "Normally, a nymphomaniac is seen as someone who can't get enough and therefore has sex with many different people." "Well, that of course is true, but if I'm to be honest," "I see it precisely as the sum of all these different sexual experiences." "So in that way, I have only one lover." "Since the music has three voices," "I will limit myself to talking about three lovers." "The bass is easy." "That's F." "F had a red car that he'd bought used." "As I was having sex with seven or eight men every night at the time, scheduling was tricky and they all had to have precise appointments." "F was a good man." "If he was scheduled for 10:00, he always showed up around 9:00 and parked down in the street." "I always smiled when I saw him." "Often I took pity on him and gave him a cup of coffee while I was finishing with the one before." "It's hard to say why I'm choosing to talk about F, but he was reassuring, and he knew exactly what I wanted when we had sex." "No, I'd go even further and say that there was a kind of telepathy going on when we had sex." "Without words, he knew exactly what I wanted, where he should touch me and what he should do." "The most sacred goal for F was my orgasm." "Well, and then... the swans answered in the same voice." "And granted him privileges none of the others received." "F was the bass voice." "Monotone, predictable and ritualistic." "No doubt about it." "But also the foundation that is so important even if, on its own, it doesn't mean much." "G was quite different." "The only one I had to and wanted to wait for." "When he finally turned up and I opened the door, he didn't immediately enter, the way a cat doesn't when you let it in, as if once the door is open, it has all the time in the world." "But he was more than a cat." "He was like some kind of jaguar or leopard." "He moved like them, which turned me on no end." "He was in charge." "That's the way it was." "Despite my success in managing the complicated logistics involved in arranging up to 10 daily sexual satisfactions, while also having a full-time job," "I was still prone to a certain sadness." "So when my busy life allowed a few breaks," "I used them to take my walks." "These repeated walks became a kind of metaphor for my life, monotonous and pointless." "Yes, precisely like the movements of a caged animal." "Basically, we're all waiting for permission to die." "No." "No no no." "No, there..." "There are some completely unrealistic coincidences in your story about Jerôme." "First, by chance he hires you as..." "As an assistant and then you take a walk in a forest that is littered with photographs of him." "And not only that, he's present." "And then like a god, pulls you up to him through the clouds." "Goodness gracious." "Jerôme was there because he had just had a fight with his wife, who, in anger, tore up the photographs they just had developed from their travels." "Oh, I don't know if I can believe this." "Which way do you think you'd get the most out of my story?" "By believing in it or by not believing in it?" "No, you're right." "You might have a point with all this." "The secret ingredient to sex is love." "The third voice:" "The secret ingredient." "Cantus firmus." "Ah." "Fill all my holes." "What's wrong?" "Hmm?" "I can't feel anything." " Huh?" " I can't feel anything." "I can't feel anything." "I can't... anything."