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Mathematical Aphrodisiac - by Alex Galt
In the days when John and I used to break up all the time, we made a decision to see each other only casually. Dates were okay, but no more than once a week. We were going to lead separate lives, getting together occasionally when the spirit moved us, but without worrying about commitment.
One day at the beginning of this period, we were sitting together on the floor of John's one-room apartment. He was knitting himself a sweater and I was reading Fermat's Last Theorem. Every now and then, I'd interrupt his knitting to read him passages from my book.
"Did you ever hear of amicable numbers? They're like perfect numbers, but instead of being the sum of their own divisors, they're the sum of each others divisors. In the Middle Ages people used to carve amicable numbers into pieces of fruit. They'd eat the first piece themselves and then feed the other one to their lover. It was a mathematical aphrodisiac. I love that - a mathematical aphrodisiac." John showed little interest. He doesn't like math much. Not like I do. It was one more reason for us to be casual.
Christmas fell during this period, and since I hate to shop, I was glad to be able to cross John off my shopping list. We were too casual for presents. While I was shopping for my grandmother, however, I saw a cryptic crossword puzzle book and bought it for John. We had always worked on the cryptic crossword puzzles at the back of The Nation, and for five bucks I figured I could give it to him.
When Christmas rolled around, I handed John the book - unwrapped, very casual. He didn't give me anything at all. I wasn't surprised, but my feelings were a little hurt, even though I wasn't supposed to care. The next day, John invited me over to his apartment. "I have your Christmas present" he said. "Sorry it's late."
He handed me an awkwardly wrapped bundle. When I pulled it open, a rectangle of hand-knit fabric fell on my lap. I picked it up and looked at it, completely confused. One side had the number 124,155 knitted into it; the other side had 100,485. When I looked up at John again, he was barely able to contain his excitement anymore. "They're amicable numbers," he said. "I wrote a computer program and let it run for twelve hours. These were the biggest ones I found, and then I double-knit them in. It's a pot holder. I couldn't give it to you last night but I still haven't figured out how to cast off. It's kind of geeky, but I thought you might like it."
After that Christmas, we were a lot of things, but we weren't casual anymore. The ancient mathematical aphrodisiac had worked again.
Kama Sutra for Beginners
I stayed inside her for a very long time. Propped on elbows, I let my rhythm slow, listened to our breath like bending trees and felt my heart keep time. I wanted to exist in the purely now. The past was easy to shake. It sank like sinners when I kicked it free but the future, well, the future held such promise of delirium and light-blinded, god-concealing, insubstantial insight and the little death of need and maybe a nibble on the neck. All good things. I knew if I so much as moved my hips the future would catch me up and hurtle me forward toward the afterglow. I trembled above her and sought her eyes instead. I wanted her to see me as her destiny, see my love for her as unique. She'd seen this look from me before, this forcing-an-epiphany look. She arched her dolphin body forward and gave me a look of her own. She rocked me off my elbows onto my toes and pulled me back like a magnet, rocked me, pulled. I couldn't breathe. I wondered what animal we were being. Silly boy, she was thinking, I thought, epiphanies are cheap. I believe she growled. I found a rhythm high above the metaphors and joined her in a harmonious something, something furry we could share. And there it was, when I gave up trying, the multifaced feminine deity of my personal pantheon-lips of former girlfriends and a schoolgirl skirt, numerously breasted, plentifully thighed, legs to last forever and arms around the arms around my shoulders: all the women I ever worshiped in a single apparition. I can't say if her eyes were open and she couldn't have spoken to mine but we made what we needed and we saw that it was good.
(David Hodges)
Förra helgen *haha*
Tjejkväll!
Nu vill jag bara softa en stund i soffan och drägla lite till chef Gordon *MMmm* sen efter det blir he sova säng säng.
*Hugs*
A Beautiful Heart
The more hurt and pain you have gone thru in life, the stronger and more
beautiful your heart will be.....
One day a young man was standing in the middle of the town proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley.
A large crowd gathered and they all admired his heart for it was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it. Yes, they all agreed it truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen. The young man was very proud and boasted more loudly about his beautiful heart.
Suddenly, an old man appeared at the front of the crowd and said, "Why your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine." The crowd and the young man looked at the old man's heart. It was beating strongly, but full of scars, it had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in, but they didn't fit quite right and there were several jagged edges. In fact, in some places there were deep gouges where whole pieces missing.
The people stared. How can he say his heart is more beautiful?? they thought. The young man looked at the old man's heart and saw its state and laughed. "You must be joking," he said. "Compare your heart with mine, mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears."
"Yes," said the old man, "Yours is perfect looking but I would never trade with you. You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love - I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to them, and often they give me a piece of their heart which fits into the empty place in my heart, but because the pieces aren't exact, I have some rough edges, which I cherish, because they remind me of the love we shared. Sometimes I have given pieces of my heart away, and the other person hasn't returned a piece of his heart to me. These are the empty gouges - giving love is taking a chance. Although these gouges are painful, they stay open, reminding me of the love I have for these people too, and I hope someday they may return and fill the space I have waiting. So now do you see what true beauty is?"
The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the old man, reached into his perfect young and beautiful heart, and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands.
The old man took his offering, placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man's heart. It fit, but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges.
The young man looked at his heart, not perfect anymore but more beautiful than ever, since love from the old man's heart flowed into his.
They embraced and walked away side by side
Bedtime storie!
A car goes slushing by just as I get to the station, spraying me with water, but I do get there, and go running for the train, scrambling up the steps and over the walkway and down the steps and through the turnstile and onto the platform and into the train -
But I'm too late to get a seat.
Only there is a space, there, between a young lout sitting with legs wide, sprawling over more than his fair share of seat, and a suit, an anonymous little man going a bit bald but otherwise unremarkable.
I drop myself into the space, just let my weight go, let myself fall, which by rights should force the two of them, Louty and Anonymous, to give way, to yield, to allow me my right. But it doesn't.
Anonymous hardly notices me. He's too busy making a call on his cellphone, which is against all the rules, and I'm sure he knows it. As for Louty, he sprawls a bit wider, eyes closed in the ecstasy of amplified headphone music, and he shoves his arms into his pockets so his right arm gouges out a chunk of my space.
He'd push me out of the universe if he could, he would, he'd do just that, and I want to thump him and hit him and smash him and gouge him, but I don't do anything like that, I just get up and walk down the train, swaying a little as it curves round the rails, and I go through the doors into the next car, and I wait, hoping, and five stations later I get out with the out rush then get back into the original car with the in rush, and I don't think anyone will remember me having been sitting by Louty.
Louty, who - oh, darling Louty! - is alseep. Really asleep, mouth a little wide. Teeth showing. Let's wait, shall we? Yes. My station's coming up, but I won't get off there. No, let's go past my station. Let's be cunning, now, darlings. Okay. And now. Far enough from home, I think. And Louty still
I choose the teeth I want. Two big strong bitey teeth, right in the front. Big and strong and yellow. I choose, and then I squeeze my fists and concentrate. I used to close my eyes when I did this, but then I found out that, first, it's not necesary, and, second, sometimes people remember that it was you who closed your eyes just then.
And just now it happens. The big fat bitey teeth burst into flames, and suddenly Louty is thrashing to his feet, screaming as the agony bites home into the nerves. Exquisite agony. All the worse because he's still intact, physically, more or less.
That's one of the tricks, see. There's no point blowing someone's legs or exploding their bowels, not unless you're seriously set on assassination. They go into shock and they hardly feel a thing. What you do is go for the tender stuff, the expendable stuff. Eyes, fingers, testicles, teeth. The skin between the thighs, that's prime stuff. Choose your target and choose your time, that's my motto.
I've chosen my time well, and the train is just coming into the station as Louty's screaming reaches its crescendo. The doors open and everyone who can gets out. Nobody wants to hang around next to Louty, terrorist or self-exploding suicide or whatever he is.
I get out and get going and keep going, putting time and space between me and the incident, keeping my head low and walking behind people or between people whenever possible, whatever little I can do to confuse the people deciphering the security camera pictures.
Of course, I don't know for a fact that there are people deciphering pictures, but you have to think that there would be, wouldn't you? I mean, after all these ... incidents, as I like to call them. Applications of corrective revenge.
Later on, when I'm sitting in my favorite Cannibal, munching on a Grease Smoother, the humor of it all strikes home, and I laugh, I can't help it, I just laugh and laugh, until a suit (a big guy dressed up like for a funeral, busier with his computer than with his curdled bowl of gulp grease) gives me a Bad Look, and that shuts me up.
And then I remember Anonymous, and I'm kind of ashamed of myself, on account of what Red Leader said to me, all those years ago. You're a prisoner of your class, he said, all you can do is kick your own.
I didn't accept it at the time. But it's true, I have to confess. Anonymous, with his offensively antisocial and entirely illegal cellphone call, was as much an offender as Louty. But Louty, with his dirty jeans, his deadend job (if he even has a job), his hopeless future ... Louty was an easy target.
So I decide, on principle, to do the big guy, the funeral-suited one. Here. Now. Burn him up.
But I can't do it.
I'm empty, and it's getting late, and I'm experiencing the sadness of the aftermath. But I'll sleep well tonight, I will, you know, after taking the tablets, I'll sleep really well, and I'll dream of burning Louty, and I'll laugh, in my sleep, and be happy.
(Hugh Cook)
