Thank You For Your Sperm

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«After twenty years of marriage K. had given H. everything except children. It was clearly too late for that. Everybody said so, especially the doctors, who were the experts on childbearing. H. had been 67 when he met K., who was 37 then. Biology had spoken.

For the first few years they made love like very young people again: without regard for time or space or the many demands of grown up life, which insert themselves so easily and effectively between a couple’s genitals. K. used protection, if only because that’s what she’d always done; and as if to show that even at his age he was still a responsible adult, H. used protection also, so that they were doubly sheathed against the chance of new life. …»

A different version of this story was published in 2012 at THIS literary magazine.

Posted at 3:31pm and tagged with: Mother, Story, Love, Baby, Speh, THIS,.

June 25th 2011

10 notes |#

“Why are the rooms so small,” said Jack when they’d arrived and the maid had shown them to their rooms, “and why don’t we share a room,” he added but these were only fragments of non-communication, Jack wasn’t asking, he was telling because he was very drunk. So drunk in fact that by the time Jack Small and Colette Perpignac reached the small hotel, he’d invited half the people they’d met to their first party, the party that’d mark the official start of filming the awesomest movie the world had ever seen. Colette knew he wasn’t asking and she paid the bell boy, pushed Jack into one of their two rooms, which was dimly lit because the shades were down, flung herself on the bed and began to peel her clothes off. Jack looked at her with a dumb expression on his face and a cold heart in his barrel chest. “What’re you waiting for, Jacques,” she meowed. “I’ve mis-ss-sed you ss-sso much, come here,” she said. Jack burped. He staggered past the bed to the window, fiddled with the handle, couldn’t open it and cursed. “Fuck this,” he said, moving towards Colette and sitting down with his back to her. “Wassup,” she lisped, showing her teeth. She noticed a piece of vegetable matter stuck between them and tried to suck it loose, making noises like a leaky toilet. “Why do you have to be so dif-fi-fuck-ing-cult, Jacques,” she said, extracting something from her mouth. She held it between two fingers and, slithering towards Jack, held it up in front of his eyes: “Look, cherie, un peu de réalité, bébé,” she said. Jack turned to her, his head swaying a little. He didn’t recognize her just then. He didn’t know where he was or why he was here. He looked at the object hanging in front of his face and then he opened his mouth with those very white teeth in them, teeth that Colette always made fun of, and swallowed the thing whole. “Hmm,” he said, “I’m drunk.” They both laughed.

#31/1000. Photo: Belisha Beacons, Sushi in St James Park London. Published in Referential Magazine.

Posted at 9:16pm and tagged with: american, french, hotel, love, st james, sushi,.

“Why are the rooms so small,” said Jack when they’d arrived and the maid had shown them to their rooms, “and why don’t we share a room,” he added but these were only fragments of non-communication, Jack wasn’t asking, he was telling because he was very drunk. So drunk in fact that by the time Jack Small and Colette Perpignac reached the small hotel, he’d invited half the people they’d met to their first party, the party that’d mark the official start of filming the awesomest movie the world had ever seen. Colette knew he wasn’t asking and she paid the bell boy, pushed Jack into one of their two rooms, which was dimly lit because the shades were down, flung herself on the bed and began to peel her clothes off. Jack looked at her with a dumb expression on his face and a cold heart in his barrel chest. “What’re you waiting for, Jacques,” she meowed. “I’ve mis-ss-sed you ss-sso much, come here,” she said. Jack burped. He staggered past the bed to the window, fiddled with the handle, couldn’t open it and cursed. “Fuck this,” he said, moving towards Colette and sitting down with his back to her. “Wassup,” she lisped, showing her teeth. She noticed a piece of vegetable matter stuck between them and tried to suck it loose, making noises like a leaky toilet. “Why do you have to be so dif-fi-fuck-ing-cult, Jacques,” she said, extracting something from her mouth. She held it between two fingers and, slithering towards Jack, held it up in front of his eyes: “Look, cherie, un peu de réalité, bébé,” she said. Jack turned to her, his head swaying a little. He didn’t recognize her just then. He didn’t know where he was or why he was here. He looked at the object hanging in front of his face and then he opened his mouth with those very white teeth in them, teeth that Colette always made fun of, and swallowed the thing whole. “Hmm,” he said, “I’m drunk.” They both laughed.
#31/1000. Photo: Belisha Beacons, Sushi in St James Park London. Published in Referential Magazine.

April 27th 2011

5 notes |#

Dance. Heinz ruminated forever until his ruminations turned into a substance: it was green and gooey and stank of greasy thoughts and lazy feet. Not without difficulty, Heinz poured it into a jar that he sealed air tight. He glued a white label on the jar. On the label, he wrote “Dance of Death” and next to the word he drew a skull and crossbones. He was more proud of this drawing of a skull than of anything else in a long time. He’d always wanted to draw a death’s head but the expression on the skull had seemed either too jolly or too vacuous or even melancholic, even though the skull was finished with all of it, unlike Heinz who tended to gloominess. He was a giant who lusted after a much smaller woman, someone he’d known since she’d been a plumpish girl with the lips of the Bardot, and he a gawky boy liable to migraines. When he put his wheel-sized hands that longed for the waist of the small woman around his enormous head, he felt it again, the pain that he knew so well from long ago. Oblivious of everything around him, he moaned, turning his melancholy into a melody that only he would ever hear. Unbeknownst to him, the greenish lump in the jar jerked in time with this music, because everything was connected to everything else. If Heinz had really understood that, he’d have saved himself plenty of aggravation.

#22. Photo: Two by Bill Yarrow. (See also the German version).

Posted at 9:01pm and tagged with: Bill Yarrow, Marcus Speh, India, Pain, Schmerz, Love, Longing, Desire, Queen of Pain, Goddess, submission,.

Dance. Heinz ruminated forever until his ruminations turned into a substance: it was green and gooey and stank of greasy thoughts and lazy feet. Not without difficulty, Heinz poured it into a jar that he sealed air tight. He glued a white label on the jar. On the label, he wrote “Dance of Death” and next to the word he drew a skull and crossbones. He was more proud of this drawing of a skull than of anything else in a long time. He’d always wanted to draw a death’s head but the expression on the skull had seemed either too jolly or too vacuous or even melancholic, even though the skull was finished with all of it, unlike Heinz who tended to gloominess. He was a giant who lusted after a much smaller woman, someone he’d known since she’d been a plumpish girl with the lips of the Bardot, and he a gawky boy liable to migraines. When he put his wheel-sized hands that longed for the waist of the small woman around his enormous head, he felt it again, the pain that he knew so well from long ago. Oblivious of everything around him, he moaned, turning his melancholy into a melody that only he would ever hear. Unbeknownst to him, the greenish lump in the jar jerked in time with this music, because everything was connected to everything else. If Heinz had really understood that, he’d have saved himself plenty of aggravation.
#22. Photo: Two by Bill Yarrow. (See also the German version).

April 9th 2011

108 notes |#

They don’t look at each other when they fuck, Ernö and his wife from Sweden, the blonde Malín. They share this not looking like other couples share thoughts, beds, colds. Malín peeks at a painting of the Swedish king when he still had his good hair while Ernö pounds away as if anything depended on it. Just in case this moment turned into history or something. He looks at the photo of a Vietnamese woman standing in a pad without expression, or if that’s not possible, without discernible expression. Or perhaps it’s just that damned abyss of being that stops us from seeing anyone else but images of ourselves, our image repeated in everyone around us forever. Ernö also keeps his socks on at all times, even when he takes a bath. Malín is afraid to ask about the woman in the field. She really does care about Ernö. She feels that Ernö has known the other woman and would prefer her to Malín’s more austere demeanor. Malín is like a birch, pale and bendy. The other one is like a grain of rice, petite and fertile. But whatever acrobatics Ernö and Malín perform – and they are as good at it as if they were circus artists, as any connoisseur will tell you – she must gaze at Carl XVI Gustaf and he must gaze at the woman whose real name is Bich Lien Truong Thi, and none of the four knows where their inebriant routine will lead, this love that is sandwiched between obsession and obscurity.

#20. Photo: Frankie Sachs. (German version.) Published in Metazen and nominated for a Micro Award.

Posted at 10:35am and tagged with: sweden, carl xvi gustaf, bich lien truong thi, vietnam, love, couple, sex, prose, story, flash, galleycat, metazen, micro award, submission,.

They don’t look at each other when they fuck, Ernö and his wife from Sweden, the blonde Malín. They share this not looking like other couples share thoughts, beds, colds. Malín peeks at a painting of the Swedish king when he still had his good hair while Ernö pounds away as if anything depended on it. Just in case this moment turned into history or something. He looks at the photo of a Vietnamese woman standing in a pad without expression, or if that’s not possible, without discernible expression. Or perhaps it’s just that damned abyss of being that stops us from seeing anyone else but images of ourselves, our image repeated in everyone around us forever. Ernö also keeps his socks on at all times, even when he takes a bath. Malín is afraid to ask about the woman in the field. She really does care about Ernö. She feels that Ernö has known the other woman and would prefer her to Malín’s more austere demeanor. Malín is like a birch, pale and bendy. The other one is like a grain of rice, petite and fertile. But whatever acrobatics Ernö and Malín perform – and they are as good at it as if they were circus artists, as any connoisseur will tell you – she must gaze at Carl XVI Gustaf and he must gaze at the woman whose real name is Bich Lien Truong Thi, and none of the four knows where their inebriant routine will lead, this love that is sandwiched between obsession and obscurity.
#20. Photo: Frankie Sachs. (German version.) Published in Metazen and nominated for a Micro Award.

April 2nd 2011

6 notes |#

Jacqueline. As a teenager, I went across the Iron Curtain every year to spend the summer in pioneer camps for boys and girls. I had a diary, a thin book wrapped in red cloth, which I loved. I painted the first letter on every new page rather than write it. My life seemed boring to me: this book was going to be about calligraphy. It wasn’t even a book, it was a sign in itself, a sign of my flight to the stars. The camp management had always lots of activities planned for us. Gladly, they involved males and females. They observed us doing our exercises, playing ping-pong, walking about the grounds as young people do, and eating together. We slept in separate quarters, of course. Everything that we did was recorded, which somehow did take the spontaneity away. We were never told what to do or not to do though it was clear, kind of, that we were not supposed to fall in love or respond to our crushes. I fell in love each summer. Once, I was crazy about the camp nurse: she was fat and friendly and she smelled exquisite, not like a nurse at all. Best of all: she’d read everything that I was reading and we could actually talk about things using the books between us as bridges. My happiness was complete when an older boy broke my nose – he was a lot more brutal than I thought possible – and I had to go to the infirmary which was run by the nurse. I’ve forgotten her name so I’m just going to make one up: Jacqueline. Whenever I fell in love, I got my heart broken. Every summer.

#19. Photo: Michael J. Solender. (German version.) Text published in Wilderness House Literary Review 6.2.

Posted at 10:24am and tagged with: wall, east germany, west germany, love, youth, teenager, Jacqueline, happiness, heart, submission,.

Jacqueline. As a teenager, I went across the Iron Curtain every year to spend the summer in pioneer camps for boys and girls. I had a diary, a thin book wrapped in red cloth, which I loved. I painted the first letter on every new page rather than write it. My life seemed boring to me: this book was going to be about calligraphy. It wasn’t even a book, it was a sign in itself, a sign of my flight to the stars. The camp management had always lots of activities planned for us. Gladly, they involved males and females. They observed us doing our exercises, playing ping-pong, walking about the grounds as young people do, and eating together. We slept in separate quarters, of course. Everything that we did was recorded, which somehow did take the spontaneity away. We were never told what to do or not to do though it was clear, kind of, that we were not supposed to fall in love or respond to our crushes. I fell in love each summer. Once, I was crazy about the camp nurse: she was fat and friendly and she smelled exquisite, not like a nurse at all. Best of all: she’d read everything that I was reading and we could actually talk about things using the books between us as bridges. My happiness was complete when an older boy broke my nose – he was a lot more brutal than I thought possible – and I had to go to the infirmary which was run by the nurse. I’ve forgotten her name so I’m just going to make one up: Jacqueline. Whenever I fell in love, I got my heart broken. Every summer.
#19. Photo: Michael J. Solender. (German version.) Text published in Wilderness House Literary Review 6.2.

Marcus Speh reads — "Mother's Day"