Civitas Chapter 5 In Casual Valentia
Civitas: How to Die Together with Your Scholar Collegues
By Tristan Norman
Ed. Aran Meredith & Northern Mittler Solomon
Chapter 5
In Casual Valentia
What is the commonality between oral history and mouthwash history? Igor doesn’t want to dwell on this question, or run aground here. On his interest board there are six persons, in theory he can choose anyone, so he chose the necromancer and physician Scorpio, because he looked like the tender and conservative one on the board. Not to mention Zoran had him reading Asteris’ journal articles on the philosophies of medical history, they were good reads, because the articles are elegant in themes and clear, although the original ones are in Arabic, and the translator is an equivocating bastard.
To pick apart the body farm, instead of farm one should say it’s a body studio, a couple of necromancers and apprentices with different rankings (he meant Vienna Medical School’s teaching physicians and research assistants) were welding their rollerball pens recording in front of a couple of dormant skeleton soldiers and death knights, or using technical brushes with reagents to brush some preservatives on their skin.
A few of young and ambitious apprentices were playdolling a lich on the operating floor, in other words, the deceased wizard was rambling in classical Latin, and they were listening. Virtually different from the caricature people gave to necromancers, everything here was so exquisite, so professional, so clean. Folks and objects were kept well, there was no rotten hanging flesh on the skeletons, and the liches and death knights could walk out as normal humans except for their pallid skin.
“Professor Miroslav? You are early, come and see our fresh plants.” A smiling assistant apprentice walked away from the master lich to his place, and dragged him to a neighbouring room, the access was controlled but he got the crisp white access card. “Gladly.” Igor was moderately curious. Inside they planted a swarm of treasured plants on humans or what used to be humans. Igor immediately noticed there was a thing on the central left, he seemed like a human, but his head was substituted by a gigantic Victorian Venus Flytrap, and upon hearing the observation the flora-fauna’s flora part feistily opened and closed.
“From our newest private collection.” He introduced. If everything fails, the med student can still handle a marketing job.
“Is this something akin to caterpillar fungus sinensis?” Igor used the vernacular words because he was not sure whether it was “a thing”.
“You are right, this is our newly developed creation to display in the garden to make mosquitos weary.” The assistant proudly said.
“That’s making the best use of everything, in the best world I think whoever adopted this in his garden will have a cool garden.” Igor used a spicy way of saying.
“Exactly, I wish to take you on a tour but Herr Asteris might slap me for that. You can say something nice about his garden, and see how it goes.”
“I will see how it goes. Thanks.” Igor expressed a mild level of gratitude.
The assistant (whose name he didn’t want to specify) guided him to another facility where Scorpio’s office lays, it is a two-floors-in-one mini mansion, the carved-out second floor is accessible via ladders, the second floor is full of books. A vaguely middle-aged young man with unconservative dark hair and a delicate and sophisticated look, albeit with fierce grinning eyes. He was at his desk, the desk being a good desk.
“Igor? It seems you have found me.” His common tongue was slightly accented, but Igor considered everyone’s pronunciation is slightly accented one way or another.
“That’s it, thanks for seeing me.” Scorpio dropped the pen, and rose, skirted from behind the desk to the empty negative space in front of it. “You brought projects, let us start when you are ready.” “Of course.” Igor was invited to the living room space’s single light grey sofa/armchair, and in accordance with formal routine Scorpio conjured up one of his private property to fill their water glasses, he took notice this was a well-adorned necrolyte, if he was not terribly wrong (in and on a lot of things).
“Would you like some tea?” A slightly mocking voice.
“No thanks, I had some before coming.” It was coffee he had beforehand, but he considers them to be the same genre of stimulants.
“Well.” Scorpio didn’t make additional comments on the fact Igor didn’t bring a recording machine but rather would rely on obliging memories, or memorizations so to speak. “I don’t know what you read to Civitas, so I’d like to provide for you a marginally internationally propagated vantage point: once upon a time there was an optimistic zombie angel, he was a diplomat from Olympias, a student from the lord of the Seventh Sky, ex-partner of hell’s ex-chief official, twin of the successor of the Fourth Sky.”
Igor pretended he didn’t catch that the ex-official was the Seventh Sky’s owner’s ex-colleague and perhaps more than that, when he was still little, he asked around and it was confirmed. So much for random gossip.
“When he was decommissioned during the second season he took care of various errands of the temple of Solomon and the ICE (International Custom Exchange), Northern is searching for a middle ground/Mittelland playground, it can’t be another of layout they constructed, I meant the Moonlit City. Hence he searched for a middleman, at the time Zillah was under the patronage of Nariel, it went to connect with the Architects’ C.CA, and was considering other channels of communications and commitments.” Scorpio name-dropped a lot of organizations but was one step away from shying away from disclosing any treaty commitments and treatise regimes, because there was no formal treaty, only the middlepets.[1]
Igor nodded like a good student who practised active listening, but his words were not good. “Oh? Strange it is, I heard the official recirculated version is that the connecting threat was the C.CA’s personnel deliberated after their residencies in Mittelland, and established a tax-evading plate-form, and invited Northern to act as sponsor and chatelain?” Igor reconfirmed the official narrative, although he was using cheap verbs and common phrases. Even more, he didn’t say if it is, scholars and artists’ tax-evasion platform, or resources and capitals’ tax-evasion heaven.[2]
Upon hearing this portion, Scorpio added an addendum, “There are some truths in the top-down narratives, but referencing Lady Solomon’s phrasing, high politics is not high tea.”
“Nothing is immune from the influence of higher-level politics.” Igor naively said, his naiveness was right. “All right Professor Ishmael, can you take a few questions?”
“Alas, it’s been a long time since some refer to me like this. Scorpio sounds right.” The angel who takes the veneer of an Austrian kindred didn’t seem to mind, he smiled and corrected.
“Right. Scorpio, nominally and in crowning intention the time in Civitas is halted-time, people and perishables are maintaining an unelapsed state within the city, can you comment on who contributed to this concept?”
“Created to express a particular concept?” Scorpio clasped his hands and replied, those were ugly well-manicured hands with protrusions and ink stains, “It’s a secret. It’s a joke. It was rhetorically intervened when two of the board members were playing around, it was supposed to begin as a joke, some wanted to concentrate the trafficked people and collected souls by his friend onto an island, in turn allocating for them physical bodies and reagents of philosopher’s stone, namely the mediums and the fountain of youth. The other said this is stupid, you know what’s sillier? Stop the lads’ watches.”
It seemed Scorpio liked to say a lot more about this, but for the time constraints he refrained. “Hears like two of them are toying with the idea of playing god (playing with gods).” Igor engulfed some expensive water of high quality and spilled out.
“You play god, I play god.” Scorpio commented nonchalantly.
“Next question, Mr Northern Solomon adopted a set of completely different policies on Mittelland Spanish and South American holdings vis a vis in Civitas, although all seemed to be laisse faire liaisons, any comment on that?”
Those must be good questions, Scorpio changed the sitting posture, stalled a bit, and bit out, “Holding is the backyard, Civitas is the backgarden, there was a place for everything isn’t it?” To exaggerate the dramatic effect, he sipped some water without condiments, “Regarding your question, No, and I welcome you to write in your book I said no.” Scorpio fiercely just denied it, because negation is one of the virtues he learned from his little friend.
“The other words are circulating rumours, Zillah Laetoria was your student when he was ten or something years old? Rumour says it you followed from the Middle East to the German-speaking regions?”
“It was well circulated inside Civitas, but who influenced what I’m not sure.” Scorpio’s new position mimicked the cross-legged, elegant figure. “I am his referrer and physician.”
Yep, because consorting with sponsor and doctor is much more graceful than sleeping with your advisor, Igor discreetly made a face. “Understood, people adore to mix concepts.”
“Conceptional mixtures are not always groundless, because mutual communication is a mutualistic learning process. It oftentimes went off-script when making reagents, so someone has to get close and save it.” In some ways more than others, Scorpio was a highly corrupted person, giving his book something to sell (for), not knowing it was for giving back to Albrecht or Cardinal von Kret.
Subsequently, Igor asked a couple of nameless questions, which were mostly about societal basic infrastructure and corroborated timelines. Scorpio offered that the four clocks of the Law School Library functioned like modernistic art installations of the leftist-sympathizer artist, because the four clocks set the order; not because the four clocks cloak the order.
“Besides, the seemingly Moonlit City representative actually endorses (endows) Mittelland time.” Precision readings and precision machines.
“So that is the case.” Igor was dreaming wideawake, because many were trying to prove, Civitas and the Moonlit City are not one city, and that the orbital axis is not at Mittelland.
Anticipating the conversation was over, from the second floor Scorpio retrieved two books, in other words he showed them off and regretfully expressed he would have to go and borrow them himself. So the chessman said a formal goodbye (“Good afternoon, Professor Scorpio,” he is a little sycophant), and moved to the department’s library, in turn found his books were highlighted and margin-marked.
The two tomes were Saussure de Fernand’s The Role and the Rule: An Imperial History of the Intellectual Imperium’s translated version into the lingua franca, accompanied that was Cardinal von Kret’s edited Stardust Traces: Collection of Treatises on the International Soul Exchange, written unsardonically in impeccable British English.
He put a crystal bowl of nuts on the visible side of his table to hang them as a treat to encourage him to finish reading, no encouragement needed, because the proses were not flat and the concepts were somehow vaguely familiar. Saussure recognized since the last leaf of Medieval Time during the second season, the University Hades and a few Professors co-curated in Heidelberg-Prague is the same school as Pantheon’s philosophy department, they all had some innovative ideas regarding the letters and literatures of the liturgy (church and creeds), because at that time a few of the Professors were still gods (and what now), so much for vainglories.
Illuminarium is the last major college to station in the Civitas system, because the high elves are insensitive about the Seventh Sky’s private company Lange which occupied the golden district at Civitas’ northside, and the Engineering hub designed by Lange and Northern in the southern district.
Fast forward to the meaty chapters, he also wrote in a footnote in chapter seven warning its readers to be mindful of the medical schools, Padua and Vienna Medical Schools mostly do not practice medicine on their land holdings. The latter was engaged in raw material experiments and the former was in effect, a business school cosponsored by a puppetmaster (the original wording was puppetmagister).
In the first read Igor doesn’t wish to rush into any conclusion of any sort, this book is truly interesting, almost dimming Cardinal von Kret’s graceful prose, he meant almost. Cardinal von Kret, and six other theologians and scholars who were more apt at using theological classical Latin wrote a surprisingly lucid and sober commentary over where the tax-collected souls went. It’s more of theories of political economics than a historical work.
What they declared they were exploring was, the portion of souls that didn’t undergo paradise circuit energy consumption (roundly estimated to be in and around 10%~20%) after tentative evaluation, was transferred and exchanged to other rings in Heaven and other planes, and this type of exchange is influenced and co-occupied by the gradually formative international standards of regulations. Although Cardinal von Kret sassily argued this is a kind of de facto international law affected by the Sixth Ring of Hell, or the predecessor of international laws.[3]
The chapter discussing and dissecting Civitas was not written by Cardinal von Kret, but a Professor Faustus with sharp and lazy tones. He opened with “Civitas was Heaven’s Bank of Souls, and was never affected by Paradise Politics.” The acronym BS was not in vogue at the time, but still cool. Then many of the lines were attributed to thinly veiled allusions to the political struggles between the Seventh and the Sixth Skys. Alternatively, before Raphael was assassinated, the forceful severance of the Arts and Sciences since the early Renaissance. Alternatively, the technical separation between artistic livelihoods and the corporate sciences.
He also pointed out, “Although lip-servicing absolute neutrality every day, Civitas is not Swiss, because Swiss Tech is located in the current Fourth Sky.” Igor drank more coffee and thought Dr Faustus implied in Civitas the ex-Fourth Sky and Sixth Sky landlords were co-pilotly boycotting the Seventh Sky, and learning from skimming through additionally suggested readings he discovered Lady Solomon was Raphael’s ex-girlfriend (or boyfriend, he is not sure). At this time he was feeling aesthetically drained from all sorts of assortments of nepotism.
So he drunk drive with another black coffee spiced with unspiced brandy, and finished the chapter, using a euro paper note as bookmark, he rolled into the supple sofa and played with himself with pocket chess portable and compatible, it was a preordained Caro Kann, himself abused himself until everyone was mentally bruised, he didn’t touch the endgame on the standard board on the working table.
After remembering the nuts and picking apart some, Igor went to wash and dote on his row of skincare jars and jugs, and he wondered where his money went. After four or five hours of close reading he looked like a ghost without a shell, or a ragdoll version of a porcelain character from the children’s movies of one of his favourite directors (not Laika’s). Too worn out to be Gothic. He didn’t look Gothic either, but simply thinking like that could be considered as anti-pick your word.
Igor dreamed of him and his long-time sleep mate Swedish model sitting side by side on an excruciating slow joyride, he only recalled on the rollercoaster arch part Carl demanded him to “Kiss me”. Then he motioned “But we are seatbelted.”
“Kiss me anyway.” So Igor unbuttoned his seatbelt, came close, before he was on his pretty friend he fell to the dim lit green green grass and was smacked and smashed. Upon waking up he reflected it might be about the one time they failed to use protection, and the incident through it Igor had to go to the hospital to take a test.
Originally Igor thought he liked girls, only that Carl was too beautiful. They met at a hotel, then after a year and a half on and off, Carl went off escorting a multimillionaire. As much as consolation goes, Zoran commented you can continue the affair after he has been past his time. Igor said I’m not the one to accept a returned offer.
The Igor who had sworn to not accept returned offers purchased a portal ticket for Carl at the low season of the shows, and delivered the model who pretended to like to travel. He went to Plaza Nebula early on time to pick him up to the hotel, and messed up the game, and allowed two of them sitting on the sofa to proceed with a new game.
“You seemed unchanged.” You seemed unfeathered.
“You seemed older.” Igor viciously joked, for someone whose entire value nestled on face value, he seemed particularly apathetic. Pathetic perhaps.
“Possibly it’s because I’m not long enough in Civitas.” The little model meticulously messed up the central squares with his borrowed knight. Knight being white knight.
“You’re on point. Point taken.” White knight was confiscated. “Would you like a drink?” What can I offer?
Carl smiled with pursed lips, he must have done something with his lips since he last saw him, counterproductive, he must presume. “Make it neat, make it adorable.” So they shared a drink with shot glasses. Igor didn’t know he had shot glasses (they were nestled in the back of the upper-class drawer).
For a model Carl was quite apt at chess, but all materials were devoured by Igor. After Carl touched up his hair with Igor’s products they got ready to the artists’ district, in alternative lining, they went to sightsee in the arts quarter together.
“Spectacular, everyone is someone or knows someone.” Carl playfully exclaimed. Equally spectacular was that he knew the English phrases. They went to the supposedly “must-see” Nautilus’ decorative architecture and the arched white aisleways that cast long shadows in the central north, and went southward and entered Mephistopheles’ gallery fabricated into an indescribable irregular shape. The keyword is non-Euclidian.
What they got is the gallery assistant’s warm welcome or rather adorations. After offering both of them drinks, he asked with both hands on the glass counter, “Professor Miroslav, do you prefer the Mucha more, or the hanged swan one?”
Igor pretended to have pondered a minute, he said “I liked the variations, both of them seemed nice.”
Carl commented with rose still on his lips “The swan in passion is so cute.”
The gallery assistant commented, “it was enjoying it.”
They did a walkthrough of the first layer, only skimming the surface and mostly skipping the plaque cards, they often felt bored in Paris or Milan hanging out around the museums, because they allowed the sport star and the model to pretend they too were cultured. Not exactly, Carl studied art history in uni, although he was a few years late.
Having been invited to the second floor, in a dimlit windowless room they had the opportunity to view a private viewing, a panel of what was supposed to be Raphael drawn by Raphael (wasn’t Raphael dead? Does that imply it happened before he died?), beside it is a Raphael painted by Botticelli. There was wine in both portraits, the archangel appeared to be either very worn out or very melancholic, the wine appeared to be sparkling wine.
Carl observed and believed “it’s Spanish cava.” He took a minute to sip his drink, “However hence, Raphael is Raphael?”
“He was honest at this.” Igor gave a nonconformist reasoning. Honest? Is this the best he can think of?
“Then who was Botticelli?” Carl was asking for a scoop.
“That’s a good question, Botticelli is Raphael’s friend.” Igor provided an inexcusable excuse. He didn’t know he was right.
After secretively salivating purchasing one or both of them (he was not a fan of Botticelli, because what’s wrong or right with that amount of ornamentality?), Igor exited the gallery with Carl, that was the point they reached the grassland impeccably groomed to the international chessboard. On the sides stood golden-green marble chess pieces, but because none of them were mages they couldn’t conjure them up.
“You know, you can hire someone, somebody must be eager to help you.” Carl exchanged some viperous words.
“You know, most of us can conjure them in our headspaces.” Igor bounced the buzzes back; he was feeling bouncy.
“They must be good subspaces.” Carl was not going to stop here.
“It’s very easy to imagine, you should try it sometimes.” Beside the board was a singular and lonely art installation, it was a gunmetal silver cube, bounded with vermilion and royal blue ribbons, had a good name “gift”.
“Yoo looks like you are doing well, you even have your own installation.” Carl remarked, apart from Swedish he only knows continental English and a little French, to set the boundary straight he now adopted English with a cute accent.
He drank a bit of brandy from a portable flask and the brandy was taken away by Carl, “it’s confiscated”.
“I think it’s a beautiful coincidence.” “It’s your call.” Carl carelessly replied, in turn Igor looked at his watch, today he was wearing a semi-skeletonized roman numeral mechanical watch, Carl had witnessed him wearing it a few times, strange it was unsigned, after some hard questions he learned it was his birthday present gifted by Sarah.
“Darling of Civitas what time is it?” Carl innocuously made fun of him.
“I don’t know, but the concert starts in fifteen.” “I know.”
They walked and walked, walked past some artists’ shabby, eh, I mean western-styled garden houses with histories and short buildings to the ad hoc concert staging at the south-eastern diagonal. For an open-air theatre, it was indeed too rinky-dink, the seats were some benches and chairs moved from somewhere else, the speaker was good, the non-movable piano, drum set and other large assets were first-class citizens. But both of them were laities, they couldn’t distinguish which was which.
They were shuffled to the third-row centre seats, the tickets were sent by Fran from the department (Fran, because he helped him to look at his chapter manuscript on elementary game theory), Aisha was only scheduled to perform once in Civitas, because not everyone was interested in post-punk symphonic protest songs.
Soon after they were seated the stage-warming band was here, judging from the algae-shaped wavy hair it looked like a mermaid, she grabbed the mic like it was her baby and greeted with the common tongue “Friends of Civitas, are you well?” Some people nodded, some people smirked, other people were not friends at all. Afterwards, the stage was saturated with plump synthetic sounds, they were supposed to simulate harpsichord and aeolian bell, but the producer opted for panotron and bone bell instead.
People went quiet, or people went quieter amidst sounds of incessant tiny whisperings. After carefully listening for a while Igor later discovered she was singing a retranslated English version of the satirical opera New Albion, nominally, one about pretender god, friars and monks playing cards and declaring to construct a gambling marketplace, pharmacist and doctors sent happiness prescriptions to innocent laymen, the engineer had four wives not in a row, the necromancer and two-way merchant all have safety safes and crystal chandeliers.
“As the day broke dawn, we broke down, on the long shadows and long trajectories.”
“The table was chained to the floor, a gambler and a god, a game of card they played, against all odds against all days, the deviant games they played, to establish a gambling ground and a marketplace.”
“But all they had are blank cards with drawn marks and spilled inks.”
“The eccentric, the concentric, the in séance and the enslaved. They gave glass pills to children in exchange for soft teas and porcelains.”
“I am the only one who suffered, the only ones who suffered are puppets, parachutes and parapets. For generations and variations played the favourite, to please the crowd and to please the lords. But the crowd and the lords are unnamed.”
“The bar is unmanned, the bench is unmarred, bespoke jewels in necromancer’s deposit safe, toned downed whispers in the meat-merchants marketplace, New Albion is the same as before, a noman land without a deed for land.”
“We enmesh and we endure, our endurance is immediate for all but not at all. We stayed the day resigned, all our deeds unsigned, we spent our dying days playing cards to pass the time.”
“Before they were dead all dispossessed old ones were undead, who is who’s artwork, who is who’s foreman?”
Igor had heard about this questionable opera, supposedly Zoran played it while showering in the gramophone, however it was in Czech, so he didn’t quite catch everything and anything. But this is the opening, because the opener got to be explosive, the drafter was not a poet or a novelist but a dramaturg. Igor had no idea why the governing body allowed the public projection of this kind of failed political propaganda, it might be to unleash and alleviate negative feelings, or perchance they might have already recorded the audience list to store it somewhere safe. Even Carl heard something was off, audiences surrounding them were wearing very loud and colourful clothes, although so far no one was wearing all-black black trench coat, he whispered “So I was learned.”
People were thinking differently, regarding different things, some scattered applauses for the merfolk speaker, then the band changed shape, Ash was here, she was a Lebanon and Gothic mixed blood, wore a head of fluffy dark hair, today she was smeared with black eyeliner and greyscale smoky eyes, adorned with simply slim cut white shirt and black trousers, Carl who paid attention to detail found she was wearing a silver cross, and the black brogues with silver clasps seemed unlike women’s shoes. Supposedly, for no reason in particular people went wild for this attention to attire.
Some even whistled on the left. Her first lozenge song is called Fright, his household vampire lady once told him this song was originally called Club for Vampires.
“You take the flight but the flight is a notion, you think you can fly it’s only your body.” Or bodice? He was not sure. The others were too violent or smutty he didn’t wish to narrate about. Fast forward she sang some of her catchy songs in historical albums, all about forsakenness, war, wastelands, some fishy deals of capitalism. There was an undocumented/unreleased one called Young God, “My girlie said God went to her recital, so she sings a song of Godless God.” For a pantheistic heretic, this song was far too atheistic. Some curious gods and objects of curious disorders. At the next moment this contrariousness was so sensible and so absurd.
Somehow Igor worried this song might make offence to gods seated near the stage, with all due respect, in these years anyone could be god.[4]
The second last score was reserved for people who relent, it was a cover, and Aisha leveraged her mother tongue, she sang for Nena’s 99 Luftballons. Of course some acquainted wizards and mages placed some displaced red balloons in the audience’s stalls (he hoped it was 99), or fluffballs or puffballs.
“Hast du etwas Zeit für mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich
Von neunundneunzig Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
Hielt man für UFOs aus dem All
Darum schickte ein General
'Ne Fliegerstaffel hinterher
Alarm zu geben, wenn's so wär'
Riefen Krieg und wollten Macht
Mann, wer hätte das gedacht
Dass es einmal soweit kommt
Wegen neunundneunzig Luftballons
Neunundneunzig Jahre Krieg
Ließen keinen Platz für Sieger
Kriegsminister gibt's nicht mehr
Ich seh' die Welt in Trümmern liegen
Ich denk' an euch und lass' ihn fliegen”[5]
Igor thought Nena’s song was energetic and virtually great, but Aisha had something in her that transported into the song, because she was within the range of coloratura, which made the uplifting and slightly sardonic song very ethereal, cruel and graceful.
With half of the song done there was some performative artist in the back row who purported the slogan with a speaker, “Artist scum of the sea, step down capitalists’ scoundrel!”[6] How courageous he was, Aisha made a 1920s gesture, which was a raised fist, but she raised her right hand, the microphone was transposed to the left. Magician’s legerdemain.
“I don’t know what had happened here, but it seems like a good story.” After the meeting Carl said this to him. “Do do me a favour, write something interesting in your book.”
Igor shrugged, “Within the limited space I will try to.” Will do. Then he figured Leni was seated in the central-left, she didn’t bring a handbag or evening bag, chose a neutral slim-to-not-slim white suit, on her feet were a pair of white sneakers that were not so white.
She was wearing perfume, not knowing what exactly, however light and intoxicating. Igor wanted to lay intoxicated inside the plume of her perfume. Leni was seeing how distracted he got, so went forth to say hi.
“Professor Miroslav, this is?” She gestured to the stunning young man with the attitude of an opera usher.
“This is my friend Carl, he is a fashion model.” Igor made an introduction simple and pure.
“Sure, I had the impression I had seen you before. Milan, 2007?” Professor Lindale cited a spectacularly lukewarm show that made multiple people lose their jobs.
“You had very good memory, do you make a living out of it?”
“You had a very pretty face, do you make a living out of it?” Professor Lindale said this to both of them.
“Yes, and I’m proud of that.” Carl said. Carl was sad.
“Professor Lindale is an elven historian, she works with the governments, and I work in the chateau’s bookstore.” On occasions Igor was quite lucid, after two glasses of wine. Ludicrous nonetheless.
“Is that the case? You should consider the fashion industry.” Carl said something nice, although the work is good, he doesn’t intend to be modelling forever, this Professor Lindale looked like someone willing to write a mutual acquaintance a recommendation letter or two.
“You are not the first to assert that.” Leni expressed show me what you got.
Carl delivered the long-waited line, “St Cecilia by Glucklich, 1886?” He tried, that was not his era, but good-looking persons looked the same.
“Close, she knows I don’t know.” “Oh, I remembered, you had a song on SoundCloud called ‘Forgotten Elegy’, isn’t that the case?” Miraculously Carl had gossiped something Professor Lindale didn’t want anyone to know.
“I don’t know you sing?” Igor raised his brow, just one.
“It was an ill-fated bet.” Leni smiled and let it slide.
They exchanged a few more pleasant and acerbic remarks, Leni said goodbye and let the boys return to their shared hotel room, to be precise, shared hotel bed. Because you don’t need the sofa to play naughty. And Igor took care of their artsy and casual clothes, he didn’t fold them, he just discarded them, and let some flee to the ground, it was carpeted floor so whatever.
After some long kisses on the mouth and short kisses on the temple and other exposed parts of the bodices Carl exclaimed “I need wines.” Although he’d prefer “I need milk” or even better, “I need strawberry milk,” Igor accepted the whines, dislodged and went to pour Carl something moderately expensive—he won’t care much sooner or later.
“Thank you.” Carl curled into a folded shape and sipped wine, “now is the time to show me your bedside drawer.” A lapse of judgment, Igor realized he was ill-prepared. “What? I have some chessbooks I didn’t read and bandages I didn’t wear.” He even leaned in to open the drawer to display his innocence.
“That’s interesting.” Carl paid lip service: do you have anything other than overpriced olive oil?
“There is nothing extra virgin over it.” Extra virgin pressed. Carl thought Igor was having a speech impediment after the fourth or fifth drinks. Hopefully, his brain still worked (to an extent), Igor snuggled with him for a long while by overlording his unathletic body on Carl’s marginally more proportional albeit unathletic one to buy himself some time, and went to his work bag to retrieve an elliptic shaped little plastic jar.
Lip-sized strawberry Vaseline? Are you sure? Unbelievable. Carl looked at the jar with censorious gaze, rolled over, and reprimanded, “Good, now we have the prop.” You should prop me up.
Because he is a sophisticated boy, Igor went to retrieve a teaspoon to scoop a sizable portion of light pink liquid jelly and transferred them to coat his hand, hand being left hand, although it had been some time, the sizable quota was delivered, he traced the snuggled rim of flesh, teased and agitated a bit, and slipped a finger in.
“Keep going.”
This kind of yarn slippage is tentalizing, after some wiggle-waggle Igor could feel he was half-heartedly rejecting him while taking him in. The professional boy is so clean. He pulled the finger out, “what’s your ideal number?”
Carl put his opisthenars on his chin, “why does my opinion matter?”
Makes sense, Igor gave the hand back, this time but slowly, two. “Because your opinion is valued and your opinion gives us a couple of options?”
Carl gave him a couple of feedback, mostly by lazy languid moans and clamping down, being the tight-fitting good boy he was.
Igor was not giving him a second chance, that ship had sailed, he retreated his hand, kissed him again, this time Carl rolled over to show his soft and flat belly because he liked to play vanilla, look at this, Igor played with his most expensive hair and got a vengeful scratch of his back, he kissed his shoulder and neck, adjusted the position, and sunk in.
The lighting was mood lighting, as best as the hotel can get. His skin on skin was velvety, although the tinted Vaseline was providing a slightly wan and wax look, Igor looked elsewhere. At home, at last.
“Care to concentrate?” Carl commented.
“I’m sorry, my bad.” Igor was particularly keen on increasing the pace. He folded an already folded Carl slightly and maneuvered his bratty long legs to be further apart, went in again and again. This sort of mechanical movement continued for an estimated fifteen more minutes, in which upon request, he fed Carl more wine (without glass :) and sweettalked him “why didn’t your parents like me?” They met but “it’s probably because you can’t give them little Miroslavs.” Of course that was not the reason, Igor thought at the end of the day they didn’t care, well, Zoran pretended to care while Sarah pretended not to care.
With that out of the way, Igor rolled him back like a conveyor belt sushi, so that he could move in more brutal, or deeper, depending on the perspectives. By this time Carl was basically just moaning, he must have practiced it extensively, or he simply has the perfect pitch. “Where to?” Before produce dumping, Igor reconfirmed.
“Where it goes?” Carl asked rhetorically.
That’s right. “It’s your take.” With some forward-looking movements, they finished respectively, of course it was protected, what were you thinking?
What was unprotected was Igor’s foray when Carl went to showering, he always showered first with a pathological pursuit of cleanness. Listening to the sound of running water Igor was recalling at times when they would lather each other up, hear me out—someone would drop the soap and the other one would pick someone up, more groping and messy actions ensued. He used to corner him and take him by the tinted window, or the transparent showeroom glass that could be manipulated to become tinted. Such behaviours were frowned upon but tolerated.
They didn’t speak much besides “godnatt.” and “sleep well.” When Carl went back to sleep Igor wrapped himself in a bathrobe (he’s not fancy enough for sleep robes) and put on a buggy earphone to research for the song Leni had written, as what had happened to Aisha and Nena, elves are a group that can sing and can’t dance, it’s a pity Professor Lindale didn’t go to make and produce music.
He only remembered the ending score, “Soon after the land and sea become mists, in falling leaves I became a shard of filigree.”
[1] cf. he was saying before institutions were established and co-sponsors are attracted (there was no formal treaty).
cf’. can’t say I didn’t like his treatment.
cf. it is his treats you liked.
cf’. guilty as charged.
[2] HL: tax collector and tax-farming farmhands.
cf. speaking from first-hand experience?
HL: I don’t know you.
[3] ft. a type of intentional international laws, please be precisive.
IM: apologies, Professor, my English not good. (Normative is a good word.)
ft. sure, the sentiment is shared. (Normative was a good word.)
[4] cf’. be god and serve as a stopgap.
cf. be god and serve as a stopgag?
cf’. only if that is in order?
cf. (requisitely) no order required. [order is requested.]
[5] ft. the original sung is Nena, “99 Luftballons,” March 1983, Epic (West Germany), track 6 on Nena, 1983, cassette. The unoriginal is 99 Luftballons in Of Gods and Monikers, Ash Aisha, Jared Lasker, Pierre Saint-Luminaire, Peter Robins, Marcus Toulouse, Civitas Garden Hall of Visual and Performing Arts, 2009.
[6] ft. the original intended line supposed to be “artist scum of the see,” but here I digressed.
