Humor

Just as you have to be able to make your readers cry, you must be able to make them laugh. Humor is very important and I’ve always tried to include it wherever possible. Even when I’m correcting a text, I often laugh at my own jokes.

At one o’clock, slightly drunk and fed up, he looked around for a woman who could finish off his evening. It was too late to make an appointment with one of the beauties from the catalogue, so he drove to his old spot where around ten scantily dressed women were pacing the sidewalk.

He drove past slowly the first time, looking at them carefully. They all puckered their lips and stuck out their chests in the hope of attracting a client. When he drove past for the second time, he stopped his muddy vehicle in front of a girl who didn’t look like she was much over eighteen. She kept shuffling from foot to foot, smiling, and looking at her colleagues in the hope they would indicate to her what she should do next. It was clear she was embarrassed and the other women waved to her to get in the car.

They were well aware of the saying that opportunity knocks only once.

When they had arrived at a hotel room twenty minutes later, she admitted that she had hardly any experience. “I’m very glad you’re not really old,” she said, and laughed in a silly fashion.

He watched her shuffling awkwardly and lit a cigarette. “Take off your clothes,” he told her.

“I beg your pardon?”

He leaned back in his armchair lazily, his legs apart, then slowly exhaled the smoke. “Take off your clothes so that I can see your body.”

“But there’s no music.”

“Imagine there is.”

This was not something she had anticipated. Frightened, she began unbuttoning her skirt and swaying, with her legs pressed together, as if she needed to go to the toilet. John watched the funny scene and felt aroused. He dragged on his cigarette and poured beer down his parched throat. Finally, when she was naked he spanked her bottom so that the poor girl jumped onto the bed, shrieking.

John got out of the chair and nailed her to the mattress. She was terrified and nearly cried for help, afraid he was going to hit her. But he just threw himself on top of her and took his pants off.

“Oh, you’re so heavy,” she said.

He rolled off her like an old log and lay on his back. The girl was perfectly still, not knowing what he wanted from her.

“I don’t really feel like it. You get on top of me.”

She was glad to oblige and clambered on top of him, then began kissing his neck and face while rhythmically swaying her behind. She liked him but was afraid of him because of his roughness. She had no way of knowing what horrific pictures were going through John’s head and that he was barely able to maintain his erection. Her colleagues had told her that it would take ten minutes at the most. “Men are usually very aroused and some can’t last even five minutes,” they said.

They swapped positions, John on top. He was like a rabbit, but what he really wanted was to clear his head. His brain was tortured by images of a dead body, horrible smells, soil, and darkness. Emely all the time. What’s the matter with me? Why can’t she leave me alone?

The young girl kept glancing at her watch in despair. It had been an hour and a half already. They had been in this position for so long that she was completely numb down there, while her head was throbbing. She wanted him to leave her alone at last. If she hadn’t been afraid of him she would have stopped it long ago and threw his money back at him. Does he plan to stay like this all night? she wondered.

He began breathing deeply and shaking like an old steam engine. He huffed and puffed and was glad to have reached the end. It had been an arduous journey and he had to try as hard as never before. He would have stopped long ago but didn’t want to let those wretched hallucinations spoil his evening.

The girl, on the other hand, lay there exhausted, feeling like the bottom part of her body had been severed. When she sat up her legs tingled and the muscles of her behind hurt badly. She got up like an old woman.

“Get dressed already. I haven’t got all night,” he said.

When a few minutes later he dropped her off, her colleagues shouted and laughed as the poor girl sat on a nearby bench, looking pale. Her hair that a few hours earlier had been fixed with hairspray, was now sticking up all over so that she looked like an old broom. She had to light a cigarette immediately.

Comforting her and laughing to each other they said, “You’ll get used to it.”