Читать книгу Island of Point Nemo - Jean-Marie Blas de Robles - Страница 21
Оглавление“You’re sure it won’t be too bad?”
“Positive. It will probably feel a little warm, but no more than Tiger Balm or strong mint. Remember?”
“Not very effective, as I recall . . .”
“And it gave me canker sores.”
Carmen has gotten wind of a new recipe for awakening her beloved’s passion. This time, she is taking the method from a documentary she saw on TV. A film about beekeeping and the countless benefits of honey.
“An old folk remedy. Apparently people used it to treat arthritis. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for you.”
“If there was a joint in there, we’d know about it, don’t you think?”
“Who said anything about a joint? The point is to make it swell, using venom. It expands and constricts the blood vessels and then . . .”
“Oh, oh, oh!” says Dieumercie, striking a pose from an operetta.
But Monsieur Bonacieux is not reassured, even less so when he catches sight of the jar that his wife is taking out of the cupboard. There are live bees imprisoned in it. A good number of them.
“Let’s see,” says Carmen, sticking the Post-it note where she has written out the procedure to his forehead. “First step, the tourniquet . . . Will you get your little bird out for me, please?”
“I’m not so sure about this. . .”
“Come on, doudou, it’s for a good cause.”
She helps him undo his fly and pull out his penis. He touches her breasts, trying to visualize salacious images. If he can get hard, here, right now, this whole business with the bees can be forgotten. He tries imagining his wife sucking off a dog, a huge dog, a Great Dane, but to no avail, as usual. In the meantime, Madame Bonacieux has looped her hair tie around his cock. She slides it up toward the base and finds the best position for the pink plastic bear cub on the band.
“This looks stupid . . .”
“On the contrary,” says Carmen, patting his testicles, “you’re very cute. This is already driving me wild.”
As if to prove it to him, she pulls her thong down from her under her dress and shakes it off the tips of her toes. She has washed her hair, shaved, put on makeup. The fresh scents of soap and lavender emanate from her body as she cozies up to him to read the next part.
“Step two: we put them to sleep.”
She takes the jar in both hands and shakes it vigorously, like a cocktail shaker. It works: inside, the dazed bees are still. Carmen unscrews the lid and takes two bees by their wings. With one bee between the thumb and index finger of each hand, she kneels down in front of her husband.
“Here we go,” she says, focusing, as if she is getting ready to hook up electrodes to someone in cardiac arrest. “You ready?”
“Do it, dear,” he replies bravely.
“Okay. Clear!”
Madame Bonacieux places the two bees on her husband’s foreskin and squeezes them to get them to sting. Anxious, uncomfortably tickled by their touch, Dieumercie cannot stop himself from recoiling instinctively; when the insects react, they thrust their stingers into his glans. The effect is immediate, intense burning, disproportionate swelling. Monsieur Bonacieux begins to howl as he jumps up and down. His penis looks like a butcher’s joke, a microphone made of bratwurst, ending in a big ball of calf liver. Each time he looks down upon this horror, he starts howling even louder. Frightened by this result, Carmen moves around him as best she can to observe his transformation. She still wants to believe.
“It has to work, doudou. Calm down, the pain will pass . . .”
Dieumercie is so disoriented that he is waving his arms wildly, trying to fight off a cloud. Suddenly, Carmen’s thighs start to itch; she thinks, for a second, that Dieumercie’s burning is contagious, she sticks her hand under her dress to scratch, then starts to writhe just like her husband. Now they are both yelling. Wakened from their torpor, the other bees have flown out of the jar and seem determined to avenge their companions’ deaths.
