Walter Klemmer pulls Erika out of the toilet stall. He yanks her. For openers, he presses a long kiss on her mouth; it was long overdue. He gnaws on her lips, his tongue plumbs her depths. After endlessly ruinous use, his tongue pulls back and then pronounces Erika’s name several times. He puts a lot of work into this piece known as Erika. He reaches under her skirt, knowing that this means he is going places. He goes even farther, he feels that passion has permission. Passion has carte blanche. He burrows around in Erika’s innards as if he wanted to take them out, prepare them in a new way. He reaches a limit and discovers that his hand can’t get much farther. Now he pants as if he has run a great distance in order to reach this goal. He must at least offer this woman his exertion. He is unable to force his entire hand inside her, but maybe he can manage one or two fingers. No sooner said than done. Feeling his index finger slip in deeper than deep, he jubilantly transcends himself and bites Erika all over, promiscuously. He covers her with spit. His other hand holds her tight, but it doesn’t need to, for the woman is staying put anyway. He wonders whether his other hand should raunch around under her sweater, but the V-neck isn’t enough of a décolleté. And then there’s that stupid white blouse underneath. Now he angrily tweaks and squeezes Erika’s abdomen twice as hard. He is punishing her for letting him dangle until he almost gave up—which would have been too bad for her. He hears a pained whimper from Erika. He promptly subsides; he doesn’t want to harm her wantonly before she really gets going. Klemmer has an illuminating flash: Maybe he can get into the sweater and the blouse by going under the waistband, i.e., from the opposite direction. First he has to pull the sweater and the blouse out of the skirt. He spits harder because he’s trying so hard. He keeps barking Erika’s name (which she knows anyway) into her mouth. But no matter how much he yells into this chasm, there’s no echo. Erika stands and rests in Klemmer. She’s ashamed of the situation he’s involved her in. Her shame is pleasant. It fuels Klemmer, who whimperingly whets himself on Erika. He kneels without letting go. He wildly hoists himself up Erika only to take the elevator down again, albeit stopping at lovely places. He kisses himself fast to Erika. She stands on the floor like a much-used flute that has to deny itself, because otherwise it could not endure the many dilettantish lips that keep wanting to take it in. She would like this student to be absolutely free and leave whenever he likes. She makes it a point of honor to stand still where he has stood her up. He will find her there again, faithful to the very millimeter, when he feels like working her again. She starts drawing something out of herself, from that bottomless vessel of her self, which will no longer be empty for the student. Let’s hope he catches invisible signals. Klemmer applies the full hardness of his sex in order to throw her back on the floor. His landing will be soft, hers hard. He demands the ultimate from Erika. Because they both know that someone could come in at any moment. Walter Klemmer shouts something completely new about his love into her ear.
In an illuminating cadre, two hands appear in front of Erika. From two different directions, they make their way toward her. They are amazed at what has so unexpectedly fallen into them. The owner of the hands is stronger than the teacher. That’s why she keeps using the often misused word “Wait!” He doesn’t want to wait. He explains why not. He sobs lustfully. But he also weeps, because he is overwhelmed by how easy the whole thing is. Erika has cooperated like a good girl.
Erika holds Walter Klemmer at arm’s length. She pulls out his dick, which he has already slated for deployment. It only needs the finishing touch, for it is already prepared. Relieved that Erika has taken over this difficult task, Klemmer tries to push his teacher down all the way. Now Erika has to resist him with her entire weight so she can remain upright. She holds Klemmer’s genital at arm’s length while he fumbles about randomly in her vagina. She lets him know that if he doesn’t stop, she’ll leave. She softly repeats her threat several times, because her suddenly superior will has a hard time getting through to him and his rutting fury. His mind seems fogbound with angry intentions. He hesitates. Wondering whether he’s misunderstood something. Neither in the history of music nor anywhere else is the suitor simply barred from events. This woman has not a spark of submission. Erika starts kneading the red root between her fingers. She demands a privilege, but refuses to grant it to the man. He must go no further with her. Klemmer’s pure reason commands him not to let her shake him off. After all, he is the horseman and she the horse! She’ll stop masturbating his cock if he doesn’t stop grazing down her lower body. It finally occurs to him that it’s more fun feeling than making others feel. So he obeys. After a few more unsuccessful attempts, his hand sinks away from Erika for good. Incredulous, he gazes at his organ, which seems detached from him as it huffs and puffs up in Erika’s hands. Erika orders him to look at her, not at the size his penis has reached. He is not to measure or compare with others, his measure is his alone. Whether large or small, it’s enough for her. This is unpleasant for him. He has nothing to do, and she works on him. It would make more sense the other way around, and that’s how it goes in class. Erika holds him far away. A yawning abyss, made up of seven inches of dick, plus Erika’s arm, and ten years difference in age, gapes open between their bodies. Vice is basically the love of failure. And Erika has always been trained for success, although she has never managed to achieve it.
Klemmer wants to get to Erika through a work/study program, reaching her intimately. He calls her name several times. His hands paddle through the air, venturing once again into forbidden territory: Perhaps she’ll open her black festival mount to him after all. He predicts that she, indeed both of them, could have a lot more pleasure, and he declares he is ready for it. His penis twitches in bluish bloating. It bangs around in the air. Klemmer is now forced to be more interested in his wormy extension than in Erika as a whole. Erika orders Klemmer to keep silent and not to stir no matter what. Otherwise she’ll leave. The student straddles the air in front of the teacher and still sees no light at the end of the tunnel. Bewildered, he gives in as if he were following directions for Schumann’s Carnaval or the Prokofiev sonata he is practicing. He keeps his hands helplessly near his fly; he can’t think of any other place to put them. His silhouette is distorted by his penis, which presents itself forward like a well-behaved boy—this protuberance, which throbs about, trying to strike aerial roots. It is growing dark outside. Luckily Erika is near the light switch, which she operates. She examines the color and makeup of Klemmer’s cock. She inserts her fingernails under his foreskin and orders him not to let out a peep, whether in joy or in pain. The student freezes in a somewhat stifling position in order to draw the thing out. He squeezes his thighs together and tenses the muscles of his buttocks into steely hardness.
It just shouldn’t stop now, please! Klemmer is gradually getting to enjoy the situation as well as the feeling in his body. In lieu of amorous activity, he speaks amorous words, until she orders him to keep silent. For the last time, the teacher commands the pupil to say nothing—in regard to the matter at hand or anything else. Has she made herself clear?! Klemmer wails because she is handling the full length of his lovely love organ. She deliberately hurts him. A hole opens, leading into Klemmer and fed by various conduits. The hole breathes into itself, asking about the time of the explosion. The time seems ripe, for Klemmer cries out the usual warning that he can’t hold back. He asserts that he is doing everything he can to hold back and that his efforts are to no avail. Erika digs her teeth into the crown of his dick, the crown doesn’t lose any points, but the owner shrieks nonetheless. He is told to shut up. So he whispers like a spectator in a theater: It’s coming, now, now! Erika removes the tool from her mouth and instructs its owner: In the future she is going to make a list of all the things he can do to her. My wishes will be jotted down and made available to you at any time. For such is man in all his contradictions. Like an open book. Klemmer has something to look forward to!
Klemmer doesn’t catch her drift. Whimpering, he begs h
er not to stop for God’s sake, he’s about to discharge his volcanic load. He holds out his little machine gun, trigger-happy, so she can shoot it. But Erika says she’s doesn’t want to touch it anymore—not for all the tea in China. Klemmer bends over, pulling his torso down almost to his knees. In this position, he reels through the front room of the toilet. He is illuminated by the merciless light of a round white lamp. He pleads with Erika, but she refuses. He touches himself in order to complete Erika’s handiwork. He explains to his teacher why it is irresponsible, indeed unhealthy, to treat a man so disrespectfully when he’s in such a state. Erika replies: Hands off, otherwise you’ll never see me again in such a situation or a similar one, Herr Klemmer. The student depicts the notorious painfulness of blue balls. He won’t even be able to walk home. Then take a cab, Erika advises calmly. She quickly washes her hands in the sink. She swallows some water. Klemmer stealthily tries to play with himself (the score doesn’t exist). But a sharp shout holds him back. He should simply stand in front of the teacher until she commands otherwise. She would like to study his physical transformation. He can rest assured that she won’t touch him. Herr Klemmer begs, trembling and whimpering. He suffers from the abrupt break of relations, even though these relations were not mutual. He vehemently reproaches Erika. He goes into meticulous detail about every single phase of suffering between his head and his toes. Meanwhile, his dick shrinks in slow motion. Klemmer is anything but a born follower. He is the sort of man who has to ask why, and so he finally starts reviling his teacher. He loses all control because the man in him is being abused. After playing and working out, the man must be polished clean and reinserted into the case. Erika talks back: Just shut up! Her tone keeps him shut.
While growing limp, he stands a few feet away from her. After allowing ourselves a short breather, Klemmer wants to list all the things a woman shouldn’t do to such a man. Erika’s behavior initiates a long chain of prohibitions. He wants to review the reasons. She tells him to keep quiet. It is her final demand. Klemmer does not go mute, he promises retaliation. Erika K. walks to the door and takes silent leave. He has not obeyed her even though she gave him several chances. Now he will never experience what he could carry out with her, what judgment, what sentence, if she allowed it. She squeezes the doorknob, but Klemmer begs her to stay.
He’ll keep still, word of honor. Erika opens the toilet door all the way. Klemmer is framed inside the aperture—not a very valuable painting. Any passerby would see his exposed dick without being prepared for such a sight. Erika leaves the door open in order to torment Klemmer. Of course, she can’t afford to be seen here either. She boldly takes a chance. The stairs end right next to the toilet door. Erika runs her fingers one final time across the shaft of Klemmer’s penis, which draws new hope. But it is once again cold-shouldered. Klemmer trembles like leaves in the wind. He has given up resisting, he exposes himself freely and does nothing about it. This is perfect therapy for a viewer. Erika has already fulfilled her obligation, gotten through her crash course without a single mistake.
The teacher is rooted calmly to the floor. She absolutely refuses to touch his love organ. The love hurricane is raging only feebly now. Klemmer says nothing more about mutual sensation. He diminishes painfully. Erika already finds him ridiculously small. He endures it. From now on, she will keep a sharp eye on his professional and leisure activities. If necessary, she will prohibit all canoeing for just a silly mistake. She will leaf through him as if he were a boring book. She may even put him aside soon. Klemmer may wrap up his oar only when she allows him to. A stealthy attempt to stow it away and zipper up his fly is blocked by Erika. Klemmer is getting impudent, he senses the end is nigh. He predicts that he won’t be able to walk for three days. He describes his anxieties about this, because for Klemmer the athlete, walking is basic training without weapons. Erika tells him that he will receive instructions. Written or oral or by telephone. Erika allows him to pack away his asparagus. In an instinctive movement, Klemmer turns away from Erika in order to do so. But ultimately he has to do everything in full view. While she watches him. He’s glad just to stir again. He indulges in a few seconds of exercise, a little shadow-boxing. So he’s suffered no ill effects. He runs back and forth through the latrine. And the looser and more flexible he appears, the more rigid and more convulsive his teacher seems to become. She has, alas, retreated fully into her snail shell. Klemmer has to liven her up by playfully patting her cheeks, slapping her on the back of her neck. He tells her to lighten up, laugh a little, beautiful lady! Laugh and the world laughs with you! And now out into the fresh air, which, to be honest, is what he missed most during those past few long minutes. At Klemmer’s age you forget a trauma faster than at Erika’s.
Klemmer swoops out into the corridor and completes a thirty-meter sprint. Breathing violently, he zooms past Erika, back and forth. Laughing loudly, he gives vent to his confusion. He thunderously blows his nose. He swears that next time things will be a lot better for us! Practice makes a woman perfect. Klemmer’s laughter booms through the corridor. He leaps down the stairs, taking each curve by a hair’s breadth. It’s almost frightening. Erika hears the heavy school door slam below.
Klemmer seems to have left the building.
Erika Kohut slowly walks down the stairs to the main floor.
During Walter Klemmer’s lesson, Erika Kohut, who no longer understands herself because a certain feeling is starting to control her, senselessly loses her temper. No sooner had she touched him than the student obviously became negligent about practicing. Now Klemmer is making mistakes on the keyboard, he falters, with his nonbeloved in back of him. He doesn’t even know what key he’s in! He modulates senselessly in the air. He keeps getting farther and farther away from A major, where he belongs. Erika Kohut feels an ominous avalanche of jagged refuse rolling toward her. For Klemmer, this refuse is delightful—the beloved weight of the woman, bearing down upon him. His musical desires, which do not keep pace with his abilities, are diverted. Erika, scarcely moving her lips, warns him that he is sinning against Schubert. To remedy this grievance and to rouse the woman’s enthusiasm, Klemmer thinks about the mountains and valleys of Austria, about the charms galore that this country allegedly possesses. Schubert, that homebody, sensed it even if he didn’t investigate it. Klemmer then recommences the great A major sonata by the Biedermeier bourgeois who was head and shoulders above his time. Klemmer plays the piece in the spirit—or rather spirited unspir-itualness—of a German dance by the same master. He soon breaks off because his teacher derides him: He’s probably never seen a very steep cliff, a very deep chasm, a raging creek smashing through a gulch, or Neusiedler Lake in all its majesty. Such violent contrasts are expressed by Schubert, especially in this unique sonata, and not some dreary province in the mild afternoon light of five-o’clock tea, which is more akin to Smetana’s Moldau landscape. And it’s not for her, Erika Kohut, the conqueror of musical obstacles. It’s for the audience listening to Sunday-morning concerts on the Austrian Radio Network.
Klemmer blusters: If anyone knows what a raging creek is like, then it’s Walter Klemmer, whereas his teacher always huddles in dark rooms, next to her mother’s old age, and her mother does nothing but peer into the distance through a TV screen. Her mother doesn’t care whether she’s above the ground or six feet under. Erika Kohut remembers Schubert’s expression marks, and she is stirred up. Her water seethes and rages. These marks range from screams and whispers, not from loud speech to soft speech! Anarchy is not your forte, Klemmer. The athlete is too strongly rooted in convention.
Walter Klemmer wishes he could kiss her on the throat. He’s never done it, but he’s often heard about it. Erika wishes the student would kiss her on the throat, but she doesn’t give him the cue. She feels surrender rising inside her; and in her mind, surrender collides with old and new hatred, especially of women who have lived less life than she and are therefore younger. Erika’s surrender does not resemble her surrender to her mother in any way
. Her hatred resembles her usual normal hatred in every way.
In order to cloak these feelings, the woman hectically contradicts everything she has always publicly advocated about music. She says: In the interpretation of any piece of music, there is a certain point at which precision ends and the imprecision of personal creativity begins. The interpreter no longer serves, he demands! He demands the ultimate from the composer. Perhaps it is not too late for Erika to get a new lease on life. It can’t hurt to advocate new theses. Erika says with subtle irony that Klemmer has now reached a level of ability, a level on which he would have the right to place his heart and soul next to his ability. The woman instantly slaps the student’s face by saying she has no right to tacitly assume he has any ability. She was mistaken, she adds, although as a teacher she should have known better. Klemmer should go paddle his own canoe, but he should steer clear of Schubert’s spirit if he encounters it in the forest. Hideous Schubert. The student is reviled as handsome and young, while Erika adds yet another disk on each side of her hate-loaded dumbbell. She arduously manages to heave the dumbbell up to her chest. Trapped as you are in your flashy mediocrity of good looks, you don’t recognize an abyss even when you tumble into it, says Erika to Klemmer. You never take a risk! You step across puddles so you won’t get your shoes wet. When you turn upside down while canoeing—I do understand this much—you instantly turn yourself right side up. You’re even scared of the water, that unique submission, in which your head’s been dunked! It’s so obvious you’d rather dabble in the shallows. You scoot around crags gingerly—gingerly for you!—before you really notice them.
Erika shrilly struggles for breath. Klemmer wrings his hands in order to prevent his beloved—who is not yet his beloved—from taking this path. Do not block the way to me forever, he tells her for her own good. And he seems strangely fortified, emerging from the athletic struggle as if from a war between the sexes. An aging woman writhes and wriggles on the ground, the foam of fury on her chin. This woman can peer into music the way one peers into the wrong side of a telescope, making music look very distant and very tiny. You can’t slam on her brakes when she feels she has to say something that is inspired by this music. Then she talks a blue streak. Erika feels eaten up by the injustice: Nobody loved that fat little boozer Franz Schubert. When she looks at Klemmer, she very keenly feels that incompatibility: between Schubert and women. A dark chapter in the porno mag of art. Schubert did not live up to the popular image of the genius, either as a creator or as a virtuoso. Klemmer is a crowd-pleaser. The crowd creates images and is not satisfied until it encounters its images in the wild. Schubert didn’t even own a piano—how well off you are by contrast, Herr Klemmer! How unfair that Klemmer lives but doesn’t practice enough, while Schubert is dead. Erika Kohut insults a man from whom she nevertheless desires love. She unwisely thrashes away at him, nasty words booming under the membrane of her palate, on the hide of her tongue. At night, her face swells shut while Mother snores next to her, not suspecting a thing. In the morning, Erika peers into a mirror, but can’t see her eyes because of the fall of the folds. She gapes and gawks at her reflection, but the image doesn’t improve. Man and woman once again face each other, paralyzed in a struggle.