1968

- This is the business edge of tomorrow, you know. No pain without suffering and no enjoyment without sorrow.

The glare of the film takes the edge off the stinging. I was so tired back then that it hurt. The feeling of distance never receded and yet stayed the same where it always was. It did not suit me otherwise. Time ticks onwards. I have been trapped in this life since I was born. I try and focus on the cracks in the plasterwork behind his ears and over his head.

- I knew poverty back then, but it never suited me, he says. I wonder if he is talking to me or to someone else in the empty room where we are sitting. Perched on a seat, sipping coffee from a Matina and pronouncing stuff like the whole goddammed place was ready to hit a Hennepin. The sevenths. The ninths. Those tricky other bits in between them all. So close that you can taste its aftershave on your lips. - I found a taste in the things that I liked so I let them cultivate me as being one of their own.

The porno glides slowly onwards with the sound off. Around us are the signs of those he has trapped. Maybe he has no wish to back up his words with proof. Maybe he has no proof. Maybe he has no words. - Have you ever thought about making a grant for yourself?

The lights outside are fading now. I can hear the rain spattering on the panes again, like waves on the beach. Cloudless night skies cover us all and nurture us through the hard times ahead. His face shadows with a passing nimbus of panic. - Not that I ever let things like that bother me too much, of course. Grants are all very well, but not if you have a career to fall back on. What are you going to do with your life?

The stinging edge returns and I shift uncomfortably in the seat. The empty room has only a desk and a filing cabinet in it. I never know which way to look because there is nothing of interest in here to distract me from the awful noises I am hearing and the pain that is probably never going to go away, at least not fully. - Take the papers and go, he says at last. - I've no more business with you being here.

I stand to go, embarrassed by my nakedness and by the pronounced erection that will not recede. He nods down at it. - I'd do something about that before I left, if I were you.

In agreement I limp over towards the glare and sob. I see a reasonably mature fourteen year old girl with her legs spread open, inviting my close and intimate inspection. There is no sound. Occasionally she shifts her position to show that she is alive and that this is a movie, not a photograph. This is no ordinary Tuesday.

 - Your parents think I am a decent man, he says again. - There is no reason to disbelieve them, is there?

I suppose not. I grasp myself as the girl in the video mouths words whose meaning I will never know. Whatever else happens, I know that I cannot help myself and that this is the excuse I have been looking for all my life. I look between her legs and wish that I were buried inside her. As I come, he laughs behind me. - The business edge of tomorrow, you know! And we are all getting fucked getting there!