"It is the Tale, not he who tells it."
Stephen King - 1982

(Nota: Todas estas histórias estão devidamente registadas na Inspecção Geral das Actividades Culturais. Não que passe pela cabeça de alguém interessar-se em roubar seja lá o que for, mas pelo menos fica o desclaimer.)

PART III

"We entered her apartment. It smelled of old books and aromatic herbs. The floor continued its shrieks, and there were very tall windows cutting through the walls.
She lighted up a red blood candle, and said nothing as she threw her tongue down my throat and disposed of my clothing. My blood boiled in a flash and we didn’t even make it to the bed. We fucked each other’s brains out in a way I never experienced in my short and boring life. She simply let go of everything and held nothing back, at far as her libido was concerned.
I had never given the deserved importance to a voice until that moment. The silence, apart from the sounds indicating pleasure, was complete. We didn’t share one word, and that confused me at some point. After the orgasm, in that necessary and sadistic pause that nature gave to some men, things would come out of the pleasure delirium country, and they were bound to get strange and awkward. Someone’s going down on you and you simply say nothing? I mean, how it the hell are going to spill cum of someone’s sheets and not say a word to them? I know it seems small stuff, but hell, it started to scare me a little bit. Men get scared of women, and especially around situations that totally diverge from what is (wrongfully, I know) deemed normal. And since she was the one who was controlling things, the discomfort increased.

She smiled at me during intercourse, and oral sex, and everything you can imagine. That same bizarre smile that felt like a bitter almond amongst the most perfect cream topped ice cream. Her eyes got bigger, and I saw myself going round and round in my head, feeling every inch of her skin and warmth, and still something inside me just wouldn’t shut down. Like an insistent fire alarm, away from the flames that might consume it.
At some time, like all women are capable of, (at least those who I honestly think that are willing to enjoy and understand sex – it’s real power, make no mistake about it…), she decided that it was time for me to cum, and her thighs gripped my waste as she rode harder. Her hair started to fly around the room, and her voice came out in a long and tone variable moan.
In about two seconds my genitals warned my brain that final impact was near, and closing fast. Something like a hot avalanche climbing the mountain started to brew in my crotch, and in a few seconds, hell was broken loose, and all was quiet again. Orgasms are the shortest and most effective previews of and idea or threat of heaven, if there is one. That’s how I see them, I mean. But surely you’ve heard about it. Or have done it, I hope.
As I tried to catch my breath, I sensed a terrible pain on the right side of my body, and my skin felt wet. I looked and saw that something’s handle was coming out of my ribs. Blood poured out into the floor like a fluid made out of dark melted roses.
I looked up and she was standing. There was another smile on her face this time. And within the pain and horror, I guess I saw a compassionated smile. Like the ones your mother gives you when she realizes that you are really coming down with something.
She was naked, and she was smiling, and she was holding a large bladed knife on her right hand. Her eyes were bloodshot, but the smile never disappeared. I was screaming now, and kept on screaming as she slowly started to cut my throat. Her smile endured, and never shifted.
I was still screaming when my friend grabbed my forearm. But apparently nobody heard a thing. I was sweating, and drops fell down my forehead and neck, reaching my upper back. I couldn’t see, but the itching in my eyes told me that they were filled with little crooked red lines, as if I emerged from a four hour crying session.
He asked me if I was okay, because I looked like Hamlet after a chat with his dad. I nodded, lying through my teeth. Somehow I was still looking at her, sitting across the table. She was smiling. A wonderfully warm and slightly perverted grin as she looked at me.
The dinner ended shortly after that. I reached for the street and filled my lungs with the night air. It felt very good. The lights and people walking the streets filled me with relief, like a bed side reading light just after a long nightmare.

They all exited the restaurant, said goodbye to Mr. António, a very nice man, with a waste the size of a circus tent, and flocked around the bar doors. She found me and I got the first look without that smile. It was a pleased gawk, that I didn’t quite understand. She seemed as relieved as I was.

We didn’t hook up that night. I was baffled and scared, and so tired that it seemed as if I had done the marathon or bare feet.
I reached home and fell on the bed, completely worn-out. As expected, I had a lot of bad dreams, but somehow I never woke up. My mind put up a fight against my intents to wake up. And when I did, the sun was already half way through its daily journey in a summer’s day.
My birthday friend called me around two o’clock, and told me that my other friend, the female smiling one, had asked about me. I dismissed his intentions to play the Cupid in ten seconds, and somehow he understood my feelings on the matter. Ana had told him that almost all the other pretenders had done the same thing. It hit me as something too weird to be filed as coincidence in that suspicious and fearful region of my brain. But since I never believed in love at first site, I never got the chance to miss the imaginary touch of someone who had loved and killed me wearing the same smile. Time took it away like calm sea waves slowly destroy a sand castle, and it became one of those strange memories that you recall in a late night chat with really close friends.

The love of my life called me two years after that, and it took me a while to recall who she was. She told me her name and a distant bell start to toll. The sound brought me fear and also a strange curiosity. When she asked if we could get a cup of coffee I didn’t even hesitate, and even if I live to be one hundred years old I’ll never find out why. It seemed stupid to ignore such a strong premonition, or bad feeling to be honest, but I did it anyway. Like those kids that finally convince themselves that the noise in the closet has nothing to do with the eerie shadows that sometimes appeared on the bedroom walls, I decided to meet fear head on.
We met, talked, and kept doing so for quite some time. We fell in love in exactly one month, give or take. Her smile was every bit as unusual as I recalled it, but this time her voice joined the party. She spoke like she stared. A bright sense of humour, joined by good hearted sarcasm and a sexual tension that she could master like no one I ever met. She looked beautiful to me, and most times she said a lot of right things.
Nevertheless, and even after a considerable sum of years, I guess that she has an inner place that’s off limits to everyone, even me. I perceived her world as a foundation to that inexplicable weirdness, which she never lost, and will never loose. You can argue that shit like that happens to everyone. Every person that has loved another in any possible way will tell you that he or she thinks that they will never completely know theirs lovers. But this was different. With her, it was like something securely locked, and with no chance of sharing.
I had a pretty good guess two years ago, just before we moved in together. I was doing research for a new novel, ( Not that I have published anything yet, but some kind of dumb stubbornness can be almost inspiring I guess), and came across some old newspapers from the a public library’s archives. It was a small piece, telling the sad fate of a young man who was found dead with his throat cut open and completely naked.
And then I realised one thing. Hundreds of things, actually, but this one stuck to my brain like a bug on fly paper. It wriggled ferociously, but remained there nonetheless.
The love of our lives creates the illusion of attainable perfection. It appears as a demonstration of our ability to feel something for another human being. It is illogic in some of its elements, and pretty explainable in others. It dwells in fear and risk, and casts a shadow of impending death, for love might be nurtured, but its health is not always related to the care it receives.
I think that the love of our lives saves us. It’s about the most heard cliché to ever leave the mouth of someone truly in love, and generally they’re right. Well, I know it is wishful thinking most of the time, but isn't it like that with almost anything that's important?
But mine…
Oh well. It’s complicated, maybe your most wild garden variety paranoia. The one that gets you a membership card that grants access to a place where people drool, see things and walk trough a tunnel where generally there in no way out.
But still… I am convinced. And the reason why I didn’t investigate further becomes obvious, I guess.
The love of my live didn’t just save me.
She spared me."


The End

Carnaxide -19-02-2004

Por razões que dizem respeito à delicadeza do assunto e algum sigilo que deve assistir, quanto mas não seja, às pessoas que são forçadas a trabalhar em antros destes, não serão mencionados nomes. Mas uma vez que pretendo meter-me pessoalmente nesta trapalhada e pelo menos chatear os cornos a este idiota, fica pelo menos a exposição de uma das muitas situações que este país permite, e que deverá ser um recado para os liberais que tanto apregoam a liberalização da lei laboral, que, como já vários especialistas, incluindo o professor Monteiro Fernandes, vieram denunciar como uma falácia no que diz respeito ao favorecimento da economia. Bem sei que para uns quantos, tratar as pessoas como números é apenas uma consequência da chamada economia global, mas só espero já estar a fazer tijolo quando as consequências da objectificação selvática das pessoas der os seus frutos.

Uma amiga, fotógrafa, foi contratada em regime de "prestação de serviços", ou seja, uma treta muito conveniente supostamente suportada por recibos verdes para justificar a ausência de um vínculo laboral. O idiota do empregador, além de não ter sequer uma casa de banho utilizável pelos funcionários ou clientes, deixar que a luz seja cortada por falta de pagamento, e utilize estagiários como trabalho escravo que dá muito jeito, não paga contribuições à Segurança Social, dá ordens, indica local de trabalho, contrata uma actividade e não uma tarefa isolada, paga sempre ao mesmo dia ou quase, o mesmo montante por transferência, exige horário de trabalho e estabelece folgas. Ou seja é o protótipo do prevaricador imbecil, porque nem prevaricar sabe.

Ou seja, ao comunicar a "cessação do contrato de prestação de servições", está, claramente, a despedir ilicitamente porque, como imaginam, isto não é um contrato de prestação de serviços nem aqui nem na China (bem, lá vale tudo, mas aqui, por enquanto, ainda não).

Escusado será dizer que o trabalho nunca esteve atrasado, a moça nunca faltou, e comete apenas o pecado de custar uma centena de contos ao mês, quando afinal há aí tanto estagiário para espremer durante uns meses.

Estes casos repetem-se por toda a parte, à mão de gente que certamente alinhará pelo discurso de que com a flexibilização, nada disto acontecia. Claro que não. Com a flexibilização, a arbitrariedade é clara, e assim a moça poderia ser mandada às urtigas dentro da lei.

Gostaria de perguntar à malta mais "liberal" se este tipo de exemplos não comprova que muitos tipos com uma chafarica aberta, se puderem poupar uns cobres, fá-lo-ão seja á custa de quem for? É lamentável que tanta gente, do alto dos seus gabinetes simpáticos e polidos mandem postas de pescada acerca do que deveria ser a liberalização de uma protecção que tem simplesmente a ver com a sobrevivência de todos os dias, quando a grande maioria dos exemplos assenta numa lógica economicista e ponto.

Este é o exemplo das "boas intenções" da liberalização. Energúmenos como este com cheques em branco.

E o mais caricato, apenas para dar um exemplo, é o facto de bancos exigirem uma situação estável para concederem empréstimos para habitação que são afinal de contas um dos seus objectos de negócio mais relevantes. Se isto não é esquizofrenia, não sei o que será.

Por enquanto ainda se consegue, pelo menos, assustar cabrões destes. Não sei o que será quando a "maravilha" do flexível puder deixar as pessoas completamente desamparadas, sem qualquer espécie de direito ou ideia de reconversão para, sei lá, ter uma vida. Mas para alguns isso é um luxo incomportável no admirável mundo novo.

É nestas alturas que me lembro da Tenente Ripley - "Ao menos (os Alien) não se fodem uns aos outros por uma percentagem...)

Pois...