1
Can I help you?
I have to go back a bit.
I was 12 years old
and on a school trip in the hills.
Are you making fun of me?
What do you mean?
You have this orgasm,
not only an orgasm,
- ...but a spontaneous orgasm.
- Yes, it was an orgasm,
though the doctor
described it as a...
An epileptic seizure.
And during that orgasm,
you have this vision
of these two women
on each side of you?
Was she holding the veil
with two fingers like this?
What's the matter?
You don't even know who
these women were, do you?
No, but one of them did
look like the Virgin Mary,
now that you mention it.
Well, it wasn't the Virgin
Mary, I can tell you that.
From your description,
it must've been
Valeria Messalina,
the wife of Emperor Claudius,
the most notorious
nymphomaniac in history.
And the other woman,
the one astride the creature,
that was no one else but
the great whore of Babylon
riding on Nimrod in
the form of a bull.
Your story is like a...
Blasphemous retelling
of the transfiguration
of Jesus on the mount...
Which is one of the
eastern church's
holiest passages.
It's when the humanity of Christ
is illuminated by the
divine light of eternity.
If anyone else would
have told me that story,
I would've seen it as
a blasphemous joke,
spiced up with a biblical light
emanating from nothing less
than a spontaneous orgasm.
And then later, you lost
your orgasm altogether.
Wagner.
"Das Rheingold,
the descent into Nibelheim."
Was it that bad?
Try to imagine that
in one fell swoop,
you lost all desire to read
and all your love and passion
for books and letters.
I don't even know if
I can imagine that.
This is nothing less
than Zeno's paradox.
You are Achilles
and the tortoise is the orgasm.
Oh, come on.
Because you were giving chase,
you couldn't reach satisfaction.
That's the paradox.
I'm sorry, but it seems as if you're
not taking this very seriously.
I'm telling you about the worst
thing that's happened to me,
that I, at that point
within seconds,
lost all sexual sensation.
My cunt simply went numb!
And immediately we have to hear
about this ridiculous
mathematical problem.
In fact, I'm in doubt whether
you're even listening.
Why do you doubt that?
Whenever I've told other
men about experiences,
episodes in my sex life,
it was easy to see that
they became quite excited.
I got excited.
Yes, about the mathematical crap,
not about the story.
What kind of a person
are you actually?
I...
You wouldn't know.
No, but I can guess.
Why didn't I get that earlier?
The fact you don't get
excited over my dirty stories
is because you can't
relate to them.
You've never been with a woman.
That's quite accurate.
Not with a man either.
Are you sorry about that?
Well yeah, but...
Out of curiosity.
Not out of lust,
as you would think.
I consider myself...
Asexual.
Of course I...
Experimented
with masturbation when
I was a teenager, but...
It didn't do much for me.
So there's nothing sexual about me.
It's not as uncommon
as you would think.
And of course I've...
I've read a lot about
sexual subjects:
"Canterbury tales," "Decameron,"
"thousand and one nights."
You name it
and I've read it with great
interest and enjoyment...
But only literary enjoyment.
But I... but I think
maybe it makes me
a better listener to your story.
I have no preconceived
notions or...
Or preferences.
I'm actually the best judge
you could give your story to.
And when it comes to
deciding whether you're
a bad human being or not, I'm...
I have no problems with that.
Because I don't look at
you through the glasses
colored by sexuality
or sexual experience.
I'm a virgin.
I'm innocent.
She's looking at me.
Yes.
It's an icon.
Is it Russian?
Yes, it's...
It's a skilled copy,
maybe in the manner of Rublev.
Icons are usually connected
to the eastern church.
The eastern church?
I might become a bit theoretical.
You may.
I'd like you to tell
me about your picture.
Although the Christian church
was split up in 1054 because
of differences in opinion
between the eastern church
and the western church...
What we today call
the orthodox church
and the roman catholic church.
This is a typical
eastern church icon.
And it usually depicts
the Virgin Mary
and the infant Jesus,
and more rarely,
for instance, the crucifixion,
which in the western church
was much more prevalent.
If you generalize,
you could say that
the western church is the
church of suffering,
and the eastern church is
the church of happiness.
If you imagine a mental
journey from Rome eastward,
you feel how you move away
from guilt and pain
towards joy and light.
But you say you didn't
believe in God.
No, but the concept of
religion is interesting...
Like the concept of sex.
But you won't find me on my knees
with the regards to either.
Let's call this chapter,
um, "the eastern church
and the western church."
But it won't be...
It won't be a story
about traveling east from Rome
towards the light, but
rather the opposite.
So in order not to make it too sad,
I've pepped up the name of the
chapter with an extra title.
In spite of my tireless efforts,
my cunt totally failed to respond.
I have to admit there came a time
when we had fun together.
I'll give you a fiver...
Uh-huh.
If you can put this
up inside your cunt.
A fiver?
Right.
Shit.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
- Didn't get any spoons?
- No, we didn't.
The most grotesque thing was
that it was during that period
where every sexual
sensation was denied me...
A period, I must admit,
of secure and restful
domestic comfort...
We had moved in
together and so on...
That I became pregnant,
because I was careless about
my birth control pills.
Consciously or unconsciously,
it was important for
me to have a cesarean.
I mean, I was hoping that my cunt
was going to fucking work again,
and I had a feeling that
a haphazard birth wouldn't
make things better.
I may have been imagining things,
but as I lay there the
noise from the instruments
rang out in a chord like
the one from the little flock.
Yes.
And it wasn't fear.
More like a kind of disgust.
I could've sworn
I saw him laughing.
A laughing son?
In "Doctor Faustus," Thomas Mann
describes the birth of Noah's son Ham,
who was laughing when he was born.
Another satanic omen.
Incidentally, the innocent
child was named Marcel,
after Mars, the roman God of war.
And motherhood?
I assume maternal love
didn't quite live up
to its expectations.
No, I didn't have any expectations.
And maternal love wasn't a problem.
It was just that each time
I looked into the child's eyes,
I had this unsettling feeling
of having been found out.
I know it's probably
a strange thing
to say about a child...
That my love wasn't
being returned...
But it was my perception.
If Jerome had hoped for a break
from what was for him now
mostly strenuous work,
he could forget about it.
Fill all my holes.
I can't, Joe.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Can we talk about it?
Of course.
I love you, I love your
wildness and your desire.
At the moment I don't seem to satisfy
you in the way that I'd like to.
Don't get upset, Joe. It doesn't mean
we won't continue with our sex life,
which is very important to me.
Very important to me.
Mmm, when you buy a tiger,
right?
You also have to feed it.
Um, satisfy it,
right?
Long story short:
I have a tiger on my hands.
- You mean I'm too much for you.
- No.
You're just the way you should be.
I was just thinking
if you would consider
that I get a little help with
the feeding, that's all.
You're saying I should have
sex with others as well.
That's a rather cruel way
of putting it, Joe, but...
- But exact.
- ...Exact.
For a long time I'd
been playing around
with the idea that the concept
of the fuck-me-now clothes
could be improved...
You look nice.
And became the piano teacher.
You okay?
No.
What's the matter?
Well, I'm such an idiot with cars.
I don't really know what to do.
Do you mind helping me?
Well, of course it won't work.
Sparkplug caps have been removed.
Yes, I did that.
Was that wrong?
For the first time I had
the pleasure of having
an 8-cylinder car.
The possible combinations
of eight spark-plug caps
on eight spark plugs are 40,320,
if I remembered my math correctly.
And only one of these
will make the car run,
which gave me all
the time I needed.
Beethoven, huh?
He was certainly very
good, but, you know,
- ...he couldn't write a fugue.
- You think so?
Well...
Yeah, I think so.
It would be more precise
to say that Beethoven
renewed the fugue...
But he was such a visionary
that the old Bach purists,
they accused him of
not mastering it.
Good day?
And now to reach the heart
of your suffering western church,
I have to jump ahead
three years in the story
and talk about my meeting
with what I would call
"the dangerous men."
I was alone with Marcel a
lot during this period,
as Jerome was traveling
most of the time.
And when he was finally home,
he spent most of the time accusing
me of neglecting Marcel,
which in my opinion
was just a cover for his
anger over my lovers.
Any sexual satisfaction,
let alone orgasm,
was further away than ever before.
I had to make a change.
And somehow the inspiration
had been right there
beneath my window the whole time.
I could feel that it
turned me on enormously
to imagine a sexual situation
in which verbal communication
was impossible.
- Hello.
- Hello.
I'm Tobias, the interpreter.
Hello, I'm Joe.
Come in.
I understand that you master
the African languages.
I do have a basis.
Who and what needs interpretation?
Um, that man...
The one with the green jacket?
You are to ask him if he
wants to have sex with me.
Yeah? Um...
Is it a go?
It's hard to say.
I've written down the
time and the place,
but, um...
Honestly I wouldn't like
to take responsibility
for the precise
wording in this case,
which I think, uh,
accidentally may belong
to a grey zone in my profession.
It was the address
of a cheap hotel.
Why were there two?
My words exactly.
Apparently N had brought
his brother along.
Very sorry.
Sorry sorry sorry.
Why was he so angry?
Clearly it was something
personal between them,
but later I heard that
performing a sandwich
requires great sensitivity,
since the men apparently can feel
each other through the tissue.
I imagine the quarrel
had already started
on the stairs and that
one or the other party
had laid claim to one or
the other of my holes
in conflict with his negro
brother's interests.
You shouldn't use that word.
It's not what you call
politically correct...
- "Negro."
- Well, excuse me,
but in my circles
it's always been a mark of
honor to call a spade a spade.
Each time a word
becomes prohibited,
you remove a stone from the
democratic foundation.
Society demonstrates its impotence
in the face of a concrete problem
by removing words
from the language.
I think society would claim that...
That politically correctness
is a very precise expression
of democratic concern
for minorities.
And I say that society
is as cowardly as the people in it,
who in my opinion are also
too stupid for democracy.
I understand your point,
but I totally disagree.
I have no doubt in
the human qualities.
The human qualities
can be expressed in one word:
Hypocrisy.
We elevate those who say
"right" but mean "wrong"
and mock those who
say "wrong" but mean "right."
By the way, I can assure you
that women who claim that
negros don't turn them on,
- ...they're lying.
- So did they satisfy you?
Those ne-negros?
No.
But they showed me
that there was a world
far from mine I had to explore.
And there, or perhaps
on the other side,
get my life back.
Who are you?
I know what you do.
I'd like to be
one of the women you see.
That's of no interest.
Madame.
Princess,
I specifically said five days,
and five days haven't gone yet.
So...
You'll have to leave.
I'm sorry.
I, um...
I don't think this is for you.
How mysterious.
Will you give me a
reasonable explanation now
or shall we wait?
I can't give you an explanation,
and certainly not a reasonable...
What exactly were the
rumors about him?
That he was violent.
How can that be inciting?
I think the easiest
way to understand it
is to refer to my
rebellious nature.
This business of K's was
something I was completely against.
So the fact that I was
now contacting him was
a last, desperate attempt
to rehabilitate my sexuality.
The system was the
overriding factor with K.
A system of violence?
Well, you were the one
who insisted on the
western church, right?
And I...
I seem to remember
that the systematic approach
to the crucifixion is of a violent
and not to say sadistic nature.
Oh yes, the passion of Christ
is full of systematic violence...
The Via Dolorosa,
the nine stations of the cross
and the 39 lashes.
You are beginning to irritate me.
Stand up.
I just want you to sit
completely relaxed...
While I hit you in the face.
Nothing special.
It's just a...
It's just a slap.
Are you ready?
Let me tell you the rules then.
The first rule is
that I don't fuck you
and that there isn't any
discussions about that.
Then what do you get out of it?
That's my business
and I don't want you
to mention it again.
The second rule is that
we have no safe word.
Meaning that if you,
uh, go inside with me,
there is nothing that you can say
that will make me stop
any plan or procedure.
You must bring a brown
used leather riding crop.
And not one from a
shop selling sex toys.
It's not a masquerade.
Third rule:
If I choose to let you in,
you have to be sitting out here.
In other words, you...
You won't know when.
Only that it will be
sometime between...
2:00 and 6:00 at night.
I can't stay here that late.
My babysitter's not reliable and...
I can't leave my child.
You don't even know my name!
I'm not interested in your name.
Here your name is...
Fido.
Marcel's awake.
D'you want to say
goodbye to your mom?
Goodbye.
I'll take your coat.
I'd like you to have your hair up.
You can use this.
Just in case it becomes
necessary for me
to hit you in the face.
Should I take my clothes off?
I'll tell you what to do...
And when.
Now you may bend down.
How?
Approach the chair.
Now bend from the hips.
Look forward.
Look forward.
With your head up.
Head up.
Keep looking forward.
Keep looking forward.
You may stand up.
We have to use the couch.
Come this way.
Take it easy, take it easy.
Bend over.
Lay your arms out straight.
Take it easy.
Take it easy.
Take it easy.
Next time don't wear knickers.
Your ass is not high enough.
I don't think we can do this today.
What?
I'd like to see you
again on Thursday.
What's wrong?
I think we should see how
it goes on Thursday.
Hi, I can't come to
the phone right now.
Please leave a message.
Yes, this is Marcel's mother again.
Uh, it's now 1:30.
We had an agreement.
I hope you get this message
and come as quickly as you can.
Uh, Marcel is sleeping.
Um...
I have to go now.
Better.
Also so much better.
So much better.
I am now going to hit you 12 times
no matter how much you scream...
'Cause no one can
hear you down here.
That's, uh...
That's not how it goes.
Most people don't scream
until I hit them.
Oh!
That's it.
Thank you.
You're very welcome.
I don't know where we
get our sexuality from
or where tendencies of
this kind come from.
Probably a perversion
created in our childhood
that never manifested
itself before.
Well, oddly enough,
Freud says the opposite.
He talks about the polymorphic
perversion of a child.
Meaning that in a child,
all kinds of perversions exist.
And then we use the childhood
to diminish or remove some of them.
Basically a child is
sexually polymorphic
and everything is
sexuality in an infant.
And yet it was deeply bizarre
to lie there
and especially to
want to lie there.
It is an interesting point
that you actually lubricated
in expectation for a pain
that you hadn't experienced.
Your body prepared itself
for an intercourse that
you knew wouldn't happen.
I can only describe
the mood as sexual.
As I twisted and turned
while he was whipping me,
I could feel how
clever his knots were.
If I fought them, they
would get tighter,
and as I relaxed,
it seemed they did too.
I don't know what kind of knot
K used...
But I know of a knot
that tightens when force is exerted
and vice versa.
It's called a Prusik knot.
It's after a man called Prusik.
He was a mountain climber.
And he and a friend
were out climbing
and they had an accident
and his friend died.
And he ended up hanging
at the end of a rope
with no possibility of getting up.
You know, you can't climb up
a mountain-climber rope.
It's too thin.
But he was an intelligent man,
and with his back to the
wall he was a genius.
And he took the shoelaces
out of his boots
and made two loops and
affixed them to the rope.
And he could move these up
when they weren't under tension.
And then he could step into them
and climb the rope
and save himself.
Prusik.
I think this was one of
your weakest digressions.
May I continue?
Well, be my guest.
I sometimes give a
Christmas present.
But, uh, you have to
do the work yourself.
This is called a blood knot.
You have to make nine ropes
with three blood knots on each.
Let me see you do it.
You decide whether to make four,
five or six turns
in the various knots.
Joe?
Hello.
Marcel?
Marcel!
Are you fond of me still?
- Yes.
- More fond of me than the others?
- Yes?
- Yes.
You're not thinking of
leaving again tonight, are you?
- No.
- No?
- No no. Not at all.
- Are you sure?
Yeah.
Are you lying to me, Joe?
- No.
- Be honest.
It's all right.
Just fucking say it.
No, I... I just want to be here.
Why?
I don't know.
If you leave tonight...
You'll never see me or Marcel
ever again in your life.
Do you understand?
Is this goodbye?
Is that what you're saying?
Marcel, get up.
- Stop it.
- Is that what you want?
Here, so you could see him.
Look at him, Joe.
Let's face it, Joe,
you're not a mother.
Let's wake him up.
Marcel, baby boy,
say, "bye, Mom."
- Please put him back.
- Is this what you want?
Hmm?
- Ma.
- You see?
You see, he wants you.
Come.
It's Christmas.
It's fucking Christmas.
What is this?
Today it's madame who must wait.
Madame, I'm very sorry,
but I have to have a few
words with Fido first.
I really ought to send you home.
Happy Christmas, Fido.
I want your cock.
What did you say?
I want your cock.
No. No, you don't.
No, you don't. No.
What's the matter with you today?
On account of the holidays
and your behavior today,
I'm going to give you the
original roman maximum
of 40 lashes.
Are you ready, Fido?
I'm ready.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
I'd seen through K's
knot technique,
so I was able to loosen my
position a bit to move my pelvis,
and thereby stimulate my clitoris
against the cover of the book.
And when you came home,
Jerome and the child were gone?
I haven't seen Marcel since.
The sentimentality of...
I hate it.
Why?
Because it's a lie.
Are you sure?
Jerome understood that
he couldn't prioritize
his life according
to a child either.
So he put him in a foster home.
My only contact to the boy
is the thousand pounds
I put in his account every month.
Anonymously.
As a penance.
After all this
sadness, may I ask...
What happened to the silent duck?
Oh shit.
The silent duck.
I'd forgotten all about it.
One night K had been
in what was for him
an unusually good mood.
I don't know what caused
it, but he didn't hit hard
and he joked that he
would introduce me
to the concept of the silent duck.
One hardly dare imagine
"the quacking duck."
Oh.
Well, deep down, little
K seems to have been
a jolly man with versatile talents.
But he got that bit about
roman punishment and
the 40 lashes wrong.
Because it's true that the highest
punishment was 40 lashes,
but it had to be delivered
in series of three.
That's why Jesus
only got 39 lashes,
because three goes into 39
but not into 40.
You have a mirror.
Yes.
It's like a thought, isn't it?
Are you ready for another chapter?
Go on.
Some years later, the bodily abuse
began to have an effect.
First, rare bleedings
from my clitoris,
but then they became
more and more frequent.
Come in.
Have you heard any of the
rumors about yourself?
They say you see men every evening.
And spend all night with them.
They say you can't be trusted...
all of them.
Why do they say that?
I suppose they're afraid that I...
I can't keep away from their men.
Right.
- And can you?
- No.
I've spoken with a psychologist.
He says you're addicted,
but that it's not
the kind of addiction
that can't be treated.
They have some groups.
I know about these kinds of groups.
I don't have anything to
say to a psychologist.
I'm not suggesting therapy.
I'm demanding it.
Even if you leave us, it'll
be the same at your next job
and the one after that.
My name is Joe...
Hi, Joe.
And I'm a nymphomaniac.
Sex addict.
My name is Joe and
I'm a nymphomaniac.
We say sex addict.
Here everyone's the same.
You should only speak when
you feel you have to.
What you're saying is that
no one can remove their sexuality
even though it's destroying
everything for them.
I wouldn't say no one.
But let's say, at most,
one in a million
manage to live a life
without sexuality.
But you can't be
basing your therapy
- ...on that one in a million.
- No.
The first and most important step
is to remove incentive
and to reduce exposure.
You have to ask yourself what
kind of incentives you have
and then make it difficult for yourself
to come into contact with them.
Basically anything that
makes you think about sex.
Joe has something
she'd like to share.
My name is Joe...
Hi, Joe.
And I'm a sex addict,
but I haven't had sex for
three weeks and five days.
Tell us how you did it, Joe.
- You brought notes?
- Yes.
"Dear everyone,
don't think it's been easy,
but I understand now
that we are all alike."
Are you okay, Joe?
Yes yes.
Would you like a glass of water?
Thank you.
Would you rather
share another time?
No, I'd like to speak.
Dear everyone,
don't think it's been easy,
but I understand now
that we're not
and never will be alike.
I'm not like you,
who fucks to be validated
and might just as well give
up putting cocks inside you.
And I'm not like you.
All you want is to be filled up, and
whether it's by a man or by tons
of disgusting slop
makes no difference.
And I'm definitely not like you.
That empathy you claim
is a lie,
because all you are is
society's morality police,
whose duty is to erase my obscenity
from the surface of the earth
so that the bourgeoisie
won't feel sick.
I'm not like you.
I am a nymphomaniac,
and I love myself for being one.
But above all,
I love my cunt
and my filthy, dirty lust.
Watch out
you might get what you're after
cool, babies
strange, but not a stranger
I'm an ordinary guy
burning down the house!
What just happened?
I didn't get that...
With the car that burned.
No, I'm sorry.
I was just in too much of a hurry
to get to the last chapter.
I understood that society
had no room for me,
and I had no room for society
and never had.
I'm sure it was quite
natural for you
to furnish your room
as a monk's cell,
but as an inspiration for
the story chapter headings,
it hasn't been easy.
There's simply nothing
left for me to use.
Well, I'm sorry about that.
But if I may, I can give you a tip.
Yes, please.
You know, I occupy
myself mostly with text,
but sometimes the
text can seem so...
So empty, so unfathomably empty.
It could be the best text
by the most famous author.
The solution might be to
change your point of view.
I-I don't get that.
Things hide...
When they become familiar.
But if you look at them
from another angle,
they might take on a new meaning.
You're right.
Before this was just
the stain from the tea I threw.
Can you see what it could be?
A revolver.
No, a revolver has a
drum that revolves.
It's a pistol.
Can you see what kind it could be?
No, I don't remember
anything like that
from my literature.
Oh, but it's something I
can remember from mine.
Ian Fleming.
Not familiar.
If you haven't read that, you
haven't read anything at all.
This could be, with a
little imagination,
a Walther P.P.K. Automatic,
the same gun that
was issued to bond
after his preferred pistol,
the Beretta, had jammed.
Is that something you can use?
Oh yes, it is.
Burning down the house!
Hold tight
wait till the party's over
hold tight...
Whether I left society,
or it left me, I cannot say.
I suppose you could make an
argument for both sides.
Burning down the house!
I was on my way to the shady side
of the debt-collecting business,
which among other
things involved stuff
like burning people's cars.
I had for a long time
known about this man, L.
Hi, my name is Joe.
I know that.
Come in.
I'm looking for a job.
I've been working in an office,
and I was never really good at it.
I can understand that.
I mean,
what's the point?
I believe I possess
some qualifications
and that I'm rather unscrupulous.
I know all about
your qualifications
and they're excellent.
I would suggest
that you start your
own little business
with my help.
I understand
you possess a great deal of insight
about a rather broad
spectrum of men.
This could be... or should
be capitalized on.
I need sub-contractors who can put
moderate pressure on individuals
with whom my clients
rightly or wrongly
have a bone to pick.
Understand?
Extortion.
No.
No no no no.
I always prefer the term
"debt collection."
- Yeah.
- I refrain from judging
whether my clients' wishes
are legitimate or otherwise.
A point of view
I strongly recommend you follow.
My main qualification of course
was my considerable
experience with men and sex.
But even my more specialized
skills came in handy.
No, now this is not how it goes.
You have to wait until you're hit.
The two helpers that L had
recommended were okay,
but they were predisposed to a
rather repetitive technique,
which consisted of creating
as much havoc as possible
with a pair of iron bars.
Destroying your things doesn't
seem to have much effect on you.
Here was a man
I was unable to read sexually,
so I became persistent.
Tie him to the chair.
Don't hurt him.
I can't find a stain on you,
but my experience tells me
that no man is spotless.
Luckily, you're equipped
with a very reliable
truth-detector.
I'm going to tell
you a few stories.
All you have to do is listen.
You're in a bar
watching a couple...
I now meticulously went
through the catalog
of sexual deviations
in fictional form.
Stories about sadomasochism,
fetishism, homosexuality,
you name it.
But he didn't react.
And I'd almost given up
on your way home, you
walk through the park.
And something makes you stop.
You hear something.
Yes, that's it.
You can hear the children
on the playground.
You sit on a bench nearby
and watch them play.
There's a little boy in shorts.
He's playing in the sandpit.
He looks at you
with his blue eyes.
He smiles at you.
I think he comes to you.
He sits on your lap
and looks up at your face.
He says
he'd like to come home with you.
At home you can't fight the idea
of being naked together.
He crawls all over you.
- You get an erection.
- Won't you please stop?
He lies on his stomach.
You pull down his pants.
I'll pay!
You did what?
I gave him a blowjob.
Why?
That pig?!
- I took pity on him.
- Pity?
Yes.
I had just destroyed his life.
Nobody knew his secret,
most probably not even himself.
He sat there with the shame.
I suppose I sucked him off
as a kind of apology.
That's unbelievable.
No, listen to me.
This is a man
who'd succeeded in
repressing his own desire,
who had never before given into it
right up until I forced it out.
He had lived a life full of denial
and had never hurt a soul.
I think that's laudable.
No matter how hard I try,
I can't find anything
laudable in pedophilia.
That's because you think about
the perhaps 5% who
actually hurt children.
The remaining 95%
never live out their fantasies.
Think about their suffering.
Sexuality is the strongest force
in human beings.
To be born with a
forbidden sexuality
must be agonizing.
The pedophile who manages
to get through life
with the shame of his desire
while never acting on it
deserves a bloody medal.
But there was another
reason for my sympathy,
which you find so mysterious.
I saw a man who was carrying
the same cross as myself.
Loneliness.
We were both sexual outcasts.
In any case, some years passed,
during which my business grew,
enabling me to step up
my anonymous deposits
to Marcel.
Your business is doing great...
You complete all the jobs
I give you to perfection
and I hear only words of praise
from your other clients.
But...
- But what?
- ...We aren't getting any younger.
Oh.
No, that's for sure.
I think you're getting to that age
where you have to start
thinking about a successor.
Ohhh.
- I don't need a fucking successor.
- Listen.
A person should take
their crime seriously.
You need someone
to be your right hand,
someone to help you.
A crown princess.
The normal process
is to find out what colleagues
are in prison or are drug addicts,
and thereby unable to fulfill
their roles as parents.
Then you find out where
their kids play football...
And you get involved.
You cheer them on for
a couple of years
no matter how bad they are.
Actually, the worse, the better.
That way
gradually you take on
the role of the parent
until in the end
you have a loyal helper that
will walk through fire for you.
Even do time for you.
It sounds like a...
Kind of an entrapment
you're suggesting.
- An unsavory entrapment.
- Call it what you want,
but if you believe at all
in the effects of good parenting,
that kid will have much
greater opportunities
with you as a mentor than without.
And since I like you,
I've been looking around
for a suitable subject.
She's 15 years old
from a family of
hardened criminals,
and she's been through a lot.
Last couple of years she's
been institutionalized.
Her father is in prison and her
mother died of an overdose.
She's a smart girl.
And although she
doesn't play football,
she does play basketball...
Very badly.
She's chosen a team sport
because she's lonely.
Her right ear is
slightly deformed...
Which she's very ashamed of,
and of course this serves
to isolate her even more.
It makes her an easy target
for even the slightest
bit of attention
or sign of empathy from you.
Despite my protests,
the clever L somehow talked me
into actually having a look at P.
The longer I watched the poor
girl with the deformed ear,
the more repulsive I
found the whole plan.
But as if L had foreseen this,
the meeting with P filled
me with pity and emotion.
And without wanting to,
I found myself,
weekend after weekend,
at her games supporting
the poor player.
Thanks for cheering me on.
You're welcome.
You played really well today.
- No, I didn't.
- You did.
You really improved
yourself lately.
I was proud to introduce P
to my father's passion...
And to his world.
It's actually...
The souls of the trees
that we see in the winter.
I think they look like human souls.
You're right.
They do look like human souls.
Twisted souls,
regular souls, crazy souls.
All depending on the kind
of lives human beings lead.
I found my tree,
my soul tree.
This is my tree.
It's not an ash tree.
No, it's an oak tree.
My father found his soul tree,
but I've...
I've never found mine.
"You will know it when you see it,"
that's what he said.
When P reached the age of majority
and I became her personal advisor,
I asked her to move in with me.
I've never seen you
with your hair up.
It's so pretty.
All this time all my sexual
activity had stopped.
My groin was one big
sore from my abuse
that wouldn't heal
and made even
masturbation impossible.
I experienced definite
abstinence symptoms:
Fever and cramps.
Joe, what's going on?
- Careful.
- We need to clear this up.
I just get this sometimes.
It's okay, it's okay.
Perhaps she really loved you.
I couldn't accept it.
Perhaps because you really
wanted it to be true.
Perhaps I hoped it.
It's very touching,
all this about P.
Then you've probably
misunderstood the whole thing.
Don't.
I wanna see you.
- Don't.
- Why?
- Please don't.
- Why not?
No.
No, I have a wound.
- I have a wound.
- It doesn't matter.
No, you don't understand.
I have that thing with my ear.
I'm so ashamed.
D'you like me?
You're so beautiful.
There's one thing
I don't understand.
Did she know what you
did for a living?
P was very discreet
and a girl of few words.
Oddly, although
I worked strange hours,
she never asked about my work.
But one day she had a question.
Joe?
Why did you start coming
to my basketball matches?
It wasn't a coincidence, was it?
No, it wasn't a coincidence.
I didn't tell you because I...
I thought you'd be upset...
And that you'd get angry at me.
I won't get angry.
What I do...
My job isn't a normal job.
It's not legal.
No one in my family
does anything legal.
A man that's helped
me in my business
suggested that I watched you.
The plan was that I...
I should look at you
to see whether one day
I could use you in my work.
I should make friends with you,
because I knew you didn't
have a mother or a father.
What's wrong with that?
Don't you see how
evil that plan was?
I felt terrible.
You shouldn't have.
Why not?
Because if you hadn't...
We'd never have met.
I'd like to go with you to work
- ...next time.
- No.
Will you think about it?
- No.
- Yes.
No.
She didn't take no for an answer.
No, of course not.
How do you keep a
wave upon the sand?
With the risk of being
too clever for myself,
social inheritance
is an irrefutable fact.
If anyone knew about
the laws of the street,
it must've been P.
You're more right than you know.
Let's shoot the fucker.
Stop! Stop!
We don't use firearms.
- I'd like to have the gun.
- The others have weapons too.
Well, I didn't know that.
But in any case,
you're not to have one.
But guns aren't dangerous.
It depends on how you use them.
Yes, exactly.
I wasn't going to shoot him.
We wouldn't have gotten any
money out of him that way.
Can I have the gun?
Thank you.
You're evil.
And now I'm afraid one
of those coincidences
you have such a hard time with
occurred with a
very special person.
It was P's job to take
us to the debtors,
so until I saw the
name on the door,
I had no idea whose
house we were at.
Are you sure this
is the right place?
Yeah.
I was thinking maybe it's time
for you to do this one on your own.
Yeah?
Thank you, Joe.
I don't want anything destroyed
and I don't want anybody hurt.
Okay?
You just show yourself
and offer him a
reasonable payment plan.
If you say so.
Of course that's how I'll do it.
Whether the feeling
when I saw Jerome again
was love, I couldn't say.
But it was a feeling,
and far stronger than I liked.
I was actually walking home
through the alley here.
No two neighborhoods
are totally different
but still so close together
that the shortest route
from Jerome's house
towards the center was
through the alley.
Hello!
How did it go?
Brilliant.
Yeah, really well.
I made a reasonable payment
plan like you told me to.
How did he look?
Scared.
How old did he look?
I dunno.
Ancient?
Jerome was to pay off his
debt in six payments.
Every time P went to
Jerome to collect,
I paced around restlessly
until she was back home again.
I even had to find my mother's
sad old solitaire cards
in order to make the hours pass.
Each night I was less
reassured by her coming home
than the night before.
The question of whether
jealousy is the fear of sharing
or the fear of losing was
of little interest to me.
But yes, it was a fact
that this unworthy feeling I had
managed to suppress for so long
was creeping up on me.
The evening she was to
collect the final payment
she didn't kiss me.
I took it to be forgetfulness,
but the hours passed
and she didn't return.
Every time I saw car lights,
I thought it was P
being driven home.
I had decided to flee.
I couldn't stay in this
town with her and him.
I had cowardly made a plan
to escape and head south,
like from some ice age
I didn't have the guts
to turn around and face.
But the goodbye was sad and
strangely unfulfilling.
And something called me on
to seek further up the Mountain.
It's said to be difficult
to take someone's life.
I would've said that it's
more difficult not to.
For a human being,
killing is the most natural
thing in the world.
We're created for it.
Wonderful.
No, get off!
Sorry.
Fireman's grip.
Oh. Oh yeah.
Fill all my holes please.
I still don't know why
the gun didn't work.
I did check to make sure
that there were bullets
in the magazine.
It simply malfunctioned,
just like bond's Beretta.
I think I know enough to say that
even if you had rounds in the
magazine of the Walther P.P.K.,
and you'd taken off the safety...
You cannot shoot until
you rack the gun.
You pull and release
the sliding mechanism.
And P hadn't done it
because, as she said,
she had no intention
of shooting the man.
I don't know about bond, but I
assume it has to be apparent
from his books and his films that
you have to rack an
automatic pistol.
Of course, you're right.
I've seen it in films
a thousand times.
It's morning.
And the snow is gone.
So the sun must be out?
Yes, there is sun.
I've never managed to figure
out where it comes from.
It must be some interplay
between windows
and towers and high buildings.
It's not much,
but it's the sun you
get here at my place.
It's beautiful.
In the beginning you said that
your only sin was that you
asked more of the sunset.
Meaning, I suppose, that you wanted
more from life than
was good for you.
You were a human being
demanding your right.
And more than that,
you were a woman
demanding her right.
Does that pardon everything?
Do you think if two men
would've walked down a
train looking for women,
do you think anybody would
have raised an eyebrow?
Or if a man had led
the life you had?
And the story about Mrs. H
would've been extremely
banal if you'd been a man
and your conquest would
have been a woman.
When a man leaves his children
because of desire,
we accept it with a shrug,
but you as a woman,
you had to take on a...
A guilt, a burden of guilt
that could never be alleviated.
And all in all, all
the blame and guilt
that piled up over the years
became too much for you,
you reacted aggressively...
almost like a man I have to say...
And you fought back.
You fought back against
the gender that had been
oppressing and mutilating
and killing you and
billions of women.
But I wanted to kill a human being.
But you didn't.
Because of a chance event.
You call it a chance event.
I call it subconscious resistance.
On the surface you wanted to kill,
but deep down you
celebrated human worth
and a veil of forgetfulness
draped itself over your
knowledge of how to rack a gun.
Although all this sounds frighteningly
close to the cliches of our times...
And I'm predisposed
to knock holes in your arguments...
I'm too tired.
Well, that's good.
Why don't you lay down?
Yes.
Let me just say that
telling my story
as you insisted...
Or permitted...
Has put me at ease.
At this moment
my addiction is very clear to me...
And I've come to a decision.
Even though only one in a million,
as my dubious therapist said,
succeed in...
Mentally, bodily...
And in her heart
of ridding herself
of her sexuality,
this is now my goal.
But is that a life worth living?
It's the only way I can live it.
I will stand up against all odds...
Just like a deformed
tree on a hill.
I will muster
all my stubbornness...
My strength...
My masculine aggression.
But most of all I
want to say thanks
to my new, and maybe first friend.
Thank you, Seligman...
Who perhaps is happy when
all is said and done.
I'm happy at any rate
that the shot didn't go off
and made me a murderer.
If I may, I'd like to sleep now.
I'll make sure you
won't be disturbed.
Good night, Joe.
Good night, Seligman.
No!
But you... you've fucked
thousands of men.
Hey, Joe
where are you going
with that gun in your hand?
Hey, Joe
I said where are you going
with that gun in your hand?
I'm going down to
shoot my old lady
you know I caught her messing
around with another man
I'm going down to
shoot my old lady
you know I caught her messing
around with another man
and that ain't too cool
hey, Joe
I heard you shot
your woman down
you shot her down now
hey, Joe
I heard you shot your lady down
you shot her down to the ground
yes, I did, I shot her
you know I caught her
messing around town
yes, I did, I shot her
you know I caught my old
lady messing around town
and I gave her the gun
I shot her
hey, Joe
where you gonna go to now?
Hey, Joe
where you gonna go to now?
I'm going way down south
way down to Mexico way
I'm going way down south
way down where I can be free
ain't no hangman gonna
he ain't gonna put
a rope around me
hey, Joe
you'd better run on down
good night