Seven Demons by Aidan Truhen (best motivational books for students TXT) 📕

“Well gosh you gentlemen are strikingly official.”

From behind me Agent Hannah says: “That is because they work for me Mr. Telemark.”

“How excellent madame but I do not believe we have—oh wait you are friends with the mother of the sex-pervert child?”

Agent Hannah twitches just a little.

“The boy is blameless, Herr Telemark, as you must be aware.”

“Madame I know nothing of the matter I was not witness to it but I do eagerly await its fullest explanation to the satisfaction of all parties concerned now if you will excuse me—”

“I would really like to talk to you, Banjo Telemark.”

“Well that would be lovely I am sure but I am working right now.”

“This is how artists work?”

“Yes my practice is of its nature quite ludic.”

“Does the name Jack Price mean anything to you Herr Telemark?”

“Why yes of course he is a renowned international criminal terrorist famous for cunnilingus.”

“I—what?”

“What what?”

“You said he was famous for what?”

“Cunnilingus. Apparently it is a thing with him. I read where it is all he does when he is not engaged in acts of terroristic mayhem. He is obsessed with the act with the close engagement of lips and sex organs with the whisper the moan the gasp the slow gathering rhythm and the exhortations and the grip of hand in hair and shoulders on wide thighs. It is his calling, his service, his hunger for the sudden unexpected wonder at the edge and then the thrashing and engorgement and the gathering thunder of the heart and the fractured awareness of inexorably approaching climax and finally with the absolute rigidity of ecstasy and the single poised moment in which all things are beautiful. In that way as with his horrible acts of senseless violence for money he is an artist.”

“…Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Where ahem where did you read this precisely?”

“I frequent the Internet madame it is known.”

“It is?”

“In certain circles insofar as one can believe anything.”

“Is there ah is there any more information? Of a useful nature?”

“I despise utility I am an artist.”

“Of course.”

“However I believe it is possible that his lover the Professor is—”

“The Doctor—”

“Is that not a character in a bourgeois British television program?”

“That—no—well—I quite like—”

“The Doctor then as you say she is apparently possessed of deviant attitudes and strange lusts also involving drugs and electricity. Certain of my colleagues speculate that they take lovers together I believe the term is delta. But it would almost certainly be fatal to be the amusement of two such people.”

“No doubt—”

“Fatal but I venture delicious thus caught between fear and anticipation in an arena where shared pleasure is life. The desperation. The permitted and desired violations of norms. The slow galvanic spark. The—”

“No thank you I—no I am sure I can read that later not that I will require that detailed a—”

“One never knows what may be critical in a work of art, madame. Thus you may profit by knowing of the vile yet astonishingly accomplished sexuality of these monsters, just as I have made it a practice to meet denizens of the demimonde where I can find them and it may not surprise you to know that such folk gossip like old people at a café table. Thus the cunnilingus of Jack Price is a topic of endless fascination of course but—I mean for example did you know that the head of the FIS’s illegal assassination section is presently having an affair quite unsanctioned and unprofessional with the Dutch ambassador to Madrid?”

“No! I know Madame de Jong from her time in Bern that is quite remarkable—you’re not serious—”

“I assure you it is the talk of the underworld this season and has been since the pornography festival at Cannes when they were caught on a certain yacht—”

“O I believe I heard something about that but I had thought it was just a rumor—”

“I KNOW it’s so completely—”

Agent Hannah draws closer and her hand lands on my shoulder like old friends like confidential chat like that. I take a breath and I can smell her. The vinyl holster the automatic the herbal deodorant and sweat the whisper of lipstick grease. I know what she would taste like if I put her in my mouth. I know because these tiny particles I am smelling are also on my tongue we are within one another now already as we have been since the fight.

I hear her breathe in and I know she is tasting me too.

I do not randomly lick the agent of the Swiss Federal Investigative Task Force known as the Einsatzgruppe JONAS because that is not how professionals do.

One of the other agents makes a little noise like are we interrupting his fucking important thoughts and Agent Hannah scowls at me like this whole thing is my fault.

“Herr Telemark that is not germane. What of substance do you know of Jack Price?”

“Nothing of substance, I suppose. He was reported dead a few days ago I saw it in the paper.”

“I believe you are lying to me.”

“Then you too are living in my art. To be honest it can be lonely.”

“Jack Price is not dead.”

“Found art. Ambiguity is wonderful.”

“I know that he is not dead because I saw him alive. I almost captured him but he escaped me. Now I am to believe he subsequently bled out.”

“But you don’t?”

Agent Hannah says: “Be seeing you—Herr Telemark.”

“And may I know your name?”

Agent Hannah looks into my eyes and then away and she says:

“Yes. I think you may. And if it should turn out that you see Jack Price—if he is alive—do be so kind as to tell him to get out of my country or I will put him beyond the opportunity to practice his skills. All of them.”

Agent Hannah turns and walks away into the Bern evening and the flunkies go with her.

Well shit.

—

The next morning is golden in Bern and the natural world sings in the trees and although the anarchists have done their thing the cycle of life continues because in the pits on the far side of the river the bears