Chapter XIV

In which young Orpí finds the fantastic world of bodily pleasure hindered by a serious erectile problem

It is in this student context that young Orpí discovered Barcelona’s extensive spectrum of opportunities for distracting the mind with a focus on the body. One day, Cirrhotic Liver brought him to Carrer dels Mirallers, famous for hosting, in buildings with red markings, most of the city’s prostitutes. A very lively street that welcomed sailors into dance halls with open windows that secreted various types of music and joyful laughter. The smell of fried food melded with cheap perfumes, and women with cheeks aflame, dressed to attract attention, drank and smoked to the health of those who sought them out. They swirled through the narrow streets, gesturing with a finger or a wink of the eye, offering up tongue-in-cheek propositions and scrumptious suggestions to the men in need of their humanitarian services. Dark doorways were marked by the carved stone face of a bearded man, the unmistakable sign for a brothel.

“Yee’ve gotte the typical harlots,” explained Cirrhotic Liver in a didactic tone, while young Orpí listened attentively, “the hookers (these ones ye see here, on the street) who accepte any client, howsoever disfigured or bestank. Then ye have the escorts (the most dear), or the strumpets or the ladies of the evening, who for two copper coins will let thou verily do it all, such as that wench over yon,” he said, and pointed to a doorway, where a man was mounting one of these professionals from behind. “Then there be the call girls, who deliver and the …”

“Enuff!” exclaimed our hero, quickly losing his patience. “Mye God … this be Sodom and Gomorrah!”

“Yea, and there be plentee for all,” said his friend. “Even priests doth come here on the down low to wet their willy ever and anon.”

“I hath ne’er seen souch lewdness in so few square meteres …” murmured our hero.

“It’s not ’bout seeing it, Orpinet, it’s ’bout givin’ it ye olde whirle,” said his friend, waving goodbye as he took one of those young ladies by the arm and disappeared into a building. “Standeth thither not with thine mouth hanging open! Hie and selecte one!”

Our hero wandered a few yards on, stopping at the Carrer de les Trompetes in front of doorway where a slovenly and malformed woman, heavily made-up and perfumed ad nauseum, stood. Her plunging neckline revealed perfectly round breasts as she signaled with her index finger for the young man to approach. The big-bosomed woman was very depleted and wore cheap lace lingerie. Unable to escape, Orpí was dragged toward that apparition with red-painted cheeks who, in a shrill voice, warbled out a song:

Marry a right gentleman

A prince in the boudoir

a perfumed wealthy specimen

who’ll neva call ye whore

He’ll pay for every last whim

as long as ye doth werk that willy

Fill yer cup up to the very brim,

And ride ye like a right filly

Oh, ye and we shall have it all

we shall drippe with jewels and lace

When that fine man comes to call

And doth see our lovely face-es!

But if by chance things should sour

And he doth beat us for mere sport,

ye know we shant eere cower

but stab him in the ven’eral wart-s

That’s how a lady doth behave

Oh, yes, that’s how a true woman be.

I’ll keep my secret to the grave

Oh don’t ya wanna marr-rry meee!

The prostitute, who was named Roberta, continued to sing as she dragged Orpí up the creaking stairs of a crumbling building, to a desolate room that smelled of human genitalia and sweat, where the only furnishings were a bed and a basin to wash your private parts.

“Up and at ’em,” said the slattern, pinching Orpí’s bottom before sitting on the bed to take off her shoes. “Let us commence to fuckeing, since these days of marital abstention are when I hath most work, not counting the fourty days fore Christmas, the eight ere Pentecost, Sundays, Tuesdayes, and Frydays during Lent and etcetera, etcetera. So let’s get a move on!”

Without further ado, the woman brusquely took off all her skirts and petticoats, allowing a glimpse of her body, as deformed as it was ghostly, slathered from head to toe with cerus.²⁹ She had been destroyed by the various diseases inherent to her profession, was covered in folds of fat, varicose veins, and stretch marks, her breasts hanging down to her belly like two cattle-bells. Our Orpí was shocked, his mouth agape, upon seeing, for the second time in his life, the monster women kept between their legs.

Roberta the prostitute pulled down his stockings and britches and her eyes grew wide as saucers.

“For Mary Magdalene, patron saint of all whores!” she exclaimed, her face in front of Orpí’s prick. “What a truncheon! I’ve ne’er seen one quite so well endowed! Let us hop into bed forsooth, ya rascal, but take care whenst thou cume as I don’t wish to nurse no babies, ya hear? Point a fact, tis best thou weareth a Venus glove³⁰ and we’ll be safe from French caries³¹.”

Having said that, she started to rub on our hero’s lobcock, but it failed to respond in the slightest.

“How now, don’t thee like wenches?” asked Roberta, polishing young Orpí’s arborvitae so hard that it got all wrinkled and small like a chickpea. “Thou arent no invert, be theu? Watch out cuz the pecado nefando will get you burnt up at the stake, eh? Or be thee fond of beasts, perchance? I once knew a peasant who had a comely younge wife and still fellt in love with an ass. One day they caught ’im mounting it from behind and the poor manne ended up roasted like a chicken by decree of the Fuero Juzgo.”

“Nay, that’s not it, ma’am,” he said, ashamed. “But heretofore I doth hatte an egregious experience with a lass from mine village, and thereupon ‘that bit’ hasn’t risen to the occasion.”

“Aha, I see …” the whore murmured pensively, rummaging in her bag and pulling out a card. “This be a rite typickal case of sexual trauma. But I hath the remedee thou seeketh, discombobulated young man. Lucky for thee, I’m half strumpet and half saint: here, take this card.”

Alfons The Healing Wizard

Solves all health and love problems, unites couples, ex-couples and lovers in general. For divorces, getting rid of overzealous lovers, attracting the love you seek without collateral damage and side effects. Increase feelings and the desire to be loved, faithful and obedient. Deflects bad vibrations and the evil eye, increases sexuality and cures male impotence. Salvages businesses and companies and all with immediate results and 100% guaranteed in two days time. And if you’re not completely satisfied, we’ll return a part (to be determined) of your money.

“Get thee to see this man, he’ll fix the problem with your lobcock … and then returnne to finish thine task industrious³² and payeth me mine due!” she said.

Our hero, tying his breeches, swore that as soon as he was cured, he would come back. And thus, still pursued by the laughing stammer of the prostitute as she twirled her hair on the bed, he walked through the door of that room, with all the dignity the occasion demanded, in search of the healer.

___________

29. i.e. A cosmetic made of lead to “whiten” skin, since paleness was a symbol of distinction in the period, that had serious health consequences.

30. i.e. Condom of the period, invented by the Italian surgeon Gabriel Fallopius in the sixteenth century.

31. i.e. A term for syphilis.

32. i.e. Diligently and assiduously.