Libertionne

He picked up the end of the long tail. Sam looked into his eyes hopefully.

“Sir, why don’t we try it one more time?”

“Sit!” barked Tiberius, only now remembering that he was still sitting with his pants undone in front of a student of his, albeit a former one.

Sam jumped up timidly (recent seminars suddenly came to life in his memory), trying to sit next to his professor on the couch, but failing. The tail got in the way.

“So tell me,” Tiberius began sarcastically, when they ended up reaching a diplomatic agreement instead of going to war, “how is everything organized here? Pensions, vacations, overtime pay? Tell me, I’ve always been interested in what my best students end up doing, how their careers pan out.”

They ordered coffee and chatted for another ten minutes. But meanwhile at the Gnarly Duck, passions were flaring.

“He doesn’t love me at all,” Moopechka whined to the world-wise Colin. “Each time I have to beg him for sex. And he never even takes off his shirt! And he’s never kissed me!”

“Then leave him.”

“I can’t. He’s so handsome and strong, and smart…”

“I see.” Colin glanced condescendingly at the unfortunate victim of hopeless passion. “In that case, here’s the best thing to do…”

And then he poked a finger at a menu item: The Secret of Priapus! Just one gram of pure sexuality, and you will turn into an unbridled stallion!

“Do you think one gram will be enough?” Moopechka asked anxiously.

“Better take three; he’s pretty big.”

A tough night

Tiberius decided not to sit around in the boudoir. The young man was on the clock, and enough was enough. He went back to the table unnoticed, poured himself some more whiskey and fell into a sleepy drunken state. Colin was babbling about something, and Moopechka and both Melissas were discussing a burning question: how to take a photo with the immortal Don Largo in the background so that it would look like they were together? Tiberius, who was fairly drunk, made an unexpected, strategic proposal.

“Why don’t you just go up to him and ask?”

They hissed and waved their hands at him; it was as if he had suggested they go to a club with the emperor himself. At that moment his smartphone went off – a message from his insurance company. If he didn’t immediately stop the intake of alcohol into his blood (that’s what was written!), they would immediately raise the price of his medical insurance by twenty percent. Tiberius pulled himself together. He was pretty far gone; one mustn’t get so completely relaxed.

“Paul,” he shouted to Moopechka without turning, “pour me some water, please.”

“Of course,” came the reply, with a treacherous smile.

And, encouraged by Melissa “number two”, he passed Tiberius a glass to which the Secret of Priapus had been quietly added. All three grams right away.

Tiberius drank the water with a single gulp, and only at the very end did he notice a strange honey flavor. All the blood drained from his face and went to another place, slightly lower, the room was floating in colored lights, and sounds flowed together in strange, intrusive buzzing of notes. And something soft hit him in the back of the head. Already falling into a darkness filled with brightly shining stars, he abruptly got up from the table, leaning on an unsteady hand.

And then, all at once, everything disappeared.

The subsequent events melted together into a sparkling fireworks display, with crazy bursts of color; he returned to reality, only to be thrown again into the delirious darkness. The first time he woke up, he was in the middle of the dance floor – in one hand was a nearly empty bottle of whiskey, and in the other, two laughing girls who were clicking their cameras like crazy. Fortunately, he was able to recite from the stage Tennyson’s fairly politically correct “Lotus Eaters”. Tiberius looked around. Hands were reaching for him from all sides, all around he saw flushed, half-mad ecstatic faces, the music was like red-hot nails being driven into the brain, and the strobes from the light show was blinding him. The survival instinct demanded that he immediately leave this monstrous place, and he drank the rest of the bottle in one gulp.

Again there was darkness.

When consciousness returned for a second time, he found himself in clearly friendly company, in a recreation area. Here the music was blaring quieter, there were drinks on low glass tables, and across from him on the couch he saw Moopechka with two unfamiliar girls. They were talking, and joking with him, and he was responding. Colin, who, journalists later discovered, had unsuccessfully tried to attract Tiberius’s attention, ultimately did not come up with anything better than to poke his little finger under his shoulder blade. His besotted brain was thinking very slowly, but his body hardened over the years by training worked perfectly and instantly. Just a moment before, Tiberius had been sitting, relaxed, his eyes half closed; then like lightning he turned and grabbed Colin’s wrist, knocked away a nonexistent knife, and sent him flat onto his back. The gray eyes staring in horror seemed vaguely familiar, and Tiberius loosened his grip.

“Sorry,” he murmured, releasing his victim.

An already familiar bartender appeared nearby and obligingly handed him a glass of whiskey.

“Sir, you need to relax.”

The last thing he heard before he fell back into oblivion was the melodious and ecstatic voice of Melissa.

“Tiberius, how did you earn a living before you started to teach history?”

…The dark spots in front of his eyes start to clear, and he hears his own voice, confident and clear, as if he is teaching in his department: “More water, please. And so. Freedom is a myth, Evelyn. You, as an employee of an organization for the protection of human rights should know this well. As for myself, I’m not saying that absolute freedom is a good thing, but for some reason, the more a certain group of people is called to it, the more blood it is going to shed.”

“No, that’s not it,” Evelyn Young hotly objected. “We live in a free empire. We have democracy, openness, freedom of speech.”

“We have no freedom of speech. If you mean the right to go yell in this ridiculous park, then I’d like to remind you that there are a lot of things you can’t yell about there.”

“No, of course, you can’t say anything that insults someone’s honor, or incite violence…”

“Evelyn, try to go out on the street and declare that heterosexualism is not perversion. And to fight for the rights of heterosexuals. This is not a call to violence and does not insult anyone’s honor. And then you will see what kind of freedom of speech we have.”

If only Tiberius had known how much he would have to pay for these words, which he would never have spoken while sober! Moopechka turned pale with horror, and then, his eyes resembling those of a lemur, he quickly filled Tiberius’s glass with a tea-colored liquid and shoved it into his hand.,

Again he nodded off.

The next image: he is standing, holding onto the surface of a perforated steel supporting column; the column is somehow swinging, as is the floor beneath it; on his arm hangs Mupochka, plaintively asking about something, looking unhappy. “That’s awful. What’s the matter?” Tiberius raised his bleary eyes and saw in front of him Don Largo, caught in the beam of a spotlight. “Oh, I see, he probably wants to be photographed. This is why Melissa and they were worried.” Tiberius tried to focus on the show business idol. “Nothing special, just some overdressed peacock, honestly. And then he dares to reject my friends? Now I’m going to take care of this…”

…He finally regained permanent consciousness in a taxi. His own car, Paul told him, absolutely refused to take him home, because the incoherent speech of its owner indicated that he was extremely intoxicated. And drivers in such a condition are not only prohibited from sitting in the driver’s seat – they aren’t allowed in the vehicle at all. After Tiberius was unable to correctly recite, even a second time, the tongue-twister that was generated, the car angrily shut down, but not before it informed him that he would need to present a narcologist’s report before it would make the next trip.

The taxi showed less indifference. Moopechka apologized on the way for the Secret of Priapus and carefully inquired about what exactly his Honey Bunny remembered about what had happened. When he found out it was practically nothing, he almost felt glad. The fragile world had been restored.

As soon as he walked into the apartment, Tiberius made a beeline for the bathroom where, after retrieving a special first-aid kit from a secret compartment under the sink, he injected himself with an antidote right through his pants. The cursed haze melted before his eyes, his head stopped spinning on its own axis, and his thoughts, at last, became clearer. It was awful that the memories of the previous night’s events did not return, and that there was no trace of the intoxication. The hops was gone. The threat of a night of passionate love, however, still existed. However, there was a decent option for salvation which had rescued Tiberius on several occasions.

“Paul!” he cried, poking his head out of the bathroom. “I’ll be in the shower, and you’ll play for a while, okay?”

“Well, I, basically, don’t want to,” indecisively murmured Moopechka, with the tone of voice of a chronic alcoholic who has just been offered a glass of superb cognac.

“I’m going to be bathing anyway,” Tiberius informed him in an innocent voice. “And you can quickly come in for five minutes, that’s all.”

“Oh, just for five minutes,” Moopechka licked his lips, and quickly added “I’ve got big plans for you today. Because you are always like that… in a hurry. You don’t even get undressed.

Tiberius again felt annoyed.

“You’re like Psyche, who tortured Cupid about this. It all ended badly.”

“Really? How? And who is this Psyche?”

Tiberius tried to explain in a way that Moopechka would understand.

“A mortal woman. She loved Cupid. The ancient Greek god of love, if you don’t know. He seduced her with words, and not only. They met in the darkness, and Psyche didn’t see what her lover looked like. She had to wait three months, and then he promised to marry her. This means to fill out a marriage license, only for an unlimited time. But her feminine curiosity led her to take a lamp and have a look at her beloved. The lamp dripped oil on his chest. Hot oil. He awoke, took offense and flew away.

“Oh,” said Moopechka, impressed. “She should have been more careful. With the lamp.”

“She shouldn’t have stuck her nose where it didn’t belong,” hissed Tiberius and slammed the door.

“Tibby!” Moopechka looked with interest at the bloody streaks that added color to the impossibly snow-white walls. “What an interesting design! Was this done by hand? Did it cost a lot?”

“No, not really,” Tiberius smirked.

“It’s creative,” Moopechka nodded approvingly, and sat down at the computer.

Now the coast was clear. The culmination of the evening was near – that is, the illegal book. He turned out the lights, and then, using a special flashlight, pulled out a small, unregistered smartphone. He looked toward the closed door again, then switched on his most valuable thing. He scrolled through the list of books stored in this tiny, unassuming storage device. To what lengths people went through to find them, buy them, and, most importantly, to hide them. His experience as a professional historian was helpful, very helpful. Access to secret archives, permission to examine them. And then came the methods he learned at his previous job. A real job. Thus he became the owner of ten thousand books; for the possession of each one of them he would face at least two years in prison.

Today’s selection was “Undine” by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Tiberius had read it before, but today for some reason he was pulled toward it again.

He remembered the golden, tousled hair, the iridescent, greenish eyes, and their tragic maelstrom. And the taste of her gentle lips, opened in a silent scream, so warm and soft. He sat on the edge of the bathtub, as there was nowhere else. The already small bathroom in Tiberius’s typical apartment was even smaller because of the secret compartment built into the wall. Like a serial killer who cannot part with the victims’ blouses, he could not keep away from his beloved books. A small button, invisible to prying eyes, opened an entire cabinet, which held the real printed books that were most dear to his heart. Of course, the lion’s share of his treasures were a hundred kilometers away, and difficult to access, so how could he live for endless weeks without the wonderful smell of old paper, fine hand-made drawings, and worn leather bindings? Already not afraid of Paul, who was just a meter away on the other side of the thin glass partition, he opened his treasury and gently traced the binding of the real, living, non-electronic “Undine” and took it out of the closet. An hour passed, then another. The antidote started to wear off, and the dizziness and weakness returned, to be expected after such a disgraceful series of events. But he could not bring himself to stop. His headache and intoxication grew stronger – he had to sleep. Finally, Tiberius put the book back and carefully peered into the main room. There he was – Moopechka in headphones, frozen in front of the monitor, only his fingers showing signs of life, a very active one.

“Paul?”

“Just a minute. These guys have invited me to a raid, and there are only three bosses left.”

“Of course, of course. Don’t hurry.”

Yes! In the best case scenario, it would end in the morning. During that time, even the victim of the Secret of Priapus is entitled to a legitimate dream. Tiberius quietly made his way to his bed, trying not to attract attention. And he went to sleep as usual, when there were guests at his place, without undressing.

Time to collect stones

Waking up was not the most pleasant experience. The sunlight wasn’t simply pounding on his eyes, it was causing physical pain. Tiberius parted his eyelids with great effort. His body was strangely cool. He rubbed a shaking hand over his abdomen. He was right – he wasn’t wearing a shirt, or pants either. He sat up quickly in bed, and immediately moaned, because his head was exploding from the sharp, inhuman pain. “Damn it, did Paul take the story of Psyche as a call to action?” It seemed so, as he distinctly remembered not getting undressed before going to sleep. Tiberius looked around – the apartment was small, one room in fact, divided into a kitchen zone and a study with a bed. The only decoration besides Michael’s watch was an antique mermaid, carved from marble by some unknown German romantic. Tiberius had bought it at an auction; its gentle, thoughtful face reminded him very much of someone. Moopechka was nowhere to be seen, which meant he was in the bath. Tiberius managed to stand up, his head reeling, and went toward the sound of muffled sobs.

Moopechka was sitting on the toilet, holding the immortal Romeo and Juliet, and the cabinet was open. Some of the books were in a pile on the floor, a carefully arranged pile, that is. But his enlightened friend wasn’t crying about the fate of the two unlucky lovers. Seeing Tiberius, he jumped up as if he had been stung.

“I… I always knew it! I guessed it! You never wanted me, you – pervert!”

“Paul.”

“All these horrible books… They’re about sex between a man and a woman!”

“Not all of them.”

“I adored you! I admired you today, like that… that Psyche!”

“Paul, calm down.”

For greater stability, Tiberius raised his left hand and grabbed onto the doorframe. But he realized too late that it was a bad idea. Moopechka’s glance was fixed on his armpit, his eyes widened, and his mouth opened. He instantly stopped sobbing, which was good. Realizing now that all his bridges were burned, Tiberius just sighed, well, so be it. At least now there was no chance that he would tell anyone about the secret library.

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