The stewardess was blonde, skinny and bored, and so was Huysmans. (Well, the last one anyway.) "Please put up your tray tables in preparation for landing in Snerdsk, capitol of great nation of Schmertzylvania," she droned. Then she turned her face toward Huysmans with the crack of a secret policeman's baton during an interrogation. "Use of mustache wax not allowed during final 15 minutes of flight," she said firmly.
Huysmans put away his small jar and slumped in his chair. Schmertzylvanian hospitality, once the envy from the Volga to the Bosphorus, had declined into sullenness during the long, tedious reign of First Citizen Klodna. But there was one local tradition that even Klodna's pleasure-killing regime could not extinguish, and that had roared back since his accidental heart attack/falling off a balcony/being run over by a tank in '91. The legendary bathhouses of Snerdsk, or, as they were known to the secret underworld of devotees of plumper women, the Fathouses.
Huysmans, world-famous author of what the West called BBW erotica, thought back on the many and formative experiences he had had as a young man in the Fathousesโ a reverie of vast shaking bosoms, thunderous thighs, and grunting, sweating masseuses in thin white blouses. But just as he was recalling a particularly steamy moment in the sauna a few weeks before he defected as a teenager, he was jerked back to fluorescent-lit reality by a voice at his side. It was the absurdly fit, black-glasses-wearing American businessman seated next to him, who had pretended not to recognize Huysmans (despite his having made the rounds of all the talk shows upon the release of the recent sequel to the movie made from one of his stories, The Sapphic Pirate Miranda 2: Between the Mounds of Hell).
"Pardon me," he said nervously. "Aren't you... that Huysmans guy who writes about..."
"Beeg byootiful vimmin," Huysmans interjected.
The American ducked his head down as if he had said something shameful. As if anyone could not guess why he would be traveling to Schmertzylvania! "So... is it true what they say about the... er, bathhouses?"
And suddenly, Huysmans had his inspiration for a story.
* * *
The American walked down the cobblestone street as a dusk sky rapidly soaked up the spilled India ink of night. The cheap plexiglass sign announcing "HYTL NPRYMKCHK"โ Hotel Nepomukโwas a blemish on the much older stone building behind it, all orientalist curves and filigree. The place he was going was not a hotel, and it certainly had nothing to do with St. John of Nepomuk, whose eponymous cathedral had sat at the end of the street until Klodna, with the Bolshevist's sure sense of what would appeal to the tourist trade, had demolished it for the largest hay storage facility in Europe. Nevertheless, it was famous for what happened inside, however much that would have made the good Czech saint blush.
He opened the door and bare bulbs blazed inside, reflecting off the greenish tile; whatever discretion one had shown creeping down this street in the dark was lost in the flashbulb glare of the entryway, illuminating your desires to the world. A sullen woman whose skin reflected the green of the tiles looked up at him, barely. He started to speak in simplified English, but she rolled her eyes toward the sign on the wall in equally brusque Schmertzylvanian, German, Spanish, English, Russian and Japanese. The American surveyed the choices, could make little sense out of them, but reasoned that the highest-priced one must contain everything one could want, and still only came to about $19 American. He pointed to it, and pulled out a sheaf of bills the color of pickled cabbage. Once he had paid he stood there, waiting, while the woman ignored him as if he had ceased corporeal existence at that instant.
Suddenly a wooden door swung open with the sound of a cat being stepped on, and there was another woman, more buxom and with brisk efficiency set in her square jaw and narrow eyes. She held a towel and a cheap cotton cloth, and behind her billowed a briny cloud of steam and chlorine, making her look like a demon trailing brimstone. She nodded toward the hallway behind her and then turned as precisely as if there were a spindle running up her backside, clomping down a stone passage lined with tiles plainly older and grander than the rather grim entryway had boasted.
The American followed as she turned and then arrived at a hallway of rooms. She pointed, once, to a tiny changing room with a locker in it, and then once more, to a massage room with a wooden table, which smelled vaguely of medicine. Then she handed him his towel and cloth, and waited until he shut the door, and changed.