The Invisible Life of Ivan Isaenko (11 page)

 

XVI

My
Hui

No record of Polina's life could be complete without first mentioning my
Hui
. I had my first erection at the age of ten. Since then, I have had an extremely complicated relationship with my
govyadiniy svistok
.
*
There are several reasons for our knotty love affair:

Reason #1: I had no idea what to do with it for the longest time. Suddenly it was there, without warning, and with no books to explain it away. In my isolation, I lacked any routine sources for information regarding my genitals. Most of the programming on the TV in the Main Room is filled with shows suitable for His Holiness Patriarch of Moskow and all Rus,
†
so there wasn't much chance of me figuring out what I was supposed to do with my pee pole from these programs. My only source of sexual information came out of what I could eavesdrop, from which I learned that the size of a
Hui
is important, as is the frequency with which it is used. At the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children, the nurses appeared to be split between those who wished to see their husbands'
Hui
more and those who wanted to see their husbands'
Hui
less. None of them appeared to be content with the amount in which they were currently experiencing their husbands'
Hui
. Nevertheless, even after these conversations I still was not able to determine what I should be doing with my own
Hui
.

My first instinct was to ask my mother the next time that she showed up in my head. When she finally arrived a few days later, we exchanged some small talk before I said:

“Mother, can I ask you something personal?”

“Of course. Anything, Ivan,” she replied.

“Could you please tell me more about my
Hui
?”

“Oh, Ivan, in the name of Saint Peter above, is that a question for a
mother
?” she said before scurrying off in my mind's eye. This is when I realized the limitations of fabricating your own mother—she can only help you with the stuff you already know the answer to. This left me with two options: I could beg the God-fearing Nurse Natalya for a book, or I could approach the Director, who seemed to have no shortage of experience with his genitals. As much as I dreaded it in every cell of my incomplete being, I decided that asking him was my best gambit. My decision may also have had something to do with the fact that he was the only other male at the hospital who didn't live with a stream of drool flowing down his chin.

Finding a moment when the Director was not in a wretched mood, or on the phone, or behind a closed door, or advancing inappropriately with one (or more) of the nurses was approximately impossible. I waited three insufferable weeks until conditions were right, at which point I wheeled myself up to his room and knocked on the door.

“Yes, Isaak, please come in,” he said without lifting his eyes from the papers on his desk.

“It's Ivan.”

“Of course. What can I help you with that the nurses can't?”

“Yes, sir. I've experienced swelling. Here,” I said, pointing between my legs. Even at ten, I remember seeing how uncomfortable this made the Director.

“That's an erection, Ivan. It happens naturally to boys your age.”

“What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Nothing, Ivan. Nothing. Don't touch it. There could be consequences.”

“What consequences?” I asked.

“Well, possibly difficulties with vision. It has also been correlated with mental illness and psychosis. Addiction and dependency too. Not to mention you may lose the ability to achieve orgasm during ordinary sex.”

“How do you know? Do you touch your
Hui
?” I asked.

“No, of course not. And that's not what you call it, Ivan. It's a…”

I stopped listening at that point. I was not too young to see that the Director couldn't be trusted.

One week (and three erections) later, I gave in and went to Nurse Natalya. I found her in the Main Room changing an IV attached to Dennis and asked:

“Could you meet me in my room when you're done?”

She looked back at me with her maternally concerned eyes and said, “Of course, Ivan. I'll be there in two minutes.”

One minute later, she showed up in my room.

“What is it, Ivan?” she asked, approximately concerned. “Is everything okay?”

“No, everything is not okay,” I said. “I've been having erections, and I don't know what to do with them.”

She was silent for a few seconds and then made a face that said,
You're choosing to approach
me
on this topic, Ivan? I'm almost your mother, for the love of God in all of heaven. Isn't there anyone else you could ask around this place for a sex lesson? Oh, wait, there is no one else. I
am
the only one who can help you out. Well, Ivan, the words sure as hell won't be leaving my lips. That is a promise.

After she thought all those things, this is what she said in real words:

“Well, Ivan, I can understand your concern. Let me get you a book.”

The next day she returned with two books. One was called
руководство по сексу
*
and the other
искусство мастурбации.
†
They were carefully placed on my bed when I wasn't in my room, which was unusual protocol for Nurse Natalya (she usually wanted to share her opinion of the current shipment, but not this time).

Clearly, the exploration of these books led me to the how-tos of sexual intercourse (which I simply found frustrating because I would never have the opportunity to put my
Hui
inside of another person) and also masturbation. Which brings me to the second reason for the complicated relationship with my
Hui
: after exploring
The Art of Masturbation,
I was immediately convinced that my physical body was not at all prepared for the challenges of self-pleasure. While I conduct all my daily activities with my left hand, I'm fairly certain I would have been right-handed if I had been born with both hands. I come to this conclusion because everything I do with my left hand is clumsy and requires exhausting effort. And, from what I understood about masturbation through my research, it is not supposed to be exhausting.

That did not keep me from trying. It took me exactly one hour and thirty-seven minutes to burn through
искусство мастурбации.
One of the few things I do fast is read—this fact mixed with my unique motivation regarding the topic meant that I conquered the 216-page book in less time than it would take to sit through
Swan Lake
. I put the book down at exactly 11:18 in the
A.M.
I know this because I was haunted by the realization that there would be another ten hours and forty-eight minutes required to get me to 10:00 in the
P.M.
, which is lights-out, or more specifically the time that I could be convinced that I would not be bothered by any nurse for the rest of the night so that I could engage in uninterrupted experimentation. As you can imagine, Reader, the prospect of getting caught in the act of masturbation was horrifying, partly due to the inevitable embarrassment and partly because of the leverage that the nurse would have over me.

Thus, the day passed by in excruciating increments of tiny time. I would wait as long as I could to check the clock, only to find that what felt like an hour was eleven minutes. I've often wondered if the countdown to everyone's first orgasm is fraught with so much anticipatory anxiety. Regardless, the comforting truth about time is that no matter how slow it seems to move, it still passes nevertheless, and, eventually, I found myself alone in my room with a clock that read 10:03 in the
P.M.

The next predicament was coming up with the proper stimulation for my first experience. The
искусство мастурбации
talks at length about using pornographic images to assist in the masturbation process. With that said, Reader, I'm sure you would not be surprised to find out that there is a limited supply of pornographic material at the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children (and by limited supply, I mean I've searched every cupboard, drawer, and office—including the Director's—in this building and have found nothing except a catalogue for a Finnish company that sells everything from recording equipment to beach apparel). Though it was not ideal, especially considering my desire to educate myself on the female form, I decided to use the images promoting the sale of summer bathing suits for my first attempt. Of course, they needed to remain undiscoverable, so I hid them inside of a small cut I made in the corner of my mattress. By the time I pulled them out, they were wrinkled and already starting to fade, but even in this condition, I could feel my
Hui
begin to move heavenward. This was my cue to pull down my shorts and begin to follow the techniques enumerated in the
искусство мастурбации,
which turned into frustration upon discovering that three fingers are entirely insufficient for proper self-pleasure. This added to the fact that I have the strength and coordination of an infant meant that my first attempt was a two-hour collection of false alarms. I don't need to go into detail about my specific movements (I'm sure you're well aware of how ridiculous it looks). I can only say that every time I reached the point at which it felt like something truly transcendent was about to occur, my hand could not quite arrive at the proper rhythm and intensity to finish. Eventually, my arm would simply stop working out of fatigue, and I would need to start all over again. So I gave up in a fit of self-loathing on that first night.

The next night, I was at it again. This time, however, I made a sacred promise to myself that I would get
there
no matter how long it took. Apparently, my previous two hours of practice had enough impact on my strength and coordination that after ten minutes a sensation built up at the base of my
Hui
that was so powerful that I released all eleven years of my accumulated
malofya
*
onto my sheets, my floor, and three of my walls. During the eight or nine seconds in which it was happening, I could only think about how familiar the feeling was, and before the whole explosion ended, I realized that I had felt the same sensation several times before in dreams. This time, however, the sensation was so overwhelming that I almost aborted the mission by the third second. Admittedly disappointed with my first orgasm, I fell asleep debating whether the whole experience was worth the time, energy, and strategic planning that I invested in it. But despite this sentiment, I found myself tugging away at myself all the same the next night, and then the night after that. According to my current count, I haven't missed a night in the past six years. My daily practice has the added benefit of increased coordination, and my left arm now has twice the muscle mass that it had a few years ago. Still, the conflict between my lust and my physical limitations continues to result in masturbatory sessions that can run anywhere from thirty minutes to six hours. Conveniently, there is no shortage of time at the Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children.

There is, however, a downside to my habit. Inevitably, some evidence is left behind after every date with my Finnish models. I had been attacking my
Hui
for a solid year when I opened my door to find all the sheets off my bed, revealing that my hospital mattress was coated in overlapping circular yellowish-brown stains, resembling naughty Venn diagrams.

There was also a note:

Dear Ivan,

It looks like we might need to find a new mattress for you.

I see the book helped.

I left some tissues in your closet.

Sincerely,

Natalya

Before I even finished the letter, Nurse Natalya and Nurse Katya barged in with a new mattress. I watched them remake my bed for three painful minutes. Then I said:

“It's because I'm bored.”

“No explanation necessary,” said Nurse Natalya.

To you, Reader, I can confess that boredom is not the only reason I'm hopelessly addicted to touching my
Hui
. There is a far more insidious reason. As the pressure builds just before I'm about to spray my wasted seedlings onto my bed, there is a tiny piece of a second in which I feel whole, complete, and unbreakable. As quickly as it comes, it fades away into a mixture of guilt and self-pity. But that tiny part of a second where everything is perfect somehow makes all the guilt worth it.

 

XVII

The Sarcophagus

The Mazyr Hospital for Gravely Ill Children is hiding something.

Not in its walls but in its name.

To my recollection, I've cried twice ever in my seventeen years. For the majority of my life, I've had a prodigious control over my emotions. This is because I'm Belarusian. We are known for having harder hearts than our Mother Russians, thicker skin, and heavier
mudyaá
*
(or at least so I'm told by Nurse Katya, who loves to rant about Belarusian stock, which I find strange considering she is of African descent). Simply put, tears are not in our wiring. And in the rare moments when a few do leak out, it's no doubt due to some temporary malfunction in our chemical and genetic hardware.

It was because of this genetic hardware that I did not have a nervous breakdown when I awoke into this life to find that I only had approximately one-half of a body. Instead, I took all the shock and all the disillusion in that moment and turned it into a cold, pungent piss that I could spray on anyone who got too close. And all the decisions that resulted were rooted purely in the instincts coded in my DNA. Not that any of it was a conscious choice. Nor did I have any environmental influence to help mitigate the decision. This was the equilibrium of the first few years of my life.