murakami, haruki - Norwegian wood

he said. "Swallowed 'em whole."
"What the hell for?"
"Well, it happened the first year I came to live here," he said. "There
was some shit between the first-years and the third-years. Started in
April and finally came to a head in September. As first-year
representative I went to work things out with the third-years. Real
right-wing arseholes. They had these wooden kendo swords, and
"working things out' was probably the last thing they wanted to do. So
I said, 'All right, let's put an end to this. Do what you want to me, but
leave the other guys alone.' So they said, "OK, let's see you swallow a
couple of slugs.' "Fine,' I said, "Let's have 'em.' The bastards went out
and got three huge slugs. And I swallowed 'em."
"What was it like?"
"What was it like?' You have to swallow one yourself. The way it
slides down your throat and into your stomach ... it's cold, and it
leaves this disgusting aftertaste ... yuck, I get chills just thinking about
it. I wanted to puke but I fought it.
I mean, if I had puked 'em up, I would have had to swallow
'em all over again. So I kept 'em down. All three of 'em."
"Then what happened?"
"I went back to my room and drank a bucket of salt water.
What else could I do?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"But after that, nobody could say a thing to me. Not even
the third-years. I'm the only guy in this place who can swallow three
slugs."
"I bet you are."
Finding out about his penis size was easy enough. I just went to the
dorm's communal shower with him. He had a big one, all right. But
100 girls was probably an exaggeration. "Maybe 75," he said. "I can't
remember them all, but I'm sure it's at least 70." When I told him I had
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