Misunderstanding
May 21, 2011
– Hello, are you “Coucou, fais-moi peur”?
– Yes, sir.
– And... what kind of services do you offer?
– Well, the idea for our company came from reading a short story by the English humorist Chesterton; it’s a chapter in his book “The Club of Inappropriate Professions.”
– Be more specific.
– That text is delightful. It’s about an English major, retired from the Indian Army, who returns home one evening after dining at his club. Suddenly, upon crossing the gate to his cottage, he’s greeted by a hail of bullets. He throws himself to the ground. For fifteen minutes, he’s flooded with adrenaline, forced to evade traps set by masked men emerging from the bushes around his cottage and shooting at him. Finally, using the back door, he manages to get inside and barricade himself, barely alive. He grabs the only weapon at hand: an old shotgun, and loads two cartridges into it. Suddenly, someone rings the doorbell. Aiming the gun at this unknown visitor, he cautiously opens the door and finds himself face-to-face with a gentleman who hands him a bill, saying, “Here, after deducting your deposit, you still owe fourteen pounds and sixteen guineas. Taxes included.”
– What happens next?
– “Pardon me?” replies our major, stunned. The other man checks his notes and asks, “Are you Major Henry Simson?” “No,” answers the cottage occupant, “my name is David Simson.” The man consults his file and says, “We’re terribly sorry. We got the address wrong.” Indeed, there is a Major Henry Simson in the quartermaster corps, but he lives a few blocks away.
– The explanation?
– Well, in Chesterton’s story, it was a company one could hire when one was bored to death, so to speak; they offered clients, for a fee, thrills within a predetermined timeframe. We’ve created a similar company in France, and we can offer thrill-seekers a whole range of packages at various prices, from robberies to terrorist attacks. Would you be interested?
– Yes and no. The service I’d like to request is of a different nature. You see, I’ve had an uncontrollable fantasy of rape ever since I was young. I have a predator’s temperament. Well-groomed and handsome, I appeal to women, but I only get erect and ejaculate when I see fear in a woman’s eyes, when she struggles, when I hear her cries of distress. All that excites me immensely and makes me want to stick my...
– I’ll spare you the details...
– We tried it with my wife, but she’s a terrible actress. Being very wealthy, she only knows other women in her circle—delightfully perverse, I admit—but none could convincingly play that role. Me, being immensely rich, find myself in a paradoxical situation. Though I could afford what today are called “escort girls,” the most beautiful ones leave me cold. If you could arrange something like that for me...
– Hmmmm... I think that should be possible, for a small extra fee, of course.
– No problem.
– Would next May suit you?
– I’ll be staying at the Novotel, in a suite, all month.
– Very well.
On the appointed date, the client is in his suite; everything goes wonderfully, just as planned. The actress hired by the agency plays her part flawlessly. Dressed as a humble maid, she enters the room, pushing her cleaning supplies before her. Immediately, he pounces on her, pins her down, takes out his... (I’ll spare you the details). Terror fills the girl’s eyes. He even tears her clothes off, overcome by uncontrollable excitement.
Satisfied, once he regains his senses and the “maid” has left, he calls the agency.
– I wanted to thank you. I’ve never had such pleasure. Congratulate that lady; she’s a remarkable actress. It felt completely real. But there’s one thing I didn’t quite understand. After it was over, she took out her phone and pretended to call the police. I assume you added that to the script. But it wasn’t necessary at all, since the act had already been carried out.
– Wait, let me check. You’re the Novotel client for this May? A rape fantasy?
– Yes...
– I’m checking our schedule. The appointment was scheduled for the day after tomorrow...
While the Strauss-Kahn affair dominates worldwide media coverage, overshadowing many far more important issues, I chose to treat this topic with humor.
Yet one thing strikes me: while the “mainstream press” wallows in his past, its scandals, interrogates his wife, everyone seems to have forgotten that 2010 video where Strauss-Kahn, after attending “the Tripoli summit,” visits his friend Ben Ali, Tunisia’s president, congratulates him—as head of the IMF—“for the rigor of his management,” and even awards him a medal.
-* Tunisia is a model of governance and economic integration*
There’s our elite ruling the world. This little man, reminiscent of another, is pathetic, wretched, utterly grotesque. Meanwhile, our press headlines read “The Fall,” “Anne Sinclair rushes to her husband’s aid”; people obsess over every aspect of this case, which evokes but one word: “vulgarity.”
Maybe it’s always been this way. I recall once being alongside Le Troquer, the mustachioed president of the French Senate, driving a convertible along Boulevard Saint-Michel. That was in 1959. I was a student at Supaéro, 22 years old, riding a Vélosolex. It was the era of the Pink Ballets, which revealed a vast pedophile network within French government circles.
Le Troquer in 1959, at the time of his conviction in the Pink Ballets affair
Probation sentence “given his services to the Republic”
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