Im Anfang war die Tat—In the Beginning was the Act.

And this is what concludes that act, that serpentine pas-de-deux so skillfully performed against the satin backdrop of the blackest night: A lightning bolt hurls upward in a blinding curve of pristine white, the laws of gravity suspended for a quarter-second. There is a scream of triumph as the gushing garland—that string of boundless energy—spouts into the springtime air: With a dull thud the alabaster blob flops on a silken belly, tan and taut and humid with moonlight, and in the panting silence after the victory cry the room echoes with the silent howl of half a billion mouths that never were: 23-chromosome cells thrash their tiny tails in terror on the bare and barren skin. An illicit hand sends another power surge through his penis, fiercer still than the first—then a compassionate tongue descends, its trembling tip dipping into the basin of his navel: For an instant, a sticky thread of pearls connects the woman with the Center of his Being, then she swallows—she drinks my seed, he thinks, she WANTS my seed, and the thought makes his heart swell, not with love but with misplaced pride—and then her lips slide full over his lingam and the last fruits of her labor slither down her shiny throat. And while the man’s mouth is still screaming in triumph, the gametic hordes yell out in Todesangst, for their worst nightmare has come true: In the woman’s churning stomach the cell membranes break open, the molecules dissolve, and the strands of code unwind, and naked lies the blueprint, the secret of who Goldfarb is—the nucleic acids adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine swirl around in irreparable chaos, their alchemy forever lost. Here lies a man, exulting over the demise of a world population.

In the Beginning—beresheet—was the Act.

And the Act was sterile. Though that didn’t make it less pleasant. Or less meaningful. It was mystical, maybe, or even magical, that act—and certainly maniacal.

“Cigarette?”

It did not occur to Goldfarb to ask the question: “Was it as good for you, ma’m, as it so clearly was for me?” Goldfarb did not need verbal affirmation. Goldfarb observes the cosmos. In Goldfarb’s presence, a woman’s body never lies. Goldfarb’s women are always satisfied. Right?

“Cigarette?”

Our mind has the technology. Let us unlock the permanence of memory and use it to our advantage. Let’s rewind time, let’s force the clock to swallow its own digits. We’ll choose a starting point and we’ll take it—slowly—from there. Remember. It is springtime. Even though there’s still a dusting of snow on the ground, the daffodils outside the Gästehaus wave their heavy crowns in the golden light of the lamp that hangs above the entrance. Memory’s trickery rewinds the time. The young woman removes her lips from her lover’s cock, a narrow thread of pearly liquid flows from her mouth onto his belly, and then that stream suddenly jumps back into his bloated glans. Watch how it swells; observe her teasing the creamy harvest back down into his balls—isn’t it so much more exciting to watch in slow motion? Let us release the clock again: Behold the purple head that sways so swiftly on its heavy stalk; see how it glistens with her spit and juices; watch the little crater at the top spit out its zigzag line—out shoots the slime, the whirling weathervane, the drunken comet that climbs past the stars: In the moist cloud chamber of Donatella’s room a signal lights up in silvery white, an almost perfect circle described by the tumbling ribbon of spunk, an acrobatic snake snapping at—but missing—its own tail: an ancient Greek symbol, the letter Omega, capitalized—Ω.