Salmonella Men on Planet Porno

come straight home just to bring you the money. Well, I’m not going to buy you anything now. You can think what you like!”

She gasped, and a look of regret flitted across her face. Then, with a coquettish smile, she apologized most submissively.

“I’m sorry, dear. I had no right to say such things. Did I, dear?”

“No, you didn’t. You had no right to say such things,” I replied. “You’ve never wanted for food, nor ever had to cry because you’ve nothing to wear. We have everything that most other families have.

And all provided by me. You should be happy. That’s it! You’re so happy that you’re desperately trying to find a reason to be unhappy. So you try to find fault with your husband. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, dear. I apologize,” she said, gazing at me with eyes full of expectation.

Faced with such unconditional submission, most husbands would lighten up, give a big smile and hand over the pay packet. But not me. I hate that sugar-sweet family sitcom behaviour. No, I’m not ready to sink into such phoney pre-fabricated happiness. If I suggested I was happy, I’d be falling into a TV drama stereotype of a husband, as other husbands do.

I was getting changed in the bedroom when my sixty-five-year-old mother came in from the kitchen.

“It was payday today, wasn’t it son,” she said, sidling up to me suggestively. “Go on, give us a bit of cash. Shigenobu keeps asking for a pedal car. Let me buy one for him!”

“No!” I shouted. Filial affection was not for me, either. “Go and get the dinner ready. Go on, you stupid cow! Before I kick you out!”

But still she stood there grumbling. So I kicked her out, and she shuffled off to the kitchen crying. Served her right.

I went back to the living room.

“Could you give Shigenobu his bath, dear?” said my wife.

Our son, nearly two, was sprawled across the floor watching a soap opera on TV. How much does he understand, I wondered. Ignoring his moans, I got him out of his clothes and carried him off to the bathroom. Shigenobu still spoke in a baby voice, and it was sometimes hard to know what he was on about. But I found that really loveable. So loveable, in fact, that I hated myself. I hated myself for finding my own child loveable. Partly out of embarrassment, I would even ill-treat him sometimes – telling myself, all the while, that boys are best treated rough.

As I opened the bathroom door, white plumes of steam wafted up from the bath tub. I lifted Shigenobu and plunged him in up to the waist. To check the temperature, you understand.

It was scalding hot. Shigenobu issued a loud scream and started to cry. When I lifted him out of the water, his lower body was lobster-coloured.

“Shigenobu!”

“Whatever’s the matter?!”

My wife and my mother came rushing up and peered at me through the open doorway.

“It’s nothing,” I pretended, laughing casually. “Just testing the water, you know.”

“How could you do such a thing?!” said my wife, picking the boy up. “There, there. Poor little thing. Look how red he is!”

“Mummy! Mummy!”

My wife hugged him tightly as he continued to cry. “Couldn’t you have tested the water yourself?!” she said, glaring at me with tear-laden eyes.

“Shut up! It’s a wife’s job to test the water before her husband has his bath. Fool!” I slapped her full on the side of her face. “Do you want me to sit naked in cold water so I can catch my death of cold?!”

My wife started to cry. My mother started crying too, and desperately tried to calm me as I stood there shouting and raving like a madman.

Luckily, Shigenobu wasn’t burnt. An ointment was enough to ease the pain. I got angry again at my own sense of relief. I was angry all the way through dinner. And the cause of my anger was obvious. It was this “phoney little happiness” of ours.

After dinner, Shigenobu and my mother went to sleep in the next room. Our apartment consists of three rooms, plus kitchen and bathroom, on the 17th floor of Block 46 in a massive housing estate. The rooms are all small. One of them is our bedroom, one is used by my mother and the other is our living room. Each room is filled with the most fashionable furniture. In fact, with a massive colour TV and a coffee table in the middle, there’s hardly any room at all in our living room.

I sat at the coffee table and peeled a tangerine as I watched a foreign film on TV. My wife sat next to me, sewing some clothes for Shigenobu.

“You know,” said my wife as I made for my sixteenth tangerine. “We could do with a new television, couldn’t we dear.”

“What – again?!” I said, looking at her aghast. “We’ve only had this one six months!”

“It’s the latest flat-screen type. I’m sure you’ll like it. It shows foreign films dubbed or undubbed at the flick of a switch.”

“Wow!” I said, opening my eyes wide. “That’s good. I’ve never liked these dubbed films. Let’s go for it!”

“Well, would you go to the bank tomorrow and complete the debit forms? Twenty-four monthly payments, five thousand yen a month.”

I couldn’t stand the thought of so much money leaving my account every month. But then, if there were other things we wanted, we could always buy them in instalments too. Most of the furniture in our apartment was bought in instalments, and we’re still paying for nearly all of it. We rarely need large sums in one go. As in many other homes, most of my salary is used up on monthly payments. If my mother suddenly kicked the bucket, we could even pay the funeral costs in instalments these days.

Rampant inflation of land and house prices has made it increasingly hard for people to buy their own homes – not just first-time buyers, but even people with a bit of money. Though actually, that isn’t such a bad thing. You work like a dog in the hope of buying your own home, all the while wondering whether house prices are going up faster than you can save. But in fact, you’re merely holding on to cash that’s gradually losing value with inflation. Forget it! It makes much more sense to use your whole income on monthly instalments – even with the interest payments. Salaries are going up all the time. If you can just forget how cramped your home is, you can eat good food and live a rich life, surrounded by high-class goods as well as the latest furniture and electrical appliances. Personally, I don’t completely agree with this trend. I realize that it merely accelerates inflation. But I’ve no doubt that it’s far more sensible to spend money than to keep it – and therefore, not to own a home. So I have no option but to follow the trend.

I sipped some tea my wife had made for me. It was finest Uji tea, ordered direct from the store in Kyoto.

The grandfather clock struck ten. The clock was an expensive handcrafted piece. Paid for in monthly instalments, of course.

My wife started knitting.

I drank my tea as I watched TV.

It was a contented family scene.

My wife suddenly shuddered, lifted her head and looked at me. “Darling, I’m so happy,” she said in a self- demeaning voice. There was even a hint of a tear in her eye.

I couldn’t hold back the anger, the loathing, the sheer abhorrence of it. I kicked the coffee table and got up. “You bloody fool!” I shouted. “You stupid bloody fool!” I opened my mouth so wide it seemed likely to split, and bellowed with all the air in my lungs. “What do you mean, happy?! You’re not even slightly happy! Now I know why they call you cows! You think happiness just means being satisfied! You call yourself human?! You think you’re alive? Well, I wish you were dead! Dead, dead, dead!!”

I punched and kicked her wildly. She keeled over and tumbled onto the linoleum floor of the kitchen, where she crawled about in confusion.

“I’m sorry, dear! I’m really sorry!” she wailed.

“What do you mean, you’re sorry?! You don’t even know why I’m angry! How can you possibly be sorry?!”

I was boiling with rage. I grabbed hold of her hair and slapped her on the cheek perhaps ten, twenty times.

Startled, my mother and Shigenobu rushed out of the next room. They knelt on either side of my wife on the