WHAT ABOUT THE ANAL INTERCOURSE? DID THAT ADD TO OR DETRACT FROM YOUR PLEASURE?
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
YOU TELL ME.
‘This woman that I’m talking to isn’t the one in the photographs,’ Klein said to himself. ‘In my mind she doesn’t look like her or smell like her and she’s not naked or in her underwear.’ The woman he imaged now was short and stocky, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and horn-rimmed spectacles; her hair had grown shorter and her smell was not quite as seductive as before.
WE WERE TALKING ABOUT ANAL INTERCOURSE, said the screen.
WELL, THE ANUS IS NOT QUITE THE APPROVED ORIFICE FOR INTERCOURSE, IS IT. SO PENETRATION THERE HAS THE APPEAL OF THE FORBIDDEN AND IT’S MORE INTIMATE, MORE EXCITING TO THINK ABOUT, ESPECIALLY IF THE WOMAN IS UNWILLING. MONICA DIDN’T SEEM ALL THAT UNWILLING, ACTUALLY. BY THE WAY, WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?
THIS ISN’T THAT KIND OF CHAT. THIS PORNOGRAPHIC FANTASY THAT YOU’VE JUST WATCHED, WOULD YOU SAY IT WAS EVIL?
I’VE HAD FANTASIES LIKE THAT OFTEN ENOUGH – I’M SURE OTHER MEN DO AS WELL. I’D NEVER WANT TO ACT THEM OUT EVEN IF I WERE ABLE TO. BUT WHEN YOU PUT SUCH WORDS AND PICTURES ONSCREEN FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC THERE’S NO KNOWING WHOM YOU’RE REACHING. AND IT COULD WELL BE THAT NAMING AND SHOWING A FORBIDDEN ACT IS LIKE CALLING UP A DEMON BY SPEAKING ITS NAME. SOMEONE JUST ON THE EDGE OF ACTING OUT HIS FANTASIES MIGHT LET HIMSELF GO ALL THE WAY AFTER SEEING IT. SO I’D HAVE TO CALL IT AN EVIL THING.
THEN BY VISITING THIS WEBSITE ARE YOU SUPPORTING EVIL?
WHAT ABOUT YOU? IN OFFERING THIS MATERIAL WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?
CONTRIBUTING TO THE EVIL IN THE WORLD THE SAME AS YOU BUT I’M DOING IT IN AN EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND PORNOGRAPHY AND THE ENORMOUS DEMAND FOR IT, OK? I HAVE MORE QUESTIONS.
SO ASK THEM.
DID MONICA’S MONDAY NIGHT AROUSE YOU SEXUALLY?
IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING.
WHAT WILL YOU DO ABOUT IT?
TAKE MYSELF IN HAND.
HOW OLD ARE YOU, RUGGIERO?
SEVENTY-TWO. HOW OLD ARE YOU?
TWENTY-EIGHT. ARE YOU STILL A PLAYER?
ONLY WITH MYSELF. IF I HAD AN INNER VOICE I WOULDN’T BE TELLING YOU ALL THIS.
EXPLAIN PLEASE.
THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD THAT CENSORS WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO SAY, I HAVEN’T GOT ONE ANY MORE.
THAT COULD GET YOU INTO ALL KINDS OF TROUBLE.
IT HAS. NOW I’M TRYING TO MEET UP WITH MY IT. (He didn’t want to bring Oannes into the conversation.)
AREN’T WE ALL? I FEEL FOR YOU, RUGGIERO. MAYBE I CAN BE YOUR INNER VOICE FOR A WHILE. YOUR WORDS LOOK LONELY. HAVE YOU GOT A PARTNER?
NOT ANY MORE.
WHY NOT?
MY WIFE DIED TWENTY YEARS AGO.
HOW?
SUICIDE.
WHY?
TIRED OF LIVING, I GUESS.
WHAT MADE HER TIRED OF LIVING?
CAN WE TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE? ARE YOU MARRIED?
GOD FORBID.
WHY DO YOU SAY THAT?
MARRIAGE IS FOR PEOPLE WILLING TO GIVE UP THEIR FREEDOM FOR SOMETHING THAT IN MY OPINION IS NOT WORTH HAVING.
WHAT MY WIFE AND I HAD WAS WORTH HAVING. ‘What exactly did we have?’ he asked himself.
WE MUST COME BACK TO THAT SOMETIME. ANYBODY SINCE HER?
NOTHING THAT LASTED VERY LONG, AND THERE’S BEEN NO ONE FOR A LONG TIME. The Angelica in his imagination, though no longer the beauty in the homepage photograph, was not unattractive, he decided, mumbling his thoughts. ‘Good ass, heavy thighs and a lot of coarse pubic hair. Her smell is strong and funky; I like it. She probably tastes a little acidic.’
DO YOU MISS HAVING A WOMAN? she was asking.
YES, AND THERE’S THE DISMAL FACT THAT A MAN WHO CAN NO LONGER GET IT UP IS NOT IN A STRONG BARGAINING POSITION WHEN LOOKING FOR A NEW WOMAN.
MAYBE IT’S TIME FOR YOU TO HANG UP YOUR TACKLE AND PUT ALL THAT BEHIND YOU.
ALL THE SAME, I’D STILL LIKE TO HAVE SOME OF IT IN FRONT OF ME.
THERE ARE MANY WAYS OF GIVING PLEASURE.
INDEED. MAYBE ONE DAY I’LL ADVERTISE IN THE LONELY-HEARTS COLUMNS: LITTLE OLD AQUARIUS, SINGLE MALE, NON-SMOKER, SENSE OF HUMOUR, LIKES MUSIC, ART, LITERATURE, CAN’T GET IT UP BUT WOULD LIKE TO GO DOWN ON LIKE-MINDED FEMALE. EXPERIENCE UNNECESSARY.
HOW OLD WOULD YOU LIKE THE FEMALE TO BE?
ANYWHERE BETWEEN TWENTY AND FIFTY. DEFINITELY NOT AS DRIED-UP AS I AM. IF I RING UP THE NUMBER ON YOUR HOMEPAGE, WILL YOURS BE THE VOICE I HEAR?
YES, BUT WE CAN TALK ABOUT THAT LATER. NOW COMES THE BIG QUESTION: WOULD YOU SAY, RUGGIERO, THAT YOU LIKE WOMEN?
ARE YOU ASKING THIS BECAUSE I ENJOYED THE ANAL RAPE STORY?
I’M ASKING, THAT’S ALL.
I’VE ALWAYS THOUGHT I LIKED WOMEN. I’VE ALWAYS NEEDED A WOMAN; I’VE ALWAYS WANTED WOMEN. AFTER MY WIFE DIED THERE WERE WOMEN I LOVED. BUT NOTHING BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN IS SIMPLE. IT’S POSSIBLE TO LOVE WITHOUT LIKING. DO YOU LIKE MEN?
I’M NOT SAYING.
IS THAT YOU IN THE PHOTO GALLERIES?
YES.
HOW CAN YOU DO ALL THOSE THINGS?
I WORK OUT.
YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN – CAN YOU POSSIBLY LIKE DOING WHAT YOU DO IN THOSE PICTURES?
I DON’T DO ANYTHING I DON’T LIKE TO DO.
IT SEEMS TO ME YOU MUST BE CHAINED TO SOME KIND OF ROCK.
LIKE EVERYONE ELSE I’M CHAINED TO THE ROCK OF REALITY.
I CAN’T BELIEVE THE WOMAN I’M TALKING TO IS THE ONE IN THE PHOTOS.
BELIEVE WHAT YOU LIKE.
BY THE WAY, WHO WROTE THE MONICA STORY?
I DID. WHY DO YOU ASK?
THE POINT OF VIEW SEEMS MASCULINE.
WHAT YOU CALL THE MASCULINE POINT OF VIEW IS NOT A DIFFICULT THING TO IMITATE. MEN DO IT ALL THE TIME.
I NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT YOU.
I DON’T NEED YOU TO KNOW MORE. NOT YET.
WHEN? THIS YEAR, NEXT YEAR, SOMETIME, NEVER?
MAYBE SOMETIME. THE PHONE NUMBER ON THE HOMEPAGE IS USUALLY ENGAGED. USE THIS ONE IF YOU WANT TO TALK TO ME. GOODBYE FOR NOW. X
IS THAT A KISS I SEE BEFOREME?
FROM MY LABIA MINORA. TILL NEXT TIME, RUGGI.
Klein wrote down the telephone number, disconnected from the Internet, and switched off the modem, visualising her kiss as he did so. His fantasy partner that evening was the imagined Angelica in the horn-rimmed glasses. When he went to sleep he dreamt that he was hurrying down a rainy street at three o’clock in the morning, seeing her ahead of him and hearing her heels on the pavement. He walked faster and faster, then began to run, but he never caught up with her.
14
Doe Not Call Upp
HOP-ON HOP-OFF AT 100 STOPS ON 7 ROUTES, said the London Pride Sightseeing Bus parked in Southampton Row by Russell Square. Its redness was of a piece with the hard sunshine of the end-of-October day. The driver sat at the wheel; there was no one else on the bus.
‘They’ve all hopped off,’ said Klein to himself, ‘speaking French, German, Spanish, Greek, Russian, Polish, Urdu, Hindi, Arabic and goodness knows what else. They’re speaking those languages out loud and they’re speaking them to themselves in their heads, even the children.’
He was meeting his friend Seamus Flannery for lunch at II Fornello, an Italian restaurant with Spanish waiters. Seamus wrote radio, screen, and stage plays and taught History of Film at the National Film School. The waiters Paco and Juliano called the two of them ‘Dottore’ or ‘Professore’ interchangeably. Flannery was already there in their usual booth.
‘Professore!’ said Juliano. ‘Nice to see you. Are you having something to drink?’
‘Half lager, please. Same for you?’ he said to Seamus. Over their half-pints they brought each other up to date.
‘That’s really awful,’ said Seamus when Klein told him about the loss of his inner voice. ‘Some of my best conversations happen inside my head.’ He was as bald as an observatory dome; Klein imagined echoes.
‘Different voices?’ he said.
&nb
sp; ‘No, just mine. Did you have an inner voice that was different from yours?’
‘No, but I suppose one might.’
‘Where would it be coming from?’
‘From a different part of oneself, I should think.’
‘How different?’
‘Well, mostly I’m Harold, right? But maybe I’ve got a Jim part as well.’
‘Chelsea supporter, hangs out with the lads at the pub, owns a Rottweiler, has a tattoo?’
‘Maybe not that different.’
‘Jekyll and Hyde spring to mind, or maybe The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. “Doe not call upp Any that you cannot put downe.” Flannery and Klein were both well-grounded in H. P. Lovecraft.
‘Nothing like that,’ said Klein.
‘Has Jim said anything interesting lately?’
‘Not yet.’
They talked of Klimt, Kieslovski, and Egberto Gismonti over their tortellini and lasagne. ‘Do you use the Internet?’ said Klein.
‘I haven’t got round to that yet, I’m afraid I’d become addicted to it. You?’
‘From time to time; it’s useful for research.’
After lunch they walked down to Great Russell Street, then over to Tottenham Court Road and Oxford Street and the Virgin Megastore, where they headed for the video department. Klein bought, among others, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Flannery included Point Blank in his purchases. They both possessed recordings from TV of these all-time favourites but they liked the pretty boxes.
15
Second Session
Klein ignored holidays and celebrations as much as possible. On Hallowe’en, his neighbourhood being ever more gentrified, little groups of middle-class trick-or-treaters rang his bell but he didn’t answer the door. On Guy Fawkes night the gunpowder-smelling streets were hung with smoke as fireworks near and far lit up the sky but he stayed indoors.
On the appointed day at the appointed time he presented himself at Dr DeVere’s office. DeVere looked him up and down, saw no slings or casts, and said, ‘Well done! You’ve kept out of Casualty for two weeks. How’s it going?’
‘Variously. I think too much Internet can make you go blind.’
‘A new development?’
‘I’m not sure development is the word for it.’
‘Go on.’
Klein told Dr DeVere about the various websites he’d visited; he told him about Angelica’s Grotto, the homepage with the Ingres painting and the pictures in the galleries.
‘Interesting,’ said Dr DeVere.
‘She asked me onscreen if I wanted to take a walk on the night side. I clicked on YES and got a picture story called ‘Monica’s Monday Night’ in which a young woman on her way home from a late meeting at King’s College is pulled into a van by a black man and forced to perform oral sex, after which she’s anally raped. She has to do other things as well. Afterwards this person who calls herself Angelica and I had an onscreen one-to-one dialogue and she asked me if I’d enjoyed it.’
‘Had you?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you feel about the fact that you enjoyed it?’
‘Troubled. I’ve always thought I liked women but now I’m wondering if that’s really so. Maybe I’ve never liked them; certainly I’ve always been afraid of them.’
‘Did that contribute to your enjoyment?’
‘Well, if you see someone you’re afraid of being forced to submit to a more powerful person you can take pleasure in it, right? Or maybe, as they say, the enemy of the enemy is a friend.’
‘You think of women as the enemy?’
‘I’ve never thought I did. But I believe it’s generally accepted that men who sleep with as many women as they can don’t really like women.’
‘Have you slept with many?’
‘My opportunities were limited but I did what I could.’
‘Did your wife know about it?’
‘I tried to be discreet but I think women always know one way or another – you sound funny on the telephone or you come home smelling different or things fall out of your pockets.’
‘Were these one-night stands or something more?’
‘They were affairs that went on for a while.’
‘How did you feel about them?’
‘Guilty.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Successful.’
‘I think it might be useful if you tried to understand where you are with women in general.’
‘Where I was, you mean.’
‘Well, you’ve got something going with this Angelica woman. Can you say what it is?’
‘I can’t say because I don’t know. I’m pretty confused right now.’
‘Confusion is OK; confusion is generally the first step in the process of change.’
‘Confusion is nothing new to me; I’m like those people who divide their time between a house in London and a villa in Tuscany except that I do it between confusion and panic’
‘Can you describe the panic?’
‘Well, I used to wake up in the morning like a man trapped in a car going over a cliff.’
‘And now?’
‘Like a man lost in a cave.’
‘That’s when you first wake up. What about later?’
‘At breakfast I settle into the day, read the papers, plan what I’m going to do. After breakfast I go to my desk and then it’s just the normal work panic’
‘What’s the normal work panic?’
‘It’s a state of not knowing each time whether you can make it happen. For a writer that’s an OK state to be in – it’s respectful of the unknowable thing-in-itself of whatever you’re writing about. If that goes I’m in big trouble. Winter is coming; in November there’s always a big rain that leaves the trees black and bare. This is the November of me – there’s no getting away from that. Sometimes I go to a bookshelf and stand there with my hand outstretched, not knowing what I came there for.’
‘What can I say? Everybody grows old except those who die young. Naturally that’s part of your current problems but I’d like to get back to the sexual area.’
‘Me too.’
‘Please don’t be offended by my next question: when your wife was with you, how would you have felt about seeing her in a picture-story like the Monica one?’
Klein blushed. ‘That’s a very uncomfortable question.’
‘Don’t answer unless you want to.’
Klein took a deep breath. ‘Bear in mind that the Monica story was a fantasy – it wasn’t presented as something that really happened. I mean, I’ve had fantasies about murdering one or two people but I haven’t ever got those fantasies mixed up with reality.’
‘Understood.’
‘A fantasy like that with my wife in it – my response would have been pretty much what it was with the Monica story.’
‘How do you feel about that?’
‘Ashamed.’
‘You didn’t feel ashamed of your murder fantasies but you feel ashamed about the idea of enjoying a rape fantasy with your wife as the victim, yes?’
‘Monica wasn’t altogether a victim; at some level she almost wanted it to happen and when it happened she found herself sexually responsive to the man who was mastering her.’
‘Are you saying that you’d enjoy a fantasy in which your wife wanted to be raped and was responsive to her rapist?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you’d feel … ?’
‘Ashamed.’
‘Can you say why?’
‘I loved my wife and I’ve never gotten over her death. In her absence she’s a constant presence. I see or read something I want to tell her about and she’s not there. You don’t really know what someone is to you until that person’s gone.’
‘Would you say that the mind is capable of holding contradictory thoughts?’
‘I know that.’
‘I’ve talked to a lot of people and it seems to be true for all of them that you can have two opposing thoughts or images
in your mind–really weird ones. A friend of mine, driving away from his wedding to begin the honeymoon, had a mental picture of himself strangling his beautiful bride. Yet he was truly in love with her and still is; for the five years since the wedding it’s been a good marriage with no signs of big trouble. Try to remember that kind of thing while you’re dealing with the loss of your inner voice. I want to stop there because I don’t want to put anything else on top of this. See you in a fortnight.’
16
Rock of Aged
‘Angelica,’ said Klein as he walked around her in his mind, ‘is not what she first appeared to be; she’s something else. I’m sure that her name isn’t really Angelica and I very much doubt that she’s the one in the photographs. She smells strongly of sweat plus her own funky odour. There is a mystery between us, however ridiculous. In her words on the screen there was someone trying to reach me while keeping her distance, someone talking hard while wanting to be soft, maybe wanting to be rescued from the rock of her hard self. Can I possibly be, in some way as yet unknown to me, her Ruggiero? I’ve not yet heard her voice. Shall I ring her up?’
Looking at Klimt’s nudes he saw Angelica naked except for her horn-rimmed glasses, Angelica saying, as she offered herself, ‘There are many ways of giving pleasure.’ It was only a fantasy of course. ‘Only a fantasy of course,’ he said, ‘but it’s a good one. Maybe she’s looking for father substitutes, wants to see Daddy’s face between her legs.’ Mentally he rubbed his face in her pubic hair, opened her, tasted her.
‘No word from Oannes,’ he said. ‘I suppose he’s just leaving me to it. I haven’t all that much time left and I’ll die hungering for what I’ve never had enough of. What’s the title of that Courbet painting, the one looking up between a woman’s naked thighs? L’origine du Monde. In one of my books there’s a picture of a knickerless virgin lifting her skirt and scaring off the devil with a flash of her naughty bits. And Sheela-na-Gigs on churches – the stone female spreading her vulva to avert evil or promote fertility. It’s where the power is, it’s where life comes out of. Maybe Angelica will rescue me.’ He saw the imagined woman naked again and found her body beautiful, rich and well-fleshed like the one in the Courbet painting. He saw her nakedness close to his face, felt the heat coming from it. ‘They gave Abishag the Shunamite to King David for his bed but he gat no heat from her. Still, he must have liked having her firm young body touching his old one. This woman whose name isn’t really Angelica, what is her voice like? I think she speaks correctly but sensually, like some of those sexy female reporters on the TV news. They almost never show them below the waist but you can hear in their voices L’origine du Monde of them, the moist warmth between their thighs.