Ménage (26 page)

He ignored me, kept on.

— These humiliations . . .

I searched for words and he did too as ITN told us that the World Trade Center bomber had just been arrested and another shopping mall the size of a town had just opened and we were bombing in Bosnia, and Damien Hirst had sold his ninth formaldehyde animal for six figures.

— For a man of my years, to have to endure –

— It won’t happen again, I said, — We were drunk it was just –

— What are you on about? I’m talking about job interviews. Have you ever been to one? They want me to go to a call centre. I don’t even know what a call centre is! I’m going to have to have your help.

That was all he said.

He would not talk of our bedtime behaviours. For many nights similar drunken rituals were performed, but in every episode Saul was the same, eyes closed as if pretending it was a dream. And each day was the denial of the daylight waking reality, as if we were vampires that only lived at night. In the three weeks that followed we three always slept together in many combinations in as many beds and we entered what I came to think of as the
‘perverse equilibrium’. Every day I faced the questions and every day it was the denial but come night, when drunken, our bodies found each other.

One morning after another night I decided it was time to confront her.

— Can’t you see how sick this is? It’s time we sat down with Saul and discussed it all. She laughed in my face.

— My little brother, she said as she kissed me.

I needed to analyse it with him but I knew he would shh me as he did before. Don’t be crass. But how could I not talk about it when every night the ritual became more perverse?

There was one night I recall vividly. (Although, perhaps even this memory has been tainted by Saul’s squalid texts.) It was in Saul’s bedroom again. The curtains were drawn open and moonlight and street light illuminated his rubbish, his clothes in piles, his jackets hanging on nails like a firing squad, an audience.

Dot and I lay on either side of him as he pretended to sleep.

His vast wardrobe doors lay wide open, but nothing was visible inside. It seemed a huge black hole in the room, a portal to another time and place, staring back like an empty eye socket. His books were face down on the ground, food cartons discarded, the interior silver sachet from a sherry box inflated like a party balloon. Every object was illuminated in the same moon-blue light, unified in its mess, somehow an equality between each as if it was carved in stone. And on the TV screen Saul’s cock, standing erect, filling the screen. We stared at it, as if it were a pillar or cenotaph. Then she started to suck it.

And the hand that gripped mine as she climbed on top of me, as she sucked him and took my cock and slid me into her wetness, as my hand went to her mouth to stifle her cries – that hand, as I felt her cunt tighten round me as I
withdrew
and shot over her ass-hole. I am sure of it, the hand that held mine so firmly, gripping so tight, was not hers.

— Morning, he said. Fucking hell, no ibuprofen or Rennies, I’m sick as a dog, couldn’t sub me a quid for some cancer sticks, could you? as he passed me on his way to the bathroom for his usual post-booze vomit.

Such banalities. Such necessary lies to keep the un-utterable truth alive for another day. Such beauty that we pretended all was no more than drunken late-night fumblings, forgotten in the hung-over search for food and pills.

The opening night of
Bug
was in two weeks and I was to present my fake attempt to duplicate Saul’s Duchess rant, which itself was based on something fake, to Pierce. I had been unable to complete it for these reasons. Dot had returned late and drunk from another day at the warehouse. She was wearing a kid’s sweetie necklace and the terrifying wig in two tiny tufty ponytails with a seventies psychedelic miniskirt and sparkly silver disco socks that she’d cut the toes from and so magically transformed into armbands. She wanted to make another artwork right away. If she could just slow down, I told her, decide on one tape, then her exhibition would be done.

— We haven’t done the best yet, she kept saying. — We have to keep going.

She had an idea that sounded familiar to me, again from the Duchess book: Duchamp tied to the chair. Something about sacrifice, paying the price for being bad. I didn’t want to burst her bubble or to let Saul know that I’d worked out that his heroes were phoney, so I agreed to go ahead with the new artwork. The vodka she brought helped.

I drank and watched as she arranged the camera and tripod, marvelling at her manic energy. It was OK, I told myself, just one more game, but I worried for Saul. His
hand
was shaking as he poured the vodka and his forehead was sweating. It was late in the day but still he was still only half dressed. Pinstripe flares, barefoot, bare chest with kimono.

She set a chair in the middle of his room, throwing clothes and ashtrays to the side to make space and pointed her camera at the seat. I helped arrange the anglepoise lamp before the chair as she collected Saul’s ties and belts to use as restraints, along with a glass and a high-heel shoe which would be ‘props’.

She had not decided which one would be tied to the chair and did not meet my eyes as she went through the procedure. My heart was aching for a little glance to tell me it was all a joke, but there was nothing. We were to draw straws but had none, so it was cigarette butts. Her fingers did not hide the fags well enough, we could all see which was the shortest, but I sensed it was a secret message from her – a sacrifice had to be made to validate our sacrilegious union. I waited till last and took the shortest.

More vodka was required and Saul volunteered to go to the off-licence with her money. I tried to ask him if he was OK with all this, but he left with no more than a shrug of shoulders. We were alone together.

— He seems to be a bit weirded out by . . . you know . . . our um . . . sleeping arrangements. He seems . . .

— I know, she said, — don’t worry.

She told me I should be brave, this was going to be the answer to everything. She kissed my cheek. — Trust me, she said and I tried. I gave her my hands which she tied behind my back round the chair. — A lovely little game, she said.

She stood back and stared at me as if admiring an artwork, her eyes critical, but a tiny smile on her face, and I could not help but recall Saul doing exactly the same thing to her, that night she cut off her hair.

— Vodka, I said, but there was none and my arms were
restrained
. She whispered, — I know, O. Shh. She went next door and came back through with her wigs and make-up.

— Who would you like to be tonight? she whispered.

I knew it was only minutes till Saul returned and did not want him to find us kissing but was so desperate with need. I told her I would like to be a girl, make-up would be required, that way she would touch me more.

She painted my face. Her eyes focused on the act, as if I was a canvas. Eyeliner, mascara, lipstick. I surrendered and it started to make some sense. For us three to be together, I had to re-enact her own transformation in negative, to take the leap, become her.

— My beautiful girl, she whispered.

Saul came in the front door and she pulled away. Vodka with no mixes and two new packs of Marlboro and the Velvet Underground to get us in the mood. I wondered what his motivation was. To punish us or accept our union. Some ritual had to be gone through. An end to the pretended secrecies. Dot danced, arms spinning, waving round the bottle to ‘Venus in Furs’.

She adjusted the lamp and the camera on the tripod and turned off the top light and plugged the camera cable into the telly to show me my pretty face, as if all the world was watching. She ran back and forward from the TV, checking the framing. I closed my eyes as she painted a beauty spot on my cheek.

— So beautiful she whispered. — Just stare at the light, like you’re being interrogated. My eyes burned and I could see nothing. Whispers in the dark.

— No way, Saul said. The album had ended.

— Shh, it’s secret, she said to him, then to me so close in my ear, so gentle.

— We’re going to do little things to you . . . and you can’t move or talk OK, that’s all you have to do, try not to respond, OK?

It started with many giggles. The camera had been turned on, she said, we were recording. I had to keep a straight face. I couldn’t, was laughing at how this whole thing was absurd and sorry for spoiling it all. My hands were not tied at all well and soon were free and I was holding them up to the camera and saying, — See! He was behind me then, trying to retie in the dark and the top light had to be put back on so he could do it properly and, laughing, I called him the Marquis and it still wasn’t tight enough so I called him a wimp. — Tie it tighter, you wimp! Finally I was tied and the lights were off but nothing was happening. They were whispering beyond and I was laughing. — C’mon, this is a joke, but they did not respond.

Minutes passed and I was bored, but then sounds behind me of heels, stilettos. I was laughing at how contrived it all was, was that really all they could come up with? I really couldn’t see a thing though, was sure the lamp was too near my retina, all burned shapes. A whisper close to my face, his. — Shut the fuck up and face the light!

A sharp noise then to my left. I turned to see but was light-blinded. The sound again. Of leather or wood, a strike. Dot’s command again to face the light. Fear then of punishment.

A hand so gentle stroking my cheek, or the brush of a kiss? Who?

I waited, my face muscles contorting in a smile, I fought it, was thinking about the image of my face on the TV, this was for her, her art. The more I fought it the more hilarious it became, this pathetic DIY grunge attempt at sadomasochism.

A slap shot through my face and I reeled from it. Then nothing, nothing. I waited for a second blow. Noises behind me, like steel on glass. Then no, the front door, opening then closing. My God, had they left me? Was this the plan? They’d be out all night and I’d be tied like this till the joke
wore
thin and they’d been out clubbing and if they were sober enough then they might untie me, what, four hours later? Or one of them had left for good and the other was running after.

I felt wet on my face. My God. I turned to see who, but was blind. Hands held my face firm from behind, aching to know that soft wet again.

A slap. Cheek hot from it. Sound of breath, quick in my ears. Rush of blood. Craning to hear, trying to anticipate the next blow. Sound of what? Plastic being crushed. Nothing. Then nothing more. Starting to panic, hands struggling to get free. Whisper in my ear. His voice I think.

— I love you.

Sharp sting on my nipple – teeth? I looked down but my hair was pulled back by the roots. The urge to beg. — Please, please, stop!

Nothing for minutes more, something in me weeping, please, please, don’t make me wait, hurt me even, just please, not the waiting. Cold sweat alive down my arm. The lamp moved closer to my face, the burn of it on my cheek. Do something, please. Struggling so hard not to cry out.

A mouth on mine, lips hot wet, full, no stubble, hers then, a tongue on my teeth, smell of patchouli, of sweat.

Laughter behind me, both of them, it seemed, or another. How was that possible? Someone else in the room there with them? I turned to look, in a panic, but hands held my head and others tied a blindfold over my eyes. My feet then all that was free, kicking, but hands then, many it seemed, holding, tying them firm, a gasp from some voice not Dot or Saul.

The waiting, the weeping, I became animal, gasping, could I talk? Would I be struck? Would they gag me? Had Saul, in the off-licence, told some strangers about this freak tied up and invited them round? I tried to cry out but lips were on mine, then firm hands holding my mouth. I tried
to
speak but my lips trembled so much I could not. A voice in my ear: — Shhh, shhh. A glass smashed behind me. A face came close, sniffing my skin, then nails, a nail or glass, scraping my chest. A hand over my mouth.

The waiting. No sound behind.

The front door? They had left me alone, tied and bound.

Please God.

And how many times did I cover my eyes and hide myself in the darkest place while I heard the plates smash and the screaming and the door being slammed, and the fear of my mother’s lover coming home drunk, then beating her. Her begging him to stop, to leave, then begging him to stay. And all that silence, waiting, and my mother’s hand would find me in the ironing cupboard, hidden beneath the sheets, telling me she loved me more than anyone and we would get away soon, just the two of us. But the two I did not trust, not him and her, or her and me. Not two, ever.

Something broke in me then. I could not stop it. It came from some force stored in muscle, hot flush through my skin. I closed my eyes and surrendered to it. Every muscle taut. A rush of tears and insane laughter.

The light was turned off but I was blinded and speechless.

— It’s OK, the camera’s turned off now, Dot said and the hands came to free me. — You can open your eyes. But I did not want to. I wept as their hands and voices re assured. — You OK? Was just a game. Hope we didn’t freak you out. You freaked out? Sorry, baby. Let’s put the top light on. Shh.

A hand was on my shoulder, then a kiss on my cheek.

— It’s OK, we stopped filming ages ago, you can come back now.

A kiss on my other cheek.

— Poor baby, he’s lost the plot.

— Beautiful, she said.

— Yes.

Lips then on my eyes, my nose, hers I assumed. Then a hand through my hair. A mouth met mine, then moved from me and I heard them kiss inches from my face. My every sense was heightened in that state. The burn had faded from my eyes but I kept them tight shut, savouring. I heard the saliva in their mouths, the breath through teeth, the meeting of lips sticking and parting. Her lips returned to mine and our tongues circled. Her head fell back and from the movement beside me I imagined that he had started biting her neck. With closed eyes I leaned for her other side and found that soft skin and started to bite too. She fell onto me and as her teeth grazed my ear a shot ran through my spine, stiffening my cock. A shudder ran through her and a hand fought with my pants, freeing me. Two or three hands were over my chest then and a mouth. It had to be hers, but I would not open my eyes to see, each sensation had to be prolonged. As a hand pulled my hair, a mouth ran down my chest to my belly as two hands lifted me up and out of my pants and held my thighs tight. The mouth took an age to hover its warm breath over my aching cock, then plunged wet around me, sending gasps from my lungs. I did not know if Saul was holding my hair or hips, or watching us both or if he too was doing things unseen to her body. She sucked and circled and I heard the fall of clothes by my ear, felt the brush of hair and limb against my shoulder. I would not open my eyes. Her hand travelled up my chest, over my shoulder to that place beside me where I sensed he stood erect. I felt then the beating of her wrist against my chest as, inches from my cheek, her fingers pumped. I heard her fabric fall and her lips found mine and I could taste the sour sweat of my own sex. Her lips left mine and I heard the gasp of breath and the gag and saliva of her taking his length deep to her throat. I found her neck and felt her head move forward and back again. I could no longer bear my
blindness
, but forced myself not to look. In my mind I saw a perfect silhouette of her lips stretching round the veined length of his shaft, strings of saliva dangling from her lips. Her hand gripped my cock, as she paused, then suddenly, her weight on my lap, she guided me into her soaking cunt, gasping and gagging on his cock as she did. He was groaning and I was close to coming. I placed my hand on hers to ask her to stop, but I did not speak. I knew it would all be over if I came, all eyes opened in embarrassment.