by Alec Waugh
Myra could not help laughing. Naomi made it all sound so ridiculous, and yet at the same time, inviting.
‘Men need to come down from their high horses. They want to become human beings, and what a relief it must be to them if it’s with their own wives that they can slip out of that magisterial saddle, instead of slinking away surreptitiously to a squalid flat.
‘And think,’ Naomi was continuing, ‘of the kick a wife must get when she looks up at her husband, pontificating on a dais, remembering how he behaved only a few hours ago; thinking of the romps they would be indulging in in a few hours’ time, saying to herself, “If only these people here could see him as I know him.” Myself I’m precocious. I know that; and I’m a bitch. But when I was only sixteen I seduced the dean of my college. He thought he did the seducing, but that’s where I had him fooled. He didn’t attract me particularly, but oh, what a kick I got out of watching him strut across the campus, and of listening to his sanctimonious sermons. I did the most outrageous things to him, I made him do the most outrageous things to me, not because I enjoyed it, at the time, but because I could chuckle afterwards when he stood up there in the pulpit.’
‘You are opening a whole new world to me.’
‘That’s what I’m trying to do, meine Liebling. I’m trying to save your marriage for you. The more prominent a man, the more he needs to be relaxed. He’ll always be grateful to the woman who does that for him, and if it’s his wife who does it, that marriage is built on very solid rock.’
At first it was Naomi who had cross-questioned Myra. Now the roles were reversed. It was Myra who asked the questions. ‘This business with whips,’ she said. ‘I can’t see what pleasure it can give a man. It must hurt a lot.’
Naomi shook her head. ‘Not necessarily; not if it’s done gradually, gently at first, then harder. You don’t feel pain when you’re excited. A footballer doesn’t realise that he’s been hurt till the game is over. Haven’t you heard of women biting and scratching their lovers? Hasn’t Shakespeare said something about that; “the pinch that hurts and is desired”? Besides, it’s reciprocal in this. A woman gets to like it; it excites her. And if a man knows that a woman is being excited through him, that’s inflammatory. There are a good many angles to it.’
She elaborated the theme. ‘Man is excited by a woman taking all that trouble over him, by her assuming the active not the passive role. As a legacy of Victorian prudery, there is in many men a built-in suspicion that women don’t get much kick out of sex; it’s so easy for a woman to pretend. She can put on an act. It is so much in her interest to. That’s her métier de femme—to exploit his physical need for her; to make him pay for the indelicate favours that she accords him. But it is a different matter when she’s in the dominant role, using him as an instrument for her pleasure, ordering him about, lashing him to the bed posts.’
‘Lashing him to the bed posts!’
‘That’s a later stage. All this is an acquired taste, remember. One thing leads to another. When a woman says, “I’m going to gag you so that you can’t scream,” that’s reaching a high bracket.’
Myra’s eyes grew wider. She could begin to see the point to it. Yet it all was very foreign to her. She could not picture Victor in such a role.
‘You’ve done this kind of thing yourself?’ she asked.
‘Of course. I’m German, don’t forget.’
‘How do you start?’
‘It’s easy with a little guile. If the man has a taste for it, you’ll find out pretty soon. There’s a mental shorthand. In the same way, I suppose, that masons recognise each other. The woman has to take the first step, naturally. She’s the active one. Often, she has to put the idea into a man’s mind. That’s when it’s exciting—when he hasn’t realised that he is that way, or what is more likely, hasn’t admitted it to himself.’
‘But how do you put it in his mind?’
‘As a joke to start with. Find fault with him on some account. Suppose that he’s unpunctual. Then you can say, “Next time you are late I shall have to whip you.” Watch how he reacts. If he seems to relish the idea, if he says, “Oh, you wouldn’t do that, would you?” you’ll know he’s nibbling. “Oh, yes I will,” you’ll say, “and it won’t be a laughing matter, I can promise you.” But though you say it isn’t a laughing matter, you must keep it a laughing matter. Don’t be solemn. That’s the mistake so many people make. They invoke high heaven. They deliver portentous vows. They talk about the soul; as though love-making was only justified when you have God on your side, angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. Let it be frivolous and fun. That’s the whole point of it. Then one day you will produce a whip, or a birch—there’s a lot to be said for a birch. It stings rather than bruises; you show it to him and say: “Do you see this? This is for you next time you’re late. One stroke for every minute.” As likely as not he will be late on purpose.’
‘You take my breath away.’
‘That’s what I’m trying to do, my silly sweet. You’re an adorable kitten. I want you to have the very best of everything.’ She raised her hand. She laid it against Myra’s cheek, letting it rest there in a half caress. ‘There’s another thing too about it,’ she went on. ‘It is a very definite aphrodisiac. It brings the blood to that part of the anatomy. It genuinely is what doctors recommend.’
Next morning Naomi returned from a shopping visit in Valetta with a gift-wrapped package. It was two and a half feet long, and in a narrow box. She handed it to Myra. ‘For you to take home as a secret weapon.’
The box contained a leather riding crop. The leather was painted and embossed. At the end of the handle was a soft, thin leather tongue, three inches long. ‘You show that to your Victor and mark the expression on his face,’ she said.
Myra held the handle at its end and flicked the tongue. ‘This doesn’t seem a very lethal toy,’ she said.
‘It’ll do. If handled right. I told you to start gently. We’ll have a dress rehearsal; tonight, after a hot bath.’
That night there was a gala dance in the neighbouring hotel, the Sheraton. Two days before, they had planned to go to it. ‘What about that dance?’ asked Naomi.
Myra shook her head. ‘It’s too much bother. There’ll be nobody there I want to dance with. Let’s have a brandy with our coffee and then go up.’
Naomi made no comment. But the tip of her tongue slid between her lips.
It was only just ten o’clock when Naomi knocked on Myra’s door. Myra was in her bed jacket, sitting by the balcony.
‘I’ll have your bath ready in five minutes. Then I’ll call,’ said Naomi.
Myra listened to the water running; a thick sweet smell came from the bathroom. Her impatience, her restlessness were mounting. Naomi’s head came round the door. ‘All set.’
Naomi had taken off her robe. She was wearing only the bottom half of a bikini. Myra, seeing her in a bathing dress, had fancied that she would be over-plump; she wasn’t, and her breasts were firm.
Naomi held out her hand. ‘Come along. Off with that jacket.’
The steaming bath water was bluish, covered with whitish foam. ‘Nuns used to put white powder in their baths so as not to be shocked by the sight of their own bodies. I’m giving you a blue bath, to spare your blushes.’
The bath was low, with a wide square brim. ‘I once worked in a hospital,’ said Naomi. ‘Giving the patients baths was my favourite chore.’
She knelt beside Myra and began to soap her back. Her fingers were strong and firm. They kneaded the back of her neck and the flesh round her shoulder blades. Myra felt a slow hypnotic peace descend on her. ‘Lean back. Yes, like that, against the bath.’ Naomi put a sponge underneath her head and began to soap her breasts, rotating the palm of her right hand over each in turn, till the nipples hardened. ‘I’ve been so wanting to do just this,’ she said.
The massage went on, went on. ‘Stand up,’ she said. Standing up now beside her Naomi drew the film of scented soap over her stoma
ch, over her navel. ‘Turn around,’ she said. Her hands lingering over the swelling haunches. ‘That South African was right,’ she said. ‘It is the loveliest line. Lie down again.’
She eased Myra back into the water. ‘Now your feet,’ she said. Once again she was on her knees herself. She lifted Myra’s right foot and laid it on the edge of the bath. She washed it carefully, toe by toe; she bent her head. She took the little toe between her teeth. ‘I could easily be a foot fetishist,’ she said.
She stood up again. Bending over the bath, she lifted the left foot and set it on the edge. ‘No, leave the right foot there. It’ll make it easier later.’
Her hands were now moving slowly over Myra’s shins; they were kneading her calves. They moved over her knees. When they approached her thighs, Myra could no longer see them through the opaque blue water. It was tantalising to feel them mounting, mounting, coming nearer, nearer. ‘In the hospital,’ Naomi said, ‘when I used to bathe a good-looking man, at this point I’d say, “Would you like me to wash you here?” I’m going to wash you there.’
Nearer and nearer the approaching fingers came, nearer, nearer, nearer, then thrillingly they were there, lingering, loitering, entering, caressing. ‘The little boy in the boat,’ she said. ‘He likes it, doesn’t he?’
‘If you go on like that you’ll have to gag me or I’ll scream,’ said Myra.
Naomi laughed.
‘That’s right. You haven’t lost your sense of humour. Never be solemn about love-making. Now for that secret weapon.’
Naomi slipped a pillow under Myra’s stomach. ‘Never forget the pillow. It’s symbolic as well as practical. The raising of an altar.’ She passed her hand slowly over the long smooth curve. ‘So lovely, so soft, so exquisite.’ She picked up the whip. She ran the point of it slowly from the nape of the neck, down the spine, between the line of the haunches. She raised it and struck gently. ‘That’s how you start,’ she said, ‘so softly that it’s a caress.’ She struck again, this time a little harder; a third and fourth time, each time harder.
‘That one has left a mark,’ she said, ‘but not a big one; I must kiss it well.’ She let her cheek linger against the soft, marked cushion. She struck again, again; and each time harder. ‘It isn’t hurting, is it?’
‘No, not really.’
It tingled, it stung, it smarted; it wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it pleased her. It was an utterly new sensation. She had lost count now of the strokes. They were getting harder all the time. There was a little pause. Then suddenly, there was one much harder. Myra gasped and shuddered. ‘Oh, Liebling,’ Naomi cried, ‘that was too hard. But you looked so tempting. I couldn’t resist and it is thrilling you a little, isn’t it?’ She dropped the whip. She slid her hand under the pillow between Myra’s thighs. ‘Oh, yes, you are excited. You’re damp. I can’t resist.’
Before Myra could appreciate what was happening, she was on her back, on the edge of the bed. The pillow was beneath her hips; Naomi was kneeling on the floor, with Myra’s legs divided across her shoulders. She looked up at Myra, a pleading, imploring expression in her face. ‘Please, please, please.’ Then lowered her head.
It was a sensation for which Myra had no standard of comparison. Nothing like this had happened to her. She had read about it; she had felt curious about it. She had been repelled and attracted by the idea of it. She had thought of it as something that no one would ever do to anyone like her. But now, but now … a soft, pointed tongue was stabbing at her, was caressing her; firm, strong fingers were exploring her. Everything that had happened during the last week had found a sudden shattering culmination in this dynamic moment. She writhed, she sobbed out loud. ‘You’re killing me, you’re killing me,’ she cried. There was no mistaking the complete, the shattering nature of the explosion that convulsed her.
Her head was on Naomi’s shoulder. She was back now at the head of the bed, among the pillows. Naomi was whispering in her ear; now and again the tip of Naomi’s tongue toyed with the crevices of her ear. Naomi’s hand was slowly stroking her from breast to knees.
‘It’s what I’ve been praying to happen all these days …’ she murmured, ‘for your sake even more than for my own.… I wanted you to have the best there was—and it was, wasn’t it? … It wasn’t just vaguely diffused, it was localised too, wasn’t it?’
‘It was localised. It was diffused, oh, it was everything.’
Naomi took Myra’s hand, guided it between her own thighs, enforced its pressure. Myra was conscious with her fingertips of Naomi’s gathering response. ‘Liebling, please, won’t you now, in return, you to me?’
Myra hesitated. She felt a spasm of repugnance. ‘Please,’ Naomi was repeating. ‘Please, please.’ Myra still hesitated. I suppose I must, she thought. It would be churlish to refuse. Besides, she was curious. If she didn’t try this now, she might never have another chance.
She slid onto her knees beside the bed. The sense of repugnance still remained, a little; but the skin of Naomi’s inner thighs was soft against her cheeks. There was also a sense of challenge: to give as much as she had received. Her hands slid under Naomi’s hips. Naomi’s hips lifted to meet her kiss; moved in a circle, undulated, plunged, retreated. The feeling of repugnance slid away. The warm, luxuriant dampness was a lush intoxicant. She clasped Naomi’s hips, gripping them, steadying their rocking movement, enforcing her dominance, as though she was mastering an opposing force. Naomi’s hands were pressed upon her head. Myra tightened her grip, letting her nails dig into the firm, soft flesh, the pinch that hurts but is desired, waiting impatiently, eager, for the muscular contraction, the broken signs that would prove her triumph.
‘I thought, at first, I wasn’t going to like it, but I did,’ she whispered.
Naomi laughed. ‘You’ll like it even more tomorrow. The second night’s always better than the first, and I’ve so much to show you. We’ve three more nights. You’ll see. The last will be the best.’
It was.
5
Myra’s return flight landed her at the Gloucester Road Air Terminal in mid-afternoon. It was a bright early summer day, too warm for her to wear a coat. The trim gardens that lined the road out to Hampstead were alight with irises. The ochre-brown fields of Malta belonged to another universe. It was hard to believe that six hours ago she and Naomi had toasted each other in a valedictory Tom Collins.
‘It’s unlikely, meine Liebling, that we shall ever meet again. But I shall never forget you, never, never. I shall relive these few days, oh, how many times.’
Which was exactly what that South African had hoped to say to her. How astonished he would have been could he have foreseen that that identical speech was to be made to her by a woman.
‘Will the world be the same again?’ That had been her answer then, as she had sat on the terrace overlooking the patio. Now with the taxi climbing Fitzjohn’s Avenue, so seemingly unchanged, she was on the verge of wondering whether it had ever happened. Might it not be an episode in a novel that she had read on a vacation, identifying herself with the heroine, as one does when one reads a novel, in a deck chair by the Mediterranean?
As she got out of her taxi, a voice shouted from the nursery. ‘Mummy, Mummy, welcome home.’ Jerry had been watching for her. A minute later Jerry was in her arms; and under her nostrils was that familiar wholesome smell of soap and powder.
Jerry insisted on her unpacking right away. She wanted to see what her mother had brought her back, but she also wanted to have her mother to herself. She had so much to tell her mother. It took her a full quarter of an hour to tell it all. The sentences fell over one another. She was still talking, as at last she allowed her mother to come to the nursery. As she trotted up the stairs, tugging at her mother’s hand, her mother thought, No, it has never happened. It was all a dream.
Five minutes later she was recognising in a startling flash of illumination that very certainly it had. When they came into the nursery, Anna was tidying Jerry’s bed, which had been ruffl
ed by the afternoon siesta. Frankie was in his pen, and Lena was bouncing for him a large India-rubber ball. Seeing the two girls together, Myra recalled how she had wondered what they did together. She looked at Lena first. She knew now what it was to be a passive partner. That, very certainly, was Lena’s role; and one day, no doubt, when the need for domesticity, for a family became assertive, she would be passively receptive of some man. Anna was a different proposition. She was not only older, she was settled in her ways. She was a woman who knew herself. Myra looked at her, thoughtfully, noticing her hands as they smoothed out the bed. They were not short-fingered as Naomi’s had been. Anna’s fingers were long and thin, but they were firm and sensitive. She passed them slowly in a final sweep over the counterpane. It would be exciting to have them pass in just that way over one’s shoulders. What would it be like to make love with Anna? At that moment Anna, her job completed, stood up and turned. She was about to give her employer the conventional smile of welcome. But instead, as their eyes met, her expression changed. She stood transfixed with a look of surprise, of wonderment, of recognition, then of delighted warmth. She knows, Myra thought, she knows. They stared at one another, each knowing what was in the other’s mind. No, Myra told herself. It isn’t something that happened to someone else. I’m never going to be the same again.