—You could?
I was her boyfriend, we were together, she’d thought it had finally begun, the life that was to be hers. She was going to live that life with me. And there I stood, holding her hand and saying she’d looked at another man, or boy. That I’d witnessed her tense up when she saw him. And that it was obvious. Obvious she liked him. She felt my hand on her hip now. A warm hand, that moved up to her waist. She felt me pull her to me. My face drew very close, I whispered in her ear, I said
—I could see you wanted him,
and she grew uneasy and thought what happens now? and then a second later her fear subsided. She recalled that it had happened, she had felt his gaze on her and then a heat in her belly, or perhaps lower. And then she’d forgotten it, unaware that I’d seen it. She ought to be more careful perhaps to ensure it didn’t happen again. But no, she needn’t be. It posed no danger, it may even be a good thing. I stood there whispering into her ear, warmth in my voice, and I said
—What was it you liked about him?
and then she told me, without reflection. As though talking to herself, perhaps, and she said
—He had nice hands. He was tall, a long lean body. And his eyes. He looked at me with a kind of smile in his eyes, and then I wanted him. But it was only like a flicker, for a second. I’d forgotten it when you mentioned it,
and I said
—But you remember it now?
and she said
—Yes, but I didn’t realize you could see it,
and we walked back to the hotel, walked quickly through the warm summer streets, our arms around each other to make each other safe, and to feel our bodies move against each other. And because that’s what couples do. And there, as we walked through the old quarter, with its bridges and towers, I went on talking about what I’d observed. About how she’d opened up to another man, a man who just happened to be there. She listened as I went on about it. Heard me say it created a burning inside me, that it made me feel alive. I often said things like that. She didn’t quite understand what I meant. She asked me to explain. I said that I saw her more distinctly somehow when I saw her looking at somebody else. I liked talking about it, clearly, it did something to me, she saw that. And so it did something to her too.
—I liked seeing you open up to him.
—I don’t think he noticed.
—I’d say these things are always noticeable. Wouldn’t you agree?
—You may be right. It’s an exciting idea.
—He looked at you and wanted you. And it turned you on.
—Could you see that?
—Yes, I saw that it did something to you.
—But what?
—It made you wet, maybe.
—Oh, I don’t think so. Did you think that? That I got wet?
—I’m certain you did.
—You’ll soon find out for yourself.
* * *
—
We walked into the hotel and stood together in the little lift. We stared into each other’s eyes. I placed my hand on her hip. Pulled her to me and looked into her face. She was under my gaze. She was aware of being seen by me. Seen, she thought, as she’d never been seen by anyone before. It was a turn-on and slightly frightening. We went down the corridor and found the door to our room and let ourselves in. I began to take her clothes off. She was wearing a dress, no, not a dress, not that day, it was a green T-shirt with a picture of a yellow hand-print on it, and white dungarees and white socks and shoes. Underneath she had a plain white bra and plain white knickers, and I removed each garment. She usually preferred to do it herself, liking to turn slightly away as she removed her top garments. But now she let me undress her entirely. She remembers only what she wore, not what I wore, despite the fact she probably removed my clothes at the same time as I removed hers. No, that’s wrong. She watched as I took off my clothes. I was tall and thin and paler than any other man she’d known. And there was so much I wanted to do with her. My gaze never left her, following her like a torch, searching for life in a vast and incomprehensible darkness.
She doesn’t recall this. For years it is forgotten, gone. Then one night it comes back to her. How we lay in that bed, lovers for no more than six months, and I whispered in her ear about all the thrilling things she could do with another man. Who would say such things? Almost nobody, we thought. But I said them. And now I’d begun, I couldn’t stop. And she liked it, it did something to her that she liked.
This stopped for years, then I began doing it again: I lay beside her and whispered softly into her ear about the things another man could do to her. She listened to my voice, she touched herself, and then I penetrated her and everything rushed through her, rising and falling inside her, the imagined and the actual, the man who was actually fucking her and another who might have, as though she lay surrounded by naked men who desired her, only her. She heard herself scream. She heard her voice in that dark room, a single solitary moaning voice. It rose toward the ceiling as though she were calling for herself.
5
—It’s amazing we met.
—That we got together.
—Incredible really.
—When we’re so different.
—And now, I could never be with anyone but you.
—Nor me. Do you think it’s like that for everyone?
—No, I think we’re lucky.
—But to be together with someone means believing that there could never have been anyone else, that there’ll always be an us, that life could never have been better than this. Did you believe that last time too?
—No. And I spent the whole time wondering if that was how it was meant to be. If I’d always have doubts. If I’d always wonder whether this was all there was. Perhaps it will never get any better, I thought, perhaps I just have to get used to it. I was constantly in doubt, I couldn’t really hold out, yet I stayed with him.
—You don’t doubt it now?
—Never.
—Do you like this?
—Very much.
—And do you like it now?
—Do you never have doubts then?
—No, never.
—Not so hard.
—But I didn’t last time either.
—Didn’t you?
—It wasn’t good for me, it was always difficult. She was always upset or offended about something, and I constantly had to try to make her happy again. Even so, I didn’t have any doubts. I believed my life had finally begun. But with you everything is so much better. But imagine if things just get better each time? If things came to an end between us, and you got together with someone else, then you might have an even better time with him.
—With whom?
—With someone else. Somebody you haven’t met.
—Would you want that?
—No, never. But I’d still love you even if you found someone else.
—I don’t believe that.
—But what would love mean otherwise? If I really love you, then I should want your happiness. And if you have a better time with somebody else, I should still love you just as much, right? I ought to support you if you preferred to be with someone else. And I actually believe I would.
—But, darling.
—Yes?
—Be quiet for a moment.
—I talk too much, I know.
—Don’t stop, please. But don’t say anything.
6
What is love? What is love? No, that’s no good. Firstly the question is much too general. And secondly? She’s forgotten. The word points to a feeling or an experience that everybody thinks they know, yet it’s too limited, and simultaneously too broad. A word like love simply encompasses too much. It occurs to her that anyone wanting to say or write anything must trust that each word points to something definite, clearly delineated, easily
identified. But that’s never the case, a word always points like an open and undecided hand, its fingers spread in many directions.
Still: what was love for us? Was it co-dependence or mad abandon? Did I render myself dependent on her, bow in her shadow, subjugate myself and rest in the light of her existence? And did she do the same? Were we just drawn to each other, wanting to be close, or did we want to give ourselves away entirely? That was how it was for me, according to her. I wanted to share myself with her, I wanted to escape myself, I couldn’t take responsibility for everything inside me, not alone.
She remembers my getting undressed and lying close to her. At that moment I was the loving, love-addicted, love-hungry body beside her, the man who wanted to do or be done to. I was the man who was with her, who rested in the simple fact that she existed. I lived my whole life before that pale face. She remembers me saying it. I stepped inside her, hid myself in her very existence, which became mine too, because I was married to her and had given my whole self to her.
That was the phrase I used. Not at the start, not in those first years, but when I started to stay at home, when I became the man who waited for her, who was forever ready to listen to her, to live through her.
She remembers my being at home, that I always preferred to be there. I moved from room to room, cleaning, vacuuming, washing the kids’ clothes, her clothes and mine, hanging out the laundry when it was good drying weather, she’d watch me go out with the huge white sheets, bras, T-shirts. Watched me as I stood there hanging them out, reaching up to fasten each garment with small pegs, careful to straighten them on the line so they wouldn’t crease. When they were dry, I’d take them down and go inside to fold them neatly. I enjoyed going about like some kind of 1960s housewife, it allowed me to escape myself. She called me wifey. She called me our little wifey, she knew I liked it, and she began to like it too. Once when I went away, she said, What will happen to me now? I won’t manage without you, without help, we need another wifey. And I smiled happily back at her, she remembers that smile. She remembers how I liked the smell of laundry that had been dried outside. She thinks of me, not often, but long after she and I no longer know each other, she recalls me sitting quietly in a chair just watching her. She recalls my making risotto with fried beetroot, standing at the kitchen window, preparing supper, listening to music. She gets up and walks into another room, finds something to do, and forgets everything that ever was.
She remembers that whenever I wasn’t home I’d always be on my way. I would come home, open the front door and say I’m back. Home at last. I’d traveled a whole lifetime to come home here. Until then I had been elsewhere, somewhere she wasn’t, she couldn’t conceive how she’d held out, but now I was there, the man who lived with her. And whenever she wasn’t home, I too knew she’d be on her way, that she would be there soon. She remembers this, occasionally she thinks about it, and then remembers it no longer.
* * *
—
But wasn’t love also about availing oneself of another’s body, another’s sweet tenderness and fierce hunger? And oughtn’t the other to avail themselves of your body, your tenderness, hunger, despair, joy? Wasn’t it about making yourself available, allowing yourself to be undressed, to be touched, to be gazed upon and seen, and in turn about allowing yourself to gaze and see, and to be the one to undress the other?
Yes, and I lay on top of her. I clasped her wrists, quite hard. She liked that, or was it me? Yes, it must have been me who liked it. I needed everything that made us into something other than what seemed ordinary, than what was pre-understood and pre-interpreted, that which left no room for further inquiry. I always wanted something else. I bent her arms up over her head and held both her wrists in one hand. Now she lay with her arms above her head as though she were tied down. My other hand was free to hold her chin, and strike her softly across the cheek. Softly first, then a little harder. She went completely soft when I did that, and let out a sound. She hoped I wouldn’t stop, not yet. I pulled her hair, she felt it as I twisted her head to the side. I repositioned her. She felt my hand on her soft round breasts that spilled out so beautifully when she was on her back, she didn’t like it herself, but she knew I had a weakness for it. Everything about her made me weak, tender, yielding, adoring, she felt spoiled. I made myself weak for her, it surprised her at first, though later it ceased to surprise her. I surrendered to her entirely. But she liked it most when I wasn’t the one to surrender, when I made myself into the one to whom she could surrender. And now, I grabbed her thigh and prized her legs apart. Made her available to me. Thrust myself into her, soon she lay there and let herself be taken, she’d been waiting for that moment. For some time I worried that this made her too feminine, or myself too masculine. I was terrified of being average, ordinary. I didn’t want to be a man who just wanted to get his own basic release. There had to be a difference between us and everyone else, she’d often hear me say. She knew this went through my head every time I lay on top of her, every time I thrust myself in and out of her. Was this all there was? I wanted to lie by her side and whisper in her ear until she came. But she’d want me on top of her, and in the end I wanted that too. It was impossible to escape, even for us, that was how we always ended up, with me on top, even though we did just about everything else first, we embraced, tied each other up, hit each other, licked each other, created fantasies for each other and I said I want you to have everything and everyone, everyone and everything you could ever desire. It still ended with me lying on top of her and taking her, and with her lying under me, letting herself be taken. Was I just an ordinary man then, and was she just an ordinary woman, after all?
* * *
—
I told her I wanted to see her with someone else. I wanted to see her with more clarity, to see how she was when she wasn’t with me. I wanted to see her do the things she couldn’t do with me. She said
—Who do you suggest?
and I said
—It has to be someone you like. Maybe we can find him online,
and she said
—No, then we’d have to go for a coffee with him first, I couldn’t bear that. Meeting some man who’s bought himself a new blue shirt, who’s made an effort with himself because he wants to sleep with me, and then having to go back to some strange apartment. That’s not for me,
and I said
—Then you’ll have to find someone yourself,
and she said
—But what if I fall in love with him?
and I said
—I’m sure we’ll survive. It’ll be even more exciting, I want to see that you’re incapable of resisting him, that it’s not me you want, that you don’t even think about me being there,
and she said
—But won’t you be jealous?
and I said
—Yes, probably, that’s why it’s such a turn-on, I think I like the idea of being pushed aside, being the outsider. It’ll just make me love you even more,
and she said
—Let’s hope so, though I’m not sure I dare,
and I said
—Oh, I’m sure you do. I know how you look at other men, which is why I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve got to see it happen, otherwise I’ll just be afraid of it, and I don’t want to be. I want to see you unbutton his shirt, his trousers, I want to see him step out of his clothes and be naked with you,
and she said
—But afterward, what do we do then?
—Afterward I want to kiss him and taste him, I want to lick all the parts that have been inside you. I want you to see me take him in my mouth.
—And what should I do while you’re doing this?
—I want you to sit at the other end of the room, I want you to switch off the lamp beside you and pretend that you are watching a film,
then she said
—Come and
lie on top of me,
and I did, and there were just the two of us in that room, and for a long time afterward we lay in silence.
* * *
—
But wasn’t this love also an exchange of power? And wasn’t the giving of affection, a method of apportioning and distributing tenderness? And didn’t this tenderness presuppose that one of us took control over the other? Didn’t one of us always have to submit to the other, if only for seconds at a time? Yes, yes, that’s how it was, I said so, so did she, we both believed it. This applied to any kiss, any embrace, any sexual act: either she was the one who was kissed, embraced, taken, or she was the one who did these things to me. I liked to think we took it in turns, she knew that. And we did, we must have. There must have been an exchange of caring and submission between us, moments or periods when we never quite knew who had taken whose hand, or who received care from whom? Wasn’t it like that?
She no longer knows.
* * *
—
But isn’t love between two adults also about the fear of living alone, a desire to escape one’s own company at almost any price? Ensuring we have someone to come home to, someone to wait for, someone to care for, to listen to attentively, and be gently chided by? Someone’s face to look into who perhaps knows who we are or who we are not? Someone who can say relax now, come here, lie down beside me.
Is it just about sharing a bed? Eating together, sitting together, sleeping together, talking together, looking at things together, turning away from the world together? Sleeping together over and over again, lying down naked and waking up in the arms of another who is also naked? And isn’t it, at least if you are very lucky—and we were, of course, we believed that—isn’t it, most of all, a desire to have uninhibited access to the other? No holds barred. Did we want that? For me she was somebody to take care of, to be loyal to, and also, I said, someone with whom to share even my most twisted thoughts, I liked to talk that way. And for her I was, perhaps, the person who was always there. She no longer knows. But did we really want total and uninhibited access? Wasn’t our love in fact rather conventional? A decision to be like others, to replicate the lives of everyone around us, settling down with a spouse and children, and even a garage? To secure access to affection on a permanent basis, company in the evening, sex at night, and a slightly better income?
The Story of a Marriage Page 6