Strange Desires

by Joe Simpson Walker

  ‘Excuse me,’ Karla said, ‘but I think you’re quite wrong.’

  Neither the young man nor his girlfriend had noticed her until that moment. For a moment they were taken by surprise; but then he gave her a patronising smile. He’d taken in her appearance - tall, long blonde hair, short dress, high heels - and detected a certain hesitancy in her manner. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Karla said. ‘There’s a lot of meaning in this room, if you really look at it.’

  ‘Is there? Perhaps you could point it out to us.’

  He was being sarcastic. Undeterred, Karla pointed to the walls. ‘Well, can’t you see that something’s happening to the people in these pictures? Look at their eyes. Their eyes are wide, they’re bulging, they’re staring. But - ‘ She hesitated; she was aware that her face had turned pinker than normal and the young man was looking full into her eyes, with his features settled into a faint sneer. But she went on: ‘They’re not really seeing. Whatever it was happening when the pictures were taken, it was going on inside them.’

  The young man sneered, but his girlfriend was studying the walls with renewed interest. ‘She’s right, you know.’

  ‘And they’re all women’s eyes, do you see that?’ Karla exclaimed, addressing her now. ‘They’re all women going through some kind of an experience, and maybe if you could see the whole picture you’d know what it was. But as it is you’ve got to go by the eyes.’

  ‘Oh, god,’ the young man said dryly. ‘Don’t tell me we’re surrounded by a feminist statement.’

  At the other end of the room, the other woman - the only person present apart from Karla and the couple - had given up studying the work to watch this scene. Now she left the corner where she’d been standing and approached them. ‘Are you having a private debate or can anyone join in?’

  She was older than they were, somewhere in her thirties: dark-haired, short in stature, and dressed in a short black jacket and skirt; on her feet were massive, heavy-soled, shiny black boots, laced midway up her calves. ‘I heard what you’ve been saying and I’m really interested.’

  ‘Who do you agree with?’ Karla asked her.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think I should say.’ Her voice was high-pitched to the point of being a squeak, and she spoke with a strong American accent: it was a fast, rather aggressive flow of sound, in which certain letters of the alphabet seemed to have got permanently lost. But her tone was friendly.

  ‘Why not?’ the young man asked. ‘I know this was put together by an American woman. Do you feel you’d be letting the side down if you said it didn’t mean a damn thing? You should say what you really think.’

  The woman smiled. ‘Believe me, you don’t want to hear what I really think,’ she said. ‘You see, my name is Adrienne Woodward.’

  She pronounced her name with a short A, ‘Addrienne’. There was a long moment’s silence, during which time the young man’s face turned crimson. ‘Oh god,’ he said at last. ‘Sorry.’ Suddenly he took his girlfriend’s arm and led her hurriedly out of the room and down the stairs. Karla was left alone with Adrienne Woodward.

  Their eyes met. Miss Woodward reached out a hand, flattened, palm down with the fingers straight; Karla high-fived her and the two of them burst out laughing.

  ‘I couldn’t resist introducing myself. But you were winning the argument.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Karla said. ‘I only came in here while I’m waiting for somebody. I just think this room’s kind of fascinating.’

  She began to walk right round the room, close to the wall, studying each pair of eyes. Women’s eyes, opened very wide, straining from their sockets; staring yet not seeing. Women gripped by some sensation that was visibly intense, but only to be guessed at. ‘‘Work in progress’,’ she read out as her walk brought her to the title card. ‘Have you been working on it long?’

  ‘For about ten years, intermittently. Some years in that time I’ve added two or three to the series, other years I haven’t touched it. I haven’t added any since I brought it to England.’

  ‘Do you do it all yourself?’

  ‘Everything. Design, photography - I even hung the prints on the walls, single-handed. Is there anything else you’d like to know?’

  Miss Woodward had followed Karla around, and stood beside her now, smiling pleasantly upwards. She was quite observant enough to see that there was another question in Karla’s mind.

  ‘Well... I was wondering, are you ever gonna take the black away?’

  ‘You mean remove the masking boards?’

  Karla nodded. ‘Or do you just want people to look at the eyes?’

  ‘Eyes are interesting. Do you know you’ve got unusual eyes?’ She reached a hand up, and was just tall enough to reach Karla’s cheek. She turned her head gently to one side and downwards. ‘They’re a nice shade of blue, but one has a patch of green, like a tiny splash on the iris. I like that.’

  ‘Oh? Er - thanks. But I’d really like to see these pictures with the boards taken away.’

  She looked down into Miss Woodward’s eyes, with a sense of meeting them but not getting inside, of failing to penetrate her inner thoughts. They were dark eyes, brown turning almost to black; large eyes, in a small, sharp face. ‘Maybe you will some time. While you’re waiting for that somebody of yours, why don’t we go downstairs for a cup of coffee?’

  ***

  ‘Looks like I’ve been stood up,’ Karla said.

  She and Adrienne - for by now they were on first-name terms - were the only people still in the Sidewalk Gallery’s coffee shop, and it was very nearly time the gallery closed for the night. Behind the shop counter, a girl had her eye upon them; but it was evident that she knew who Adrienne was, and in any case the gallery was not the kind of place that threw its patrons out.

  It was a small private gallery, opened by some people with money and a wish to encourage new artists. Upstairs was entirely occupied by the installation room; downstairs were a couple of rooms containing a variety of separate exhibits, a photographic studio, and the little coffee shop, where Karla and Adrienne had been sitting for the last half-hour. ‘It’s a terrific deal for me, getting so much space to hang my work,’ Adrienne had said enthusiastically. ‘I mean, I’m not that famous yet, you know?’

  ‘If you were famous I probably wouldn’t know it,’ Karla had replied, with a touch of embarrassment. In the course of their conversation Adrienne had mentioned several major figures of twentieth-century painting and Karla had failed to recognise any of them. ‘The fella I’m meeting will probably know them all...’

  But by now she’d given him up. ‘It’s his loss,’ Adrienne said. ‘Look at it that way.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not a big disappointment. He’s just a fella I know. He said I’d find him in here,’ - with a wave of her hand, she indicated the coffee shop - ‘but I got here early, so I thought I’d have a look at the pictures while I was waiting. Otherwise I probably wouldn’t have gone upstairs.’

  ‘Which would have been my loss. It’s not every day I meet a perceptive critic.’

  She was really nice, Karla thought. She strove in her mind to find something suitable to say in reply. ‘Honestly, I think your thing with the eyes is a lot better than any of the stuff down here. It’s - it’s a lot more meaningful. Is that a real word?’

  Adrienne nodded thoughtfully. She was looking past Karla’s shoulder, at something behind her back. Suddenly she spoke again, in an abruptly changed tone of voice. ‘Get up. Come with me. Quick.’

  ‘What for?’ Karla asked in surprise, but even as the words came out of her mouth Adrienne was signing her to hush. As they rose from their seats she looked around, thinking maybe somebody had come in that Adrienne didn’t want to meet, but apart from themselves the shop was completely empty: even the girl at the counter had disappeared for the moment.

  At th
e far end of the cafeteria were two doors marked with symbols of human figures, one in trousers, the other in a skirt. Adrienne ushered Karla swiftly into the ladies’ room, and over to one of the closets. ‘Here. You can take the seat.’

  She pushed Karla gently down on to the seat, and squeezed into the closet after her, pulling the door shut and pushing Karla’s knees back out of the way as she did so. She looked into Karla’s eyes and laughed softly. ‘Trust me.’

  The sudden sound of the outer door opening again made her lean quickly forward and place a hand over Karla’s mouth. A silent moment; then the fluorescent strip light that shone above their heads was switched off, the door closed, and they were left in the dark.

  Adrienne’s hand lifted away from Karla’s lips. Her voice came in a whisper. ‘You’re probably thinking I’m insane, right?’

  ‘Why are we hiding?’ Karla whispered back.

  ‘It won’t be for long. I’ll explain. We were the last people in the gallery, and now that they think everyone’s gone they’ll close the place up and go themselves. Then we can go back upstairs to my installation. I’ll take off the masking boards and you can see the whole thing. It’ll be a little private showing.’

  In the darkness, millions of tiny spots danced before Karla’s eyes. She could hear Adrienne’s breathing, very distinctly.

  ‘I have a contract with the gallery. Amongst other things, it sets out exactly how my work is to be exhibited. There’s a clause which says that the portraits used in “The Eyes” are to remain masked at all times. I put that clause into the contract, but it means that if I want to show anybody the portraits un-masked, I have to do it without the gallery’s knowledge. Otherwise there could be problems - they might say I hadn’t fulfilled the agreement, in defence should they fail to fulfil it in some way. It’s just a lot of legal bollocks.’

  The crude English word came off her tongue with a touch of awkwardness that made Karla giggle. ‘Oh, I see! Well, I’ll come with you then. It’s got to be better than going home and feeling lonely, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Sure,’ Adrienne said. ‘I think I can promise you that.’

  How long they remained in hiding, Karla couldn’t have said, but at length Adrienne touched her arm and said ‘Let’s go.’ Taking Karla by the hand, she led her back through the coffee shop, now closed and shuttered in complete darkness.

  Still holding Karla’s hand, she guided her down a dark passage to a doorway. Karla felt the door open, and knew she was being led into a room. Adrienne let go her hand and stepped away from her. A slight sound of groping and fumbling; then Karla saw her, illuminated by the light of an outsize electric torch, which hung from a peg by a long shoulder strap. Adrienne disengaged the torch from its moorings and took hold of it in both hands; she shone it to right and left, revealing a large room, equipped with an array of cameras, lights, stands, reflectors and other items to which Karla couldn’t put names. ‘This is the studio. I get free time to work in here,’ Adrienne remarked. ‘Karla, would you mind bringing that chair with us? I’m gonna need it upstairs. To stand on,’ she explained. ‘You don’t know how lucky you were being born tall.’

  In the dark, the torch beam cut a white path stretching for yards ahead of them. Karla was glad of it; she was strong and could haul a chair about with no trouble, but getting it up a flight of stairs in the pitch black would have been a tricky business. As she carried it into the installation room, Adrienne switched on the room’s lights, and neon shone bright as day against the white walls. ‘No windows, so we may as well see them as they were meant to be seen, huh?’

  Against the white, the tall portraits stood in numbered line, each masked in black. All you could see were the eyes.

  Adrienne stepped up to No. 1. She looked up into the eyes, then back at Karla. In her own eyes glimmered anticipation and excitement. ‘Put the chair here.’

  ‘Can I help?’

  Shaking her head, Adrienne hopped nimbly up on to the seat of the chair. Once again she glanced over her shoulder at Karla, with that same curious gleam; then, reaching out her arms, she took a grip on either side of the picture before her. Her fingers reached behind the frame, and squeezed with a brief effort. Two sharp clicks, like the sound of some kind of metal clips springing free, and the masking board came away from the wall. Adrienne lifted it up and tossed it aside, and it hit the smooth, polished floor with a resounding slap.

  ‘There,’ she said.

  Karla hardly heard her.

  She was staring at the unmasked portrait.

  The face beneath the mask was nobody famous, just a girl with straight brown hair and brown eyes, seen in a tight close-up shot of the camera. That didn’t surprise Karla; what she hadn’t expected, what she hadn’t come close to guessing at, was the state of the girl’s mouth. It was held open, by a brightly-coloured scarf of some shiny material tied tightly between her jaws, with knots tied midway along its length, three or four of them tied one on top of another to make a solid ball of cloth. Securely gagged, she stared unseeingly into the photographic lens.

  Adrienne had got down from her perch upon the chair seat. Her eyes were fixed intently on Karla; but without saying anything, she moved the chair along to portrait No.2.

  No.2 was another dark-haired girl, with shining dark eyes and round, chubby cheeks. Like her predecessor she was gagged with a shiny scarf, and the knots that held her mouth wide open and blocked her tongue gave her the appearance of having a double chin. No.3’s hair was dyed jet black, with a streak of bright unnatural red at one side; her hair fell free around her shoulders and her lips were sealed with heavy white tape, plastered in layers across the lower half of her face. Moving unhurriedly but with speed and skill, Adrienne proceeded round the room, unclipping the black boards; and as each mask hit the floor, another female face was shown, another captive mouth. Some were gagged with cloth, some with tape, some with lengths of cord wound three or four times around the head; one with a piece of dowling wood, like an improvised bit for a horse; another with a leather mask that covered the mouth completely, but below the edge of which the lower jaw showed, pushed down as far as it would go. And all the eyes stared straight ahead; all the complexions flamed a deep, excited red; all the facial lines of strain and effort showed that though these women had been deprived of the ability to speak, all had been struggling to make a noise.

  No.19 was unmasked, and Adrienne stepped down from the chair. Karla had followed her all the way around, staring and staring, her head turning from side to side. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Friends of mine.’

  ‘Friends?’

  Adrienne pointed up at No.19. ‘This is Tonia. Over there is Suzanne. And there’s Christina. And there’s Rebecca.’ She pointed at random. ‘I can tell you all their names, where they’re from, how I met them...’

  She broke off. ‘Come and sit down. I didn’t mean to give you a big shock.’

  Karla let herself be guided down into the chair. ‘I don’t know if I’m shocked,’ she said. ‘It’s just not what I expected.’ Her eyes were still moving, scanning the array of gags. ‘What was happening to them - I mean, when you took the pictures?’

  Adrienne stood beside her. Although she was standing and Karla was sitting, their heads were almost on a level. She laid an arm around Karla’s shoulder. ‘Do you trust me?’

  There was a long pause before Karla answered. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Will you let me show you?’

  ‘Yes. All right.’

  ‘Good,’ Adrienne said. ‘They were all sitting in chairs, Karla, pretty much like the one you’re sitting in now. I set the camera up in front of them. I use a model of camera that you can set to work automatically, so it’ll keep taking pictures by itself, every few seconds till the film’s used up. But I didn’t set it working yet. My subjects weren’t ready.’ As she spoke, Adrienne’s hands were at her waist. She
was unfastening a belt from her skirt, and pulling it free. ‘Give me your hands.’

  She took hold of Karla’s right wrist. Just for a moment, Karla tried to hold it back; then the spark of resistance died. She let Adrienne draw both wrists down behind her back, and held still as she began to strap them together with the belt. ‘I’m a dominant. I don’t know - maybe it goes back to when I was a kid. When you’re little, people think they’re entitled to pick you up off the ground and swing you about like you were a toy. And I never liked being called ‘Shorty’ or ‘Squeaky’. Anyhow, I love being in control. I love it when I can move and somebody else can’t. I really love it when they can’t talk, and the only way they can communicate is through their eyes... Are you wearing panties?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Karla said.

  Stepping from behind Karla, Adrienne knelt down in front of her and took hold of the hem of her skirt, which itself only reached down to mid-thigh. She rolled it up, pulling it away from Karla’s bottom and tucking it in around her waist. A pair of clean white panties were revealed, and she pulled them down, past Karla’s knees, down her calves, lifting one foot and then the other to get them past the sharp high heels of her shoes. She dropped the panties aside, and stayed for a moment, studying Karla’s feet; then she got up and hurried over to the other side of the room.

  Near portrait No.1 (whom Adrienne had identified as Suzanne) lay the big torch from downstairs, put down and forgotten; but now she picked it up and detached from it its carrying strap, a thin but long and strong strip of canvas. Her eyes resting on Karla, bound to the chair by her wrists, Adrienne held the strap in both hands and stretched it to its fullest extent, as if testing it. She seemed satisfied.

  She tied Karla’s ankles to the front legs of the chair, obliging her legs to open. ‘Just sit there, baby. Don’t worry. You’re gonna feel no pain. Only pleasure. Look around you...’ She raised her head and herself looked around at the mouths, stuffed and sealed, at the straining jaws, at the sightless eyes. Then she opened her handbag, and ran quickly through its contents, but failed to find what she was looking for: ‘Shit. Never go anywhere without a clean handkerchief, Adrienne...’ But an inspiration came to her. Sitting down on the floor, she unfastened her right boot, and pulled the long lace out of its holes.