Ménage

by Ewan Morrison

  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.

  She slid off me slowly and let me go and I slid from the chair, my eyes tight closed again, pinching my cock head, so as to delay. My pants, still round one foot, had thrown me a little and I soon kicked them off and found my way round her solid thighs to her buttocks. Eyes closed, I followed her sounds and smells. Above my head in the dark I could hear sounds of her frantic movements and smelled her musky sex. Suddenly a finger touched my chin. In my mind I saw her hands between her legs, vigorously fingering her cunt. She pulled my chin closer. I raised my tongue into her taste and followed the salt mucous trail of her engorged clit. I smothered my face in her, soaking from eyes to chin as her juices flowed. Her pelvis bucked and she whimpered. She ground her pelvis into my cheekbones, her cunt quivering. Then all sounds were lost as her thighs gripped my cheeks and the first orgasm spasmed through her.

  I tried to form an image of our positions in the room. But all sense of space had gone, and as a hand touched my cheek and shoulder I could not sense if it was his or hers. There was a movement, something fell and the fingers had left me. I had to see.

  Through half-shut eyes, I glimpsed a sight unberable in its perfection. The light had fallen to the side and cast a thin sliver down one side of her perfectly shadowed form. She was on her knees, her buttocks in the air, her sex hidden in darkness. As she arched her back the light caught the rise of her spine, causing a perfect white line to rise from her anus up through her waist along the widening of the ribs, between the dark arcs of her shoulder blades to the curve of her neck, to disappear, finally, into the darkness of her head. This white line then seemed to continue, disembodied as the hard shaft of Saul’s cock. I looked down and there too was my cock, a line of light.

  She moved, groaning, onto me then, and I vanished into her wetness. I looked up and Saul’s cock was once again revealed. In that state of delirium it seemed as if our sexes were the continuation of her spine. As she pulled back from him, she sucked me in deeper; as she moved away from me, so she took him in. I looked to Saul but his eyes were on her. Her pelvis was bucking, her juices wet on my leg. I was close to coming so made my body still and tried to control my muscles. But her cunt gripped me tight and Saul’s slow thrusts rippled through her spine and I could hear them both gasping and could no longer bear it. With a scream she threw herself onto her back, reaching for our cocks, as her body bucked and howled. His eyes shot to mine, eye to eye, cocks in her hands, his jism sprayed high over her neck and breasts and I poured over her stomach and we fell into her open arms.

  As we slowly found our breath we stared into each other. Eyes wide open.

  fn1. The work was made at around the same time, February 1993, as the Operation Spanner trial in the UK, a legal first in which a group of homosexual masochists were charged with aiding and abetting violence against themselves. This so-called ‘victimless crime’ raised an outcry among civil liberties groups until a tape was leaked demonstrating the extent of the acts, at which point such groups found it hard or embarrassing to be legally defending men who nailed each other’s penises to planks of wood.

  fn2. Report on the legal battle over the inclusion of Trust in the annual art fair, Basel, Germany, Guardian, 12 October 2003.

  fn3. The surrealists, situationists and various non-art-based anarchist communes and left-wing revolutionary groups attempted to live beyond the narrow confines of the given culture, trying to decondion on themselves, whether it be through rules on communal sexual sharing of partners, or rotas for eating, washing, childcare, etc. Or, in the case of the surrealists, by rejecting ethics in favour of rules determined by aesthetics, such as committing ‘daily acts of absurdity’. The many ‘escape attempts’ by radical groups have resulted in terrible inversions. Communes in Germany and Holland in the seventies and eighties conducted interrogations of members who questioned the free-sex-sharing rotas, resulting in rape, the victims being largely women and children (many cases of child sex abuse have followed). Men, and usually one dominant male, asserted the rules that regulated the subservient behaviour of the entire alternative community. Similarly, the surrealists were notorious for bullying, humiliating and banishing their own members for matters as apparently trivial as choice of clothes or music. While the leaders of such anti-groups may have felt powerless in the dominant culture, their isolated world ruled by aesthetic taste became more tyrannical than the conventional bourgeois order it opposed. The idea that ‘we cannot change the world so we must transform ourselves’ led to many desperate, immoral acts. See Georges Bataille’s plans for a surrealist murder, 1912, in which a real victim was picked for ritualistic slaughter in an act intended as a communal rite of passage.

  six

  Watch Over Me. 1997. Video loop. 3.42 hrs. Installation view. 3.2 x 2.4 m. Max Lever Institute Collection.

  THE WORK COMPRISES video footage three hours and forty-two minutes in duration. The image is of two almost naked young men asleep on the same bed. It starts in near darkness, and then grows lighter as ambient early-morning light starts to fill the room. The men go through a series of different sleeping positions: at first with an empty space between them, then facing each other but apart, then with backs to each other, then gradually moving closer till ultimately they are holding each other. The sequence abruptly ends when in full daylight, one of the men wakes and tries to cover the lens, violently.

  The footage seems almost anthropological in its unyielding gaze. As such it evokes the earlier structuralist works of Warhol, such as Sleep (1963) and Eat (1961), which documented ‘real’ events in real time. The significant difference, though, is that whereas the Warhol footage was filmed with the use of a tripod (and in many instances the camera was left unattended, without an operator) Shears’s work is hand-held, betraying the constant and subtly shifting presence of the camera operator.

  The audio is in real time, the sounds of the men, moving in their sleep, snoring, one of them mumbles to himself. Also, the sound of the camera/operator/artist breathing is audible throughout and on two brief occasions whispers can be heard, although no words are discernible.

  Viewers are often touched by the ‘vulnerability’ of the sleeping men. Others have been moved by the subtle humour in the negotiation for space on the bed, and possession of the quilt. Others still talk about the beauty of watching man, ‘the sleeping animal’.

  The irony is that the one thing that is not represented in the image, i.e. the artist, is the presence that is often felt the greatest. Some viewers have been disturbed by the presence behind the came
ra. The viewer is never far from being reminded that there is an unseen person (a woman) in the room recording the sleepers. For some, this presence has been described as ‘gentle’, ‘a compassionate gaze’, an act ‘of devotion or love’, the title ‘Watch Over Me’ implying romantic associations, or care and perhaps even maternal responsibility – to watch one’s children/friends as they sleep. The fact that the camera had been held in the artist’s hand throughout the three hours and forty-two minutes implies an act of endurance and hence commitment, if not to the people within the frame, then at least to the act of watching. Others find it disturbing to be placed in the position of silent watcher.

  The duration, too, is unsettling, forcing many to ask the question: what could possibly be the mental state of someone who watches two men sleeping for nearly four hours? The lack of ‘anything happening’ on-screen has led some viewers to run out, not from boredom, but with a ‘dreadful sense of foreboding’, of ‘something terrible about to happen’. The constant sound of the artist’s breath has been described as ‘terrifying’.fn1

  The title also raises serious questions. As the filmed subjects are plural, the ‘me’ of the title cannot have originated from the ‘them’ (or if only from one of them then this would imply that consent had been given only by the one). The ‘watch over me’ seems, by inversion, to be a request from the watcher/artist. But why would she ask two sleeping men to watch over her? This provokes many further issues. One such is that, perhaps, in cultural terms, it is a question the artist could not ask of the men when they were awake. A woman asking two men to care for her could be seen as weak, as conventionally stereotyped feminine behaviour, so she utters it quietly to herself, almost in shame. The work triggers many such conflicting interpretations, questions and, indeed, emotions.

  Gertrude Wellbeckfn2 claims that Shears has deliberately turned the tables on gender, rendering the men portrayed as ‘castrated’, passive objects, and that the filming is a violent act of ‘reclamation’, ‘a secret, subversive act of control’. Thus raising serious questions about consent and trust.