1982 Janine (4 page)

– Yes master.

Will you sit up and beg for meat again?

– Yes! If you show me something tasty.

Stroud signals to the waitress at the cocktail bar, a tall blonde who approaches in a languorous amble which emphasises the movement of her hips.

The tall blonde waitress must amble because her skirt won't let her walk any other way. It is a button-through white satin (no) white denim (no) white suede (yes) like Janine's, but longer, and so tight that although half unfastened her knees appear through the slit in front slowly, one after the other, and Janine can hear the soft rasp of her thighs pressing past each other, but it is not the skirt that strikes Janine with confusion. She thinks, “Silk blouse, net stockings, white high heels exactly like mine, yes even her mouth and eyes are made up just like mine, that's why she's staring at me that way. God, I hate these frigid bitches who dress like whores and then stare at me as if I was dirt.”

But now the waitress takes pad and pencil from her waistband and attends completely to Stroud ordering the meal, and in spite of the girl's height and hair-colour Janine's feeling that she is watching
herself
increases, filling her with a numb, dreamy excitement. The excitement has a spice of fear in it but not much. If you wake late for work one morning, spring from bed, dress quickly, then rushing to the front door find it blocked by your car standing in the
middle of the living-room, the furniture moved back against the walls; if you discover this you will not feel afraid at first, you will think that you have not really wakened at all. And when a careful examination shows the car as solid as usual, and undoubtedly your own, because your key opens the door, and if you find the room solid too, with the wallpaper pattern undisturbed, making it unlikely that a jocular friend has suddenly become a millionaire and hired a team of expert workmen silently to knock a hole, insert the car, then swiftly reconstruct the wall exactly as it was – if the consistency of things shows you are in a world like the usual, apart from one inexplicable oddity – then only a pessimist will return to bed hoping to fall asleep and wake again in the usual world he understands. I would walk round the car, open the door and adventure out, fearful, of course, like all explorers in a strange world, but hoping for something new and better. I would have to see everything as a child does, letting the things themselves teach me what they were, knowing my grasp of them was secondary and slight. Why am I diluting an enjoyable wicked fantasy with this sort of crap? – like a publisher attaching a brainy little essay by a French critic to
The Story of O
to make the porn-eaters think they are in first-class intellectual company. How the waitress is dressed gives Janine a queer dreamy feeling, that's all I meant to say, Janine can't stop staring and when she ambles away Stroud chuckles and says, “She hates you.”

“Why?”

“Jealousy. You're dressed like one of the staff but she's got to serve you as if you were a member.”

“My agent told me to dress like this.”

“He did? A pity. I thought you were delicately indicating that you wished to work here. I was pleased.”

Janine notices a small plump quick waitress serving a man at a nearby table. The waitress can move quickly because her skirt is unbuttoned almost to the waistband. Stroud says,

“All our waitresses and new girls dress like that. Hollis is something of a button-freak.”

“Do Mr Hollis's preferences have to interest me?”

Stroud takes an envelope from his pocket and lays it on the table between them. He says, “Perhaps the time has come to talk about money. Would you open this and count what's
inside? If you join us it will be your first week's salary. If you decide to leave now it will be compensation for your trouble.”

Janine hesitates then takes from the envelope a flat wad of clean new notes and counts them. The money is more than her agent suggested, more than Janine imagined possible. She knows Stroud is watching her closely. She thinks, ‘If I was a cat I would lick my lips, but I'm an actress, and smart. There must be several millionaires in this club if they'll pay this money to get a girl like me on their books.'

She puts the notes back in the envelope and snaps it into her handbag saying, “I don't mind taking a friendly interest in Mr Hollis's preferences, if that's what you want.”

Stroud smiles and says, “Then he'll be glad to see you any time.”

And I have placed this last bit of dialogue very carefully. Later, when Janine is trapped and trying to escape, she will remember that she was given a chance to leave and refused because of money. We all have a moment when the road forks and we take the wrong turning. Mine was when Helen told me she was pregnant and I said I needed a week and later the doorbell rang and, forget it, I opened the door and Mr Hume and his two sons walked straight past me and, forget it, stood in the middle of my own room, yes, my own room and FORGET IT. FORGET IT.

“Do Mr Hollis's preferences need to interest me?”

The money. Count. Hide licklip. Look cool.

“I'll be glad to take a friendly interest in Mr Hollis's preferences, if that's what you want.”

The meal, then audition time, and Stroud is ushering her along a softly lit brown-carpeted corridor to a door marked
recreation room
which he opens, standing aside to let her through, and entering she is dazzled by lights from low down shining straight into her face. She senses a wide dim space on each side, a desk ahead with one or two people silhouetted against the white sources of the light, a continuous purring noise, perhaps a film projector? She looks back to the door as it shuts with a double click. No Stroud. A voice cries, “Come on in, Miss Crystal, show us how you can walk.”

Heart thudding, eyes narrowed to slits against the glare she walks slowly toward the light thinking, ‘Act calm. I felt like this in the car with Max, and with Stroud when I saw the waitress, but I acted calm and it was all right.'

She hears two unfastened studs of her skirt click with each step she takes.

“That's a sexy sound,” the voice says, and giggles.

‘Keep cool,' thinks Janine. ‘Pretend this is an ordinary audition.'

End of first part.

 I have never before enjoyed such perfect control. I have abandoned Janine at the exact moment when I nearly got too excited, and I have remembered nobody real except my mother who never spoils my dramas by making me ashamed of them. Why? Because I am now exactly the man she wanted me to be – heavily insured with a company car when I require one, expense account, index-linked pension and no connection atall with the real women she would have despised: Helen, and Sontag, and the editor, and the whore under the bridge, and my first of all girlfriend o, forget
her
. I have total security at last, security until death. If there is not a revolution first. And there won't be. We will go to war before we have that so there is plenty of time (if I am careful and keep perfect control) plenty of time to order and taste all the imaginary women on my mental menu. An astounding achievement, if I manage it. A secret miracle known to only me. 

Most pornography fails by not being dramatic enough. There are too few characters. The author has only one sort of climax in mind, and reaches it early, and can only offer
more of the same with variations which never excite as much again. Even in
The Story of O
, with its long slow drugged-sounding sentences twisting softly round the heroine like furry snakes, I never enjoyed anything which came later as much as the first two pages. To preserve excitement without masturb (I hate that word) without shooting my load (I hate that phrase) (I hate the
thing
, I hate orgasm, I'm lonely afterward) to preserve excitement my Janine must travel toward her climax through a world like a menacing forest, and just before she reaches it I must switch to heroines in other parts of the forest, women travelling toward climaxes which are different, but connected. I will work like a historian describing in turn Germany Britain France Russia America China, showing depression and dread growing within each for domestic reasons, but distracted by challenges and threats from abroad until the heads of government move to their controls in the hidden bunkers, and make certain declarations, and then the tanks start rolling through the streets with evacuations, concentration camps, explosions, firestorms, frantic last-minute propaganda and the awful togetherness of total calamity before the last, huge, final, bang.
That
is how a big piece of pornography should go. Sadistic? It would be, if de Sade were not so disappointing. He gives much the same masturbatory climax on every tenth page and fills the space between with a lot of pretentious excuses about nature being ruthless and cruel so why should we not be? Blethers. Nature is nothing but a name for the universe and how it behaves. You need ideas to be cruel and only men have ideas. Parts of the universe bump and break each other but storms and earthquakes are not cruelty. Not even animals are cruel. Yes, cats hurt mice for fun sometimes, but only because they are pampered parasites with a hunter's instinct and no need to eat what they catch. It is men who have made cats cruel. Only man is evil. So now I will visit one of my imaginary mice in another part of the forest oh, a great cruel gamekeeper, me.

Superb is my nickname for her, being short for superbitch. But she needs an ordinary name too. I fancy something short and coarse, like Joan. Or Terry. She washes and
dries her long black hair then phones her mother. She says,

“Mother, hello. I'm not coming tonight.”

After a moment her mother says, “Thanks for telling me.”

“Mother, listen, you're the only one I can trust. You see I've met this … this man. He's the best thing that ever happened to me. He makes me feel a real … woman, you know? So I'm not visiting you. I'm going to stay with him for three whole days.”

“Why tell me all this?”

“Because I want Max to think I'm with you, like I arranged.”

“So?”

“He might phone and ask for me. He's pathetically dependent when he isn't talking to the press about tougher penalties for lawbreakers and wider powers for the police.”

“So what do I say if he phones?”

“Tell him I'm resting, put the receiver down, wait a couple of minutes, then pick it up and tell him I've a headache and don't feel like talking. He'll believe you. That's what our marriage is like nowadays.”

After a while her mother says, “Terry, I don't like Max, you know that. He's a male chauvinist fascist bastard as I told you when you got engaged to him –”

“– And you were right mother so when I met –”

“– so why not leave him? If the marriage is so bad why not clear out?”

“Mother, I've no money. You walked out on father but you're a businesswoman. You're able to support yourself.”

“Come and work for me. You type, I can always use a typist.”

“Mother, you know that's impossible. I can't stand being bossed, even by you. If Max decides to divorce me, fine. He can afford big alimony. But he's got to blame himself for it, not me. He mustn't know I've been fooling around … Are you listening?”

Her mother says something in a low voice. Terry says, “I didn't catch that.”

“Forget it.”

“Did you say I was a selfish, frigid little bitch?”

“That's right.”

“I'm not, I'm not little atall. And I'm not frigid either. Two
weeks ago I thought I was but that was before I met Charlie. The point is, can I depend on your It Max phones, will you make the right noises?”

“I suppose so.”

“Thanks, mother, that's all I need to know.”

Superb puts the receiver down. What a splendid bitch I am making her.

She lifts her legs on to the bed, shifts about till she's lying comfortably, then phones again. She says, “Charlie, it's all right. I'm coming.”

Charlie says, “Honey, that's good. When?”

“I'll leave in just sixty minutes.”

“Why not now?”

“I've this husband, you know. He likes us to eat together. We don't do much else together.”

“How do you look?”

“Fresh and clean. I've had a bath and I'm wearing new jeans. I took half an hour getting into them, I had to lie on the floor and pull and pull and pull. So don't say I don't love you.”

“What about the top?”

“Nothing special. White silk blouse.”

“No bra?”

“Of course I've a bra.”

“Honey, you've got to take it off.”

“You bad mad boy!”

“Terry, when I open the door to you tonight, the blouse yes, the bra no. Take it off in the car on the way here.”

“What will you give me if I do that?”

“Everything you want.”

“You can't, Charlie. You've got the energy, and the dirty mind, but there's only one of you.”

He laughs and says, “You're a comedian, Terry. One day I'll have you performing professionally.”

“Don't go on about that, Charlie. I'm no actress. The only performances you'll get from me will be strictly private and exclusive, like tonight.”

“I'm going to surprise you, though. I'm going to turn you into a professional. And you'll love it.”

“Charlie, I have to go. Max will be here any moment. See you in just two hours.”

“No bra, remember.”

She laughs, kisses the receiver and puts it down. Helen never talked like that, she was too inhibited. 

Superb leaves the bed, pulls on her silver wedge-heeled sandals, I never talked like Charlie, I was too inhibited, pulls on her gold wedge-heeled sandals and stands examining herself in a tall mirror. The woman who stares appraisingly back is, no doubt at all, not a young woman, but a very very exciting woman. She thinks, ‘Calm down. Get the dinner ready. It's too soon to get high.'

She goes downstairs and Max is sitting in the lounge staring at the blank TV screen. This worries her for a moment though he is nowhere near the telephone extension. She says sharply, “I didn't hear you come in!”

“Why? What were you doing?”

“Phoning mother.”

She goes into the kitchen. He follows and stands listlessly in the doorway while she sets a salad briskly on the table. He says, “Please, Terry. Stay here tonight.”

“You know mother is expecting me, Max.”

“Terry, I'm begging you to spend this weekend with me.”

“Why?”

“I feel you're avoiding me.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Maybe I'm not the greatest lover in the world –”

“Right. You're not.”

“– but I'm the man you married. Surely with some cooperation –”

“Mother expects me, Max. Sometimes you spend a weekend doing forensic research and I spend a weekend with my wonderful sympathetic mother. It's too late to talk me out of it. My case is packed and in the car.”

They sit down to eat. He says, “I'm checking the car in for an overhaul tomorrow.”

“But you got a replacement? Surely.”

“Yes, it's in the garage.”

“So what's the problem?” 

They eat in silence but Superb is excited and sneaks a glance at her reflection on the darkness outside the window.
She is struck by its contrast with the reflection of Max sitting opposite. She thinks, ‘Not forty yet, just three years older than me but a tired old man already. He and I could belong to different generations. I'm as young as Charlie is, the way I look just now. Charlie could have plenty of young women but he doesn't need them, doesn't want them with me available. He's lucky. So am I.'

Why does this imaginary stuff seem familiar?

IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SUPERB AND MY FORMER WIFE.

1 Superb has long black hair. Helen had light brown.

2 Superb (though not fat like Big Momma) is a plain well-built woman with big etceteras. Helen was, is, she isn't dead, more slender, more elegant, slightly haggard when depressed but beautiful when I first saw her, beautiful when she left me twelve years ago.

3 Superb has a sharp tongue. Helen went quiet when she was hurt or angry.

4 Superb is a greedy sexy bitch who knows how to get what she likes. Helen was a gentle woman I want not to remember, shy of sex and with no greedy appetites (could I be wrong about that?)

5 Superb is imaginary. Helen was real. Why can't I keep them apart?

‘Not forty but a tired old man already.'

(And now I'm almost fiforget that.)

Not forty but yes, Helen saw me as a tired old man good for nothing but his job. Security installation, an expanding field. I looked tired and uninteresting to her because she looked tired and uninteresting to me. We were killing each other quietly, gently, in the respectable Scottish way. The wife-beaters and rabid bitches are mostly among our unemployed and poorly paid. Then Helen met whatsisname and grew younger yes, and beautiful yes, and I was growing interested in her again when forget all that. 

She was right to leave me but forget all that because Superb is a greedy bitch with long black hair and a well-built sensual body whose arse is deeply cleft and she wears these tight jeans which show it and she is thinking, ‘Charlie could have plenty of young chicks but he doesn't need
them with me available. Yes, I'll take off this bra in the car like he said, he deserves that, we'll meet with no boring preliminaries like: What sort of day did you have?'

Max asks quietly, “Why dress like a whore?”

She stares at him. He says quietly, “Why dress like a whore to visit your mother? You can't tell me those jeans are comfortable.”

With an effort she manages to say just as quietly, “It happens, yes, that these jeans are very comfortable. And very fashionable. And I happen to feel good in them. I'm sorry you don't like that. You've no doubt seen a lot more whores than I have –”

“You're right. They look like you.”

“– Coarse language doesn't suit you, Max. You're too much of a momma's boy. And I'm a momma's girl so you know where to phone me if you think up some last-minute insult you'd like me to hear.” 

She gets up at once and opens the door leading to the garage. He follows her. She feels her face flushed, her heart thudding, the question “Why dress like a whore?” resounds in her head. She thinks how she looks from behind, strutting on tiptoe on the steep-soled sandals, buttocks thrust back toward him under the tight white denim. She hears him say,

“Terry, I'm sorry I said that. You look great. Really great. I just wish you'd stay the weekend.”

She stops and looks at a sparkling new pale-grey Mercedes. She sighs loudly and says in a weary voice without looking at him, “The keys.”

He hands her the keys. She opens the door and says, “Get my case from the back of the Ford.”

She gets into the driving seat. He fetches a case and lays it on the seat beside her. He starts to say something which she interrupts with a firm, “Good night Max.”

He raises the garage door and touches the switch that opens the gate at the end of the drive. She can see him in the car mirror, standing looking after her in the lit garage doorway and getting smaller and smaller until she turns on to the road, and that is the last she sees of him for at least a month. A month that feels like several years. But she hears from him much sooner than that.