Innocents (20 page)

I'm starting to do weird things, here on my own.

I've heard that if you deny yourself all stimuli—block your ears, cover your eyes—you can excite your mind to hallucinations. Visions.

I bought ear-plugs from the chemist's.

I no longer give a damn how I appeared to any other living being. The chemist's assistant might have glanced at me with hostile curiosity as she handed me the change. She might have raised her eyebrows, affronted, at my arsenic-white face, and my red, sunken eyes. I wasn't even looking.

Back in this room, I made myself blind with an ancient airline eyemask. I bottled the sound of my rushing blood, stoppered my ears with twists of wax.

In the void, I waited.

I expected avenging angels, terrible seraphs pointing accusatory swords, the pure light of vengeance in their eyes. I expected monsters: the demons swimming at the bottom of my subconscious, come up at last for air.

I expected to be judged.

Nothing happened. Thin tears oozed at the corners of my eyes. I resisted the urge to squash them away with one finger.

I fell into an uneasy sleep.

I hate being here without you.

I spent an unspecifiable age, last night, staring at the air in front of the white wall of our bedroom.

My eyes hovered in some focusless hinterland and I saw coloured shadows, dancing. Once or twice a cloud of yellow and some spots of reddish-black coalesced. They seemed to become a hand, sitting in repose as if in a lap; or an eye, blinking and looking to one side, avoiding my gaze.

I could not make you real. I didn't learn you as you learnt me, with the meticulousness of passion. Of love.

You said you could make me again, out of the air.

I know what you meant now, when in the shower you put your hands on my shoulders and turned me full circle.

Blinking through the steam, your thumbs on my collarbones, you confided, ‘I know
every inch
of this.’

The hot water brought your blood to the surface in blotches. Rivulets ran down your red face. As if to demonstrate the truth of your words, you skimmed your hands over my shoulders, my neck, my cheeks, my arms, hands, waist.

You said, ‘If you disappeared, I could make you again, out of the air.’

Fishing in my false heart, I hooked false comforts and offered them to you, earnestly. ‘I won't
disappear
! I'm not
going
anywhere!’

And you, misguided visionary, looked into my treacherous eyes, and saw nothing amiss.

‘You're beautiful,’ you told me. The words broke, passing the lump in your throat.

I didn't seek those pages out again for days. I buzzed with the secret knowledge of what I'd read. I kissed you, talked with you, squeezed your hand in the street, thrilling every moment with a strange expectant nervousness.

Carefully, carefully, I prepared myself for the final assault.

I sugared my lips with cherry-flavoured lip balm. I washed my hair in coconut shampoo. I smothered myself in cheap teenage scent, till I reeked of strawberries.

‘You always smell the same underneath,’ you told me.

I laughed. ‘What're you trying to tell me? I should shower more often?’

‘No, it's that childish smell.’ I felt your nostrils flare on my shoulders as you inhaled. ‘Babies. Milk.’

After that, I was careful to have milk more often. I left on my face the traces of it that clung round my lips after drinking. I rubbed it into my skin like perfume.

I made my first move at one of our picnics.

It was your idea entirely. It was you who loved picnicking under the huge spreading tree in our backyard. It was you who made the sandwiches and folded the tartan blanket for me to sit on.

I've never really liked
weather
. Being outside could be good, if it meant solitude. If it left me alone with my dark thoughts. If it freed me from the pin-pricks of guilt that human contact engendered.

I used to hate it, for example, if my aunt came up and offered to make me a sandwich when I sat at the kitchen table, daydreaming. I'd always shake my head and disappear out the back door, to be alone. I hated to have human decency and my mind in the same room at the same time.

But rain, wind, sun … they smacked too much of cleansing, sandpapering forces, abrasive against my secret thoughts.

Outside's too
big
, as well. I preferred the safe spaces of the little burrows you and I made beneath blankets. Even with the curtains drawn, there was always enough light to see your face.

So all that time, as I giggled and threaded daisy chains (how charming, how adorable!) I was slightly uncomfortable. But like a true opportunist, I was able to work under any circumstances.

I wore jeans, rolled up at the ankles; and one of your white work shirts, far too big. Through the thin cotton, the black shadow of my bra was obvious. My feet were bare, so that you could tickle the instep.

We sat on the cool grass in the deep shade of the biggest tree. When we'd finished with the food, we pushed the bones of sandwiches and the dead husks of salads to one side.

I yawned expansively. ‘Can I lie on you?’

That wry, through-the-nose laugh, as though I kept asking, in my naiveté,
Can I give you a million dollars?

‘Of course.’

I settled my head on your outstretched legs, near the top of them. I looked up at the leaves. I felt a creature come crawling over my ankle. ‘Ugh!’ I squealed. ‘There's something on my leg!’

Indulgently, you reached out. ‘Where is it?’ You searched with your hands over my two calves, flicking the unseen little legs away. ‘There. It's gone.’ You didn't move your hand, however, but left it motionless, a big solid warmth on my skin.

‘No,’ I said, wriggling. ‘There's still something there.’

‘Oh, there is
too
!’ Your fingers drummed on my ankle. ‘It's a huge big
spider
!’

‘Yuck! Get it off!’

You walked the spider over my jeans, over my belly, until you held me awkwardly round the waist.

‘What
is
this? Spiders don't do this.’

‘This one does.’

‘Oh!’ I was tired of boring euphemisms, silly games. I wanted to hear you declare yourself again. ‘What do you want to do, spider?’

Your lips against my ear blew hot breath as you whispered, ‘I want to run my hands all over you. I want to feel your skin under my fingers.’

I made you go further. ‘What else?’

‘Pinch your nipples.’ Your eyes were closed. You swallowed.

This was getting close. I watched you keenly, through narrowed eyes. ‘What else?’

‘Unzip your jeans and put my hand down them and—’ You gave a short embarrassed laugh. ‘I'm not getting carried away …? You're not offended?’

‘What else?’ I pulled your hand up under my shirt. Your hand splayed, inoffensive, on my belly. You laughed nervously, not meeting my eyes.

I pulled my shirt off.

‘Hey!’ You glanced around, as though expecting to see hordes of respectable citizens come charging over the walls armed with pitchforks.

‘No-one can see us.’

You snorted through your nose, shaking your head. ‘Crazy girl!’

I pulled your head down until your face hovered over my breasts. ‘Is that what you want?’ I asked, sweetly.

And you made no reply, but only stared, overwhelmed.

*

I have a recurring dream.

I'm lying in a hospital bed. At the same time, I'm watching the action as though it were a film: I'm an invisible presence. My uncle and aunt are there, and a well-meaning delegation of girls from St Mary's. They're all standing around awkwardly, trying to make conversation, feeling terribly sorry for me.

There's been a shocking accident. I'm terribly afflicted. I've gone blind, or lost my legs, or had my face all scalded away. These injuries are always very graphic. I see the bleeding stumps of my legs, the scarred hollows where my eyes were, the red monstrosity my face has become.

Eventually one of my visitors breaks down, and blurts out, ‘Oh, it's terrible! What a dreadful thing to happen!’

And the me-in-the-bed thinks about this, and I say, ‘Oh, it's no more than I deserve.’ There is a feeling of calmness, of things having come to a conclusion, like the end of a film. The statement seems a fair summing-up.
Oh, it's no more than I deserve
.

It occurs to the me-that-floats-unseen, the disembodied observer, that this statement is more dreadful than the accident which has befallen me. There is a sense of tragedy, and I feel like weeping.

We ended up inside, as I'd hoped. You carried me there, cupping my neck and knees over your forearms. There was a strange, magnetised distance in your eyes, and your footfalls were slow and deliberate as you climbed the stairs. I could feel your arms through your shirt. They were scorching hot, as though the skin was sunburnt, as though your shirt would ignite.

You laid me like a doll on the bed, kissing me fiercely on the forehead.

Removing my clothes, you were as careful as usual, but somehow less tender. Kneeling between my legs, removing my jeans, you met my gaze. Your eyes were burning. You looked over me, at every inch, holding my knees. You were biting your lip and your hands trembled. You seemed to have to concentrate very hard on every breath you took.

I smiled serenely, like the Madonna. I had read in a journal of psychology that an important part of the Lolita Complex was the need to violate innocence.

‘Come on,’ I said, quietly.

And then you were above me.

With a terrible thrill, I realised what I'd so easily wrought. There was such a suppression of violence in your touch that I nearly flinched, I nearly fainted. Your fingers were light against my skin, but you were being consumed with desperation.

You bit at my neck, with the sharp points of your teeth. Those pin-pricks were the beginning of all this, weren't they?

You felt your way down my neck with lips clamped tight over teeth, leaving a snail-trail of spittle which flared coldly on my skin.

Your sharp teeth clamped sharper than usual into the soft skin around my nipple. Taken genuinely by surprise, I gasped in pain.

‘Oh! I'm sorry, baby!’

The skin on my breast throbbed sharply with the pain. ‘It's okay.’ It always hurt, when you did that.

‘I never know when to
do
that!’ You sounded miserable. ‘Sometimes you seem to like it. But sometimes I get it wrong.’

I made a mental note to be more consistent with my reactions.

Then, judging my moment perfectly, willing you full of that need, I moved as though to roll away from underneath you.

I saw you struggle with yourself and start to lose.

‘No,’ you said, or made a noise that meant no. And you held my wrists together, with one hand.

With your feet, you hooked my legs apart.

Your face shone with sweat. Your eyes, sheathed over with an animal intensity of purpose, were on my face. You bit your lip, concentrating, as your body arced and dipped above me.

I lay supine, my thin wrists tacked to the bed under the iron span of your right hand. I knew a moment of the most intense, stifling, true panic when I realised that
I couldn't move
. I couldn't make you stop without crying out. A shout or a whimper at that moment would, I knew, have shattered the careful connection I'd wrought between us.

I couldn't close my eyes, chew my lip, give any sign that I was taking a punishment. Your bulging eyes were inches from my face. Any indication of dismay would break the spell, leave you scrambling off me, apologising, reduced, afraid to come near me. Perhaps you would even be revolted by the urges my flimsy body had awakened in you.

You lowered your hips. I could feel rough hair on my thighs. You used your left hand to find my entrance. I felt your knuckles on my belly and your knees between my calves. It seemed as though a grim doom were upon me.

Pictures came to me in vivid flashes, as bright against my confusion as fireworks against a cloudy sky. I saw my hideous gallery, my debauched harem. They came parading before me, mocking, scornful. My mind shrieked against the possibility that I, the controller, the cracker of whips, the giver of orders, should find myself here, open, without hope. I braced myself against discomfort and humiliation.

And then, as you entered, I saw as though in a vision all those thousands of black-and-white, faceless women: legs spread, entered, debased, attacked. Every single one of them raised her face to me, and on her face was a smile. And I saw in a second the features of those faces, which I had thought were so carefully copied from life. I saw how exactly they resembled my own face, cut up and scattered among them all, so that one had my nostrils and another the corners of my eyes.
We're your creatures
, they seemed to say.
You live through us. You are one of us
.

And you plunged into me, and I felt a desperate contracting deep inside, an urgent, shivery palpitation. I gasped for air. I was stifled, but drawn hopelessly on. It was like drowning in a river full of rapids. It was like suffocating in a black hole.

I lost the ceiling above to a sudden spattered sand-blindness, as though my eyes had fainted. I lost myself to a formless humming in my ears, a dizzying inchoate rushing.

It was the most profoundly satisfying thing that I had ever experienced.

‘Phew!’

‘Hmmm.’ I kissed your head, a reflex motion. My lips met hair and I thought how like kissing an animal it was.

‘Well, that's a new one!’ You were human again, good-humoured.

‘Yep.’

‘Did you like that?’ There was a faint note of disbelief in your voice. It was overlaid with more obvious concern, as well as the post-coital chattiness with which lovers attempt to re-establish everyday, verbal contact.

‘Yes,’ I said. I was tingling all over, exhausted and invigorated.

Rolling over, propping your head on one hand, you asked, ‘You weren't … put off, or anything?’