Fifty-Minute Hour

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘It’s for you, John-Paul,’ she whispered. ‘All for you – the pain.’ One burn had even festered, was throbbing, really griping, as she stabbed it with the rigid plastic shaft. Pleasure he had called it, but what were words so long as she obeyed him? ‘As fast, as slow, as long, as short, as you can cope with at each practice-session.’ She took it slower, turned the pressure down, let it almost idle – in and out, in and out, like a finger in a … It felt different from a finger, seemed to go in further, hurting still – oh, certainly – but a restrained and rhythmic pain now, which was soothing, almost kindly. The noise had changed, as well – no longer a harsh skirl, but a gentle droning purr, which seemed to calm her, reassure her. She had never known that pain could be relaxing; that she could want it to continue, not just for John-Paul’s sake, but for her own. Maybe that was wrong, though, and she was being far too lax. Angrily, abruptly, she turned the power to highest, reeled back to her Pain Score, tried to tot it up again, as her burns cried out for pity. Thirteen, was it, fourteen? Still not high enough. She could hear the vibrator screaming now, as she reached twenty, twenty-one.

  Perspiration was sliding down her breasts, sticking to her slip. She’d have to take it off, remove her skirt and jacket too, so she was less hampered, less restricted, could concentrate on pain. She put the vibrator down a moment, as she struggled with her clothes, tried to force the zip. The silence seemed unkind, and there was a strange ache between her legs – an ache for that lost rhythm, which had become part of her, had sprung from her, and which she felt she’d known from way back, known in dreams, or even in past lives. She drained her sherry first, dark sweet sherry, like John-Paul’s rich brown voice. He was talking to her now, his voice very close and intimate from his seat behind the couch; his words warm amoroso dribbling down her body. ‘You’re doing very well, Mary. Just relax a little more – that’s it. Now turn it on again and let it throb between your fingers, to try to get the feel of it, establish the best rhythm. That’s good, that’s very good. Now stroke it down your body – yes, slowly, very s-l-o-w-l-y, right across your breasts and down your belly and your thighs, until you reach your …’

  ‘Genitals,’ she said out loud. She had to practise all those words: forbidden words, exquisite words, words which made her hot and so ashamed. Her legs were opening wider, opening for John-Paul. Yes, of course she longed to open them – open them and please him, split apart and bleed for him. ‘Vulva,’ she said lingeringly. ‘Clitoris.’ ‘Vagina.’ Nobody could hear her. The vibrator was too loud. The noise was whirring out again, gasping, almost panicky, laboured like her breathing. Why should she be panting when she was just relaxing on a bed? Why drenched with sweat, why feverish? Had John-Paul switched her on, pulled some giant lever like the one in the Steam Museum where they’d taken all three boys this last July – a lever which set flywheels into motion, started rods and pistons, mobilised huge pumping-engines, which had all begun to thwack and thrust, drowning conversation, dwarfing even James?

  She’d felt threatened at the time, alarmed not just for the boys who might get trapped in all that dangerous machinery, but frightened on her own account. It was so masculine, so violent, that powerhouse of trapped steam, those bursting throbbing boilers and swollen cylinders; that overwhelming beam-engine rearing to the roof, its gigantic metal beam weighing fifteen tons at least, heaving up and down as it drove its frantic flywheel (which the man had told her would plunge straight through the solid wall if it ever broke off from its bearings). She had watched the pressure-gauges slowly rising, rising; the shiny oil-slicked piston-rods thrusting in and out; had felt some strange excitement suddenly curdling with the terror, longed to be connected to those wildly pulsing engines, part of that machinery – a feed-pipe or a blow-valve which could share its pounding rhythm. ‘DANGER!’ said the notice in huge red capitals. She’d deliberately ignored it, stepped closer to the piston-rods, even slipped inside the barrier.

  She shut her eyes. She could feel the heat again, that stifling claustrophobic heat which reeked of oil and steam; could hear the steady rhythmic slam of the engines pumping pumping; see the scalding water-drops swelling on the glistening pipes, bursting, running down; could almost taste the clogging grease on the inflamed and sweating metal. Her own body was inflamed, running with hot oil, spurts of steam condensing into droplets, leaking down the insides of her thighs. She had forgotten pain completely. Did wheels feel pain? Or piston-rods? She just had to keep on thrusting, driven on, driven on – yes, right to danger-point.

  She had reached that point – and passed it – could feel her axle cracking up, wrenching from its bearings, her rev-counter so fast now it was spinning out of control. She was breaking off, flying free, plunging through a three-foot solid wall. She felt the crash, the impact, yet experienced no pain – only elation and amazement as she blasted into heat and light, heard John-Paul’s shout behind her, a shout of triumph, sheer relief. He seemed to have arranged some celebration in her honour. She was aware of voices, noises, reverberating bangs; glimpsed a sudden hail of rockets snipering the sky, exploding in a shower of coloured sparks – laser-blue, throbbing-pink, strobing knife-blade silver.

  She could hear another noise, coming from much nearer – footsteps on the stairs, an angry voice she knew too well.

  ‘Are you deaf or something, Mary? I’ve been shouting for five minutes and you haven’t heard a word. The dog’s gone mad as well. It’s those damn-fool bloody fireworks they’re letting off next door.’ The footsteps tramping closer, right up to the door; the handle slowly turning. ‘Mary!’ The voice lower now, and scandalised, almost disbelieving. ‘What in God’s name are you doing?’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘So how d’you like the pictures?’ a young girl asks me, a so-called friend of Seton, and dressed rather like him in obscene-tight jeans and a skim-the-navel sweater (and with the sort of Ogen melon breasts John-Paul would want himself).

  ‘They’re shit,’ ‘I say. ‘I mean literally. That’s the new fashionable medium in art, I’m told – warm faeces.’

  She stalks off in a huff. Who cares? There are at least thirty others like her – all gorgeous girls of seventeen or under; all what the ads call ‘feminine’, with huge blue eyes and tiny feet, morning-gathered dew-kissed skins, and eyelashes which double up as besom brooms. I assume they’re John-Paul’s patients, all those tiresome Marys who come at times I’m not around myself. They don’t let on, of course, introduce themselves as Cressida or Amber, and a lot of other crappy names – all ‘feminine’, of course – some doubly feminine: hyphened names like Anne-Marie or Lisa-Beth, which probably means they’re aping John-Paul’s hyphen and are obviously hung up on him. I haven’t got a chance. Oh, I may have waist-length hair (‘Fantastic hair,’ Seton actually called it just last night) and pretty decent teeth which are even reasonably white – though thanks mainly to Euthymol Smokers’ Toothpaste – but why should John-Paul notice me with such dazzling competition?

  He’s not even here tonight. It’s his private view, his evening, his so-called triumph as an artist, his biggest show to date, the culmination of five years’ secret slog, yet he has to hide away, can’t face the press (if any), can’t face his fans, his groupies. Even his signature on the paintings looks shy and noncommittal – just a small black JPS at the bottom of each work, the initials almost swamped by swags of excrement. He’s probably keeping a low profile because he’s nervous of the medical establishment, scared they might protest, censure him for dealing with his own shit rather than his patients’, or perhaps he’s just embarrassed that the work is so inferior. Actually, no one’s really looking at it, but that’s standard at most private views. Don’t tell me people come to see the pictures. They come to see each other, and guzzle the free wine (or bubbly, if it’s Bond Street or environs). This is grotty Kilburn, so the wine is quite unspeakable – sub-Spanish plonk in plastic cups, with a few anorexic Twiglets to stop us getting pissed; no chance of that, alas. My cup’s been empty a good h
alf hour and no one’s filled it except ever-thoughtful Seton who’s used it as an ashtray.

  I suppose I should be grateful he’s still around at all, when he knows girls like Cressida who comes complete with baby (yes, fair; yes, cute; yes, female). Babies are the in-thing at the moment, especially when they dangle from those natty designer-slings with a bulging Filofax and/or portable computer balancing them the other side, to prove the woman is a loved and fertile Earth-Mother, yet also a whizz-kid Richard Branson clone, giving (Virgin) birth to airlines, record companies.

  ‘Darling, wonderful to see you!’

  I swing round gratefully, but it’s not me they’re thrilled to see; just another stunning female with an Adonis in tow. Kiss-kiss, yak-yak. ‘Yes, we’ve just come back from Hamburg, and it’s Singapore next week. I’m so frightfully busy I’ve hardly time to pee. This is Adam, by the way.’

  I clutch at Seton’s arm, to prove I’m a couple, too; long to tell the world he did actually invite me to move in and share his boat. We’ve been going out together fourteen days, which must be quite a record (for him, as well as me), though the term ‘going out’ is not exactly accurate, since we rarely budge from the confines of the cabin, except to change positions on the bunk or bench or floor. Well, I go out – he doesn’t – except to drive me to the station for my appointments with John-Paul. I’ve refused to give them up, despite my disillusion, though Seton lours and threatens, says if I want to waste my money, there are more amusing ways of doing so than regaling some sex-obsessed shyster with the details of my latest love affair.

  ‘Yeah, but you really have to do drugs first, to know how bad they are.’

  ‘She’s into healing trees now. They respond better than people.’

  I edge away from trees and drugs, grab a last half-Twiglet. Actually, Seton doesn’t know it, but I haven’t breathed a word about our liaison. Oh, I know it’s breaking the analytic rule, or whatever John-Paul calls it, but that hardly seems to matter now, when he’s just a piddling amateur – and anyway I’ve been breaking it for months. I’ve even concealed the existence of my clients; just casually explained that I was paying for my therapy with a windfall I’d been left from my favourite (non-existent) Uncle Jack. It really bugs me sometimes that he doesn’t see straight through me, use his basic nous if he hasn’t any training, or operate some inbuilt shit-detector. I’ve sometimes tried to test him out, told him quite outrageous tales – like my mother was a despatch rider with a vintage Harley Davidson, and my father was a murderer – and he still appears to swallow them, or at least not call me ‘Liar!’. Though maybe he’s deceiving me, in turn; only pretending to believe me, and making jargon-loaded notes about my fibs or fantasies. What’s truth, anyway? How can we know anything when everybody’s lying, or at least acting or pretending? For all I know, my father might have murdered someone and concealed it in his turn. (He murdered me, in one sense, though that’s another story.) And there’s the added complication that the more you build-up something, the more solid it becomes, like my Uncle Jack, for instance, whom I worship now and idolise; visit every Sunday in his converted Kentish oast house (or Spanish hacienda, or Manhattan penthouse with its view of Central Park).

  ‘Actually, Jason of the Argonauts always struck me as an outsize wimp.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Hey, did you see that piece on gays in last week’s City Limits?’

  ‘No,’ I say; faze the pouf who’s asking, since he was addressing someone else – a guy in green-check trousers who looks a cross between a golf pro and a clown. The crowds are building up now, the air over-breathed and stale. We’re stuck down in a basement with no windows and strip-lighting (which is hardly fair to any pictures, even ones as lousy as John-Paul’s). I can’t get away from basements. My own bedsit’s subterranean, Seton’s cabin’s down a ladder, and of the eleven different pads I’ve had since I left home in my teens, eight were below street-level and two converted cellars. Perhaps that’s the attraction of John-Paul – he’s up a tower, not down a hole, though actually I just can’t feel the same about him, since Seton put him in his context, so to speak. The whole point about analysts is that they’re meant to remain a mystery, so you can fantasise about them, turn them into your father, mother, brother, sister (or favourite Uncle Jack). In that sense, they’re not real, not intended to be real, but objects to be hated, worshipped, feared, so you can re-enact the way you felt in infancy towards your real father, mother, sister, brother or (unreal) Uncle jack.

  It drives you crazy sometimes, the way they never say a word about their own life or interests, relationships or politics, but I see now it’s far preferable to knowing the grim facts. John-Paul divorced, with two great hulking dogs and a plumber for a father, isn’t quite the stuff of fantasy, and at first I was so furious, I vowed I’d never set eyes on him again. But then I got so anxious, so depressed and even desperate, I realised I was totally addicted to the man, and that in some ghastly way he’d become even more attractive because he was a fraud – an imposter and a charlatan who’d been smart enough to fool me. I’ve always been involved with swinish men – which according to John-Paul is an attempt to recreate my (swinish) father, try to change him, try to make him love me. It always fails, of course. I’m a glutton for (self) punishment, and now I’ve got a shrink who’s every bit as bad as the bastards he’s been slating. Though I suppose that proves him right, at least.

  ‘Like the tan, Jean! Fake or real?’

  ‘Fake. Sunorama’s sun-beds. I’ve almost moved my office there.’

  ‘They’re meant to give you cancer.’

  ‘What are?’

  ‘Sun-beds.’

  ‘Everything gives you cancer – or all the fun things, anyway – even men, apparently.’

  ‘Too right,’ I say to no one, as I maul my paper cup. Seton’s strayed off somewhere and I suppose I should be ‘circulating’; flinging more inane remarks into the pool of conversation. But I’m sick of all the small talk; can’t seem to feel a part of it or tag on to some group; can’t shift my mind and focus from John-Paul. Despite his absence, he seems more real and solid than all those prattling cut-outs, and I feel I’m here alone with him, carrying on a silent tête-à-tête. We’ve had some really hairy sessions this last fortnight. ‘If your father’s a plumber, why can’t he mend your loo, John-Paul?’ ‘If you must have pedigree dogs to give you breeding, or huge ones as a power thing …’ ‘If you spent less time on art …’ He pretended not to understand, turned everything back to me and my neuroses. Plumbers he associated with sewers, sewers with shit, and shit of course with money (that’s an analytic basic), so why was I so worried about paying his bills? I couldn’t win with wolfhounds, either. He refused to discuss them as his own domestic pets, but interpreted them as symbols of my animal aggression which I was seeking to repress (and also linked with shit again – you know, dogs and excrement – which seems to me plain facile).

  And then his phones kept ringing. They’ve always done, in fact, but I’ve never really realised how unprofessional it is. Three phones, like three clocks – he’s probably got three mistresses, and three ex-wives, as well – all connected to the answerphone so that he doesn’t have to pick them up in the middle of a session, but, nonetheless, horribly distracting, since they caterwaul at least six or seven seconds before the recording cuts them out. Before, I simply accepted it, but now I know he’s just a quack, their shrilling sounds insulting, or seems to be expressing my own howls of pain, resentment. And the calls themselves are suspect – not the frantic patients I always took them for, desperate for his help or voice, clamouring to see him, but cantankerous ex-wives, or jumped-up plumber fathers, or maybe angry vets who have dosed or wormed his wolfhounds, but are still waiting to be paid.

  ‘Hallo! Don’t I know you?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘You don’t’; scuttle off from the creep in dove-grey suede whose eyes are on my breasts, but who’ll probably feign an interest in my brain (as many so-called ‘new men’
appear to do these days). Several other people have tried to say hallo, or swap their names for mine, but I sense a wall between us; keep glancing round for Seton, who’s completely disappeared. I’d really hate to lose him, need him as my anchor. He’s become central in my life now, partly as a sort of counterirritant to John-Paul, but also for a host of other vital reasons, like his size-eleven feet, his lack of parents, wives or job, and his total disregard for things like dress or rules, tact or meals or mores. It’s also great to have a guy who’s not a client, and one who’s head and shoulders above all the gaffers here, not just in his height and build, but in his sheer charisma. Okay, so he’s aggressive, but he’s also very generous, and surprisingly soft-hearted (not to mention skilful) when it’s a matter of an injured tern or a stoat caught in a trap. There’s a whole quite different side to him which he hides from other people, and which appeals to me especially because I tend to do the same.

  I always feel I’ve got two separate selves, which makes life quite confusing since I don’t know which one’s me. My female self is vile – tough and sharp and bitchy and often pretty devious; but my male self’s more poetic and compassionate, secretive, responsive, though also much more vulnerable. Sometimes, when it takes me over, I feel very strange and frail, and things lose their shape and boundaries, so the world becomes unreal. I’ve discussed it with John-Paul, and he used words like ‘bipolarity’ and ‘split’; referred to my ‘divided self’, which made it sound like something in a textbook, rather than undefined and frightening. I sometimes swing from mood to mood so suddenly and totally, I confuse myself as well as him, feel I’ve changed identity, become a different person. But Seton understands – accepts me both ways round – the only one who ever has, which is why he’s so important.