The Cheek Perforation Dance

by Sean Thomas

  In the stand Rebecca seems to shudder, she rocks back on her feet and looks imploringly at the judge.

  The judge:

  — Take your time, Miss Jessel

  With a nod Rebecca gulps and asks for a glass of water. The court gathers itself close, takes a collective breath, as Rebecca turns and accepts a glass from the policewoman behind her. The moments pass as Rebecca delicately sips, then puts the glass down. Now Rebecca licks her newly-red lips as she looks across the silent courtroom and says:

  — He forced me onto my back and held my arms above my head and then he got his penis out

  — Did he have an erection?

  — Yes. He was hard

  — What happened then?

  — He used his other hand to part my thighs

  — And then?

  — He held his penis in his hand … I think … and he

  Patrick looks at the middle-aged juror; she has stopped sucking her sweet and her jaw is hanging open as Rebecca says:

  — He put his penis inside me and began …

  — Began … Miss Jessel?

  Clock-tick. Patrick’s heart. Rebecca’s voice:

  — He began to rape me …

  — What then?

  — Then he started saying things

  — What did he say?

  — That I was …

  — Yes

  — That I was a bitch … a slut … his little slut …

  — Anything else?

  — He said … he said he loved my dirty little … – The court waits – cunt

  — Anything else?

  Rebecca inhales, then she says, slowly, deliberately:

  — He said he was going to fuck me in my dirty … cunt and that he was going to fuck me in my little arsehole even if I didn’t like it and – She closes her eyes and visibly trembles as she recounts – He said he was going to … come in my face … and that I was … until I was … that I was nothing … He said I was a slut, a bitch, a sadistic bitch

  She stalls. Rebecca stands back from the side of the witness box and she pauses and then she drinks some more water from the glass. The prosecutor looks at the jury, at the judge, and then at Rebecca and says:

  — How long did this go on for?

  Glass down, chin up, lips wet:

  — Don’t know … maybe five minutes … maybe ten

  — And you were frightened?

  Rebecca looks at the prosecutor like he has said the most stupid thing in the world. Rebecca Jessel:

  — I was totally petrified

  — And all the time you’d been asking … begging him to stop?

  — Yes. I was screaming. I was shouting no … all the time …

  — And did this have any effect?

  — NO!

  Rebecca has almost shouted. The court seems taken aback at this bitter yelp; Patrick watches as Rebecca calms herself, as she shakes her blonde head and repeats:

  — It had no effect

  Now Rebecca goes quiet. Looks down. The prosecutor hmms and nods, and looks at something on his desk, at a piece of paper he is pinning down with lazy fingers. A moment passes. Tanned face up, Gregory says:

  — What happened next, Miss Jessel?

  — He pushed me upstairs

  — No. I mean … before then?

  Rebecca looks blankly at the prosecutor, then her expression relaxes as she seems to realise what he’s saying; Rebecca replies:

  — He withdrew from me … suddenly … and then he

  — Miss Je

  Not listening, Rebecca goes on:

  — He withdrew and he … grabbed my hair with one hand and he said … he said I was to suck his … to suck his … cock, to lick the … filthy cunt off his cock

  In the dock Patrick grimaces; he can’t help it; in the dock Patrick grimaces and lowers his forehead into one hand: feeling shame and pain and embarrassment and guilt; feeling guilt for everything, guilt for being male, guilt for having a sex drive, guilt for being a horrible rapist. Then Patrick grips himself and tries to rid his mind and face of guilt. He looks up, defiant.

  Rebecca is saying:

  — He was holding my head by the hair … it hurt … he had my hair in his hand and he was forcing me onto his … penis … forcing me to fellate him … to suck him, I was choking and screaming and I remember my mouth hurt and I was screaming because he was hurting my mouth as he

  Patrick stares at Rebecca; despite the hell, despite the worst, despite it all he feels a tiny slight stiffening in his groin as he looks at her: her dear darling face. He is thinking of the time when he

  — Forced me to suck him, and he put his hand, he put his finger in my … backside … my back passage … my anus and

  and Patrick tries not to; he tries not to be agitated by this but it is difficult. He is forced, forced to listen, forced to listen to Rebecca describing to all these people he’s never met, and all his friends in the gallery, and the unicorn above the judge’s head, how he made her suck him; how he threatened to beat her senseless; how he slapped her hard; how he bit her shoulder and upper arm; how he put his cock in her

  — anus. And then he said …

  — What?

  — He said that the carpet was hurting him, burning his knees …

  Rebecca sips more water; her lips are glistening. Rebecca bites her glistening red lips and opens her lips and tells them all how he pushed her away; how he pushed her upstairs, how he pushed her into the bedroom and pushed her onto the bed and started raping her

  — again and

  — again?

  — and again

  and Rebecca tries not to cry as she tells them how he bit her, slapped her, told her to shut the fuck up; how she screamed out and scratched him; how he rammed his

  — penis

  inside her

  — dirty little cunt

  how he raped her and bit her and slapped her until she was dizzy, how he licked her face how he bit her ear how he told her she was his

  — stupid Jewish tart

  who wanted and needed his

  — cock

  in her

  — cunt in

  her

  — arsehole

  and so when he turned her

  — over

  and

  — over

  and

  — took

  her hard from behind and

  — raped

  her and

  — raped

  her

  — and made

  her cry and she just begged him and cried out and begged him and begged him and begged him and begged him and begged him and begged him not to

  — come inside

  Patrick can’t work out which is louder: the clock, or his heart, or the sound of Rebecca’s silent sobbing in the witness box. The silence otherwise is unendurable. Patrick covers his ears with his hands and stares down at the floor of the dock. He looks at a cigarette butt ground into the darkness. The court stays silent; Rebecca is still weeping; the prosecutor mumbles something but the judge intervenes and says, very quietly, as he revolves upon Rebecca, who is still covering her eyes as she stifles a gulp of tears:

  — Miss Jessel, I think we are going to … adjourn for the day … so if you’d like …?

  Under her hands, behind her hands and tears, Rebecca nods. She nods, and then she turns and steps down and walks slowly out of the box and down the steps. But then she pauses, very near the shocked, white-faced jury. The jury members try not to look at her, but they fail. Patrick senses the jury looking at Rebecca with pity, embarrassment and fascination as Rebecca seems to pause to gather her wits. Next to Patrick’s ear Patrick hears the hoarse whisper:

  — The first day is always the worst

  Patrick looks at his lawyer, at Stefan, who has surreptitiously moved over so as to stand near the dock, near him, to whisper this. Patrick sees that Stefan is looking a little vexed. Patrick gulps the bitterness in his own mouth and gazes silently leftwards. Rebecca i
s now coming towards him. With angered excitement Patrick realises that Rebecca’s route to the exit door is going to take her right past him in the dock. Not knowing whether to open his eyes or close them or what, Patrick sits as still as he can as Rebecca walks right in front of him. He doesn’t want to look at her gingham dress and her soft cardigan, at her walk so demure and her face so pale. But as she passes just close by, he can’t help it. She is so close he can actually smell her, smell her scent, smell the scent that reminds him of her, of him; of them. Of happiness.

  8

  — Morning!

  He says. Underneath him, Rebecca mumbles, bleary, confused:

  — Z’it morning?

  — Nope

  — I was asleep …?

  — Yep

  She hmms, nods, yawns. They are lying in Rebecca’s bed, in Rebecca’s parents’ house. The pinkness of Rebecca’s yawn becomes a sleepy sentence:

  — Still raining?

  — Yeah

  — Mmmmmmmyes – Rebecca is stretching her soft naked body under the duvet, her glossy nudity – I like when it rains, really rains …

  Then she stops. Patrick listens, but she has stopped talking. All Patrick can hear is a lonely car slashing down the wet, empty, 2 a.m. Hampstead street, outside. Patrick listens to this: to the absence of traffic, that very unLondon sound. It makes him think about traffic, their difficult traffic, the contraflow.

  He thinks, again, again, yet again, about the contraflow of their worrying sex life: why no climax? why hasn’t she properly orgasmed? wherefore not the smackrush? What is their problem? Staring at Rebecca’s unaware face Patrick frets: why does he feel she hasn’t entirely given of herself? why does he feel that he hasn’t entirely possessed her? and why does their sex feel like an unwinnable computer game? What is this? What?

  To distract himself from these not so new, always perturbing thoughts Patrick leans out of her bed and riffles fake-lazily amongst the piles of books and papers she habitually stacks by her bed. Aztec books, predictably; Crusader texts, naturally; some poetry, of course Then Patrick finds a charity form: a sponsorship form for a half-marathon intended to publicise Third World Debt.

  Picking this form up, feeling playful, bitchy, grumpy, Patrick says:

  —You’re running a marathon?

  Beneath him:

  —Yyyyeah half

  His face moves nearer hers:

  — For Third World Debt?

  Still sleepy:

  — Yessss …

  — Hnn – He says; then he says – You know I could help you out with this?

  She does not reply. He says:

  — I could you know, I know a lot about Third World Debt, you should see the debts I ran up in the Third World last winter

  Silence. Patrick:

  — Coke bills in Colombia, unpaid whores in Bangkok

  —That’s nice for you, darling

  — Actually – On a roll now, Patrick says – I was thinking of starting a charity of my own, to help Third World Hunger – He moves his face directly over hers as she turns to stare at the wall – I was going to call it … International Fellatio Relief

  She mumbles nothing. Patrick says:

  — I’d go to Third World countries and get young women to give me head and swallow my semen, thus providing them with that valuable, hard-to-come-by protein …

  Beneath him Rebecca turns over and buries her face in the pillow and starts singing a Celine Dion song. Pulling at her singing shoulder, Patrick says:

  — Becs — Another tug – Becs? Stop singing? Bex!

  At the third tug she rolls over, stops singing. She looks up at him, and grins, and reaches out a hand and strokes his unshaven chin as if to tell him to shut up. Then she tells him to shut up. Feeling a rush of responsive emotion Patrick stoops his mouth to the crook of Rebecca’s pretty neck, and kisses her lovely scented Rebeccaness. Subsequently he rolls back onto his side of the four big expensive white pillows and wonders if he is as hungry as he thinks he might be: whether they can nip down to her kitchen, open the enormous brushed steel door of her fridge, and eat the ice-cold white peaches the Jessels always seem to keep on that big blue glass plate …

  Rebecca moves nearer. With a flinch, Patrick feels her cold feet press against his legs, her feet seeking the warmth of his calves. It is as if, he thinks, she is trying to attach herself, trying to lock herself on, trying to anchor herself: in him, in the shifting, unreliable sands of his soul. For a moment Patrick wants to shout out no, don’t do it, don’t be stupid.

  He doesn’t. Instead Patrick yawns, swallows, and surveys Rebecca’s room. Her frankly massive room. Her room is bigger than his mum’s garden. Why so big a room? This is the seventh or eighth time Patrick has spent the night in Rebecca’s room in her parents’ plutocratic Hampstead mansion and yet he still feels upset by it. As he is upset by the whole setup here. Whenever Patrick stays here he is so determined not to be impressed by the Georgian silver ashtrays and the three-BMW garage and the incredibly complicated and sophisticated ways of making real coffee he starts to feel stomachy, like he’s been suppressing wind for too long.

  Rebecca is up on an elbow and saying:

  — Patch

  —Yeah?

  — Do you …

  Across Rebecca’s room Patrick can see the streetlight reflected in the full-length antique Art Nouveau mirror. Patrick feels another touch of colic coming on.

  Rebecca is saying:

  — I was wondering

  — What?

  — I was going to ask

  — Fuck’s sake

  — Well, with all that religious music you’ve got … Bach, those cantatas … and … thingy

  — Yes?

  — Do you believe in God?

  Patrick checks Rebecca’s face for sincerity. Patrick notices that Rebecca’s left earlobe glints with something silver; and that otherwise she is naked. As he looks at Rebecca’s nipples Patrick says:

  —You know what I think

  — Do I?

  — Yep. You asked me this same question the second time we met

  — So – She shrugs, very girlishly – Tell me again then

  Patrick sighs, leans, kisses her left nipple, pulls back to look at his stiffening lipwork; and says:

  — I reckon religion is like – Thinking of a new analogy – Nipples, nipples for men – Patrick smiles, pleased by the topicality of his insight; then he goes to explain it – Religion is a now redundant adaptation, it’s a defunct psychosocial adaptation originally engendered in ignorant savages by their understandable fear of death and the inexplicable – Reaching out and holding her wrist – And of course it’s wank

  — Wank?

  —Yep

  — O brave pagan – Says Rebecca – Proud of Your Mortality

  —Am I?

  She giggles:

  — Yep! – Still giggling – But don’t worry, it’s quite nice and … butch

  Patrick grunts, wondering whether he should feel patronised. Then Patrick instead starts wondering what Rebecca’s snatch looks like. He knows what it looks like – like a Hanseatic wine merchant’s collar muff, like a Hudson Bay fur trapper’s sampler – yet still he wants to lift back the powder-blue duvet and check what it looks like. Even though he fucked Rebecca ten minutes ago, already he wants to fuck her again, to prove that she is his, again. Fed six hundred seconds ago and already his stomach is rumbling for more, more of the never-satisfying rice diet of sex …

  — So – She says – Shall I tell you why I believe?

  —No

  — No?

  —Nope

  Rebecca looks annoyed, and embarrassed by her own annoyance. To cover her shyness she starts butting his shoulder with her head, like a kitten trying to roll a ball of wool.

  This arouses Patrick enormously. Trying not to be aroused, he says:

  — Oh, go on then. Explain

  Immediately:

  — Well, I just think sometimes … there’s something i
n me that’s better than me

  — Something in you that’s better than you?

  — Something kinder, nobler, gentler

  He snorts:

  — Oh, surely NOT, kinder than you?

  — I didn’t

  — Jesus, Becs, you really do love yourself don’t you?

  — No I don’t it’s just that

  Feeling sudden anger:

  — God I hate all this – Patrick feels his throat go thick with anger – All this morally superior do-gooding upper-middle-class BOLLOCKS

  — OK I’m

  — I fucking hate it

  — Patch!

  — The only thing I hate more than that is that bitch, that dead slut, that stupid fucking crack whore, what’s her name – He flops back onto his side of the pillow – Mother Teresa

  Rebecca breathes in, then out:

  —Just because you are a selfish bastard, Patrick, doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be …

  —Me? Selfish? Cuh!

  She ignores this. She makes a glum face. Her head is no longer playfully butting his arm like a kitten trying to roll a ball of wool. She is saying:

  — Patrick you try and explain everything with evolution, with that hunter gatherer rubbish, that dreck – Waving an arm as if she is waving at his bookshelves she goes on – But I think that’s just a rather pitiful excuse for being a selfish egotist

  — It is?

  — Yes – Her voice is now almost toneless – It is. I think you only satirise my social concern because you feel guilty about your own selfishness

  — Social concern?

  —Yes

  — Satirise your social concern??

  —Well

  — So I take it you think you’re better than me. Mm? – He makes an exasperated noise – Is that what you’re saying?

  — No … but …

  — But I thought we were all the same, all poor sinners … NO?

  A silence. The two of them are lying back on their pillows, side by side, staring at the ceiling, watching a light from a passing car do a slow turn across the ceiling, watching the time go. Quietly, Rebecca says:

  — Patch, please, let’s not argue

  — Who’s arguing? You stupid Jewish sex dwarf?