by Nikki Stern
With his gift for languages, Paul’s Dutch was soon superior to that of the other children. He had always been different—brighter perhaps. His mother ferried him between Montreal and Amsterdam, parking him with relatives while she attempted to establish a life for herself.
Saskia had met Vlad while he was working as a barman. He had been in Holland when the Russian tanks rolled into Prague’s Wenceslas Square in 1968 and, as a Czech citizen, was granted refugee status by the Dutch government. Without a word, Saskia eloped and married him, a man she knew Paul detested; it was the early seventies and he was just ten.
As we lay in bed, Paul continued with his pillow talk, telling me how Vlad had proved to be a rather cruel stepfather. ‘He used to beat me—that’s why my bottom teeth are crooked. He was the type of man who would pull the wings off butterflies. He used to torment our dog, Bobby, by bending his ears back.’
I was disturbed by all that Paul told me. ‘I can’t imagine having to live with such a person,’ I said.
‘It was horrible. And my mother stood by while he bashed me—well, he beat her too—and then she made excuses for him. No wonder she started drinking—she was deeply unhappy herself.’
Saskia had been a model before she got pregnant. She was beautiful. She’d worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company—the oldest corporation in Canada—as a catwalk model for fur coats, until her pregnancy started to show. ‘She should have had an abortion,’ Paul reckoned.
‘No . . . don’t say that.’ I was horrified.
‘Well, I should have been adopted like you. I couldn’t have had worse parents.’
When Saskia was about seven months pregnant, she threw herself down a flight of stairs. Paul believed she had been trying to kill herself . . . or him. But, miraculously, both of them survived. She was an air hostess by then and a self-confessed party girl: ‘She totally neglected me. I was brought up by her mother. That’s where I got all the Christian crap.’
With tears in his eyes, Paul explained how his grandmother— he called her Omoe—had been raped by a German soldier during the war and borne a child to him. ‘Surprisingly, that child turned out to be the nicest man—he was the uncle who told me my father’s name, I guess because he never knew the identity of his own father.’
Omoe had a tough life—bringing up her brood in Rotterdam through Holland’s ‘Hunger Winter’ of 1944. That was the year Saskia had been born, undernourished—they were eating tulip bulbs to survive. Then, after the war, the whole family emigrated to Canada, carrying nothing but a suitcase.
Paul’s life had been a living hell. No wonder he smoked so much marijuana—his nerves needed calming. I was having trouble relating to much of what he told me. Although adopted, I had had a comfortable existence—my parents’ marriage had been stable, and I was loved and nurtured. I once found the draft of a letter my mother wrote to a close friend with whom she’d reconnected decades after the war. In German, she described how she could not have loved me more than if she had borne me herself.
I wanted to be alone for a while. I needed to get back to Aorta to see my housemates. I did not want to overstay my welcome at Paul’s—I wanted to cherish our relationship, but I could only do that by maintaining some distance—physically and mentally. I took the bus downtown, returning to the squat after promising to see him again soon.
Back at Aorta, the women welcomed me like a long-lost friend. Hendrika shoved a leaflet at me and said there was an anti-porn march on that night. ‘Do you want to come?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, sure.’
She said they were all strongly opposed to pornography, because it ‘represents the dehumanisation and exploitation of women by men; it commodifies and denigrates’. Her accent was strong, but she was well versed in the nuanced language of feminism. Again, she appeared to be the spokesperson for the group.
That night, my household, plus several hundred other feminists, paraded through the streets of Amsterdam’s notorious red-light district, targeting the larger sex shops with our chanting. Although I had never actually seen any pornography, I was happy to align myself with my feminist friends.
Living a block from their equivalent of the GPO proved a boon. I was getting big bundles of mail addressed to Poste Restante, Amsterdam, and I was able to keep in touch with my many friends—some being ex-lovers, with whom I shared a special bond. It was as if I didn’t want to let go of what we’d shared. I always considered a relationship successful if I was able to remain on amicable terms afterwards. I looked forward to news from home, especially from Dory—I was missing her more than I cared to admit. I would spend hours writing postcards and letters.
One afternoon, I was sitting in my room playing a guitar that one of the women had lent me. An insistent siren suddenly screeched from a floor above. Barely audible above the wailing, my housemates explained that they had an alarm system that sounded if a nearby squat was at risk. We needed to lend support immediately by hurrying over there.
The building under threat was a quaint canal house and outside it hundreds of squatters anxiously milled around. Thankfully, an agreement was soon brokered and the riot police did not move to evict. It was touching, however, to see the solidarity that united the squatter movement.
The next morning, I happened to notice a young man surreptitiously emerging from one of the women’s bedrooms. Soon afterwards, when Hendrika went away for the weekend, another boyfriend materialised.
I called Paul. ‘Hey, maybe you can come and stay over some time—it appears men are allowed here after all.’
He said he’d love to, but was hesitant because of Hendrika’s edict.
‘Don’t worry—the other women have their boyfriends over, so why can’t I have you?’
So Paul stayed over, albeit only occasionally because I didn’t want to upset Hendrika.
But, late one night, he ran back into my room in hysterics. ‘You’ll never guess what just happened—I was going for a leak and there were two guys queuing outside the toilet!’
Paul had said to them, ‘Hey, I thought this was a lesbian household.’
One of the guys laughed and said, ‘Yeah, that’s what all the women pretend. They all want to live here ’cos it’s such an amazing place.’
Paul asked them who they were with and they asked him who he was with, and very soon they had figured out that the only lesbian in the place was Hendrika—the others were just pretending to be bi. ‘We all pissed ourselves laughing,’ he said.
I must admit I thought that was pretty funny, but I still felt sorry for Hendrika.
Several nights later, when we were getting ready to go to bed, I went up to the third-floor bathroom to brush my teeth. I heard an almighty scream, then the sound of breaking china. As I rushed downstairs, I passed Hendrika on the narrow landing. In my room I found a perplexed Paul, standing there naked and about to light a large joint. On the floor were the scattered shards and contents of two mugs and a tray.
Apparently Hendrika, thinking I was alone, had brought me a hot cocoa as a nightcap. Paul was insistent that she had been planning to seduce me, although I wasn’t so sure.
‘She just barged in. Then she practically threw the tray at me,’ he said.
‘I’d better go talk to her,’ I replied.
‘No, I’ll go. You can clean up the mess. Maybe it was the sight of my naked body.’
‘Could be,’ I said, laughing. Paul was a veritable Adonis, his broad shoulders and toned muscles conveying pure masculinity.
An hour later, he returned.
‘Is she okay?’ I asked anxiously.
‘She’s fine, just very confused sexually. She admitted to me that she’s not even a full-on lesbian. It’s kind of a mask she hides behind—it’s comfortable because she knows no male is going to go for her. She actually said that if she could get a boyfriend, she would.’
I was shocked at this revelation. I respected her stand as a lesbian, although I found her policies a little hardline. But Paul obviously found her hatr
ed of men offensive. He drew a cartoon: it was an immediately recognisable Hendrika in a Nuremberg rally scenario, with swastikas and ‘Heil Hendrika’ emblazoned on the dais.
As the summer rolled on, Paul and I became as close as any two people can be. After I had a tête-à-tête with Hendrika, tensions with her settled down. She was not happy about all the boyfriends staying over but she resigned herself to the situation, and our household gained a new equilibrium.
Paul and I were spending more and more time together. We had two cameras loaded with film—one for black and white, the other for colour—and took them everywhere with us, photographing whatever took our fancy. Once, Paul asked two obliging police officers to light his gigantic joint and pretend to arrest him—while I took their photo—as if to prove to me the broadmindedness of the local constabulary.
Later I bought supplies of inks and sketch pads and we started drawing together. ‘I think we should change our image,’ Paul suddenly suggested.
I asked what he meant.
‘Well . . . let’s get into leather, as in, black leather . . . It’s very sexy. Jackets and maybe a miniskirt for you. You’ve got great legs. And I wouldn’t mind getting some of those punk chokers and belts with the metal studs.’
It was not what I particularly wanted to do, but I thought it couldn’t hurt to try something new. Amsterdam was full of shops with punk paraphernalia, so the task was easily accomplished.
Paul loved shopping and was well pleased with our purchases: his-and-hers black leather jackets and an array of studded dog-collars and wrist cuffs. Dressing in a plain white T-shirt and leather, with his combed-back hair and swaggering gait, his style was reminiscent of James Dean’s rebel.
We frequented Dam Square, where buskers and street performers entertained the crowds. Paul seemed to know everyone. Both of us were attracted to the pink punk cafe next door to my squat, with its peeling paint and new-wave inhabitants; some of them formed a band that began playing on the footpath outside my window, where crowds of people would spontaneously gather. Buses of Japanese tourists regularly stopped to photograph the scene. But the music would often continue long into the night, keeping us awake.
One of the women from the house offered me her second-floor room while she was on holiday. I was touched that she trusted me enough. It was the best room in the building and still bore the nameplate proclaiming editor above its door—a hangover from the building’s days as a newspaper office. For us, it meant a decent bed and a few comforts, like a stereo system.
Paul began to want to get more sexually experimental, but I resisted at first. One day he simply presented me with this mystery gift. But, before I could protest, he had ripped away the packaging, cheekily announcing that I had no choice other than to enjoy myself with it, because the shop had a no-return policy. It was one of those realistic black latex cocks, obviously moulded from some well-endowed model. He must have known that, if he had asked my permission beforehand, I would have declined. I had never even held a vibrator before—in my circle of friends, they would have been regarded as politically incorrect.
I was less than excited about it at first but Paul never tired of pleasuring me with it, and eventually took to buying batteries in bulk. He would begin by gently teasing me: moving it up and down my thighs, and then between my legs, before slowly parting them. Before long, he would rub the tip over the lips around my cunt and clit in order to arouse me and then, as soon as he sensed I was ready and couldn’t wait any longer, he would plunge it into me, pulling it out a little then pushing it in again while turning the vibration to maximum. I experienced a new, very pleasant kind of exhaustion—from having so many orgasms in a row that I lost count.
Given my original reluctance, I was utterly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The climaxes were stronger than I’d ever experienced and it certainly added a new dimension to our lovemaking. I joked that, if he wasn’t careful, I could dispense with him altogether.
‘How about we buy you some lingerie?’ he said a few days after purchasing the vibrator.
‘But, I’m not really into that.’
‘Hey, this is Amsterdam. Sex capital of the world. Lingerie is cheap here.’
So I indulged his whim and let him take me shopping in the red-light district. We returned with armfuls of black lacy garments, fishnet stockings and assorted torsolettes and corselets. Paul was like a kid in a candy store.
Paul insisted that I give him a personal fashion parade. He cooed admiringly as my plumped-up breasts and cinched waist accentuated my feminine figure. But, although I loved the sensuality of the silk and satin garments—trimmed in black lace and red ribbons—and although the lingerie was extremely flattering, I was outside my comfort zone. I was feeling pressured to conform to his notion of what his fantasy woman would wear; I had begun to feel like a vehicle for his own pleasure.
I knew that Paul was turned on, and I wanted to please him, but I wasn’t comfortable with these accessories. I needed to be true to myself: my self-image was arty alternative, not sexy slut. The cost was becoming an issue too and the lingerie, plus all the leather gear, had blown my frugal budget.
In his new leather ensemble, Paul attracted amorous attention from the city’s large gay population. One night, we were dining at a crowded pizzeria when a group of openly gay men sat at a neighbouring table. Paul whispered to me, ‘I think they’re talking about me.’
I had already noticed that they kept staring at him. My Dutch had come a long way under Paul’s tutelage and I could make out the key words associated with sex and sucking: they were describing in graphic terms what they would like to do to him—and what they would like him to do to them.
Paul let them continue fantasising among themselves in lurid detail until we left. Then, in his most perfect ‘Queen’s Dutch’, he turned to them, and said, ‘Well, gentlemen, have a good evening.’ With that, he bowed formally and exited. There was total silence as the penny dropped that he had understood their entire conversation.
While it was not just men who found Paul attractive, there did seem to be a preponderance of homosexual attention. I asked him about it the day after the restaurant episode as we were getting ready to go out. He said he guessed it was just the way he dressed. He was certainly more pretty boy than bloke.
‘But do you think you look gay?’ I pressed him.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘if you think I’m gay, you’re wrong.’ He told me he’d tried it once, when he was fifteen—there had been a gay guy in their apartment block and he’d always see him in the lift. He knew this man was infatuated with him because he kept begging Paul to come to his apartment.
So one day Paul decided to go, and he let the man fuck him. He claimed he didn’t enjoy it: ‘It’s not my thing. He sucked my cock as well, and I suppose, if you were blindfolded, it would feel the same as a woman doing it—although, I have to say, he was quite an expert.’
I was startled by his revelation, but Paul was emphatic: he wasn’t turned on by this experience. ‘I know myself: I’m just not gay. I fancy women—well, you, to be precise.’ He claimed he didn’t even look at other women any more. ‘I just want you; I love you, and only you.’
Until now, I hadn’t known that he had had a gay experience, but he said it wasn’t uncommon, especially in the Netherlands. He’d read the statistics and a large percentage of men have a homosexual experience at some time or other: ‘I just happen to have had mine early—so I know for sure: I’m not gay.’
He asked me whether I’d ever had a homosexual encounter, but I said I’d never even thought about it—I’m just not attracted to women. He said he’d done a whole battery of tests at school and he was off the scale for heterosexuality.
I accused him of sounding defensive; it was his business if he was gay, bi or whatever. ‘But I’d just like to know, since I’m in a relationship with you . . . Not to mention the AIDS risk you might pose. That’s all.’
So we agreed to drop the subject, although he would often tell
me of the gay attention he was receiving, as if to prove he wasn’t acting upon it. I knew he frequented a ‘leather boy’ bar in one of the gay streets, but he insisted he went there for the superior dope deals.
A few days after our confrontation, we spent a lazy Sunday morning in bed, making love and smoking dope at the squat house.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘why don’t we give the tourists something to look at?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why don’t we sit naked in the window and smoke a giant joint? Come on, it’ll be fun. We’ll pretend to make out.’
Despite my voluptuous figure and our experimentation, I tended to still be a bit coy about my own nudity. I was not an exhibitionist, but I knew he thought of this as a cheeky stunt.
‘Okay.’ I hesitated. ‘But I’m not comfortable with this.’
‘Don’t worry—you’ve got a fantastic body.’
‘No,’ I said tersely, ‘that’s not the point.’
I wanted to please Paul, and so I acquiesced. Possibly the marijuana clouded my judgement, but he always had a way of making me feel foolish if I contradicted him. In any case, we sat naked kissing and embracing on the window ledge, overlooking what was one of the busiest intersections in Amsterdam. As buses and trams stopped at the lights, one person would usually notice us and then a quasi Mexican wave would follow as all the faces turned up towards us.
‘I guess we’ll be in photo albums all over Japan,’ Paul joked.
I laughed. ‘I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.’
‘And do you know what the funniest thing about this is? The banner on the squat house promoting the lesbian radio station.’
‘I’d forgotten about that,’ I said. ‘Oh my God, what would Hendrika think?’
‘Don’t worry, she’ll never find out,’ Paul joshed.
