A Personal History of Thirst

by John Burdett

  “How frequently do you masturbate?”

  “Rarely.”

  “Once a week, month, year?”

  “Month, if that.”

  “As a dyad or alone?”

  “Alone.”

  “And who is the focus of your fantasies at such times?”

  “Daisy.” I looked across at her. She looked down.

  “Is Daisy submissive in your fantasies, or dominant?”

  “Submissive usually. Sometimes dominant.”

  “Apart from regular intercourse, what acts does Daisy perform in your fantasies?”

  “I just like to fantasize about her doing the things she always does anyway. Sometimes, you know, I think about her and get aroused, and it’s somehow easier to fantasize than to seduce her. Not that she ever says no—I mean, not usually. Well, almost never, really.”

  “What are these things she always does?”

  I tried to question Daisy with my eyes, but she would not look up. I answered vaguely at first, then in detail. I suddenly broke off. I hated Daisy and wanted to kill Kroom.

  “I’m not going to answer any more of your questions—it’s puerile. I think you’re a prick,” I said.

  “James is not ready for the next stage,” Kroom said. “I think it’s time for Daisy to occupy the hot seat. If James wants to leave the house now to recenter himself, he may.”

  “No way,” I said.

  I sat in one of the sofas, held on to Donald Duck.

  “I’m going to undo my shirt,” Daisy said. “I’m not wearing a bra.”

  “I’m a mirror, and the only other person here is the other half of your dyad.”

  She undid her shirt.

  “How often do you masturbate?”

  She slipped a hand inside her open shirt to fondle one of her breasts. “Every day.”

  “If you wish to pull open your shirt, you may,” Kroom said. Daisy slumped in her seat, bared her breasts, held one of them, and half closed her eyes.

  “Of whom do you fantasize?”

  “Oh, it used to be lots of people; you know, maybe someone I saw in a shop or on the bus. Never movie stars, only real people.”

  “Exclusively men?”

  “Yes. Well, there was a very beautiful girl once in one of my classes I used to think about now and then—but usually men.”

  “Is there a root?”

  “A root?”

  “Often there’s a seed, somewhere way back in our pasts, that seemed to first trigger our libidos.”

  “Oh yes. Definitely.”

  “Tell.”

  “Jay Katzo, a rapist. He never hurt me, but he trapped me in a padded cell in a hospital and took his clothes off and exposed himself to me. Jimmy knows about it.”

  “Tell more.”

  “Well, he had this massive erection. The nurses took him away before he could do anything. I was seventeen, a kid. I had night-mares afterward, but not for very long. A month maybe. Then, oh, say, six, nine months afterward, I started to dream about him in a different way.”

  “Please explain.”

  “I’d wake up from the dream so hot for him. I really did start to wish I’d gone down on my knees to him, impaled myself on him—you know, sacrificed myself like in some pagan ritual? When I thought of him I’d just burn—there’s no other word for it.”

  “How long did this go on for?”

  “Years. Till I met James. At first we used to make love so much I stopped fantasizing.”

  “But it’s started again?”

  “Yes.”

  Kroom coughed. “Do you ever include James in your fantasies?”

  “Oh yes, quite often.”

  “And what has changed recently?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You said it used to be lots of people.”

  “Yes, well, we had this weird weekend at a country vicarage a while ago and James introduced me to this criminal who’s become a friend and now I just can’t get him out of my mind—my fantasies, I mean. Every time I think about sex, he’s there.”

  “Does he resemble Jay Katzo in any way?”

  “Yes.”

  “In what way?”

  “Pure male power.”

  “When you have sex with James, is this other person there?”

  “Oh yes, every time.”

  “It’s this other person, this criminal, who is making love to you?”

  “In my imagination, definitely.”

  “When you have sex with James, do you close your eyes more than you used to?”

  “Yes, now you mention it.”

  “And when you close your eyes he’s there, this criminal?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is his presence necessary for your orgasm?”

  “Seems to be.”

  “Let’s go back to your fantasies. Is there something you can do to get in the mood so that we can share their flavor?”

  Daisy undid her jeans, slipped a hand down between her thighs.

  “How do your fantasies begin?”

  She let her head fall back farther and spoke in clear, slow tones.

  “Well, actually there are lots, but the most frequent starts off in a great mansion. I’m the lady of the mansion, and the master, my husband, is very old. We have a very strong, handsome manservant.”

  “Who is?”

  “He’s this criminal, Oliver.”

  “And what happens?”

  “When my husband is away he comes into my bedroom. I allow him to tie me up on the bed—it’s a four-poster. He has me like that over and over again, maybe thirty or forty times.”

  “And after?”

  “After that I’m his slave—his creature. He does what he likes with me. He dominates me totally with his erect penis—he uses it to sort of make me swoon. He does some fairly extreme things with me.”

  “Such as?”

  “Stop!” I stood up, walked over to the rheostat, and turned up the light. Daisy took her hand out of her jeans.

  “We’re going,” I said. Daisy started to straighten her clothes.

  Kroom stood up, towering over me.

  “Get out of my way.”

  He shot a look at Daisy, then stepped aside. I grabbed one of her hands and pulled her so hard she stumbled.

  “No violence,” Kroom said.

  “Fuck off.”

  I slapped Daisy across the mouth, hard. She flinched, put a hand to her mouth. I pulled her out the door.

  “James!”

  “Shut up.”

  “There’s no need to hold my wrist so hard—I’m not going to run away.”

  I let go her wrist. She followed me down the stairs, out of the house. We avoided each other’s eyes while waiting for a cab. Inside the cab, on the back seat, we sat as far from each other as possible. My hands were shaking badly. Her mouth was slightly swollen. She kept licking her lip.

  “You really hurt me, you know.” She was looking out of the cab window.

  “Good. You really hurt me.” I looked out of the window on my side as I spoke.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry—there. It was just a game for me, and I’m sorry you took it seriously and got upset.” She turned to me as she spoke, licked her lip. The possibility that I might have hit her harder, done real damage, was frightening.

  She slipped across the seat. “Look, your hands are shaking.”

  “I could have killed him—and you.”

  “I know. It was amazing.”

  “Amazing—another sensation to add to your collection? My feelings are just consumer items to you. You got a buzz out of seeing me care enough to hit you, to do my nut, make a fool of myself. To kill for you if necessary.”

  “Don’t, James. I’ve said I’m sorry.”

  “I think your problem is that life doesn’t really reach you. You’re stuck in some fantasy world, and what you really want is enough pain and suffering to wake you up. Only I’m the one who cops it—so much f
or liberation.”

  “I said don’t.”

  She tried to take my hand, but it was too unsteady. I watched her own hand vibrate as she tried to hold mine. I bit my lip.

  She sat very still. After a while I felt a trembling next to me. I ignored it.

  “I know I shouldn’t be laughing,” she said, “but it really was quite funny the way you scared the shit out of that big creep.”

  She cupped her hands over her face. The trembling increased. I tried to resist, but it was infectious.

  “So you thought he was a creep, too?”

  “Definitely. But I wanted to go through with it—it just seemed so wimpish not to.”

  “My guts were falling out all over Donald Duck, and you were worried about being a wimp?”

  “I did enjoy it a bit—it was quite liberating. You didn’t think so?”

  I shook my head. The trouble was, in the cold light of day it did seem like a game. Nothing to be quite so upset about.

  “I’m sorry I hit you.”

  “It’s all right, you big brute. Is my face swollen?”

  “A bit, around the mouth. You liked me hitting you?”

  “No. Well, it’s quite thrilling in retrospect, but don’t ever do it again.”

  —

  In the room, Daisy studied her face in a mirror. I held her mouth to curl back her upper lip. There was a slight nick where a tooth had cut, a little blood on her teeth.

  “I’m sorry.” I kissed her eyelids.

  “Apart from sorry, how do you feel?”

  “Weird. I should be really jealous, but I’ve known that you were fantasizing for ages. It’s a bit of a relief to have it out.”

  “I’ve always fantasized a bit. Maybe I’m just one of life’s masturbators, Jimmy.”

  “But does it have to be him?”

  “I can’t help it. Anyway, it’s not really him, it’s a fantasy of him. If you hadn’t totally blown your top, Kroom would have told you that some people just need something exotic and mysterious for their libidos to work. We all need to escape from the humdrum, from mental control. Even you.”

  “That’s exactly why I didn’t want to see Kroom—I didn’t want to lose the mystery by sharing it with a stranger. Anyway, you’re my escape from the humdrum, you’re the exotic, the wonderful. You certainly elude all control. I don’t need any fantasies.”

  She smiled.

  “Take this situation right now,” I said. “I’ve hit you, I’ve dragged you across a room, in theory I’ve humiliated you, but you’ve been the more powerful one, really—because I worship you.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t overstate your case, Mr. Knight—I saw a definite twinkle of mastery in you today. And I think you actually feel good.”

  “Perhaps I do.”

  “Masterful?”

  “Well, he was so big, it did feel good knowing that I could beat him. I really could have killed him.”

  I drew the curtains, turned off the light, put a chair in the middle of the room.

  “Okay, then, now let’s have the rest—but I want to star in all of them.”

  I was familiar with most of her fantasies from her conversations with her mother and from our “talking dirty” sessions, but I’d no idea how baroque the details had become.

  25

  Daisy and I finally accumulated enough combined income to rent a real apartment instead of a bed-sit. We chose one not far from where we were living and looked forward to the day when we would move in, having stayed at the bed-sit during the two weeks’ notice period. Thirst was proud to be asked to help us move.

  He arrived promptly at eight-thirty on the appointed morning, with a van of uncertain provenance and his mate Chaz. Chaz came equipped with a deafening cassette player, but the air was full of the champagne of early June. It was the kind of morning we English identify with salvation and quaff greedily like desert plants in the rain. Thirst wore a T-shirt cut away to reveal his collection of tattoos.

  Moving was a great opportunity for brawn and sweat, a chance for Thirst to show how effete we were, Daisy and I. He gave orders. He would not permit Daisy or me to lift anything capable of making his tattoos ripple if he lifted it himself.

  His mate Chaz, a skinny tube-like form in identical blue jeans and cut-away T-shirt but with no tattoos and almost no biceps, had eyes that listened to rock music wherever they looked. He never spoke to Daisy or me but asked Oliver questions when he needed instructions, in a cockney dialect that Daisy found unintelligible.

  We must have made about ten visits to the new apartment to resolve arguments about dimensions, color coordination. The four-story house was old, but the conversion into separate flats was brand-new. The landlady, who liked the idea of renting to a barrister, had let us have the entire second floor.

  “Our first unfurnished place.”

  “Everything in it will be an expression of us,” Daisy said. “Of our relationship.”

  “Or bank balance. There’s a lot to buy—everything, in fact. Carpets, gas stove, telephone, soft furnishings.”

  “Can we afford a sofa? I love sofas.”

  “Who’s going to have the fitted wardrobe?”

  “You can.”

  “No—you.”

  When we arrived that day, a roll of hard-wearing wall-to-wall carpet had already been delivered. We’d saved ten percent by not paying for the fitting. Thirst brought Chaz up the stairs carrying his cassette player and a knife with a retractable blade.

  Chaz set the player up on the windowsill nearest him and pulled the roll of carpet over onto the floor to lay it out.

  “Owserrun?” he said.

  “Which way you want it laid?” Thirst said.

  “How do you mean?”

  Thirst twitched. “How do you mean, Chaz?”

  Chaz frowned, grappling with an intractable problem.

  “Swayordat?” he finally said, making signs with his hands too fast to follow, before retreating to the windowsill and the cassette player.

  “The join,” Thirst said. “Lengthways or across?”

  “Lengthwise,” I said.

  “Across,” said Daisy.

  Thirst started to pace.

  “Across,” I said.

  “Lengthways,” Daisy said.

  “Let’s leave it up to Chaz.”

  Chaz grunted, returned to the center of the room, and stood on the carpet. He maneuvered the carpet into position until it curled up the walls at the corners of the room, took out his knife, and without taking measurements began cutting the carpet that had taken up a large chunk of my overdraft. Daisy and I exchanged glances, but within minutes Chaz was dealing with another corner. The area where he’d been working fit perfectly, neatly negotiating two central heating pipes and some electrical cables.

  “Very handy,” Thirst said. “Best leave him to it. How long you going to be, Chaz?”

  “ ’Our.”

  We stepped out of the house into the morning, leaving Chaz and electronic wails of Jimmy Hendrix behind us.

  “Chaz seems very professional,” Daisy said.

  “Learnt it in the Scrubs,” Thirst said. “He did crafts, I did O levels.”

  “How are the studies going?” I said.

  “Oliver’s very into Shakespeare,” Daisy said.

  “Are you?” I said, surprised.

  “Macbeff’s okay. The sonnets are just groveling, though. Was he a bit of a cocksucker, Shakes?”

  “You mean was he gay? Probably,” Daisy said.

  A question I had wanted to ask for some time came to mind. “Why are you doing English?”

  “Because you told me I couldn’t talk,” he said.

  I scratched my head. “I certainly got that wrong.”

  Thirst looked at me. I looked at Daisy. She was looking at him. A cruel grin spread across his face, and he slapped his thigh. “What about Chaz, then? Talk about can’t talk! Inside, they used to say the only reason he went down was because he didn’t know how to say ‘not
guilty.’ ”

  “Exactly,” Daisy said. She was clearly in the mood to talk literature, but Thirst went off on another tack.

  “See all this,” he said, spreading his hands to take in the sunlit street. “It was all under ice once.”

  “When you were a kid?” Daisy asked.

  “No. Pleistocene period. Ten thousand years ago. Did you know the last ice age only finished in 1750, by which time there were more glaciers on earth than at any time since Pleistocene?”

  Daisy and I exchanged a glance. We resumed walking until we reached the café just around the corner from our new house.

  The café was one of those affairs to be found all over London that manage to combine the worst features of similar cafés in other countries. The coffee and food were expensive but of poor quality, the decor modern but third-rate, the service abrupt without being punctual, and the owner inclined to short-change his customers.

  “You come to these sorts of places, I mean, a lot?” Thirst was looking incredulously at the price list.

  “Almost never,” I said. “I don’t like them.”

  “Why not?”

  I’d grown used to these questions, along with his remarkable gift for absorbing data and adjusting his course accordingly.

  “The decor is high schlock, the waiter’s a rude bastard, the food comes out of a can—and sometimes they don’t even heat it properly—and the coffee’s instant and the owner’s a crook.”

  He studied the café with new eyes. “What was that word you just used?”

  “Schlock. It’s American. I got it from Daisy.”

  “What’s it mean, then, Daize?”

  “It’s Jewish New York—maybe Yiddish. It means, oh, semi-expensive junk. You know, something someone who’s got money but no taste would buy.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Someone up from the gutter like me, you mean?”

  Daisy fumbled. “No, don’t take it that way. I didn’t…”

  He grinned at me. “These Yanks—they miss the joke sometimes. It’s all right, Daisy. I was only taking the piss.”

  Daisy looked from one to the other of us, puffed out her cheeks. “You guys! I don’t know. Don’t you ever stop mocking people?”

  “Us guys? You mean the English?” Thirst said. “Nah, don’t believe we do. We’re always taking the piss. Best way. You miss the States, then, Daize?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What’s it like, really? Skyscrapers and cowboys, gunfights, that sort of thing?”