One from each of the living room cameras, which were triggered as soon as the door was opened and the woman came in. The four from the bedroom: two of these he had switched on as soon as they’d entered this room, via an extra spur off the bedside lamp; the others were on a trip delay to start recording fifty minutes later, to cover for the fact that one hour was the maximum tape length for the format he used. He could get longer, on different machines, but the quality was nowhere near as good.
Then the final one, from the bathroom—which he triggered by another switch once the sex was finished. It was this tape which he ripped to disk first, sitting at the desk with a steaming mug of very good coffee and a cigarette. It only took ten minutes to save it to an MPEG file, and then he set the others to rip in sequence in the background, porting the digital footage onto the array of hard disks, ready for a first quick edit.
After a slow first viewing.
This is what he did it for now. This was the moment he enjoyed. Not at first: three years ago, after his last genuine relationship had broken up, he’d just been looking for fun and companionship like everyone else. Maybe even someone to fall in love with. This hadn’t happened with the first one, nor the one after that. A pattern emerged. He didn’t mind. Before, when he’d been taken, he’d envied his friends still out there in the market, the ones with the slew of drunken collisions in clubs and bars, with the long list of accidental one-night conquests. New breasts hefted, new buttocks splayed. David believed that men were collectors, taxonomists, seekers after and cataloguers of variety—and he wanted some of it.
After a while the variety began to pall, however, and he felt less and less a part of what was going on. The women who turned up at his door started to seem too similar to each other. They might have different colour hair, contrasting figures, and taste individual where it counted, but in the wriggles and grapples across couches and down corridors and round and round the bed they all ended up blending into one—not least because they shared a fundamental similarity. They weren’t The One. He came to realise that it wasn’t them who made him feel alive. What kept him going was himself, his own part in the proceedings. That, and the record.
It started more or less by accident. As accidentally, that is, as one can leave a camcorder running in a room where one is likely to be fucking a woman in the very near future. He’d bought the camera for the hell of it, mainly because a new computer had come with non-linear video editing software pre-installed. He ordered the camera over the web, and it turned up at his door. Pretty soon he realised that he didn’t have anything in his immediate environment worth recording, and no desire to going out and shoot some shoddy masterpiece for web-distribution to net-heads with cable access and too much time on their hands. But then an idea struck him, one afternoon when a woman was coming round. Feeling suddenly excited, on the verge of something new, he found a place to wedge the camera in the bookcase, where it would capture whatever happened on the couch. What the hell, he thought: might be kind of interesting. When the doorbell rang he turned the camera on, carefully positioning books and a small ornamental box (a present from a past fuck) to hide the red light which indicated that it was recording. The screwing moved into the bedroom after forty minutes, but when he watched the tape later that night it was still enough to make him lob his cock out and achieve his third orgasm of the day: hunched over the desk, eyes wide and glued to the startling images on the screen. Afterwards, spent though he was, he watched the tape again and again, wiping it back and forwards, reviewing the captured moments—acknowledging, as if for the first time, that the event really had happened. He really had screwed that woman: she had done this to him; he had done that to her. There it was. It was all recorded. He could see it. He could see it twice. He could see it whenever he wanted.
And she’d never know. It had passed out of the domain of her life, and into his alone. All she would have was vague memories, different occasions blending into one: he could have every event pinned to a board like a butterfly.
After that, he recorded the first hour as a matter of course, fixing a piece of tape over the red light to give more flexibility. It wasn’t long before he wanted more. At first it was just a camera in both rooms. Then one in the bathroom, because a woman called Monica had got some obscure thrill from doing it in there. Then the extra one in the bedroom, and the second in the living room, because by that time he’d realised how much better it would be if he could get the raw material from two angles: partly because you couldn’t always position the woman to best effect without danger of it being obvious; mainly because it just seemed more real. The two shot set-up made all the difference. The cuts from angle to angle, from view to different view, showed just how true it was, filled it out into three dimensions. It was like a real movie. It was realer than real life.
Finally the extra pair in the bedroom, to make sure not a moment was lost.
He loved doing his films. He fucking loved it. It was partly to punish them for boring him. It was mainly because the films showed how much stronger his reality was than theirs, because whatever thoughts were fizzing around their desperate heads during the time they spent in his home, they had no idea what was really going on. That he was recording them, and later could edit the different shots together into any shape he liked. Picking the shots to show himself in control, to show them naked and exposed, leaving the soundtrack real to capture their gasps and squelches, their moans and pathetic avowals of love, of desire, of whatever it was they felt they had to say to make this seem okay to do. He had tapes of every session with every girl, all tidily filed in nested folders on his hard drives. He had ‘greatest hits’ edits too, each woman’s best or most revealing moments. He had compilations, quick cuts of the same type of activity performed with a score of different women. He watched the digital films whenever he wanted, his breathing shallow but measured, face bathed in the monitor light, staring at himself, at his power. While the women were with him they had a kind of fake reality, shoved at him through their physical presence. When they were gone their true nature was revealed: as extras in his life, as vague presences at the end of an email. He spent whole evenings re-editing for the fun of it, and after a while his vision became more detailed, more refined. He culled through the bathroom tapes, catching the private moments and interspersing them with the other material: Marie looking smug afterwards, thinking she’d shown him the time of his life—when the next cut was that of David exaggeratedly yawning to camera while she enthusiastically sucked him half an hour before; Janine breathlessly declaring their sex as some kind of spiritual triumph, crapping on about how much she loved him—then later, sitting slumped on the can, sobbing in silent, racking waves and softly scraping the nails of both hands down her tear-tracked face.
Each time he made a tape he felt more himself, more vital. Sometimes he would start a film running on the computer and then switch the monitor off just before the current woman arrived. Though it could be neither seen nor heard, it was still playing, still being conjured up out of ones and zeros into image: footage of him ploughing one woman while in real and current time he squeezed the tit of another; or of the same woman as she would be in the bathroom afterwards, the event contextualized before it had even finished.
Today’s tapes had nearly done being digitised. It was time for another pot of coffee. David leaned against the counter as the water boiled, listening to the chirrup of the hard drive as the files of the raw material were written. He was noticing that he felt tired. Vestiges of the hangover, presumably, and Anne was a workout by anybody’s standards. She’d seemed even more frenetic than usual that afternoon, as if testing him, or herself. Or maybe it was just too much coffee on an empty stomach, making him feel a little dizzy. Didn’t matter. He was having more java anyway. It was traditional.
He took the new pot and a jug of cream over to the desk, so he wouldn’t have to get up for a while. Then when the machine pinged to signify all the hard work was done, he reached out and clicked the first
file. He always waited until they were all done. He liked it that way. Once he’d started watching, he needed to know he could jump to any part he wanted, immediately. It was part of the fun.
The bathroom tape started with ten minutes of nothing—Anne had laid beside him on the bed for a while after they’d finished. David sat and admired the fact that he’d remembered to refold the towels, to make them look just so. The women got value out of him: the films were just a payment they didn’t know they were making. Then there was the sound of the door being opened, and Anne’s back swished into view with the sound of the door closing again. She stood in front of the mirror and ran the cold tap, nothing readable in the expression reflected back over her shoulder. She splashed some water over her face, and then sat down on the john. It was then, with her face much more directly visible by the camera, that David realised her facial expression wasn’t actually unreadable after all.
He watched for the few minutes she sat there, before flushing and leaving the room. Then he clicked back to an earlier frame in the MPEG. And watched it again.
It wasn’t his imagination. He was sure of it. He’d seen ‘unreadable’ before. Some women were like that. When not on stage, and making an effort to perform, the most vivacious of them could turn remarkably wax-like, as if they were nothing without an audience. This wasn’t like that. There was something in her face. It was just something he’d never seen before.
It was…what? Quietness. No. Dissatisfaction? Still no, but…
David frowned suddenly, and put his cup down on the desk. He clicked the tape back again. His face felt a little hot.
She actually just looked a little bored.
He irritably lit a cigarette. That couldn’t be right. Not after what they’d done. Not after the free-wheeling exhibition of technique he’d put on from the couch all the way through to their mutual and grunting climaxes. Perhaps she’d simply got something else on her mind. Presumably things went on in her real life. He never asked, but usually they’d say, filling him in regardless—wrongly assuming he’d care. Whatever. She’d hadn’t been bored. It wasn’t possible.
David shut the window on that tape and set another loading, wiping the back of one hand across his forehead as he waited. He still felt kind of hot. Embarrassment, maybe. At his initial thought that she might have regarded their coupling as less than earth-moving. Indignation was more appropriate. If she was frigid enough not to be jolted out of whatever little psychodrama from her outside life had been swirling around her head, then she was fucking on borrowed time. With him, anyway. Doubtless hubby would still limply put out, still engage in the mildewy fumblings she’d come to David to escape. Assuming Anne had a husband. Right now he was so annoyed he couldn’t even remember.
The tape from the living room was better. A lot better. The fifteen minutes of chit-chat and sipping, a spiral like the closing stages of the email courtship—but one with a known destination. Then a frank movement from him: reaching out to stroke a breast through her blouse, slipping his hand right up her skirt out of nowhere. He loved doing that. Making moves that assumed. Being in a position to demonstrate that this wasn’t any coy long-shot, but a fucking cert. It looked great on the video too. Made the woman look like what she was: a three-dimensional version of the pictures you could pick up on a zillion sites all over the web. Just something within his field of vision. Something for him to play with. And they loved it. They really did. Loved being treated that way.
Soon they were both half-dressed. He turned her immaculately, cupping her breasts from behind, nuzzling her neck as she arched he head back, eyes closed—while he stared straight into the camera. There was a brief glitch in the digitising and his hands frizzed for a moment, but otherwise it was a classic scene—with some superb cutaways possible to the other camera’s point of view. Classic for the softcore portion, anyhow: there would be meaner, better stuff later.
Then more of that, more of the usual. Building up. A button here, a strap there. Then a zipper. David could now judge how much time he had in the living room, how to steer things towards the corridor before there was any danger of the tapes running out. With three minutes to go, both still standing but with pants around their ankles, he touched her in a way that had her backing giggling out of the room, pulling him by something a man is bound to follow.
Just as they passed out of site of the cameras, David noticed another little visual weirdness. He stopped the film, clicked back. Right at the end there was a two second patch where there was a little streaming around the image of his head, tiny pixelated blocks of colour. He flicked up the other camera’s view of the same moment, and was relieved to see it looked fine. He’d just have to cut at that point. Something wrong with the tape, probably. Condensation. Or the recording head needed cleaning. He sorted through the cameras, found the offending tape, and put it to one side to check out later.
Then he kicked up the first of the bedroom films. He’d missed a little bit of action in the meantime, he knew. In the corridor Anne had bent to take him in her mouth for a couple minutes. Not for the first time he mused it would be good to have a camera in there too. Problem was, how to conceal it. Maybe he’d have to compromise, get a pinhole and hide it in a picture. Might even look good: a kind of voyeur, security camera-style section. Hmm. Think about it later: the bedroom tape showed events liquidly transforming into full flow.
He’d known at the time it was good. Not the sex, so much, as the way he’d controlled its movements, its ebb and flow. Her head there, in direct shot. His hand here, just where it could be seen. Seemingly spontaneous little rolls, taking the action from one view to another. Her moans and sighs, his encouraging grunts. Thrusts, acceptances, retractions and changes of position, all maximised for his eyes. Prime stuff, packaged and presented. A classic.
Except—shit.
He clicked back thirty seconds, not really knowing what he’d spotted. Watched the section again.
Straightforward shot, with then sideways across the bed, taken by the camera hidden up on the curtain rail. Him on top of her in missionary position, holding her shoulders down and grinding away. Her hands on his ass, pulling him in and out. Her hair spread over the sheets like a mermaid’s floating in shallow water. Her legs raised up after a moment, clasping behind his. So much for the ‘boredom’, he thought, with joyful spite—she was loving it. She moved her hands up along his back, nails out for a little playful scratching, and then slipped them both up and round to cup his face. Her eyes opened for a moment, looking up into his, searching for something. Maybe she found it. Maybe not.
FREEZE. Click back two seconds. There. Her hands cupping his face.
He could see them.
The camera was high up and behind his back. He should be able to see the top and side of her face, and her hair. The tips of her fingers on either side of his head. But for a couple of frames there, he could see her hands too. Underneath his head. That shouldn’t be possible.
He flipped back and forth a few times, bordering on very irritated. It was probable that the effect, a weird kind of transparency, had been caused by the filter set he automatically applied to the tape as it was being digitised. Pre-set algorithms adjusted contrast and light levels to maximum effect, seeking a medium range that made the edited result more consistent. The filters played with the image on the basis of numbers and theory, rather than reality. He was a lot more tan than Anne, he realised: it hadn’t been a problem before, but she hadn’t been on vacation since he’d been screwing her. Perhaps the tones of his head had fallen foul of a glitch, blue-screening them into momentary translucence. It had fucking better be that. If not, then it was a tape problem again, and the web merchant from whom he’d bought this batch would be hearing from the sharp side of his email.
He clicked on and got back to watching the rest of the tape. It was fine. It was classic. But the fucking glitch kept coming up again. Never for very long. A second or two, here and there. It had to be the skin tone thing. She was pale, he was gol
den. The filter range he’d set was too narrow to cope. And it kept getting worse. By the time he’d moved on to the second pair of tapes, the ones capturing the second hour in the bedroom—and the second, languid, fuck—the image was stuttering all over the place.
David grabbed the mouse and viciously stabbed the button, stopping the film. It didn’t matter in the long run. He could re-rip the tape without the filters, put up with the differences in lighting—or even manually tweak them himself. But the former would be disappointing, a drop in quality he didn’t want, the latter several hours of hard slog. He didn’t deserve this kind of hassle. He’d done a good job. Why the fuck couldn’t it just work out first time? Why didn’t the silly bitch go to a tanning booth? He’d have to talk to her about it. He’d got her trained otherwise. This was good stuff. He wasn’t losing it just because she was too fucking lazy to look after her appearance.
He slugged back another mouthful of coffee and stood up, feeling momentarily dizzy again. He wasn’t going to be screwing around with manual filtering tonight, that’s for sure. His eyes ached as it was. The mood lighting which remained from the set-up for Anne was too dim for anything else, making the corners of the room hard to see.
He sorted through the cameras once more and found one of the second ones from the bedroom—just to confirm it wasn’t the tape itself. He hesitated for a moment before plugging it into the monitor. He was in a bad enough mood already. If he found it was a tape problem, then there was nothing he could do to save the film. Did he want news like that now, feeling as shit as he did?
Fuck it. He was going to find out sooner or later. He plugged in, waited while it rewound, pressed PLAY.
More Tomorrow: And Other Stories Page 32
