The Love Object Read Free

weeks ago. Not my type at all, tiny broken veins on his cheeks, and red, actually red hair. We were on a goatskin. But it was raised off the ground, high as a bed. I had been doing most of the loving; breasts, hands, mouth, all yearned to minister to him. I felt so sure, never have I felt so sure of the rightness of what I was doing. Then he started kissing me down there and I came to his lapping tongue and his head was under my buttocks and it was like I was bearing him only there was pleasure instead of pain. He trusted me. We were two people, I mean he wasn’t someone on me, smothering me, doing something I couldn’t see. I could see. I could have shat on his red hair if I wanted. He trusted me. He stretched the come to the very last. And all the things that I loved up to then, like glass or lies, mirrors and feathers, and pearl buttons, and silk, and willow trees, became secondary compared with what he’d done. He was lying so that I could see it: so delicate, so thin, with a bunch of worried blue veins along its sides. Talking to it was like talking to a little child. The light in the room was a white glow. He’d made me very soft and wet so I put it in. It was quick and hard and forceful and he said, ‘I’m not considering you now, I think we’ve considered you,’ and I said that was perfectly true and that I liked him roughing away. I said it. I was no longer a hypocrite, no longer a liar. Before that he had often remonstrated with me, he had said, ‘There are words we are not going to use to each other, words such as “Sorry” and “Are You Angry?”’ I had used these words a lot. So I think from the gentle shuffle of the bedcovers – like a request really – that it might be him and if it is I want to sink down and down into the warm, dark, sleepy pit of the bed and stay in it for ever, coming with him. But I am afraid to look in case it is not Him but One of the Others.
    When I finally got awake I was in a panic and I had a dreadful urge to telephone him, but though he never actually forbade it, I knew he would have been most displeased.
    When something has been perfect, as our last encounter in the gaslight had been, there is a tendency to try hard to repeat it. Unfortunately the next occasion was clouded. He came in the afternoon and brought a suitcase containing all the paraphernalia for a dress dinner which he was attending that night. When he arrived he asked if he could hang up his tails as otherwise they would be very creased. He hooked the hanger on the outer rim of the wardrobe and I remember being impressed by the row of war medals along the top pocket. Our time in bed was pleasant but hasty. He worried about getting dressed. I just sat and watched him. I wanted to ask about his medals and how he had merited them, and if he remembered the war, and if he’d missed his then wife, and if he’d killed people, and if he still dreamt about it. But I asked nothing. I sat there as if I were paralysed.
    ‘No braces,’ he said as he held the wide black trousers around his middle. His other trousers must have been supported by a belt.
    ‘I’ll go to Woolworths for some,’ I said. But that was impractical because he was already in danger of being late. I got a safety pin and fastened the trousers from the back. It was a difficult operation because the pin was not really sturdy enough.
    ‘You’ll bring it back?’ I said. I am superstitious about giving people pins. He took some time to reply because he was muttering ‘damn’ under his breath. Not to me. But to the stiff, inhuman, starched collar which would not yield to the little gold studs he had wanted to pierce through. I tried. He tried. Each time when one of us failed the other became impatient. He said if we went on the collar would be grubby from our hands. And that seemed a worse alternative. I thought he must be dining with very critical people, but of course I did not give my thoughts on the matter. In the end we each managed to