Back in school Miss Neary had made him feel so uncomfortable. But was he mastering that discomfort now by letting her kiss him on the sofa in her living room, or just succumbing to it? He’d hardly had time to formulate this question when she started unbuttoning his jeans. In a panic he tried to push her hand away, but with such an ineffectual gesture that she appeared to think he was helping her. She got the top button undone and he told her that he was really drunk, and maybe they should stop. She put her hand inside the waistband of his underwear and said it was okay, she didn’t mind. He thought he would probably black out then, but he found he couldn’t. He wished he could have. He heard Paula saying: You’re so hard. That was an especially insane thing for her to say, because he actually wasn’t.
I’m going to get sick, he said.
She jerked back then, pulling her dress after her, and he took the opportunity to stand up from the sofa and button his jeans back up. Cautiously she asked if he was okay. When he looked at her he could make out two separate Paulas sitting on the couch, so clearly delineated that it was no longer obvious which was the real Paula and which the ghost. Sorry, he said. He woke up the next day fully clothed on the floor of his living room. He still has no idea how he made it home.
*
He must be insecure about something, says Marianne now. I don’t know what. Maybe he’d like to be more cerebral.
Maybe he just has good self-esteem.
No, definitely not that. He’s …
Her eyes flick back and forth quickly. When she does this, she looks like an expert mathematician performing calculations in her head. She sets the coffee cup back in the saucer.
He’s what? says Connell.
He’s a sadist.
Connell stares at her across the table, simply allowing his face to express the alarm he feels at this remark, and she gives a cute little smile. She twists her cup around on the saucer.
Are you serious? says Connell.
Well, he likes to beat me up. Just during sex, that is. Not during arguments.
She laughs, a stupid laugh that doesn’t suit her. Connell’s visual field shudders violently for a second, like the beginning of a gigantic migraine, and he lifts a hand to his forehead. He realises he is scared. Around Marianne he often feels somehow innocent, though really he’s a lot more sexually experienced than she is.
And you’re into that, are you? he says.
She shrugs. Her cigarette is burning out in the ashtray. She picks it up quickly and drags on it before stubbing it out.
I don’t know, she says. I don’t know if I really like it.
Why do you let him do it, then?
It was my idea.
Connell picks up his cup and takes a large mouthful of very hot coffee, wanting to do something efficient with his hands. When he replaces the cup it splashes up and spills over into the saucer.
What do you mean? he says.
It was my idea, that I wanted to submit to him. It’s difficult to explain.
Well, go on and try if you want. I’m interested.
She laughs again now. It’s going to make you feel very awkward, she says.
Okay.
She looks at him, maybe to see if he’s joking, and then she lifts her chin at an angle, and he knows she won’t back down from telling him about it, because that would be giving in to something she doesn’t believe about herself.
It’s not that I get off on being degraded as such, she says. I just like to know that I would degrade myself for someone if they wanted me to. Does that make sense? I don’t know if it does, I’ve been thinking about it. It’s about the dynamic, more than what actually happens. Anyway I suggested it to him, that I could try being more submissive. And it turns out he likes to beat me up.
Connell starts coughing. Marianne picks a small wooden coffee-stirrer out of a jar on the table and starts twisting it in her fingers. He waits for the coughing to subside and then says: What does he do to you?
Oh, I don’t know, she says. He hits me with a belt sometimes. He likes choking me, things like that.
Right.
I mean, I don’t enjoy it. But then, you’re not really submitting to someone if you only submit to things you enjoy.
Have you always had these ideas? Connell says.
She gives him a look. He feels like the fear has consumed him and turned him into something else now, like he has passed through the fear, and looking at her is like swimming towards her across a strip of water. He picks up the cigarette packet and looks into it. His teeth start chattering and he puts a cigarette on his lower lip and lights it. Marianne is the only one who ever triggers these feelings in him, the strange dissociative feeling, like he’s drowning and time doesn’t exist properly anymore.
I don’t want you to think Jamie’s a horrible guy, she says.
He sounds like one.
He’s not really.
Connell drags on the cigarette and then lets his eyes half-close for a second. The sun is very warm, and he can sense Marianne’s body close to him, and the mouthful of smoke, and the bitter aftertaste of coffee.
