After Purple (35 page)

I released Ray's arms, flung them back to him, as if they were little twigs. “Listen, Ray, you've got to understand. It's not just Lionel, it's Leo. He doesn't want me any more. Since he hit me, he hasn't come
near
me, hasn't even mentioned it. I think I must disgust him now. I mean, people just don't
fancy
girls with false teeth. You don't yourself. Look at you — you're not exactly slavering over me, are you? All you want to do is leave. Oh, I don't blame you. I wouldn't want to kiss myself. Of course I'd choose a girl who hadn't been bashed up. That's why I'm so upset about Lionel. It was the very first sex I've had since leaving the hospital, and it had to be like …
that
. I suppose nobody normal will ever want me now, only cripples and deaf mutes. I'm just a reject like your handicapped.”

“Thea,
nobody
's a reject. Anyway, you're
beautiful
, you're …” Oh, he was trying to be holy again now, was he, sucking up to me, telling me my soul was radiant in God's sight?

“He came in my
face
, Ray. Did I tell you that? Spurted it all over me? Smeared it on my clothes. No, I suppose I
did
n't tell you. There wasn't time, really, was there? I mean, we had to deal with
your
problems.”

“Oh,
God
, I'm sorry, Thea. I …”

“No, it doesn't matter. Of course it doesn't. You're still here. You're still a priest — you told me so. Well, you can make me clean then, can't you? I feel
polluted
by Lionel, but you can undo that if you hold me. It's OK, I won't take advantage of you. We've been over all that before — at your place. You touched me then, didn't you, and nothing happened. I told you you could trust me, and you could. Well, touch me now. Put your arms around me.”

“I … I
can't
, Thea.”

“Christ, you're selfish! You've just been giving me all that spiel about doing some good in the world, going out and really
reaching
people instead of being shut off by your vows. And yet the very first chance you get to put it into practice, you run a mile.”

“I'm
not
running, Thea. I'm here. I'm sitting right beside you.” He was speaking slowly now, sort of fumbling for the words. I think he was still befuddled by the brandy. It was best VSOP cognac — wasted on him, really.

“Well, hold me, then. I'm a human being, not a whore.”

He stroked one nervous hand along my shoulder. “Well, just for a moment, then. Just a hug, Thea — nothing more.”

“Yes,” I murmured. “Just a hug,” and pulled him down towards me.

He struggled at first, but I eased myself underneath him and sort of
pressed
, and suddenly he was lying there on top of me, his whole body slumped against mine, only the silky black skin of the nightie like a chaperone between us. I clung to him. It was the first time I had been warm all evening. He smelt of the hostel; the boys' cigarette smoke still lingered in his hair and something bitter besides — the smell of poverty, of handicap. His body felt too heavy. He had collapsed on me like a sack. I could feel months and years of exhaustion spilling over me like coal-dust. He wasn't holding me, but flattening me. This was the first female body he'd ever had beneath him, and he was using it as a mattress or a crash-out pad.

“You're heavy, Ray,” I whimpered. “You're hurting me.”

He didn't answer. He was lying almost like a corpse. I remembered those stories of medieval saints who shared their beds with naked virgins merely to prove their own strength against temptation. I
wasn't
naked — perhaps that was the trouble. I wriggled out from underneath him and ripped off the black satin. This time I lay on top of him. He still had all his clothes on, but I had rolled him over and was fumbling with his belt.

“No,” he said, almost irritably. “I've told you, Thea, not that.”

“Shssh,” I murmured.

I took his hand and moved it slowly down between my legs, squeezed my thighs around it.

“No,” he said again, less certainly. He didn't move the hand, didn't even seem to know what to do with it. He wasn't looking at me, just sprawled there with his eyes shut. He might have been praying, drunk, dead. Maybe he was even wrestling with some new spiritual crisis in his life. Should he switch to the Dominicans, or become an Anglican? He'd given God eight solid years of his existence. Couldn't he spare me half an hour?

I flung the hand away from me, kneed him in the stomach. “Get
off
!”

“What's wrong?” he mumbled. “What's the matter?” He sounded like some small bad-tempered rodent disturbed in hibernation.

“Get
off
, I said.”

He stumbled to his feet, tripped, stood trembling against the wall. Standing straight and unsupported was a skill he'd lost that evening. Hell — other men could drink
bottle
fuls of brandy and still seduce a woman.

“I don't
care
if Lionel hurt me. In fact, I'm
glad
he did. I'd rather have that any day, than you and Leo just lying there like
sacks
. Christ! I take every last stitch off and all you can do is agonise about which
order
you'll join next. Go back to your lousy friary — you're safer there.”

I fought with the duvet until I was lying half on top of it, jammed my legs apart, licked a finger and stuck it up me.

“I tried to follow your example — give up sex, turn to higher things. But what's the point? That's not sanctity — that's bloody impotence. You've conned me. You never gave up women — you simply ran away from them because you couldn't handle them. You called it holiness to save your face, that's all, so people wouldn't despise you.
Look
at you! You're all fucked up, for heaven's sake. No impulses, no certainties — you told me so yourself. You're not even a real priest. If you could only
bring
yourself to screw a girl or wank in bed at night, you might be more damn use.”

I was rubbing myself so hard, it was hurting. But at least the pain was no longer in my head. There was a rhythm now, a movement. Something else was taking over. I didn't even need to jeer at him any more. My taunts had turned into noises. Simple gasping noises. The whole room was joining in, as I rocked and hammered on the duvet. Three months of false frigidity were over, and I could feel the relief roaring through the room, throbbing between my thighs. I was coming like Leo came, a great wild violent noisy come. I was sobbing like he did, not with anger now, but with joy, glory, exultation.

“Leo,” I panted, “Leo, Leo, Leo Leo Leo …”

All the doubts, fears, scruples, sins, were pouring out of me, leaving me shining and unburdened. I was sheet metal now, gold ingot, not damp cotton wool like Ray was. He had forced me to join the wrong order, but now at last, I had jumped the wall. My body was restored to me. It felt real, right, solid, soaring, free.

I lay on my bed, recovering. My eyes were still tight shut, but I could see fireworks exploding underneath the lids. I touched my body, stretched my arms. I knew I was beautiful. Leo once said that someone ought to sketch me at the moment of my come — lying there, flushed and panting, wet between the legs, nipples hard, cunt swollen and red-hot. He fancied me like that. If Ray rejected me, who cared? That was
his
problem. I didn't even need him now. I squinted through my eyelids, ready to face his disapproving mouth, his averted eyes, the saintly spoilsport grimace matching the shabby, fly-blown room.

His eyes
were
n't averted, but staring full frontally at my naked body. It wasn't a friar's stare, a priest's stare, but a lecher's. The nuns had always used the word “lascivious”, and for the first time now I understood what it meant — that flushed furtive urgent sort of
hunger
, those wild guilty greedy grabbing eyes.

He was fumbling with his zipper. There was something underneath it, something moving and alive. I almost laughed. A friar with an erection!

“You're a
friar
,” I mocked. “Remember? You told me so. Still a priest. Still under vows.”

“No,” he muttered. “No, not now.”

So he was throwing away his priesthood, his high-flown principles, his seven years' training, his vows of chastity, for no more reason than that a slut with false teeth had frigged herself in front of him.

He slunk towards the bed. He had dropped his trousers, but still had a sweater on and a pair of gym-shoes over green nylon socks. His legs were thin, white, veiny. He didn't know how to put it in. He was fumbling, missing, sliding out again. I didn't help him.

After three false starts, he got it right. I shuddered as he slithered in. He felt small, slimy, apologetic almost, and yet that look was still all over him. Lascivious. It wasn't how I wanted it. I had imagined him screwing me purely as a pastoral duty, undoing the stain and shame of Lionel, his prick like a bishop's crosier, proud and tall and sacred. I'd dreamed of divine passion, not this furtive cringing lust.

He didn't even seem to be enjoying it. I was his first woman and yet it was an agony, a penance for him. His face was anguished, his eyes screwed up. I might have been just a bolster he was clinging to, a hankie he was sobbing into. He wasn't even moving. Somehow, I had to make it better — not just for him, for me as well. After all, he
was
a priest. It was still a triumph that he had entered me at all. If I shut my eyes, I could give him back his dignity, his sanctity. I could even have my crosier, turn him into a bishop if I wished, a cardinal, a pope.

“Wait,” I murmured. He was just beginning to shudder. I wanted to soar to Rome, to do it in the Vatican. Pope Leo was inside me now, robed in white and gold, the crusted embroidery on his silken cope scratching against my thighs. The spectacles had gone and been replaced by a papal tiara. A second pontiff slipped into place beside him, a third and fourth, a fifth. A dozen popes, all worshipping at my body, backed by a hundred cardinals, two hundred priests. I heard the organ swell, the choir thunder. It was sacred now, a ritual, a sacrament. I rubbed myself slowly, solemnly, against Pope Leo's thighs.

Suddenly, the Holy Father collapsed. There was a little shudder, a tiny mewling cry.

“God,” he yelped. “Oh God!” He might have been repeating the responses to some divine service, a gabbled slipshod service that had lasted only two seconds, a Mass without the Communion, with no oratory, no build-up. Back in the Vatican, we were only at the start. The clergy had just come in, the congregation ready, primed, rapt, expecting a solemn ceremony which would last an hour or so at least.

I opened my eyes. The pontiffs slunk away. Only one thin sweaty friar was left — slumped across my stomach, his straggly pubic hair wet with his own semen, his thing already shrunk and sort of wizened. He was lying as if dead, feet tangled in the duvet, face turned away from me. He was panting, out of breath. I'd no idea what he had to pant about. Two seconds isn't really exercise. Two seconds isn't really
any
thing. He struggled up. His face looked so pained, so tortured, I felt like Eve. I was Sin for him, Satan, shame, the serpent. Even his voice was sliding away from him, tripping and stumbling in his throat.

“Thea, I'm so … Christ! I don't know
how
I … Oh
God
, I can't …”

Yes, it was God he was talking to, not me. He was almost on his knees to Him. His spine had turned to foam-rubber — he couldn't stand up straight. He was falling over himself, trying to drag his trousers on, find his belt, apologise, make acts of contrition, all at the same time. His voice was broken into bits. He was almost crying. We'd only
coupled
, for heaven's sake, and only for two seconds. The way he was going on, he might have murdered half a million Jews.

“I'm
sorry
, Thea. I mean, I just can't tell you … God! I …”

People only really apologise for the harm they do themselves. Ray had lost his virginity, stained the virtue which for him was wealth and power. I was
furious
with him. I'd never really intended him to submit. I'd wanted to tempt and tempt him until he had
proved
to me his sanctity, shamed me with his unwavering vows of chastity. Or if he
did
give in, he would do it sacredly, deliberately, as a willing sacrifice, renouncing to me his celibacy, the greatest treasure any priest could give. But what in fact had happened? Just a grope, a poke, a two-second, shame-faced fumble. He wasn't a noble Vestal, just a premature ejaculator. My forty-eighth man, last not only in number, but in order of achievement. Even the park-keeper had kept it up for two
minutes
. Dribbling Jimmy could have done it better, or the boy with no neck. Rather no neck than no prick.

“Thea, I'm
sorry
. I simply don't know how to …”

If he said sorry once more, I think I'd have whipped out a knife and cut if off. He'd hardly have missed it, anyway.

“Get out,” I shouted, “Get
out
!”

He picked up his coat, dropped it, knocked into the broken chair, swore, apologised, turned away, came back again. He didn't even know how to leave. He was backing towards the door, stuttering and stumbling, shedding “sorrys” like dandruff.

When he'd gone, I wept for half an hour. I knew I wouldn't be granted Leo's miracle — not now. Ray had ruined everything. He'd broken my vow of chastity, scotched my First Communion, slipped from being a priest into a man, and then lapsed further into a eunuch. I stuffed the nightie in my case and struggled into a tee-shirt. I sat on the bidet and slapped myself so hard with soap and flannel, I almost cried out in pain. I crouched there a moment, just staring at the wall. More of the little black insects were scurrying and slithering up and down the cracks. I flung the towel at them and squashed a score. Another hundred or so were still buzzing round the lamp.