The Three Halves of Martyn Manning-Chapter Twenty-One: Deep Thought - Part Two

He
was bored with navel gazing. He
picked up the newspaper’s magazine supplement and turned to the
back cover to do the weekly general knowledge quiz. Even
Martyn, who considered himself highly educated found this quiz
extremely challenging. There were ten questions and his highest ever
score
had been five, and that had only happened once. This
week he got three,
so he felt fairly
pleased,
but
he was also annoyed with himself as he got very close with two more
and he should certainly have got a third about The Napoleonic Wars.
Damn, he knew that answer. Maybe
one of next week’s questions would be “At what
age is
it possible to spot the first signs of incipient
dementia.” He
toyed with going downstairs to get another coffee but no. Time
was moving on. He
should really think about getting up and getting showered. Ah, why bother, no rush.
He’d had a tough week and he deserved a rest and Elena would be
looking after the kids. It
was Saturday morning, he’d
earned a lie-in. Yes,
Elena.
Hurting
Elena. You’d
wanted to hurt her, hadn’t you Martyn? Yes you had. And
that made you feel guilty and embarrassed and ashamed didn’t
it Martyn? Yes it did. But
that wasn’t the only reason you felt guilty and embarrassed and
ashamed was it Martyn? No it wasn’t. So
why else do you feel guilty and embarrassed and ashamed Martyn? He put down the magazine and inhaled deeply. He’d
always taken a pride in his self-knowledge, he always said that
self-knowledge was everything and that without self-knowledge you
were nothing. So come on then,
play
the tape to the end. OK,
yes, he was man enough to admit it. He’d
enjoyed it. He’d
enjoyed wanting to hurt her, trying to punish her, it had added a
frisson to the act. It
had turned him on, it had got him going. He supposed therefore that
by logical extension he would have enjoyed it all the more if he had
actually hurt her. He
found this realisation profoundly disturbing.
He’d
always relished the male role in love
making.
He
liked
the
power and
control which
vested
in the man.
He liked to take her ankles tightly in his hands and roughly
spread her legs or yank
them over
his shoulders, at his whim as he thrust. He liked that the speed,
depth and vigour of his thrusts was his to decide. He
liked to take a firm grip of her upper arms and shove her around, onto her side or her front, then take her as he wished. But
he wasn’t embarrassed
or ashamed
by any
of this,
it
was part of being a man. He
enjoyed
being dominant in
bed but
he also felt
fairly
confident that many women liked to be passive, to have sex done to them if
you like. But
where do you draw the line, where
does it all stop? Sexual intercourse itself was by it’s nature of
course an
act of violence. The
feminist that had claimed he was perpetuating the patriarchy had also
claimed that all penetration was essentially rape. Jesus,
he didn’t follow
that either. In
fact he
was beginning to wonder
if he actually followed much at all about
female sexuality.
What
did women actually get out of sex anyway,
(except
a baby now and again, and
then they’ve got to give birth, imagine that!). I mean, they don’t
always come, don’t even often come, or is that just with him? They
say it’s OK, they enjoy the intimacy, that it’s enough for them,
they say
they don’t
need to come, but do they say that just to let the man off the hook? He
supposed they must enjoy it, sometimes, or
they wouldn’t do it, but
was it worth it? Was
a few seconds of intimacy or even an
orgasm
worth having a sweaty, hairy, grunting and farting gorilla invade your body? Invasion. Penetration. He
tried to imagine it. Years ago, in their best and most intimate days,
Janet had once told him how vulnerable and exposed she felt when he
was inside her. He’d told her that actually
men
also feel vulnerable, particularly as they come, or at least he did, and no-one ever talks about that.
Maybe
he should mention this to Elena, maybe he
could
do it on
Wednesday night after they’d made love, assuming he could get her
to stick around for more than ten seconds afterwards. He
could start by apologising for trying to hurt her then move on to
male vulnerability and the bond created in him and
with her by
the physical act. Surely it would encourage Elena to
connect with him in return. But
no, he decided against it. He didn’t feel he knew her well enough
to reveal himself like that. (Know her well enough? For
fuck’s sake Martyn,
you fuck her twice a fucking
week!)
But
God, the thought of sex with a man. Gays managed it of course. Martyn
didn’t
the slightest problem whatsoever with gays, in
fact some of his best friends…..well no, that’s
not true. There’d been a
colleague he’d once worked with in the early days, gay
as a yellow duster, and then
a
friend of a friend at university, but still, he had no problem with
gays, you know, in
that respect he was libertarian, whatever
floats your boat. But Martyn found the thought of himself
having sex
with a man utterly repugnant. He’d
always felt pretty confident he
didn’t have a gay cell in his body, but nevertheless he recalled
how in his late twenties and early thirties he’d occasionally look
at photos of semi-naked attractive men to see
if he could get a hard-on, purely in the interests of academic research you
understand. He
was hugely
relieved
when the results of his research confirmed his initial hypothesis. So
yes, he
was glad he was heterosexual. He really didn’t want to be gay. He
wondered if gay men found the thought of sex between a man and a
woman as abhorrent as Martyn found the thought of sex between two
men? Possibly.
But probably not. He knew that a lot of gay men tried heterosexual
sex first and they couldn’t have even contemplated that if they
found it so repellant. It
must be tough being gay though. Even
nowadays there was still a lot of residual homophobia around.
But it wasn’t all bad, there were some benefits. For
instance, if you were bored at work one afternoon and the office was
quiet it must be quite
nice
to be able to nip down to the local bath house to get a free
blowie from a complete stranger. It
beats nipping
out to
Starbucks for
a flat
white.
Cis
men like Martyn
couldn’t do that. He
wished they could.
Straight
after university, in his first training job, when he was still
getting
used to the office environment, he would fantasise about there being
a room set aside, a sex room. Anybody would
be free to approach anybody, no shame or embarrassment, and if they were in the
mood and in agreement they’d both
nip
in for
a quick one. What was wrong with that? It
was completely rational. But then, nothing about sex was rational, at
least, not sex with women.
It
was
all so unfair.
Gays
seemed to be comfortable with an endless stream of casual partners,
so
why
weren’t women? But
here’s the thing, the paradox, the
thing he really for the life of him could not get
his head around,
the
empirical proof that
women were completely irrational
creatures when it came to sex. Martyn
knew from bitter and repeated experience that you could spend weeks,
even months,
chasing a girl. You
really do
like
her so you
get to know her, become her friend and confidant, compliment her, laugh
at her jokes, make
your interest in her very clear and
generally do everything to lay
the groundwork, and
she responds encouragingly. Eventually you persuade her to go on a date, well maybe not a formal date as such,
you might dress it up as a few drinks after work to
discuss the project you’re both
working
on. So you have a few drinks, maybe go on to a meal, it all goes
wonderfully and you’ve both had a lovely evening,
but
as soon as you suggest taking it a step further, going back to your
place perhaps, the shutters slam down and
it’s all “Oh
Martyn, you’ve taken me by surprise. I really like you and we’re
really good friends, Let’s not spoil our friendship.” Spoil our
friendship?
What the fuck? Did they not understand anything about men? When did
sex ever spoil anything? But that’s not the point, that
was fair enough, he could
accept that,
you couldn’t expect someone to sleep with you just because you’d
been nice to them and shown them a little attention and
respect.
But then, BUT THEN, a
couple of weeks later she
goes out with her friends for a girly night out and a few days
afterwards you
find out through the office grapevine that
at the end of the night she’s gone off with a complete stranger and
fucked his fucking brains out! Where’s
the fucking
justice
in that? Women,
so
fucking abstruse. He was pretty certain he’d go to his grave still
trying to work them out. Like the rape fantasy thing. Grounded in
reality or (male) urban myth? He’d
tried to discuss it with a number of partners on several occasions
but he’d never got a straight answer. He’d concluded that on
balance it
was probably neither reality
or a myth,
it
was probably located somewhere
between
the two. Some women probably did like the idea, only
the
idea, at the right time and
in
the right place, of being ravished by a tall dark stranger, like
the “having sex done to them” thing.
But that’s all it was, a fantasy, never to be actually
lived
out. And it was
impossible to re-create in the bedroom because
that would inevitably
require
an element of consent in which case it wouldn’t be rape, and
where was the fun in that? Damn!
All
this thinking about sex was making him horny again
and
he thought about having a wank. And why not? He knew he’d had sex
with Elena barely an hour ago but he was
actually
quite partial
to a post-sex wank. What was that old saying? “Sex is all well and
good, but it’s not like the real thing.” But
no, better not, he’d wasted enough time, it was time to start
thinking about getting up.
Carpe
Diem! Or maybe not. He
stretched and
then
pulled the duvet back tight around him. He’d just
have
a last five minutes in
bed.
He
gazed at the ceiling. So
Martyn, how do you think your grand plan is going? Well
the nanny part seemed to be going fine, more than fine, he’d say it
was a major success. The kids seemed to worship her, they hadn’t
even mentioned Caroline for weeks now, and she appeared
to Martyn
to be
running a pretty tight household ship. So
all good in that respect. And
she seemed to be exhibiting all the indications of being happy and fulfilled in her work. So
good.
But
how about the other part, the,
ahem,
broader
role? Well,
she was fulfilling his physical needs, technically, at least on
paper.
He couldn’t say he was particularly enjoying it but you know, a
fanny’s a fanny, any port in a storm. He
shouldn’t complain. But the
thing was, she
didn’t
seem to be particularly enjoying it either and that bothered him. He wanted her
to enjoy it. He didn’t want her to be miserable when
they made love, he wanted her to have
fun too, and if
she did enjoy
it then it would make it all the more enjoyable for him. Dammit!
There
was no avoiding the fact that he’d
slowly
and painfully come to the
realisation over the past few weeks that there had been the fundamental flaw in his plan all along. Yes,
he had physical needs, and these were being catered for by way of a
lithe
body,
a contract and a hefty wedge of cash. But he now realised he also had
emotional needs, and these needs couldn’t be so easily set
aside.
He
was angry with himself. He should have foreseen this. What had he
been thinking? Well he supposed he’d been avoiding thinking. He’d
pushed it to the back of his mind. He’d tried not to think about
it, and if he did think about it he just sort of hoped he could
compartmentalise it,
just enjoy the sex, be an
unfeeling bastard, like other men, like normal men. But
that had been a misjudgment. He hadn’t taken into account the bond
thing. And
he should have because
he knew it would happen, it always did and
it was happening again. It
wasn’t love, of course it wasn’t love, don’t be ridiculous, but
it was a kind of affection, an
attachment, a connection born of shared intimacy. But
it wasn’t even just the connection, it was the cartload of baggage
that came with it. All those primal caveman
feelings,
a duty of care and protection, but also of ownership and of
monopoly
carnal
rights. What the fuck! Why him? Why did he have to be Mr Sensitive,
Mr
“I’m In Touch With My Feelings”?
Why couldn’t he be a normal
man? Yes, why couldn’t he be more
like
Billy? And
that’s when the awful
realisation
hit him. He’d got there in the end, but he didn’t like it, not
one little bit, not one little bit at all. He searched for the
flaws
in his logic, but there weren’t any, there was no escaping the only
possible conclusion, the
awful truth.
He
might drink fairtrade coffee, he might be cutting down on eating red
meat, he might support social justice issues, he
might even have a t-shirt that said “THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS
LIKE”. But he was no polymath, no Renaissance
Man. The
reason that Elena’s return to the bonfire had upset him so much was
nothing to do with her disregarding of his advice. And it was nothing
to do with Billy, not Billy as an individual, a person. It wasn’t
even to do with her getting fucked by another man. Well
actually it was to do with all of those things, but it was both
more
complex and more basic.
The truth was that when
the chips were down, he, Martyn
Manning, was patriarchal
and proprietorial, just
like all the others, no
better, no worse.
And
he
was jealous.