Acquired Tastes (18 page)

Philip had learned the art of the meeting at the BBC, and prided himself on being its master. Meetings were the battleground of modern man, and needed careful tactical planning and strategy. He had allowed Vanessa to take him by surprise last time, and to undermine his authority - but not this time.

After much careful thought, he had decided that the round table would deter individual precedence and encourage team spirit, while at the same time allowing him to assert his authority from the magisterial high-backed mahogany chair he had dragged into the room while no-one was around. Everyone else would have to sit on folding plastic seats.

Vanessa's unexpected guest had not been part of his calculations, but if this was her attempt to outflank him, he would not allow it to succeed. He straightened his shoulders and opened the door.

Only Rosie looked up as they walked in. She had been doodling on her note pad, and hastily turned the page over. Hugo was punching the buttons on his personal organiser, and Vijay had his feet on the table and his arms behind his head.

'Good morning, or, to be pedantic - good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Vanessa has kindly brought a surprise guest to our little gathering.' Philip's tone managed to intimate that the surprise was not altogether welcome.

'Let me introduce Dr Fergus Archibald, an eminent psychologist, who has given up his valuable time to come and tell us about sex, a field in which Vanessa tells me he is a great expert.'

Philip looked around the table waiting for someone to laugh. No one did.

He reeled off the names and titles to Fergus of the three sitting down and then motioned him to a chair on the other side of the table.

As Fergus made his way round to his seat, Philip grabbed Vanessa's elbow. 'Why on earth did you bring Archibald along?' he hissed. 'You know I don't like civilians at our production meetings. Everything in its proper place.'

'Without him we don't have a programme,' Vanessa hissed back, then made her way round to sit next to Fergus.

Philip pushed Vijay's feet off the table before sitting down. 'Now, if you can all turn your attention to the business in hand, Vanessa is going to tell us about
Forbidden Fruit.'

Vanessa took a deep breath, but before she could say anything, Fergus snorted with laughter.

'Forbidden Fruit
, that's rich!' He snorted again.

Vanessa flashed him a warning frown. 'A fully fleshed out proposal will be on your desks by the end of the week, ' she began smoothly, 'but in the meantime, I thought it would be useful to summarise progress so far, and then I will hand over the meeting to Dr Archibald, who will familiarise you with the main conclusions of his research.'

She paused and cleared her throat self-importantly. 'My proposal is that we make a series of half-hour programmes called
Forbidden Fruit.
It will be a studio-based, audience participation programme with video inserts, some of which will be provided by viewers, and presented by Gabriella Wolfe.'

She looked across at Philip, who beamed approvingly. 'Each programme will feature punters …' she turned to Fergus, 'that is to say, members of the public, who will act out their favourite sexual fantasy, aided and abetted by actors and whatever equipment or other accoutrements they may desire.'

Fergus raised his hand like a supplicant schoolchild.

Vanessa swallowed her irritation and nodded graciously at him.

'Might I enquire what qualifications this Wolfe person has to present a programme of this nature?' Fergus asked.

Vijay gave a hollow laugh.

'Miss Gabriella Wolfe is considered to be one of the most experienced and professional television presenters in the business, Dr Archibald,' Philip replied firmly. 'She can handle anything.'

'She may be an excellent television presenter.' Fergus emphasised the word television. 'But what are her qualifications to discuss the psychological ramifications of sexual fantasies?'

Philip raised his eyebrows in an 'I told you so' signal to Vanessa.

'Gabriella will, of course, be fully briefed by me before each show,' Vanessa intervened, giving Fergus a warning look. He ignored it.

'Are you suggesting that years of dedicated research can be reduced to fit on the back of a postcard?' he demanded.

'You obviously do not understand the nature of the medium, Dr Archibald,' Hugo drawled. 'We will not maximise the potential of this idea by presenting some dry old academic thesis. Viewers are interested in sex, not psychology.'

A vein twitched in Fergus's right temple. Even before Hugo had opened his mouth, Fergus had taken a dislike to him. No man should have silky blond curls and baby pink skin beyond the age of three. Hugo ignored his glowering look.

'I hear what you're saying, Dr Archibald, I'm sure we all do,' Philip reassured him with a smile. 'However, I think what Hugo is saying is that television has a duty to entertain as well as to inform.'

He placed his elbows on the table and put his fingertips together. 'Just because a subject is serious, does not necessarily mean that by introducing it to a wider audience in a popular format, we are trivialising it. Surely it is beholden on those of us who have been privileged with an education beyond a certain level, to bring subjects that shed light on human behaviour to a popular medium in such a way as to make them accessible to those who have not enjoyed our considerable advantages. However, I am sure I speak for all around this table when I say that while we may be the practitioners, we are all willing to learn from a master. So please, the floor is yours, Dr Archibald.'

Philip sat back, satisfied with himself.

Fergus looked around the table. Only Vanessa and Philip met his eyes. Rosie blushed and looked down at her notebook, pen poised. Hugo appeared to be playing some sort of computer game, while Vijay's eyes were half closed. Fergus grinned. He would make them pay attention.

'As you ladies and gentlemen of the media don't like being bothered with too many facts and figures, I shall endeavour to be brief.'

He pushed his chair back and stood up, scratching his head and gazing into the middle distance. Philip looked enquiringly at Vanessa but she kept her gaze on Fergus. A lot depended on what he was going to say, including her job. Fergus cleared his throat self-importantly.

'In crude layman's terms, the main thrust of my study, “Terminal Diagnosis - a Report on the Nation's Sexual Health”, is that we are damaging our physical and psychological health by suppressing our true sexual nature - most of which is revealed in our sexual fantasies.'

As his speech gathered momentum, he began to pace up and down, forcing Hugo and Vijay to twist round uncomfortably in their seats to see him.

'The creed of the so-called liberated Sixties was that sexual fantasies were an amusing and generally harmless pastime. The hors d'oeuvre to the main course so to speak - not essential, but stimulating to the taste buds. But all the so-called sexual revolution gave us was the freedom to fuck in a purely mechanical way. Ask yourselves, if there really was a sexual revolution why, thirty years later, is there still so much sexual frustration?'

Fergus looked around, but nobody seemed to be prepared to answer the question. He put both hands on the table and leant forward. 'I believe there is a bourgeois conspiracy to control sexuality,' he said darkly. 'The bourgeoisie have the most to lose from the changing socio-political order and so, with their intelligentsia masquerading as liberals, they have seized upon the sexual revolution and by appearing to sanction it, use it as a means of control. Marx preached that power lies in the control of the means of production, well I believe that control of the means of pleasure gives even far greater social and political power.'

At this point Vanessa coughed meaningfully and tapped her pen on the table. Fergus raised an ironic eyebrow at her and then straightened up. 'Have you ever asked yourselves
why
prostitution is the oldest profession? Men very rarely go to prostitutes for straight penetrative sex. What they want is to indulge in their fantasies by being tied up, beaten or humiliated. And why do women suffer most from depression? Because their sexuality is far more powerful than men's and their fantasy life far richer, yet they have even fewer outlets than men to express their true sexuality.

'I contend that we are guilty of suppressing our true sexuality by dismissing it as fantasy and daydreams, and we are condemned to frustration until - and unless - we learn to liberate it,' Fergus announced in ringing tones, and paused majestically before walking around the table. He stopped behind Rosie and placed his hands on the back of her chair. She smiled nervously. She had tried to concentrate on what had been said, but some of Fergus's arguments had been a bit above her head.

Fergus lowered his voice. 'Take, for instance, the millions of women who buy the kind of romantic novels which are churned out by Mills and Boon and their like.'

Rosie looked desperately around for help. She and her mother devoured at least four romantic novels a week between them.

'An essential part of these novels is that the heroine is unwilling to yield to the hero. The readers are waiting, or should I say,
yearning
for the moment when the heroine, ostensibly against her will, is swept off her feet and finally surrenders to the passionate embrace of the hero and his throbbing manhood. The heroine cannot appear to be willing but once the man has demonstrated his dominance, she can be just as uninhibited, because she can tell herself that she has no free will in the matter. Romantic love is equated with sexual dominance on the part of the man.

'The feminist movement has not brought about a fall in the sale of these novels - rather the reverse - as well as a demand for increasingly explicit surrender scenes.

'So what does this tell us about female sexuality? That the average woman yearns to be dominated and coerced, ' Fergus looked round triumphantly. 'Their fantasy lives are full of themselves being tied up, held down and generally being forced to do things they don't want to do. Yet how many women dare suggest to their partners that this is what they want, for fear of being laughed at or, far worse - abused?'

Rosie's cheeks were flaming. Fergus patted her shoulder reassuringly. Then he walked round and stood behind Vijay, who had straightened up in his chair and was trying to look nonchalant.

'Now the one thing the feminist movement
has
supposedly created, if one is to believe the
Guardian
, is the New Man,' Fergus continued.

Vijay looked relieved and nodded approvingly. He liked to think of himself as a feminist, although he respected the argument of some of his more radical women friends who said that it was impossible for a man to be a feminist.

'This so-called New Man has supposedly got in touch with the feminine side of his nature and sees women as his equal. He does not want to dominate them, which is a pity for all those women romantic novel readers. Nor does he see women as sex objects. He claims to prefer his women free range and organic so to speak, wearing no make-up, shapeless baggy clothes and sensible shoes.'

Vijay stopped nodding.

Fergus bent down and almost whispered in Vijay's ear, 'But deep down, this man craves women dressed in black stockings and suspender belts, crotch-high leather skirts and wet T-shirts.'

The colour drained from Vijay's face, leaving two bright red smudges on his cheek bones.

Hugo sniggered loudly but stopped abruptly as Fergus moved on and stood behind him. He stopped pushing the buttons on his computer game.

'I say, I think we've got the drift…' Hugo protested, as all eyes now turned on him. 'Education plays a crucial part in the development of sexuality,' Fergus continued relentlessly, 'particularly for those who go through the great British Public School system. Men emerge from these single sex institutions and rush around fornicating like demented stoats, trying to prove they are not homosexual. But underneath it all, they long for the close, sweaty intimacy they have only really experienced in the company of their own sex.

'They mourn the loss of the dewy faced boy who sat next to them in the third grade and with whom they fumbled inexpertly in the locker room as they exchanged whispered endearments. A woman could never understand their feelings about their masculinity in the same way.'

'Now look here …' protested Hugo feebly.

It wasn't possible. No one could know what it had been like. He looked at Philip, hoping for rescue, but Philip seemed engrossed in the papers in front of him.

Fergus continued remorselessly. 'And of course one mustn't ignore the importance of pain in sexual fantasy. A lot of boys experience their first sexual arousal when a cane bites into their naked flesh. Pain and humiliation become inextricably linked with sexual gratification.

'Think of the amount of money politicians, judges and senior civil servants would save from not paying blackmailers, if only they were allowed to openly indulge their sexual fantasies,' laughed Fergus.

Philip joined in, but his laugh was just a shade too high-pitched. 'Enough, enough,' he said holding up his hands. 'That was quite a performance, Dr Archibald. I, for one, am convinced we have a winner of a series here. Welcome to the team.'

Hugo stood up, pushing his chair back so violently it fell over. He stalked out of the room.

Alicia's mouth grew moist with anticipation, as she carefully peeled the silver foil from a large bar of milk chocolate. She snapped off the first row of thick chunks and placed the rest of the bar on to the handkerchief she had spread on her lap. Then she broke the row into separate squares, delaying the moment she popped the first one into her mouth for as long as she could. It was a little ritual left over from her days at the convent, and never failed to increase her pleasure. A little self-denial was good for the soul.

She munched contentedly, her eyes closed so as to concentrate on the sensation of the dark creaminess of the chocolate. After she had eaten eight squares, she unscrewed the top of the flask that she had placed beside her on the bench, and poured herself a cup of tea. Between sips, she looked around.