Smut: Stories (3 page)

‘We generally fool around a bit to start with,’ said Andy.

‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Donaldson knowledgeably. ‘Foreplay.’

Mrs Donaldson’s first instinct was to look away so that rather than frankly considering this naked young man kissing his equally naked girlfriend with his hand buried between her legs she found herself looking at the floor and wondering if it was time she had the carpet cleaned.

‘Bring back memories?’ said Laura, Andy’s face now where his hand had been.

‘Ye-es,’ said Mrs Donaldson, though the truth was it was a memory of a vase in the British Museum. In any case Laura wasn’t listening, her body lifting itself clear of the insistent head.

Other things Andy was doing had not even been in the British Museum, and Mrs Donaldson found herself leaning forward and slightly to the side in order to take in what the young man was up to and where.

Though his face was largely buried between Laura’s legs Andy’s one unoccluded eye detected Mrs Donaldson’s focus of attention and obligingly shifted his head so that it rested against Laura’s thigh, thus providing Mrs Donaldson with an uninterrupted view.

This unexpected démarche with its different angle on the proceedings provoked a series of harsh rhythmic cries from Laura coupled with violent squirming so that Andy, his application uninterrupted, gives Mrs Donaldson a thumbs up before raising himself on his arms and embarking on sexual intercourse proper with the unsignalled irruption provoking even wilder cries from Laura.

Standard sexual intercourse was a procedure with which even Mrs Donaldson was relatively familiar though pursued here with more vigour and variation than she had ever experienced herself.

Still in that the basic procedure was the same this at least was familiar ground, though Mrs Donaldson never remembered Cyril even in their earliest days going at it with comparable gusto and indeed verve, and whereas Andy gave vent to occasional whoops of encouragement and expressions of pleasure, with Mr Donaldson love-making (if it could be so called) had always been a stern, tight-lipped affair.

And yet it is what people do, she thought. Except this isn’t what people did, she was sure of that. They didn’t preside as she was doing sitting on her stool at the side of the bed where, observing the contending figures, Mrs Donaldson felt not unlike a tennis umpire overseeing a particularly close-fought match.

If the whole thing was a revelation there were lesser eye-openers. At one point with Laura on her back and Andy on top of her and both of them giving harsh cries almost in rhythm Laura’s mobile went.

The cries stilled but, the rhythm unbroken, Laura stretched out her arm and took the phone. ‘Bad moment. Sorry’ – and the cries resumed.

Mrs Donaldson was surprised, though, how soon even the provocation of ecstasy began to pall. She marvelled at the undulation of the boy’s body and back, as dolphin-like he plunged smoothly in and out on waves of passion. And at how supple they both were. Laura’s legs now over his shoulders, a transition achieved without pause or disengagement.

Still, as she sat there, the witness to this spectacle, it occurred to her that she might be their mother (though whether his or hers she wasn’t sure) somehow called in to testify to the full selfhood of her offspring…a mother who was kindly and forgiving (though what was there to forgive?) but knowing, too, that watching these young people so inventively entwined in one another was hardly within mothering’s customary remit.

And then there was the money. It had all come about so easily she wondered if she was the first and if other creditors had been paid in the same tumultuous currency.

On her hands and knees across the bed Laura found her face only a foot or so from Mrs Donaldson’s. They smiled.

‘Men,’ said Laura conspiratorially as Andy pumped and panted behind her. Mrs Donaldson smiled understandingly.

Whether Andy had caught this exchange and it was this that annoyed him Mrs Donaldson wasn’t sure but he suddenly got much rougher, pulling Laura’s head back by the hair and humping her round to face the bedhead, the top of which he grasped so that it banged rhythmically against the wall; at the same time he began to shout and the girl, too, calling out with harsh expectant ascendant cries.

The Donaldsons’ sex had been largely mute (and certainly posing no danger to property), a grunt from Cyril signifying that he at any rate had reached a satisfactory conclusion. On the few nights (and it was always nights) when Mrs Donaldson had had occasion to cry out Mr Donaldson had had to stop, claiming it put him off; the truth being that his wife embarrassed him.

These days they would probably have been advised to ‘talk it through’ but the constraints that can operate between couples would have made such openness unthinkable.

There was no embarrassment about these two, though, their shouts and cries loud and persistent and always seemingly poised just on the brink and needing some final push to take them over the edge.

This Mrs Donaldson unwittingly provided when, fearing for the safety of the table lamp (another wedding present), she placed a steadying hand on the bedhead thus giving Andy the degree of leverage he needed to bring the proceedings to a noisy finale. Laura took longer than Andy to quieten down, moaning still as he extricated himself to lie down beside her, both of them ending up side by side panting and exhausted.

Their congress concluded, the Donaldsons retired to their separate sides of the bed and went to sleep. There was never any discussion or comment even. It was over until next time.

Not so these young people who if an orgasm is a little death proceeded to conduct a post-mortem in an assessment of their respective quotients of gratification and pleasure.

Andy put his arm round Laura.

‘What would be nice would be a cup of tea.’

Glad in this small degree to participate Mrs Donaldson went downstairs and since it was for her at any rate a bit of an occasion she put a cloth on the tray, used cups not mugs and opened some new biscuits. This was to some extent wasted effort as by the time she got back up to the bedroom they were doing it again but with no preliminaries this time and not much finesse, the boy heaving determinedly away, the girl lying back with her eyes closed.

Meanwhile Mrs Donaldson sipped her tea and ate a chocolate digestive biscuit and by the time they reached a second tempestuous conclusion she had had three and their tea was cold.

‘I hope I didn’t spoil your fun,’ said Mrs Donaldson as Andy pulled on his jeans.

‘No way,’ he said and put his hand on her bum. ‘If anything you added to it.’

Reflecting on the episode, which in the succeeding days she did a good deal, Mrs Donaldson decided that watching the young people make love was the nearest she had ever come to a deed.

True she hadn’t been the one to suggest it and had only acquiesced and she wasn’t sure that acquiescence was a deed. Marriage was meant to be a deed, for instance, and she had acquiesced in that though in retrospect it had turned out no more a deed than taking shelter from the rain.

Deeds came easier to some people than others, she thought, almost effortlessly to some. She would have to try harder.

Seldom having had much of a secret before and never one of such intimacy, Mrs Donaldson was surprised at how strong the impulse was to share it, or at least to share the secret that she had one to share. She longed to tell Delia about the goings-on with her lodgers while at the same time knowing there could be no question of it and no hint ever. She was sensible enough to realise it was not an incident the couple themselves were likely to broadcast, the presence of such a middle-aged and respectable third party hardly a turn-on or an episode to boast about. Still, having a secret put her in a good mood, sheathing her against the petty annoyances at the hospital, the flirting of Ballantyne, the bullying of her daughter. Hectic though the evening had been for Mrs Donaldson in retrospect it constituted some sort of refuge, a haven utterly set apart, a place of her own.

‘What are you looking so happy about?’ said Delia in the canteen. ‘Have the lodgers paid the rent?’

‘They have as a matter of fact,’ said Mrs Donaldson. ‘We’re bang up to date.’

‘Is that what’s bought the frock?’

‘This?’ said Mrs Donaldson. ‘No. I’ve had this for ages. Just thought I’d give it an outing.’

‘And a hairdo as well. Not to mention the lipstick. Jane, I think you’ve turned a corner.’

‘No, no,’ said Mrs Donaldson. ‘You don’t understand. It’s work. I’m in drag.’

Parfitt, a sandy-haired spindly young man, was sitting at the table on the rostrum. Mrs Donaldson knocked.

‘Come,’ said Parfitt, who had heard this trope on the telly.

‘Nice if you got up,’ said Ballantyne from the back. ‘Gentlemen do. And doctors are gentlemen. Or used to be.’

Parfitt gave Mrs Donaldson a chair and she sat down heavily with her legs apart and arms folded. She blew her nose on a large spotted handkerchief and said her name was Dewhirst.

‘And your first name?’ said Parfitt, pen poised.

‘Geoffrey.’

‘Geoffrey?’

‘Yes,’ said Dewhirst, ‘with a G.’

Parfitt looked wild-eyed at the class hoping someone would help. No one did.

‘We’re waiting,’ said Ballantyne. ‘The patient doesn’t have all day.’

Parfitt consulted his form.

‘Have you always been called Geoffrey?’

‘Yes,’ said Dewhirst. ‘Why?’

‘It’s an unusual name for a woman.’

‘I’m not a woman.’

‘Oh,’ said Parfitt, sensing firmer ground. ‘You’re very convincing.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I would never have guessed.’ Parfitt’s manner was now kindly and professional.

‘Is it a problem?’

‘Not for me.’

‘It’s just that…’ Parfitt pressed his hands together, ‘I have to ask these things, get them straight.’

Somebody hooted, silenced by a glare from Ballantyne.

‘Could I ask you something?’

‘You’re the doctor.’

‘You’ve changed your appearance, gone to all this trouble, so why haven’t you changed your name?’

‘Why should I?’ said Dewhirst. ‘I’m not a woman. I’m a man.’

‘So you’ve never had surgery?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘What did they do?’

‘Cut me open. I had appendicitis.’

‘I meant for your problem.’

‘It’s not a problem.’

‘Oh,’ Parfitt considered. ‘So that’s not what you’ve come about?’

‘No. I’ve come about my knee.’

‘Your knee!’ Parfitt beamed. He knew about knees. Never had a knee been more welcome.

‘Which knee is it? Shall we take a look.’

‘Don’t let’s bother,’ said Ballantyne. ‘The knee is hardly the point.’

In the circumstances he was quite kind.

‘We had to go all round the houses but we got there in the end.’

‘I’d have known,’ said Parfitt plaintively, ‘only she doesn’t look like a man.’

‘Well,’ said Ballantyne, ‘we don’t know what he is, do we? We only have his/her word for it.’

Parfitt still couldn’t get it right.

‘You mean I should have examined her?’

‘No,’ said Ballantyne patiently. ‘You should have examined the knee.’

He came to the front and sat down. ‘What you have to remember is that these days gender is in flux. The patient may be a transvestite, a transsexual or a transient on a park bench. It is no matter. How they are dressed, how they look is of no clinical concern. The patient,’ he smiled at Mrs Donaldson, ‘may smell. His or her body may stink. That is not your concern either. If you want bodies that don’t stink go in for surgery where they wash the patient first.’

He sat on the desk between Parfitt and the putative Dewhirst who was wondering if this performance was at least partly for her.

‘Remember. You are a physician. You are not a policeman nor are you a minister of religion. You must take people as they come. Remember, too, that though you will generally know more about the condition than the patient, it is the patient who has the condition and this if nothing else bestows on him or her a kind of wisdom. You have the knowledge but that does not entitle you to be superior. Knowledge makes you the servant not the master.’

Ballantyne sat on the edge of the desk swinging his legs, now slightly sheepish. Tucked in at the end of the day and coming from a dispassionate and even sardonic instructor, to the class this sermon was unexpected and even inspirational. Just to be called a physician seemed a step up. It made the students think more of themselves than Ballantyne generally allowed them to do and some of them at least were reminded that this was not just a job but a calling.

Parfitt, though, was not one of them.

‘Should I look at the knee?’

Ballantyne sighed. ‘I think you should leave Dewhirst’s knee well alone lest he/she take you over it and give you a good smack. Thank you, Mrs Donaldson. Another Oscar-winning performance.’

‘You get all the juicy ones,’ said Delia. ‘I could have done him only what do I get…endogenous depression and no wonder.’

With her thoughts now never far from the session in the bedroom Mrs Donaldson wondered whether she owed her boldness (even if it had only been boldness in acquiescence) to the exercises in not being herself that she went through in the classroom. Without them she might have been less receptive to what was after all quite an outrageous proposal. Even so she had come close to dismissing the idea because ‘she wasn’t that kind of person’. But what kind of person was she? She was now no longer sure.

In retrospect she could see that the classes at the medical school, constrained though they generally were, had constituted some kind of preparation, a softening-up for what was to come and an unlooked-for initiation into candour even though the candour was put on and was not candour at all. She was playing a part both at home and at work, she was quite candid about that. She was learning to pretend whereas previously (when her husband was alive) the closest she got to pretence was politeness. Until now pretence with her had never been, as they said nowadays, proactive.

Having displayed themselves so unreservedly in the bedroom it wasn’t surprising that the young couple and Andy in particular were more relaxed around the house. He was often without his shirt and occasionally his jeans and though Laura was more modest neither of them felt in the least inhibited.