Life & Art

"Wendy, we've been going out together for almost two years now."

"Yes, so we have."

"I've been thinking, you never seem to go out with anyone else, especially men."

"No. Is there a reason why I should?"

Well, no, but surely…"

"Do you want me to start going out with other men?"

"No, not really, but I thought you might be thinking…well…you might want…might be thinking…I mean…I know lots of girls don't seem to want to be bothered these days but..."

"Bothered about what, Peter?"

This was the crunch point. I felt as if I was walking on hot coals with bare feet.

"I thought you might want to get married, have babies…that sort of thing."

There was a long pause. Wendy seemed to digest what I had said. When she finally started to speak, it was slowly and with something like pain in her voice.

"So you think I should start looking around for someone to marry and get pregnant with?"

"I didn't mean it quite like that, Wendy."

"Then tell me how you did mean it."

The pain was clearly there now, and I thought I saw tears glistening in her eyes. I had taken the plunge, and however brutal it might seem, I decided to finish it.

"Wendy, if you thought I might make a suitable father for your children…I can't…"

"Can't what?"

"Give you children."

"I see. You find me physically unattractive!"

"No, no. It isn't you, Wendy it's me, I promise you. Many men would like to…" I almost said, "Fuck you," but pulled myself up just in time. "There are plenty of men who'd love to…"

"Fuck me. Go on Peter, say it, you might as well. Lots of men would like to fuck me, but you're not one of them, right?"

"I swear to you Wendy, it's not like that."

"Then for God's sake tell me what it is like, Peter."

"It's not you or any other woman, it's me, I can't…can't get an erection."

"Why not?"

"I can't tell you."

"Peter, since the first moment I saw you, I knew there was something wrong. Steve told my about your divorce and how you suddenly changed from being bright and happy, and became depressed. Was it the divorce?"

I had never told Wendy anything about my life and marriage with Carla, and Wendy had never probed, any more than I had asked her about her sex life. All I knew in that respect was what Steve had alluded to, that there had been none through Wendy's own choice.

In the midst of emotional crises, with Wendy in a mixed state of tears, anger and hurt female pride, I was at a loss to know how to go on. I hovered on the edge of telling her the whole story. Wendy settled my dilemma for me.

"Peter, we've been friends for nearly two years. I thought we might have been more than friends. If I'm mistaken about that, then I'm sorry, but if you'd like to tell me just what happened to hurt you so deeply, I'm here for you."

I had told no one, not even my mother, the precise nature of my break up with Carla. Even if I had spoken, who would believe such a fantastic story? Yet now I felt there was someone I could tell – wanted to tell, if only to account for my pathetic inability to get an erection, even with a woman as sweet as Wendy.

Even so, the story I told was a modified account of what had really happened. Ridiculously perhaps, I felt as if to tell the worst details would somehow be to pollute the friendship I had with Wendy. More to the point, I did not want it to touch her decency.

When I had finished, Wendy sat looking at me for a long time. Her anger had gone, her hurt pride mended, only the tears remained, but this time they were tears for me.

It was at that moment I saw just how much she did love me, but even more, I could see how her presence in my life had lifted me from endless depression and self-pity, into a worthwhile existence again. I felt shame at the coin with which I had repaid her, near rejection.

Wendy dried her eyes and looked at me steadily. Then in a firm voice she said, "There's nothing wrong with you physically Peter. It's an emotional or psychological problem. You gave yourself to that woman totally, and she cut your testicles off emotionally in the most horrible manner possible. Now, you only have to say you find me physically repugnant, that you have no love for me and never will have, and I'll not bother you again, only say it now, not in another week's or month's time, but now."

She would "never bother me again." Those words opened yet another black void for me. No Wendy in my life, no more of her laughter, no touch of her hand, never see her face again. Yet, as with the lust I had felt for Carla, the selfish desire to sate myself with her body, so in another form I was being selfish again. It was my desire to get and not to give.

I said, "Wendy, I don't find you physically repugnant. I can't think of any man who would. I'd like to say I love you, but I'm too self-centred. If I say, I should be devastated if I never saw you again, then that is only to say I want you for my needs – to take and not give."

"Well, Peter, that's a start anyway. At least you give me something to work on. Let's take it a step further, shall we?"

"What do you mean?"

"Would you like to be daddy to my children?"

"You know I can't…I told you…"

"I know what you told me, and I think I know the cure for what ails you."

"What?"

"You knowing how much I love you and want you, you silly man. Now, do you want to be daddy or not?"

"You know I would if I could…"

"Don't let's start that business again, Peter. You really would wear down the patience of a saint. Now, putting aside all the ifs, buts, maybes and if I could, do you want me, yes or no?"

"Yes."

"Thank God that's settled. Now all we have to deal with is your little problem. One lady has already led you into marriage with a "false alarm" pregnancy, so I'm not going to do the same. I'm not on the pill, you're not likely to be carrying a condom, I'm a virgin and I shall insist on your taking my virtue in comfort and security. You know what that means?"

"Not until we're married?"

"Right. I know that you'll be taking a risk with me, and I may not be as well trained as Carla, but I'll bet I can get that manhood of yours standing up fairly quickly. You'll be fertilising me in no time."

We both burst out laughing, and or the first time we kissed, not passionately at first, but with growing ardour and, damn it, the woman had me stiffening for the first time in a couple of years.

"Blast you, woman," I chuckled, "do you know what you've done?"

"Yes, I can see. I think we'd better get married very soon, my love."

"I think so too, darling."

We kissed again.

We did get married soon, and by the time we had escaped from all the handshaking, kissing and backslapping of the reception, we were both dead tired.

"Not tonight, darling, Wendy said."

We slept in each other's arms, and for the moment, it was enough.

It was next morning after breakfast and showers that Wendy came to me. She was not clad like the traditional first time bride, in something lacy and see-through, but wore a rather heavy woolen dressing gown.

I don't think I looked anything like the ardent groom either, in a sloppy T-shirt and jeans.

"Peter," she said very quietly, "come with me now."

She extended her hand to me, I took it, and we went into the bedroom.

Her practicality showed as she laid a towel on the bed. We were stopping in a motel unit, and as Wendy pointed out, there was "Going to be some blood, and we can soak the towel afterwards."

With this unlikely preparation and our singularly unsexy clothes, she said to me, "Peter, would you take my dressing gown off, just so I can feel you've undressed me?"

I obliged willingly, and for the first time saw Wendy naked.

She stood there looking deceptively small and fragile. Her breasts were what might be described as medium sized, with small, pink nipples surrounded by darker pink circles. A little sliver of blonde pubic hair ran from her mound to just above her neatly defined cleft.

If I had any doubts left about my ability to get an erection, they were now dispelled. She looked as sweet and vulnerable as a child, and I was assailed with a mixture of desire for her and an equal desire not to hurt her.

I told her of my not wanting to hurt her, and she said, "It's part of the deal, darling, especially if you're going to be daddy. Now take me to bed."

I picked her up and laid her on the bed, and kissed her, gently touching her breast at the same time.

"Darling," she said, "I'm ready for you, I've been ready for along time. Take me now, but let me tell you when to…to…"

"I know my love, I'll be very careful."

I came over her and positioned the head of my penis against her vaginal entrance. I pushed carefully, and she suddenly gasped. I stopped and waited.

"Now, darling, only do it quickly."

I thrust in hard and felt her convulse, and she clung to me tightly as she gave a little scream. I stopped, not knowing whether to withdraw or stay with her.

Her hand started to stroke my chest and she said, "Don't leave me just yet. I want to feel you in me."

I lay unmoving within her experiencing feelings of tenderness that I had never known before in the sexual act. I was able at last to give full expression to the feeling that now welled up in me, my desire to tell her of my love and devotion, my passion for her.

It was a first time for Wendy, but in another way, it was a first time for me as well. At other times, I had thought I was in love, but in fact, as far as love was concerned, I was an emotional virgin. Wendy had broken through to me, just as I had broken through her hymen.

Still aroused and with an erection I withdrew from her, having deliberately not ejaculated lest my movements caused her more pain. There was blood already drying on my penis and the towel. I could see the traces of blood round Wendy's vulva and upper thighs.

"Did I hurt you much, darling?" I asked.

"Not nearly as much as you would have if you hadn't broken through. I wanted to give you that so badly."

I picked her up in my arms. She was so light. I carried her to the bathroom and washed her blood away for her, then washed my still erect penis.

It was another two days before I entered her again and this time to both our satisfactions.

Thus began our life of lovemaking. Even when we had explored each other, and I had encouraged Wendy in giving wider and deeper expression to her sexuality, our coupling always retained its element of tenderness. With Wendy it was a yielding and giving, with me it was the desire to make our coupling an expression of love rather than lust.

It might be kind of me to stop my tale right here, at the point of happy conclusion. To do so, however, would not tell the full story.

One Sunday morning five years after we had married, and two children had been, produced with another on the way, I was browsing through the newspaper. Scanning down a page my eye was caught by the name, "Carla Drovnik". I looked at the heading of the article, and found it was a critical review of an art exhibition. I read on.

The article made some general and not altogether complimentary comments about the exhibition, and then focused on three particular paintings, one of them being "Night Bang" by Carla Drovnik.

As far as I can recall, it said something like this. "Drovnik's work is perhaps the last gasp of the degenerate school of Experiential Art. A disciple of the founder of the school, Jeremy Higgs, who died recently of an undiagnosed ailment, Drovnik's work epitomises all that Higgs and his followers stood for, namely the gutter sweepings of the human subconscious."

The writer had nothing further to say about Carla's work, and moved on to another artist.

I sat staring at the print but no longer seeing it, as memories of Carla and "that night" came flooding back.

Fortunately Wendy came in at that moment and said, "Peter, Ben wants to go to the toilet, but I'm busy with Cathy, would you help him?

I departed to perform my paternal duties, and in the process Carla and the newspaper article got lost.

That might have been the last I ever heard of Carla, but for another odd twist in events.

Various organisations brought in publicity advertising concerts, shows, books and so on, to our offices at work. The material was usually left in a heap in our lunchroom, and one day about three years after I had seen the newspaper article, I was poking through the pile of adverts.

One leaflet was advertising an exhibition of "Fantastic Art of the Twentieth Century." A list of artists followed giving their names and the titles of their works. Again, I saw the name "Carla Drovnik – Night Bang."

Over the next few days, I was haunted by that advert, and knowing I had to finally lay a ghost to rest, I went to the exhibition.

I bought a catalogue, looked up Carla's name, and went to the room indicated. What glimpses I got of the other works suggested that "Grotesque," rather than "Fantastic," best described them.

I found Carla's painting and stood before it.

The central figure was a naked woman lying in the back of a van. Her body was purple with legs spread wide, and from her vagina protruded the head, not of a child, but a man she was giving birth to. The face was that of Jeremy and his mouth was twisted into a ghastly leer.

There was something strange about the woman's breasts and it took a few moments for me to see that they were not breasts. They were two huge penises standing erect where the breasts should have been.

The woman was faceless except where mouth should have been there was another penis hanging loose and dripping green sperm, and writhing in it were small worm like creatures, presumably meant to be spermatozoa.

The woman's body was covered with blood red marks, and at some distance stood the shadowy figure of a man who, like the woman, was faceless.

Swirls of savage colours surrounded the central feature, the whole giving the impression of violent degeneracy.

I stood looking for a long time interpreting what I saw, and feeling the horror of that long ago night well up in me again.

A hoarse voice behind me said, "Hello, Peter."

I turned and saw a woman standing there. I almost asked, "Do I know you?"

Wisps of black hair were plastered over her scalp to try to hide the balding pate. The eyes were sunk back to almost appear only sockets. Cheeks were collapsed in like those of a toothless old woman, and there were hollows at the temples, giving a skeletal effect. Her body under her clothes seemed bent and skeleton like.

"Don't you know me, Peter?" She asked in her hoarse voice.

"Carla!"

"Don't ask me how I am, Peter, you can see plainly enough."

"You look very ill, Carla."

"I am very ill. Jeremy gave it to me,you know. Another few months after he died, they knew how to diagnose what was wrong with him. Unfortunately, they still don't know how to cure it."

"I'm so sorry, Carla."

"Are you, Peter. Are you sorry, or are you gloating?"

"No, I'm not gloating, Carla."

I spoke the truth. I was recalling the woman who could have lured any man she wanted to her. I could still picture the beauty that had captivated me, and what I had thought had been my love for her. Looking at the ruin she had now become, I felt only pity for her.

"No Peter, I don't think you'd gloat," she said. "You might lust or hate, you might be bitter and angry, but it's not in you to gloat."

"Is there anything I can do for you, Carla?"

I saw tears flowing down her cheeks and wanted to touch her, to comfort her in some way, but she started to turn away.

She was about to move away from me when she turned back and said, "I could have had love, couldn't I Peter?"

My throat felt swollen and I couldn't get the words out. I nodded my head.

The skull that was her head nodded in return, and as a final word she whispered, "Live well, love much, and forgive me, Peter."

She moved away, going towards the door like a shuffling arthritic old woman.

Tears were running down my face.

Three months later, again during lunchtime at work, one of the other men came to me with a newspaper. He was a chap who always took a somewhat ghoulish interest in the death columns, and he said, "I say Pete, weren't you married to a Carla something or the other years ago?"

"Yes, Carla Drovnik."

"Look here, old chap, she's dead."

He pointed to a small piece in the death column. It was a simple statement of Carla's death. There were no words like "Dearly beloved daughter of," or even "Dear friend of." Only the bare words announcing her death, and the time and location of the funeral.

I went to the funeral. Apart from the funeral director, his staff and myself, there was no one else.

There was no clergyman or anyone else to say something, so I said a silent prayer for her peace, then aloud, "Goodbye, Carla." I dropped a red rose on to the coffin.

I turned away from the grave and went my way towards where I had found love and peace.

I had hardly gone a few paces when I heard the first clump of earth being dropped on the coffin.

With the thump of that earth on wood, the ghost of the past was finally laid.