Free Imaginary Toys by Julian Mitchell Page A

touch, really. But I will say that I was rather surprised. I was surprised about Jack having that effect on a perfectly intelligent girl like Elaine, and I wondered in that vague way men do about each other what he’d got that I hadn’t. And it occurred to me that I’d never thought about sex from the girl’s point of view, before that afternoon. For me the whole thing was much more a matter of exploration, it was all more tentative, more examining. I’ve never got bored with the female body, and I hope I never shall. And perhaps the man thinks much more of his own pleasure and how he’s going to get it. But then, I’ve always got my pleasure, since we seem to have got on to this rather private topic, at least I get a great deal of it, from the responses of the woman—I react to them like mad. Which didn’t seem to be Jack’s line at all. That’s what I mean, about people’s sex-lives being so interesting. You really never can guess what goes on inside, you have to sleep with them and see. And I dare say you don’t always find out like that, either. But I’m not an expert on sex, and it must be awfully dull to know everything about it, even if that’s possible, and I don’t intend to discuss the matter any morefrom my point of view, my personal tastes having absolutely nothing, in my eyes, to do with the story.
    Well, while I was thinking some of these thoughts, and one or two others we won’t go into, I lay in complete silence on my cushion and let the sun dry my back a bit more. After a minute or two Elaine heaved herself up on one elbow and said: ‘Aren’t you interested, Charles? Are you asleep?’
    ‘Not at all. Stunned. Do go on.’
    ‘There’s nothing else to say, really, but it’s all ever so fascinating, don’t you think ? ’
    ‘Don’t say “ever so”, it’s a loathsome expression.’
    ‘Oh, shut up!’
    ‘Tell me, don’t you do anything at all? I mean, it can’t be possible, can it?’
    And she lay down again out of sight and thought for a bit, and apparently this was the sort of question she wanted, because after a while she said: ‘I don’t know. I don’t think I do anything, but I can’t be sure. Perhaps I do. I really never think about it while it’s happening. But I certainly don’t do any of the things he does. I mean, I put my arms round him, and all that sort of thing. But I don’t … You know. I’m ever so … gloriously passive. He has the most extraordinary effect on me. You’d think I was a tremendous wriggler, wouldn’t you? Not me.’
    And she became silent again. Then she said: ‘I remember once when he didn’t start straight off, as it were. Instead he just looked at me. All over. Every little bit of flesh. As though he was testing it for something. Photographing it, perhaps, for him to look at again when he was alone. I couldn’t move at all, then. I just lay there and let him look and look. It seemed to take for ever. And then when he came to my head, and he was going over everything minutely, so carefully, I couldn’t look into his eyes. And I felt he wanted me to. I felt he’d absorbed all my body, and he’d absorb my mind too, if I didn’t shut my eyes. I thought I might simply cease to exist. It was terribly odd, feeling that. Feeling that I would exist only as something in his head. I had a sort of unreasoning dread. Like walking down an unlit road at night, when there isn’t a sound, but you feel something ghastly is going to leap out at you. I usually run. And I ran this time. I mean I closed my eyes. I don’t know why. But later, I opened them, after he’d started, and he could have had anything he wanted. But I didn’t feel then that he was robbing me. But I did before. Isn’t it odd?’
    I thought it was, rather. But there didn’t seem to be anything for me to say, and we lay in silence for a bit more. Now I don’t pretend that all the conversation we had that afternoon was as interesting or as one-sided as that, but that’s the