She almost laughed at the contrived nature of the first few minutes of the film. A tall, blond young man entered an office where another man was sitting behind a desk, largely empty except for a few pens and a notebook. There were two long close-ups of the actors, one licking his lips, the other raising an eyebrow. The man at the desk was playing the boss of the younger man, who was apologising for being late for work.
Is this necessary? She was furious. Just fornicate — that’s what it’s about, isn’t it? That’s why men pay money for this filth. Just fuck!
It was not her first experience of viewing pornography. Early in their marriage her husband had brought home a few reels of Super 8 film and he had made her watch them with him, taking out the family projector and showing the images on one of the walls of their lounge room. She had been unnerved by them, most repulsed by the hairiness of the women’s privates. That night in bed she had been silent and unmoving as he mounted her. He had never shown her such films again.
She told herself to look at the screen. The man playing the boss had removed his trousers and his shirt was unbuttoned. Both actors had smooth, waxed skin. It reminded her of the burnish on a not-yet-ripened Fuji apple. She did not fast forward though her fingers were curled tightly around the remote control. She was glad that this first scene featured two strangers, other women’s sons. As the men kissed, she experienced a sensation akin to nausea. Disgust. But it rapidly dissipated as she watched the gyrations of their mouths. The two men were handsome, strong, and the kiss was passionate. She reached for her cigarettes, her eyes firmly on the screen. The boys were now undressed.
Oh, sweet Lord, oh, Mother of God. This was a different world. She felt a sweeping melancholy as she watched the two men kiss and fondle each other. She had been with only two men in her whole life, and the first had been a quick humiliating moment in her sister’s bedroom during a party. She and the man had remained clothed the whole time and he had pressed her against the bedroom door and rubbed himself on her for a few minutes. They had not kissed once. When he had finished she discovered that he had stained her skirt, and she had spent the next hour in the bathroom, washing and squeezing dry the garment, crying the whole time. And after that, it had all been with her husband.
Who are you? she quizzed the screen. They were American, obviously, they looked fit, healthy, they looked as if they had enough to eat. The images had relaxed into an inert succession of poses and she was distracted, bored even. Did their parents know? No, of course not. She could not conceive of a parent knowing. She was alone in this.
She turned away in distaste. The blond man was on his knees, mechanically devouring the other man’s penis. She noticed a fine spider’s web beginning from the light globe in the lounge room and reaching the cornice just above a portrait of her mother and father. Her parents’ faces looked down at her, stern and distant. Her father, standing, was wearing a suit and a collarless shirt. Her mother, sitting so her head was level with her husband’s chest, was wearing the pale yellow summer dress that he had given her after she had accepted his proposal.
Aware suddenly of the muted grunts and moans coming from the television, she turned away from her parents’ forbidding gaze and forced herself to watch the screen again.
They were having intercourse now, sodomy. She scrutinised the blond’s face every time there was a close-up. Surely he could not be enjoying this. He was grimacing but his words seemed to be encouraging the other man. She had to stand up. She went into the kitchen and wet her lips. Didn’t the silly finocchio know how much he was debasing himself? They were not actors. Whores. That’s what they were. Whores.
When she returned to her armchair, the same monotonous exertions were taking place. Her disgust had disappeared. She had expected that she would find the images foul, not necessarily because they were pornographic, but because they depicted sex between men. Yes, the actors had seemed effeminate and ridiculous when they were kissing or performing oral sex on one another. But now that the older man was sodomising the younger one, frowning in concentration as he pounded away at the prostrate body spread over the desk, it seemed all too familiar. It was shockingly normal.
She closed her eyes. She would not look, she would keep her eyes shut. She heard the men on the screen barking out their orgasms. When she finally opened her eyes again the boss was zipping up his pants and the blond youth was sheepishly putting on his shirt. Now don’t ever be late again, the boss counselled. She laughed out loud.
Her body tensed as the next scene began. A large stocky man, older than the previous actors, was entering a toilet. He unzipped in the cubicle and lowered his pants. His penis was thick, so unlike her husband’s lean organ. The actor took off his shirt, revealing a flabby belly covered in fine brown hairs. She thought him ugly, obscene; he reminded her of all the sweating rude men who called her love at work, the men who scoffed down their meat pies.
He was the man who was going to abuse her son. She knew it even before Nick appeared. There was a hole in the wall of the cubicle. Her jaw clenched when Nick came in, stood at the urinal.
Her gaze was still locked onto the screen but the images had fallen away. She had removed herself into a memory, nothing concrete, not a vision or an image; the tender sensation of Nick falling asleep at her breast. She fell back into the room. Outside, birds were trilling and she heard schoolchildren laughing on their way home.
‘Fuck me.’
It wasn’t Nick’s voice. It was an American voice. For one small moment, happiness descended — this was not her son. But her relief quickly vanished. It was Nick, his wide grin, his lazy left eye that made his face still seem goofily adolescent. She saw the Scorpio tattoo on his neck, the tattoo that had caused her husband to hit out at him that first time he had run away.
It was not Nick’s body. She knew him as a skinny young man, still vividly remembered his embarrassment as the first sprinklings of black hair appeared on his belly and his chest, how he would try to hide his body at the beach by crossing his arms. ‘Don’t be embarrassed, Nicky,’ she would laugh at him, scratching at his belly. ‘You’re becoming a man. Be proud.’ He would snap at her, push her away from him.
This was not Nick’s body. He had muscles now, his torso and chest were smooth. She rose, began to pace, not looking, looking. He was on his back, the ugly man was sodomising him. She hated him, she detested him.
‘Why?’ It was a scream. ‘You didn’t need money. We gave you everything. Why? Why? Why?’ The choked word was her defence, she threw it at the screen, no longer caring who heard: the neighbours, the laughing children, the whole world. She wanted Nick to hear it, wanted him to understand her fury.
She roamed the room, cursing him and wounding herself, smashing her palms against her temples, sinking her fingernails into the flesh of her arms, making herself bleed. She strode around and around the room, damning him to the devil. On the mantelpiece was a photo of the family. Nicky, her little Nicky.
She stopped and turned back to the screen. She watched, appalled, as Nick, with joy in his eyes, licked at the semen dripping from the other man’s penis.
She took the remote and shut off that world. There was a last fleeting glimpse of her son, the camera in his face, his eyes to heaven, as his mouth and jaw were bathed in semen. The video whirred to a halt inside the VCR.