“Go on.”
“OK, so at what point did you first feel, you know, that you might . . . how can I say . . . well, that you’d perhaps be on for . . .”
“Fucking you?”
“Something like that.”
“Now I see what you mean,” she teases. “To tell you the truth, it started that very first time we walked over to the restaurant. I noticed you had a nice bum, and I kept thinking about it all the while you were boring on about the work we had to do. And then later that night I was imagining, stretched out on this very bed that we’re on right now, what it would be like to get hold of your . . . well, okay, I’m going to get shy now, too, so that may have to be it for the moment.”
The idea that respectable-looking people might be inwardly harboring some beautifully carnal and explicit fantasies while outwardly seeming to care only about a friendly banter—this strikes Rabih as an entirely surprising and deeply delightful concept, with an immediate power to soothe a raft of his own underlying guilty feelings about his sexuality. That Kirsten’s late-night fantasies might have been about him when she had simultaneously seemed so reserved and so upright at the time, and yet was now so eager and so direct—these revelations mark out the moment as among the very best of Rabih’s life.
For all the talk of sexual liberation, the truth is that secrecy and a degree of embarrassment around sex continue as much as they have always done. We still can’t generally say what we want to do and with whom. Shame and repression of impulse aren’t just things that our ancestors and certain buttoned-up religions latched onto for obscure and unnecessary reasons: they are fated to be constants in all eras—which is what lends such power to those rare moments (there might be only a few in a lifetime) when a stranger invites us to drop our guard and admits to wanting pretty much exactly what we had once privately and guiltily craved.
It is two in the morning by the time they finish. An owl is hooting somewhere in the darkness.
Kirsten falls asleep in Rabih’s arms. She seems trustful and at ease, slipping gracefully into the current of sleep while he stands at the shore, protesting against the end of this miraculous day, rehearsing its pivotal moments. He watches her lips tremble slightly, as though she were reading a book to herself in some foreign language of the night. Occasionally she seems to wake for an instant and, looking startled and scared, appeals for help: “The train!” she exclaims, or, with even greater alarm, “It’s tomorrow; they moved it!” He reassures her (they have enough time to get to the station; she’s done all the necessary revision for the exam) and takes her hand, like a parent preparing to lead a child across a busy road.
It’s more than mere coyness to refer to what they have done as “making love.” They haven’t just had sex; they have translated their feelings—appreciation, tenderness, gratitude, and surrender—into a physical act.
We call things a turn-on but what we might really be alluding to is delight at finally having been allowed to reveal our secret selves—and at discovering that, far from being horrified by who we are, our lovers have opted to respond with only encouragement and approval.
A degree of shame and a habit of secrecy surrounding sex began for Rabih when he was twelve. Before that there were, of course, a few minor lies told and transgressions committed: he stole some coins from his father’s wallet; he merely pretended to like his aunt Ottilie; and one afternoon in her stuffy, cramped apartment by the Corniche, he copied a whole section of his algebra homework from his brilliant classmate Michel. But none of those infractions caused him to feel any primal self-disgust.
For his mother, he had always been the sweet, thoughtful child she called by the diminutive nickname “Maus.” Maus liked to cuddle with her under the large cashmere blanket in the living room and to have his hair stroked away from his smooth forehead. Then one term, all of a sudden, the only thing Maus could think about was a group of girls a couple of years above him at school, five or six feet tall, articulate Spaniards who walked around at break time in a conspiratorial gang and giggled together with a cruel, confident, and enticing air. On weekends he would slip into the little blue bathroom at home every few hours and visualize scenes that he’d will himself to forget again the moment he was finished. A chasm opened up between who he had to be for his family and who he knew he was inside. The disjuncture was perhaps most painful in relation to his mother. It didn’t help that the onset of puberty coincided for him almost exactly with the diagnosis of her cancer. Deep in his unconscious, in some dark recess immune to logic, he nursed the impression that his discovery of sex might have helped to kill her.
Things weren’t completely straightforward for Kirsten at that age, either. For her, too, there were oppressive ideas at play about what it meant to be a good person. At fourteen she liked walking the dog, volunteering at the old people’s home, doing extra geography homework about rivers—but also, alone in her bedroom, lying on the floor with her skirt hiked up, watching herself in the mirror and imagining that she was putting on a show for an older boy at school. Much like Rabih, she wanted certain things which didn’t seem to fit in with the dominant, socially prescribed notions of normality.
These past histories of self-division are part of what makes the beginning of their relationship so satisfying. There is no more need for subterfuge or furtiveness between them. Although they have both had a number of partners in the past, they find each other exceptionally open-minded and reassuring. Kirsten’s bedroom becomes the headquarters for nightly explorations during which they are at last able to disclose, without fear of being judged, the many unusual and improbable things that their sexuality compels them to crave.
The particulars of what arouses us may sound odd and illogical, but—seen from close up—they carry echoes of qualities we long for in other, purportedly saner areas of existence: understanding, sympathy, trust, unity, generosity, and kindness. Beneath many erotic triggers lie symbolic solutions to some of our greatest fears, and poignant allusions to our yearnings for friendship and understanding.
It’s three weeks now since their first time. Rabih runs his fingers roughly through Kirsten’s hair. She indicates, by a movement of her head and a little sigh, that she would like rather more of that—and harder, too, please. She wants her lover to bunch her hair in his hand and pull it with some violence. For Rabih it’s a tricky development. He has been taught to treat women with great respect, to hold the two genders as equal, and to believe that neither person in a relationship should ever wield power over the other. But right now his partner appears to have scant interest in equality nor much concern for the ordinary rules of gender balance, either.
She’s no less keen on a range of problematic words. She invites him to address her as though he cared nothing for her, and they both find this exciting precisely because the very opposite is true. The epithets bastard, bitch, and cunt become shared tokens of their mutual loyalty and trust.
In bed, violence—normally such a danger—no longer has to be a risk; a degree of force can be expended safely and won’t make either of them unhappy. Rabih’s momentary fury can remain entirely within his control even as Kirsten draws from it an empowering sense of her own resilience.
As children they were both often physical with their friends. It could be fun to hit. Kirsten would whack her cousins hard with the sofa pillows, while Rabih would wrestle with his friends on the grass at the swimming club. In adulthood, however, violence of any kind has been prohibited: no grown person is ever supposed to use force against another. And yet, within the boundaries of the couple’s games, it can feel strangely pleasing to take a swipe, to hit a little and be hit; they can be rough and insistent; there can be a savage edge. Within the protective circle of their love, neither of them has to feel in any danger of being hurt or left bereft.