HIDDEN SEX PHOTO
The list of returned sites spiralled, hundreds of web addresses dedicated to housing images and videos, each supplied by their users. He glanced down the list, selecting not the first, second or third, but the fourth link. He’d already explored the others thoroughly, it was time to move onto the next.
Suddenly the screen was packed with images of women in various states of sexual arousal. Some pictures were blurry and remote, taken from some distance away, others had tell-tale signs of being hidden in cupboards or air-vents. Inverse fish eye lenses, distorting the image as if through a crystal ball, betrayed the lengths some had gone in recording their liaisons, installing tiny cameras in light fixtures and lamps. A voyeur’s heaven.
He used the navigation system to browse, ignoring the ‘girl on girl’, ‘gay’ and ‘group’ sections, instead going for the staple ‘straight’ tab. It returned 10,217 results.
60 per page.
171 pages.
This was going to take some time.
With a hollow and floaty feeling in his gut, somewhere between shame and fear, he began to browse, studying each image carefully. Sometimes the evaluation could be instantaneous. Was her hair black? No? Move on. Other pictures, usually the blurred or obscured, would take longer to assess. Bottoms would have to be scrutinised, vaginas compared, breasts studied. Each time the same question was asked. Was that his wife?
Given the few facts he knew of her encounter, he knew to dismiss photos plainly taken anywhere outside of a bedroom. Shots in woods could be skipped. Those in offices offered no interest. This was a search, a quest for answers, and he put his mind to it with the vigour of the obsessed.
When asked what the point of such a search was, as his therapist would later do, he’d answer ‘just so he’d know’. It was a paranoia, lingering in his brain like a foul smelling tumour, a suspicion that Marling had uploaded pictures of his dearest for the whole world to see. In court, the man had sworn he hadn’t, but that struck [the Mariner] as obvious. Who would admit to violating his victims more than he’d already been shown to do?
But the internet was vast, and the perpetrators of this crime many. So he’d began searching for signs of the recording’s existence. Night after night he clicked, images passing before him like a game-show conveyor-belt of prizes; a blow-job here, an ass-fucking there. But for all the copulations revealed, he never saw her. Sometimes there would be a likeness, and his heart would seize, mouth run dry, stomach flip as if on a plane plunging from the air. Fingers trembling, he’d select the thumbnail image, maximising to study in close-up. There would be the woman, body bent in throws of passion, face similar in hinted structure, yet partly obscured by dark locks. Beneath some brief description of the photo, generously supplied by the author, usually instantly confirming the miss-match. ‘Me fucking my girlfriend Jessie’. ‘Ploughing a slut I met in Portugal’.
Not once had he found a picture of her, yet still he searched. And whilst he did, he wondered what his reaction would be if he finally did find one. Would he show her? Would he call the police? Or would he simply save the image and keep it for himself? There was no way to know until he found it. No way to predict.
And as he did with increasing frequency, he grew hard as he browsed the images. Slowly, as one hand searched, the other drifted down, fondling his member. With greater boldness he massaged himself, allowing his attention to linger longer on each passing photo, fantasy overtaking intent, for he no longer dreaded discovering a photo, but longed for it. Each degraded woman would be substituted for her in his mind’s eye. Repetition became tradition. Conditioned to love the pain.
No more! Please, no more! But there was no looking away. There was no stopping his hands. Trapped in an endless search, locked in place by his lust and obsession. He could feel his balls stirring, and his pace slowed. He couldn’t let it end yet, not when there were more pictures to see. Not when there was a chance of seeing her. So the ritual continued, horror and lust entwined, a multitude of dark-haired women degraded. He loved them all because each was her, and every betrayal was his own.
Sometime later, the fantasy reached its peak.
Soon the images were gone, browser closed, computer powered down. All that was left of the search was the spent semen on his chest, clinging to him like blood to the Scottish King’s hands. The brief, yet powerful, lusts were also banished, though they left a residue of intense guilt.
And still the paranoia remained.
Was it not enough to endure the degradation? Was his mind not satisfied at betraying the woman he’d married and loved? Why make him go through all that, to spend himself in a moment of madness and agony, only to have him back where he began, unable to sleep and haunted by the notion of inadequacy?
[The Mariner] put his head into his hands and groaned. There was only one way he was going to get rid of these thoughts for the night. Masturbation, just didn’t cut it.
He turned his head towards the kitchen, already knowing the process. First the whiskey, then the knife. The incisions would be small, just enough for the pain to drive these horrors from his mind so he could find sleep. The cuts would be subtle, the minimum price for his mind’s corruption.
[The Mariner] quietly crept into the kitchen and did his work.
Thirty minutes later, he fell asleep.
Twenty minutes beyond that, the alarm-clock sounded.
“Do you cut yourself often?”
“Yes.”
“Any other coping strategies?”
“I drink. I think I might be an alcoholic.”
“You think you might be? How much is a drink?”
“A few shots when I get depressed. Enough to numb things.”
“That’s hardly alcoholism, no more than most Brits at least.”
[The Mariner] didn’t respond, staring at his book avoiding eye contact.
“What’s really upsetting you?” His patient remained silent, perplexed at the stupidity of the question. “A lot of other people, faced with the news of their wife’s betrayal would get angry and move on. Why haven’t you? Why do thoughts of this incident result in so much self-resentment?”
He took a deep breath, uncomfortable debating the peculiarity of his psychology. “Psychoanalysis suggested that it’s all down to damage as a child. I was taught to blame everything on myself. So that’s what I do now; I internalise every event. A form of eternal punishment.”
“Isn’t that a bit of a cop-out? To blame your parents?”
The bluntness came as a shock. He stammered for a moment, struggling for a reply. “I don’t blame them, they explain me. To explain doesn’t mean to excuse.” He shifted, uncertain. “Don’t you agree?”
“We’ve just met, I can’t possibly comment, but I find that nothing is permanent. Take your alcoholism. I’m pretty sure you’re not an alcoholic at all, and you only drink the way you do because you’ve convinced yourself you’re dependant. Believe me, if you were physically dependant it would be a lot more than just a few shots! And you certainly wouldn’t have made it here today! I’ve had patients who drink a bottle of whiskey a day look like a corpse. No, it’s all in your head and everything in there can be undone.”
It sounded like the same promises he’d heard a thousand times before, and [the Mariner] nodded idly, allowing his interest to float back to the window and the Londoners below. There was no doubt the therapist with his warm eyes and round summer face meant every word, but truth be told, [the Mariner]’s heart wasn’t in it. He’d been through enough of these treatments to know nothing could be done. The past could not be changed.