The Brothel Creeper: Stories of Sexual and Spiritual Tension (30 page)

Our three guests were supposed to be sharing dead Billy’s mattress, but the Wandering Jew, true to name, was pacing the creaking floorboards of the landing. It felt different being evil. My muscles were more alive than before. A wild urge to wear a cape and brandish a swordstick nearly overwhelmed me. So too my stubble was hurrying out into a pointed beard. At last I could bear it no longer and jumped up, to crouch at the jagged pane. Genuine ideas for killing the hours until dawn were lacking. Could I replace Degen’s slashed balloon with one of Odette’s dresses, inflated from the gas cooker? Or retune Marselha’s lute to the mixolydian mode? I grumbled. These options were routine.

I was in the process of cursing all mankind when the second tempest arrived. This time the vomit that splashed the pavements and houses was golden and contained pale fluttering shapes, like winged maggots. Before I could summon Cartaphilus, he was by my side, gesturing at the arrivals with a nasal laugh. I felt betrayed.

“More denizens of Hell? An afterpuke?”

“No. George Wythe, American liberal. I spy the famed humanist, Juan de Valdés. That’s William Tubman with his glasses, cigar and wit. Alexis Tocqueville, also. She’s Isabella van Wagener, the abolitionist. Olaudah Equiano, a gentleman of similar persuasion. Henry Mayhew. Elihu Root. Is that Carl von Ossietzky over there?”

“I don’t understand. What are you telling me?”

“It’s God’s turn to be ill. These were some of the nicest people in history. You’re in profound trouble.”

Odette was surfacing from her oblivion. “Do I hear footsteps softer than those of an emaciated ostrich?”

“God’s coming to gorge on the wicked… “

And he did. In the purest corner of his stomach, near the duodenum, where the acids foam like the mouths of rabid choirboys, there is a desk and a lamp. Because I promised Odette to keep myself busy, I have chosen to record the advent of the sickness. Here it is. Degen and Marselha are up to their tricks, below the liver. We rarely speak. I am no less happy here than in Swansea. When I finish writing, I intend to study the works of Origen. The doctrine of universal restoration appeals to me. Also the pre-existence of men, elsewhere, safe.

Yet my regrets are scarce. The only part of the experience I really want to forget is our attempt to justify Billy’s murder. Odette told God that the student deserved to die, because when he broke wind in the bath he leant over to bite the bubbles. Although God acknowledged the serious nature of the charge, he did not think it warranted execution. The query that burns my bowels is this: how did my wife know? She remains reticent on the subject, like a banquet that refuses to be regurgitated. But our futures are still bonded. With enzymes.

He was heading in the direction he always went — cuntwardly.

He was a professor and a lover. Some said he was a professor
of
love. In fact, he was a professor of hate. He just made sure he didn’t know his subject.

Down the steps to the river, he skipped. His barge was waiting for him. It was fashioned in the shape of a giant red swan and was powered by pedals.

He sniffed the rose pinned to his jacket in anticipation.

He was preparing to woo Juliana Morgenstern, the frostiest of all the beautiful heiresses in the realm. He planned to bed her for a bet.

As he stepped onto the barge, he realised it had been hijacked by vicious malingerers with improbable intentions and hats.

They chuckled at his discomfiture.

“Merton Toade, we presume?” they chanted together.

“Who wants to know?” he demanded, and added as an afterthought, “You blackguards!”

“You’ve answered your own question,” came the reply.

He conceded the point. “Fair enough.”

The leader of the trespassers was shorter than his compatriots. It gave him distinction without exciting their envy, which might be dangerous in his position. He licked his lips in an unusual manner. First he drew a long knife from his belt, then he ran his tongue over it, closed his mouth and pressed the blade to his lips. The side facing Merton reflected the professor’s anxiety and charmingly ruffled hairstyle. The leader finished his ritual.

“We were sent,” he said simply.

“Who by?” demanded Merton.

“No, that’s the wrong question. Ask instead — what for?”

Merton did so. The rose on his jacket drooped.

“To sabotage your equipment,” the leader answered, “and end your career.”

“My barge is insured. Be my guest.”

The ruffians rolled their eyes and tugged their ears. “Oh ho! We’re not interested in your
barge
. That’s not the equipment we mean!”

And they pointed at his trousers.

Merton recoiled and spluttered, “You plot to injure my manhood?”

The leader removed his hat with an awkward flourish. Balanced on his head was a little cage containing a tiny ape. A baby gibbon. It was asleep or drugged, hard to guess which, but its expression wasn’t peaceful. Not at all. Perhaps it was dreaming of the situation it really was in. A nightmare about the truth. Awful. A door in the side of the cage was opened and one of the ruffians reached in and pulled out the creature. He cradled it in one hand.

“We are going to castrate you,” the leader explained slowly, “and graft this ape in place of your member. We are also going to steal your heart.”

“Why not just kill me?” squealed Merton.

“We aren’t murderers, you know. What a suggestion! No, we will connect your cardiovascular systems. Vein joined to vein, artery to artery. The ape’s heart will beat
for
you — and keep you alive!”

“It’s a bit small, isn’t it?”

The knife flashed down. “At the moment.”

Merton discovered that suddenly his trousers were gone. There was a puddle of cloth around his ankles. Had his belt broken? He felt exposed and ignored his embarrassment by diverting his attention. He recalled everything he knew about gibbons. It wasn’t much. But he
was
a professor and
had
read an encyclopedia in his youth.

He understood some of the following details: family (Hylobatidae), distribution (Southeast Asia), habitat (evergreen rainforests), length (45-65 cm), weight (5.5-6.7 kg) and longevity (25-30 years). This last fact was of particular note. It directly affected his own lifespan, if the threat of mutilation was genuine. And he believed it was. The key attributes of the gibbon are monogamy, territoriality, a fruit based diet, elaborate bonding songs and an arm-swinging form of locomotion, none of which were favourite pursuits of the professor. There would have to be compromises in the forthcoming relationship.

Desperate to avoid his destiny, because he disapproved of altering his own behaviour, he tried again to escape his punishment. He said, “I’m a respected figure in academic circles. I assure you that if you proceed with this operation, the authorities will hunt you down. And if not them, my colleagues. And if not them, my students. Do you appreciate this?”

The leader replaced his hat. “But how will they find us?”

“I’ll tell them to search for ruffians. Or if not them, hoodlums. Or if not them, thugs.”

“That’s all very well, but we’re none of those.”

Merton narrowed his eyes and almost screamed, “I perceive that you are!”

The leader shook his head soberly. “Dear me, no. We are all very cultured. A select band of sophisticates. We belong to the most exclusive clubs and drink the rarest vintages. We are, as a matter of fact, among the most refined gentlemen in this town. We just ensure we don’t do it very well!”

Merton completely closed his eyes and
actually
screamed. Casual observers on the riverbank, had there been any, might have imagined a giant swan was responsible for the sound. Then they would have chided themselves for drinking too much vermouth and hurried home. Or else they would have dawdled — but very badly. The worse the dawdle, the less convincing it was, the sooner to bed. Something was thrown out of the barge into the water. A modest object, but many women had loved it. Once.

He was weak for years. He stayed in bed, the infant gibbon barely keeping him alive, while his friends arranged his affairs. He needed them to regularly feed and tend the ape, but they became too busy with his other duties, so they found him a wife. A shy myopic girl named Rosie. She went shopping every day for bananas. Sometimes she bought something for herself. The gibbon grew rapidly. Merton was eventually able to sit up in bed and read. He preferred cheap novels to textbooks. He felt fully removed from the arena of intellectual struggle, as if every thrust of every one of his arguments had resided in his groin. Without them he was useless. He wanted to loathe his assailants, but he had bluffed his speciality for too long.

He explained all this to Rosie, hoping for sympathy.

She sighed. “Some men have chips on their shoulders. Not you. What you have is a chimp on your pelvis instead.”

“It’s not a chimp. It’s a gibbon.”

“Same difference,” she retorted with a squint. “Tropical and hairy.”

“Not in the slightest. Vast contrast.”

But his protests were ignored. Rosie had her own ideas on everything. She shrugged and peeled a banana. This ritual was almost like a variation on fellatio, he decided. Then he thought about it more carefully and dismissed the comparison. When a variation strays too far from its theme, it becomes an independent thing. Gently feeding a banana into the mouth in his groin simply wasn’t a sexual act. It was just weird. But essential. He stroked Rosie’s hair as she knelt before him.

“Do you enjoy being my wife?” he asked.

“I’m far too shy to know about things like that. Aren’t I?”

He shuddered. Never again would he experience the joys of chasing and catching many girls at the same time. His philandering days were over. No woman worth having would want to be had by a man with an ape instead of a love muscle. Unless they were mad. Beautiful and mad. Rosie was neither and he tried to feel affection for her, but it was too difficult. A boring life now beckoned and there was no way of avoiding its call. He no longer had an existence that was the envy of the average man. He was no longer cuntwardly mobile. He was ruined.

He explained all this to Rosie, hoping for understanding.

“Maybe you were always ruined,” she remarked. “Maybe you were spoiled as a child.”

As a minor matter of small interest, this wasn’t true.

But the years continued to pass, and Merton’s physical health was gradually repaired. He was able to stand and walk about the house. He took his gentle exercise in very baggy pants. He made it a point of principle to run up the stairs. His gibbon pounded with the effort. The ape heart circulated his blood with primal pulses, savage beats like the rhythm of a jungle drum. The breath hissed in his nostrils with blowpipe sounds, sharp and accurate. And still he tried to hate the men who had done this to him, but that emotion remained a mystery.

One morning, alone in the house, he resolved to discover the limits of his stamina. Instead of pausing for a rest at the top of the stairs, he continued up the ladder that led to the garret. This room was rarely used. It contained a few empty wooden crates and a shelf of model boats, one of them a barge in the shape of a swan. There was a single window giving a magnificent view of the town and the river. Merton sat on a crate and panted with the exertion. He unbuttoned his shirt and wiped his forehead with a cloth. He felt very hot.

He thought it best to loosen
all
his clothing. The perspiration trickled down his back and thighs. He completely removed his shirt and undid his trousers. He sat there naked, sadly gazing down at his gibbon. It was appalling but also somehow fascinating. He reached out and touched it. A thrill ran through his body, revulsion mixed with excitement. The first stirrings of a powerful unknown emotion made his knees tremble. Was this rage, frustration, despair? Or was it real hatred at last? A second time he reached out and made contact with the ape, but this time more roughly. His touch resembled a slap. He withdrew his hand and struck the creature again.

It whimpered and this pitiful noise gave him all the encouragement he needed. He made his palm as flat as possible and brought it down smartly on his gibbon. The effect was immediate. He felt dizzy, ecstatic, delirious. He slapped again. And again. Many times. Losing count had never been this overwhelming before. He increased the force of each blow and felt a sense of commitment in the actual contact between his fingers and the hairy hide. It was
right
he should slap an ape. Absolutely. And he desired nothing more than to keep slapping it. So he did.

Emotions of unprecedented force began rising in him, surging, lapping, sometimes receding but always coming back with greater strength. He gasped. He relied on his gibbon to maintain the circulation of his blood. As he unsettled and bruised it with his blows, his own health suffered. But it wasn’t unpleasant. Rather it was like being roughed up by an ardent lover. He increased the tempo of his attacks. Jungle rhythms again. There was pain in the gibbon’s eyes now and its jaw chattered. A huge wave of desire flooded Merton’s body. He closed his fist and started beating his ape mercilessly. His mind reeled. He was learning to hate again. He felt that his skull was a sealed cooking pot under enormous pressure, ready to rupture at any moment, detonating his own eyes and his tongue, blowing off his ears and sideburns. This feeling was astounding, peculiar, transgressive…

He climaxed and collapsed. Oblivion.

He woke in darkness. The sun had set over the town. With a comfortable ache in every joint and guilt plucking at the elbows of his conscience, he stood and unsteadily climbed down the ladder out of the garret. He went downstairs. Rosie was waiting for him.

She said, “You’ve been up there all day.”

He cleared his throat and mumbled something. She was sitting on a chair, a bag of bananas on her lap. Then she added, “I heard you when I came back.”

“Did you?” he blurted with a blush.

“You weren’t spanking your monkey in the garret, were you?”

He breathed painfully. “It’s a gibbon. Not a monkey. Gibbons are apes.”

“Maybe it’s a monkey that doesn’t try very hard,” she retorted. “But let me tell you something. I read a pamphlet once. I was sitting in the doctor’s surgery waiting for a routine check-up and I read lots of pamphlets to kill time. They gave good medical advice. One pointed out that if a man spanked a
grafted
monkey too often, all sorts of bad things might happen to his health. Heart problems, blindness, insanity. I don’t think that a grown man with a wife should risk that.”

“I agree,” he lied. And then he shrugged.