Part 49
Posted by Barbanne on December 05, 2002 at 21:32:52:
PART FORTY NINE
TALKING
"Alex."
"Yes Barb."
We were having a picnic down by the river about ten minutes from the Playdead warehouse studio. I had made cold cuts and took something both cold, (diet coke, caffein free) and hot, to drink (thermos flask) and we had walked down together and fed our faces and now lay side by side, sort of propped up on our elbows, watching the swans and the tourist boats and the quiet peacefulness right here in the middle of all that shitty, noisy, stinking traffic.
"You know what we do?"
"At Playdead?"
"Yeah, the fantasy stuff, but always based on the capitulation of some poor victim."
"It's a fantasy Barb."
"Yeah I know, but necrophilia, you know being sexually attracted to corpses, that's really sort of disgusting isn't it?"
"Well Barb, our customers and me and Dave and all of the girls, including foremost yourself, see it as a sex fantasy rather than anything that has anything to do with real death. Real death isn't pleasant. I know everyone eventually dies and that's a fact but that really hasn't got a lot to do with Playdead. Playdead's about playing dead."
"Yeah so the ultimate fantasy of the person viewing it is the vicarious thrill of imagining having sex with a girl who can't say no. A senseless, inert babe who is nothing more than a body a submissive body, in fact as I said the other day an available cunt. Hey I heard someone say the other day on one of those endless talk radio shows that women like other female animals come on heat at certain times and some guy said that, well, if we'd only tell a bloke when we were on heat it would save them having to be nice or show any interest in us at other times."
"That's appalling Barb. Struth you say some shocking things at times."
"Yeah but, my point is that our customers are maybe a bit socially inept and stuff and so they fantasise having a totally helpless babe whom they absolutely control and the ultimate control thrill is being able to use her for sex."
"No."
"No, what do you mean no. I'm socially inept and I think that drives my submissive fantasies. You know by being out of it or playing dead it is then not up to me to make a move. My lover does that for me, makes all the running and takes all the decisions."
"Barb!! jeez."
"Well I'm right aren't I?"
"No Barb. No I think you are wrong. I think that actually, to my mind anyway, the "having sex with the corpse" part isn't very universal at all and certainly not in the way you think. I think the Playdead fantasy is like a Playboy magazine in that it gives our customers a look at their ideal, their ultimate fantasy. Our girls, including you, and our photo situations, represent the watchers unattainable dreams and in that way satisfy their ultimate fantasies, but I honestly don't think they would live this dream even if they could. The unattainable is only a fantasy and so appreciated as such so long as it remains impossible to achieve. Our problem is to not flood our members with material so that they lose the thrill and become disappointed at what we're doing."
"All the more reason to actually show real sex."
"Gawd woman you have a one track mind. How would that help?"
"Well we'd maybe pinch customers from the pure sex sites."
He sighed and watched the river for a while.
"Swans are beautiful aren't they?" he said.
"I wonder if they play dead looking for fun."
He sighed again.
"You know Barb," he said quietly, "at times I wonder if you don't play on your misfortunes looking for sympathy, and let me hasten to add that I know about your early difficulties and I don't diminish them in the least, but I do sometimes think that you use that as a weapon seeking some sort of perverse pleasure in needing to portray yourself as a victim, capital V Victim."
My tummy contracted and hot tears prickled behind my eyelids. I knew he was right. Damn the man he knew me too well. I would have to go. Its how I always deal with someone getting too close, someone penetrating my shell. Flight, I run away. I always have and that is how I got into the sex clubs and the pole dancing scene and selling myself for sex. No-one gets close then.
But that was over.
Never again.
I half turned and leant over and kissed Alex.
"Hey what was that for?"
"Nothing. Just I needed it. I need it and your my man. I am giving you a big responsibility here. Are you prepared to handle it?"
"I think so." His arm encircled my shoulders and he drew me into him and I surrendered, melting, giving fully and wanting badly.
The lights came on. Bright, relentless, hot and brilliant.
I stood in the middle of the huge boxing ring. Beyond the lights the darkness hid the waiting faces, watching, hoping, anticipating the worst.
I was a tiny figure dressed in blue shorts, a singlet, sneakers and with my hair hanging in long crinkly waves down my back, almost reaching my waist. The huge gloves swallowed my little hands.
I knew I was dreaming but couldn't wake up.
I thrashed at the fear. My gloved fists swung wildly at anything that moved.
He loomed over me.
Enormous.
Terrifying.
So powerful.
Awfully, awfully powerful.
I kept swinging my silly futile punches.
He hit me and I went down. My body writhed and twisted on the canvas floor. She laughed.
I looked up.
He hit me again, hit me while I was lying there and my body went still, my singlet wrinkled into a mess. My eyes were closed and my tongue poked straight out. My eyelids twitched and quivered and behind them my eyeballs skittered wildly back and forth. My hair fanned out and my heels thrummed a mad tattoo on the canvas.
I went into my secret place.
"Barb! Barb!"
Reluctantly I came back, slowly, fearfully.
Alex was holding me. My short, thin cotton nightie was soaking wet. I was shaking and wanted the release of a flood of tears but my eyes were hot and gritty and dry.
"Barb, oh Barb, what's the matter, bad dream? nightmare?"
"Horrors," I whimpered.
"Oh Barb," his arms enfolded me and I found I was shaking and cold.
"What?" I swallowed hard, "what was I doing."
"Thrashing about, lashing out wildly, belting me and calling out, nothing I could understand, some words, noises more likely. And then you were whimpering, crying out, shaking. Oh Barb, what terrors can possibly make you so frightened?"
"Bad ones Alex," I said.
"Oh Barb, we've got to get you help."
"Candice is helping me Alex, and Sibyl is showing me the way to live with it, with some of it anyway, but I'm frightened my darling. Am I going to go mad? Can something that long ago send you crazy?"
"Not when you have my love darling. Not then."
I clung to him, shaking, shivering, very very afraid.