Benjamin Black - The Silver Swan

In the end it was the photographs that had done it. She often wished, afterwards, that he had not shown them to her. She knew, of course, why he had. It was partly out of simple mischievousness, that schoolboy urge he had to show off the secret he had discovered, but also he had gauged, correctly, as it would turn out, that there was a part of her, buried deep down, so deep that she had been hardly aware of it before now, a part that was, she had to admit it, just as gleefully dirty in its desires as Leslie White was-as any man was. All the same, they were a shock, the photographs, at least at first. When he showed her the one of the woman in the fox-fur stole-they were in the empty room above the optician's shop-she felt hot and excited and almost frightened, in a way that she had not felt since she was a little girl. It was a big photograph, twelve inches by nine or so, but very sharp and clear, all silver grays and soot blacks, and finely detailed. "Exposure" was the word, all right. The woman, very slim, pale, small-breasted, was lying diagonally across a sofa-Deirdre recognized it at once-with one leg thrown wide, the slender foot resting on a cushion on the floor. She was naked except for the fur that was wound around her neck, with the fox's sharp little muzzle seeming to bite into the flesh at the soft incline of her left breast. Her right hand was stretched out to the side, dangling languidly by the splayed right leg; the left hand was in her lap, the thumb and second finger holding wide apart the dark lips there and the index finger stuck inside herself right up to the knuckle. The woman was smiling into the lens, at once brazen and guilty, and her head was turned a fraction to one side, as if she was inviting the person behind the camera, and anyone else who might chance to look at the cameraman's handiwork, to come and join her where she lay.

Deirdre took all this in, the foot on the cushion, the fox's clenched muzzle, that dangling hand, those lips agape, and immediately shut her eyes tight and turned the photo face-down with a snap. She could hear herself breathing. The feeling she had was that feeling, hot all over and at the same time somehow cold, that she would have when she woke as a child in the cot-bed in her parents' bedroom and realized that she was wetting herself, wetting herself and horrified to be doing it and yet unable to stop for the shameful pleasure it gave her. And she was not able to stop now, either, not able not to open her eyes and turn the picture over and look at it again. She was disgusted with herself, yet excited, too, in a horrible way that made her think she should be ashamed, though she was not, not really.

There were other pictures, twenty or thirty of them, which Leslie kept in an old music case that fastened with a metal thing like a horse's bit that came down over the flap. Some were of the same woman, the woman with the fox fur, and some were of others, all of them naked, all shamelessly on display, some of them doing even worse things than the woman was doing with her hand down there, and all smiling that same dirty smile into the camera. At first she had not been able to meet Leslie's eye, and now, when she did look at him at last, she knew her face was burning. He was watching her, and smiling, with one eyebrow wickedly lifted, enjoying her discomfort. It came to her that she would remember this moment for the rest of her life, the chill in the bare room, the winter light on the white walls, the dull and somehow sullen gleam of the washbasins, and Leslie there with his overcoat open, leering at her.

"Where did you get these?" she asked, in a voice that dismayed her, it was so steady. Had she no shame, really?

"Simple," Leslie said, and tapped a fingernail on the one of the woman in the fur stole. "She gave them to me." Then he told her, pacing the floor with his hands in his coat pockets, how he had met her, the woman, one afternoon in a basement pub in Dawson Street where he used to drink-he would not tell her the woman's name, said she might recognize it, since her husband was well known, and would only call her Mrs. T.-and how he had made friends with her in the hope that she might put some cash into the Clip Joint, which was just starting to run into trouble at the time. He had seen straight off, despite the fact that she frequented Wally's place, which had about as bad a reputation as a pub or drinking club or whatever it was could have, that she was well connected. That end of the thing had not worked out, however-Mrs. T. was cautious when it came to money-but she was good company, and a real sport. It was through her that he had come in contact with Dr. Kreutz, and now he and Kreutzer, as he called him, were-he laughed-"Oh, the best of pals."

She thrust the bundle of photographs back into his hands. "They're disgusting."

"Yes, they are, aren't they," he said happily.

"Why did she give them to you-how could she?"

"Well, I suppose she's a bit of an exhibitionist. She thought I'd like them. And, of course, she didn't know I'd show them to you."

"Which you shouldn't have."

"No, I suppose not." He lowered his head and looked up at her from under his eyebrows in the way that made him seem a bit like a smiling, silver-haired devil. "But you're glad I did," he said softly, "aren't you?"

"I certainly am not."

But was she not, really? She did not know. She was confused. Certainly she was shocked to think that Dr. Kreutz would take such pictures-for she was certain, without having to ask, that it was he who had taken them. So these were his clients , so this was spiritual healing . Leslie, of course, could see what she was thinking.

"I warned you about him, didn't I, old Kreutzer? Now you see."

She shook her head. "But why?" she said. "How?"

He looked surprised. "Why did he take them? Because they wanted him to. Some people like to see themselves doing naughty things. Good, aren't they-as photographs, I mean? Look at the technique. He has quite a knack." He chuckled. "Comes from long practice, I imagine."

She knew she should break with Leslie White there and then. Nothing would be the same between them after she had seen those pictures. And yet she could not do it. When the thought of those women, so lewd, so shameless, came into her mind she experienced a thickening in her throat, as if something soft and warm had lodged there, and she felt a panicky sensation that had as much of pleasure in it as anything else. Yes, pleasure, dark and hot and frightening. Billy, her husband, noticed this new excitement in her, although of course he did not know what was causing it, and when he was home he followed her round the house like-she hated to think it but it was true-like a dog sniffing after a bitch that was in heat, and as for the things he tried to get her to do now when they were in bed…

Billy. She knew she must make herself sit down and consider what was to be done about Billy. Sooner or later she would have to tell him about Leslie White, tell him, that is, that she had met this man who wanted her to go into business with him. That was as much as she would need to say, for now; it was also as much as she would dare to say. For the fact was she had accepted Leslie White's proposal-oh, my God, what a word to use!-his business proposal, she meant, to open a beauty parlor with him. It was all arranged. The premises was there already, over the optician's-he had talked to her about ninety-nine-year leases and ground rents and tenants' options until her head was spinning-and the shop fitters would be coming in any day now.

Yes, it was all arranged, all agreed. One rainy January morning Leslie had taken her to a storage shed in Stoney Batter in order to get her opinion, so he said, on a doctor's trolley thing, a sort of high, narrow, flat couch on wheels, which some friend of his was selling and which would be ideal for doing massages on. The friend, a shifty-looking fellow in broad pinstripes who had the worst smoker's cough she had ever heard, went off and left them alone-had Leslie arranged that, too?-and something in the moment affected her, perhaps it was the sense of sudden intimacy that she felt, despite the damp and the gloom of the place, and before she knew it she was on the trolley in Leslie's arms, biting the back of her thumb to stop herself from crying out, and the trolley was moving on its wheels with every rapturous move they made. Afterwards she had pulled his coat over herself-that famous camel-hair coat!-because she was cold and because the champion cougher might come back at any minute. Leslie had got up, since there was not enough room on the narrow rubber mattress for them to lie side by side, and when he had fixed his clothes he lifted the coat by a corner so he could get a look at her. "My my," he said, grinning, "wouldn't the doc be delighted with you." It took her a moment to realize what he meant, and she turned her face aside so as not to let him see her blushing, and smiling, and twitched the coat away from him and wrapped herself up in it. "Snap snap," he said gaily, holding an invisible camera to his eye.