Colin Wilson - Ritual in the Dark

No. What is it?

I suspect it was to prevent women from having their first marital experience with an inexperienced husband. The lord of the manor — who was assumed to be an accomplished lover — would sleep with the wife of his tenant on the first night, and take her maidenhead.

Did they really do that?

He had been speaking with the deliberate intention of relaxing her, and he could feel the success of the attempt.

I'm not sure that the custom doesn't still exist in some countries.

He started to kiss her again, and felt her response immediately. As he started to move his weight, he said softly:

Try to help me this time. Relax.

I do try, really. I just can't help it. That's right, sweet: it's soothing. I'm sorry I'm not very good, Gerard.

Don't be silly.

I am. I suppose you'd much rather be in bed… ooh, sweet, careful… oh, it hurts.

I…

She pressed her clenched teeth against his shoulder, then suddenly wriggled away.

I'm sorry, sweet… I can't. It hurts.

Lie still. Don't worry.

He heard a clock somewhere strike three, as he stared into the darkness. He suspected she had just fallen asleep; her breathing was quiet. He now felt no sexual excitement, and no sense of strangeness in her presence. He lay on his back, and remembered previous occasions like this, and the violence of unresolved feeling, forgotten the next morning, but revealing in its upsurge areas of himself that he had never explored. He remembered the girl on the Embankment whose dress had blown over her head, the fever of lust, and thought: perhaps that's all sex is… a fever. A cheat. If it had been Caroline, I'd have felt the same lust. Yet she lies here, and I take it calmly. Is it a confidence trick? Supposing I succeeded next time I tried. What would be the difference?

She would be my 'mistress', that's all, a symbol of my domination, of success. But would there be any revelations as I made love to her? Would I feel curiously renewed, brushed by a sort of immortality? What about all the D. H. Lawrence stuff? No, he was a fool and a fraud. It can be good, but never that good. Never in its own right. Only as a part of your bigger aims. The orgasm is just raw energy, light and heat. What makes it important are the ideals it illuminates.

She sat up suddenly. He asked:

What is it?

I want to go downstairs… I'll put my overcoat on…

Take my bicycle lamp. It's on the bookcase.

He stretched out in the bed. It was a wide single bed, big enough for two, but it was a luxurious sensation to have it to himself for a moment. The room was not dark. He could see the outline of her clothes on the chair. By reaching out his hand, he could feel the silkiness of the slip between his finger and thumb. It reminded him of a train journey from Liverpool to London; across the gangway sat two schoolgirls, both about fourteen, dressed for the holidays and travelling with large suitcases. One of them was exceptionally slim, and wore a brown tweed skirt; this had slipped about two inches above her knees, showing the elaborately embroidered hem of a nylon petticoat. Her stockings — obviously new for the occasion — were sheer hose. He suspected she was a little proud of the embroidered hem of the slip, for she made only two perfunctory attempts to pull down her skirt in the course of a four-hour journey. At first he had tried to ignore the sight, feeling slightly ashamed of the desire that rose in his throat. He tried staring out of the window, and allowed his imagination to toy with the idea of holding her in his arms. Finally, he had possessed her so completely in imagination that it caused a shock of surprise to look at her — and at the tantalising area of embroidered nylon — and to realise she was still a stranger. Once she met his eyes, and looked away, blushing.

What amazed him was that she still made no attempt to conceal the lacework that hinted at bedrooms and surrender. At Paddington, he seized his bags and rushed along the platform, possessed by a sudden conviction that she would catch the same bus, sit opposite him again for a further half hour, and print her image indestructibly in his brain.

But he never saw her again.

If it had been she who was sleeping with him now, whose clothes lay on the chair beside the bed, no fulfilment could ever reproduce the intensity of travelling opposite her from Liverpool to London. It was somehow a cheat, a desire without an object.

Caroline came back into the room; her body was cool as it encountered his. He began to kiss her hard, delighting in the instantaneous reflex of desire that pressed her body against him. This time he made no sudden moves to alarm her, only caressing her as she lay by his side, kissing the hardening nipples. As her body recovered its warmth, her arms tightened around him; the tension in her muscles suggested that she was trying to force their bodies to interpenetrate by physical pressure. His own desire was lagging behind the excitement that constricted her breathing. He allowed himself to be led by her, moving across her, responding as her hands fumbled to adjust their position. He heard her breathe: 'Now', and knew it was successful, encountering warmth where before there had been only resistance. She moaned suddenly: Oh God, it hurts… He felt the sharpness of her teeth on his lower lips as the resistance of her loins disappeared. She said: Lie still… still… Don't move.

He lay there, obediently, his face buried in the pillow, feeling her relax under him.

He felt no sexual excitement; there had been no pleasure in the act; now he felt only the detached pleasure of an accomplishment. When he stirred, accidentally, she said instantly: Don't move!

Some time later he had began to doze, lying in the same position, when she woke him by movements. He had relaxed completely; now, as he began to feel desire, she said: Oh God, it still hurts.

Never mind, sweet. It worked.

She said, in his ear: Yes. I'm not a virgin any more, am I? It's really worked.

Oh… please stop moving, sweet. Please…

He felt her tense underneath him, concentrate on the pain; this time he ignored her, and kept on moving. When her hips began to move rhythmically, he knew it was all right. Abruptly, he knew it was not a cheat. What was happening now was realler than any of his thoughts about sex, more real than anything except pain: it was an intimation of the reason behind the tireless continuity of life. He felt astonished at his own stupidity for not realising it before. He wanted to make a vow: to accept always, only accept, accept anything, embrace everything with the certainty that all things would yield like this, an engulfing pleasure. Her body was curved up to him, her teeth on his lips, her nails in his back. The light threatened to hurt him, to burn and shatter as it flooded from his loins and stomach and brain.

When their bodies were relaxed, still throbbing, like two cars standing by the roadside after a long race, he asked her: What happened, sweet?

I don't know. It hurt horribly. And I just concentrated — ever so hard — on the pain, just thought of nothing else. Then the pain went, and I was enjoying it.

She insisted that he stay in bed while she made tea. The thought that she might be seen walking around in his dressing-gown alarmed him, but her pleasure was so obvious that he could not bring himself to stop her. He sat up in bed, trying to read, but with only half his attention on the book, listening for the noise of Callet moving around in the next room or Carlotte cleaning the stairs. Caroline was in the bathroom. A few moments later she came out and mounted the stairs; at the same time he heard other footsteps on the lower flight. As she came into the room, he asked:

Who was it?