Adam Thirlwell - Politics

Some people may think, and I can understand this, that performing fellatio before intercourse had even taken place was against the rules of ordinary sexual etiquette. This blow job is a slight surprise, I admit that. It is almost a surprise to me. But sexual etiquette is variable. It has to adapt to the situation — which, in this case, was characterised by worry. And in sexual situations characterised by worry, people often resort to much more extreme practices than a gentle blow job. A preliminary act of fellatio was actually quite tame. And Nana was not intending to give Moshe a complete blow job. She was not in it till the orgasm. The blow job was just a taster.

Nana was trying to speed things up. In this nervous situation, both of them wanted to have sex. Actually, secretly, they wanted to have had sex. That was how nervous they were. Up above her, Moshe was nervous. Down below, Nana was nervous she was making him nervous.

She dragged her mouth up and off Moshe’s penis. Then Nana crouched over Moshe, on her hands and knees, and ran the edge of her tongue across his fatly flat nipples, pink over pink. And she was being very brave, I think. It is difficult — silently improvising. And Moshe said to her, ‘Tell mto fuck you.’ Leery-eyed Nana just smiled. He said, ‘Tell me.’ As everyone knows, sex is a game of domination.

Nana was looking at Moshe. She was wondering if Moshe was going too fast. But because she wanted her podgy sweetheart to be happy as well, she said, ‘Fuck me.’ She drawled it out. She said, ‘Fuh me. Fu meee.’

And then, and then, Moshe was naughty. He slowed it down himself. Like a pro, he just insinuated a finger, touching her cunt where she was.

It made her happily close her eyes.

Nana happily closed her eyes. She told herself not to think about anything other than this. But thinking like that made her think of anything. She thought about the minibar. So she opened her eyes instead. She opened her eyes and looked at Moshe’s lips. She looked at his parting lips, posed for the occasion, and it made her remember she needed a new lipstick, which made her remember her diminishing eyeshadow, which needed to be that shade of ochre because without it her eyebrows really looked unreal and she wasn’t sure she had seen it recently, no not even in Pure Beauty.

Then Moshe turned, he turned her over, on to her back. He pushed himself in her. He stopped. Nana moaned the right noises, she moaned them with her lips shut, stifled. He pushed himself further in. She moaned some more.

It was sex! It was a sex scene!

Eventually, it finished. In fact, it finished quite soon. Like many men, Moshe was overexcited. This was particularly unfortunate because, not wanting to tempt fate, Moshe had not taken the precaution of a pre-sex wank.

Nana did not come. And this was not, I have to admit, a surprise. It was certainly not a surprise to Nana.

But this small inequality caused a number of feverish thoughts. It especially caused a lot of feverish thoughts for Moshe. As Nana held him contentedly tight, relieved, Moshe wondered what she was feeling. It might have been too much to expect a personal compliment, he understood that, but saying nothing at all to Moshe was a little unsettling. All she was doing, thought Moshe, disgruntled, was holding him.

Oh Moshe. Moshe, Moshe, Moshe. Can there not be untalkative moments? Can there not be a mutual silence? Will you always be this afraid?

Unfortunately, I have to tell you, he will always be this afraid.

He could feel his penis shrinking out. So, to minimise this moment, Moshe moved by her side, rolling on to her outstretched left arm, which Nana extricated from under him.

As for Nana, at this point her feelings were a mixture of happy and uncomfortable. She was happy because of the sex. She was uncomfortable because there was semen being ticklish and sticky around her inner thighs. She considered going to the loo to wipe herself and then she decided that no, she had to stay. Wiping might look unentranced. And in a way, she thought, she quite liked the sticky feeling, she liked its persona. It made her feel jaded, used, debauched.

She liked debauched.

So she rubbed her wet thighs together and said, ‘Do you think we’ll both get jaded soon? Do you think we’ll become people who can only have sex in car crashes, like that book by J.G. Ballard, what’s it called, Crash?’

Moshe charmed and calmed her. He waited, pondering. Then he looked at her. He reassured her.

‘I can’t drive,’ he said.

10

I know that this was witty, and when a boy is witty he appears carefree, he appears masterful. But the truth was something else. Moshe was not insouciant. Moshe was not carefree. He was thinking harsh and angry thoughts.

It is difficult being a boy during sex. There is a performative side to the act which is undeniably objective. Sadly, duration is objective. It is seventeen seconds or fifty-five minutes. It cannot be both at once. And it was because Moshe was thinking about the cruelly objective nature of duration that he was thinking harsh and angry thoughts.

It was Moshe’s nagging hope that Nana had been somehow so embroiled in sex that her sense of time had evaporated. Unless her sense of time had drifted away, he thought, she would be thinking witty thoughts. That would be only natural. And Moshe did not want her to be thinking witty thoughts.

Of course, Nana was not thinking witty thoughts. Nana was just content that intravaginal penetration had reached an ordinary ending. Nana was perfectly pleased.

It was Moshe who was not pleased. In a Covent Garden hotel, Moshe was seeing the point of homosexuality. He was thinking that one plus of being gay was that you would know precisely what was a gentlemanly average. You would not be haunted by uncertainty. The trouble with heterosexuality, thought Moshe, was the secrecy of couples. There was no transparency. A boy’s guide to boys was girls. And girls were not good enough. They were so moral they could not be trusted. They were always generous. Maybe not, he admitted, when talking to other people. But with Moshe, in bed, watching the poetic rain, they were always so kind and soothing. They told him that sex was wonderful. They praised Moshe’s tenderness and length.

No, Moshe wanted boys. He wanted a frank discussion with other boys. This made him sad. It made him sad because he was not really sure if this could ever happen.

This might seem tangential, I suppose, but Moshe’s ideal conversation did happen. It happened a long time ago, but it happened.

On 3 March 1928, Antonin Artaud, Andre Breton, Marcel Duhamel, Benjamin Peret, Jacques Prevert, Raymond Queneau, Yves Tanguy and Pierre Unik — they all sat down and chatted about sex. Not many of these people are famous individually, I know that. But they have an importance. They are not negligible. They were key members of the Surrealist group. They thought that talking honestly about sex was a necessary beginning to the creation of a just and perfect society. They thought it was the first political step.

If only Moshe had been there, I think it would have calmed him. I think it would have calmed a lot of boys.

11

Raymond QueneauYou have not made love for some time. How long before you ejaculate from the moment you are alone with the woman?

Jacques PrevertMaybe five minutes, maybe an hour. Marcel DuhamelI’m the same.

Benjamin PeretThere are two parts. Before the sexual act itself, a period which can be quite long, perhaps half an hour according to my desire at the time. The second part, the sexual act: around five minutes. Andre BretonThe first part, a lot longer than half an hour. Almost indefinite. Two: twenty seconds maximum. Marcel DuhamelTo be more precise, during the second part, a minimum of five minutes.