Howard Jacobson - Who's Sorry Now?

Has he come looking for Nyman? Maybe he has, maybe he hasn’t. Up to the top of Dean, then right into Soho Square, then left into Tottenham Court Road, then right, following the scholars’ route, in the direction of the British Museum. More Hazel’s mother’s beat than Nyman’s. But where Kreitman’s going Hazel’s mother has never been. On a Liberty-print sofa in a rose-pink Bloomsbury/Weimar boudoir, the lights shaded with doilies weighted at the corners with copper coins, like an Ethiopian’s headdress, cut-glass decanters on the sideboard, porno in a green Italian leather Harrods magazine rack, Kreitman outlines his desires. He doesn’t have any. He wishes to be de-desired, that’s why he’s here.

He shakes his head to questions which he is assured are for everyone’s protection. No to slave, no to submissive, no to cross-dresser, no to housework. There is a man on his knees, in woman’s bloomers, circa 193 5, polishing the legs of a Biedermeier rolled-top desk which could have belonged to Kreitman’s father. The man is polishing it with his tongue, what else. Kreitman does not look at him. ‘Just nothing absurd,’ is Kreitman’s only stipulation. He has done absurd.

Broken skin? Yes to broken skin.

He does not want to choose the person who will break him. He’s done choosing. ‘Whoever,’ he says. ‘But no frilly French-farce maid, and no cat-woman in rubber boots.’ No role-playing, that’s his other only stipulation.

Picky for someone who has come to be de-desired? Picky only in order to be unpicked.

He is led into a dungeon, which disappoints him. A dungeon is role-play. Dungeons don’t figure in the real life of men like him. But what would he prefer? That they beat him in a stockroom? That they tie him to a lectern?

Undress!

So he undresses.

A hand inspects his genitals. He doesn’t know what for. He isn’t here for sex. He’s done sex. But he submits to the inspection, looking away. He would rather not see who’s handling him.

Cuffs of leather and steel go around his wrists and ankles. The old smell of leather. He sniffs.

Too tight?

He shakes his head.

There are toggle bolts or cleats or whatever — he doesn’t have the language — fastened to the cuffs. With these he is attached to metal rings driven into a contraption that reminds him half of a crucifix, half of an easel for a chalkboard. Paraphernalia — why does there always have to be paraphernalia? Why can’t the physical world ever match the purity of the mental? A black hole is what his mind demands.

He is facing a wall which is meant to look like dripping prison stone, but is probably wallpaper. He closes his eyes.

Spread your legs!

He spreads his legs so that the toggle bolts or cleats can be tightened. He is now an X shape, like Leonardo’s Renaissance man.

A hand takes hold of his genitals and squeezes them. Crunch. His eyes water. But this is more like. He is a bullock, not a man. A Renaissance bullock. Mere meat.

It would be good if they were to turn him on a spit and roast him. Good for everybody, but especially good for him. It is turning out to be a hard thing to kill, desire.

He is offered a choice of whips. A cane, a hunting crop and something with thongs. He waves away the choice. He doesn’t know which whip does what. They have never fallen within his sphere of interest, whips, not even the leather ones.

It starts with the thongs. Tickles rather than beatings. Short, insulting flicks and jibes. Derisive. Clever of her, the woman seeing to him, to know that derision will do the trick. She is a serious, faintly despairing woman. No to the frilly French-farce maid, and no to the mistress in rubber boots, so they have given him a philosopher in a straight skirt. Perhaps she is the cleaner. He would like it if she were the cleaner. When she’s finished deriding him, she might flush him away.

Another crunch of his genitals. Her property, that’s what her crunching fingers say. Hers to do with, or dispose of, as she wishes.

And now the hunting crop. He hears her flexing it. He arches his back towards her, inviting oblivion.

‘When I say,’ she reprimands him, laughing — ‘not before.’ Eager to be beaten, this one.

His knees go weak. When I say . Please God make her the cleaner.

‘All right,’ she tells him, smoothing his flanks like a horse’s, calming him, preparing him. ‘We’ll start with twenty strokes. See how you survive those. That’s one! That’s two! Now you count …’

And Kreitman — alive in every fibre — counted.

An award-winning writer and broadcaster, Howard Jacobson was born in Manchester, brought up in Prestwich and educated at Stand Grammar School in Whitefield, and Downing College, Cambridge, where he studied under F. R. Leavis. He lectured for three years at the University of Sydney before returning to teach at Selwyn College, Cambridge. His novels include The Mighty Walzer (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize), Kalooki Nights (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), the highly acclaimed The Act of Love and, the Man Booker Prize-winning The Finkler Question . Howard Jacobson lives in London.