Tommy Wieringa - Little Caesar

‘Oh, Henry, please. It didn’t mean a thing.’

‘You’re a slut. And you know what we do with sluts.’

‘Oh?’ the woman said ironically.

He dropped the loincloth, the camera zoomed in on his organ, a big one with thick veins. I looked around in desperation. Selwyn was leaning against the wall, the remote in his hand.

‘ What is this? ’ I exclaimed.

‘What do you think?’ he said tersely.

She had her slender fingers around the penis and pulled back the foreskin. Her gaze was ironic as ever. He straddled, oh horror, the divan and pressed his cock to her mouth. It disappeared into it almost completely. Slowly, he fucked her like that. She sniffed and gagged. Spittle was forced from the corner of her mouth. I vomited on the carpet. I clenched my teeth but it shot out my nose and from behind my molars; I held my hand in front of my mouth and ran for the toilet. For a moment the immediacy of vomiting displaced the flashes in my head, the knowledge that it was my mother, my young mother , being fucked in the mouth. Something came to a close there, at that moment. Nothing would ever be the same. Because it was her. No doubt about it. Not just the face. The hands. My mother’s hands.

I hung over the pot, everything swirled, the world a washer drum. Sweat dripped from my forehead. I remained kneeling there, because I didn’t know what else to do. There was nowhere for me to go. I knew of no better place than the toilet floor. The veils had been ripped away, I had seen what had been concealed from my eyes. It wasn’t a lie, it was worse than that. I had been blind and deaf, this had been hidden from me behind continually shifting backdrops — new pieces of decor had been slid between me and the truth, again and again. Who knew about this? Had they all been whispering about it behind my back for years?

Selwyn was down on his knees; a tub of steaming water beside him, he was scrubbing the contents of my stomach out of the carpet.

‘So it is her,’ he said to the carpet.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ I said.

‘You didn’t know about it?’

‘No.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘No.’

The screen behind him was dark. I turned on the TV again. Selwyn stood up.

‘What are you doing?’

There she was again, the mother-from-the-girlish-photos, naked now, with a camera’s eye between her legs, zooming in on little curls of pubic hair and a pouting cunt in between, nothing I hadn’t already seen in hundreds of other pictures — except this was my mother into whom the man was wedging his way.

‘Christ, Ludwig, turn that off!’

But I wanted to see what there was to be seen. This was the time and the place for it, another opportunity would not soon present itself. My head in my hands, I watched the stranger mating with my mother, but without the sound on, sound was too much to bear. Selwyn was standing beside the door, nervous, perhaps listening for the sound of his parents coming home. Minuscule drops of sweat on her upper lip, the irony had now made way for an expression of all-consuming pleasure. She had her hands clasped behind his little buttocks and was drawing him in deeper. I ran the tape forward. The events followed each other at a lightning pace. It was about the rivalry between two men, and it involved four women: a lady meant to represent the upper classes; an Asian beauty with little breasts; a blonde, nondescript girl; and then my mother, the star of the film, who emanated a certain unassailability. At the end she was taken by both men at the same time, who seemed in this way to have laid aside their conflict. It was raw, no-holds-barred porno, in garish, heavy color. It was hideous, every erotic tingle was snuffed out by shame and confusion. My heart pounded wildly in my chest. I fast-forwarded to the credits, then hit play. The names rolled down the screen, hers first.

LILITH — EVE LESAGE

I stood up too quickly, a flash of dizziness almost knocked me to the ground. I waited until the snowy interference went away, then walked out of the room without a word to Selwyn. I went outside like a narcotized man — the son of. The earth might open up and swallow me, I would be grateful. Eve LeSage. Marthe Unger. Porn star. My history was in need of rewriting. All my life I had been walking down the street with a bell around my neck. I bore the brand of shame. The rumors would seep through the walls like moisture, they would whisper behind my back, the suffering would have a name.

A watery sun shone through the grey vapors, the weather was clearing up quickly now. Silver stripes pulsed on the sea’s surface. In the distance, further than I had been able to see for days, a lonely white wave rose up; for a long time I had been hoping to see a whale, I longed for those great souls of the sea who spoke their mysterious sonar language under water.

At home I went up to my room and sat down at the desk. I couldn’t imagine a life beyond that moment. Every once in a while I was caught by an unexpected fit of retching, eruptions of slime and gall. I kept the wastebasket close at hand. I could have taken my diary and scratched out my feelings in letters of blood; instead I closed the curtains, lay down on the bed and fell asleep.

The next morning the sun had returned, the weather was blustery. Before my window, gulls fought their way into the wind. They hung above the edge of the cliff, great black-backed gulls, and continued to flap their wings stoically, even when being blown backwards.

I hurried out the door and stayed away all day. For some time, I don’t believe my mother even noticed that I was avoiding her. I slept a great deal. I slept my way through the shock. I looked up Eve LeSage on the Internet. There was plenty to be found. She had acted out her roles alongside Linda Lovelace and Sylvia Kristel, for a time she had been a cult figure. Lilith was viewed as artistic in its day. She had played in six films. Lilith was the very first, and it made her a star. I found photographs and interviews; websites where her memory was kept alive — she had suddenly left the sex industry behind, various rumors circulated on the web about the reason why.

One evening I was sitting with her at the table. We were eating jacket potatoes with crème fraiche, beans and chili sauce; I sculpted a landscape of snow and blood in my gouged potato. I could hear her chewing. Swallowing each bite. Her cutlery scraped across my nerves. This time, when she looked up, I didn’t lower my eyes.

‘Is it possible that something’s bothering you?’ she asked.

I shrugged.

‘Ludwig?’

‘Yes?’

‘Is something wrong?’

‘Something wrong. Does the name Eve LeSage mean anything to you?’

She raised the fork to her mouth and chewed slowly, cautiously. She nodded almost indiscernibly.

‘It had to happen sometime,’ she said.

Silence followed.

‘I didn’t know whether I should let you find out yourself,’ she said, ‘or whether I should tell you about it.’

So you just did nothing.

‘I was grateful for every day you didn’t know.’

I slid my potato to one side.

‘It’s so. . filthy . . I’ve never seen anything so filthy in my life.’

‘I’m really sorry,’ she said ‘. . for you. You’re the one I feel sorry for. For you, I wish it hadn’t. . that it could have gone differently. That I could have spared you this.’

‘Too late.’

‘Too late, that’s right. I tried to keep it from you. I’ve always dreaded this moment. Later, someday, I’ll tell you how. . how it went. If you want to know. There’s more to it than you see right now. Than you can see. My life, back then, it made sense. I don’t know how to say it. .’