The God of the Labyrinth

  ‘I sense that you are an extremely shy person who tries to cover it up. In this, you are rather like Klaus. Klaus is my son, of course.’

  ‘Your son?’ I was astonished.

  ‘Not literally. I mean that our relationship is mother and son. I am the creative one, the earth mother, like Erda in Wagner. Our relationship is very close. I am his teacher. If you ask him, he will tell you that he has become a different person since he has known me—more profound, more sensitive. I have this power to communicate my own talents to those I love. And when I say love, I mean, of course, the love of teacher and student, for there is none deeper than this . . .’

  Periodically, I glanced at her, to discover that she had sunk even lower in the chair, so that she was lying in the coital position. But she talked on without a sign of embarrassment, as if she was standing in front of a class of students and discussing a diagram on the blackboard. What she seemed to be asking—in a complicated and discursive way—was whether I would like to join Klaus as one of her students, to absorb the benefit of her knowledge and creative talent. She was explaining to me the difference between the male and female intellect, when there was a gentle knock at the door. She ignored it and went on talking. I expected her to close her legs, or at least sit more upright, but she remained completely unmoved. Klaus looked into the room.

  ‘Are you coming downstairs, schatz?’

  ‘In a moment.’ From where he was standing, his view of her genitalia was less intimate than mine—I could have leaned for­ward and inserted a finger—but still comprehensive. He showed no surprise. ‘The young lady would probably like a drink too, and this room is too small.’ Then the footsteps of ‘the young lady’ sounded on the stairs. I had to admire her timing. For a moment, I thought she meant to lie there and allow Angela to join the spectators; but a few seconds before the steps reached the door, she yawned, closed her legs, and sat up. ‘Come, then.’ She went to the door, and gave Klaus a playful but hard smack on the rear. Then she beckoned to me, and we all trooped down­stairs. When her eyes fell on Angela, she frowned slightly, as if she was having difficulty remembering who she was, and then as if she had remembered and thought ‘How tiresome’.

  We went into a larger room, furnished more formally. I accepted a small sherry; so did Angela. To my surprise, Frau Dunkelman now became very affable towards Angela. Perhaps this was because Angela mentioned she had only met me the day before. She asked her how many of my books she had read; when she discovered the answer was: ‘Hardly any at all’, she wagged her finger at her and told her that she should begin immediately. Now Angela was accepted into the flock as a ‘student’, and lectured about creativity. Klaus sat in a corner, sipping tonic water (‘He is not allowed to drink—it makes him sentimental’), and making no attempt to interpose. When Anna paused to take another drink, I asked him to tell me something about Körner. He said quickly:

  ‘I would not advise you to bother about him. He is a complete charlatan.’

  ‘That is not quite fair,’ said his wife. ‘I agree that he has become a charlatan. But he was not always so.’ She addressed me. ‘Do you know about Reich?’

  ‘Not very much.’

  ‘He was a great psychologist—as great as Freud. He believed that the only way to create a healthy society is to have people without sexual repressions.’

  ‘That sounds like Freud.’

  ‘Certainly. His basic ideas are very similar to Freud. His great contribution was in the treatment of neurosis. He believed that repressions form a kind of shell over the personality, like a tortoise, you know?’ She pulled a forbidding face and made a motion with her hands to indicate armour plating. She pointed to her husband. ‘When I first met him, his face was like a mask—all the muscles were tense. It was necessary to teach him to relax completely—to love his genitals.’

  Angela looked startled. I asked cautiously:

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘To be frank and open about his sexual functions. We used to hold therapy groups in Stockholm. We would sit without any trousers or skirts, having a discussion, drinking coffee, and the men would be encouraged to play with their genitals, just like children. It was wonderful.’

  Klaus said solemnly:

  ‘She used to come and sit beside me, and masturbate me while we discussed our problems. It was a great release—to learn not to be ashamed of genital play. When I was small, my nurse often beat me for touching my penis. Reich taught me that the penis is as much an instrument of social intercourse as the tongue or the hands.’

  Anna, impatient of the interruption, thumped the arm of the chair with her fist, and said:

  ‘If Reich’s theories had been properly understood, the last war would have been impossible. Hitler used sexual repression as a political weapon. The Germans are the most repressed nation in the world. That is why they are so aggressive.’

  I asked: ‘And what about Körner? Where did he come in?’

  ‘The groups in Stockholm were organised by Körner. He invented the notion of group sexual expression, not Reich. Reich was still a little prudish, you know, and at this time he was already brooding on these mad ideas about orgone energy—you know, he thought he had discovered pure life-energy, and that it was blue—he said it is orgone energy that makes the sky blue.’

  Klaus said gloomily:

  ‘At this time, we believed that only Körner preserved the doctrine in its purity. So when he came to London, we came with him.’

  ‘And did you continue with your sexual self-expression groups?’

  ‘Ach, yes, more than before. And that was the trouble. Reich warned us that if we were not careful, they would cease to have therapeutic value, and become sexual orgies. Körner would not listen. He had a great obsessive idea—to disinfect the sexual impulse. That is how he put it. He said that sex must be rid of all shame. After all, most sensitive people are socially shy. If they have to stand up on a stage and address an audience, they get stage fright. But they can get over this, and when they get over it, they express themselves freely, without fear. Körner wanted people to get over their sexual stage fright.’

  This was Klaus. His English was a great deal more fluent than his wife’s. Angela was frowning. She said:

  ‘But wouldn’t too much sexual freedom destroy all the fun?’

  ‘No!’ They both shouted at once; Anna quelled her husband with a glance, and went on determinedly:

  ‘On the contrary, people are too ashamed to learn to enjoy sex. Why do you think there are so many rapes and sex murders? Because there is a thick wall between the sexes. A man gets on a bus, and sees a pretty girl, and he is like a fox with a chicken. He does not rape her because there is no opportunity, and perhaps he is afraid of the law. This is not a natural relation between the sexes. All society is sex-starved. In a healthy society, he might sit beside her on the bus, and persuade her to masturbate him, without anyone paying any attention. Why not? You’—her finger suddenly darted out at Angela, who was leaning forward, her forearms on her knees. ‘Why do you sit in that position? You think it is natural. But it isn’t. You are wearing a mini-skirt because you think it attractive. Why do you not open your knees boldly?’

  Angela, a little taken aback, tried to make a joke of it. ‘I might get raped.’

  ‘No! That is not logical! Why do women wear short skirts? To interest the men. You play a game to see how high you can wear them. Do you not see what this means? You want to dis­play your genitals, but you are afraid. You want to make men stare, but you are afraid of being raped. Is that not proof that there is something wrong?’ Angela involuntarily tugged at the bottom of her mini-skirt. ‘You see! Why do you wear it if you want to keep it down? Why do you not sit like this?’ She leaned back in her chair and opened her knees, so that Angela got the same view that I had had in the ‘den’ upstairs. Angela dropped her eyes. Anna, without closing her legs again, went on: ‘No! We m
ust develop a society without sexual fears and inhibitions. If the young man on the bus wants to know whether you are wearing tights or panties, he should be allowed to look!’

  I interrupted, to divert attention from Angela:

  ‘Why do you say Körner became a charlatan?’

  ‘Because with a theory like that, it is possible to attract all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons. That is what he has done. He says that his aim is to try to teach people to achieve mystical ecstasy through sex. But all he does is to organise petting parties.’

  It was difficult to stop the flow, which went on like this for half an hour more. What she said struck me as good sense, to some extent. It is true that most people are obsessed with sex in a negative way. But when I thought of Diana and Mopsy, and my study lined with books, it struck me that there are more important things than sex. The ideal way to cure a man who is obsessed by sex is not to tell him to masturbate on buses, but to get him to learn to enjoy music and poetry and ideas. When I suggested this to the Dunkelmans, there was an outburst of scorn. ‘That is merely what Freud called sublimation. It is a refusal to face the real problem. You suppress it and pretend to be inter­ested in something else.’

  I began to feel impatient. In any case, it was nearly seven, and Alastair would be wondering where we were. I said we had to go. They tried to persuade us to stay to supper, but we excused ourselves. Anna said she would write me a long letter, and that perhaps I might help her with the writing of her book on sexual freedom for all.

  As we stood up to go, Angela asked:

  ‘By the way, do you know anything about the Sect of the Phoenix?’

  Anna shrugged.

  ‘What is that? Some new fad of the young people?’

  It was obvious that the name meant nothing to her. Angela did not pursue the subject. At the door, Dunkelman asked:

  ‘You are leaving London tonight, yes?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘I hope we shall meet next time you are here.’ He bowed stiffly. I said:

  ‘I must also write to Professor Körner.’

  Anna said: ‘That would be no good. The police have ordered him to leave England. He is back in Germany.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Why?’

  Klaus said: ‘He was nothing more than a professional brothel-keeper.’

  In the taxi, on the way back to Holland Park, Angela said: “You certainly seem to come across some astounding people. It’s really a pity we can’t meet Dr Körner.’

  ‘But it would probably be a dead-end. Admittedly, Dunkel­man told me it was Körner who first mentioned Esmond Donelly, but I presume he’d simply read the book on deflowering virgins.’

  We talked about the Dunkelmans. Angela said:

  ‘I don’t think you’re right that Klaus is just a henpecked husband. I got a very queer feeling as he looked at me.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I got a funny feeling that he was willing me to open my legs. You saw the way I was sitting—even his wife noticed it.’

  ‘I suspect she’s half Lesbian, anyway.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. I got a most unpleasant feeling talking with them. Did you notice?’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘Well—they’re so ugly, they’re really rather repellent when they go on about sex. And yet in another way, it has an odd fascination.’

  I knew what she meant. Until we went to the Dunkelmans, I had looked on Angela simply as a rather pleasant, intelligent girl, but with no more sexual interest than if she had been my sister. Now, sitting beside her, I found myself looking at the curve of her breast under the black sweater, and having to repress a desire to fondle it. Anna Dunkelman had done this somehow, by direct­ing attention to Angela as a sexual object.

  She said suddenly: ‘I’m glad you were there’, and shivered, moving closer to me. It was natural to put my arm round her shoulder. A moment later, her face was upturned to mine, and I was kissing her with a passion that startled me. It was like taking a mouthful of food, and suddenly realising you are ravenously hungry. We clung tightly together, my tongue in her mouth, my hand crushing the breast I had been looking at a moment earlier. There was not simply a desire to caress her, but to hurt her, to squeeze her, to absorb her. She was clinging against me with complete abandonment, and when my hand moved downward, pressing hard against her ribs, then her stomach, her legs opened. My hand slid between them, on top of the skirt, and pressed hard against her crotch; she gasped, and her mouth opened wider. Then my hand found its way under the mini­skirt, and inside her pants. I was in a state of acute discomfort, having got so far; the natural thing would have been to remove the rest of her clothes and penetrate her. Since this was impos­sible, my body had become an iron bar of lust.

  The taxi hooted and swerved to avoid a car rushing the lights; we broke apart guiltily. She said: ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That was my fault. I’ve been wanting you to do it ever since we left the Dunkelmans.’

  We were still clinging together, and my heart was still pound­ing so hard that I could hardly speak. She said:

  ‘I’ve never done that before—not like that. I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but I’m quite a puritan inside.’

  I said, half-jokingly: ‘They’ve hypnotised us.’

  She looked at me seriously. ‘I think that might be it. I’m sure they have some odd power. I’ll tell you something that will shock you. If I’d been there alone, I’d have ended by giving myself to that awful Klaus.’

  I said, laughing: ‘If I’d been alone in that den for another ten minutes, I’d have ended by making love to Anna.’

  ‘But she’s so ghastly!’

  I told her about how she had sat with her legs open. It was true that after another five minutes, I would have obeyed the impulse to lean across and touch her, and then it would have been very easy to take out my erect penis and plunge it home. It would have seemed silly to refrain.

  The taxi stopped outside the house. She said:

  ‘I’d better tidy myself up.’

  I knew what she meant. I also had the illusion that I was as dishevelled as if I had just crawled out of bed. I paid the taxi while she quickly added a touch of lipstick to her mouth and ran a comb through her hair.

  Angela opened the door with her key, and we went into the flat. Everything was still as we had left it that morning. She called: ‘Alastair.’ There was no reply. She shook her head and said: ‘No’, and I knew she was not commenting on Alastair’s absence. I put my hand on her breast. She said: ‘There’s not time.’ But I knew she was not serious. I was still glowing with the curiously violent lust, which was almost feverish. I tugged the bottom of the sweater out of the skirt, and slid my hand underneath. She was wearing a cup-bra, and a slight tug exposed the breast. I took the nipple between my forefinger and thumb and pinched it. She moved into my arms, and her mouth opened again. I reached down for the zip of her skirt and fumbled it undone. It dropped to the floor. I slipped my hands inside the elastic of the panties, and pushed them down as far as her thighs. Then I raised the black sweater; she lifted her arms, and let me pull it over her head. I undid the bra and it dropped to the floor. She stood there wearing a black suspender belt, the black panties around her knees. Her hand fumbled at the waist of my trousers, and I helped her undo it, and pushed them down. We stood there, in the middle of her room, clinging together, both half-naked. Then I stepped out of my trousers and under­pants, and led her to the bedroom. As soon as I slipped into her, she groaned, and seemed to writhe against me. I held her very close, and worked up and down with a steady, machine-like drive, one hand still on her breast. I had seldom known sex to be so vertiginous. I think that if a battery of photographers had appeared in the doorway with flashlight cameras, we would have kept on making love, totally unable to pull our bodies apart. The feve
rish sensation was still there, making the room unreal. We seemed to be all moisture. Our bodies perspired; the moisture from us ran down between her buttocks and on to the bed; our tongues ran in and out of each other’s mouths, so that our faces were wet; her breasts made a squelching noise against my chest. It occurred to me that Alastair might come in at any moment, but there was a certain pleasure in the thought of someone watching us. Then the pleasure was too exquisite to hold back; her body seemed to be begging me to pour the seed into her. We clung together, gasping, as the climax burst over us like a wave, and I felt the hot moisture gushing along my member and into her. It seemed to go on for minutes. Then we relaxed, and I lay there, still inside her. A few minutes later, we lay side by side, and the sweat felt cool. I opened my eyes and looked at her; and realised with a shock that this was Angela, the demure Scots girl who had struck me as ‘nice’ but not my type. She opened her eyes, and looked startled to see me. Suddenly, we both remem­bered that half our clothes were lying in the other room, and that the door was open. I got up and went in to collect them. When I came back, she was standing up, pulling on her panties. I went over to her and kissed her. She gave me her mouth primly, as if it was a formal goodnight kiss. Then, as if repenting, she put her arms round my neck. She said: