Martha

Martha1

Martha.2

The first time I saw her I knew what he sought in me. Martha, with her perfectly shaped false nails. Martha with her perfectly tailored formalwear. Martha, with her hair set perfectly in place by enough hairspray to destroy two ozone layers. Martha, with her perfect porcelain skin and her red lipstick; not so red that it made her look like a whore, just red enough to offset that geisha white epidermis against the honeysuckle blonde hair in the same style she’d sported every day of her life. Martha. Perfect Martha.3

He didn’t care for perfect.4

I’m sure he did, once upon a time, when he was young and he saw Martha and how perfect she was and pictured her on his arm and how his friends would react and how everyone would envy him when he stepped out with her, with Martha the perfectly manicured fingernails and the honeysuckle blonde hair. Martha. With the geisha-white skin and the just-red-enough lips. 5

But these days, it was a struggle for both of them. It was a struggle for him to look at Martha and see anything there that made his loins quiver, a struggle to find any satisfaction in a woman so preoccupied with creating a pretence that she’d forgotten what passion was. If he thought about it enough, it was struggle for him to even understand why they were still together aside from the fact that they’d settled into a monotonous middle class routine. And Martha’s struggle was to maintain her perfection. It was more of a façade of perfection now. I saw it the first time I saw Martha. All you have to do is look close enough, but most people don’t. They just glance at Martha, bask in her warm anecdotes about the children or Sarah the receptionist at her firm who’s a bit raw-mouthed but means well and they walk away from Martha, smiling, thinking how perfect she is. But if you scrutinise Martha, you’ll see the liver spots on her hands, the tell-tale signs of fading beauty. You’ll smell the whiskey on her breath that tells you she drinks just a little bit too much to maintain that demure smile and you’ll see that Martha isn’t a glistening, newly built, intricately beautiful spider’s web; she’s an old one that’s been hanging undisturbed in the attic, covered in dust, rebuilt time and again after the slightest disturbance and littered with the remnants of dead flies. But no one really looks that closely at Martha. She remains perfect. Perfect Martha with her perfect everything. 6

I knew that over the years he’d grown contemptuous towards her. Those attempts to maintain that façade of perfection… they frustrated him. They just underlined the mistake he’d made choosing her, back when he pictured her on his arm and how his friend’s would react and how envious everyone would be when he stepped out with Martha on his arm. He didn’t think of the long-term. He didn’t imagine that her looks would fade, that time would scratch away at her insecurities until they were bloody, raw and exposed and that her attempts to cover up those oozing wounds would irritate him so much. Martha had to remain perfect. And nothing annoyed him more. Somewhere along the line, Martha’s obsession became a vampire that sucked all the fun out of her. Martha did charity work. Martha gasped in disgust at the jokes he cracked at the expense of the orphans or the handicapped or the handicapped orphans or whatever the cause célèbre of Martha’s latest fund-raising endeavour was. When Martha laughed, it was a perfectly honed laugh designed to assure her fellow ladies-that-lunch, or her husband’s business associates, that their inoffensive attempts at humour were appreciated. Martha didn’t laugh any more. She pretended to laugh. Martha didn’t have fun any more. She pretended to have fun. She “laughed” and “had fun” when it served to maintain her façade. It extended to the bedroom. Sex was once, perhaps, twice a week in the missionary position. It was functional sex, and she saw no need for it to be anything else. She was the dutiful wife allowing her husband to indulge his masculine urges. Unfortunately for Martha, her hair, her geisha-skin, her just-red-enough lips, her fund-raising and every other damn aspect of her façade of perfection, his masculine urges desired a lot more than functional sex in the missionary position once or twice a week. And that’s where I came in. 7

It was a boring job, but I was used to that. Day in, day out, the same thing over and over. File this, fax that, staple those, scan these, change the toner, can you work your lunch hour please8

There was never much flirting. To begin with, it was just a mutual sharing of venom. I think it was my sense of humour that made him notice me. I was acerbic, cutting and pass-remarkable. I think it appealed to his bitterness. The bitterness that came from almost 20 years of functional sex in the missionary position once or twice a week. The bitterness that came from hearing her laugh that fake laugh at fund-raisers she didn’t really care about and watching her cement her hair into place with enough hairspray to destroy two ozone layers every single morning. There was a word he used to describe me once. Feral, I think it was. With my unkempt hair, the occasional whiff of pheromone laced body odour when I didn’t have deodourant and the office was too warm, the knowing glint in my eyes I’d get when I was about the drop the punchline of an offensive joke… I was a panacea to Martha and her insufferable perfection. With me, he could escape Martha’s perfect world and be as politically incorrect as he wanted. He could be real. I became his reality. Martha was his make believe. Martha had always been make believe. His friends shared that world, they couldn’t see through the façade. They had been co-conspirators in the illusion for years. I was different. I was his escape route, his road to the real him. 9

Eventually, the escape became a physical one, too. It was inevitable. For the first time since marrying Martha he’d experienced something real. The mask had slipped and he was infatuated with what lay behind. I had to work late on Thursdays. He had to drop by and close up at 10pm when I finished. Over time, he mentioned how if I wanted, I could finish at 9pm some evening and we could maybe get a drink. “If I wanted”. I played hard to get, because it amused me to do so and because I knew a part of him was loving it too. Uncertainty. Unpredictability. The sort of exciting chaos Martha had long since exorcised from his life. I called him one night. One of those Thursdays. I called him at 8.30pm and told him I was having trouble with the new computer system. He was at the office by 8.45pm. He leant across me, making sure to brush up against me as he did so. He demonstrated what I knew full well how to do and I thanked him. He stood next to me, to watch me repeat his actions, his crotch just inches from my face and asked if there was anything else. I hate clichés, but the air was electric. I suppose it was then, on the spur of the moment and at the bidding of my libido that I finally gave in to him. It was in talking about that night some time that he described me as feral. That’s what it was. Wild, passionate and animalistic. Almost two decades of sexual frustration was released in a torrent of biting, scratching and fucking. We didn’t even manage to undress fully; just tore off the necessary clothing and started at it.10

It went on for almost a year. I was his dirty little secret. His secret escape route from monotonous Martha and the fake world he had to live in. He began to confide in me. He told me everything, every intimate detail of their lives and every little thing he hated. Just to illicit a biting remark from me about Martha. He’d mention a dinner party she was throwing, I’d say something terrible, he’d make a half-laugh/half-snorting guttural, growling sound and we’d kiss madly, biting lips and his nails tearing into my back. I was his escape from a fake world. I was his reality. That made me feel fantastic. I was the only real thing in his universe. I was the most important thing, the most meaningful. After we’d fuck, I’d sometimes sit over the wet-spot and sort of meditiate, reflecting on what was going on between us and how important I was. Sometimes, I’d sniff it, taking the proof of the reality I’d given him up into my nose. I gave up all my power to him, in a way. He came to dominate me. Not sexually. There, we were equals, untamed animals. But he dominated my every moment with his presence. Being his world was the most important thing in my life. Sniffing the wet-spot was my proof that the world existed, that it was real. Seeing the look on his face as he came, as tens of millions of his potential progeny exploded inside of me, became my moment of transcendence. The moment where God answered my prayer and soon afterwards gave me proof that world I lived in was real.11

And then Martha took it all away.12

He said it was the guilt. He couldn’t handle the guilt. I judged him badly at first, but then I came to realise it wasn’t his fault. Living a lie for almost 20 years. He said we were never serious. How could we be serious when the pretence Martha created had become so real to him? He said he was sorry. I let him go. I sat there, on the bed, on the dried in wet spot, and I said to no one, to the room, to Martha that I was the one who was sorry. I was sorry he couldn’t tell what was real from what was not. I was sorry for his children, brought into the world on the back of a diluted pretence of love and passion. I sat there, in the temple, in the temple we’d created where I had worshipped the reality we’d made and let out my prayer as millions of his potential progeny exploded inside of me. I sat there and I realised the time for praying had passed and that my God needed me. He needed me to save him before the fires of his creation went cold. From the Nemesis, from the antithesis of everything that was real. I hated Martha then more than ever, but I didn’t do it out of hate. I didn’t do it because of the way she’d sapped his passion and his soul for nearly 20 years and the way I hated her for that or for making him so weak he wouldn’t fight the lies to be with me. I did it to save him. I did it to save him from those lies before they destroyed him. I did it to save me, to save us, to save our perfect reality.13

So I picked up the telephone and dialed his home number.14

And I knew it was her. I remembered that voice from the company Christmas party where we’d exchanged pleasantries and I watched her from afar with her false nails, her perfectly tailored formalwear, her honeysuckle blonde hair set like concrete, her porcelain skin, her red lipstick, her false laugh and her faux worldly concern. I remembered that voice, measured and restrained, melodic but missing something, like a bad singer mangling a beautiful chorus. Or the shell of a woman battered by keeping up appearances for 20 years. And I realised I wasn’t just going to save him then. I was going to save Martha too. It became another moment of transcendence for me, wherein I knew I was doing the right. I was saving lives, not destroying them. I was going to set Martha free. It was the ultimate act of love; redeeming my other, my opposite, my nemesis through my own actions. I smiled as the realisation crept over me. I was going to save him. I was going to save Martha. I was going to save the world.15

“Martha” I began, “This is Jason. We met at the company’s party last Christmas? I’d like to talk to you about your husband.”16