THE OEDIPUL SON Chapter Three: never interrupt your man while he’s doing it

At night Dorothea lay awake, listening to her husband’s gentle snoring. She prayed that he wouldn’t roll over to her side of the bed and demand his conjugal rights, like he sometimes did in the middle of the night when she was trying to sleep.

It was always the same. He would press himself against her, making his erection and his intentions blatantly clear. And then wordlessly, without ceremony or consideration, he’d take her. It was always the same. No foreplay, no gentle, loving affection afterwards; strictly missionary position and that was that.

She remembers her disappointment on her wedding night. She was a virgin and had kept herself that way, for Daniel. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she knew that as a sailor during the war he’d undoubtedly had sexual experiences, but he swore that he’d never had sex with a woman and she tried to believe him because he was a man of God. Everyone in the congregation knew that he was a prophet. He spoke in tongues and interpreted the unknown tongues of others. He preached, when he was offered the pulpit, with a fierce intensity that left no doubt about his devotion to the Lord or that he had been ‘called’ by God.

Although Daniel was almost a decade older than most of the young women of the congregation they were all secretly in love with him, but he’d chosen her. And he was so handsome in a rugged, slightly rough and unpolished sort of way, with just the right amount of mystery and intrigue about his past. He was brought up in a Home, although his parents were still alive. He’d told her that much but didn’t explain why. Not until much later.

She really loved him. He was so solid, so reliable and right up until they said their ‘I do’s’, so affectionate. He would hold her hand when they were out walking together on a Sunday afternoon and kiss her chastely on the check when they parted. And her parents loved him too. Her mother told her, “Don’t let this one get away Dorothea, you’re so choosey. He’s perfect for you and he has a steady job and he’s a Christian.” Anne had been married the year before and now it was her turn.

Their wedding was a fairy tale but their honeymoon brought her crashing back to reality. He’d booked them into a cheap hotel in Muizenburg. She’d been there before and she’d loved it; the mountain, the sea (although it was too cold to swim in July) and the picture perfect, brightly painted cabins on the edge of the ocean.

They travelled to Cape Town by train, he had access to travel concessions because of his job on the Railways and it was cheap.

And so it was that their first night together was in a cramped coupe. The window was open and as she lay on her back beneath his heaving body she could smell the soot from the coal engine and hear the wheels screeching against the rails as they hurtled through the night.

He insisted on the light being off and they weren’t even completely undressed. He wore pyjamas, his top buttoned up completely, only the slit in his shorts exposing his member that she felt moving painfully inside her but never saw. He’d pulled off her panties but she was still wearing her nightie that was beginning to bunch up under the small of her back and add to her discomfort.

The spit he’d used for lubrication wasn’t adequate and when he entered her without a caress or a kiss, the pain was almost unbearable. But she dared not cry out or complain. Her mother had told her that interrupting her man while he was ‘doing it’ would diminish his pleasure. And she wanted to pleasure him, didn’t she? So she lay there quietly as he chaffed in and out of her.

When he came he gave a groan that sounded more like pain than pleasure, rolled off her, climbed onto the top bunk and went to sleep. And that was how she’d finally lost her virginity to the man that she’d thought she loved.

When Dorothea returned from her honeymoon she told her mother that she’d made a terrible mistake and that she wanted to leave Daniel and move back home. The old woman scowled at her. “You’ll do no such thing. You’ll stay with your husband and honour the vows that you made to love and obey him till death. This is the bed that you’ve made for yourself and you’re going to damn well lie in it. These are the promises that you made before God and I will not have you disgracing the family name with talk of a separation or, heaven forbid, a divorce. We don’t break our promises in this family, we don’t leave our husbands. Daniel’s a good man, a man of faith and he chose you from all the others. Don’t disappoint him, or me.”

And so she’d returned to Daniel and they’d settled into their suburban house and she began to accept that this was all that life and God would offer her; being a dutiful and obedient helpmate. Not interrupting him when he was ‘doing it’. Not asking for more. Not demanding that he consider her needs and desires.

Daniel opened the tumble down church, preaching to his racially mixed, heathen congregation about the redemptive power of the cross, praying for healing from their sicknesses and casting out the many demons that plagued them. Dorothea would watch as he laid his hands on the head of a congregant and pray to God to release them from the power of Satan. They would growl and scream like animals, writhe and twist beneath his hands, froth at the mouth and finally collapse; giving up their struggle against the mighty power of God and whimpering from their sudden release from Lucifer’s enslavement. She watched all this and blasphemously and longingly wished that Daniel could bring this same power and charisma into their bed.

When she fell pregnant Dorothea felt sure that Daniel’s terrible jealousy of her would subside with the birth of their child. And at first it did. He was proud of little Carlton and the part he’d played in creating him. He used to bathe him and play with him but suddenly that all stopped and his pride turned to irritation. He couldn’t stand the messiness of child-rearing; the bottles of formula that had to be prepared; the changing of the dirty nappies; the disruption of the routine that he was so used to. Everything had to be just so for Daniel. Everything with its place and in its place; his life neatly compartmentalised.

If Carlton cried while Daniel was preparing his sermons or praying it annoyed him. “Dorothea, please keep the child quiet, I can’t concentrate.” If the daily schedule was disturbed because of some mishap or emergency with the baby, it ruined his day. And then there was the time and attention and affection that Dorothea lavished on her son, diminishing the energy that she could devote to him and taking care of his needs. He would never have admitted it but he was jealous of the boy.

Dorothea, however, was delighted at having this tiny little being completely dependent on her, needing her simply to survive each day. Her initial disappointment that Carlton wasn’t the daughter that she wanted evaporated when she first held him in her arms at the hospital; he was so beautiful. She knew that every mother thought that of their baby, even if they were as ugly as sin, but Carlton was truly beautiful. And when his curly, golden hair grew and the blue of his eyes deepened he became even more so. He charmed everyone that he came in contact with when he gave his delighted smile and her heart would swell with pride when others confirmed what she already knew; that her child was the most angelic child that they’d ever seen.

When Carlton was four Daniel began to complain about her constant fawning and fussing over him, “You don’t want the child to grow up to be a sissy do you?” She continued to dote on him but for some unfathomable reason the things that she did for him begin to become a chore rather than a pleasure.

Daniel’s daily, constant nagging about Carlton was like Chinese water torture for Dorothea. She anticipated each word, waiting for it to hit her ear; the waiting was worse than the words themselves. “You’re too affectionate with the boy Dorothea, it’s not natural.” Drip! “Why do you let the boy play with dolls Dorothea; he’s going to become a mommy’s boy, is that what you want? Where are the cars and guns that I bought him?” Drip! “Why is my dinner late Dorothea, why is there dust on the dining room table, why isn’t my church shirt ironed, why, why, why?” Drip! Drip! Drip!

The sound of his voice grated on her nerves, every word splashing onto that little garden of tenderness that she was cultivating in her heart. She lay awake at night anticipating the next onslaught. She waited for him in the evening, wondering how long it would take before the drip, drip, dripping of his corrosive words would come.

In front of Daniel she began to withdraw from Carlton and on the day that Carlton dropped her precious perfume into the bath, all Daniel’s words had gathered and gushed into her heart in a roaring flood, and the seeds of affection and love that she’d begun tending were drowned. All at once, in the great deluge of Daniel’s accumulated words, her ability to love was washed away. Everything Carlton did annoyed her. Instead of her angelic darling he became a snivelling, whining brat. She began to make him do the things that she used to do for him – for himself. She found fault with everything he said, everything he did; his bedwetting; his crying at night; his manipulative smiles. His cupboard love and charms no longer worked on her.

She knew that he felt the change in her. She could feel him looking at her when her back was turned and felt that his stares were accusing. Sometimes she felt a tiny twinge of guilt, but she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t pretend a love that she didn’t feel. She felt that her love had drowned, that she had no love left to give. Not to her parents, her sister, her brother, Carlton or Daniel. Not even to herself.


(Orientation Note for Readers: This serialisation is adapted from my semi-autobiographical novel Other Voices. If you wish to read the Prologue of the book, it was posted in the Fictional Prose category on 17th October 2013)

© Carlton Carr 2013
http://othervoices.blog.co.uk/