Mantissa by John Fowles Page A

point.” He opens his hands. “The floor is yours.”
    She stares at him. “I suppose it’s never occurred to you what a horror it would be, if it existed, to have to occupy a role and function that escapes all normal biological laws. All on her own. No outside help, never a day off. Constantly having to dress up as this, dress up as that. The impossible boredom of it. The monotony. The schizophrenia. Day after day of being mauled about in people’s minds, misunderstood, travestied, degraded. And never a word of thanks for it. Never –”
    “Wait a minute. What about –”
    Her voice rises. “Never a thought for her as a person, only for what can be got out of her. Never a moment’s consideration for her emotions. Never enough imagination to realize that she may be secretly dying for a little tenderness and sympathy, that she’s also a woman and can’t help it if certain combinations of circumstance and mood do make her need the services of a male body in an entirely
natural
female way – which has absolutely nothing to do with humiliation, by the way, and…” She takes a breath. “But what’s that matter if his lordship, whoever he is, wants something else. If he wants to play
his
games, leaving her –”
    “I did not start this.”
    “Screaming with frustration.” She looks away at the wall. “If she existed, of course.”
    He contemplates his cocked foot again.
    “This dressing-gown – is there any particular color or material you’d like?”
    “I hate you.”
    “How about green then?”
    “You’d just love that, wouldn’t you? She has the effrontery to object to being treated as a mere sex-object, so out with her. Toss her back to nothingness, like an old boot.”
    “You asked for it yourself, only a minute ago.”
    She stares furiously at him for a moment, then once more twists abruptly on her side, her back to him, facing the far wall.
    “I’m not going to say another word. You’re impossible.” There is silence for five seconds. “You’re like all men. Once that absurd bit of dangling tissue between your legs has had its fun, all you think of is how fast you can get rid of us.”
    “I’d have got rid of you long before now, if that was true. You’ve just convinced me I can do what I like.”
    “Exactly!”
    “Exactly what?”
    “I have absolutely no rights. The sexual exploitation’s nothing beside the ontological one. You can kill me off in five lines if you want to. Throw me in the wastepaper basket, never think of me again.”
    “I don’t think there’s much chance of that.”
    “Oh yes you would. Just like all the others.”
    “What others!”
    “Oh don’t be so absurd.” She darts a contemptuous look back over her shoulder at him. “Are you trying to suggest I’m the first?”
    “It’s… possible you’re not the first.”
    “And possible I shan’t be the last?”
    “It’s possible.”
    “So it’s more than
possible
that I’m just the latest in a series of wretched imaginary women who’ve had the misfortune to fall into your hands. To be kicked out the moment someone more attractive walks past.”
    “As a matter of record my relationship with them was and continues to be deeply human and rewarding on both sides. In every case we remain excellent friends.”
    “They sound like a first-class bunch of female Uncle Toms to me.”
    “I’m not going to reply to language like that.”
    “Surprise, surprise.”
    “Only the other day one of them told me she thought I’d given her far too much freedom in our liaison.”
    “Before you killed her off.”
    “I do not kill my female friends off.”
    “Much. You just collect and mummify them. Lock them up in a cellar and gloat over them, like Bluebeard.”
    “I find that a singularly offensive comparison.”
    “For a plurally offensive habit. Otherwise known as necrophilia.”
    He stands up.
    “All right. That’s it. You’ve just said you’d rather be nothing without me than worse than nothing with