Incest, Adultery, and How It Relates to Me (part 8 of 9)
a weekly serial in Stories That Are Hard to Sell
…And I’m still a dog and I’m still looking for a master.___Incest by Christine Angot
The Accident Meant to Happen
I have to believe our childhood forms us. Events make indelible imprints on our unconscious. It is the motor behind our days. One event, in particular, occurred when I was six or seven years old when I returned home through the front door of our house on State Street. I know what I saw, but I have repeatedly failed to understand why. Immediately upon entering the living room, which was an open plan to the dining room table, I was shocked to see the backside of this rather large and burly man. I understood him to be a plasterer or bricklayer employed by my parents who were having a new house built over on West Lincoln Street. This big man had his back to me and was facing my mother on the table who was flat on her back. I immediately yelled at this man to get off my mom, and she quickly jumped up to straighten herself. For years I kept this memory alive. Each time I brought up the memory of this trauma my mother insisted that the man was a monster and totally disgusting. And I believed her. But now, after so many years have passed with the only remaining memory being my mother vividly flat on her back and scurrying to upright herself, I am thinking otherwise. I believe my own history for maintaining the adulterous fantasy of having my wife penetrated by someone other than me hinges on this early childhood incident. Far more than just some childish suspicion leads me to believe this worker was preparing to fuck my mom, or perhaps was already in the process of it, and I interrupted their foul affair. And my learning later as an adult that my father for years carried out his own numerous adulteries satisfies my curiosity that my mother might have simply been getting even with him. And for this I could not blame her, but only wish to confirm or deny what has been for years construed as perhaps a childish delusion. But she is nearing ninety years old and I cannot bring myself to ask her. But it does explain my own proclivity for wanting my wife violated to an acceptable degree. There is no rape occurring in my imagination, but rather a surprise visit by a stranger to my wife’s bed and she being agreeable to whatever happens sexually between them.
Part 9 of “Incest, Adultery, and How It Relates to Me” can be found and read here.
Parts 1 through 9 of “Incest, Adultery, and How It Relates to Me” can be found and read in chronological order here.
It’s definitely an interesting practice to examine these memories as adults and how they inform our current actions and feelings