To access the whole series of posts just click on the tag crash at the bottom.Vaughan's presence in their lives has invigorated Ballard's sex life with his wife Catherine. It has also triggered multi-layered psychological games.
In this short (four-page) chapter we see it in practice. Catherine takes Ballard's almost self-righteous obsession with Vaughan and first shows him that he is possessive over it. Then he realises she gets off on the fantasy herself ... but her pushing of him, and near goading of him to extrapolate on the admiration into homosexual attraction strikes a chord. He has thought about this and Catherine reaches another level of fantasy visualizing them.
Ballard and Catherine are in bed together, in the throes of intercourse:
'Would you like to sodomize him? Would you like to put your penis right into his anus, thrust it up his anus? Tell me, describe it to me. Tell me what you'd do. How would you kiss him in that car? Describe how you'd reach over and unzip his trousers, then take out his penis. Would you kiss it or suck it straightaway? Which hand would you hold it in? Have you ever sucked a penis?'
Catherine had taken over the fantasy. Whom did she see lying beside Vaughan, herself or me?
' ... do you know what semen tastes like? Have you ever tasted semen?"... During the next week, Catherine drifted through the departure lounges of the airport like a queen in a rut. Watching her from my car as Vaughan kept her in his aberrant gaze, I felt my loins surging ...
