The Hollow Woman

Marion and Ivan stood looking at each other for a few more seconds, and then he moved off. I went after him but lost sight of him and ended up in a small room that appeared to be an office or a study. My attention was immediately drawn to a painting on the wall. It was Lucian's nude portrait of Marion.

She was sitting on high stool with one foot on a low rung of the stool the other on the floor. She was half turned towards the viewer and looked out of the picture with a yearning yet challenging look in her eyes. One hand rested on a thigh and the other seemed to reach out of the picture. She appeared to be in an aura of light, the background was vague, the focus being entirely on the subject. I thought her breasts were the loveliest I had ever seen and there was a triangle of pubic hair at her groin and a hint of her cleft. Small wonder Lucian had been so besotted.

As I stood gazing at the picture a voice behind me said, "She's beautiful isn't she?"

I turned to see Ivan standing behind me. He had grown to full manhood and was like his father a giant of a man. He was gazing at the picture of his mother with a strange intensity.

"Yes," I replied, "very beautiful."

"My father painted the picture," he said.

"Yes, I know."

"You knew my father didn't you?"

"Yes, I knew him very well."

We stood silent for a couple of minutes our attention on the painting. Then he asked, "Did he love my mother?"

It was an unexpected question and for a few moments before I could answer, and then I said, "He was utterly infatuated with her."

"But did he love her?"

I replied as honestly as I could, "I don't know Ivan, I really don't know, all I can say is, that he was obviously obsessed with her."

He looked at me sharply and said, "Were you in love with her?"

I was taken aback by his question and replied slowly, "No, attracted, but not in love. I loved someone else." He didn't pursue the matter.

He sighed and said, "It all ended tragically, didn't it?"

"Yes, very tragically."

"You know, I don't think she's ever got over that time," he said. "It's as if there's never been anything real in her life, she sees people almost as if they're shadows and it doesn't matter what you do to them.

I was amazed at his insight into Marion. He had said in a few words what I had been trying to express to myself. She did see people as shadows, as things that did not matter, to be used as she wished.

"Does she see you as a shadow?" I asked.

"I don't think so," he replied, "she's often said that I'm the only real thing in her life."

"A heavy burden for you to bear," I said.

"I'd bear any burden for her," he said slowly, "if only she wouldn't...wouldn't..."

His voice trailed away but I thought I knew what he wanted to say.

He turned away abruptly saying, "I'd better get back to the party."

I stood looking at the picture for a little longer. It was clear that Ivan loved this woman who had brought such tragedy into people's lives, and, I thought, he was confused by that love and by his mother's behaviour.

"Irene," I thought, "Irene...if only..." But what was the use, she was dead."

I felt as if I'd had enough of this party. It had revived old memories and the pain that went with them. I went in search of Marion to give my thanks for the invitation, even though I did not feel very thankful. At first I could not find her but after asking, someone said, "I saw her go that way."

I went down a corridor and round a corner and stopped dead. Marion was standing with her back to the wall, a young man pressed up against her and they were whispering to each other.

I'd really had enough and I didn't want to witness the outcome of that particular seduction. I left without saying goodbye. I decided that I would have no more to do with these two people; they revived too much of a past that should have been forgotten, but it was not to be; it seemed that fate had woven a thread between us I could not break.

* * * * * * * *

What I write now is based largely on what Marion and Ivan have told me about what happened later, and I have to say that what Ivan did was and is completely uncharacteristic of him. It arose from the humiliation he felt over Marion's behaviour, especially with his friends.

It seems that the party broke up at around two in the morning. Throughout the party Ivan's fury had mounted and when everybody had left and Marion had gone to her bedroom he sat on miserably amid the ruins of the party, ruins that included his mother's behaviour that had spoilt it all for him.

Eventually he arose, and as if Marion's behaviour had somehow polluted him, he had a shower, and then tugging on his pajamas he made his way to his bedroom. He had to pass his mother's room, and seeing a light under her door, he hesitated. For once he would really have it out with her.

Without knocking he opened the door and walked in. Marion had not changed her dress and was sitting at her dressing table looking at herself in the mirror.

As he entered she turned to look at him saying, "Darling, you've come to say..."

She got no further; from the look on his face she could see that this was not a goodnight visit.

"What is it darling, what's wrong?" she asked.

He looked into her eyes and saw there what I had seen and he'd seen a hundred times and more, their opaqueness; the shield that hid her inner emptiness.

"You ask me what's wrong," he said vehemently, "you set out to ruin the whole evening for me, you and you're..."

"How have I ruined it? I thought everyone was having a marvelous time, I know I was."

"Were you," Ivan asked, "were you really having a marvelous time, or where you just engaging in your usual sick sexual sport? But I suppose that is your idea of a marvelous time."

"What the hell do you mean by that?" Marion said with rising anger.

"What he hell do you mean by that?" Ivan mimicked her derisively. "It wouldn't be so bad if you let them fuck you, then at least you'd be behaving like a flesh and blood woman, but you can't can you? The only pleasure you can get is by frustrating, humiliating and jeering. You're empty -- a hollow woman -- dead inside, you've got nothing to give, you're only capable of taking."

"You beast, you rotten beast, after all I've done..."

"After all you've done for me? What about what I've done for you?"

"What have you done for me?" Marion yelled.

"I've kept you alive," he answered.

"Don't be so stupid how have you kept me...?"

"I'm the thread aren't I mother, that oh so slim thread that's kept you attached to the man you can't let go? Even in death you couldn't let him go, so I've been the one thing that's kept his ghost haunting you -- me and that picture he painted of you."

"You're mad," Marion said, an edge of fear I her voice.

"Am I," Ivan said, "or is it you who are mad? The dead woman; the phantom woman who can only live her sex life through a man dead more than twenty years ago; is that sane mother; go on; tell me it's sane, if you can."

"You don't understand, no one can understand, I loved him and we were going to be married, and that evil bitch murdered him so that I couldn't have him. The only thing I had of him was you."

"And the painting mother; tell me, did he fuck you every time you posed for him?"

Marion had started to weep, but Ivan was not moved by her tears. When she made no attempt to answer him he said, "Well, it's over mother, tonight the thread is going to be broken, I won't be your conduit to a dead man any longer, and I'm going to give you what you're sex victims couldn't. You've played the seductive role once too often and..."

Marion stood and raised her hand to strike Ivan, but he knocked the blow aside and taking hold of the top of her dress he ripped the fragile cloth from her and flung it away.

"What are you doing?" Marion gasped, her hands covering her breasts.

"I'm going to give you a last taste of the dead man you want so badly; I'm going fill that emptiness inside you, and then I'm going to ,leave you with you're your decaying shades from the past."

"W-w-what are you going to do?" Marion whimpered, her fear rising.

Ivan took hold of her and flung her across the bed saying, "I'm going to fuck you mother; I'm going to give you what those others couldn't and you can scream, and yell and threaten as much as you like, because there's no one to hear you; in fact I'd like to hear you scream.

As if complying with his wish Marion began to scream; "No...no...you can't...I won't let you..."

"Ah, so you're going to struggle are you? Good, that'll make all the more fun. You know about fun don't you mother, the fun you have getting those poor sods horny over you."

He tore off his pajamas and Marion could see his erect penis.

"No please...don't do it...you don't understand...please don't..."

She began to try and fight him off but the powerful son whose strength she had been so proud of, now proved to be too much for her. He pinned her to the bed and drove his knee between her thighs, prising her legs apart as she rained blows down on him.

"Oh dear," Ivan jeered, "and I thought you'd enjoy having his son fuck you, a sort of second hand Lucian, but one with a flesh and blood prick, not a phantom phallus."

He was between her legs, the head of his penis probing for the entrance to her vagina. Finding it he thrust into her savagely.

"Do you like that mother; does it feel good to have a real penis in you?"

Once inside her Marion seemed to give up the physical struggle, but for a while continued to plead with him.

"Don't Ivan...please don't do this to me...you don't understand what you're doing..."

He ignored her cries and began to thrust back and forth in her. Even her pleadings ceased. For a while she lay unmoving. When he had first entered her Ivan had felt the dryness of her vagina, and he was glad because it meant she would feel discomfort, but as he continued to fuck her he was surprised to feel her becoming wet.

She had ceased resisting and at first lay under him as if in surrender, but after a while Ivan was amazed to feel her moving with him. She raised her legs bent at the knees to give him deeper penetration, and then she began to whimper.

"You're making me come darling...I'm coming...coming...come with me...let it all go..."

Her upward thrusts against him became more frenetic and her cries incoherent.

"Ah...ah...oh...ah...ah...oh...ohwa...ohwa...ahha...ahha..."

Suddenly her legs were wrapped round his waist and she was struggling to get him into her ever more deeply. Ivan rammed his sperm deep into her, letting out a long gasping howl and Marion emitted a sobbing scream and her cries became coherent again.

"Oh yes...yes...don't stop...I won't let you...stay with me...don't stop..."

Marion worked her vagina over his gradually slackening penis until with a long sigh she at last lay still.

With the ejaculation of his sperm into her Ivan felt his anger dissipate with it; in what should have been post-coital peace came instead only guilt and shame.

Marion still lay under him and he began to groan, "What have I done...what have I done...what have I done to you..."

He was pleading for forgiveness as Marion began to stroke his face with her hand.

"Ssh darling, it's all right...it's all right..."

"But I raped you mother...raped you..."

Marion looked up at him and smiling sadly said, "Perhaps you should have done it a long time ago."

"How can you say that mother?" Ivan said, "you can't mean it...it's...it's..."

"Incest as well as rape? Yes but the things you said about me, they were true; I've known they are true for a long time, but I didn't want to face it because it meant letting go of your father."

"And you can now?" Ivan asked.

"You said you were going to break the thread, Ivan, and you've succeeded, I'm not what you called "A hollow woman" anymore; you've woken me up from what has been a nightmare.

"You're not angry with me; you don't hate me because of what I've done to you?"

"Angry with you for bringing me back to life; how could I be angry with you for that? I've only one regret; it could have been different, not rape, but we can amend that quite soon."

She laughed lightly and said, "I'm just wondering how you'll feel if there's an outcome."

"What do you mean?"

"Well discuss that if it arises," she said. "Now suppose you take your penis out of my vagina, I'll go and have a shower, and then we can get some sleep. It's been a long day and being raped is very tiring."

For a moment they looked into each other's eyes, and Ivan saw in hers a light he had never seen before.

He removed his penis from her vagina and flopped back on the bed. When Marion returned from her shower he was asleep.

* * * * * * * *

My next meeting with Ivan and Marion was quite by chance. I was spending time at a seaside hotel when they entered the dining room. They saw me and asked if they could sit with me.

After the events at the twenty first birthday party I wasn't too keen to have them sit with me, but I felt I could hardly refuse.

Marion was very pregnant and looked radiant; I think I might say she looked lovelier than I could ever remember. Ivan looked very relaxed and pleased with himself.

There was some general "how are you" chit chat and as the meal drew to a close Marion said, "I suppose you're wondering why I'm pregnant?"

I tried to make a joke of it saying, "Well by the usual means I suppose."

"Yes," Marion said coyly, "but I'll bet you're wondering who provided the means."

"None of my business," I replied.

"No, it isn't," Marion said, "but you were in right at the beginning."

"What beginning? I asked.

"Me, Lucian, Irene. You were there then and so you might like to hear the rest of the story."

The mention of Irene sent a stab of pain through me, but I said, "If you want to tell me."

"It's a long story," she warned.

"No matter," I replied, "I've got plenty of time."

I needed plenty to time. Marion insisted I write down what she and Ivan told me because she thought it would make a good story for others to read. I suppose it was that ego of hers that made her think that, and perhaps she was right for once.

Whatever the case, I did write it down, and this is my account of what she told me and what I have learnt from others.

They have gone out of my life now since they have gone abroad to live, and all that is left to me are my memories, and most poignantly those of Irene and how it might have been.

"He that has light within his own clear breast
May sit in the centre , and enjoy bright day
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the midday sun
Himself his own dungeon."

- John Milton