The Enthusiast

The fish don’t give a shit, I think, and it was at this point I realised I’d crossed a boundary and become a moody drunk. As I stood watching them, clutching a warm lager like a comfort blanket, they continued to swim out their tiny, insignificant lives, round the ornamental castle, through the moneywort and the torrent of bubbles from the filter, round the castle again, completely incognisant of the bacchanal on my side of the tank wall. Lucky bastards. Wish I was a fish. I bet they couldn’t even hear the thump of the bass from the party classics belting out of the ruinously expensive stereo on the other side of the room. Do fish hear? Or do they just feel vibrations in the water? Or isn’t that essentially the same thing anyway, “hearing” being an anthropocentric word to describe the experience of external stimuli? And why am I thinking about this now? When it comes to fish, my only concern should surely be the bigger ones I currently have to fry, but we’ll get there.

The party I was at was my housemate’s workmate’s birthday bash. I had been brought along to ‘meet some people,’ but more likely to boost the numbers. Other than him, I knew no-one there beyond a nodding acquaintance. It wasn’t really the sort of environment where you could get to know people, either, even if I had been the sort of person able to sweep into a new environment and lay waste to it with my charisma and dazzling wit, like the Alexander the Great of social situations. Without wanting to sound overly self critical, if I were involved in one of Alexander’s campaigns, I’d have been in charge of the baggage train, or something else that required a keen eye for logistics, a head for figures and the same people skills as the mules. Given enough time, and a little encouragement, I like to think I can be moderately diverting, to someone of a similar personality type, the only problems being I’m not often given time, never given encouragement and I don’t meet people of a similar personality type to me because, well, they’re of a similar personality type, and are more likely to be at home, wondering why they never meet anyone.

So there I was, alone in a room full of people comparing my lot to three goldfish and finding it wanting, when I felt a touch on my sleeve. I turned to find, much to my surprise, a rather attractive woman and steeled myself for the inevitable ‘oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else,’ or similar, but what she actually said was:

“You’re Mark, aren’t you?” I was, and am and said so.

“Er, yes…I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“No, I'm Penny.” She proffered a hand, which I stared blankly at for just long enough for it to be awkward before remembering the social etiquette around meeting people, and shook it. “I hope you don’t think it rude of me, but I work with James, and I overheard him talking about you.” My hand started to get clammy around the can I was still gripping. Now, I get on well enough with James, but when you live with someone, they’re privy to all sorts of potentially embarrassing little details about you which you might not necessarily want an attractive young woman that you’re meeting for the first time to know. The catastrophist part of my brain racked up a quick list of the worst things James could have been discussing about me, while the part of my brain at the controls played for time.

“Oh, er.. really?” You might deduce from that level of repartee the reason I don’t flourish in social situations, but in my defence, I was flustered and had been drinking warm lager well past my comfort zone. A Wildean epigram was unlikely to burst fully formed from my lips. Well, I mean, even less likely than usual. “Nothing bad, I hope?”

She smiled. She really was very pretty.

“Oh, this and that. Enough to make me interested in meeting you.”

The evening had taken a sudden and very unexpected turn. It was not to be the last. I wondered briefly whether James, for reasons unknown to me had decided to birth some outrageous claim on my behalf that would account for this unfortunately rare phenomenon of a girl, and an attractive one at that, showing the slightest interest in me, and if he had, was I the object of the prank, or was she? She leaned forward conspiratorially, and I was horribly aware that she was wearing quite a low cut top, and I could feel my eyes being drawn towards her chest as if dragged by invisible chains. I was brought up correctly, so I fought the urge to look, but before she spoke, she glanced over her shoulder as if to check we weren’t being overheard, and a treacherous organ (I think you can guess which one) grabbed the chain and my eyes darted down to take in a lovely cleavage, before assuming their previous position only to find her eyes locked on mine. I felt a surge of panic and an apology raced to my lips, but to my surprise, she continued as if she hadn’t noticed my aberration.

“It seems we have a common interest.” It took me a second to work out she wasn’t referring to her breasts, but before I could pick the most intelligent sounding of my pursuits in an effort to impress her, she said: “Movies. Specifically horror. Even more specifically, extreme horror.”

Well, you could have knocked me down with a feather. Female fans of extreme films are as rare as compassionate capitalists, which is to say almost mythical. People think science fiction attracts a predominantly male fanbase, but a sci-fi con is like a women’s institute meeting compared to extreme horror, and I’m not surprised. I’ve watched these films ever since I was old enough to source them, having been fascinated by them long before that, and I often wonder how and why I can bear to watch them, and I’m not part of the gender that routinely undergoes the violence and degradation that is their stock-in-trade, and you only get to those scenes after wading through the most appalling casual misogyny and sexism. The thought of any woman voluntarily sitting through ‘Cannibal Ferox,’ let alone enjoying it, makes as much sense to me as putting your shoes on before your socks.

“From what I heard, you’re quite the expert?”

I was torn between modesty, embarrassment and the far-fetched possibility that being an expert in disgusting, sleazy, usually very badly made pieces of cinematic dross might represent a good chance of developing a meaningful connection with an actual woman. Turns out I might have made a very bad choice, but I’d passed my usual four drink limit some time ago, and reasoning that if a knowledge of the ins and outs of ‘Hostel’ had got me this far, it might be worth continuing down the path awhile, I said:

“Well, yes. Specifically the video nasties, banned films and the slasher boom of the the 80’s, but also the more recent renaissance in what is referred to as ‘torture porn,’ and some of the more transgressive elements of Asian cinema.” I was surprised at the authority I heard in my own voice. When you like films that the rest of society view, with some justification, as sick and depraved, it’s a little like belonging to a secret club. If you talk about it in public at all, you want to be damn sure the person you’re talking to is broadly on the same page, so me being so candid to what was essentially a complete stranger was a little like what I imagine coming out might be like.

Her reaction was reassuring. She smiled, and said:

“That’s so interesting!” And not even in that way that people say ‘that’s so interesting’ when they mean precisely the opposite and are furtively looking past you for someone else to talk to. “Y’know, I’ve always been fascinated with that type of cinema, and the people who watch it.” You see that? That massive flapping red flag? The ‘…and the people that watch it.’ Yeah, I didn’t. I’d kick myself, if I could move either foot. I thought, fool that I am, that she was flirting with me, extrapolating from her interest in ‘Bloodfeast’ and ‘Driller Killer’ that she might nurture a fondness for other devotees. You might well question this, but nothing in the wide world of sex has surprised me since I saw a Nick Broomfield documentary about a specialist brothel whose clients included a elderly Jewish chap who paid to have the women dress as SS guards and act out a concentration camp fantasy. If that is apparently a thing, why could this not also be someone’s kink?

Well, it turned out that she was indeed very knowledgeable, and we spent a few minutes chatting about dubious charms of the Italian cannibal films of Deodato and Lenzi, and how the antagonists of ‘The Prowler’ and ‘My Bloody Valentine’ had virtually nothing in common with real world serial killers. I began to relax, and alright, alright, I was showing off a bit. It isn’t often that a woman seeks me out and is interested in what I have to say, let alone seemingly interested in me. When she suggested we leave the party and continue our discussion ‘somewhere more private,’ it took all my self control to retain an air of nonchalance.

“Only,” she said with another glance over her shoulder, “I can’t be seen leaving with you. Some people here know my boyfriend.” She grinned mischievously at me and I said, as if flirting with someone else’s partner was something I did every night of the week,

“Why don’t I wait for you outside?”

“Perfect!” she replied, “Give me a chance to mingle a bit, be seen by some people after you go, and I’ll meet you at the end of the road in say, twenty minutes?”

As I waited at the assigned spot, I rifled through my pockets for the gum that I was sure I had but didn’t, and then checked my inside coat pocket for the condom that I didn’t think I had but did. It looked like after months of carrying it round on the off chance that I would find myself requiring it, my optimistic planning was finally in with a chance of proving itself useful. The persistent thought that I was being pranked and made to stand out in the cold while Penny and the rest of the partygoers laughed at my expense was finally dispelled when I saw her coming down the street towards me.

She insisted on going to her place, on the grounds that it was nearby, even though in my mind, our romantic scene was disrupted by her boyfriend discovering us in flagrante, and refusing to believe that we were merely discussing the needlessness of remaking ‘I Spit on your Grave,’ but she assured me it would be ok, and steered the conversation back to the psychology of the extreme film fan.

“So, obviously, you’ve never been tempted to recreate anything you’ve seen…”

“Of course not!”

“…yet you’re drawn to these films. You know the sort of things they contain, you feel they are sick, so why? You seem like a normal person, why do you get off on seeing women raped or tortured?”

“Oh, hang on, I don’t know about the term ‘get off on,’” I protested.

“Well, alright, perhaps a poor choice of words, but still… we both know these films are shit. The only reason to watch them, their unique selling point is violence and sexual violence that is considered way beyond the pail by most people, you yourself would condemn any of those actions in real life, and yet you seek them out and watch them for pleasure.”

“Pleasure is a bit of a stretch…”

“You’re not being paid to watch them, you’re not studying them…”

“Well, no, but…”

“There must be something in them that appeals to something in you.”

“I…they’re…I’m…”

“Hold that thought. We’re here. The last house on the left.”

Well, it had to be, didn’t it? I can’t say I wasn’t warned. I was feeling a little uneasy about the turn the conversation had taken, but allowed myself to be ushered into a small, presentable looking house that was indeed the last in a row of similar houses, all with darkened windows that suggested the absence of owners rather than the slumber of occupants.

Inside, she took my coat and told me to make myself comfortable while she got some drinks. I heard her rattling things around in what I assumed was the kitchen while I pondered where the bathroom might be. Whether it was the lager or what I’ve heard the more laddish of my colleagues refer to as ‘pre-match nerves,’ I all of a sudden needed to go. Before I could act on it, she was back, with two glasses and a bottle of scotch, and I noticed she’d undone a button of her blouse. My bladder was forgotten for the moment. She sat down on the sofa, poured two generous measures and slid one towards me, moving closer to me as she did so.

“Mark, can I be honest with you?”

“Please do.”

“Well, you see, the thing is… I’ve been waiting to meet someone like you. Waiting for a long time.”

“You have? Like me? Really?” She laughed, and touched my face.

“Oh, yes.” Her fingers were in my hair now. I downed my whiskey and tried not to look like I was going to throw up. “And now here you are!”

“And you’re sure your boyfriend won’t come home?”

“Oh, Mark,” she said breathily, as she leaned in close to kiss me, “I don’t even have a boyfriend.” And I felt a prick in my neck, and opened my eyes in time to see her withdrawing the syringe, and the room began to swim, and I thought muzzily about moneywort and castles, and then blackness.

So that’s how I came to wake up in what I assume to be a basement, tied to a chair at the wrists and ankles, with a large damp patch covering my crotch and thighs. In front of me, I can see a trolley with a cloth covered tray on it and six feet away, a camera mounted on a tripod. I’m really hoping that Penny is the kind of girl that likes to teach a lesson by giving people a really good fright, or that this is some sort of weird kink that even I haven’t heard of, or even a psychological experiment, but my last thoughts before the door swings open and she enters the room are of regret, and self pity and above all, wishing, wishing, wishing I had been born a fish.