End-piece
Con-men
Jeffrey Bernard
I don't as a rule follow court cases. Other people's murders, robberies and frauds don't excite me, but I must admit that adultery and its bedfellows still hold a certain amount of charm for me. Imagine then my delight when this new case started the other day concerning the amorous soldier who had seduced the odd woman or two. It was the charge that fascinated me and it's one I've never heard of before. Obtaining sexual intercourse by means of fraudulent representation. Amazing, isn't it? I thought that very nearly all sexual intercourse was obtained by fraudulent representations. That which is paid for seems to me to be the most above-board form of sex but to get it for nothing surely involves a certain amount of deception or misrepresentation even if it's only a quickly murmured, `Course I love you.' If that strikes you as being a jaundiced or slightly cynical interpretation of the business then I must remind you that there's very little difference between taking a lady to the opera and then dinner at the Connaught with a view to bedding her than there is picking up a girl in Leicester Square Wimpy Bar and then having a one night stand with her. The little difference, of course, is class, money and upbringing. One of the best known and best paid journalists in this country spends hours and fortunes taking ladies to the Festival Hall. I wouldn't mind betting that he considers his relationships with women to be 'meaningful'. To read him and look at him I should think they're disastrous and I should have thought the offer of a seat to hear the Missa Solemnis as fraudulent a representation as the offer of a few gin and tonics in a four ale bar.
I remember, years ago, once expressing a certain amount of envy for gigolos. A fairly new hand at. sex in those days, anything rakish or anything that smacked of wickedness had enormous appeal. As I say, I uttered the opinion, in Le Petit Club Francais of all places, that I wouldn't mind being a gigalot and to my amazement the real McCoy who happened to be sitting there at the bar rounded on me and said with considerable vehemence. `You silly little boy. Don't you realise that you really have to earn every bloody penny of it?"
But it's always men that cop a bad name for fraudulent representation isn't it? Slightly unfairly. Being particularly susceptible to infatuations I think I've been conned against as much as I've conned. I can't say that I've often had the good for tune to be regarded as a sex object, but I've had fleeting moments when I've been lulled into thinking that I had some sort of personal appeal. One week of sexual fraud that 1 happily accepted turned out to be due to the fact that I could effect an introduction between the lady in question and Francis Bacon. Only recently a girl simulated mild interest in me when she realised I could introduce her to Lester Piggott. There's no accounting for taste, is there? Thank God women have these varied, wide and catholic tastes.
To get back to the amorous soldier though, 1 just don't see the offence. One of the ladies he seduced has admitted that, although she was a virgin at the time of her initial seduction, she's subsequently had sexual intercourse again with another man. Well, it couldn't have been that horrendous the first time round, could it? I'm really beginning to feel sorry for the chap. If he's a compulsive screwsman then he more likely needs a lobotomy than a vasectomy or a prison sentence. In any event I guarantee he's a simple, vain and probably personable bloke looking for a little oblivion. I doubt whether his victims have suffered more grievous bodily harm than wounded pride. I wish someone would wound my pride this coming weekend and meanwhile, during the search for oblivion, I raise my glass of gin and tonic to the amorous soldier.
Previous page
