Nine and a Half Weeks by Elizabeth McNeill

The book Nine and a Half Weeks was first published in 1978, seven years before the film was made. It was written by Elizabeth McNeill, a publisher and successful business woman, and it is the true story of her own love affair.

I was nineteen when I first read it. It was around the time that the film came out, and the copy I read had the film stills on the cover, but I hadn’t seen the film when I read it. I was working in a bookshop and read books on the counter in between serving customers.

The book had a very powerful effect on me.

I wanted to live through those nine and a half weeks. I wanted to be her.

It was the absolute, the absolute giving, the absolute giving up, giving yourself absolutely and entirely. I had been brought up to believe that you should give yourself entirely to God and I had rejected that. But the idea that you could give yourself in this way, body and soul, to another person, almost randomly to a stranger, was mind-blowing. It was almost as good as selling yourself to the devil.

I was obsessed with vampires at the time. Tall, dark, sexy and evil men who only appeared at night, ravished you and drank your blood.

And this man, in nine and a half weeks, has elements of those figures – formal, be-suited, handing out orders and punishment with equanimity. But he is so much more. He doesn’t always wear a suit. Sometimes he wears baggy shorts and an old tennis shirt. He is vulnerable (‘All at once he is a decade my junior, a very young man asking me to have a drink with him, expecting to be refused.’), and so obviously in love with her as she is with him. He takes in stray cats and worries about their diets, makes bad coffee and rushes out in the middle of the night to buy blueberries. Unlike the heroes of other S&M literature (e.g. Story of O, Submission) he is human and endearing. And for me, bringing this vulnerable edge to the vampire-like persona was overwhelming. It’s like taking a man who’s already handsome, and seeing him at ease with a child. It is such a turn on.

I watched all the films and read all the books – Anne Rice, Bram Stoker, The Lost Boys, The Hunger, Near Dark, Nosferatu, etc. I read biographies of Elizabeth Bathory, Vlad the Impaler, Giles de Rais. I was used to reading about pain and okay with the idea that pain and arousal could go hand in hand. That wasn’t what I found so seductive about Nine and a Half Weeks. It was the total submission. The complete vulnerability. The willing erasure of everything that’s gone before.

‘…my bridges burning behind me in bright rows, signposts of what I’ve abandoned for him: a comprehensive – if secondhand – grid of a code: *how*one*lives*, assembled over decades.

Teenage rebel that I was (or wanted to be) loved this abandonment of the code of normality. Why should she conduct a relationship like her friends did, or her mother, or the way society told her she should. She could do it any damn way she wanted. And so could I.

Except, of course, it was him that made all the decisions. It was his code she was living by.

The passage about her flat near the beginning is so important. It shows her past. A life full of events and people and belongings. Her life is cluttered and colourful. And she is willing to give it all up in exchange for the bare walls of his apartment, where the only colour is made by them and what they do.

Some part of me, a warped romantic, finds that idea incredibly seductive. That love could be so absolute that you give everything. Your whole body. Your whole existence. All responsibility. Even your will. Even your life. That the two of you need nobody else, nothing except each other.

At the time I was in relationship which was pretty exclusive. I spent most of my time with just one person when I wasn’t at work. I knew it doesn’t work in real life. At least, not for long. (See Then and Now).

Which was why I loved the ending. She can’t do it. Although she wants him and loves him and wants to gives herself to him completely, she can’t. Because when you’ve given everything away, what is left? Nothing. How can you carry on existing when you’re nothing? The answer is that you can’t, which is why she breaks down, why she is unable to do anything about it, why she needs treatment for months after.

After I had read the book I watched the film, and I hated it. In the film she was different. She was stronger and more in control. Most importantly, at the end she walks away. She is able to do that. The woman in the book couldn’t do that. I went around telling everyone, no, it’s wrong, she wasn’t capable of walking away, she was too broken by the relationship, she needed therapy. And they all looked at me as though I was mad. No one read the book on my recommendation because they thought it was a cash-in on a sleazy film.

And coming back to it after another nineteen years, I wondered if that is what I would find it now. Vampires have lost some of their glamour for me. I’ve moved away from that part of my life and know how important it is to be self-reliant and strong. I hoped I wouldn’t find it a disappointment.

I didn’t. I’ve read it twice in the last few months, and still I find it warm and moving, erotic and believable. I watched the film again, and this time I didn’t hate it. It’s one of those films which is a different entity from the book. She is a different character, and so is he. This time I wasn’t angry at the ending, instead it moved me to tears. Because it showed his sadness, his loss. Something not shown in the book.

And of course, the film has that wonderful food scene, for which the world is a better place!

What we thought about Nine and a Half Weeks

“He didn’t love her. He was just using her to get kicks. She could have been anyone. Once she’d gone he’d just move on to the next one.”

“It was just as traumatic for him as for her – when he says ‘we’ve just got to ride this out, then we can go to the movies like normal people’ – it shows he doesn’t normally do this sort of thing. He’s caught up in it too. He leaves her at the hospital because he realises he can’t do anything for her.”

“The worst part was when she’s tied to the table leg while he eats.”

“The worst part was when he makes her crawl around on her hands and knees.”

“The worst part was the pain.”

“The worst part was when she was hanging to the wall.”

“The worst part was when she robs the man at knifepoint.”

“It was dangerously close to domestic violence. You could imagine, if it had continued, the pleasure for her would fade but the violence would continue, become sordid, controlling. Because of this, reading the book was traumatic experience, not an erotic one.”

“The pain was erotic, the control exciting, the scene when she was tied up while she ate was fantastic. But the intensity was too great for it too last. They started on such a high there was nowhere to go. Theft, prostitutes, masseurs, greater brutality – all attempts to raise the heat. But it started so hot there could only be burn out.”

“The worst thing was what it left her with – lasting dissatisfaction with sex which, for her, never again reaches that fever pitch.”

“At least she has the memory.”

“I loved the book.”

“I didn’t love it. I didn’t like it. I read it twice so I could make notes.”

“Amazing that in the whole nine and a half weeks, with all that sex, they only came at the same time once.”

“The worst part was when he made her masturbate in front of him.”

“No it wasn’t. She knew what the relationship was all about. She was relieved to see him read her secret diary, she knew there weren’t any forbidden areas, there was nothing she could hold back. It was a symbol of what they were all about, and when he packs her stuff, he’s not angry, he’s just reminding her of this. He’s saying this is what we are. There is nothing about you that I cannot have, I can experience all of you. That giving up of every secret of your identity, every most private part, is an overwhelming lifting of pressure. It takes you back to childhood, to babyhood, where your whole existence is someone else’s responsibility.”

“The best bit is when he changes her tampons.”

“It’s not just the sex.”

“They talk so much. They talk for hours and hours. They know everything about each other’s pasts. Not just him knowing about her, but vice versa. They have favourite stories from each other’s lives. They become familiar with characters from the other’s history. They bare themselves completely. He couldn’t do this over and over, it would be too much, she isn’t just one in a chain for him. This affair is mind blowing for them both.”

“I would like to be her.”

“I most definitely would not.”