Surrender to Mr. X Page 22

  Bluebeard—Gilles de Rais, Marshall of France, friend of Joan of Arc, and master of the black arts. In February 1904 Crowley delivered a lecture—known to posterity as “The Banned Lecture”—to the Oxford Poetry Society, claiming Gilles de Rais was a victim of a conspiracy of defamation: an example of how established theocracy always tries to destroy the free thinker. De Rais was a powerful force in French politics and military affairs until his views on sex brought him into disrepute. Scandal broke about his head and destroyed him. Ronald Knox banned the lecture, but Crowley published all the same. De Rais was said to have lured children to his castle in Brittany where he sexually abused and murdered them. His cellars were found to be piled high with broken bodies. He was hanged in 1440 and his body burned. Five hundred years later Crowley was to die, broken by scandal: rumors of sexual abuse, black magic, human sacrifice, to be believed or not believed according to your fancy. And Crowley has his admirers clearly, since he is listed by the BBC among its Top One Hundred British Heroes, so selected by popular vote.

  So is Lam an alien from Sirius the Dog Star, a magus from Tibet, or a person with glandular difficulties from Surbiton or Leigh-on-Sea—which would I prefer to believe?

  Good wife, don’t ask what it is your husband is doing tonight, don’t seek to go where you’re not asked—in case you find out more than suits you. Then you too must die. Bluebeard’s wife is rescued by her brothers in the nick of time. I wondered, as we trooped into the music room, Alden, Lam, Ray, Bernie, myself—who I could trust to be my brothers?

  Of course it was not just a music room. Oh Vanessa, Queen of Denial! How could you not know? What did you think those blazing lights were all about? All those mirrors for their crafty reflection shots? There was music equipment here of course there was, banks of it twinkling away, for synthesis and analysis, spectrograms and spectrographs, and graphs leaping up and down over computer screens. But its main function was as a digital film studio and a very sophisticated one: lights, cameras, editing equipment: discs stacked high. Few leads muddling everything up: the new Bluebeard technology. Why would it be otherwise? Two technicians are setting up. They are in white coats but they have their backs to us so I can’t yet see their faces. Someone makes good quality film in here: as near to life as can be. Viewing chairs are arranged around the square, and the square is the mirror above the Lukas bed. Only it’s not of course mirror from up here; look down and you see clear glass.

  Alden has been making high quality porno films. I am a film star. No wonder I’m not allowed out and about too much. And a seat in these hospitality chairs must bring in a pretty penny.

  A film is being edited at the moment. Round the room are screens with extracts from my life in the bed, my life in the Divan, my life in the Scenario Suburbs. The quality is variable. The dungeon scene where I kick and flee is practically unusable because of the lighting but new technology is amazing and I daresay something can be rescued. The Bride in the Bath sequence where I drown is awesome in its verité. You get a real reaction from me. The monster cock slides into my helpless bum as my mouth spews up water. You don’t get much of that on the net though the whole nation endlessly searches; sex ’n’ violence in the same shot. Some of these set pieces would be allowed. Lots wouldn’t. Something for everyone; every need catered for in a competitive market. In and out, in and out slide the monster cocks, close up, medium shot, long shot. Isn’t that the tennis star’s penis, in and out of my mouth? Young Hasan’s face in extremis? Loki takes me pressed up against the corner of the cab: lots of other hands in shot to show there’s company. They have cameras even there. Every one of my taxi journeys, to the shops, to home, to the Divan and back, there on film for cutaways. Europa ravished by the Bull is charming. I see Daisy’s body in the lesbian scene but not her face. We weren’t in a flowery field in the sun, just on a carpet under lights. Mine is there, clear as clear. I look so happy. The bondage stills are beautiful. I make a great damsel in distress. And I’m not acting. I believe every minute of it. The joy, the peace after orgasm, the slave’s trust and adoration, all there. And now the whipping, the pièce de resistance; I writhe and scream: I watch the red weals form, the gag dig in, the mouth bleed. They are all watching me watching myself. Alden is smiling.

  The technicians turn to look at me too. I don’t think it can be Max from the Olivier—how could it be? The long jaw, the lugubrious face? Even that a set up? Joan known for a fraud from the beginning? Is that Luigi from the Bound Beast and Bumpkin? Shaker of nutmeg? Can’t be. I am in shock. I see what is not there, surely. I will wake soon. And Robert, what about Robert? The twins? What have I done? I turn to escape, save them, but I am caught and turned back.

  “Enjoy, Vanessa, enjoy,” says Ray. “You’re the girl who loves sex; it’s your vocation.” But it’s beyond that. They have their cameras on me even now, I realize that. Title: “Forced Witness.”

  I am sat in a chair to see what is happening down below. My wrists are fastened. The lights go down up here: the many screens grow blank. Time for the next film. Just the one light as they record my reactions, test my responses, one last bar for Alden’s masterpiece, one last line for Ray’s Blue Box.

  The lights brighten on the scene below. Alden is directing from up here in the control room: producer, director, composer, art dealer, designer, star—the Renaissance man who can do it all, except fuck to closure. His talents are wondrous.

  Katharine and Alison lie on the bed in their cream dresses, side by side, bodies touching, skinny-limbed, scarcely wider when laid together than my single body ever was. No cushions. The dresses, in this light, are not as good as I thought. The seams are badly sewn: it’s cheap stuff. A pity. Alison’s left wrist is fastened to the left bedpost and Katharine’s right wrist to the other, but the ties are long. They have freedom to move—they can turn to each other, embrace, kiss and fondle, though this is not primarily an incest film. Incest has a great following. I so seldom got as much freedom of movement, I am almost envious.

  They seem relaxed and unworried. This may not be so bad. I will not play into enemy hands; I will not give them the shots they want: I will not give them torment, horror and distress. They can have my delight, my fascination, the exhilaration of the Vocational Girl, the seeker after the pleasures of the flesh, what can never be contained in language or on film, or in dance, or song, or music, or painting, in porn, or any other means, though so many try so hard. What sex feels like, what it is, when mind and body give up their separate ways and travel the same path. I lean forward to see better. I smile. That is all they will get from me.

  For three minutes or so the twins just lie there, waiting, expectant. Title: “Deflowered Twins”? It has all the makings of a classic. Cut, says Alden.

  The twins look up at the mirror and I am pretty sure they know they are on film. I am just an innocent compared to the rest of my family. I expect everyone knew about my father and Jude. I was the only one who never guessed.

  Alden the director decides this is not the response he expects from me. He pinches my nipple and takes me by surprise so I yelp and wriggle but only for a moment. Too bad, another few frames to intercut. Unwilling Witness, stock footage, to be cannibalized in many films, Alden’s own, or else sold on, some just within the law, some well past it, depending on the market served.

  “Don’t be too rough,” Bernie says. “She’s Robert’s sister.”

  I am happy for Robert. All that is going to be all right. I have not done too terrible a thing. Bernie cares. A tear rolls down my cheek: it’s a tear of simple happiness. Can you imagine the rarity? The lens moves close. Everyone’s delighted. A genuine tear in high resolution can be used and reused all over the net, flung from one computer to another: Roussel’s dream comes true. One bite, a trillion bytes. A trillion pixels multiply on blue boxes everywhere, sourced by that single human tear, the organic and inorganic at last united. The infinite complexity of mirrored forms: what is this but chaos theory; science and the arts united. One tear rolls,
the universe laps it up. Ray comes up close to me. I can feel his erection. Astonishing—Ray, the hapless lover! They so seldom try just being nice to each other, these people. He licks the tear off my cheek. That too is filmed.

  Down below the great brown bear lumbers in. Actually he is surprisingly fast and light on his feet. He wears a dark yellow silk shirt and a red belt, good against the white background. My sisters seem to display almost no color at all, with their short wheaten hair, pale skins and eyes. Mikhail’s chin is black and stubbly, the mouth coarse. He seems to fill more space than he should, to have an unreasonable intensity of being. He exudes charisma. You can see the balls and the penis as he moves, heavy and hairy. He has the energy that comes with power. Power translates into star quality on screen. He stares down at Alison for a while. His eyes move to Katharine. He prefers Katharine. He rips the dress off her, one long tear from neck to hem. Perhaps the dresses were not so badly chosen after all. Cheap material rips easily.

  Both girls stare upward, helpless, give little moans of terror. They are acting: I know they are. They have the family blood in them. They will ask for copies of the film when this is over, along with their money. I am pretty sure Mikhail has no idea he’s on film. I doubt that Alden and Ray will have the courage to release it—though they might be tempted to simply transpose another head onto the oligarch’s body. Even so—a wart, a birthmark, a tattoo? He might get to know, and nasty sudden deaths could happen. That would clean up the world a bit.

  Or perhaps he just won’t care: why should he? Truly powerful men do not care what others think. He might take it as a compliment; distribute the footage through his footballs clubs around the world. Look at me, the man who de-flowered two English virgins, me, the most powerful man in the world! Who is to say which way it will go?

  Alison’s turn to lose her dress. She squeals so he thrusts it in her mouth. The penis has risen now, pushing the yellow silk out in front of him. It seems enormous. The girls’ eyes move to look: they do now seem a little alarmed, but they lie there; thoughts of Ovid and Catullus no doubt make them brave. I look, but keep my expression impassive. Waste of good film, up here. Down there it’s different.

  Now Mikhail lies between the twins. He has to separate them to do so. It’s like dividing two chopsticks. They don’t like that. But for this occasion they do have to acknowledge they are two people, not one. He mounts Katharine, and with one casual giant hand lifting her buttocks in the air, pushes his whole body forward to enter her. She cries out: I try not to wince. He withdraws and now it’s Alison’s turn. Another cry from her and then he’s back to Katharine. He has great energy and no subtlety. The deed is done. There is not much more to it. It was their purity he required: the exhalation of some virtue into the air for him to breathe in and be revitalized.

  He elaborates a little by flopping the twins on their fronts and pulling them onto their knees and going in there, first this one, then that one, to make his mark. He leaves their mouths alone. Sissy stuff. The climax is as noisy and triumphant as ever I have heard: it is inside Katharine. They will fake a money shot. It’s all over within ten minutes, but the technicians can easily sort that out, simply repeat frames.

  The twins are deflowered at their own request. They will be able to pay for the next couple of years’ tuition. Ovid will, or will not, spring to life for them. They are not impetuous: they are not likely to follow in their big sister’s footsteps along the paths trodden by the Vocational Girl. I hope not. I can see that path runs far too near the banks of the canal, the edge of railway line, the fringe of the motorway, where just a push can be the end of you. There are too many truly nasty people about. Alden is one of them.

  At least he never came in me, out of me, or indeed at all. There’s an odd comfort in that. Someone presses a cloth over my nose and mouth from behind. I refuse to struggle or flail about, because I can still hear a camera whirring. Fuck ’em! I breathe deep and pass out. There were no brothers to come to the rescue. Why would there be?

  Party

  I AM STRETCHED OUT ON the blue sofa. Ray is working at his easel. He moves calmly and efficiently. The hysterical paralysis is over, it seems. No doubt I and the twins have contributed in some way to this release of artistic energy. A kind of double-echo, fed-back voyeurism, unwanted on a sound track, but stimulating enough in real life.

  I have a very bad headache, but I am alive. I had thought perhaps I was in a snuff movie. But I am a movie star: why would they want to get rid of the star? The girls who star, briefly, in snuff movies don’t have my looks or graces. They’re the ones nobody wants, the rejects of society and their own families. The deformed, the poor, the sulky and sullen. They get snuffed, tortured or mishandled to death for the sake of some good footage, a source of excitement to others. Do these girls get a look in, in Ray’s portrait of the universe? Probably not. His is an up-market view, as much a rarified luxury as is Alden’s Thelemy—The Murmur of Eternity, designed to appeal to those so satiated by extremes of technology they no longer listen out for the real music of the spheres: a baby, a bird, rain on the window.

  This morning the eternal murmur, in its newest—perhaps final—version, is playing in my ears as I wake. It sounds slightly less dire: the pain in my head has subsided into the background and there’s a kind of airy trill running through it; I reckon it has breathed in, modified, and is now breathing out, the twins’ first act of love. Whatever it is has healed Ray’s hand. I wish I was happy for him, but I am not.

  So Alden reckons that with me the film stops before the death of the body. Thank you, Alden. For me humiliation is enough: death of the spirit. Show me my past, laugh at me, trample my ideals, make yourself some money. Oh, I am humiliated all right. You have seen to that. I am well and truly paid out for being Joan. If that was Max at the sound console last night, if Max moonlights as a film technician, why then Alden had played me for a fool from the beginning. And yes, that was the tennis player, that was young Hasan: famous and notorious cocks without faces: try to guess who?

  The suites on the fourth floor of the Olivier are fitted out with cameras. Who’s that fool of a girl, thinking she is doing good? None other than the Olivier’s tame whore, Vanessa. Alden’s victory over me is complete.

  “Better now?” Ray, discovering that I am awake. His world has not come to an end, just mine. He’s excited, thrilled, and triumphant. He’s working again! His normally tentative voice is strong and deep, as if a great surge of new testosterone now flooded through his bloodstream.

  “Vanessa,” he says. “I’ve so nearly finished! A couple more strokes and I’m free of the whole thing! The magnetic forces stream from Betelgeuse to Sirius, the wild horses of human passion will be harnessed to the chariot of the Spiritual Sun.”

  His hand is better, and his spirits, but his head has taken a turn for the worse. I was glad. They could lock him up too. After the police had finished with Alden.

  “Ah, you lovely, lovely thing,” he said, “I read rebellion in your face. Look into my eyes.”

  I close mine quickly but it’s too late.

  Snapshots. Ray is fucking me on the sofa. On and on, the long mean thing goes in and in, and on, as if each thwarted attempt in his past now had to be made up for. (Which comes first, I wonder, the painting or the sex: which begins it all, the body or the mind?’) He pauses from time to time to congratulate me. “You’re so wonderful, Vanessa, I can never get enough of you. Like the sea, always different.” And so forth; then it resumes.

  I remember how Crowley’s woman Leah died from exhaustion, from fucking a goat. Or was it the goat that died? They won’t let Ray die, that’s for sure: his one last thin black line must be put upon canvas, so the next Leap Through The Universe can be taken. He’s saving completion up, like the icing on a cake. On and on. They’re all such silly little boys: if only they were not so dangerous.

  Snapshot. I am in my room. I am being dressed and anointed. A wreath of flowers, tried for size. A long white muslin gown. I reco
gnize my two attendants as the bride’s mother and sister from the Black Mass scenario. They’ve abandoned the wreath and have my hair in rollers. The sister is heating the hair with a dryer. I wish she wouldn’t do that: it is so bad for the hair. She burns my scalp. I tug my head away; she slaps me. I am amongst enemies. Don’t react, don’t react. The cameras are everywhere: in this room too. What have they watched, what have they seen? I get a little extra burn on purpose from the sister, but don’t protest. What these women need is a good straightforward fuck: if they had proper normal sex lives they wouldn’t be so malicious. Audrey’s problem too, most likely: the sex is too fancy. Clive? How can you get a straight fuck from a man in pointed gold silk slippers and mauve pantaloons?

  Snapshot. The mirror room, but not a mirror in sight. It’s been draped with purple velvet hangings. They look old and dusty to me, fit to make you sneeze. The Lukas bed has been contracted to the size and shape of an altar, but lying north to south. There’s a pentagram painted on the floor around it. Now how are they going to get that off? I’ve spent so many hours cleaning this floor.

  I don’t like the look of any of this. There are black candles everywhere, stuck into cheap wrought-iron stands, flaking rust. Alden has always saved on props. Should Satan think he deserves better, he will probably take his revenge. Good.

  Guests mill around as at any cocktail party: some are naked, dressed in black latex, or wear witchy gowns with symbols on them. I recognize faces: cameramen, actors in the scenarios. Audrey, Clive. Ray, all in black, grinning. There’s a tall blond, naked: it’s Daisy, Lady O, her husband Toby, withered and old, also with no clothes, and shriveled little testicles, by her side. Dr. Wondle, Loki. Bernie, Naz. No Robert, thank God no Robert. If I ever get out of this I will warn him.

  Is everyone in this? All, all Thelemites? The Southgate breakaway branch, the renegades too? I think that’s Matilda Weiss, with her stiff botoxed face that still bears the lines of complaint. Can’t be! Was that a setup too? The bride’s mother leads me and puts my hand in Alden’s.