Surrender to Mr. X (14 page)

“You sit, Joanie,” said Lam. And I did. You get to have a certain intimacy and camaraderie with your persecutors, and oddly enough, they with you. Besides, if Lam could put out flames with his bare hands, if he could make Loki go through yellow-to-red lights, if he could lift Alden like a doll, if he came from Tibet like the
Book Of The Dead
, Lam deserved respect. He said sit, so I sat. As far as I knew if I turned to go his hand would simply extend into a tentacle and pull me back. Besides, I was sure enough I couldn't be hypnotized. My Uncle Matt had proved it to me.

I looked into Ray's slightly squinty Woody-Allen eyes. The idea that he could control me was absurd. If it was Alden it would be different, even though Alden, who I presumed to have had some troublesome earlier dealings with the Thelemites of Southgate, made no overt claim to occult powers. Alden relied on perfectly ordinary ways of manipulating women: that is to say by
being inconsistent in his response to them. Sometimes passionate, sometimes indifferent: a touch of sadism, a show of acute vulnerability. The emotional weather always changing. The way to train a dog, my father once told me, was never to be entirely and predictably consistent. Sometimes you gave them the reward: then when they most expected it, you refused it. I thought of our poor slobbery bitch Vera: it had worked with her.

But Ray? Ray couldn't even train a dog, let alone Joan, a girl with a nursery-teaching diploma who held down a good job, albeit part-time, in the Olivier Hotel, with an upright Brethren background to stiffen her moral sinews. Never!

“I'll only do this with your consent, Joan,” Ray said, holding my chin, tilting my head toward his. His eyes weren't so bad; not wide, like Lam's, but deep.

“Fire away,” I said. “No swinging pendants?” I was trying to lighten the moment, lessen an intensity which was getting quite embarrassing.

“This isn't hypnotism,” he said rather crossly. “It is Love Under Will. Enjoy. You are a very special person. You are feeling sleepy.”

“I've done that already this evening,” I said. “And see where it got me.”

“But you liked it.”

“Oh yes,” I said. I was feeling nice and responsive, quite woozy and deliciously loose-limbed.

“And you wouldn't mind doing it with me?” he
asked. “I need your consent before I put you under domination.”

“For God's sake, Ray, you've made your point: get on with it,” said Alden who was fidgeting around, moving his chair from place to place, and trying to catch my eye all the time, so it was hard for me to concentrate. “Fuck your ethics. We need the painting finished.”

I deliberately locked my eyes with Ray's. His face was in exact focus, as if every angle and line was delineated with a fine calligraphy brush, while Alden was only a moving blur that shifted in and out of the background.

“Sure,” I said—to Ray. “I'd like that.”

It occurred to me that there might have been something in the spaghetti bolognaise, or I had been fed with substances while asleep, but there didn't seem any call to drum up any paranoia about it: Alden and Ray were friends and family now. Alden could get his scientific results without having to resort to drugs; with my help Ray would enter into a new creative phase—after Hasan I quite saw myself as an accomplished sex therapist. I saw the logic in my vocation developing a socially useful role for me. Vanessa could always work through problems that presented, drawing on her memory's copious access to the wisdom of Jung: Joan could afford to take time off. This was going to be quality time for me, as the “girl who wanted to make a difference.” I sighed happily. Lam leaned into view, and nodded briefly, as if he could read my mind.

“Whoa,” said Alden. “Not so fast. What are our goals here? Our targets?”

“Love is the Law, Love under Will,” said Ray. “Joan is to become subject to my will. She's got none of her own. She will be safer like that. She's all over the place—it's the stuff you give her. You were in a hurry just now. What's changed?”

“I need to be included,” said Alden.

“Too true,” said Lam. “Only then Ray paint.”

He sat peaceably in a corner listening, sweet faced, as a man might who knows things are going well for him.

“Joan,” said Ray, “you are feeling very happy, aren't you, and drowsy as can be.”

“Oh?—yes,” said Joan, but she felt a prickle of doubt: slight but insistent. Vanessa was still somewhere inside, the vocational girl, the one with the First in philosophy, sharp as a needle.

“And you trust me, don't you,” said Ray. As an afterthought, after a glance toward Lam, he added, “and Alden too?”

“That's better,” said Alden.

“I am so safe,” said Joan. “So safe with both of you.”

Now it was Alden's turn to get cold feet.

“This is just plain front parlor hypnotism,” said Alden. “You only make people do under suggestion what they'd do anyway. What's the point?”

“It's a question of narrative,” said Ray. “Wait and see.”

“You wait, see,” said Lam to his master, though I was beginning to wonder quite who was mastering whom.

“Choose a word, Joan. A nice word but one which won't be used too often. We don't want it turning up by mistake in casual conversation.”

“Theleme,” said Joan, or was it Vanessa, knowing on which side her bread was buttered? “That's a nice word,” she went on. “Like Thelma, but softer.”

“Good, good,” said Lam. “Most propitious.”

“When I say the word Theleme, Joan,” said Ray, “my will is your will. And Alden's.”

“Thank you,” I said. “You're so kind.”

“To release my control over you, I say the second word—what will it be?”

“Sirius,” said Lam. “Sirius—suitable word.”

“Joan must choose it,” said Ray.

“Sirius,” I said.

Wherever Lam was from, I decided hazily, it wasn't from Tibet. Vanessa remembered reading that in the States a higher proportion of adults in therapy discovered hidden memories of abuse and abduction by aliens than by fellow humans such as their male relatives. But I was floating out of my body now, looking down on myself, knowing that though Joan might be convinced she was “under will,” Vanessa was invincible.

“When you hear the word Sirius you forget what happened when you were under will.”

“Can I go home now?” I whispered.

“No—Theleme—you can't,” said Ray. “We want you to clear the table now, and wash the dishes.”

So, I got up and I started to clear the dishes from the table. I was quite sure that I was in my right mind, not hypnotized nor under the will of anyone. I have to admit I got up and did it. I had left home because of my mother's insistence on me doing exactly this.

Alden and Ray had been drinking: two thirds of a bottle of whisky had gone. They bickered on while I worked.

“Supposing we override the forgetting bit,” said Alden. “Supposing I want her to remember? The more physiological reaction I can get out of her the better. Lam toe-to-thumbed her: she lost her temper. That was really useful.”

“We're not concerned with your needs,” said Ray. “This is about me.”

“Besides,” said Alden, “this under-will business is all claptrap. She'd have done the dishes before she went anyway. She's a good girl.”

“Sirius,” said Ray. “Joanie, come back and sit with us.”

I shook myself free—I was not quite sure what of, but it was like a leech falling off the skin when a flame is put to it. I was me. Whoever that was. I went to sit down and helped myself to some whisky.

“No drink,” said Lam, crossly. I ignored him.

“Oh, Joanie,” said Ray, in a studiedly casual voice, “will you be a good girl and finish doing the dishes?”

I gave him an old fashioned look.

“You must be joking,” I said. “Do them yourself. Why can't Lam? Isn't that the kind of thing he does?”

“Theleme,” said Ray. “Lam is on the Seventh Path and has been sent from the Dog Star to help us, and when you think back that is how you will remember him. You will respect and obey him.”

“You can't do that,” said Alden. “Retrospectively.”

“You've skipped some homework,” said Ray. “The bit that says you can. Joan … you are being a bad girl. You don't want to be a bad girl, so you want to finish the dishes and scrub the floor.”

“Yes,” I said. “Sorry.” And I got up and went back to the sink.

“See?” said Ray.

“She's playing with you,” said Alden. “She's just yanking your dick and pulling your leg.”

I don't know if I was pretending or if I wasn't. It was entertaining to act the part of the will-less Joan, but once the part was assumed then perhaps Joan was indeed will-less. Every movement I made felt so exquisitely, sensuously right. I got their dishes done, then decided to look for a bowl, but settled for a saucepan. I searched out a moldy scrubbing-brush beneath the sink. I found the greatest pleasure of my life scrubbing the floor. Had anybody told me to do that?

I daresay I was meant to forget and in theory should have, but Vanessa heard, saw, remembered as she moved across the room scrubbing—and the floor
certainly needed it—what Joan did not. Joan was under will, Vanessa was not. It was Vanessa who heard scraps of phrases: “the secret whore of Babylon” from Ray: “constant copulation, the build up of transforming powers” from Alden: “she the one, she the one” from Lam. Joan just went on scrubbing and wiping and changing the water in the saucepan, without even wearing gloves. She broke a nail. She might as well clip the whole lot: two nails on each hand had already been taken down. She felt she had better stick up for herself.

I came over to Ray and said, “I'm a bit tired. Can I stop now?”

“Joan, you are not in the least tired. You have all the energy in the world. Back down on your knees. There is a whole area underneath my easel which must be finished.”

I went back for more water.

“No, that's beyond the call of duty, Ray,” said Alden. “Sit down, Joan.”

I felt uneasy. What was I to do when instructions conflicted?

“Alden prevails,” said Lam: I think he did. I know I sat down. Alden wheeled over to me, caught my hand and said, “Joan, listen to me. You have called the taxi and you've decided to go home. It was a wonderful evening: spent with your new friends and new family, and you're looking forward to seeing them again soon. You know what a valuable contribution you are
making to their artistic integrity. You are so very proud of that.”

“So very proud,” I said.

“Now, Joan,” he said, “you are finally safely home. Isn't it nice to be back? What wonderful adventures you've had! Now you can just lie down, put your head on the pillow and go to sleep. But where's your bed? Oh yes, there is it. Looks very like Ray's bed, but we know it's yours. So off to the bathroom, sleepy head, and wash your hands and face.” So I went. I was so comforted by Alden's caring attention to detail. It would never have occurred to Ray that I might need to go to the bathroom.

I returned to find the three of them were conferring.

“Off you go,” said Ray, “off you go, sleepy-head, off with your clothes—just drop them on the floor, you can pick them up in the morning: curl up and snuggle down.”

And I took off my clothes, dropping them on the floor, went over and got into Ray's bed, and crawled beneath the heavy quilt, and fell asleep from exhaustion.

In retrospect, what seemed to happen was that from time to time they'd forget to release me with the word Sirius and I'd remember things they assumed I'd forget. Or else Alden, wanting me to be in a state of intense emotion and reaction all the time, defied Ray into making sure I was. There was a good cop/bad cop routine: Ray “gave me the cigarettes,” Alden
“hit me.” Or vice versa. And meanwhile, all the time, I was intimidated by Lam. What a ménage! And I under training as the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, with her constant sexual copulation! (The other kind was spiritual, I was given to understand, not for the likes of me, not being a Thelemite. I was just the talismanic one, the dream lover, to be reached out for.) And all I did, unfeeling, was sleep and dream about nothing at all. Sleep under Ray's will was notable for its dreamlessness.

Ray's bed was delightfully frowsty and warm; though the mattress was rather thin and nobbly, with ancient lumped-up kapok, like the guest bed in the spare room back home at the Rectory. My eyes opened to Ray throwing back the bedclothes: a surprise, because I believed myself to be in my own bed, and so could not work out how he had got to be in my room. He was very drunk: he was trying to get his ratty old sweater off over his head and somehow got caught up in the arms. Alden and Lam stood behind him. I thought Lam had been drinking too—his eyes seemed unfocused, which gave his whole head a fuzzy outline as on TV, when they pixillate-out faces to protect the innocent or the guilty from being recognized. Alden's smile was just idiotic. I pulled the bedclothes back up to cover me but Lam immediately whipped them off with a tiny movement of his forefinger. I cannot believe myself as a credible witness to Lam's behavior any more. The heavy quilt seemed to leap across the room.

Dawn was breaking outside the skylight. I sat up. There didn't seem much point in worrying about being naked. A small bird peeked down at me from the skylight, before flying off. The room had the look and feel of the early morning after a night before, when resumption of unforgiving day shines its bleak truth over the evidence.

But it wasn't all bad. The floor looked so clean, and over in the kitchen area everything gleamed. On the easel Ray's
Blue Box
, which had shimmered and glittered so yesterday evening, this morning looked wan and unimpressive. A few hours sleep and I was all Vanessa again, glad to find myself free of Joan. I did not want to be messing about with this bunch of freaks: I wanted a bath, I wanted to get home, I wanted breakfast and to get to work. Feeling sorry for Alden had simply got me into trouble. Something I was trying to remember: what was it? Yes, Crowley's “compassion is the vice of kings.” How true, but how horrible to say so. Something else my brain was working at: a printed page, an old catalog, Marcel Duchamp's famous avant-garde painting of 1914,
The Green Box
. Ninety-three little squares. That number again.