The Image (11 page)

Each time the whip strikes her, Marie trembles more violently, hugs her mount with a stronger grip... She sticks to his skin, all of her skin adheres to his.. He, thus fused to her, senses the spasms as they come and go; he vibrates under the cracks of the thongs that curl around the back and thighs of the woman weighing him down. I know that.

I have an urge to feel Marie's hair on the back of my hand; it is very fine and has the scent of crushed mint. I raise the strands that are hiding her profile and whisper into her ear: "Bite him."

At first, she gives him little cat nibbles, but then starts biting him in earnest, as if she'd been waiting for permission to bury her incisors all over his neck. She worries the flesh between her molars. Fired up by her excitement, I sink my teeth heedlessly in the only region within reach of her mouth that she has left intact, the area around his shoulder. My cheek brushes against hers. She turns to look at me, with shining eyes. We kiss, chins leaning on Sebastian's ravaged neck. He sighs plaintively. He stops doing that when I caress his lips with my palm: well-trained, he immediately moistens it with the tip of his tongue.

Françoise stands above us, watching.

Then she bends down to kiss the purple traces of the whip on Marie's back. She stretches out her hand, says "Come," and dresses Marie again the way she undressed her: ceremoniously, in front of the flames.

***

F. has a suggestion: why not play with the contrast between Sebastian and the Black? The opposition of colors is, indeed, a theme I have included in my notes. So, let them immediately roll across the carpet, head to foot-but no! The head-to-foot exercise isn't pretty. Let them, rather, embrace like lovers. The Black throws himself on the White. Launched by a blow from the crop, they cross the room, their bodies intertwined, from the fireplace to the couch where they end up in the desired position at Françoise's feet who is now sitting there. They each grab one of her ankles, kissing them and licking them without having been told to do so. Going by the rules, we should tell them to stop; but we relent, amused by the way Francoise, leaning back on the couch, lets herself be adored with the lazy air of someone who magnanimously accords a favor that has been extorted from her by surprise.

To put an end to their kisses which have now lasted quite long enough, I tell Francoise that I think she should get rid of them by sending them back with a kick to their point of departure. She finds my advice opportune and acts in it instantly.

It is time, my friends agree, to have some refreshments.

Aren't we, too, a little hungry?

The Black is sent to the kitchen and returns with warm savory snacks, serving them on porcelain plates, and with delicacies on round confectioners plates, graced with paper doilies with scalloped edges. While the ice cubes are melting in our glasses and we are nibbling at sugared trifles, we make idle conversation interspersed with calculated confessions and commentaries regarding the Black or Sebastian. Why be bothered by the presence of men of so little importance? No need to feel embarrassed, is there, about discussing them in their presence? They don't hear anything... They are waiting... Of course.

***

Sebastian lies on the floor like a recumbent statue. Shoulder to shoulder, we are standing at his head, surrounding it with our eight shoes.

I put one of mine on his face. My heel, directed between his lips, knocks against the teeth that open up, and penetrates his mouth. Mutually supporting each other to keep their balance, Marie, Francoise, and F. each plunge one of their heels into the orifice, which they distend and explore with the tips of their heels.

Quickly, I throw myself on the floor, flat on my belly next to the distended jaws to see it all really close up, at gutter-level, there where one smells the mud, the filthy emanations at the sewer's mouth, the damp hole into which I plunge my fingers. I fondle the tongue between the hard spikes of leather covered with spit. Then, gently, I extract the three heels.

I whisper to him: "You are thirsty." He replies with a sigh:

"Yes." Then he adds: "Please." I release a trickle of saliva onto his half-open lips and let it drip down to his tongue where it accumulates in small foamy puddles which he swallows avidly.

I take his penis in my hand. It is swollen. I can feel it throbbing against my palm, I can feel under my thumb the skin of the glans, the thin satiny film, stretched to the breaking point. I cover it with the clear liquid emerging from it. I only need to tighten my grip for him to beg me to hurt him. Then, I would pull his penis as if to tear it off the groin that rises toward me. Holding my breath, fiercely attentive to his changing expressions, I would go on until he comes.

I would drink the delight contained in the spurt of sperm that would gush over his stomach, between my fingers. Then I'd let him fall back, panting...

At the moment, I feel like spitting – on his cheek – with a loud splat... A fleeting expression of surprise appears on his face.

He turns his head, his cheek brushes against my wrist. He says

"Thank you," in a low voice.

***

On the floor before the fireplace the Black has installed a rectangular mirror, twice as long as it is wide, in a gilt frame. The fire is dying down. There are no last flickers to interfere with the darkness which I now need. It is time for us to put on our masks again and to turn off the lamps.

The officiants are standing around the gilded rectangle, one at each corner.

As in the first nocturnal scene, it is the Black who brings Sebastian. Once the latter has kneeled down, he is at the very edge of the mirror without encroaching upon it. The Black removes Sebastian's mask.

One of the women steps forward and straddles the mirror.

Taking the hem of her skirt in both hands, she gathers the fabric in parallel folds above her pubis, baring her black stockinged legs, her garters, her groin and her bushy brown fleece. While I shine my flashlight between her thighs, she slowly bends her knees. The farther down she crouches, her vagina approaching the mirror, the larger its reflection becomes. The glistening lips spread apart slowly around something round and white: slowly, she expels it. An egg, shiny with transparent secretions, falls onto the smooth mirror surface, spinning around on it.

The ghostly faces bend over the mirror, above their doubles appearing in the depths of the pool of darkness in the midst of which floats the disembodied egg.

Encouraged by a slight pressure on his neck, Sebastian bends down. With his teeth he breaks open the rubbery substance and eats it under the converging gazes of the phantoms and their reflections.

Now it is the second woman's turn to perform her part of the ritual. The prostrated Black hands her a glass: it is the big crystal goblet, with facets. She takes it in her right hand, spreads her legs and makes it disappear under her dress which she lifts up with her left.

I hear the rustling of taffeta; then, after a moment, the sound of brief liquid jets striking the sides of the goblet, and finally a little clink as she sets it down on the mirror, three quarters full.

Surrounded by the luminous halo, Sebastian raises the offering to his lips in his cupped hands. He proceeds to drink the urine. At the sound of each gulp in the otherwise complete silence, I feel the tepid liquid running down my own throat. He finishes it without haste, down to the dregs. I have a bitter yet insipid taste in my mouth, and it persists for a while after he has returned the goblet to the mirror, where it sparkles, empty.

The Black picks it up and replaces it with a bowl of some hot concoction. The third acolyte sticks two fingers in it and withdraws them covered with a coating of puree that she offers to Sebastian for him to lick it off. She repeats the procedure, but this time she immerses her whole hand. As he isn't able to ingest it quickly enough this time, the puree dribbles onto his chin, and she carefully smears the overflow over his cheeks, covering them with lumpy streaks of the stuff.

The last officiant, having threaded a net stocking through a thick bronze ring, reaches out for Sebastian's penis which is hidden from sight (intentionally?) between his thighs, now that he is sitting on his heels. Without a word, she corrects his position (reserving the question of "why?" for later) and ties the stocking to the root of his rod. Then, she ties a bandage of soiled cotton round his head, adjusting it over his eyes.

Now the women can take off their masks again, and the servant turns on the lights, one by one.

The ring is heavy, solid, at least four centimeters thick. It is a slave shackle: by means of a moving part cut out of the metal it is possible to open it and to close it again around an ankle. Has it ever been used? I doubt it, despite its crude and unpolished surface and utilitarian aspect. In any case, considering its small diameter, it must have been fashioned for the ankle of a gazelle, a very young woman or even a child. Merely a symbol? Genuine or not, its weight was quite surprising when you hefted it in your hand.

Sebastian had given it to me some time ago, surely and secretly for this very purpose: for him to enjoy the progressive strangling of his penis as it drags the weight across the carpet while I lead him along the Lshaped passage to the back of the apartment.

He is crawling on all fours, attached to my whip by means of the small chain on its handle which I have wedged between his canines.

Little by little, I accelerate our progress. He follows awkwardly, encumbered by the bronze ring that collides with his knees at every step. I point out obstacles to avoid, maneuvers to execute: "Watch that statue... Turn left, right here... Go on... Faster... Now right..."

The ring vibrates as it scrapes against the tiles of the bathroom.

"Stop. We're here."

After removing his dirty blindfold I tell him: "My, but your face looks disgusting... Come here, sweetheart, let me clean you up."

I wash his forehead, his cheeks, his chin with cotton balls soaked in cool water, gently dabbing and using my fingernails to detach the dried scaly spots.

"Who did this to you?"

He looks at me for a moment, then says: "Some masked women... you must know them..."

“I'd like to know women crazy enough to..."

"Yes, I think so."

I dry the drops of water on his face with a handkerchief, then ask him: ' What did they smear on you?"

"Some kind of puree... and they made me drink their urine, too."

"How was it?"

' Warm, salty, a little bitter."

"I guess you thought it was good."

"Yes... you know that."

"But no, you're mistaken... And what about those initials you have there?"

"They're those of a mistress who–"

"She's here tonight?"

"She is, and she looks like you."

I put the satin mask back over his eyes.

"There, you look good again ... Now I'll take you back to those women with their bizarre sick tastes, and I'll make them please you!"

On the way back, I lead him by the hand through the narrow hallway. Nothing of note on that trip, just the pendulum swing of the bronze weight from one thigh to the other and voices, even laughter it seems, from the red salon where my accomplices are waiting. What have they been doing in my absence? F. would tell me soon, tomorrow, later.

To get from the red salon to the blue, where they now had to go, the women will have to cross the entrance hall. The Black will open the door to the red salon, withdraw to let them pass, then open the door to the blue salon just across the hall, following the same procedure. I place Sebastian exactly halfway between the two doors.

The women pass him, a powerless sentinel, in single file.

The bronze ring hangs at the end of the stretched net stocking. The pendulum has stopped swinging. As the women pass, they start it up again, but it slows down almost immediately, the movements arrested by the fabric rubbing against the skin of his thighs.

***

We enter the sanctuary, the place of celebration. The altar is glorious. Flames rise, in tiers, from church candles placed on the marble hearthstone, to those in silver chandeliers, to those in candelabras placed higher up on consoles. In vertical rows they rise in front of a mirror leaning against the wall in the back of the room, a beveled mirror in which their reflections are dazzling. Banished to the shadows around the circle of light, the remainder of the decor dissolves into obscurity with a highlight dimly reflected here and there from some varnished contour.

Scented incense sticks consume themselves in wavering spirals. The waiting masks have been set down on the high priestess' chair in front of the altar.

Everything is perfect. The servant has forgotten nothing.

Now he can bring Sebastian in.

***

Harem
. I once bought it for its name, inscribed in ink on its gummed label, in a tiny shop in the souk of Tunis, from an old man in faded slippers: a small bottle of perfume, its stopper just a wad of compressed cotton. A perfume that had to be heady and vaguely antiquated, ideally suited for excess.

Françoise applies a few drops to Marie's neck, then to F.'s and mine.

I complete the ceremonial unction by perfuming the chosen one: his earlobes, the crook of the elbow, the wrists, the pubic fleece. The hollows, folds, orifices, hairs should absorb the tempting scent and make it seem as if they exuded it.

I tell him to raise his arms. He crosses his arms behind his neck. Reminiscences of the Turkish bath, heavy with effluvia and intimate moisture, come to mind when I see his open armpits.

With a red felt-tip pen I draw a little star just below my initials. I finish by adorning his left breast with a coral earring, clamping it onto the nipple.

***

The women, masked once again and for the third time, lead the chosen one to the altar where he kneels on a velvet footstool before me. I am already seated in the priestess' chair. Two of the women stand behind him, their hands on his shoulders; the third one, on bended knee, is proffering a small dish at the level of my armrest.