Surrender to Mr. X (23 page)

The dungeon is no place to be in the absence of a dungeon master, with a vindictive man who doesn't know the rules of the game. Mr. M dropped the padlock key on the ground without even looking to see where it had fallen. Keys of all restraint items need to be kept in a safe place, with spares in known places. The whole point of SM dungeon games is that, in theory, there is only feigned coercion, and the submissive can get out of their quandary, whatever it is, at a given signal. Otherwise the police move in and close everyone down. But Mr. M just let the key fall after it had done its job and trapped me, and his ignorance frightened me more than anything.

I did not like the look on Mr. M's face, or the way he was stripping off. There were too many whips and paddles about, gags and masks, bondage ropes, cuffs and collars to inspire him. I did not like the look of his cock, which was half erect. He would be looking for means of making it come up full and strong and
there was too much around to fire his imagination. I could not believe Audrey had done this: or that Clive hadn't stopped her. Or that she hated me so much she simply didn't care about Alden and Ray's displeasure, for displeased they would be. If Lam were really an alien he would be here to rescue me but there was no sign of him.

Mr. M went off to examine the array of whips. Bad. I found the key—luckily just within reach, and stuffed it inside my shoe. He was coming back now with a full pony mask, neck restraints over one wrist and a bra over the other—the kind which confines the breasts while showing them, which you can tighten until the blood supply is restricted and they turn purple and ugly. If he got this lot on me I would be blind, deaf, dumb and helpless, open to assault from all angles and my breasts sore for days. He probably wouldn't murder me because he was a known member, and the Divan was strict on checking identities. I wasn't going to have a pleasant time: this was not outdoor-y, pleasant pony play at all. This was punishment time. And I was angry. At myself, at Audrey, at Clive, at Alden, at Ray, at Lam, at Vanessa for knowing best, at my parents for not saving me from myself, at my siblings for having the nerve to be born, at Dr. Bardsey for taking my virginity so casually. Mostly at myself, I was truly, truly furious.

I pretended to weep and wail and sob for mercy, which hardened his dick considerably. I groveled on
the ground and let him put the bra on, crying “no, no, no!” but before he had worked out how to tighten the restraints I squirmed round and gave him a good kick in the groin, with an extra twist to get his balls with my stiletto heel, fished the key out, undid the chain where it met the ring, and ran off dragging the chain behind me, down the corridor and into the bar and safety, where my flushed and agitated appearance caused quite a stir amongst the drinkers and their wives.

I ran through the bar and into the office, where Audrey, far from being her usual slimy solicitous self, advanced on me, slapping my face and shouting what was the matter with me, he was just a man like any other, I was losing her money, and she had her reputation to think of, I was to get right back in there, he was an important client. I slapped her right back.

That night I found Alden and Ray in fine good humor which was more than I could say for myself. The bed was arriving the following day, had been tested in the labs and worked: everything had gone right: it was practically a state of the art sound studio in itself. There was no need any longer for the old-fashioned camouflage of carved wood and hidden panels: wires were not required. Lukas's version of Bluebeard did it all.

My announcement that I had given up the Divan and was never going there again was met with indifference. My account of my brush with the sadist in the dungeon, Audrey's perfidy and Clive's irresponsibility, seemed to
rouse very little reaction at all. I was within an ace of walking out on them and going back to my job at the Olivier. So angry was I, indeed, that I actually took from my bag the chain and cuff from which Phoebe had managed to extricate my ankle, which I had brought home with me to demonstrate the kind of danger I had been in, and hurled it straight at
The Blue Box
.

Little bits of mirror shattered and fell. Where they fell more glass shattered. It was if a tiny tornado had streaked across a trailer park collapsing everything in its path. I was horrified. But it got their attention all right. The chain lay on the floor. Lam picked it up and handed it to Alden. I thought for a moment he was going to use it on me and wished I was back in the dungeon as a pony girl but all Alden said was, as if thinking of something else—“Well, that got a reaction.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I'm sorry.” I was trembling. The Audrey episode was fading into insignificance. What had I done!

Ray was standing over his painting: he ran his finger up the jutting shards and there was blood on his finger. When he turned there were tears in his eyes. He looked wholly stricken.

“It'll be okay,” Alden said. “It's only the mirrors. They're the easy bit.”

“But why did she want to?” asked Ray. “I don't understand her. I thought she loved us.”

“I do,” I said, “I do.”

Alden moved his chair up to the painting and ran
his finger down the sharp bits. He jabbed at the flesh until it started to bleed. He came back to me where I stood transfixed, wishing I could put the clock back, rewind, reset the computer of my life to a previous date, anything, to have my act of vandalism undone. How could I have done that! Alden made me kneel by his chair, to remind me that he was un-whole and I was whole and therefore owed him a duty, and put his finger in my mouth and I sucked the blood. It tasted pretty much like my own. “Now I own your soul,” he said. “By virtue of your own sin you become mine.”

Now I knew this was sententious rubbish even as he spoke. Vanessa was tugging at me, warning me. More of the language of Crowley Mania: the chanting of mumbo-jumbo, as if words had more power the less meaning they had: the humorless mumbling of the would-be necromancer, from the witchdoctor to the Thelemite via Mme. Blavatsky. The use of ceremony, using blood, which is real, to control “soul,” which is an idea; the association of sex, the most loaded three-letter word of them all, which again is real, with another one, “sin,” or “virtue” which are notional—and Vanessa had lost me and I shut her off. I was too tired and upset to work it out. Alden repeated it. “By virtue of your sin you become mine.” If only it didn't have the ring of truth. Some dark, stupid part of me believed him totally.

I had played in to Alden's hands. But the victim controls his oppressors by his passivity. It was like
being in Japanese bondage: if you struggle even silk ropes begin to hurt. Better to stay still; and quiet, and consent. Submission leads to the Great Orgasm in the Sky. Yet I had thrown my chains at
The Blue Box
, and defied my masters. This would not be the end of it. When Alden said that tomorrow I would go back to the club, apologize to Audrey, and obey her as I would himself or Ray, and that would be my punishment, I meekly said I would.

“Now clean,” he said, “this room must be ready for tomorrow.” And so I cleaned the mirror room and polished the glass, although it was all already clean as clean can be. I was on my hands and knees on the parquet when Ray came in and knelt beside me. He raised my head and looked into my eyes.

“I forgive you, Joan,” he said. “I understand you. To need to love is to want to destroy. Love is the law. Love under will.”

I wished he did not have a plaster on his finger. It destroyed the image of the master artist busy restructuring the he universe. He went away. Presently Lam came in.

“Picture okay,” he said. “Lam mend.”

Lam put me to bed and massaged me with his big fingers until the strength began to seep back into me.

“Lam mend Joan too,” he said. I had a friend. I slept.

N
O MENTION WAS MADE
the next day of the incident with the painting. I was to look my best. I was sent off for the morning to have my hair streaked and a bikini wax. I managed a secret hour at Little Venice just to check the e-mail, throw away the junk circulars and brush out a few cobwebs. The place felt so unlived in: fabrics had lost their texture and colors their depth, as if I had mysteriously and unknowingly withdrawn some psychic support, and what once had three dimensions was now reduced to two. The minor Picasso, the Klimt and the Chagall stayed vigorous and voluptuous, I was pleased to see: they could do very well without me; I was a bit part player in their drama.
The Blue Box
would survive, but God, I'd been a vandal, a desecrator. How could I have done that?

I checked through the e-mails and fired several off in reply—reassuring my family I was alive and well, and telling friends I'd be in touch when time allowed. A letter from my college asked if I was going to enroll
next term or not. It was to Vanessa, not to me. I screwed it up and threw it away. I prudently flicked through Wittgenstein to see if it made sense and thank God it didn't, nor did Vanessa leap into my head and start telling me what was going on. That was good. Let her keep her nagging Bipolarism to herself. As Joan, I wanted none of it. I could look after myself.

And let me not think about having to apologize to Audrey. Why should I have to apologize? She was in the wrong, not me. Why should I be “under will” to someone as crummy and naff as her? What did that make me? But then I had all but wrecked
The Blue Box
. It was all too complicated. I didn't even want to think about it, so I didn't.

I came across some family snaps as I tidied up. I thought I'd show them to Alden and Ray. I wanted to be forgiven: I wanted to be included; I wanted them to realize I was real, had a family, a past, a history, a future. The snaps were of Robert, Alison and Katharine, larking about in the garden last time I'd been home. A garden is a garden and no-one could tell the pictures weren't taken in some council house in Essex. Joan's unemployable printer father might well have planted the odd hollyhock or clematis: such plants can be bought anywhere and are not reserved for vicarage gardens. There was no decking, mind you, which could be a giveaway but Alden and Ray were metropolitans—what did they know?

When I got home to Hampstead everyone was still
waiting for Lukas's people to deliver the bed. The delay made them tetchy and nervous. I bounced and chattered and giggled and tried to make everyone feel better. We had a late lunch in the studio.
The Blue Box
seemed wholly restored; as if the time had been rewound to before the tornado happened. Except the chain and leather cuff was draped over the strong pegs which supported the work on the easel. Why?—was no-one to be allowed to forget the incident? Ray had barely touched the painting since the last burst of creative fire, the Daisy effect having long since worn itself out. I counted fifteen squares still undone.

Alden and Ray seemed peevish because I'd been back to Little Venice without telling them, and I apologized; but I was beginning to resent having to check in all the time. I was family, wasn't I surely, not staff? They were generally edgy that day, no doubt about it. But they took a quick look at the snaps and then Ray started scanning and Alden was at the computer and before I knew it there were my siblings large as life and twice as handsome up on the computer screen, transported through time and space to the virtual here and now. The marvel of it got to me, and I'd have liked to have talked about it, but I remembered in time Joan was a sex-and-shopping girl and that sort of thing wasn't within her orbit. I'd have to be careful. Vanessa was hovering about somewhere, almost sane for once: perhaps her manic fit was over or at least easing? Soon it might be safe to let her back in, but not yet.

Watching them magnified on the screen like this, I actually felt quite proud of my sisters. Beneath the twins' Marks & Sparks navy sweatshirts and black tracksuit bottoms were hidden two rather graceful identical girls. They were certainly teen sized—it would take two of them to make one adult, but then there were two of them. Their eyes behind National Health owl glasses were wide and trusting as they smiled into the camera. Rather little mouths and thin lips but good regular tiny teeth, and clear, flawless complexions.

We had been playing netball and their hair had flopped out from behind their head bands, all fair and curly. They were growing up—finally. They were hand-in-hand, and their heads were turned sideways and up, showing clean cut, very delicate features. It was always quite uncanny, the way they moved together, turned their heads at the same angle, as if you were seeing double. Alden and Ray studied them for a long time.

“Don't even go there,” said Ray to Alden, but I knew he already had. I should never have showed them the pictures. In some people's heads innocence just exists for the plucking.

“I'll try hard,” said Alden. But he didn't mean it. They pondered some more.

“How old?” Ray asked me.

“Seventeen,” I said.

“Do they have boy-friends?” Alden asked me.

“Of course they do,” I lied. Let them not for God's sake know here was a pair of twin virgins, within
reaching distance. “They started young.”

“Call-center girls,” observed Ray. I had to work out what he meant. Of course—I'd told them that the girls worked in a call center, and Robert was at the local comprehensive. The trouble with telling lies is that one keeps forgetting one has.

Robert's picture was up on the screen now, poor spotty lad. But the acne did not show up too badly in the pictures, and I could see he had the makings of a good adult male. He had the fine family features, hair like mine, but blond, and had been charging round the garden like a mad thing, playing football with our netball. He was naked to the muscled waist and sweaty. He was laughing and happy, smiling into the camera, and not at all his usual grungy, haughty self. He had a wide, full-lipped mouth and good teeth, like the rest of the family, but on a larger scale than the twin's.