Surrender to Mr. X (17 page)

I dressed for the occasion in red leather thigh boots with impossibly clunky heels, and a black corset, taking my time. I knew it was all true and I knew none of it was true at the same time. That is to say Joan knew it was, and Vanessa knew it wasn't. Whatever. Both of me was angry with Jude, and one of me was extremely angry with Daisy, who was a central source of the evil of global capitalism, and a persecutor of free expression and the arts, part of the über-conspiracy, destroying from within the very thing it purports to support.

“It's all far too crude,” said Ray. “Some kind of sense will break through.”

“Neither of them want it to break through,” said Alden. “That's obvious. They're both lesbians.”

I heard that; they should be so lucky. I would make her dance about a bit with the whip: this was between me and her.

She whimpered like a great big baby. I made her stand up and turn with her back to me and bend over. Her buttock cheeks were round and full. They
would take the lash nicely. She was shivering. “Party headquarters” was cold. It was midwinter in Argentina, as Alden reminded me. He loved to instruct.

I took the whip and swished it through the air, once or twice. It made a good, final kind of sound. I advanced upon her. I raised my hand—

“No Joan,” said Alden patiently. “The whip is just set-dressing, it's a prop, for God's sake. The dildo's fine, but we mustn't mark her.”

So I made her lean against the bed—how that came to be at “party headquarters” I don't know, but there it was—and spread her legs with the tip of the whip while she stood passive and terrified. I knelt in front of her and tickled her clitoris—it was quite large, like another nipple—with my tongue, getting it exactly in the right place as so many men in their ignorance fail to do. There's nothing like a woman's touch; we know from first hand what a woman responds to. I went on circling until she shuddered and cried out, and came; and then, my own pleasure deferred, and hers sated—but she wasn't allowed to stop: she had to “remember her brother” and put up with it, and she couldn't do anything about it anyway, because her hands were tied together behind her: I've no idea how that happened—I drove the green soft plastic dildo up inside her, it was a monstrous, ugly, vulgar, cheap-looking thing, not at all fit for the aristocracy, if well-suited to bringing a global capitalist down a peg or two: and turned it on to full speed. I felt it buck about inside her and had to
cling on the end for fear of losing it: while she begged me to stop, but I knew better.

“See how you like that,” I said, “you little whore!” I'd been called that myself from time to time, and now I could see the attraction: it passed the responsibility from the perpetrator to the victim. Now I could do whatever I liked with her. I was justified. I grabbed her hair and slapped her.

“Please let my brother go,” she said, forlornly, as if remembering the narrative she was meant to be in. But I knew she was playing a part just as much as I was. You can't get people to do things under hypnosis they wouldn't do of their own accord—it's just surprising how much “their own accord” includes.

“But why does this have to be a dominatrix scene,” I heard Ray protest. “Why can't they just have cheerful sex?”

“Because cheerful sex no longer turns you on,” said Alden. “And she's an impertinent, foul-mouthed bitch and deserves a lesson.”

But Ray must have prevailed because I soon found myself aged fifteen lying in long grasses amidst wild flowers in a summer field with a gentle breeze and the birds and the bees, and we were young and lovely. And Daisy was lying close to me, and we were happy as the day was long because we loved each other. Youthful, supple bodies, mine white and soft, hers bronzed and strong: how different and yet the same. Now lips against lips, tongue searching tongue, breast comparing breast.
Her little finger searching my small, pink, unused holes for entrance, mine hers: now two fingers, now three—we were quiet, that strange still silence as the god of love descends and all things are in abeyance—and then a sharp warning voice, Alden's:

“Teacher's coming!” And we sprang apart and grabbed for our clothes, and tried to hide our nakedness.

And I'll swear I did see the teacher there clear as daylight, outlined against sunlight, the one who spoils all pleasures, grudges all joy, who make natural things seem sinful, and drains the fun out of life. She was real: she wasn't in the head. The square shaped body, the scraped back hair, the full black skirt, tight high bodice and button boots, the very opposite of our easy, idle nakedness. She was not in Ray's scenario, or Alden's: I don't know where I found her, but there she was, when we least expected her. She had an objective reality of her own. She's the one who circles the outer limits of the universe, like a kind of evil Mary Poppins, spreading neurotic guilt, casting doubt and alarm, detecting impropriety, stopping fun. Teacher's coming! She always is, one way or another. Mrs. Do-What-You-Ought, Not-What-You-Want. Standing there in button boots, stalking the Garden of Eden, spoiling everything. Mrs. Do-As-I-Say-Or-Else-You'll-Be-Done-By-As-You-Did. Nasty old women in a high-necked collar and button boots, too old and mean to have fun. Wilting the spirit and sapping the energies. What chance did Rabelais and Crowley ever have, with their hopeful
Do-As-Thou-Wilt-Shall-Be-The-Whole-Of-The-Law with Teacher forever sneaking up from behind. Teacher's on the warpath—so Alden can't come, and Ray too soon, and all manner of wretchednesses abounds.

Now the four of us are on the bed, and Ray is actually managing to mount Lady O, telling her that he is the Lady Colonel's superior officer, and soon she will be free to go. The joyful lesbian scene has had its effect, and Daisy, under will, is in no position to complain of any inadequacy in performance she may detect. Alden is out of his chair and inside me, from the back as ever, and I really think, as his breath comes shorter and quicker, that the spell is broken and he will climax—but no. He sighs, he stops; the Gods of Tantra claim him yet again.

All finally quieted down, Alden told Lady Daisy that she had been stunningly brave, sacrificed herself for love and her brother's safety, that the incident was now closed, that she would cease to hassle Ray about finishing the work, which she would happily rely on him to finish in good time—and (my suggestion, this) would not ever wear the asymmetrical blouse again. She would give it to the poor. She would play
Thelemy—The Murmur of Eternity
at the En Garde opening, and not ask Jimmy Page to play live as she had planned.

Alden told Daisy she was very pleased indeed with the work done by Arts-Intrinsick, and would recommend the firm at all times appropriate. She was to assure Ray on her returning to normal, which would be when
he clicked his fingers, that the suggestion about the restorer “finishing” the
Box
was a bad joke, for which she would apologize. She would remember nothing of the afternoon except that she had said “Fuck integrity,” for which she would also say sorry.

Ray clicked his fingers and Lady Daisy said, “I'm sorry, everyone. The stuff about the restorers was a bad joke, and I was being ironic about integrity.” Then she went down smiling to her waiting limo. I was not angry with her any more. We had both given each other pleasure. I could see that women could be friends. I thought I might even ring up Jude; I missed her. And I could see that my father might have been more responsible for what happened in the summer house than Jude was. I did still blame the twins, though, who had run to tell our mother what they had seen. They might be a pair of child prodigies, but that didn't stop them being spiteful snitches.

And Ray, re-invigorated, went to his canvas and took up his brush and painted another square. And I remembered just how it had all happened, with only a few patches missing. They had wiped Daisy's memory but had quite forgotten to wipe Joan's; and Vanessa's was fairly hard to wipe, since she was never addressed by name. Their mistake.

I
WAS SENT HOME FOR
a few days to the country. Ray managed a final major exercise in will control before the spirit drained out of him. I had my orders. No parties while away, no sex with strangers. No eating of junk food. No sexual fantasies. No masturbation. Alden piled in with his own instructions: no drinking, no smoking, no bitching, and no losing of the temper. Just life as a good Essex girl waiting to take up a post at an infant school after Christmas, going home for the week to enjoy the innocent pleasures of a Plymouth Brethren household.

Loki would meet me at Liverpool Street Station at five o'clock on the Friday afternoon, ready for an evening's work, by which time the Lukas bed should have been repaired and some breakthrough achievable in
Thelemy—The Murmur of Eternity
. It was quite a privilege to be seen as responsible for the music of the spheres.

But a bore too. I would have to traipse all the way
by tube between Paddington and Liverpool Street, at opposite ends of London, twice. I didn't dare ask Loki to drop me off and pick me up at Paddington; to do so would mean confessing that home was in Wiltshire not in Essex, that I was Vanessa not Joan. I knew neither Alden nor Ray would tolerate Vanessa, who knew too much, thought too hard, and would laugh out loud at their faith in the Golden Dawn, Thelemy, OTO and all the ponderous self-importance of aspiring necromancers.

But it was good to be going home. I hadn't been back to see Mum, Dad, the twins and my little brother for some four months. I may have as many mixed feelings about my family as the next person, but I love my home. It's a rectory, next door to St. Michael's, a small, rustic, hilltop church: 12th century, restored in 1845 and again in 1875, the year Mrs. Blavatsky formed the Theosophical Society, forerunner of the Golden Dawn, the Thelemites and the OTO. They say there was once a pagan temple here where they worshipped the sun.

There is a mention of our house in the Domesday Book, the 1086 register of larger dwellings. The Norman doorway with its dog-toothed arch must date back to that time. Beams twist, floors undulate, the plumbing is noisy, the roof creaks on still nights; but there are roses in the garden, and hollyhocks against old stone walls, and clematis, honeysuckle and jasmine festoon the mullioned windows. We have a ghost, a desultory poltergeist who moves papers from room
to room, and occasionally makes plates fall off the dresser. But that may be the twins' unconscious fault: kinetic spookery is often connected with the presence of neurotic, teenage girls.

My mother drifts around, sometimes in her vestments of office, sometimes not, always kind, vaguely anxious, trying to tempt the young in to her services with guitars, bongo drums, conjurers and prayers she makes up herself. She used to be a counselor and conducts her feel-good services as if they were a group therapy. Her congregation, elderly and dwindling, put up with her because she is a nice person and tries hard. She is always in the right, which is sometimes difficult for a family to take. My father is a stern Church of England traditionalist, and what he sees as my mother's “soppiness” drives him to quiet apoplexy. He doesn't believe in women priests. “A woman preaching is like a dog standing on its hind legs,” he quotes from Dr. Johnson. He once said she had herself ordained to annoy him.

Alison and Katharine accuse her of passive-aggression, but she just smiles and says they're entitled to their opinion, and understands their anger. She forgives them which they say proves their point. Little Robert is her favorite, and she discourages any display of anger or violence from him, thus, my father says, threatening to make him turn out gay. Which to my father would be a terrible and disgraceful thing. To Mum, though she would deny it, it could be an
outcome greatly to be desired, for then he might never leave her. Easier to lose a son to another man than to a woman.

So we have our family tensions, not least between Mum and myself, but she loves me and I love her. And my parents love each other, in spite of my father's astonishing behavior with Jude, which my Mum has forgiven according to her lights, though I'm not sure I quite have.

All the same, I am her least favorite child. She thinks I live a secretive life, which I do, and that I lie to her, which I do. But I took the job at the Olivier in part to save my family's face; so my parents could have something to say to their friends—“oh, Vanessa? She's gone into hotel management—yes!—a training scheme at the Olivier in London, she could have stuck it out in academia, but she does like to work with people.”

What my mother really wants, of course, are grandchildren. I've failed her so far, and the twins are so backward sexually and so advanced intellectually, she's resigned to not holding her breath. They communicate with each other rather than the outside word: for sport they throw Latin tenses and Greek conjugations around like tennis balls. Babies would terrify them.

I don't know whether Robert is gay or not, and I don't suppose it is anything to do with Mother either way. I'm pretty sure he won't turn out like Hasan, who I hope by now is spreading happiness amongst my sisters all over the planet, whenever he can dodge his father.
My brother currently slouches round in slacker mode, sneery, arch, spotty and reluctant, driving everyone mad: last winter he exasperated and embarrassed my father by getting suspended from Eton for a week for shaving his head. Even my mother acknowledges that currently he is being very “trying” but says it's his anxiety about his sexual orientation that makes him like this. My father snorts and goes back to his books.

My grandmother pays Robert's school fees by covenant from beyond the grave. I got left the paintings, and the twins will have a small flat in Oxford in a couple of years. All these goodies were earned by my grandmother on her back, as Lord F, her one-time husband loved to say. She was beautiful, charming and greedy, a courtesan, and no doubt it's all somewhere in the genes, having by-passed my mother. My grandmother by all accounts flirted, seduced, and married for money and titles. She left angry men wherever she went—and I daresay once or twice heard herself described as the Scarlet Whore of Babylon—but not, I reckon, as often as I have in the last few weeks. When I was a girl I used to wonder what went on in the pagan temple where now St. Michael's stands. Sex and human sacrifice, I supposed. It's all rather tame now and getting tamer every day my mother is in charge.