I responded to her mute invitation by shoving my cock into her anus without hesitation. With one finger I began to roll the pearl in her clit. And then, as if a dream, my mistress appeared from some darker place. Her beautiful face was covered in sweat, and I could see her lips were swollen. She smiled a smile that had a hint of malice and without saying a word, without touching me at all, she leaned over the Japanese girl’s exposed sex, putting her perfect mouth on the girl’s cunt, where I kept my finger so my mistress’s tongue licked both my hand and the girl’s pussy.
A fierce bewildering pleasure was welling up from within me and the force of it nearly frightened me. I imagined it was coming from some bilious and evil place, for, as I watched my lover kissing the girl’s sex, as I continued to take the woman from behind, I wanted to put my hands to my mistress’s neck. I wanted to put my fingers into the flesh of her back, or her cheek, and with all my strength to tear into her, to be inside her in a different, an immediate manner. The simplicity with which I could achieve this horrible feat fed my lust and rage and I continued to push my body more forcefully against the girl. I began to know that there was nothing but trust stopping me from tearing the flesh away from my mistress’s body. I realized that nothing could stop me if I wanted to kill her. I considered with cold precision how simple and fragile is flesh.
As though my lover sensed the maniacal rage in my pleasure, she stood and put her lips to mine. I shot my semen into the Japanese woman, as though relieving myself of the hideously dark thoughts that had only moments before nearly overwhelmed me to commit murder. My mistress gently pulled me from the girl. I was walking in a sleeping state, and the sound of my mistress’s haunting and persistent humming chilled me.
My mistress led me to a dark corner of large, soft cushions to recline upon. Someone appeared and gave us champagne. I did not bother to pour the wine into a glass because suddenly I was taken with a thirst so great I thought I might damn near die if I didn’t drink immediately. I felt out of control and at the same time in great command of my body, my life. In fact, I felt more in control at that moment than I ever had, the hollowed-out darkness in my heart seemed to be the very reason for my sense of grace. A vague tingling told me this was perhaps not the first time I had ever felt this way. I stole a sideways glance at my mistress for I did not want to encourage conversation. I wanted to be isolated in this queer and violent loneliness, this satiation. We rested in darkness for a while, then wearily we stole into the early morning light to make our way home.
She went home to her greying husband that morning, while I went to the flat she paid for with his money. It was a nice bohemian hideaway in the troisième arrondissement, the top floor with a large skylight that filled the place with sun when it made its rare appearances in Paris.
I fell onto the generous quilts of the iron bed. The furnishings of this lovely little nest were also compliments of my mistress’s husband. And my clothing, and my food. I felt a moment of great bitterness and envy towards my mistress’s husband. I was infuriated that I could not provide the things for my lover that I knew she needed. I felt irrationally murderous towards him, towards her, my situation, a situation I had been content with until now. It seemed that the visit to that infernal place had started my mind on a dangerous tread that I could not stop at will. At last I found myself sleepy from all the rage threatening to exhaust me, overwhelm me.
I fell into fantastic and violent visions. I dreamed I had bound my mistress to a thick post in the centre of the theatre of L’Enfer. The air around us swirled in orange narcotic clouds, and her beautiful boyish figure, the fine skin of her legs, shone as though she were drenched in exotic oils. Or perhaps it was a terror sweat. In my satanic dreams, I did things to her that I cannot even write. I attacked her helpless body with such a violent grace and ease that when it was over I scarcely thought about the strength it took to tear her limb from limb, and in fact was more concerned about the mess on my clothing… ah, but I must cease. Even the thought of that gruesome, dream, and, worse, the intensity of pleasure as I dreamed it – it is too, too strange.
The sun was warming my aroused flesh, now turning clammy in an unfamiliar orgasmic sweat. I lay there thinking about my mistress, and the nightclub called L’Enfer.
Two days later I received a note and a package from my beloved. The note read:
WE SHALL MEET IN THE DARKNESS AT MIDNIGHT, MY LOVE.
Just reading her note, seeing her handwriting, sent an electric thrill through my body. And then my mind turned instantly, without hesitation, to my unspeakable dream. I stood for a moment reading the sky in front of my eyes that held the terrible, bloody images of my mistress’s demise. At last, and with a great deal of will, I shook my head and body and tore open the elegant wrapping on the box. Inside was a beautiful, black-silk tuxedo, complete with an opera cape with red lining. It was sinister, and I feared suddenly that my mistress sensed my more detestable motivations.
“Folly!” I shouted out loud, to disrupt my own mind from its obsessive wanderings. I shook the cloak free of the box and held it up to the light. It was so black it seemed to absorb the sun, and, when I turned it, the red silk was a great slick of beautiful, pure, fresh blood.
The early edition of the morning paper reported that an unidentified young woman who appeared to be Japanese had been found dead, her head floating in a small valise down the Seine. The police had not yet found the remaining portion of her body. She had lipstick kisses on her white cheeks and a small white pearl in her mouth.
All during the day I was seized with erotic frenzy. Vague pictures appeared and disappeared in my heated imagination. Suspended, naked bodies swayed under my fingers, the memory of L’Enfer a palpable reality. I wandered across the Pont Neuf and stared at the murky, mysterious water of the Seine. I found myself laughing quite uncontrollably as I thought I saw her shoe rolling and bobbing on the filthy surface. As I laughed, emptying my horrible sound into the wind, I envisioned the girl, her head upon the glorious body of my mistress, and the visage of my mistress sewn to the missing body of the dead girl.
I saw her red lips slightly parted, perhaps grimacing in pain or smiling with languorous pleasure. I remembered seeing her mouth open, the pearl tumbling about… though I can’t be sure. I cannot remember if she was screaming, but I recall her terror combining rather elegantly with her ancient Asian complexion. I don’t know whether I thought I saw that pearl in her mouth, or if I wished it there. And then I realized I was confusing my lover with the Japanese girl and, then again, I wondered if I hadn’t confused the Japanese woman’s lips for those of my mistress.
When it was time to dress, I was covered with a light sweat of desire and irritated by a persistent guilt. And, worse still, an erection that would not fade. I contemplated abating my need with my own hand, then thought better of it, waiting to see what mysteries the night had to offer me.
She came for me that evening, a vision of carnal appetites. Every detail of her body, her dress, her perfumed hair, exuded a need to be ravished. I tempered my own need, savouring the romantic pain of wanting her, wanting to take her immediately and forget the enticing nightmares awaiting us at L’Enfer. I held myself back, mostly because around the edges of her mouth I could discern a strangeness that worried me. I could tell she wanted desperately to say something about the article in the newspaper, but I put my finger to her mouth. There was a terrible silence inside me that suggested to her that she should not pursue the subject of the dead girl. I told her, while my hand still rested on her mouth, that I had read it too. And yes. It was dreadful. But I felt the corners of my mouth turn upward in an uncontrollable moment of pleasure. My queer expression was met with a questioning look from my mistress.