"Oh Harry!" I said, turning once again on to my belly, "if only I could accept the tepid thing you call living! I want to give myself to you. Believe me! I do!"
"Do so then! Why this eternal search for a meaning! Take life as it comes! Accept the thrills. Don't question their meaning. They have no more meaning than a rose's redness. In terms of what, for God's sake, do you want to justify a fuck?"
I laughed, sat up, and kissed him gently on the lips. His arms encircled my naked body at once and pulled me to him. If he had taken me there and then on the rug, I don't think I would have resisted and everything, my own life and his, would have been very different. But as he laid me gently back on the rug and freed his prick from his trousers, he made the mistake of asking my permission. "Please, Gertrude!" he said.
Something within me snapped. Why did he have to ask my permission if he was so sure of his ideas? Why did he not ram it home to the hilt in the budding lips of my cunt? I turned over quickly on to my belly. "Take me there if you wish," I said coldly, presenting my anus.
And he did. Poor weak Harry did as he was told! How easy it would have been for him to raise me and ram it into my cunt from behind! But no! He laid his knob respectfully on my anus, and a moment later, with a little sigh of pain, I felt the thick shaft sink in between my buttocks.
He tried to hurt me then, consciously. He was taking his revenge upon me. Poor Harry! Had he forgotten that pain was my element? That I lived in it as a fish in water or as a salamander in a flame?
When he came he collapsed, hiding his face in the back of my neck. I lay with my head turned towards the fire, staring at the dying embers.
— 5-
In the middle of the night someone was knocking on the door of my bedroom.
Was it Harry? Had he come to plead again?
"Go away!" I said. "I want to sleep!" I heard voices.
Then Harry's voice said: "Please open up, Gertrude. It's urgent. Someone is here to see you."
I yawned. I was angry with Harry. He had almost convinced me and then he had given the lie to his own words by being afraid to act.
"Can it not wait until morning?"
"It can't, Gertrude."
I put on a black dressing gown, brushed my hair and applied lipstick heavily at the dressing-table, and then, in a leisurely way, I opened the door.
Harry stood there and behind him, slightly in shadow, another man.
"You may go, Mr. Prentice," the man's voice said. His voice had a foreign intonation.
It was not until Harry had gone downstairs that the man stepped forward out of shadow.
I was struck at once by the whiteness of the skin under the close black beard and moustache, the prominent cheekbones which accentuated the great hollows from which two black eyes glittered commandingly. The stranger was tall, slim, dressed impeccably in a suit of dark gray.
He bowed.
"May I enter, Madame?"
I stepped back to allow him to enter.
He surveyed the room at a glance and walked straight to the fireplace where he stood, his back towards me, one fine hand resting on the mantelpiece, gazing down at the flickering coals.
I closed the door quietly, locked it, and stood hesitantly near the bed. Who could he be? What on earth was his business at this time of night?
It was a moment before he spoke.
"I attended the meeting in the Temple tonight," he said simply. "I sat near the back."
"Oh, you are a Member?"
He turned to face me, his gaunt and handsome face betraying nothing.
"My name in Miguel Maria Hernandez de Cordoba. I am the Third Pain Cardinal."
I gasped. He couldn't have been more than thirty-five. I had imagined old men, twelve old men.
"I came about you, Gertrude, but not to see you. I came to see your Grand Painmaster. Where is Sir William?"
"In the cellar," I said nervously.
"What is he doing there?"
"He was in the front two rows. They are to be detained for a week's flagellation."
"And you have authority over your Grand Painmaster?"
"No, but he was corrupt. If you were there, you saw that! His identity was known to Lord E."
"So he was corrupt?"
"Yes!" I said, my voice tinged with defiance.
"And what is corruption, Gertrude?"
I didn't answer.
"And yet you were so fluent tonight when you spoke to the Members of order and hierarchy! I believe you implied that corruption was disorder, a lack of reverence for Hierarchy. Is that not so? But Sir William is above you in the Hierarchy of the Order of Pain. Thus your action of depriving him of his liberty was corrupt. Do you understand?"
"But…"
"There are no 'buts' about it, Gertrude. You had no authority whatsoever to incarcerate your superior in the cellars. Send down and release him at once!"
I rang a bell.
Willie appeared at a small private door at the side.
"Go down and release Sir William," I said.
"Ask him to come up here," the Third Pain Cardinal added.
My visitor turned again to the fire.
He did not speak again until Sir William entered. When Sir William saw him, he fell on his knees before the Cardinal and kissed his hand.
"Eminence!" he said quietly.
The Cardinal gave the signal for him to rise.
"I ask you, Sir William, to pardon this headstrong young woman. She will no doubt ask your pardon herself in a more suitable place."
Sir William bowed. "Your wish is my command, Eminence!"
"Excellent. Then we can proceed," the Cardinal said. "I have come directly from the Seat itself," he continued, "to find out more about this young woman who is now one of us." He nodded towards me. "It is said in all official correspondence that she is still a virgin. Is that so?"
Sir William nodded. "To the best of my knowledge that is true, Eminence. I had Oakes' word on it."
"And what of your knowledge, Gertrude?" said the Cardinal to me with the suspicion of a smile.
"I am a virgin," I said dully, and as I said it I felt regret that I hadn't given myself to Harry. Why had the Cardinal not reprimanded Sir William for his treachery to the Order?
The Cardinal's lashes fell over his dark eyes almost imperceptibly, like the wing of a delicate insect.
He turned back to the other.
"Leave me with Gertrude now, Sir William. I shall call on you tomorrow afternoon at your home on some other business."
"Yes, Eminence."
Once again Sir William went to his knees, kissed the Cardinal's hand, and backed away. He left the room quietly.
"You are out of temper, Gertrude?"
I flashed a look that was meant to be contemptuous at him.
He smiled. It was a beautiful smile. "You think that I too am corrupt because I didn't reproach Sir William? You are a foolish girl, Gertrude. Should I upbraid your superior in front of you?"
I hung my head.
When I looked up, he was standing close to me, his face not a foot from my own. His eyes were kind and searching.
"Tell me, Gertrude. You are not easy in your mind; I want to know why."
I walked over to the fire and sat down on a stool.
"It's nothing, really," I said. "It's just that there doesn't seem to be anything left. I feel as though I'll be bored for the rest of my life."