The other women rose out of their chairs.
“Please don’t send the video,” he said.
They left without another word, without a backward glance, which made him wish he hadn’t pleaded.
But now one of them had returned. . . .
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he discovered that he could make out a pale mound, which was her hip, presumably, and, to the left of that, the two much smaller curves of her heels, one resting on the other.
He could feel her breath against his skin, as light as feathers landing.
“Don’t worry,” he heard her say. “It’s only a dream.”
“But I’m awake,” he said. “I’m not asleep.”
“A dream . . .” she murmured, “. . . only a dream . . .”
•
In the end, he did what they wanted him to do. In the end, he managed it, though only by drawing on erotic memories of Brigitte. There had been a moment when he opened his eyes and saw that one of the women was touching herself, her movements perversely echoing his own. It had been like looking into a distorting mirror. At the same time, the connection between himself and the woman had seemed so intimate that he felt as though he was indulging in an obscure form of infidelity.
Afterwards, they left him alone for the rest of the day, but he knew this was only a temporary reprieve, a sort of natural interval. He had detected a greed in them. There would be more requests, and they would not get any easier, of that he felt quite certain, and yet he had no idea what they might involve; he could not see into the women’s heads, could not predict the direction their fantasies would take.
His only consolation, if you could call it that, was that he now felt able to distinguish between the women. Even in a physical sense they were beginning to lose their mystery. Once, for instance, when the woman he thought of as the leader turned to one of her accomplices, he noticed how the tip of her nose pushed against the fabric of her hood. A prominent nose: it wasn’t much, but it was something. He could add it to the sensitive skin, the darkly painted nails, the smoker’s husky voice. It was as if their hoods and cloaks were gradually becoming transparent. As if their disguises were subject to some kind of unavoidable decay.
There was much that still puzzled him, of course. What was it that the women had in common? What were the circumstances that had brought them together? This curiosity about the nature of their connection threw up dozens of still more basic questions. What did the women do when they weren’t in the room? How did they earn money? Who were their friends? How long had they lived together? Had they grown up together? If so, where? Were they related in any way?
Slow down, he told himself. Slow down.
From his point of view the women formed a unit, a sort of edifice, but he had to remember that they were individuals as well. Two of them had determined and uncompromising characters, and they would be difficult to get the better of, but there was a third who was softer, who rarely spoke. She was the one who had crept into the room at night and laid her head against his chest, content, it seemed, simply to be close to him. Possibly, he thought, just possibly, he had found a weakness in the structure—though, as yet, he wasn’t sure how, or even if, it could be exploited. In the meantime, he had to concentrate on building up as clear a picture as he could of each of the three women. He had to look beyond their hoods and cloaks. He had to turn them into human beings.
•
You don’t choose anger. No, anger chooses you. Ever since he had surfaced from the anaesthetic they had given him he had been calm. In fact, given the circumstances, his calmness had been unusual, if not unnatural. Perhaps it was shock. Or disbelief. Or perhaps, at some deep level, he was taking stock of the situation, developing a strategy. He didn’t know. All he knew was, something was beginning to change in him. To shift. Something was beginning to accumulate.
One evening a woman walked into the room holding a lighted candle and a glass of water. He knew from the uncertainty in her footsteps that it was the woman with the bitten fingernails. She placed the candle on the floor, close to his head, then settled beside him, grunting slightly as she eased down on to the mat.
“How long are you going to keep me here?”
It was the first time he had asked the question, and he heard a tremor in his voice, a kind of nervous violence, which surprised him.
The woman did not answer. Instead, she held the glass to his mouth. Her shadow ducked and shuddered on the wall behind her.
He lifted his head and drank. When he had swallowed he looked up at her.
“I said, how long are you going to keep me here?”
Again she did not answer.
The next time she held the glass to his mouth, he turned his head violently to one side. She was affecting humility, the way a servant might, and yet she was the one who wielded the power. There was something self-righteous about her, something almost pious, that he could no longer stomach. He began to shout at her.
“I asked you a question. I asked you how long you’re going to keep me here. What’s wrong with you? Are you deaf?”
Perhaps someone had sensed anger coming because he had been locked face-down on the floor, his body fixed in an X shape. Each time he shouted he had to lift his head up off the mat, which put a strain on his throat, and if he wanted to look at the woman he had to peer over his shoulder. She was sitting there, staring mindlessly into the candle-flame. She was still holding the water glass, even though it was empty. She had started humming to herself. There was no tune to this humming—at least, none that he could recognise. It was just a sound, unvarying, unending. It only added to his fury. He swore at her, using the worst language he could think of.
At last she picked up the candle and rose to her feet. He thought she might have glanced at him. Just once. Furtively. Then she turned away, withdrew into the shadows at the far end of the room. He heard her blow the candle out. She closed the door behind her. She was gone.
Though he was alone now, and in the dark, he went on shouting. He shouted until his throat felt raw. Until he thought he could taste blood.
Nobody came.
That woman he had sworn at, she was the one who had visited him the night before, the one who lay there quietly, just holding him.
Don’t worry. It’s only a dream
.
For who, though?
Not for him.
•
There was a limit to the time that he had left. A male dancer’s career doesn’t last long—all that lifting: the body can only take so much of it—and his career would be shorter than most. His own personal history of injuries had started at the age of twenty-four. He had been born with a very straight back. It didn’t flex, which meant that it took a huge amount of impact when he jumped. It often stiffened after a performance. He even had trouble doing up his shoes sometimes.
Every so often, when he was on stage, he would sense the injury returning. It was like watching clouds gather. Like watching weather moving in. There was nothing he could do to stop it, not a thing. He just had to use his experience to get through the performance. Afterwards Brigitte would come up to him.
Was your back bad tonight?
The physiotherapist would try and persuade him to take a few weeks off, but he never listened. Rest was like a form of torture to him. He was a dancer, and dancers want to be on stage. There’s just no substitute for that.
In three months, he would be thirty, and he had to face the fact that he was rapidly approaching the end of his career. Yes, he had the choreography to fall back on—he was lucky to have that talent—but dancing had always been his first love, his one true passion.
Yet here he was, locked in a room somewhere, unable to move. . . .
His last moments were being stolen from him.
•
It had been dark for several hours when the door opened and someone switched on all the lights. In the abrupt, fierce glare he blinked, trying to adjust his eyes. He decided not to look round. He was tired of looking round. Instead, he stared at the back of his right hand, the place where the needle had gone in. There was a slight discolouration around the vein, an area of yellow and faded purple. It still ached a little.
Footsteps crossed the bare boards behind him. He felt so defenceless lying on his stomach. It was almost impossible to resist the urge to glance over his shoulder; he felt as if he was fighting some kind of instinct.
At last a woman appeared, taking slow, measured steps, circling the very edges of his field of vision. She was wearing skin-tight leather shorts, a lace-and-satin bra and a pair of thigh-length boots, all of which were black. Instead of the usual hood, she had pulled on a rubber mask. It enclosed her entire head, but left holes for her mouth and eyes. The rubber was a dusty matt-black, which made her lips look unnaturally red. The smell of alcohol and perfume rose off her skin. Cigarette smoke too.
“Have a nice evening?” His sarcasm was muted by the fact that he was forced to whisper. His throat still hurt from all the shouting.
“You’ve been making noise,” the woman said.
She was the one who had taunted him.
We want you to masturbate. Is it really so much to ask?
She was also the one who had taken off her clothes for him. Her body was the kind of body you see in tabloid newspapers or pornographic magazines: young, firm—top-heavy. He didn’t really know how to look at her.
“You’ve been shouting,” she said, a hard edge to her voice.
He turned his head sideways so that his right cheek lay flat against the pillow and his eyes were on a level with the floor. He had noticed something in her left hand. It had straps attached to it. Buckles too. He swallowed suddenly.
“You upset my friend,” she said.
She took a diagonal path across the room until she stood directly in his eye-line. He could see the toe of her left boot—patent-leather, mirror-bright. He could see the sharp stiletto heel.
Her voice tightened. “You upset my friend.”
“I was asking a question,” he said. “She wouldn’t answer.”
“So you started shouting—”
All of a sudden his patience abandoned him. Since the beginning he had had the feeling that, if he met this woman in real life, on equal terms, he would dislike her. That abrasive manner. That superior, hectoring tone.
“So I started shouting,” he said. “So what?”
She stepped back to the wall and leaned against it, her hands behind her. She appeared to be studying him.
Her slender arms, her heavy breasts—what else had she revealed to him? She had a faint bikini-line, he remembered, and a coin-shaped scar on her left hip. Otherwise her body was flawless, the kind of body most men dream about. He thought she might be a year or two younger than he was. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight.
As he watched her, she left the wall and strolled past him, towards the door. Was she leaving? He heard several dainty, metallic sounds that he could make no sense of. Before he could glance over his shoulder, she appeared on his right. He had wondered what it was that she was holding in her hand. Well, now he knew. Strapped to the front of her leather shorts was a dildo, with every detail luridly recreated—the glans, the veins, the urethra. . . .
“You know, I’ve always wondered what it would be like,” she said slowly.
She moved away from him, then turned, moved back again, more than the hint of a swagger in her walk.
“Feels good,” she said.
She smiled, but only with her mouth. Her eyes were cold.
He rested his head against the pillow. A bitter fluid had risen on to his tongue. He wished he could go to sleep.
“We can only take so much,” she went on, “before—well, how should I say it?—before we feel the need to punish. . . .”
“I won’t shout any more,” he muttered grudgingly. “I promise.”
“Ah, you change your tune. But it’s too late, you see? Too easy now. Like the dog when it sees the stick.”
A tiny ball of fear formed in his solar plexus. It did not move at all; it just sat there, as if held in place by some slight hollow or depression.
“I told you, I won’t do it again.” He tried to think of more words. “I’m sorry about your friend. I didn’t realise she was so sensitive.”
The woman squatted on the floor in front of him. She brought a small bottle out of her pocket. It was olive-oil, produced in Italy. The label said
Extra Virgin
.
“A nice touch,” she said, “don’t you think?”
He looked at her, not following.
“It will make things a bit more comfortable for you,” she said. “Of course, I’m assuming it’s your first time. . . .”
The ball of fear rolled slowly out of its hollow and down into his belly. He pulled hard at the rings, but only succeeded in grazing the inside of both wrists.
“It’s not so bad,” she said. “You might even get some pleasure from it.”
She took the pillow from under his head and folded it in half, then wedged it beneath his stomach so that his buttocks were lifted into the air. He was facing the right wall, which was made of brick. All of a sudden his focus altered, and he saw himself reflected in the stainless-steel ring that held his right hand. He could only see an eye, the right one. It didn’t look like his.
The woman had positioned herself behind him, with her knees between his thighs.
“I always wanted to do this,” she whispered in a silky voice.
He cried out as he felt the dildo penetrate.
“You can struggle if you like,” she whispered.
She held him by the hips and pushed in deeper. The stranger’s eye stared out at him forlornly from the narrow, curving strip of stainless steel.
“You know what you are, don’t you,” she was saying. “You’re a cunt.”
After a few moments she kneeled upright, unfastened her bra and dropped it on the rubber mat beside her. Then she leaned over him again, her breath hot against his neck. Cigarettes and perfume. Alcohol.
Her nipples brushed his shoulder-blades as she moved in and out.
“Cunt,” she whispered in his ear.
And then, in time with the rhythmic motion of her body, “Cunt . . . cunt . . . cunt . . . cunt . . .”