Thongs

— 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."

He sat down near me, his hand stroking the fine hairs of his beard near the cheek.

"Go on, Gertrude."

"That's no more to say," I said. "I thought it would give me pleasure to be Painmistress. It doesn't. All those foolish people having to be bullied to take their illicit pleasure. And what is there for me? Money? Power? These things don't interest me. I'm sick of the world! I nearly gave myself to Harry Prentice tonight — that's how bored I had become. And I would have and still would even now if I hadn't known it would just be the same afterwards. Do you understand? Does no one understand?"

"I understand perfectly," the Cardinal said. "When I examined your dossier at the Holy Seat I suspected as much. There is no future for you in the Order, Gertrude. When I saw and heard you tonight, my thoughts were confirmed. You are too zealously religious, too pure. For you, the logic of your terrible passion is inescapable. In the world, in the Congregation, there can only be repetition, anticlimax. That is not for you, Gertrude. But you cannot expect all these worldly people to accept your terrible logic. It is your destiny, not theirs."

As he spoke, he had reached over and taken my hand.

"You know what I mean, Gertrude?"

He was staring into my eyes. In the depth of his eyes a holy fire seemed to burn. I was fascinated and frightened but above all glad, glad that someone else had looked into my heart and recognized the terrible passion that lurked there.

"Yes."

"And you accept?"

"Yes."

"You will die naked, nailed to a cross, near the Holy Seat. You will die for us, and to affirm your own great passion, and your agony will be a light for us who are condemned to live on." He spoke as though he were hypnotized.

"Yes."

He got up and once again laid one of his beautiful hands on the mantelpiece. He stared at the fire.

"We have been waiting for you for a long time, Gertrude."

"When?"

"Not yet awhile, my child. Your sacrifice must coincide with some plans we have at the Seat and they are not yet mature." He looked at me keenly. "It may take five years, Gertrude."

"Oh God! Why?"

"I cannot divulge the innermost secrets of the Order, my child. But anyway, you will have to be groomed for your great moment. You will come to Spain. The Cardinals themselves will wish to have control of your instruction."

"When will I go to Spain?"

"The day after tomorrow, Gertrude. You will travel with me."

I fell on my knees in front of him.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you!"

"You have no need to thank me, Gertrude," he said quietly. "It is your destiny."

Kneeling at his feet, I was suddenly radiantly happy. I looked up at him. "Whip me, Master!" I whispered huskily.

He smiled.

"A thin cane," he said. "Get one from your servant."

I rang the bell and told Willie to bring a supple cane. He nodded delightedly, but I could see he was disappointed when I told him on his presenting it to me to leave us alone. However, he went.

"Take off your dressing gown."

I slipped it off and stood naked before him. He looked at me for a long time.

"You are very beautiful, Gertrude," he said at last. He touched the warm mold of my breasts with his long fingers and then allowed them to fall to the shapely flatness of my belly. "Beautiful," he said again. "The room is alive with you, Gertrude. Your naked flesh radiates a warmth, such a delicate scent." His fingers brushed my cunt which quivered at his touch. He was smiling gently. "There is an art in inflicting pain, Gertrude. I have seen women thrashed by men with no more imagination than butchers, big brutes who depended upon the weight of the forearm, on the brutality of the flail itself. I have watched them strike again and again, bruising flesh and breaking bones. All that is not only unnecessary, but stupidly destructive. I have seen a woman unfit to walk for a month and who, after that month, had lost all her poise, all the pride of her carriage. No, that is not the way of the great artist. See, here is the instrument!" He held the thin cane at either extremity and bent it into a bow. "It is subtle; it will break no bones. I shall strike you three times, Gertrude, with science, with art. With those three strokes you will accomplish your agony. There is no need either to tire myself or to put you through a protracted pain. I want you now to touch your toes. The first stroke is purely introductory, painful enough even though it is delivered on the fat part of the buttocks, but its object is to arouse the sweats of anticipation. After the first stroke you will do a back bend, you know what that is? Your front is then exposed. When you are in that position, quivering from the pair of the first stroke, the other two strokes will be delivered almost together. The first will strike you across the breasts, just below the nipples. You will scream with the acutest agony and no doubt begin to collapse. But at once, before you have collapsed, I shall strike again, this time striking the soft underside of the mound itself, the clitoris, and of course upper thighs. There will be no need for more."

He was gazing at me gently.

"Are you ready, Gertrude?"

Without replying, my throat filled with lust and my eyes heavy with love for the man who was about to deliver the fatal caress, I drooped at the waist, my long hair falling towards the ground — I could already feel the sweat gathering at my temples — and thrust my haunted buttocks out eagerly as my hands groped for my feet…