by A. J. Molloy
As before, there are dozens of young men in dark suits at the gates, and as before they have unsmiling faces, earphones for communications, and black sunglasses despite the clouds. The ominous creases in their smart jackets—I am now pretty sure—indicate where they holster their guns.
Marc shows his credentials—an ID card, and some kind of small ivory plaque, depicting Dionysus the God, clutching his staff of fennel, the thyrsus. I have surmised this is a symbol for the final initiation. I wait patiently, if a little anxiously, as the guards do their thing, and then we are escorted through a large door, big enough for a carriage, and up some plain whitewashed steps to two large and almost empty bedrooms. Some of the ruined castle has been revamped, presumably for the Mysteries.
By whom? Who is paying? Is it Marc himself? Marc and a few other billionaires? What business is he doing?
There are questions I want to ask, and then there are many more questions I probably don’t want answered. I gaze about me, a little bewildered; then Marc says I have time to rest before the rituals begin. This is good, because I feel so tired. Kicking off my shoes, I fall straight onto the bed and lapse into a deep, exhausted sleep.
But my sleep is fractious. I dream of Marc and me in a sinking cruise boat; the crockery is crashing everywhere and passengers are panicking. Then I am drowning in a wedding dress, scrabbling at the porthole glass as the water rises—water that is polluted with some kind of red oil—and Marc is putting his hand over my mouth so I can’t speak, dragging me under the waves and—
I wake with a start. Barefoot in my jeans on the bed. Startled and alone. My mouth is terribly parched and I run into the bathroom—also austere, but clean and newly painted. I run the tap and fill a glass with the water of the Aspromonte, the Bitter Mountains. And I drink the taste of the dream away.
When I fell asleep it was mid-afternoon. Now it is quite dark.
The bathroom window is open to the warm night air and the whining mosquitoes. Beyond the crumbling exterior walls of the castle, the mountains recede in their savageness, forested and lightless, apart from the odd pinprick of car lights coming our way. Guests for the Mystery?
In the other direction, the abandoned ghost town of Rhoguda lies in a heap beneath the palace: a silhouette of dark, groping shapes.
I squint at all the ruined houses, the ruined shops and cafes. Who lived down there? Who grew up down there? It must have been an amazing place, once: dreamy and lost in its gorgeous little valley. A village with a frowning priest and a grumpy postman on a bicycle, rattling on the cobbles, and girls singing Calabrian songs as they washed clothes in the clear mountain sun.
All gone now, all ruined, all ghosts. Destroyed by earthquakes, and witches, and the ’Ndrangheta.
I hear a noise.
“Marc?”
No answer. Maybe it was someone upstairs; I can sense floorboards creaking. Other guests are arriving, no doubt, other Mystery-goers, other Dionysians and Mithraists and Eleusinians. And some other women, perhaps, being inducted into the Third Mystery.
I look back out the window. The moon is luminous and wise, staring down. Like she is used to this sort of thing.
Voices.
Now I can definitely hear voices. Outside my room. They sound subdued, like people exchanging confidences—almost whispering, possibly conspiring. Shelving my anxieties, I pad to the door, and listen. The door is slightly ajar, and outside I can see Marc and Giuseppe talking with some other men.
Who are these men? And why is Giuseppe here? I suppose Marc would not risk coming here alone; he would want his best manservant for protection. In the land of the ’Ndrang, the mafia that he angered. But why are they talking in this subtle and conspiratorial way? Marc is frowning, and nodding.
I yearn to see the faces of their interlocutors. These voices sound older—speaking in rapid yet reedy Italian. I cannot quite catch what they are saying: though I hear the word ’Ndrangheta.
Twice.
A floorboard creaks. The conversation is breaking up. And I catch a glimpse of a third face. It is the face of a very elderly man, maybe eighty years old. I recognize him. I’m not sure from where, but I know that I recognize him. This man is famous in some way. How?
Marc is coming to the door. I step back in urgency and try to look normal, but he catches me in the middle of the room, like an idiot, just standing aimlessly.
“X?”
“Yes?”
He frowns.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course. I . . . I just woke up. God. You shouldn’t have let me sleep so long. Sorry. Sorry. I’m all over the place.”
The rush of words seems to soothe him. His frown softens.
“Okay, well, you better get ready quick. The preparation for the Mystery begins very soon.”
Only now do I notice that Marc is in his tuxedo. Black and white, showered and sleek.
“Oh, but what do I wear?”
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“Just have a shower, carissima. That’s all you need to do. The girls will be in to help.”
He turns and leaves. I stifle my fears and make for the shower. It is good and hot. As soon as I am dried, the handmaidens come in, wearing those simple white tunic dresses. Where do they find these girls? How do they employ them?
Just let it roll over you, X.
My anxiety is also tinged with real excitement. I remember, now, how much I enjoyed, at least at first, the sensuality of the Second Mystery, the feeling of an inner revelation, even empowerment.
Come on, then. I am ready.
Ready for whatever.
The girls smile, but they speak no English and their accents are so thickly Calabrian I can barely understand a word. But it doesn’t matter: it is clear what they want me to do.
One girl gestures that I sit on the bed. I do so, a little shyly, as I am quite naked under my enrobing bath towels. My shyness is ignored; the handmaidens remove the towels and then I am just naked. Now a third girl kneels and pushes my thighs apart. She squints and examines the tattoo, and then she turns to the other girls and nods.
She gestures. The handmaiden wants me to stand. So I do. One of the other girls steps forward; she is clutching a small, white porcelain jar. She opens it and I can see glittering color inside, a liquid gold. Then I realize what is happening: they are painting me. Two of the handmaidens have brushes, the others hold the paint. My bare skin is going to be adorned.
It takes almost an hour. Yet the hour passes quickly. The girls kneel and swirl me with colors: gold, magenta, and lapis lazuli. The swirls are abstract yet very sensuous, curving around my breasts, decorating the swell of my stomach, traced delicately along my naked thighs, making tender gestures to my pubic hair; my feet are left unpainted, as is my face—and my behind. Why?
The sensation of being painted is not unsexual. The whispering tips of the paintbrushes, the soft and gossipy murmur of the girls. I begin to feel resplendent as I stare down at my gorgeously decorated naked body. The colors are stealthy yet glittering. I am gilded and majestic; my skin is narcissus-yellow and glowing red and Byzantine purple.
I am a work of art.
The painting is done. I stand here, depicted. The girls whisper among themselves as they wait for the paint to dry. Then the smallest handmaiden steps close. She is holding something: it is a plush velvet collar, a sort of dog’s collar.
The collar is fixed around my painted neck. Then a second girl clips a long silver chain onto the collar.
I wait here naked. Chained. Collared. And painted.
Marc enters the room. He bows graciously to me, then takes the other end of the silver chain, and gestures toward the door.
My Lord Roscarrick is apparently going to lead me naked out of the room, by a chain attached to the collar. The only thing
I am allowed to wear is high heels: the girls have brought some elegant black leather stilettos. Sexy shoes. I glimpse the label as I slip them on. Blahnik. Designer Mystery Religions. The Italian touch. But the mood is somber, not amused.
Marc is gesturing again. I take the deepest of breaths.
“Sì, Celenza.”
I nod my submission. Marc lifts the chain and leads me outside, downstairs and along a corridor, where I glimpse people in dark candlelit side rooms: Kissing? Fucking? I don’t know. They are just writhing shapes. Low laughter. That music is filling the air again, sweet choral music but with a low, driving rise, a holy bell, getting louder and louder, ominous and very beautiful.
And at last I recognize it: Arvo Pärt, the Cantus. For Benjamin Britten. There was a girl at Dartmouth who loved this music. Sad and yet sensual in the extreme. It fills all the rooms, churchy yet pagan.
I am led on the chain, exactly like a dog, or a slave, by Marc, my slavemaster. But somehow I do not mind: If I am a dog I am a splendid dog, I am a royal hound, the lion-hunting dog of an Assyrian king, a prized and beloved Borzoi.
Marc leads me into a sizable room, which seems to be a chapel. I glimpse the shape of an apse, a nave, an altar. The music rises. There are many people in here—two or three dozen—all dressed mainly in black. And they are masked.
Everyone is masked, apart from Marc and me—the naked woman in the center: me, feeling like a splendid hound, an animal in her glorious coat, wearing my golds and crimsons.
I gaze around at the big candlelit room. It is shadowy, with hints of purple in the darkness. It is warm and scented and lovely. The air is incensed. The candlelight is flickering, and it flickers, particularly, off my painted bare skin. I am glittering. Literally sparkling. Shining in this light. My mind is losing focus. The perfume of the incense is powerful.
“Alexandra,” says Marc.
The chain is tugged and I step forward, until I am at the very center, the pivotal point around which the room revolves.
“Celenza.”
Two masked men step forward and remove my collar. Then they take my wrists and tie them together with a soft rope. The knot is tight and I wince slightly. But it is not so painful. I watch, with unexpected calm, a strange lack of anxiety, as my cuffed wrists are then lifted as one, and attached to an iron ringlet that hangs from the ceiling by its own black iron chain.
I am being shackled—my arms are handcuffed high above me. And I do not mind. What has happened to me? The elaborate preparations have acted like some drug, spinning me out, taking me into a different zone. Tranquil, and sexual, and not myself.
Marc is standing right in front of me. Watching me being shackled. I look at him. He looks at me. We stare deep into each other’s eyes.
“Drink,” says a handmaiden, offering me a cup, like someone offering vinegar to Jesus.
The cup is metal, and the liquid appears thick. The blood is rushing from my cuffed and hoisted arms, making me feel light-headed, but I drink anyway. And this, it seems, is no vinegar. It is a sweet wine, extremely strong—laced with something I can’t identify.
“Alexandra of the Third,” says Marc.
Something is happening. I close my eyes. I sense what is coming. They are going to whip me.
I wait, utterly tensed. The music swells and ebbs. I wait some more, and then—
Crack.
I feel the first impact of the cane on my backside and it stings, very badly, yet the stinging is sugared with pleasure. I stare at Marc. He stares at me. He is watching me being whipped. We have become the frescoes of the Villa of the Mysteries.
“Drink.”
The handmaiden steps forward and I stoop my head and sip; some of the wine slips down my chin. I feel like a shackled wild animal. I understand why they would want to chain and cuff me. I sense a certain dangerousness inside me.
Crack.
I do not know how long the caning lasts. The alcohol, if that is what it is, makes me even dreamier. All I want to do is look at Marc as he looks at me and watches me being beaten. And he does, he watches. Unsmiling. Yet somehow intense. Our eyes seldom leave each other’s gaze.
Between each lavish and stunning blow, the handmaidens give me this gorgeous wine to drink and I guzzle it down thirstily. I am reveling: let them all observe me. Let them regard my beauty being beaten and whipped. My naked and painted skin in this dark, sacred space. The masked faces all around me are dipped and admiring. Reverential.
The music has changed, though it remains choral and quite fitting. The caning is sumptuously erotic: the snap of the rattan on my flesh; the sense of pain and the wine on my tongue. The candlelight is gorgeous and soft on my sparkling skin. I am not cold, and I am not too warm. I am beautiful, I feel more beautiful than I have ever felt. Look at me, Marc.
He looks at me.
Then I speak. “Do it again,” I say. To no one, to everyone, to Dionysus. To Marc. “Do it again, Celenza.”
Marc nods at someone behind me.
And whoever this person might be, whoever is hitting me: he obliges.
The impact of the cane is so sharp I can feel myself quivering. And trembling with pain and pleasure. And still I hang suspended, swaying from the blow, barely able to touch the floor in my heels. After the next exquisite strike I shudder and moan and know I am close to something—but it is not an orgasm; it is a different kind of climax. Another shivering inner release of psychic pain. What is this?
Marc observes.
I speak. “Do it again.”
Crack. I am nearly done now: close to my conclusion. I stare down at the floor and then I realize: a handmaiden is kneeling there with a mirror. She is tilting the mirror for my benefit: so I can see myself, naked and shackled, being caned. And, yes, I do look beautiful, I do. But why? Why can flagellation be beautiful? Is that what Caravaggio was asking? The cane hits me one more time and I moan, very quietly, and I look at Marc and he nods.
“Enough,” he says.
And the caning stops.
The handmaidens step forward and untie my hands. I rub my raw and aching wrists; then I am deftly collared and Marc leads me away, by my silver chain, to a side room: a luxurious, rather Oriental room.
The collar is detached. Marc says quietly to me, as he kisses my hand, “Rest here, X, for a few minutes.”
Then he disappears. I gaze around. This is a haremlike chamber with towels and silk cushions and copper bowls of water, and candlelit mirrors. Thirstily, I drink the water and the wine offered by the attending girls. They have wrapped me in a silken robe, and so I lie here, half dreaming, drinking the wine, my mind oddly empty. Then Marc is standing in the doorway; he gestures to me.
I follow Marc outside. I am in my silken robe but it hangs loosely open, showing my breasts and my small waxed triangle of pubic hair and I don’t care. My sexuality is surging inside me. I want Marc. I want him. I want him to take me.
But Marc has other plans; he escorts me to the center of the chapel, which is full of more masked people, more candles, and more choral music, this time deeper and more intense, and then I see another painted and gilded naked woman who is shackled—just as I was shackled. She has her back to me, her nudity is hoisted and she is ready. Marc hands me a rattan cane and says, very quietly, “Beat her.”
For a moment, I pause. This is different. I have to do the caning?
The silence is intense. Then I look again. I recognize the body, the shape of the young ripe buttocks. The white ass, unpainted.
It is Françoise. And now Françoise turns and looks at me. Her arms are hoisted in the air; she is shackled to that hanging iron ring. Smiling softly, she gazes in my eyes, and she says, quite sadly: “It is okay, X. I was the one caning you.”
Françoise turns her back to me once more; her beautiful head is bowed and waiting.
I look at Marc. He nods. So I lift my arm. And I strike.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“OUCH.”
“Ah, mi dispiace.”
“You’re meant to have a tender touch, Marc. Being an aristocrat.”
I am sprawled across Marc’s lap, the way I was sprawled when he was spanking me in his palazzo. But this time my dress is lifted and I am exposing my bare ass to his hands, not so that he can spank me, but so he can anoint my tender and inflamed skin with antiseptic cream. A cream that is rather cold.
He dabs a little more of the perfumed cream, and rubs it on me, where the rattan cane bit into my flesh. No blood was drawn, but the reddening pain is real enough.
“You really do have a quite ravishing arse,” he says, meditatively, as if admiring a Rubens portrait acquired by an ancestor. “This seat of Venus, this throne of majesty . . .” His fingers massage me, soothing me with medicinal cream, and I stare down at the polished wooden floor, still a little drunk and woozy, and confused, and ashamed. And aroused. And hungry.
I look over my shoulder where the seventeenth Lord Roscarrick is kneading lotion into my ass.
“Are we done, Celenza?”
“Yes,” he says. “We’re done.” Gently and approvingly, he pats me twice on the butt, like I am a reliable little sports car, then he puts the cap back on the ointment. I stand up and walk over to look at myself in the mirror, twisting my head to see my body from behind, illuminated by soft lamplight.
The pink welts are dwindling, but the biting memories will not evanesce so easily. The way I enjoyed caning white and curving Françoise; the delicious taste of the heady and curious wine; but most of all the view of my own flagellation in the mirror of Marc’s eyes. Him watching me being beaten, naked and caned. Something deeper than sex has been stirred in me this night. But it is sex, too. Oh, sex. My libido is unfurled. I am finding it difficult not to jump on Marc. Yet I also feel shame for what I have done. And the shame itself is part of the pleasure.