League of Lilith, The: A thriller with soul

by Sugrue, Rosalie

  A rush of sweat moistens her skin. Cheeks, neck, upper arms and back flush red. Fingers tighten and want to curl. Although gripped with unexpected fear Amber remains in sub mode. Looking back it will seem ridiculous that she stayed in character but in the moment being Arthur’s compliant submissive is the ultimate priority. The instinct to flee is there but Amber forces her fingers to stay straight and slightly arches her back in proof of effort to remain prostrated. There is a clink and handcuffs are clamped to her wrists. If it is Arthur he will be well pleased by total compliance. If it is a murderer it will make no difference. Is this the climax of my life? Have lazy and immoral choices lead to a terrible death? The thoughts race with her heart. The third footstep creaks and the fourth stops by her right shoulder. It’s not Arthur — he doesn’t step like that. A slight crackle of leather, shoes creasing as the man changes his weight and body position. Fabric rubs on fabric then a human sound, the sound older men make as they bend or strain, not the sound of a fit and strong Arthur. Fear and repulsion surge through her veins. Who is this man? Why is he here? Will I survive?

  His next movements are experienced as one fluid expression. A hand gathers a thick clump of hair and whips her head back to an acute angle and cold metal pricks her exposed neck. A voice utters a single word: “WHORE.”

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Jen turns her body companionably toward Sarai, pulls her legs up onto the sofa, and relaxes into the pillows.

  “You might say women are soft and men are hard, a classical perception that contains some truth,” suggests Sarai, “but what is behind it at a conceptual level, at the creation of the universe level?” She doesn’t pause for an answer. “At the base of our bi-genderous reality is a quest for power and control. Water must flow to the sea. It must unite with the greatest mass that is also the lowest point. Gravity must pull toward earth, yet nature commands us to grow against this very force. The struggle for power is never-ending. I am giving a male interpretation of this phenomenon, but it will do for us, for now. The nature of power and control in the male aspect differs from the feminine aspect, and this difference is critical. In men the power must be validated externally, in women it must be felt and known internally. A natural thirst for power-validation takes place in all things, and most tellingly in how we ‘create’. It is human to create. We create art, conversation, religion, philosophy, farms, gardens, communities. Men create primarily in the physical realm — houses, roads, weapons, armies, castles, hospitals, etcetera, etcetera. Women primarily create internally — connections that grow relationships, families, and communities. The feminine aspect nurtures the subconscious magic that holds the physical creations together, but more of that later. This may not make sense to you now, Jen, but it will, it will, just go with me.”

  Jen neither nods nor smiles, she is swimming in the words and the presence of Sarai. To interrupt this communion even with a sign of ascent would be sacrilege. Sarai’s voice resumes its mesmerising flow.

  “Back to us all being male, my dear.” She permits her eyebrows to rise and Jen’s mirror her action. “We are male because our species has been drawn into the world of physical creation, the world of commerce. Commerce is the ultimate expression of physical creation. It extends beyond physical creation into the exploitation of the created.” Sarai’s arms glide apart with open palms. “Try to understand this concept … creating in the physical realm has been taken to its most extrapolated extreme, we are all participating in it ever more eagerly while ignoring the feminine role.”

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Amber feels a sharp prick at her throat. Cold metal traces around her neck, around her ear, and down her cheek. It disengages. Thwack! Her face plummets to the floor. Before she can identify the taste in her mouth her head is wrenched up and plunged into a bag.

  “Get up,” hisses the voice. Amber doesn’t think she can. She can taste blood. Her brain is spinning and dizziness is the only action it can muster. She screams. He curses. Hands grope under her armpits and drag her to the bedroom. She is flung face-down on the bed and hears the bedroom door slam shut. A knee rams her back with force sufficient to break a child. Squirming to avoid suffocation she recalls having thought through this scenario. The memory produces words in her fuzzed brain: all prostitutes rehearse this possibility, some live it and some die, my time has come.

  He is sitting on her, unlocking a handcuff, clamping it to the bed. His weight has gone. Pain screams across her right buttock, something has cut her flesh. The pain burns again, she tries to scream, but her face is forced into the bedding. Another gasp and another searing slash across her shoulders. She tenses but can’t detect blood trickling. Whack, this time it scolds her thighs. Whack, the left buttock matches the fate of the right. Next it curls around an ankle but doesn’t connect with the shallow bone within. Of course, it is a belt whipping, classic B&D. Amber hears her own whimpering and chastises herself. She will survive this. She may be wounded, disfigured even … but she will survive.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Sarai is in full flow. “The problem with physical creation is … well, one of the problems with physical creation is its twin brother, destruction. All that we build we must destroy. Have you watched small boys play with blocks? What they create is made primarily to enjoy its fall, an innate male quality that small girls learn to copy.”

  Jen caresses an itch on her upper arm, unaware she has moved.

  “Clearing the forest must happen to make way for farms, roads, cities, and motorways, and …” Sarai pauses and Jen leans closer, “if your castle is better than mine or seen as a threat to mine … I destroy yours. My drive to create is greater than my desire to partner with your creation. We are addicted to creation at the expense of partnership. This can only lead to destruction and violence.”

  “So you’re saying that all us pathetic humans are trapped in a cycle of dependency — creation begets destruction and destruction begets creation and endlessly on it goes.”

  “Well, not exactly,” concedes Sarai, “but that cycle exists as part of the male aspect, and it is not always bad. There is a fundamental need to clear away the old to make way for the new. The cycle isn’t bad by its nature, nothing is bad by its nature, it is simply the nature of something. You could say the crucifixion of Christ is the perfect parable for this male phenomenon.”

  Jen’s lips twitch as she wonders how Wilkin would react to such a heretical statement.

  “Are we having fun?” queries Sarai.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  “Are you having fun, whore?” The voice is not Arthur’s firm, commanding tone but … something is familiar. Her head is ripped upwards and the bag pulled free of her mouth, presumably to enable her to speak. No words come. The violence of the attack has reduced her to jelly. She is becoming detached. Think brain. Think. Act. Survive! What did he want to hear?

  The question is repeated, slowly. “Are — you — having — fun — whore?”

  “Y-y-y-yes,” she forces the syllable through her stretched throat.

  “Yes what?” flashes the response. The pain that follows is new and uncharted territory. A line of blood springs from a cut on her upper arm.

  “Yes what, whore?”

  “Yes, Master.” She gags. Pain and reality flood back, drowning her best intentions. Terror is all there is. He has a knife and is using it. Breathe. Fight. She kicks and flays but he is sitting on her, twisting the bleeding arm behind her back.

  “Well, this is not for you to enjoy, bitch.” His voice is lower and more controlled, as if his anger is spent and thoughts are turning to other perversions. Another slash sears her arm. “You, bitch, are pampered and worshipped by pathetic men every sodding day.” The words are uttered with individual precision. A third precision cut makes her scream. “This is not for you to enjoy. It is for you to endure.”

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Sarai’s voice takes on a slightly sad tone. “The cycle of physical creating and destroying has produced passive acceptance of a
life of toil. We are conditioned to think that the best things come from the greatest labour. Humankin believes its destiny is to struggle and accept that pain must be a part of the journey.”

  “Humankin,” interrupts Jen. “What’s wrong with humankind?”

  “Lots,” fires back Sarai. “How much kind is in humans? Regardless, we are all kin.”

  “Daughters of Eve and sons of Adam,” murmurs Jen, acknowledging a childhood enriched by tales of Narnia.

  “Dear old Clive Staples,” murmurs Sarai, “as well-meaning a chap as any twentieth-century gent. An Irish atheist turned Christian and as captivated by the concept of sacrifice as the ancients in the Age of Taurus. Not only did C.S. affirm tribal sacrifice through his Aslan creation, he entered willingly into personal sacrifice, a marriage of convenience to a desperate Jewish immigrant and her sons. Self-sacrifice has become a hallmark of the modern and post-modern eras.”

  “Surely self-sacrifice is archetypally feminine,’ protests Jen.

  “No!” shoots Sarai, her voice bullet-hard. Jen pulls back, shocked by the anger of the retort. “No, Jen. That is one of the Great Corruptions of Understanding.” The ensuing pause is long. Sarai gathers her thoughts and speaks gently. “The basic phenomenon of self-sacrifice is archetypally masculine.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Sarai looks sad but accepting. Jen finds courage to ask for clarification. “Are you saying the full submission to the male need to create and destroy requires sacrifice, and male energy is content to sacrifice in the name of creating?”

  “Or destroying,” Sarai flows on. “Think of the millions of men who have given their lives in battle over land, women, race, creed, whatever … men are ridiculously casual in giving their lives for causes. It is the nature of the creator/destroyer to sacrifice everything for the greatest creation — the greatest physical validation of their power.” Sarai’s brows knot then smooth. “It is in the feminine realm …” at this point the old teacher speaks more slowly, “to … sustain. The masculine sacrifices. The feminine sustains. That is truth, truth long lost on the ancient pathways of evolution. Make this truth your mantra: The masculine sacrifices. The feminine sustains.” She glares at Jen.

  “The masculine sacrifices. The feminine sustains,” repeats the obedient pupil.

  “But,” exclaims Sarai, “if the feminine power to sustain is not present and potent, then masculine power will …” her voice trails off and her eyes flick over the taut figure beside her. “My dear, do I sound like a lunatic to you?” She flashes a stunning smile. “I do hope so!”

  With effort Jen relaxes and smiles back. “I was with you right up to … hmm, somewhere round sacrifice being a male aspect — can’t say I’ve noticed a whole lot of it in the men I know!” The women chuckle in unison.

  “Me neither!” snorts Sarai, and the laughter rises to belly churning shrieks. They tumble into each other arms exhausted by merriment.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Kat can hear shrieks … screams … someone is being murdered. The screams are Amber’s. She is the nightmare. Her detached psyche refers to her body in the third person. Amber is screaming. Her life is going to be ripped from her by a man. She is no longer handcuffed. Out-of-body Kat observes the ceremony: hands bound to her waist and elbows pulled to sides at breast height, ball gag strapped into mouth, bag pulled over eyes, elbows bound to knees, hands bound to feet. There is no resistance, no audible cry, nothing but submission. Kat doesn’t ask how she knows what Amber is being prepared for. Amber has explored B&D pics. Arthur has tied her in this submission position several times but never used a gag or blindfold. With bondage Arthur appreciates spirited resistance and noise. What is new is the terror … nauseating total vulnerability. Gail was raped before her death. The DNA was not known to the New Zealand police. Would death occur before, during, or after the sex? How did my life bring me to this? Kat merges to Amber as the man enters her.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Jen is far from convinced. “So women live to a male pulse: perfume, makeup, high heels — all male traits?”

  “All male obsessions — most want to ogle them, some want to wear them.”

  “Are you saying women have lost all that is truly feminine and there are no truly feminine traits left?”

  “Daft I may be, Jen, but not that daft. All women embody the feminine aspect to some degree, but that doesn’t prevent some feminine traits being lost to us.”

  Jen has always enjoyed theories, perhaps the wilder the better, she analyses. Sarai’s theories are as way out as any yet encountered.

  “For me,” enthuses her groundbreaking theorist, “the area where men and women most show the natural expression of their archetypal gender is in death. Men are driven to leave a physical mark — a creation or structure, their name, an heir, and, where possible, an empire,” she chuckles. “Women are motivated to leave well being in their camp or village, be it township or city. The drive to sustain and nurture is exceedingly powerful. When a woman passes from this world she wants the bonds of relationship to be strong. She needs to feel that the right people are empowered and inspired, that her community — whatever it may be, family, business, club, church — is in good and sound hands. The woman dies concerned for the well being of her immediate circle. The man dies concerned for the well being of his blood line. Obviously the partnering of these aspects has beneficial outcomes evolutionally. I’m sure Charles D would be happy with my theories, but beyond physical evolution there are deeper reasons for this paradigm.”

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  “My slave, my whore,” the man groans, “my beauty … my … vessel.” The initial stab of penetration matched the preceding violence but sex is shifting the energy — my vessel? What does he mean? Through the terror she focuses on the words and finds the horror diminishing. My vessel are not words to preface death. As his motion transitions from thrusting weapon to something more human he mumbles other words, holds himself deep and still then withdraws to push further into her … she cannot decipher the words but feels the crazed violence has left him. Violence has deserted the space. Other than physical props of violence the scene is one of … she does not know what, but is convinced death is no longer imminent.

  The rapist is not using a condom. The thought comes with the impact of a fresh wound. Death may indeed be on the horizon — surely a beast of this deviancy will be a carrier of hepatitis and HIV. His m.o. is blood-to-blood transferral. Anger bursts from the integrated soul of Amber and Kat, thrashing her body to expel him from her. Her throat is encircled by strong hands. “Amber, my beauty, keeper of my manhood …”

  Oh God, it is Arthur’s voice.

  “Be still, my vessel, your service is not yet complete.”

  An involuntary shudder surges through her spine and limbs and her abused body spasms as in a fit.

  “Yes, yess and yeesss,” gasps the voice she knows so well.

  She swallows rising vomit, and gags on the mix of bile and bondage ball. Arthur, her favourite client. Arthur, her sometime fantasy, is … this? It makes no sense. He is still speaking but she can’t hear him. Hands tighten on her throat. Darkness spins deeper and deeper ...

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  “Jen, I’d like to suggest a practical line of enquiry. My recommendation is that tomorrow you appraise your each and every action. Give to all actions and intentions your power of analysis and see how much you judge to be masculine or feminine from New Understanding. If underscored by physical creation, destruction or personal sacrifice, mark it cosmically masculine. If underscored by sustaining, extending and connecting, mark it feminine. Remember, neither category is necessarily more or less wholesome than the other. Our judgements and perceptions are too rudimentary to offer a clear vision. Simply measure your encounters of masculine and feminine activity. If your score isn’t at least three parts masculine one part feminine, I will eat my hat.”

  “I’ve never seen you in a hat,” murmurs Jen, wondering vaguely what sort of
hat would go with a kaftan — woven straw or floppy fabric?

  Sarai’s brows are again knotted with intensity. “Believe me, Jen, we have chosen to walk a male path.” Jen can’t see Sarai in a turban. A broad-brimmed straw hat with flowers, definitely with flowers. “It is not good or bad it is simply unbalanced. And there is a cost … a terrible cost, my friend. More cosmic and universal in nature than you can possibly imagine. But not to worry … all is in hand, all is in hand. As for you, Jen, perhaps a brief change of routine would do you good. I don’t mind if you miss a lecture. And now, my dear, I really must go.” The women embrace and she is gone.

  Jen is not the wreck she was earlier. Her mind is alive, somersaulting with thoughts — how crazy is the old bird? How crazy is the world? Her theories make some sense, but where do they leave us? Where do they leave civilisation and humanity? Where do they leave her and Wilkin, and their much-desired baby?

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Wilkin is in his Chrysler, heading for home. He is at ease. He has never taken drugs but is convinced no chemical high could match this. He has never felt so well. His mind is empty and his body pulses with sated energy.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Amber wakes from death — apparently only a temporary death. She is in bed, alone. She is sore all over. A throbbing arm is bandaged. A pile of money is on the table beside her bed — a large pile. She has never seen so much cash. Beside the cash is a note scribbled on motel stationery. Thank you — my slave, my salvation, my love, A.

  It wasn’t a dream.

  ~ ~ ~ | ~ ~ ~

  Kat takes stock. She is in her own bed lying log-still. How did she get here? Taxi, she dimly remembers. The driver thought she was drunk. Her legs must work. She experiments. They move. It is early morning. There is a damp bandage on her upper right arm. It hurts. Further experimenting discloses both arms move. Her head aches but her memory is intact. She’s not drunk.