On the Bare (19 page)

Someone has replaced the mattress and Aaron guides me onto it. I stretch my cuffed hands out over my head and close my eyes as he parts my willing legs. He slowly draws his fingers up the inside of my thigh and I squirm as I anticipate the touch that will send me over the edge. At last his fingers reach my sex, teasing me gently before caressing the swollen bud of my clit. That’s all it takes. I throw my
head
back with a soundless cry as the wave breaks over me, sweeping me under. Shattered, I curl into a ball and surrender to the blissful little aftershocks that make me gasp and moan.

The chirping of a cell phone penetrates the haze and Aaron’s voice answers it.

‘Yes, she’s here,’ he says. ‘She’s safe.’ There’s a pause and then he adds, ‘No, it’s all right. We’ve got an extra bunk here. Why don’t you come back for her in the morning?’

From somewhere miles away I hear the cell door clang shut. The key turns in the lock and I close my eyes.

‘Lights out, Delaney,’ someone says. I have no idea who.

The Dinner Party

I ARRIVE AT
the house just as the evening light is fading. The crisp autumn air chills my bare arms and I stand hesitating on the steps. I can hear nothing inside.

A wide six-panelled door dominates the façade, a gleaming black portal between classical white pillars. All the sash windows are shuttered from within. I feel exposed by the semicircular fanlight above the door, the only source of light. It is as though a cold eye is watching me. Inspecting me.

My hand rests uneasily on the brass knocker. It seems too heavy to lift. As if urging me on, or perhaps mocking me, a brisk wind sends a flurry of leaves scuttling down the street. It sounds like laughter. I turn my head to watch their flickering papery shapes as they are swallowed by the shadows of the oak trees lining the street. For a moment the darkness beckons. My stomach flutters and I tremble, like a bird poised on the edge of flight.

I make myself turn back to the house. Its stately proportions and imposing symmetry enhance my apprehension. I feel isolated, like a soldier out of step with the rest of the squad.

My nervous fingers close around the brass ring and send it against the striking plate – once, twice. I wince at the boldness of the sound. It feels as though I am demanding entry rather than requesting.

I wait, shivering in my blue silk gown and hugging my thin frame in the icy spill of light. A wisp of hair teases my neck. I tuck it back into the loose chignon I’ve tied.

The door swings open and a maid gestures for me to enter. She is older than me, perhaps forty, and her face betrays no expression. Her sombre black dress and white pinafore are immaculate, as orderly as the house itself. She ushers me into the entrance hall without a word, then closes and locks the door behind me.

The hall is a study in balance and proportion. A door to my left mirrors one to my right and their matching pediments make me think of pincers. A sweeping staircase rises out of sight beyond a pair of Doric columns. The intricate carving of the white plaster ceiling and cornices seems like a giant wedding cake.

From deep inside the house come the sounds of a dinner party. The low hum of voices, laughter, the clink of glasses. The lively strains of some Baroque music – Vivaldi, perhaps. My mouth waters at the aroma of rich food – heavy and decadent. I can also smell coffee, so the meal has presumably just ended.

Despite its size, the hall is warm and I follow the maid as she leads me through a door at the far end. Although the majestic marble fireplace is clearly meant to be the focal point, my eyes are drawn immediately to the only item of furniture inside – a low wooden bench placed in the centre of the room.

It is perhaps six feet long and three feet high. At one end is what I at first take to be the headboard of a bed. Three holes are cut into it – one large and two small either side. For a moment I am puzzled. Then my stomach twists and I know it for what it is: a pillory. At the other end is a smaller board with two holes. A wide leather strap encircles the bench at its midpoint.

I glance nervously at the maid, but her face remains impassive. She unbuckles the strap and lifts each of the two hinged boards in turn. Then, her hands folded, she regards me with solemn expectation.

An unpleasant weightlessness overcomes me as I lift my right foot to approach. My step falters and for a moment I am afraid I will faint. The maid does not offer to help. I draw in a low shuddering breath as I manage the few
steps
from the doorway to the centre of the room. To the bench.

I can almost feel the colour drain from my face and throat as I stand before the austere wooden apparatus, my arms crossed protectively over my chest. I sink slowly to my knees on the bench. I wipe my clammy palms on my gown before placing them on the wood and edging towards the pillory.

Slowly I straighten my legs until I am lying on my stomach. I could be presenting myself on a masseur’s table. Except that I’m not.

One at a time I find the grooves for my ankles and my heart lurches as the board snaps into place over them, trapping my legs. A pin slides into a metal catch and then the maid’s dress rustles as she moves to the head of the bench.

I place each slender wrist in its waiting groove and the maid guides my neck into position with cool efficient fingers. Like a nurse impervious to a patient’s terror over the approach of a needle, she ignores my frightened whimper as she locks the board in place. Her polished black shoes vanish from my line of sight.

My breathing grows shallow as I hear the creak of leather and feel her loop the strap around my waist, slipping it through the buckle and drawing it tight it with a brisk tug that forces the air from my lungs.

A burst of raucous laughter from the dinner party reminds me that I am not alone. I can still hear the music, the lively strings as inappropriate to my situation as balloons at a funeral.

The maid lifts my dress and tucks the skirt up over my back. The starchy material of her pinafore rasps against my stocking tops and then her fingers slide into the waistband of my knickers. I moan slightly as she tugs the delicate silk down my legs, exposing my bottom.

From the corner of my left eye I watch her leave. She closes the door and I hear her shoes clacking smartly across the marble floor, their cadence diminishing.

The pillory is snug against my neck; I can only turn my head the barest fraction in either direction. I can just make
out
the fireplace to my right, the closed door on my left. In the distance the music swells to a bright finale and after a pause a mournful cello takes over. Still the chatter and laughter continue.

I stare down at the lavish arabesque motif of the Persian carpet beneath me. Its intertwining vines and flowers occupy my entire field of vision as I wait, my skin chilled despite the flickering warmth of the fire in the hearth. A tendril of memory teases me. Something about imperfections.

With my eyes I trace the path of each loop and swirl, counting the delicate blossoms, focusing on their shapes and colours to distract myself from the sudden lull in the party. I imagine the maid informing the revellers that the preparations have been completed.

One pale vine curls in an arc, sprouting five golden flowers.

Their voices reach me again, this time low and purposeful.

The tremulous cello lingers on the air like a fading dream.

Golden flowers give on to red, then blue, tangling and untangling.

I hear the voices growing louder.

The strings answer with the urgency of arrested passion.

Beneath me, a maze of vibrant colour.

Behind me, the opening of another door.

And far away, still, the deep and moody cello.

I lose my place in the pattern as the room begins to fill with people, all chatting amongst themselves as though I’m not even here. A man with a grating voice is relating an anecdote which makes several people laugh at each stage. I suspect it’s a story he tells at every social gathering.

To my right I see a pair of graceful stockinged legs, the feet in red stiletto heels. A man walks close behind her, following her liquid steps as she takes up a position near my head. She stands with her toes slightly turned out, her well-muscled calves flexed. A dancer.

A group of men clusters to my left. Their cultured accents and the silly nicknames they call one another
suggest
they are old school friends. One of them stumbles and a bit of honey-coloured liquid splashes the carpet. His companions laugh uproariously, deriding him as a young blonde maid crouches to mop up the spill. She doesn’t look at me.

The voices surround me and I feel strangely disembodied, like a ghost they cannot see. I cast around as much as I am able to, but I can’t find the maid who brought me here and restrained me.

A peculiar slicing noise silences the party and I go cold, my anxiety increasing. I tense the muscles in my legs, straining upwards against the board. But it is securely locked.

A shadow comes to rest behind me and to the left. Is it a man or a woman? Something cuts the air like a sword and then cracks like a pistol. A timeless silence engulfs me and then my bottom registers what has happened. Pain flares across my cheeks and I gasp for air, too breathless to cry out.

The room buzzes with hungry fascination, the voices lowered to conspiratorial whispers. I writhe in my wooden prison, unable to move more than an inch in any direction.

The shock begins to subside, but not the pain. For a moment I wonder if it will keep intensifying. Then a second stroke tears my mind away from the first. I yelp and strain against the pillory, my eyes watering with the burning pain.

One of the men hisses theatrically and comments on the accuracy of the stroke. He sounds as if he knows what he’s talking about.

The lady with the red shoes moves a few paces to the right and then returns to her companion. She murmurs something – assent or approval – to him.

I am hyper-aware of the details of the room as I seek to distract myself from what I know is coming. I take a deep breath and hold it, waiting for the impact. When it doesn’t come I’m forced to exhale, only to feel the cane slash down across my cheeks the moment I do.

Gasping and whimpering, I struggle in vain to focus on the flowers, the dancer’s feet, anything but the searing pain flaring across my helpless bottom.

A log in the fireplace pops noisily. A lady nearby gives a birdlike little shriek and the guests around her laugh. She scolds them as the cane slashes down again and my own cry drowns out their mockery.

I squeeze my eyes shut and strain to hear the music again. I can just make out a high icy violin, its sustained wavering note a counterpoint to my suffering.

My eyes fill with tears and I watch them fall onto the carpet, darkening one red flower beneath me. My gaze is drawn back to the red shoes. The dancer stands at a branching in the pattern where the vine divides into three serpentine coils. I trace one of the coils back to my flower, watching its colour deepen like blood.

The men snigger cruelly, regressing to schoolyard bullies as they delight in my ordeal. My sense of self dissolves with every cruel stroke, every humiliating comment, every burst of laughter.

A hard stroke falls in the tender crease between buttock and thigh. The world goes white behind my eyes and the pain drags a guttural animal sound from my throat. A woman giggles madly and I choke down the flash of anger that threatens to surface, twisting my head from side to side. My hair tumbles free of its knot, spilling down to obscure my face with its dark waves. My dignity crumbles with it.

The cane wrenches another wild cry from me as my chastiser’s unerring accuracy earns another smattering of applause. The dancer paces away for a closer look at my bottom, then returns to the exact same spot on the rug. As the punishment continues I watch her make this tiny journey again and again, as though her part in this is choreographed. I can no longer hear the music.

Suddenly my memory stirs. Imperfection. By tradition, each Oriental rug has an imperfection deliberately woven into it. A reminder to mere mortals that only God can create perfection.

Desperate for some tether to reality, I search the carpet for its imperfection. I tell myself that if I can find it, the punishment will stop. Through the curtain of hair I scan
the
interlacing pattern for anomalies, fully aware of the irrationality of my quest.

Laughter. Glasses clinking.

Another stroke.

I scream.

A short-lived burst of anger gives way to surrender and I drown myself in tears as I succumb to the helplessness of my situation. I hear my voice as if from far away, sobbing, pleading, promising. Anything if only it will stop.

Golden flowers and pain. Red shoes and pain. Laughter. Tears. Pain.

The cane rises and falls and I struggle to find myself in its remorseless progression. The voices have blurred into incoherence. We are all underwater, but I am the only one drowning. Through the slowing of time I finally spot the flaw in the perfect fabric – a golden swirl with three blue flowers on my right, two blue flowers on my left. I barely feel the stroke that follows my discovery.

I am lost at the edge of reality. Utterly powerless, I am reduced to the most primitive elements of pure experience. A cipher.

Tears stream down my cheeks. I barely notice when the guests begin to filter out of the room, leaving me alone with my suffering and my empty revelation. Two blue flowers where there should be three. It seems to define my being, my existence distilled to this single irrelevant fact. The door behind me closes and their voices continue beyond it. Their tone is of fulfilment, like pack animals sated by a fresh kill.

The maid returns. With businesslike detachment she unlatches the pillory and releases me from the bench. For several moments I lie still, oddly bereft by the offer of freedom. Then, slowly, I stagger to my feet. My knickers pool round my ankles and my skirt falls back into place, the silk cool against my bottom. I cannot bear the thought of pulling my knickers up over my scorching flesh. I step gingerly out of them, leaving them behind.