The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels (66 page)

“Hey, old dude. Are you who I think you are?” said a voice when we stepped outside into the crisp November air. Three guys in tattered overcoats were gathered
together, looking hopeful.

Scratch narrowed his eyes. “That depends. Who do you think?”

One, who seemed to be their spokesperson, stepped forward. “You’re the most innovative cultural force in the Western world,” he said. He had bleached blonde hair which fell
into his eyes. His face was partially hidden by black beard stubble.

Scratch took off his sunglasses. He gave the supplicant a thorough looking-over. It took him all of two seconds. Then he put his sunglasses back on.

“Dude, my name is Sand Dune”, said the doomed young man, hurriedly. A stream of words poured forth as he pitched his concept to the Devil. “I’m a performance artist from
LA and I’ve got a devoted cult following and now I’d like to compromise myself and whatever artistic values I have left. I don’t want to shake the establishment up any more
because I’m tired and I’m hungry and more importantly I want a car, so I’d rather be fistfucked and eat shit in exchange for money, Hey, dude? You listening? Lemme introduce my
company to you. This hunky little dude to my right is Nathan Smoke of the Smoke Brothers acrobatic team. He’s got a washboard stomach, see that? The fox on my left is Jimmy Bob, a
transvestite clown from Louisiana. He never insults anyone, anymore. Guys n’ gals both love him. You’ll find the three of us can be very, very entertaining. We’re cutting edge,
but not offensive. We push the buttons just so far. You read me, old dude? Our act is up your alley. It’s a circus act, featuring the simulated crucifixion of audience members. I thought it,
uh, it might, um, you know . . .” Here, Sand Dune faltered. Scratch was ignoring him. He’d taken out a portable telephone from his briefcase, and was speaking into the receiver.

“158 Prince Street”, he said into the phone.

“Dude, you interested?” finished Sand Dune, unhappily.

“Not today”, he said dismissively, as if poor Sand Dune were a street vendor trying to sell him a plastic watch. Scratch put his hand on the small of my back, guiding me to the
corner.

A limousine, painted violet and with its windows darkened, pulled up at the curb. An overweight, middle-aged man in violet jeans and a matching jacket got out of the driver’s seat and
opened the back door. Scratch ushered me in, and I slid gracefully onto violet seats, with a lot of legroom. A violet carpet lined the floor.

(“Matthew, Katrina! Oh, Tomas, honey, do come up here, I implore you. Forget that ghastly painting, this is urgent. I need input. Violet? Finished. Yes or no? Answer me, someone! Today,
please! Style marches on!”)

As the driver closed the door to the limo, Sand Dune and company rushed towards the car. Sand Dune managed to stuff a Xeroxed flyer in Scratch’s gloved hands before the door slammed.

“Please step back from the curb”, the driver ordered, gruffly.

Sand Dune had no chance. I didn’t know how long I could keep him but, for the moment, Scratch was mine.

I was proud of myself. I’d been servile, and I’d seduced him. I thought I’d beaten out the competition.

I was so naïve in those days.

As if Scratch were
selective
, and didn’t choose his slaves by chance.

The door to Scratch’s private club, on Tenth Avenue, was unmarked. Inside, it was almost completely dark. A single spotlight was set into the shiny marble floor. Black
candles shaped like lilies floated in oval pools of water, set into shiny marble tabletops. In the dim light, I felt invisible: loose, carefree, and ready to take chances.

A waiter in a white jacket led us to a corner table. He wheeled over a tray with an icebucket on it, uncorked a bottle of champagne and filled our long-stemmed glasses.

“So tell me, pet,” Scratch said, “what’s your proposal?”

“Well, sir. I’d like to write a book that would sell. Non-fiction. A biography. Yours.”

As I was talking, it occurred to me that maybe I should have made my proposal first, and offered him a blowjob afterwards. I had never prostituted myself before. I wasn’t sure how it
worked.

Scratch seemed to sense my insecurity. He covered my hand with his, and patted it reassuringly. He had removed his gloves. Coarse fur, like the hair on a horse’s mane, scraped my skin. He
began to scratch my forearm, lightly, with one of his thick, hooked claws. He lifted my hand to his mouth, and kissed it. Suddenly, he bit my knuckles, hard.

I winced.

He gripped my hand with both his hairy paws and bore down with his sharp front teeth.

Groaning in protest, I tried to pull my hand away. I stood up, knocking over my champagne glass. It shattered on the floor. Alerted by the sound, a waiter turned towards us. When he saw who it
was, he looked away.

“Let go!” I said.

He relaxed his grip.

I pulled my hand back and rubbed it. It was numb and bumpy, covered with his teethmarks.

“Pain”, said Scratch. “Alexandra, pain.”

“Pain”, I repeated.

I understood immediately.

I’m smart about some things. I sat back down.

Scratch studied me a moment. “It’s a job requirement. The artists whom I sponsor all know pain. Don’t you, Alex?”

I didn’t answer.

“And if not, dear,” he said tenderly, “would you like to? Alex who shows off her slender thighs in bar rooms? Alex who eats rice and beans? Alex whose telephone has been shut
off? Pretty Alex, who is a disappointment to her parents? Talented Alex, who pulls out her grey hairs? Lovely Alex, who – much to her surprise – is over thirty? Cocksucking Alex, who is
so charming and such a failure? In some sense, haven’t you been seeking pain and degradation all your life?”

I couldn’t answer. He knew things about me which I’d never told anyone. It was as if he’d held up a mirror and shown me a reflection of myself. Had he set some kind of trap,
devised specially for me? For the first time, I was frightened

“Shit”, I said weakly. “Sir. You hit a nerve.”

“Does that surprise you?” Scratch turned a cigarette slowly between his shaggy thumb and index finger.

“Well, sir. Yes.”

“Scare you?”

“I admit it does, sir.”

“You feel manipulated? Humiliated? Exposed?”

“Uh, yeah. I do.”

Scratch rubbed his hands together, gleefully. “How nice for you, darling. And darling, how nice for me! I’m touching nerves and pushing buttons! That’s my area, you
see.”

“But do you know
me
, somehow, sir? Me? Alexandra Bellamy?”

Scratch chuckled. “What a question! Cocksucking Alexandra! I’m ashamed!”

“
Have
we met before? What . . . what’s going on? Please tell me, Scratch.”

“Have we
met
? Do I know
you
? As if you were different, or original or important! Is there some scrap of dignity left to protect inside the young whore’s body, after
all?”

“I’m . . . I’m confused.”

“I can see that”, murmured Scratch. “I find your innocence most arousing.” He leaned back in his chair.

“I want to hurt you, Alexandra Bellamy. Think it over.”

I sat, smoking, and watching a metal clock above our table as its violet hands moved, in quivering spasms, counting seconds.

At around four o’clock that morning, I had my skirt pulled up and the Devil’s well-greased dick inside my ass. He kept pulling it all the way out and shoving it all
the way back in me. I’d had a virgin asshole until that morning and, frankly, the first time wasn’t fun. I’d spent an abortive twenty minutes screaming “Stop, please
stop!” until I got the hang of it.

Ah, pain.

One pleasant aspect about having my anus split in two was that I barely noticed that I was being beaten. Scratch hit me, repeatedly, with a patent leather belt from Donna Karan’s spring
mens wear collection. I didn’t give a shit about that, or anything else. All I could think of was my asshole.

That’s the trick to pain, really. It helps you break things down into essentials.

“Well?” said Scratch, stretching out on the rumpled velvet quilt in his hotel room and switching the channel to MTV.

I took a deep breath.

“Hello, Alex! Are you with me?” He snapped his fingers.

“Um, sir,” I said. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move. I would have liked to call a doctor.

“Are you
with
me? Yes or no? You’ve had your trial run, whore. Now I need a final answer.”

I looked up at the violet ceiling and closed my eyes. “Sir,” I said, “I’m in. Do whatever the fuck to me you want.”

“That’s nice, Alex. I’m so glad you feel that way. That’s what I like to hear.”

I dragged myself into the bathroom and shut the door. I didn’t want Scratch to hear me crying. I wasn’t happy. My initiation had been traumatic. I climbed inside the bathtub and,
tearfully, examined my rear end.

I turned the tap on.

Water hurt.

I wondered what my ex-girlfriend, Becca, would have thought if she could have seen me that way, with my back covered with red marks, cleaning out my shitsmeared butt-hole. She would have kissed
my forehead and made me some herbal tea. Perhaps we would have discussed our three favourite old topics: commitment, intimacy, and communication.

Those were the things which Becca had wanted our relationship to be based on.

What was the basis of my relationship to Scratch?

Submission, sex and money.

Three real words in exchange for three small loads of crap.

The second floor of Scratch’s house in Milan serves as his photo studio. With its bright overhead lights and sense of emptiness, it reminds me of a high school gym.
It’s minimally furnished, with metal desks, a leather couch, a table, and a row of cabinets to hold our “toys” and magazines. Outside the darkroom, rolls of film hang from a
clothesline, drying. There are five floor-to-ceiling windows, with thirty square panels of glass inside each one. I tend to count the panels of glass, from one to 150, over and over again while
I’m being punished.

Tonight is like every other night. It’s six o’clock. The models, the hairdressers, the stylists, the production assistants and the lighting technicians have gone home. We’re
all alone with Scratch inside his building – it’s just me and the four artists. Every night he comes to us, looks over what we did, and gives us his review.

Right now, he’s reading the chapter I wrote for him today. He’s lying on the yellow couch. He looks morose. I can already tell he doesn’t like it. Why should he? It’s
such bullshit. The book’s supposed to be about
him
, but I don’t know what I’m talking about. I have no facts, not even basic information like where Scratch was born, or
where he went to school, or when he began to use a camera. Aside from “candles”, and “platforms”, I have nothing.

“Oh, Alex”, says Scratch, sadly. He puts down the sheaf of paper on the Moroccan tile floor. His hand dangles languidly off the couch. “Who or what is this about? You’ve
come up with a crude caricature of me. Surely, you don’t
see
me like this, do you, pet? As a silly, self-involved, egotistic fashion person? Surely, darling, you’ve failed to
convey the nature of my . . . power.” He strokes the pages with his furry fingertips, tracing circles with his blue claws.

“Maybe so, sir”, I concede. In fact, my take on Scratch gets more and more vague as time goes on. My opinions, my beliefs – everything is getting weaker. Living with Scratch,
I’m disconnected from the outside world. He pays our rent and provides our meals. Usually, they consist of bread and water, but, if you’re being rewarded, the spread can be lavish. Four
times a year – winter, fall, spring and summer – he gives us each a stack of mail order catalogues. We check off the books and magazines we want to read, the CDs we want to hear, the
clothing we want to wear. Deliveries arrive from the United States, six weeks later, in shapeless brown packages which we tear open eagerly, like presents on Christmas morning.

Scratch pushes up the sleeve of his blue and rust striped T-shirt and runs his thumb across his dragon tattoo (a leftover from last spring, when “dragon” was the word). For a moment
he’s absorbed in thought.

“Honesty!” Scratch pronounces, suddenly. He hands me back the sheaf of pages.

“Sir?”

“Alexandra, honesty.”

“Yes, sir. Honesty.”

“This wasn’t
honest
, Alex. Was it?”

“No, sir. It was not.”

“Wicked slavegirl. You’re a liar.”

Annoyed, I forget myself – and lose my fear. “Fuck it, Scratch,” I blurt out, recklessly. “I’m just doing what you told me to. You
said
to make it up! I
asked for facts and information and you . . .”

A terrible, angry smile appears on Scratch’s time-worn face. My moment of rebellion vanishes.

“Sorry, sir. Forgive me. Can I take that back, sir, please?”

“Impudent, dishonest Alex,” he hisses. “You shall regret those words! Undress.”

I unzip my shirtjacket. (Shirtjacket, yes? Yes!) and shrug it off. I unsnap my rust bra. I slip out of my yellow panties and my yellow maxiskirt. (Maxiskirt? Indeed!) I pull off my boots of
soft, blue suede. (Suede! The Eternal Return!)

Naked, I walk through the empty room. As I pass the window, a group of male models from the agency across the street glances up at me with passing curiosity. They’ve seen the routine at
Scratch’s studio, many times.

When I reach the round wooden conference table in the centre of the room, I clamber onto it, using a chair as a footstep, and lie down. I rest my forehead against the smooth surface of polished
wood.

“Head up!” Scratch wheezes.

Lifting my chin, I begin to count the 150 glass panels in the windows. One, two, three, four . . . I hear Scratch’s motorcycle boots click against the tile floor. He walks to the file
cabinet and opens the drawer where we keep our five tubes of lubricant, and our shared instruments of torture.

I hear him riffle through the contents of the drawer. I count faster. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen . . .

He shuts the drawer, crosses the room, and stops behind me. Fifteen, sixteen . . .