and be gone.
I couldn’t do it. Instead, I studied the draped forms. Somewhere in here, probably tucked back in a corner, was that most unsettling of indoor scarecrows, something so innocent until you considered what it was: a woman’s torso with adjustable baize-covered panels, set about a metal pole on a stand, often a round metal base whose casters whirred over tiles and polished floors. With its panels and segments it was a workaday Venus de Milo and, worse, a quadruple amputee mockery—no, quintuple, there was no head either!—something mutilated, but so decorously, oh so politely. You could leave one in a drawing room.
I didn’t need recollections of The Silence of the Lambs or Boxing Helena , Tod Browning’s Freaks or that opening segment of the old 1972 Amicus film Asylum to stir the dread. It was sharply there, brought on by simply imagining the form, the distinctive lines and curves, the soft fuzziness over hard, adjustable plates linked by grooved, metal strips with little plastic adjustment wheels in between.
My mind raced at the prospect of this most intimate torture device being here, so close by. For that’s what she was! An absolutely domesticized Iron Maiden, armoured and armless. Oh yes! Made for ironing! And irony! Yes!
And she moved under your hands, had her way with you even while you had your way with her. It went beyond the sexual, beyond perversion and paraphilia, yet at the same time resonated with all those things. How could it not? She was la Mâitresse machine indeed.
Her name in all her manifestations was—what else?—Madame Sew, and I had long avoided those cosy sewing rooms where she lived, or those thrift-shop windows where she stood like a fetishistic Amsterdam whore displaying her close-cropped charms.
All things considered, my acquaintance with the lady had been surprisingly easy until now. I had once left an acclaimed French restaurant in Los Angeles because the menu had been wheeled in on just such a torso, a fine signature touch for everyone else but for me an utter horror, the Madame’s gutted form presented with all her lovers’ billets-doux attached. Growing up, I’d missed out on Christmas and birthday presents from an aunt because I’d refused to set foot in her home again. Madame Sew was too often there in the living room, stuck with pins and fragments of cloth like some Frankenstein work in progress.
Those were my two main memories; the rest sat in the imagination.
It occurred to me standing there that in all the things I’d told Jack over the years, I’d never mentioned her by name, had never wanted to give her that much force in my life. Naming changed everything.
Well, she was here now, hiding back in the press of things in this small close space. It brought the sweats, the pressure in the chest, the continuing shortness of breath.
Fool, fool, fool that I was for looking!
I dropped the clipboard, grabbed the fan and locked the door, then hurried out to the fridge and scanned the list again. There was nothing else I’d need. If necessary, I’d get Len Catley to move the thing away, have him keep it at his place for the duration of my stay. I certainly wasn’t going to let the cruel and subtle Madame ruin my time here.
That was in the first hour. In the second hour I had to know one way or the other.
There was no perfect time. Once again, daylight would have been better, of course, but it was happening at 9:25 on a Monday evening. It had to be now.
I unlocked the door again, switched on the light and regarded the shrouded forms. I’d braved the TT disks. I’d done well. This was just another job to do.
I tried to track Beth Rankin’s thinking as best I could, this kind mistress of codes. She had written Sewing Stand readily enough, forgetting herself, but perhaps had unconsciously registered Madame’s ‘doll’ potential just the same and placed her in the corner furthest from the door. That was what I felt. Madame was in the corner.
Away came
I couldn’t do it. Instead, I studied the draped forms. Somewhere in here, probably tucked back in a corner, was that most unsettling of indoor scarecrows, something so innocent until you considered what it was: a woman’s torso with adjustable baize-covered panels, set about a metal pole on a stand, often a round metal base whose casters whirred over tiles and polished floors. With its panels and segments it was a workaday Venus de Milo and, worse, a quadruple amputee mockery—no, quintuple, there was no head either!—something mutilated, but so decorously, oh so politely. You could leave one in a drawing room.
I didn’t need recollections of The Silence of the Lambs or Boxing Helena , Tod Browning’s Freaks or that opening segment of the old 1972 Amicus film Asylum to stir the dread. It was sharply there, brought on by simply imagining the form, the distinctive lines and curves, the soft fuzziness over hard, adjustable plates linked by grooved, metal strips with little plastic adjustment wheels in between.
My mind raced at the prospect of this most intimate torture device being here, so close by. For that’s what she was! An absolutely domesticized Iron Maiden, armoured and armless. Oh yes! Made for ironing! And irony! Yes!
And she moved under your hands, had her way with you even while you had your way with her. It went beyond the sexual, beyond perversion and paraphilia, yet at the same time resonated with all those things. How could it not? She was la Mâitresse machine indeed.
Her name in all her manifestations was—what else?—Madame Sew, and I had long avoided those cosy sewing rooms where she lived, or those thrift-shop windows where she stood like a fetishistic Amsterdam whore displaying her close-cropped charms.
All things considered, my acquaintance with the lady had been surprisingly easy until now. I had once left an acclaimed French restaurant in Los Angeles because the menu had been wheeled in on just such a torso, a fine signature touch for everyone else but for me an utter horror, the Madame’s gutted form presented with all her lovers’ billets-doux attached. Growing up, I’d missed out on Christmas and birthday presents from an aunt because I’d refused to set foot in her home again. Madame Sew was too often there in the living room, stuck with pins and fragments of cloth like some Frankenstein work in progress.
Those were my two main memories; the rest sat in the imagination.
It occurred to me standing there that in all the things I’d told Jack over the years, I’d never mentioned her by name, had never wanted to give her that much force in my life. Naming changed everything.
Well, she was here now, hiding back in the press of things in this small close space. It brought the sweats, the pressure in the chest, the continuing shortness of breath.
Fool, fool, fool that I was for looking!
I dropped the clipboard, grabbed the fan and locked the door, then hurried out to the fridge and scanned the list again. There was nothing else I’d need. If necessary, I’d get Len Catley to move the thing away, have him keep it at his place for the duration of my stay. I certainly wasn’t going to let the cruel and subtle Madame ruin my time here.
That was in the first hour. In the second hour I had to know one way or the other.
There was no perfect time. Once again, daylight would have been better, of course, but it was happening at 9:25 on a Monday evening. It had to be now.
I unlocked the door again, switched on the light and regarded the shrouded forms. I’d braved the TT disks. I’d done well. This was just another job to do.
I tried to track Beth Rankin’s thinking as best I could, this kind mistress of codes. She had written Sewing Stand readily enough, forgetting herself, but perhaps had unconsciously registered Madame’s ‘doll’ potential just the same and placed her in the corner furthest from the door. That was what I felt. Madame was in the corner.
Away came
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