branches of a tree that was having its trunk shaken. It reminded him of stories he had heard about tidal waves. When a tidal wave has travelled a thousand miles, it becomes just another wave, one among many on a beach. Watching the women, that was how far away he felt from what was happening. He was seeing just a fraction of the power. He was watching ripples.
•
Before too long they wanted to see him in what Astrid called “a state of arousal.” The hole in his foreskin had not mended yet, but he was no longer feeling too much discomfort. You might think that he wouldn’t get erections after being hurt like that, but you’d be wrong. The erections happened despite the injury—in fact, there were times when they almost seemed to happen because of it. When the women noticed this, they couldn’t conceal their delight. They appeared to find the sight of his penis struggling to lift the chain particularly exquisite. They got wet just watching. He closed his eyes, but he could still hear the delicate, liquid sound of their fingers in their cunts. . . . They did everything they could think of to excite him. They showed him pornographic movies. They fed him a diet of aphrodisiacs. Astrid, especially, was in her element. She wore a series of fetishistic outfits that catered for every male fantasy, from the standard to the highly specialised, the bizarre. Once, she put on a nurse’s uniform. Another time, she dressed up as a cowgirl, in a ten-gallon hat and denim cut-offs. She would appear with sections of her body wrapped in clingfilm, or tightly bound with rope, or just exposed. In general, she favoured skirts that were so short that they revealed her knickers (which could be crotchless, straight out of a sex catalogue, or plain white cotton, like a schoolgirl’s, tight-fitting and yet demure)—and, every now and then, of course, there were no knickers. He became fascinated by her cunt—as she intended him to, perhaps: it looked so neat, so stuck-on, somehow, that he began to feel as if it didn’t belong between her legs at all, but had lodged there, accidentally, like some exotic, plum-coloured shell. . . . And, all the time, they kept him naked, with the heat in the room turned up and that ten-foot chain running from his pierced foreskin to the iron staple in the wall, like a surreal version of an umbilical cord. . . .
•
It was during this period of exhibitionism that he thought he noticed a shift in the relationship between the women. There had always been a difference between the behaviour of Maude and that of the other two, but the difference was becoming more pronounced. Maude began to distance herself from what was happening in the room. She did not make the slightest attempt to arouse him, for instance, and she no longer seemed to want to satisfy herself. Instead, she tended to hang back, in the shadows. Or she would turn away, as if she did not care to watch. She no longer spoke to him either. Astrid and Gertrude did not appear to have noticed this new reticence, or, if they had, they had decided not to acknowledge it.
Then, one morning, his theory was proved correct—though not in a way he would have chosen. He was still half asleep when the door opened. It was Maude, and she was alone. He leaned up on his elbows, yawning. She stood in front of him with her feet turned slightly inwards, the insides of her knees touching. Her shoulders sloped downwards, as if drawn earthwards by the weight of the rest of her. For the first time, he saw that she had a mole just to the right of her navel.
“You’ve been very quiet recently,” he said.
She sat beside him, the breath crushing out of her. She was so close to him that he could see the fine cross-hatching on her knuckles. She was holding an old-fashioned quill pen, he noticed, and a bottle of blue ink.
“Lie down, please,” she said.
Her voice had a hard, neutral sound to it, as if she had made up her mind about something and was determined not
•
Before too long they wanted to see him in what Astrid called “a state of arousal.” The hole in his foreskin had not mended yet, but he was no longer feeling too much discomfort. You might think that he wouldn’t get erections after being hurt like that, but you’d be wrong. The erections happened despite the injury—in fact, there were times when they almost seemed to happen because of it. When the women noticed this, they couldn’t conceal their delight. They appeared to find the sight of his penis struggling to lift the chain particularly exquisite. They got wet just watching. He closed his eyes, but he could still hear the delicate, liquid sound of their fingers in their cunts. . . . They did everything they could think of to excite him. They showed him pornographic movies. They fed him a diet of aphrodisiacs. Astrid, especially, was in her element. She wore a series of fetishistic outfits that catered for every male fantasy, from the standard to the highly specialised, the bizarre. Once, she put on a nurse’s uniform. Another time, she dressed up as a cowgirl, in a ten-gallon hat and denim cut-offs. She would appear with sections of her body wrapped in clingfilm, or tightly bound with rope, or just exposed. In general, she favoured skirts that were so short that they revealed her knickers (which could be crotchless, straight out of a sex catalogue, or plain white cotton, like a schoolgirl’s, tight-fitting and yet demure)—and, every now and then, of course, there were no knickers. He became fascinated by her cunt—as she intended him to, perhaps: it looked so neat, so stuck-on, somehow, that he began to feel as if it didn’t belong between her legs at all, but had lodged there, accidentally, like some exotic, plum-coloured shell. . . . And, all the time, they kept him naked, with the heat in the room turned up and that ten-foot chain running from his pierced foreskin to the iron staple in the wall, like a surreal version of an umbilical cord. . . .
•
It was during this period of exhibitionism that he thought he noticed a shift in the relationship between the women. There had always been a difference between the behaviour of Maude and that of the other two, but the difference was becoming more pronounced. Maude began to distance herself from what was happening in the room. She did not make the slightest attempt to arouse him, for instance, and she no longer seemed to want to satisfy herself. Instead, she tended to hang back, in the shadows. Or she would turn away, as if she did not care to watch. She no longer spoke to him either. Astrid and Gertrude did not appear to have noticed this new reticence, or, if they had, they had decided not to acknowledge it.
Then, one morning, his theory was proved correct—though not in a way he would have chosen. He was still half asleep when the door opened. It was Maude, and she was alone. He leaned up on his elbows, yawning. She stood in front of him with her feet turned slightly inwards, the insides of her knees touching. Her shoulders sloped downwards, as if drawn earthwards by the weight of the rest of her. For the first time, he saw that she had a mole just to the right of her navel.
“You’ve been very quiet recently,” he said.
She sat beside him, the breath crushing out of her. She was so close to him that he could see the fine cross-hatching on her knuckles. She was holding an old-fashioned quill pen, he noticed, and a bottle of blue ink.
“Lie down, please,” she said.
Her voice had a hard, neutral sound to it, as if she had made up her mind about something and was determined not
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