‘Yes, yes,’ as the car pulls away, soft, with barely a murmur and certainly no signal, no talk.
The gatehouse they come to, a short distance away, is a frippery of sculpted sandstone three storeys high. The car slows through its high arch and stops. Connie is on all fours, still, naked now except for her stockings and McQueen’s; her haunches across Cliff’s lap, her willing cunt exposed high to the side window which the driver now lowers. A shock of winter cold, a crunch of gravel, a low West Country voice commanding a flurry of dogs to ‘git, the lot of you, be still’. Torchlight sweeps the car. Connie does not turn, does not look, stays still, pliant, tremulous, waiting, entranced; anonymous, as she knows she should, as she knows she must. For it is what Cliff wants. She is the good wife.
‘We’re here for the doctor,’ Cliff says, the V of his fingers spreading her as if in some secret prearranged signal. ‘We’re ready.’
‘But is the lass?’ a man says with a rough laugh. The heat of a torch, suddenly close upon Connie’s cunt. Examining, considering. Fingers, gnarled, rough, brusque, brushing aside Cliff, roughly spreading her lips. Connie does not turn, does not look, she gasps at the shock, folds into it; signalling her need, her readiness, her want.
‘She’s been prepared. She’s wide enough where she needs to be.’ Cliff kisses her cheek lightly. ‘And narrow enough’ – another kiss – ‘where she needs to be.’
‘Off you go then. They’re all waiting.’
Connie’s rump is smartly slapped like a mare set off into pasture.
6
The truth is, I often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their completeness. I like their anonymity
Snow is raggedy and undisciplined, in big, blowsy flakes as Connie steps from the car. Naked but for her stockings and shoes, naked against the visceral shock of the cold. Cliff is already out, thanks to the driver, he is readied, silken and immaculate, by her door. The driver now removes an ankle-length mink coat from the car boot and wraps it around her and hooks it, just once, at her neck; the silk of its lining cool and comforting against her skin. Her face is blank, as is his. ‘Thank you,’ she murmurs and as he finishes adjusting the fur at her shoulders he brushes his hand, once, swift, along her wetness in its entirety and up her belly which rises softly, subtly, to meet his cupped touch. ‘Thank you,’ she repeats.
Face blank, he turns to Cliff who is patiently waiting, smiling and holding out his hand for Connie; the two of them like the crème de la crème of a society ball about to glide into their grand moment; as if all is precisely as it should be. Connie crunches through snow as resistant as a frozen grape. Tugs the coat shut against the snow, the chill, the opened door ahead of them and its spilling light but Cliff shakes his head – ‘uh-uh’ – it is not what he wants and so she steps inside that beautiful, warmly lit Jacobean building, through its wall of heat, with the coat ever so slightly open and fluid to her readied, strummed nakedness.
Before them, a high desk. Of the kind found in an exclusive nightclub. A lone woman is at its helm. Slicked-down blonde bob, scarlet lips, bustier; Vivienne Westwood, Connie guesses.
‘Good evening.’ Cliff nods, ever the gentleman.
The woman looks at Connie. Takes a riding crop from the desk before her and inches the fur coat open with it, as if to assess. A wry smile, one side up one side down. Approval. The woman rises from her desk, and it is then that Connie and Cliff realize she is wearing nothing but that bustier, her pudenda a strip of blonde, her cleft strong and visible underneath. She walks right up to Connie, thrusts a hand between her legs. ‘Is she ready?’ she asks, moving closer, cunt to cunt. Connie can feel it, the shock of another woman so violently close, her energy, her challenge; she flinches and reels back, has never been with a woman before, doesn’t know what to do. The receptionist draws back and gazes at her, with what? Fondness, pity, wonder. What is ahead, what …?
‘I’ll let the master of the house know.’
They are all in collusion, Cliff is in on it. Part of the excitement is surrendering completely to his control but the two of them have never gone this far before. A prickling of discomfort; Connie quells it. The element of surprise, of teaching unfolding, has always been a crucial component of this journey; like being blindly led further and further down a secret path. Where will it end? How? Connie is astounded at her trusting capacity to shut off mentally in order to transport herself physically; her deep willingness for the drug of transcendence. The desire to go deeper and deeper down that secret path, whatever is at the end of it.
The receptionist makes a call – ‘She’s here, the main act, you promised me a go’ – then explains to Connie her face will be covered so she is truly anonymous, and free, that she has to be as free as she can be tonight or it will not work, it can’t, she has to surrender completely or it will not be any good … ‘for me, for you, for any of us’ … but then they are interrupted by a man of fifty or so bouncing down the imposing wooden staircase and warmly greeting Cliff with a shake of both hands.
‘Welcome, welcome, my friend. Ahmed is waiting. And this – this – must be the beautiful Constance.’ The man unhooks her coat and throws it back from her shoulders. ‘Can I watch?’ he asks Cliff, never taking his eyes from Connie, the length of her waiting, ready, primed body, utterly exposed to the three of them. ‘It would please me immensely. It’s been a long time since we had one of these.’
‘Be my guest.’ Cliff nods in the smoothly charming way he has with his clients as he extracts their money from them.
‘And everyone else?’
‘But of course.’
‘Excellent. The theatre, the good doctor, the instruments. All are ready and waiting, my friend.’
A suddenly violent flinch, flaring through Connie, like a horse’s shudder. Cliff takes her hand – ‘I love you so much’ – he is whispering his approval, his gratitude, steadying her. ‘The next step. For both of us. Your gift to me. To us.’
Connie is righted, almost buckles, with anticipation, readiness, want. Nothing must break the spell, nothing, she must not rationalize too much. She must not let fear clench her want, dissolve it.
‘Surrender – completely – or it will not work. For me … for you … for any of us.’
7
For most of history, anonymous was a woman
A young woman is summoned, her hair in a plain bun. She is bearing a silver tray. The receptionist picks up a length of silk cloth and wraps it several times, with practised expertise, around Connie’s eyes and cheeks, her belly firm into her back. ‘My name is Nika,’ she whispers. ‘And I’m going to look after you tonight.’
The master of the house observes, takes over. ‘The cloth is so no one knows who you are in the real world,’ he explains, ‘so no one will ever know. Tonight, our little club is packed. They are being thrown morsels as we speak but you … you … are what they want. They have been told something of what to expect. And none of them will ever know who you are. Or who you belong to.’ Cliff squeezes her hand as the master reties Nika’s knot tighter and whispers in her ear. ‘Anonymity is your refuge. Your liberation. Into another world, another life. You are one of us now. You will be ours from this night. You will want to be.’
He steps in front of Connie and parts the silk, just a sliver, so she can see out, for now, a touch. His fingertip brushes down her lips, he smiles, their secret.
‘Nika,