‘The subject is ready and willing. For her husband. Tonight. We will be inserting two sleepers in a most intimate place; these will be the rings that will hold our pretty padlock in place. From this moment this sweet, willing, and very good wife will feel its presence at all times, reminding her constantly of her most rarefied role. Thrilling her, stimulating her, disciplining her. Whenever she sees another man she wants, she will bear down on this secret bauble, knowing it is her husband and her husband only who has the key. And yes, he will allow others, at times, at his choosing; perhaps, even, if we are so lucky, within the hallowed walls of this club. Others will be allowed to touch this … open it … bestow the thrilling gift of release. Have your way. You see, this is a man of decidedly singular and specific wants. And his wife is extremely beautiful – and wanton – and greedy.’ His finger circles Connie’s anus. Cacophonous laughter. ‘Now, where exactly is this charming little object to be placed? I wonder …’
His fingers brush across Connie’s bared and readied labia, she gasps, writhes, glancing at the menacing hole-puncher on the steel table. Of course. Dr Ahmed picks it up. The stirrups move again, forcing her into the first position that she was left in for seeming hours, forcing her still, utterly bared. Her eyes search the audience for Cliff … he must be in the shadows … somewhere near a door … discreet as always … knows it is what he wants … has requested … the logical step …
‘You will not wear underpants after tonight,’ he had whispered in the car, ‘for me, for my associates, for all of us.’ Now she knows why. ‘Do you love me, do you?’
‘Yes,’ she is murmuring now, ‘yes, yes.’
Because everything has been building to this moment, of course, this moment of the attaching of a coldly explosive little object that is to become part of her from now on, her flesh, her very existence, as much as a scar is, a pacemaker, a metal pin. Every time Connie thinks of it, its weight, its grate, its drag and its coolness, she will be reminded, thrilled, addled, snared; she will shut her eyes upon it and squeeze tight. His, his alone. Totally submissive to him. Unlocked only by him, for others of his choosing, whenever he deems it is time.
How has it come to this?
9
There was a star riding through clouds one night, and I said to the star, ‘Consume me’
Dr Ahmed smiles, doctor-kind and knowing, straight at Connie. Holds up a syringe. ‘To ease the pain,’ he soothes. Someone in the audience gasps. Is that her Cliff? She does not know; still she tries to find him, cannot. He cannot have abandoned her, at this crucial moment, he cannot be leaving her here. This is terrifying, she wasn’t expecting anything like it, she feels so cruelly exposed, wronged, humiliated; the spell is snapped. ‘Show us all how brave you are,’ the doctor whispers close, just to her, holding high the instrument for all to see. ‘It’s just like getting your ears pierced. Show us how much you want this.’
And at that moment Connie catches sight of Cliff, by the door the servant entered, smiling, willing her on and needing this and she succumbs once again, latches onto the surrendering, grabs at it; pushing her cunt out, out, as far as it can go, ready to receive, for him, yes, the magnificent depths of her love … for this has brought them both alive … she will be consumed by it, transformed, someone else entirely … for him … his creation, toy, fascination, his means of being flooded with life; she shuts her eyes, wills it, the slipping into something else. For after all, she is the good wife, everyone knows this.
A local anaesthetic first but still the pain is searing as the first hole in Connie’s flesh is punched through but she does not cry out, she does not, knowing Cliff doesn’t want that … but at the second piercing, oh God – it cannot be helped: a piercing scream tears the night.
This is not an act.
Blackness … she slumps onto the soft mink … the relief of the oblivion. All soothing, velvety dark, all quiet.
10
Why are women … so much more interesting to men than men are to women?
He has asked her to write it down, all of it, the raw, unvarnished depths; the great and astonishing cistern of her lusts. Cliff needs to know, urgently now, and in a supreme act of love Connie has done so. She has stripped herself bare, violently, with moving vulnerability, just for him; she has unleashed her deepest, innermost thoughts. And to a man. A trusted confidant, when women rarely reveal the rawness of this vivid underbelly. To anyone. This, their secret life. Which is rarely given life.
‘He is a man of decidedly singular and specific wants.’
Clifford is confined to a wheelchair. A skiing accident at Klosters, two years into their marriage. And in the gilded unliving of this feted Notting Hill couple – the ex-Goldman banker and his fragrant, former model wife – this, now, is what keeps them tremulous. Connected. There is no physical sex between them. There cannot be because of Cliff’s condition. It is all, now, in the mind. It is all deeply secret display and withholding and commanding and surprise and play – and truth, audacious truth. And it is better now than it ever was, when their marriage was conventional, when Cliff was whole; it is as if a grainy black and white movie has burst into Technicolor life. Because one night – upon hearing his grief-stricken frustration as he tried stirring his deadened penis into stiffness and could not – Connie took up her husband’s Mont Blanc pen and spilled, courageously, her innermost thoughts.
What she really wanted. What she did not. Because Cliff had asked. Had begged for anything that could help them both.
How to love a new husband whose very manhood has been suddenly snatched? She would not leave him although many in their honeyed west London circle expected it. She’d get a grand payout, she was still young and attractive and could move on to someone else, set herself up in a Portobello mews and open a bespoke chocolate shop – but they all underestimated the Cornwall girl. For Connie has a lapdog sense of good in her. Of decorum, of duty, of Christian respect. There was pity there too, and a desire for sudden usefulness after years of being the trophy ornament to various men, the girlfriend everyone wanted to fuck. She would not leave her crippled husband, she could not. She would become a different type of wife now, devote herself entirely to Cliff, do whatever it took to have him lead as normal a life as possible, with normal wants.
Or abnormal. As she soon found out. Because it worked. Like a match struck into darkness it sprang Clifford back into life. He became a man again, with a man’s vociferous lust. And she was pleased, so pleased, at that.
11
Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size