In the ladies’ wash-room, both men and women clustered around the mirrors, squealing with laughter as they refreshed their face paint. A thin middle-aged man, clad only in leather straps and rather heavy make-up, grinned in Maradissa’s face. ‘Great night, isn’t it!’
Maradissa adopted a quizzical expression. ‘Mmm.’
‘Voyeuse!’ The response was good-natured, rather than critical.
‘No,’ Maradissa responded, and then restrained herself from explaining why she was there. ‘It’s interesting here, but rather tamer than I thought.’
The man gave her a sly look. ‘There are levels of experience,’ he said. ‘You just have to look for them. Visit the Chamber, and then say tame.’
‘There is more?’
The man laughed. ‘There is always more. For those who want it.’
But I don’t want it, she thought. Still, there was no point in visiting this place without examining every option on the menu. She might discover something worth reporting to Evalie and Crickforth.
It took her some time to find the Chamber, because no one seemed willing to give explicit instructions concerning its location, but eventually, deep in the centre of the club, she found the entrance to the shrine of forbidden pleasures. There were curtains of shiny PVC across the doorway. As she lifted them and passed through, she noticed with amusement the health scanner that monitored her heart, before a mechanised voice breathed out an approving welcome.
Beyond, the light was redder, the air steamy. Figures were just moving shadows within the crimson fog. Maradissa heard the sounds; retching, laughter, groans, the slap of something yielding on flesh, something brittle shattering. Tribal music throbbed beneath this symphony of indulgence. On the floor, there was blood.
She felt both revolted and dazed. The light drew her in: through the sounds, through the steam peopled with indistinct forms. Occasionally, a seeking hand might reach out to stroke her, but she avoided their anonymous touch.
Crossing a slick-floored chamber, Maradissa entered a corridor of flesh - dampened latex fabric looped across the walls and ceiling, hanging down in writhing tatters. Here, there were sighs in the air and soft squeals of pleasure. Purple-pink light pulsed at the corridor’s end, and Maradissa advanced towards it - cautiously, slightly in fear, slightly in anticipation. The flesh tunnel opened out into a vast chamber, where ribbons of incense curled around the cupreous scent of blood and the sharper, chemical reek of leisure anaesthetics.
Fascination and horror surged through Maradissa where she stood at the threshold. The smoky air purled in upon itself like a veil drawing aside. Come, sweet flesh. Enter in...
The pleasure of machines. They were part biological, like alien robots, towering, spreading and curious. Metal black. Manikins of subjection were mere bound scraps between the elegant pincers, the intestine coils of slinking alloy, the investigating probes, the scalpel-clawed prehensile digits. Their movement was hypnotic. Maradissa saw a swatch of hair hanging down from within an iron helmet. An arm shuddered pale within a tangle of dark cables. Above her, screens the size of hoardings advertised the forbidden sensuality. She understood that within the minds of these willing victims, the slow excoriation of flesh was twisted into dream-like virtual imagery that bloomed with mythic fantasy. Their pain was regulated to peaks they found acceptable. All was silent but for the slither of metal coils, the occasional mechanical hum. Every human mouth was plugged with rubber.
An undulating limb lifted up like the neck of a serpent from the tangled mass of flesh and machine. It turned an unwinking, glowing eye upon Maradissa, then snaked towards her slowly. A non-human voice breathed, ‘Welcome...’, and in its echoless cadence, Maradissa heard the secret message of pleasures exquisite and undreamed of.
For one brief moment, she almost fell, mesmerised and willing, into the embrace of the fleshless arm. Then her stomach roiled involuntarily, and she had to turn away quickly, a hand to her mouth.
A woman had come into the Chamber behind her, blocking an easy exit. She was tall and fairly attractive, naked to the waist, clad in rubber leggings. Her torso was laced with bloody scars, and she held a thin blade in one hand. ‘Don’t run, my pretty.’ The woman held out her hands to Maradissa. ‘You want to be here. I am the Priestess of Perversity. Come, I will lead you to a nest.’ She gestured at the machines.
Maradissa shook her head and tried to push past the woman, but the priestess grabbed hold of her arm. ‘Don’t be afraid. It’s your first time, isn’t it?’ Her voice was soft with reassurance.
‘Let me past,’ Maradissa said, roughly pulling her arm from the priestess’s hold. ‘I’m not meant to be here.’
The priestess’ expression changed slightly, hardened. She pulled back her lips into a sneering laugh and pressed the blade she held to her stomach. ‘Open up!’ The scalpel-thin knife sliced into her flesh.
‘You’re sick!’ Maradissa hissed, and made to push past her. She averted her head, not wanting to look at the fresh wound, afraid there would be no blood.
The woman blocked her way again and laughed. ‘Sick, huh? What are you doing here, little girl?’
Maradissa glanced up at her, could not help noticing the thin wet stream on the woman’s upper belly. ‘I just... got lost.’
The priestess shook her head. ‘Oh, really? I don’t think so. You came here to see, didn’t you? You’re curious. Want to see how the big girls and boys play. That’s OK. If you want to look, I can show you around.’
Maradissa was momentarily paralysed by fear, unsure of whether the woman was right in her assumptions. Then, firmly, she shook her head. ‘No. Thank you.’
‘It’s all right.’ The priestess smiled warmly. ‘Everyone has a first time.’
Maradissa swallowed, tasted bile. ‘I’m not like you. Let me past.’
The priestess gestured at her. ‘Oh, no? Look at you in your pretty, kinky gear, your little painted face! You’re not that different from us.’
Maradissa recovered her composure, raised her hands like a barrier. ‘You’ve got it wrong, she said. ‘Excuse me, please. Or is assault part of your repertoire?’
The woman narrowed her eyes. ‘Only if you want it.’
Maradissa uttered a short, dry laugh, rolled her eyes. ‘No, thank you. I’m not into pain.’
The woman put her head on one side. ‘Aren’t you?’ She reached out and slid her hand down Maradissa’s side. ‘I think everyone is, if they’re honest. We’re honest. This is reality. We are healthier because of it. Come on, loosen up. Enjoy yourself. Don’t waste your visit. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t really want to be.’
Maradissa backed away, affected her most haughty tone. ‘I’m not interested, actually. Please, excuse me. I have friends waiting and they’ll come looking for me soon.’
The woman folded her arms, the knife blade pointing into the air. She gave Maradissa’s clothes and jewellery an assessing glance. ‘Oh, I see. It’s a little rich kid come to gawp at the freaks, is it?’
‘Yes, I’m rich,’ Maradissa agreed, unable to resist admitting it. ‘So what? You’re no healthier than I am. You must hate yourself to cut your body like that. I happen to like my body, and I respect other people’s’
The woman sneered. ‘Oh yeah? And that perfect nose is your own, is it? That faultless figure? You’re into knives, girly, everyone’s into knives!’ She uttered a chilling screech of laughter, then pushed Maradissa back into the flesh tunnel, with the retort, ‘Go home to Mummy and Daddy. Your kind isn’t wanted here.’
Maradissa was burning with nausea and humiliated anger by the time she found Evalie at the bar. The injustice of being judged a surgery-junkie was almost as bad as what the Chamber had concealed in its bloody mists. She was not like them. It wasn’t true. They were freaks. She was not. ‘I’m going,’ she snapped at Evalie. Crickforth had disappeared. ‘Stay if you want!’
‘You’ve been ages,’ Evalie said, getting off her stool. ‘What happened? Are you OK?’
&nb
sp; ‘No,’ Maradissa said. ‘I want to go home.’ For the first time in two years, she felt conscious of her age, and realised she was missing her mother.
On the way home, Evalie sympathised with Maradissa’s revulsion, but was too eager for details, seemingly unaware that by describing what had happened, Maradissa felt she was somehow legitimising it. The words should not be spoken. She dropped Evalie off at her parent’s estate. ‘Stay here tonight,’ Evalie offered. ‘Don’t go home alone.’
Maradissa shook her head. ‘No. I’ll be fine.’
‘Then, I’ll come and stay with you, if you like.’
‘Ev, I’ll be fine. Honestly. I was just taken by surprise back there, that’s all. It’ll soon be forgotten.’ Maradissa didn’t want anyone to know how upset she was. She smiled and waved and drove away.
At home, Maradissa sat in her salon and drank some brandy, which she rarely touched. She was aware of feeling soiled. The house seemed cold and empty. She played some music disks, but the lyrics seemed too pertinent. Images filled her mind; the laughing, painted faces, the exposed bodies, then the hidden pleasures of the inner chamber and the Priestess of Perversity’s grin as she opened up her flesh with a blade. Disgusting! How could people be like that? What was there in human nature that made it manifest? Something primitive. And yet, when Maradissa dreamed that night, she was held in the embrace of a metal lover without a face, who invaded her hungering body with devices too large for her to accommodate. She felt her flesh tear, but the pain was translated into a different sensation, like smelling the most exquisite perfume, tonguing the most exotic liqueur. Then she was screaming against the invasion, gathering an occult strength. She transformed herself into the metal lover and what shivered pale beneath her precise force filled her with an aching tenderness of feeling. She awoke disorientated, her body tensing to the receding pulse of erotic thrill.
Once she had dressed, Maradissa called Leony. ‘I’m not feeling too good,’ she said, keeping the mirror shadowed. ‘Make sure I’m not bothered, will you?’
‘Do you need anything?’
‘No. Just privacy for a while. I’m tired’
‘Overdoing it, huh?’ Leony laughed. Sometimes Maradissa went into retreat after lengthy, non-stop parties. ‘Listen, that intruder you spoke about last night. I’ve looked into it. A new staff member. Didn’t understand the sundown regulation. It’s all fixed now. I briefed his supervisor.’
‘Fine, fine. I just don’t want to be pestered.’
‘Feed and medicate yourself properly.’
‘I will.’
Michael had been horrified when his supervisor had confronted him about why he’d stayed behind at the manse the previous evening. Red-faced, he’d blurted an excuse about wanting to get a particular job finished. ‘We have set work schedules,’ the supervisor said, her eyes hard. ‘You don’t get paid for over-time.’
If she’d guessed Michael’s true reason for lingering in the garden, she did not press the matter. Michael felt bereft, cheated. The supervisor didn’t understand that Ms Ferone wanted him in her garden, and because their potential relationship had to be secret, the mistress could not reveal the truth.
All day, he worked near the house, peering through the windows at every opportunity. He saw his idol drifting from room to room, a glass in her hand. She seemed distracted - obviously agonising over her decision to report his presence to the supervisor. She had made a mistake and would have to rectify it herself. Michael was powerless, her pawn. Sometimes, it seemed as if she was aware of his eyes, hidden in foliage beyond the windows, for she would start as if at a sudden sound, and glance through the panes. He longed to stand up, show himself, but knew that was not part of the ritual. He knew he would have to engineer a way to remain in the gardens after sundown again, but not yet. There would be a sign when it was time.
That evening, Michael had to go home with all his colleagues. He found he was glad to get back to his apartment, because he could lie on his bed and think about Maradissa. He imagined the click of spike heels upon the hard floor beyond his door, the tap that might come upon the laminated wood from sharp, lacquered nails. He imagined her coming in across the threshold, standing over him, saying, ‘You are mine.’
For three days later Maradissa refused to go the Park with any of her friends. She needed solitude, and spent a lot of time meditating, trying to face up to the demons spawned from the episode at the fetzer nite. She dressed herself in a loose purple robe, kept her hair clean and straight down her back, wore no make-up. She found she wanted to bathe frequently, as if there was something to wash away. It was as if she’d witnessed a terrible atrocity, and had to exorcise the trauma of it. Her mind was drawn to reinvent images of what the Chamber had contained, her thoughts colouring in more detail. Her meditations of calming scenes would mutate without her noticing it into hideous fantasies that left her feeling soiled and ashamed. Self-disgust prevented her from seeking outside therapy. The experiences exhausted her, numbed her with an unfamiliar weakness. She was used to feeling strong and in control.
Hiding in her manse, Maradissa ignored the calls piling up behind her mirror’s surface. Let Leony deal with them, offer excuses for Maradissa’s silence. She had more important things to attend to. She fought with her demons alone. The fetzers haunted her dreams, the secret fetzers of the inner Chamber. She dreamed that the Priestess of Perversity came looking for her. She scratched the windows of Maradissa’s manse with sharp, metal claws, murmuring, ‘You want me to come. You want what I can give, what I can teach you.’
There were dreams, too, of tying faceless bodies down upon weird contraptions of wood and leather, anticipating with dread and desire an unknown torture that soon she would possess the knowledge to inflict. And the priestess was there to tell her, ‘You see. You do belong with us. You just didn’t realise in what capacity.’
During the day, she battled constantly with a feeling of being watched, sure there was an invisible presence beyond her windows staring in at her, compelling her to become aware of it. She chided herself for thinking it might be the Priestess, or some psychic emanation of the woman. Fleetingly, she remembered the incident in the garden before the fetzer experience. That must be it. A gardener looking in at her. Perhaps she should call Leony, but she felt too lethargic to bother. There was no sense of threat from the scrutiny, only an air of intense interest. Then, the night would come again, and Maradissa could not convince herself that it wasn’t the fetzers who were watching her, bodilessly observing some weird kind of transformation taking place within her mind. The Priestess had cast a spell over her in the Chamber and now waited for her magic to take full effect. In the dark, contorted fetzer spirits surrounded the house.
One morning, Maradissa woke up angry. She would not be driven mad by what she’d witnessed in the Chamber. All the nightmares since were no more than phantoms of the mind. She leapt up from her bed and threw out her arms at the wan morning light beyond the windows. Enough! With this inner shout, it felt as if something inside her shattered and came out of her in a wave of emotion. She felt light-headed, as if there was more space around her. There were parts of other people’s realities that were ugly, but they were not part of hers. She had fought the spell of the Chamber and won, defeated the demons of dark desire.
She called Evalie on the magic mirror.
‘How are you?’ Evalie asked. ‘I’ve tried to call for days, but all I got was the butler. Everyone’s been worried about you.’
‘A virus. I’ve beaten it!’ Maradissa said cheerfully. ‘Now, I need some entertainment. Out tonight?’
‘Yes! Yes! Pick me up?’
‘OK. Usual time.’
Michael knew that tonight had to be the night. It was impossible for him to linger behind after work, so at lunchtime, he’d pretended to be ill and took the rest of the day off. His goddess had seemed so miserable for days. His heart had ached to see her pale, forlorn face peering from the windows of the house. But that morning, he’d caught a
glimpse of her and had seen that her spirits had lifted. She’d been smiling again, that cool, aloof smile, and had no doubt made a decision.
As the gardeners’ bus rolled off towards the Colonies, Michael was hiding near the gates to the Ferone manse. He waited until the bus was out of sight round a corner and then slipped between the metal portals as they ground ponderously shut. He knew that security systems would soon be in operation, but trusted that Maradissa would be aware of his presence and delay their activation. As her devotee, he was ready. He’d been alert for signs and now would act.
In the garden, Maradissa was dressed for the night. Spike-heeled boots, a catsuit of glistening black. She smoked beside the river. In her heart, a new feeling. The familiar kindling of excitement, the potential of the future, but tempered by serenity, a sense of separateness. Nothing could touch her now. She’d been reborn, stronger and more aware.
Then, the feeling of being watched sneaked up on her senses. She froze for a moment, a brief image of the Priestess of Perversity padding across her mind. Ridiculous. It was the gardener again. Immediately, she realised that the first time she had sensed him had not been because he’d been unaware of the regulations. It was so clear. He had been watching her, and watched her still. Slowly, she turned around, and saw him, this time, hiding in the lilies. A pale face through the dead and living leaves. She felt irritated, a little flattered perhaps, but resented the intrusion into her private time. The fume had empowered her. She was not afraid, and could defend herself against anything.
‘Come out here!’
The man did not move. She could see the round holes of his eyes; he looked transfixed. An unfamiliar sensation shivered through her. When she walked towards him, she saw he was young. She had expected an older man.
‘What are you doing here?’