“If you choose me,” came Rev’s hoarse urgent whisper—and he was determined not to fail in what was a test for him too, “you can count on me against them, and I’ll— . . .”
Deliberately, Tarah evoked the memory of endless nights of hunting since Richard: feeding the resolve to murder. “No,” she rejected Rev.
Rev heard the midget’s choked laughter. From behind the scrim the knife buried in the stake seemed almost fragile.
The curtains parted again. Still within the scrimmed area of the throne, Rev had moved to one side, Tarah knew. She heard short steps. Now other hands touched her shoulders and moved down boldly. The beautiful midget, she knew. The sexual miniature. (The swollen cock, the hugeness exploding, even then growing within her, her scream turning into a sigh, a fierce heat spreading, the expert pumping rhythm, the withdrawing only to thrust again more fully, and Rev’s arched body, and Tor’s muscles straining, orifices filled, Tor, Rev, Topaze, changing positions, naked bodies, on her, in her!) Yet even if she surrendered, she would crave more. More bodies. And more, she reminded herself. Even as they emptied themselves in her, she would feel empty. Only Richard had brought surcease—and then he had withdrawn: Testing her, challenging her with the two men in that dark, distant room. Remember the terrible insatiability! she told herself. Avenge it!
“And him?” Malissa questioned.
The midget whispered to Tarah—but loud enough for Rev to hear as an implied challenge: “I’ll go into you farther than anyone— . . . I’ll— . . .”
“No!” Tarah said. Purposely her anger drowned the sexual images. Two twisting funnels—one ruled by desire, the other by hatred—were fusing into the inevitable action.
“Have you found your prince?” Malissa hurled again at the veiled throne. She knew: This was a prelude in the field of emotional crossfire.
“No!” Tarah breathed.
“I’ll ball you like you’ve— . . .” Rev’s whispered voice insisted.
“He’s a coward!” Topaze said in a low voice. “But I can— . . .”
Legs, bodies, mouths! “No!” Tarah rejected. And it was happening: The deliberately frustrated desire ignited her fury.
“And so this blind queen has found no prince.” A statement, it was also Malissa’s question to Richard. Other than nodding at Tor, Rev, Topaze—allowing them to proceed toward the throne—he had merely let the scene glide aimlessly, or so it seemed. There had appeared to be no discernible strategy—and yet he knew of Tarah’s building attack against him.
Mark too seemed to await a reaction from his father: the uncontested assertion of Tarah’s need of him? When there was none, the boy looked coolly at the scrimmed throne, as if he would advance there himself. Instead, his eyes wandered about the room, as if to memorize expressions.
Paul. He watched the scrimmed throne intently.
Mark, studying them. Mark, the inheritor, the priest thought.
The stake.
“The insatiable, hungry queen hasn’t found the one— or the ones—who can satisfy her,” Malissa repeated, to force Richard to move. Something was wrong. Certainly this was not the end of this scene. Richard must vanquish Tarah’s rebellion by proving that she would succumb willingly to him again. Or would this scene have a different ending?
“They’re all shadows, like the others. Nothing more,” came Tarah’s voice. In the few moments on the throne she had relived the horrible emptiness that had driven her life outside of the time with Richard; she could strike coldly in vengeance.
“There’s still another possible choice, Tarah,” Richard spoke.
The real scene! Malissa understood in relief.
“Will you accept it?” Richard’s words were slow. “Will you, Tarah?”
Again the extended invitation, Jeremy thought.
Instantly Tarah’s mind was invaded by a shapeless brightness. Now it was the glimmering outline of a face which formed before the blind mask. She breathed deeply of the lilac-scented odor which seemed to cloak her protectively. “Yes!” she said.
“You’re sure, Tarah?” Richard’s words insisted.
Anger—there was anger on Richard’s face. But what was its object? Jeremy frowned.
“Yes!” Tarah repeated. More emptiness! Her resolve would be strengthened even more . . . . Now she was alone again behind the scrim—footsteps had moved away from her as if responding to a mute signal beyond the throne. Now: Voices. In surprise? Movement. Directed. Other footsteps: Advancing. The veil surrounding the throne breathed, opened. Another presence with her. Richard! Her mind had not been able to block the name quickly enough. Richard! her heart screamed. His face! His body! Only him! But she knew: No, it was not Richard. And was it that knowledge that dredged up the savage fury? She crushed the unwelcome thought. The proof that she no longer needed him was this rehearsal, the preparation for murder. Then who was breathing so near her? Mark. Mark! No! Her mind veered dangerously away from anger and toward desire. Mark’s beautiful young body—Richard’s son. She remembered Mark clad only in the brief trunks. Suddenly: Paul! Oh, God, no! It was him she wanted to save. Save?! From what! For what! And why? . . . Her hands reached out. A face. Also masked above the lips, which she touched, outlining the mouth gently with her fingers: And his outlined hers. Now her fingers explored the exposed part of his face, his hair—and his discovered hers. Then abruptly her fingers froze. Suddenly his own stopped their movements. Tarah’s mind blazed with a brightness which assumed a definite shape. Now her hands resumed their movements. She touched his neck, the bare flesh of his torso. And his hands floated over her breasts. Their lips met, opened, devoured. Desire flowered in Tarah; desire which was luminous, beautiful, glorious, fulfilling: a perfect dream finally realized. She stood. The two bodies locked tightly. Quickly she removed the mask from her eyes.
With a cry—flinging herself back on the throne as if it would ensnare her, Tarah twisted her head away from the masked beautiful face before her.
The shirtless youngman tore at his own mask. Moaning, he moved back in shock from the throne. “Oh, God! No!” he uttered.
Her head thrashing wildly on the throne, Tarah could still discern the horror on her son’s face staring down at her. Suddenly she pushed open the encircling curtains, as if to reveal the trap.
Gable recoiled from her.
Malissa hissed: “Your prince—your son!’’
Quickly: “I didn’t know!” Tarah protested hysterically.
“You knew, Tarah,” Richard said, his words like iron.
“No!” she insisted. “Did he? Did Gable know?” her broken voice sobbed.
“Ask him,” Richard said.
But Tarah could not face her son.
“Did you know?” Mark asked his half brother. “When my father invited you here, did you know?” His voice was even, soft, controlled—commanding: an assertion, not a question.
Gable stared at his mother. Then without answering Mark, he covered his face with his hands.
“He knew,” Richard said.
“Liar!” Gable recovered. “I didn’t even know you were my father!”
“Not when I first contacted you. But then I told you, Gable,” Richard said.
“But not that it would be she! Just that I would be in your play—masked!”
“Yes, yes, we were masked, we didn’t know!” Tarah asserted.
Malissa hovered about them like a vulture over violated carrion. “Of course you knew, both of you! You explored each other’s features. The remembered shape of forbidden dreams. You knew!”
“This is what she tried to shelter you for,” Richard said to Gable. “For herself. But you didn’t have the courage, did you, Tarah?—until now. All it required was the subterfuge of a mask.”
“No, no, no, no!” Tarah yelled. She pulled savagely at the scrimmed curtains about the throne. They fell about her, like her world.
“Your pure prince!” Malissa said. “Where was he when you went on your ‘secret’ escapades!” Her rubied fingers ground the words.
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Tarah’s eyes were green fire. “I’ll still kill you, you bastard!” she yelled at Richard.
Richard said softly, almost a whisper: “For allowing you to experience what you’ve longed to experience?” His eyes made an arc about the room; it included Joja, Karen, the others.
“This is the most monstrous of this hell of horrors!” the priest shouted. He had felt judged by Richard’s words.
“Monstrous?” Richard turned angrily toward the priest. “For seeing through to your monstrosities?”
“My father invited you here,” Mark said.
“Yes, and that’s your defense, Richard; and you’ve taught it to your son,” the priest said. “You found the emptiness, you didn’t create it—you found the horror, and you exposed it. But each of the women here has told us that she wasn’t aware of the emptiness until you— . . .”
“Filled it,” Joja finished. “He exposed our loneliness—in exchange for one instant of life.”
“And that instant, was it worth it? Was it?” Richard demanded.
“To feel alive—for a moment; to carry the memory of it forever—yes! it was worth it!” Joja said finally. And this time there was no contract of extortion to fulfill. No lines of a role to read. It was her self which had spoken.
“Victim, victimizer—the line fades,” Richard breathed; a deduction drawn. He turned to Tarah, Joja, Karen: “You determined the length of those moments; you destroyed them; you destroyed yourselves. You failed me!”
How had she failed him, Joja wondered. She looked at Mark. But he was only a child then. Only eight years old. And when I held him, it was like— . . . Oh, God, she knew. Even then! This day’s dark extortion had begun . . . years ago! And was it over?!
The stake. The buried knife.
“Oh, yes! Confessions!” Malissa seized. “Our host has joined the game! Confess!”
“Confess?” Richard said with amusement. Then his face became sinister. “I confess to disgust,” he said.
Disgust.
Silence was like a violent whirlpool. Disgust. The word spun within the motionless funnel of silence.
“Because we accepted your invitations, your elaborate challenges and experiments, your roles to play,” Tarah understood—but with anger. “Not once, but recurrently. Even after the confessions.” She stood apart, alone. Was Gable looking at her? Could he face her?
He was a silhouette against the windowed wall.
And beyond the glass, the island’s trees were grotesque lurking shadows.
The mutual contract to play his game—that was what Tarah’s words had implied. “Yet you stirred the poison!” the priest’s accusation rejected what he saw as Richard’s judgment. He remembered: The tarantulas in the desert. “It would have remained dormant without you!” To resist the inexplicable flickering of a sudden feeling of closeness with Richard: “You drugged us into all this!” the priest thrust at him. “You used the drug to force our confessions, then to accept roles in your fantastic play! Yes, that’s all it was!—the strange scent we’ve been breathing since we entered this— . . . asylum!—this . . . hell!”
“There was no drug,” Richard said.
“La malaspina!’’ Valerie said urgently.
“A sweet fragrance, like incense,” Richard said to Jeremy. “It has no power at all. All that occurred happened willingly. Did you have to think otherwise? Then you provided your own excuse.”
Valerie heard a silent scream within her mind.
26
“The play isn’t over yet!” Malissa moved for the denouement. The black-pearled ring sought Valerie.
“No, Malissa,” Richard said.
Malissa looked at Mark.
Mark’s eyes narrowed on his father.
“The experiment is still not completed!” Malissa went on. She began to understand fully—all the seasonal games!
“It’s over, Malissa,” Richard said.
“Is it, Mark?” Malissa advanced to create the split.
Mark’s eyes did not release his father.
“The culmination of your experiments, Richard!” Malissa went on. Yes, now was the time! “You’ve plotted this drama with infinite care—and now you seem to be retreating from its ultimate conclusion. Surely I’m wrong?”
Mark watched his father relentlessly.
“Let’s see the result! Now!” Malissa insisted. “Oh, it’s not possible! Oh, you’re not afraid, Richard?—that in just one day what it took years to prepare— . . . Not you, Richard!” She inhaled deeply in preparation for her next words, which her barbaric hands were already shaping: She said: ‘‘All your experiments have failed up to now, haven’t they, Richard?”
“Succeeded,” Mark corrected her.
“No—failed,” Malissa insisted. “You were in search of the one who could—would—resist, weren’t you, Richard? And you still are!”
“The one who would decline your invitation, your own deadly evil,” Tarah said.
A wing of anger glided over Mark’s face.
“Each time you seemingly won, actually you lost!” Malissa directed the words at Richard, but also at Mark for the impact of their meaning.
Mark’s coldly fierce eyes on Richard demanded he reject her accusation.
Richard only smiled.
Malissa accused at last: “Your experiments—your obsessive search for purity! And you suspect it will fail you now too!”
Suddenly Mark moved toward his father. He stood before him. He opened his lips: “Father!” he said.
And then he kissed Richard fully on the lips. For long, long moments, their lips remained, open, on each other’s.
“What you said isn’t true, Malissa!” Mark turned quickly to the woman, as if within the contact with his father he had found silent reassurance.
“Then let the play proceed!” Malissa challenged.
“It’s over,” Richard said.
Mark wiped his lips violently as if to tear away the imprint of the kiss.
“You’d deprive us of the most elaborate drama?” Malissa’s hands were thrust toward Valerie as if to rip her soul. “There’s the pure queen!”
“The play is over,” Richard repeated more firmly.
“Mark, your father—what’s happening to him?” Eagerly Malissa traced the result of her words on Mark’s darkening face.
Mark’s eyes hammered their gaze at his father.
“Perhaps you’re totally wrong, Malissa,” Tarah heard herself speak. “Perhaps Richard is afraid his evil will finally be resisted.” Earlier she had seen a glimmer of Richard’s possible motivations—and they had found her guilty. She must erase that.
Richard said only: “The play has ended.”
Malissa struck: “You’re afraid of the result of your most elaborate experiment—for whatever reason: The one Tarah has offered or the one I suspect! Which one is it, Richard!”
“Was it all then because of your disgust, Richard?” Jeremy said suddenly to Richard. “Did you want to see your own evil resisted? Or are you afraid it will be?”
Then Mark said clearly to Richard: “The play can’t be over yet, Father.”
Richard moved away from Valerie’s path, finally allowing the scene to proceed. “Ascend the throne!” he ordered Valerie. And now his voice was the commanding voice of before.
Tarah moved quickly toward Valerie. Now Karen joined her and Joja. Lianne floated toward the three. They stared at Valerie.
Valerie moved toward the throne. The mamaloi and the papaloi followed her slowly.
“No!” Tarah yelled at Richard. “God damn you!” she shouted. “Leave us all the possibility of doubt—that someone can, finally, resist the hungry evil!”
“That’s what we’ll see!” said Malissa.
“Ascend the throne, Valerie,” Richard commanded.
“I won’t allow it!” Tarah yelled. Swiftly she pulled the knife from the hollow stake, and she lunged toward Richard.
Richard did not move.
“Kill death!??
?’ Lianne shouted.
Tarah stood with the bared knife before her former husband, and she was equally aware of Gable, still an inscrutable outline against the window.
Richard was staring at her without expression.
“Is this the game, Richard!” Bravo laughed.
With a cry, Tarah turned from Richard. She had glanced at Gable, and desire had flooded her body. In killing Richard, what did she want to kill? The knowledge of herself he had provided?
“Kill him!” came Freddy’s voice.
Tarah placed the knife in Freddy’s hand. Freddy grasped it quickly.
Rev! The savage tattoos!
Malissa! The shielded eyes! The evil hands!
Richard, Mark: One! Duke!
“Strike, Freddy!” he heard Bravo’s voice.
Freddy! Echoes of his whimpered life. He turned away from Richard. From Duke. From all the unapproachable beautiful men. The knife fell before Joja.
Easily the actress retrieved it.
Mark! The black smile shadowed his face. Richard stood beside him.
Joja raised the knife. Then she shook her head wearily. Father. Son. Richard— . . . Mark. . . . The clearly conveyed promise, even now, of his sensuality. The continuing extortion. Forever? Her hand dropped.
Karen took the knife from her. She tried to stand firmly.
Bravo. The brutal whip.
Richard.
But it was as if even that much of action had drained her strength. Karen released the knife as if it were something very heavy.
The mere ceremony of rebellion! Was it all to thwart the girl’s ascent to the fatal throne? Was she a symbol now of their survival? . . . Can anyone strike! Is Richard allowing all this! Jeremy saw the knife on the floor.
Rev seized it. Strike! At whom?
Malissa!
Topaze!
Bravo!
Richard.
“Kill her!” It was Albert, choosing Rev as the executioner of his tormentor. “Kill Malissa!”
Malissa moved quickly toward Richard. The beautiful violence—its reflection lighted her face. Her left hand like a sword, the black-pearled finger its sharp point, she outlined a circle which enclosed her, Mark, Richard: as if its invisible boundaries would barricade them against the others: rendering them unassailable within it—except by each other. Raising her hands insanely, the rings blinking like tiny maddened eyes in the light, she shouted at the others: “Don’t cross into the circle, or— . . .” She allowed the threat to hover unshaped over them.