5

Like a general resting before a crucial engagement Malissa retreated to her apartment in the east wing of the house, the same elaborate suite Richard reserved for her each season. Earlier in the anteroom undefined tension had brought them all too prematurely “close.” A deliberate postponement, then, of confrontation was in order. And so Malissa withdrew. Now she sat on a gilded tall-backed state chair, like a queen granting an audience. To Albert.

“Please Malissa!” he exhorted her urgently.

Her eyes poured their contempt, drowning him. “What you said downstairs—. . .”

“I’m sorry! Please!”

La Duquesa stood by the window, gazing into the sky, a mirror image of the sea. Her black veil filtered the noon brightness.

Topaze sat on a chair next to Malissa’s, lower than hers; he listened attentively to Albert. In the adjoining room, Tor, in red trunks, was exercising his biceps with a pair of heavy dumbbells. Already flushed by the pumped blood, his arms strained like balloons.

“Which one?’’ Malissa said, her mouth a cruel, cold dark slash. Her hands curled like jeweled claws, tensely, on the chair’s armrests. Hatred seemed a presence in the room—a dazzling, bejeweled presence waiting to be commanded by the woman.

As if to obviate—in any frantic manner—the scene she knew would follow, la Duquesa said: “When I first met the Duke, it was a day much like this.”

“In spring?” asked Rev without looking up from the ubiquitous knife he was now carefully honing.

“Yes, in spring,” sighed la Duquesa.

“Of course,” Rev said.

“I had seen him once before, but we didn’t speak until that afternoon,” la Duquesa went on, turning to glance at Albert to see whether he had moved from the entreating position before Malissa; he had not. She went on: “The flowers were in bloom. He gathered a small bouquet for me and brought it over.”

“In a park?” asked Rev.

“In a park,” confirmed la Duquesa. “That beautiful giant of a man—six-feet-two in his stocking feet, weighing a muscular, lean 185 pounds, stripped—that man bent, gently, to present me a bouquet. The flowers would soon turn black. The weeks of our life together—. . .”

“You said years before.” Rev still didn’t look up.

“Of course it was years,” said la Duquesa. “But they were seconds in the ocean of eternity; they evaporated into memories when he died— . . .”

La Duquesa’s deliberate attempt to thwart the scene she knew was developing had not been successful. Malissa had not removed her eyes from Albert, who was already answering her last question:

“Tor—Rev—Topaze— . . . Any of them! Please!” he pled like a child for candy.

Invisible destructive currents from Malissa’s blue-shielded eyes vibrated powerfully toward Albert.

Poor little man, la Duquesa thought. Each time, he’s sure she’ll finally allow it. Why does he take it? And remembered: Spittle on her face, smearing her lovely makeup. The white cum contemptuously tossed not into her eager mouth but on her carefully arranged breasts. . . . Love— . . . “The Duke despised cruelty,” she said emphatically, her back to Malissa, to avoid the already unraveling scene.

“Very well,” Malissa said, like an executioner. “To pass the time.” An empress about to witness the acts preliminary to a gory spectacle: “While we wait— . . .” she spat the words, “for Richard. . . . Tor!” she called peremptorily to the bodybuilder.

His muscles gleaming with perspiration so that he seemed to be sculpted out of diamond-hard ice, Tor approached Albert, but stopped a few feet away in response to Malissa’s raised hand. (He saw: Eyes! Gold-painted bodies! Heard: Dark commands. And: Screams!)

Albert flung himself kneeling on the floor. His hands quickly encircled Tor’s naked thighs.

“He touched him!” Topaze yelled.

Malissa was looking only at Albert. “Albert!” she warned.

“I promise, I promise not to touch him!” Albert held his hands locked tightly in back of him to restrain them. “I’ll just . . . look at him. Please— . . .”

Malissa nodded toward Tor, allowing to proceed a scene often enacted with only minor variations.

Upper arm parallel to the ground, forearm perpendicular, fist clenched inward so that the biceps bulged, the other arm raised higher, slightly over his head, that fist also clenched but pointing outward, lats spread and tensed so that they flared like bat wings, narrow waist held in tighter, ridges of the sculpted abdominals straining against the flesh, Tor posed before Albert.

Kneeling hardly a foot away, Albert gasped.

Malissa did not even glance at Tor. An invisible shield separated her from all that was sexual. Her eyes studied Albert relentlessly, carefully collecting the imprint of each hint of torture, frustration on his face.

“The trunks!” Albert begged. “Tell him to take them off. Please!”

The body allowed to relax, Tor’s fingers looped about the edges of his trunks, lowering them slightly.

“He’s going to take them off!” Topaze warned Malissa.

“That’s enough!” Malissa ordered, still without looking at Tor.

Imperturbably, Tor returned to the other room, to the weights.

Topaze roared with laughter at Albert, who was trembling visibly.

“You pitiful, sad, poor man,” Malissa whispered to Albert. From her those words were utterances of a merciless sentence. Her left fingers glided over the stones on the right knuckles, back and forth, hypnotically.

“I don’t care what you call me—but let me, please— . . .” Albert supplicated.

La Duquesa closed her eyes. The only purpose of the entourage—to torture this man? And is it true he supports her, the elegant hobo? she wondered. Why?

“Do you want— . . .” Malissa feigned kindness in her voice. But the arcane language of her fingers—the one black ring like a gouged eye—continued relentlessly to spew contempt.

“Yes, yes—any of them, whomever you choose, Malissa!” Albert said eagerly.

“La Duquesa!” Malissa chose.

That convulsed Topaze. Rev smiled derisively.

Albert shook his head frantically.

“Not la Duquesa?” said Malissa in mock amazement. “Perhaps, though, you’d like to wear her clothes. . . . Lend him your veil, your grace!” she called to the queen in mourning drag. “We’ll see how Albert looks in drag!”

“Be-yoo-ti-ful!” Topaze laughed.

“Your grace— . . .” Malissa repeated firmly. “Lend . . . Albert . . . Your . . . Veil.” Uttered with deliberate slowness, each word contained a threat.

But la Duquesa did not move. The memory of the Duke would give her the strength to resist the powerful woman. She sighed: “On long rainy afternoons the Duke and I would merely lie together, touching, for hours. The day he was killed, I was going to meet him. I was wearing red, the color of his blood which would spill on me. The Duke— . . . The Duke despised cruelty.”

Malissa’s stare focused frozen blue on the queen. She could demand that she drape the veil over Albert, she could make her respond. Of course. But that would thwart the present game. Time enough for la Duquesa: a more interesting game, in reserve. She nodded instead to Rev, who understood.

Quickly he opened his black vest, revealing an almost solid, symmetrical tapestry of tattoos on his lean chest. Menacing snarling beasts, dripping knives, barebreasted women—all amid viny rosebuds which themselves seemed curiously menacing.

Albert rushed to him—but restrained himself, nevertheless so close that Rev, looking down at him with hard, mean eyes, could feel the pudgy man’s breath on his flesh. Tongue gliding, Albert inched toward the tattoo of a bird swooping over Rev’s left nipple. “The pants,” Albert begged. “The pants— . . .”

“Show him,” came Malissa’s voice. Her eyes were nailed deeply into Albert, yet shut to Rev tantalizing him on her orders.

Slowly Rev opened his pants, one button at a time; the tapestry of tattoos continued along his lower torso. His open pants revealed the beginning of a tattooed snake, winding through the thick mat of black hairs. Lower on, it would coil about his groin. Only the upper part—the head ready to lash and emit its poison—was visible now.

Albert strained toward it.

“He’s moved closer!” Topaze shouted.

“Enough!” said Malissa. Rev quickly raised his pants, closed the vest, turned his back to Albert.

Albert rushed frantically to Malissa. “Please, please, please!”

“Topaze!” Malissa called.

His hat rakishly on his head—a depraved musketeer—the midget smiled demoniacally, his even teeth bared, his eyes gleaming. He stood swiftly, that perfect miniature man, like an actor on the center of the stage.

On his knees, Albert faced the midget eagerly.

Standing with his hands on his hips, thrust forward slightly, Topaze removed his cavalier’s hat, slicing the air with an audible slash! before Albert’s neck.

La Duquesa drew the black veil more closely over her face, her back still turned on the scene of cruelty. She remembered: The dress torn from her body, sequins on the floor like violated stars. The veil clung to her cheeks, glued there by sudden tears.

Braced on his hands, Albert leaned on the floor toward Topaze—oblivious of all else, ruled by desire. Now the midget undid his own belt, allowing the buckled end to dangle tantalizingly before Albert’s face, which stared fascinated, yet pained. A surly smile curling his lips, Topaze quickly dropped his pants and lewdly thrust his slim hips in simulated orgasm toward the man’s face.

Albert moaned, staring in those fleeting instants at the midget’s cock, which would have been gigantic on a tall man.

“Enough!” Malissa’s words slaughtered the scene savagely. Her eyes were still buried into Albert.

Laughing tauntingly, Topaze raised his pants and moved back. Rev joined the derisive laughter. Face down on the floor, Albert whimpered like a wounded animal.

“You sniveling creature,” Malissa said to Albert. “Have you learned yet? Have you? Have you!”

Drops of frozen blood, the rubies on her slashing fingers flashed a series of arcs shaping her convoluted rage. Propelled by the violent thrust of her anger, she stood up. Then wordlessly she left the room, moving swiftly along the corridors. Mirrors everywhere! Images must not Escape in Richard’s mansion! Must be caught! Servants floated about the halls. She hurried down the stairs. In the domed hall, she met Bravo, with Karen. Bravo made a move as if to intercept Malissa. Malissa did not look back. She flung herself into the maze of gardens. Now she rushed past the wide glass wall of the house, on the other side of which Joja stood staring at:

Red orchids with velvety yellow hearts. They leaned toward the white sun.

And looking at them through the glass wall, Joja was aware of that which requires something more powerful than itself for survival. She thought of the ocean: its imprint on the sand after it withdraws, the debris left as a reminder. . . . She glanced at the stage. Finally she had entered the gold room to study it. The somber props. Another empty stage to be filled with artificial lives, roles which had swallowed her being. Would this stage witness the unraveling, finally, of her own withheld identity?

“How did Richard send you away?” Tarah asked Joja bluntly, like a prosecutor collecting only evidence he knows will damn the accused. She had followed the actress here. Only the two women, first wife and ex-mistress, were in the room now.

“By telling me he was marrying Karen,” Joja said. “Just like that. Without warning or indication.” Looking at the draped platform, she felt suddenly that they were all props on a stage erected by Richard. “How did it end with you?” she asked dully.

“I— . . . He led me— . . . I left him after he— . . .” Tarah’s words stopped, the images flowed: Bodies on hers like hungry animals, bodies entering her simultaneously, in front, in back. “. . . —after I realized— . . . after he made me feel empty.”

Joja knew: The pit. To be filled with substitutes, strangers like this morning’s, the beautiful mysterious blond youngman who had failed her twice. . . . Strangers who left her empty. And guilty: As if she—and was it so with Tarah, too?—had failed Richard.

“But my son changed that,” Tarah said firmly. “Gable purified me of that night— . . .” (The long corridor she walked with Richard into the dark room of savage orgy.) “I took him away from Richard.”

“And Richard allowed it?” Joja asked.

“Yes.” The strangeness of it had not occurred to Tarah: He had never fought for Gable. Quickly: “Why did you come back?” she assaulted Joja with the question she and Karen had asked each other earlier—a question important without discernible reason.

“Because— . . .” (Because I need him? Because he summoned me? Because without him I’m dead?) “Because I was bored with New York,” she answered finally. (The protesting voices beyond the finally lowered curtain had continued accusing her, fudging her.)

Then she saw Mark.

Still in trunks, he stood at the entrance to the room. Tarah’s back was to him. And so Joja knew it was to her that he nodded slightly. Summoning her? She thought progressively in terms of a summons. Issued by Richard. And Mark? She felt her body advance toward the boy’s—although she did not actually move.

Mark tilted his head, challenging her to look away.

Joja tried, but her eyes were scorched to his in that powerful moment.

Brought suddenly into the whirling spiral between the boy and the actress, Tarah looked back quickly at Richard’s son. Then as quickly away. “Why did Richard bring us all together?” she asked the actress.

Finally wrested from Mark’s, Joja’s eyes saw Malissa beyond the glassed wall as if trapped within the maze of gardens.

Then the figure disappeared entirely: Malissa had entered a white rotunda: vine-cloaked pillars supporting a dome enclosing marble benches, statues, a fountain—a sheet of diamonds under the omnipotent sun.

Malissa despised being ruled by anything, even anger. It was her burgeoning rage at Albert she had fled. She must command even her own savagery.

Her eyes widened: She saw the coiled thing moving: a snake almost touching her feet! No—it was Bravo’s whip! Suddenly it was withdrawn with a crack like a bullet. Malissa faced Bravo.

“I didn’t expect you,” Malissa said coldly. “I saw you only moments earlier with Karen.”

“She went to her room to rest, she’s very weak,” Bravo’s words accused Malissa vaguely.

“Richard has an exhilarating effect on her; he’ll . . . revive her,” Malissa said cunningly.

“Karen doesn’t need Richard,” Bravo said.

“Doesn’t she?” Malissa flashed. “I don’t really see you replacing Richard.”

By Bravo’s look—which Malissa studied—and her silence, she knew what she had suspected: Bravo desired Karen, yes, that was obvious all along; but the desire was still to be consummated, if ever. The last words entered her mind like flung weapons to be honed for future use. Karen and Bravo. Bravo’s notorious sadistic affairs. . . . But Karen? The beautiful young woman who had become Richard’s third wife. Once she had glowed radiantly. Only for Richard? Karen and Bravo. Karen. Inconceivable. Could it be that Karen had mysteriously tapped in Bravo a pool of . . . gentleness? . . . If so, Bravo was infinitely vulnerable! Malissa’s mind arranged these thoughts automatically, exploring for all its possible weaknesses a country soon to be assaulted.

The white hypnotic sun ruled the ocean of sky. The smell of wild roses was heavy and sweet.

Malissa’s fingers prepared the words: “You followed me, Bravo. What do you want?” she asked.

Bravo stood before her. “The black ring,” she said.

“Don’t be foolish. Why should I give it to you?” The ring coiled on Malissa’s hand almost the length of her finger, a wound snake choking a black pearl.

“Because it’s the ring you got from the prince for introducing him to Savannah when— . . .”

“When you wanted her!” Malissa recalled her deliberate triumph over Bravo.

Bravo said it casually, so that the horror, shaping slowly, was more intense; she said: “There’s a scorpion on your shoulder, Malissa.”

Malissa’s body froze.

“Richard’s son told us they’re fatal,” Bravo went on. “But they never strike unless they’re taunted. You have to force them to sting. But you know all about that, Malissa; you’ve been here often before.”

Malissa glanced at her shoulder. She saw it: its yellowish outline. She felt it there, quivering. Even now, threatened by deadly poison, her façade remained composed. It was her hands—still—which conveyed fear.

“I’ll drive it away with my whip!” Bravo offered, moving back, her hand rising to lash with the whip.

“No,” Malissa said, trying not to breathe.

“You’re right, I might just succeed in aggravating it; and it would certainly sting and kill you. . . . How fitting, Malissa! A scorpion—perhaps like me a double scorpion. The lower path of death— . . .” she mocked.

Malissa’s neck began to ache.

Bravo moved farther back, as if to abandon her. Suddenly, she spun around; and her whip snapped toward Malissa’s shoulder. “Oh, I missed,” she said smiling, “and I never do—unless I want to.”

The yellowish thing trembled on Malissa’s shoulder. “Don’t taunt it.” She felt it advancing lightly toward her neck. The yellowish form erect now, poised to strike, she knew.

“Why shouldn’t I taunt it?—after how you pimped—. . . .”

Malissa squeezed the words: “You . . . wouldn’t . . . want . . . Savannah . . . she’s . . . a . . . virgin.”

“The legendary virgin. Exactly why I wanted her. . . . Now tell me about the transfusions, Malissa!” she barked. “What was it you stopped Albert from telling!”

“He lied. . . . The scorpion—remove it.”

“Why don’t you brush it off?”

“I can’t see it any more.”

Bravo leaned over Malissa’s shoulder. Then she blew tauntingly, barely, on the thing. “I think it’s becoming agitated! It’s raised its tail! It’s ready to sting, Malissa! . . . The ring!” she commanded.

“Brush the scorpion away!”

“The ring now!" Bravo demanded ferociously, the butt of her whip ready to prod the yellow thing.

Her shoulders rigid, Malissa removed the black ring.

Bravo took it triumphantly.

She stepped back. She raised her whip. “I’ll try it again,” she said coldly. “If I miss again— . . .”

Malissa’s hands were dead.

Bravo’s arm came back, the whip uncoiled swiftly.

Crack!

Malissa felt the sudden breath of the whip’s tip. The thing on her shoulder was gone. She saw it pinioned to the tip of Bravo’s whip.

Bravo was studying it. “It wasn’t a scorpion at all,” she said mockingly. “Just a small yellow leaf.” She held the leaf toward Malissa. “Look, Malissa, it wasn’t a scorpion at all.”

“You knew it all along.” Malissa tried to smile, to deny the other’s victory.

Bravo dropped the black ring at Malissa’s feet—and she laughed loudly in the woman’s face.

Behind the blue glasses, Malissa’s eyes spilled with anger. But the mask continued to smile, containing the rage in order.

Bravo’s laughter plunged into an ocean of hatred.