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Extract from Alick Lourie’s diary, February 20th, 1895
Well, I’ve gone and done it now. I got kicked out of the house today. First Cambridge, now my own home. Although, in reality, Cambridge was not my fault. The trollop gave me syphilis, not the other way round. She’s the one who should’ve been kicked out of town.
But now I’m on the streets. Homeless. Destitute, with just an allowance of five thousand pounds a year to live on. How will I ever survive?
My mother called me the Beast. Not a beast, but the beast. The one from Revelations. I like that. When it comes to writing my memoir, I think I’ll call it Life of the Beast.
So, how did all this come about? How did I end up sitting in a hotel room in London, chewing on a dried peyote button, scribbling in this journal?
Well, I shall tell you. It all started with the aforementioned drug. The dried peyote which I brought back with me from Mexico. It opened my mind and allowed me to hear the voice of the spirits (I can’t remember exactly which one it was that spoke to me last night. Was it the angel Enoch? Or was it Baphomet? Or Beelzebub?) Anyway, it was the spirit which made me do it. It was the spirit which compelled me to commit this preposterous act, which was both shocking and beautifully poignant at the same time.
Perversion was its goal. To turn things upside down. To shock this dead, stale home back into life. To free myself and the rest of the household from the morals and conventions which have stifled us for so many years.
My mother had gone to church as usual, and Lucy was upstairs, sweeping the hallway. I was drawn by the spirit to go into my mother’s bedroom. This was the place in which I was conceived and born. The place where my pitiful life started. A suitable place, therefore, to witness my rebirth.
I opened the windows wide and let in the cold winter air. The draft seeped through my shirt and stiffened my nipples.
I could hear the ticking of the clock on the dresser. My mother would be back in thirty minutes, and Lucy would come in to tidy up in five. I remained by the window and took off all my clothes. The cool air caressed my body. Goosebumps rose on my skin. I caught my reflection in the mirror. Smooth white skin wrapped tightly over slim, rippling muscles.
The door handle turned. Lucy, punctual as ever, came in to make my mother’s bed. I turned around just as she opened the door. She gasped and put her hands to her mouth. But she didn’t run away. Nor did she stop staring. Lucy had been besotted with me for months. I’d noticed her blushes and coy glances every time I stepped into the kitchen or walked past her in the corridor.
I walked slowly towards her, grabbed her hand and pulled it away from her mouth.
“Oh, Master Alick,” was all that she could say.
I pressed her hand to my chest. Then I pushed it slowly towards my stomach, round my back and onto my arse. I squeezed her fingers around my buttock.
Her face blushed crimson. Her nostrils flared. Her heart pounded beneath her apron.
That’s it, girl, I thought. Let your will be free. Let your passions run loose. There is nothing more damaging to the body than restraint.
I glanced at the clock. Ten more minutes before my mother came home. I pushed her onto the bed.
“Oh, no, Master Alick,” she called. “Not here.”
But it had to be here. On my mother’s unmade bed. On top of the very sheets she slept on. This was a deathbed. This mattress had known no love, no intimacy, no life ever since my father died. I climbed on top of her and pulled up her skirts.
“Oh no, no, no,” Lucy protested, but she didn’t put up any resistance. Her eyes were closed, her breasts heaving.
She moaned as I thrust my cock inside her.
The headboard banged against the wall, shaking the crucifix on the wall above it. I looked up. Jesus’ woeful face stared back at me.
The front door opened. Lucy was too engrossed in her ecstasy to notice, but I listened carefully to my mother’s footsteps. Down the hallway, up the wooden steps and along the creaking floorboards.
I turned my face just as the door handle turned. She stepped into the room, and our eyes met.
She gasped but did not say anything.
I continued to stare at her while I pounded the moaning maid.
Lucy turned her head and saw my mother standing over us. She shrieked. She pushed and scratched and begged me to get off her. But I continued thrusting my pelvis against her, all the while staring into my mother’s eyes.
She remained rooted to the spot. Shocked into paralysis.
Only when I came inside Lucy did I stop. Only after the elixir of my new life had been released did I relent.
Alick Lourie was now officially dead, and in his place had risen the Beast.