The Book of Revelation by Rupert Thomson Read Free Book Online

taking slow, measured steps, circling the very edges of his field of vision. She was wearing skin-tight leather shorts, a lace-and-satin bra and a pair of thigh-length boots, all of which were black. Instead of the usual hood, she had pulled on a rubber mask. It enclosed her entire head, but left holes for her mouth and eyes. The rubber was a dusty matt-black, which made her lips look unnaturally red. The smell of alcohol and perfume rose off her skin. Cigarette smoke too.
    “Have a nice evening?” His sarcasm was muted by the fact that he was forced to whisper. His throat still hurt from all the shouting.
    “You’ve been making noise,” the woman said.
    She was the one who had taunted him. We want you to masturbate. Is it really so much to ask? She was also the one who had taken off her clothes for him. Her body was the kind of body you see in tabloid newspapers or pornographic magazines: young, firm—top-heavy. He didn’t really know how to look at her.
    “You’ve been shouting,” she said, a hard edge to her voice.
    He turned his head sideways so that his right cheek lay flat against the pillow and his eyes were on a level with the floor. He had noticed something in her left hand. It had straps attached to it. Buckles too. He swallowed suddenly.
    “You upset my friend,” she said.
    She took a diagonal path across the room until she stood directly in his eye-line. He could see the toe of her left boot—patent-leather, mirror-bright. He could see the sharp stiletto heel.
    Her voice tightened. “You upset my friend.”
    “I was asking a question,” he said. “She wouldn’t answer.”
    “So you started shouting—”
    All of a sudden his patience abandoned him. Since the beginning he had had the feeling that, if he met this woman in real life, on equal terms, he would dislike her. That abrasive manner. That superior, hectoring tone.
    “So I started shouting,” he said. “So what?”
    She stepped back to the wall and leaned against it, her hands behind her. She appeared to be studying him.
    Her slender arms, her heavy breasts—what else had she revealed to him? She had a faint bikini-line, he remembered, and a coin-shaped scar on her left hip. Otherwise her body was flawless, the kind of body most men dream about. He thought she might be a year or two younger than he was. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight.
    As he watched her, she left the wall and strolled past him, towards the door. Was she leaving? He heard several dainty, metallic sounds that he could make no sense of. Before he could glance over his shoulder, she appeared on his right. He had wondered what it was that she was holding in her hand. Well, now he knew. Strapped to the front of her leather shorts was a dildo, with every detail luridly recreated—the glans, the veins, the urethra. . . .
    “You know, I’ve always wondered what it would be like,” she said slowly.
    She moved away from him, then turned, moved back again, more than the hint of a swagger in her walk.
    “Feels good,” she said.
    She smiled, but only with her mouth. Her eyes were cold.
    He rested his head against the pillow. A bitter fluid had risen on to his tongue. He wished he could go to sleep.
    “We can only take so much,” she went on, “before—well, how should I say it?—before we feel the need to punish. . . .”
    “I won’t shout any more,” he muttered grudgingly. “I promise.”
    “Ah, you change your tune. But it’s too late, you see? Too easy now. Like the dog when it sees the stick.”
    A tiny ball of fear formed in his solar plexus. It did not move at all; it just sat there, as if held in place by some slight hollow or depression.
    “I told you, I won’t do it again.” He tried to think of more words. “I’m sorry about your friend. I didn’t realise she was so sensitive.”
    The woman squatted on the floor in front of him. She brought a small bottle out of her pocket. It was olive-oil, produced in Italy. The label said Extra Virgin .
    “A