The Book of Revelation by Rupert Thomson Read Free Book Online Page A

nice touch,” she said, “don’t you think?”
    He looked at her, not following.
    “It will make things a bit more comfortable for you,” she said. “Of course, I’m assuming it’s your first time. . . .”
    The ball of fear rolled slowly out of its hollow and down into his belly. He pulled hard at the rings, but only succeeded in grazing the inside of both wrists.
    “It’s not so bad,” she said. “You might even get some pleasure from it.”
    She took the pillow from under his head and folded it in half, then wedged it beneath his stomach so that his buttocks were lifted into the air. He was facing the right wall, which was made of brick. All of a sudden his focus altered, and he saw himself reflected in the stainless-steel ring that held his right hand. He could only see an eye, the right one. It didn’t look like his.
    The woman had positioned herself behind him, with her knees between his thighs.
    “I always wanted to do this,” she whispered in a silky voice.
    He cried out as he felt the dildo penetrate.
    “You can struggle if you like,” she whispered.
    She held him by the hips and pushed in deeper. The stranger’s eye stared out at him forlornly from the narrow, curving strip of stainless steel.
    “You know what you are, don’t you,” she was saying. “You’re a cunt.”
    After a few moments she kneeled upright, unfastened her bra and dropped it on the rubber mat beside her. Then she leaned over him again, her breath hot against his neck. Cigarettes and perfume. Alcohol.
    Her nipples brushed his shoulder-blades as she moved in and out.
    “Cunt,” she whispered in his ear.
    And then, in time with the rhythmic motion of her body, “Cunt . . . cunt . . . cunt . . . cunt . . .”
    Afterwards, when she had loosened the rings and he was lying on his side, she spoke to him again. “That question you were asking before. Well, the answer’s no. We’re not finished with you yet, not by a long chalk.”
    She paused.
    “Is that the correct phrase? It sounds kind of strange.”
    •
    Later that night, when the door opened again, he tensed. He knew it off by heart by now, that sequence of sounds—a squeak as the handle turned, a click as the lock slid sideways in its chamber, a creak as the door moved on its hinges. . . . It meant that something was about to happen, something that could neither be predicted nor controlled. He lay motionless, his bowels stinging, oddly wet, and watched through half-closed eyes as one of the women dimmed the centre-lights. A sigh came out of him. For hours now, the glare of those three lights had burned through the thin skin of his eyelids, seeming to illuminate the whole of the interior of his head. There had been nowhere he could go for privacy, not even inside himself.
    He saw two women move towards him, bringing a tin bowl brimming with hot water and a pile of soft white towels. They kneeled on either side of him. Steam rose from the bowl, a ghostly flickering. One of the women dipped a flannel in the bowl, then wrung it out. The glassy trickle of the water. . . .
    He flinched when they first touched him, and one of them murmured in Dutch, words that were probably intended to reassure or comfort him. He found unexpected tenderness confusing. Once again, he had the impression that the women were not all of one mind, that the actions of one could invoke the disapproval of the others, that there were differences, in other words, but he still did not feel capable of exploiting these differences to his advantage.
    In fact, if anything, he felt less capable now. After his humiliation of that evening, he had plunged into a kind of apathy. The feeling had stayed with him, not so much the feeling of being violated, but the orgasm that had occurred as a result, an orgasm in which he had played no part, an orgasm that had been involuntary, autonomous. It had been like a lesson in which he had been taught the true meaning of the word “powerlessness.”
    You