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

might even get some pleasure from it.
    How cynical that woman was. How vicious. He would never have called it pleasure—though he had been aware of a definite physical response, like a series of pulses passing along the length of his penis, pulses which he visualised, oddly enough, as rings. It was the opposite of a normal orgasm since it had been triggered from the inside, and, at one particular point, he had experienced a curious and unpleasant sensation of delay: he felt as if he was coming when, in actual fact, the sperm was still deep inside him, still on its way. Just then the woman had murmured something in his ear, though he couldn’t remember what exactly. Another piece of mockery, no doubt.
    He stared at the women kneeling on either side of him, one with shiny, slightly swollen knuckles, the other wearing nail-varnish that looked black. Though they were washing him with their usual patience and thoroughness, he thought he detected a brittle quality in the air, a wariness, even a resentment. He had broken the rules. He had been violent. Realising he could not afford to provoke them any further, he lay there quietly, with his eyes closed, as if asleep. He tried to rid his body of all longing, all tension. He tried to think of nothing. . . .
    At last, the women left him. He waited until they had switched off the lights and closed the door behind them, then he opened his eyes again. He suddenly saw the room for what it was: an artificial space, a setting—a kind of stage. This was something he was familiar with, of course. The difference was, he had no say. He felt as if he was being asked to sustain a performance with no knowledge of how long it was supposed to last. If he was to survive he would have to look on it as a test of his discipline, his stamina.
    It would almost certainly be the hardest test that he had ever faced.
    •
    In the middle of the night, with rain falling carelessly across the skylight, he woke up in possession of the names. He didn’t know where they had come from. He didn’t even seem to have played a part in their selection. They were just there, ready to be put to use.
    Astrid, first of all. This was the name he would give to the tallest of the women, the one with the faint American accent and the photo model’s body. From the very beginning, he had detected a grudge in her. Trouble, he had thought instinctively, would come from that direction. Well, he’d been right about that. What’s more, when she took off her clothes for him and he failed to respond, he had almost certainly insulted her, which had only fuelled her hostility, a hostility she had unleashed on the night of her assault on him. She had claimed to be punishing him, but she had administered the punishment with a ferocity and a relish that bore little or no relation to the offence. Astrid suited her. It was beautiful, as she was, but it also cast a cold, astringent shadow. Rearranged, it almost spelled “disaster.”
    The next name that had come to him was Gertrude. A name like Gertrude had connotations of strength and leadership, which made it ideal for the woman with the white hands and the darkly painted nails. She had laid down the rules on the first day. She did most of the talking. She wore the type of shoes that the police wear. He had the feeling she had been the brains behind the plan to abduct him; she seemed to display all the right qualities—clarity, authority, audacity. He thought she might be older than the others, though this was a hunch based on nothing more than the sound of her voice and the way she moved around the room. True or not, he would still have been prepared to bet that she was the principal decision-maker.
    That left Maude. At best, there was something cosy and dependable about the name. At worst, it was heavy, lumpen, just plain slow. It would act as a net for the many unlikely characteristics of the woman with the bitten nails. After all, she carried out most of the chores. She fed him,