The Palace of Heavenly Pleasure

by Adam Williams

  Hesitantly Helen Frances lifted her own hand to touch the face of the man who was leaning over her. He felt a cold palm on his cheek. Her eyes, looking directly into his, stared with urgent enquiry. Her slightly frowning brow, the teeth in the half-open mouth, the quiver of the upper lip reminded him of an inquisitive little animal, a peering fox cub or a small beaver. For a moment he was nonplussed and sat rigidly on the bed, allowing the long, cool fingers to descend from his face to penetrate the folds of his pyjamas, tickling in turn his chest, his belly, moving downwards towards his own secret regions. The hand reached his waistband and could go no further. The solemn face below him looked questioningly at him, then stared in fascination as a hardness he could not control raised the cloth that covered his groin, and his growing excitement became visible to her. His own hand moved almost unconsciously to untie the silk cord. He wanted those cool fingers to go further, to touch his arousal, to enfold his jade flute … He slipped the knot, the cold fingers moved on, he felt them ruffle over his hairs … But no, with an effort of will he asserted his self-control. This was inappropriate. He stopped her there. The green eyes widened in surprise as he pulled out her hand. He held it pressed between his palms, and sighed, feeling after a moment his hardness subside. He smiled at her puzzlement.

  ‘No, my little fox lady,’ he whispered. ‘I cannot allow it. For all I have said, I value my friendship with Ma Na Si. The debt between us is paid and you will tell him that I have not harmed you. I will not take his treasure although I see it is freely given. I in turn am in debt to him, and to you.’

  She had not understood a word. He dredged his memory for the English words. ‘Sank—you,’ he said clumsily, after much thought. ‘You—be-yoo-ti-fu’. No—berong—old—man.’

  Slowly, understanding penetrated her face. Her features quivered, and crumpled, and her green eyes filled with tears. Her body began to tremble, and she shook with silent sobs. The Mandarin stood over her indulgently, gently pulling the sheets to cover her. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, smelling again for the last time that strange, milky odour. Then he closed the curtains quietly behind him.

  As he put on his official gown, he began to hum the song of the Hunan Braves.

  * * *

  And he was humming as he stepped out of the door into the gallery where Mother Liu and her son, joined by Major Lin, were waiting. Ma Na Si was also there, standing sheepishly a little distance away. Ignoring the brothel-keepers, the Mandarin strode towards him, but Ma Na Si would not meet his eyes.

  The Mandarin laughed. ‘Abashed, my friend?’ he said jovially. ‘That’s not like you. Perhaps my little game has been worth it to see this humbler side of you at last.’ He moved closer, putting an arm around his shoulder and speaking in a low tone so only the Englishman could hear. ‘Remember the saying, Ma Na Si,’ he whispered. ‘“Intercourse between friends is like a glass of clear water handed between gentlemen.” Neither you nor I have anything to reproach ourselves for. Your fox woman is as you left her. Be assured of that. You will not hate me after you have spoken to her. Listen,’ he said, pressing his mouth closer to Henry’s ear, ‘we are all involved in a game now. My wager with the doctor was trivial, but it does no harm that Major Lin has seen you apparently humbled. It may go a little way to assuage the vengeance he feels towards you for stealing his concubine. We need him, you and I, for our plans. Continue to act the aggrieved lover, although it doesn’t suit you, and there may be peace between you. But beware of him. He is your enemy. It is dangerous enough here as it is. So much so that I am thinking of bringing my plans forward so we can leave tonight. Make sure all of you are ready when we come for you … Now, for the benefit of the others, look angry. They must think that in this whispered exchange I have been gloating over my defilement of your beloved. Spit at me, if you like. It will suit the melodrama of the occasion.’

  ‘You bastard, you led me on,’ said Henry.

  ‘Would you have been able to persuade her if I hadn’t?’ asked the Mandarin.

  Henry bellowed and swung a wide punch at him, but the Mandarin easily caught the bunched fist in his hand, twisting Henry’s arm viciously behind his back. Major Lin ran forward and made to grab him, but the Mandarin only laughed, letting him go. Henry’s eyes glared with very real anger, but he controlled himself. He brushed past the sneering Major Lin and ran down the corridor to the bedroom from which the Mandarin had come.

  The Mandarin smiled. ‘I think we can safely leave him to take stock of his spoiled goods,’ he said. ‘Come, Major, we have work to do. Mother Liu, thank you for your hospitality. If you are ready, we will leave now.’

  ‘May I stay for a while longer, Da Ren?’ Major Lin requested. ‘I have things to arrange with Fan Yimei.’

  ‘Join me at the yamen,’ said the Mandarin, draping the cloak over his head, ‘as soon as you’re done. There may be some changes to those plans I discussed with you.’

  Major Lin, Ren Ren lounging beside him, watched until the Mandarin, led by Mother Liu, had disappeared down the secret stairs. When they were out of sight, Ren Ren tapped on the door of one of the rooms leading off the gallery. The door opened, and Ren Ren’s sinister assistant, Monkey, stepped into the light. ‘Now then, Major, you asked for us to come here,’ said Ren Ren. ‘What exactly was it that you wanted us to do for you?’

  * * *

  ‘Forgive me, forgive me,’ Helen Frances was weeping in Henry’s arms, ‘I tried, but he didn’t—he wouldn’t … He just looked at me, examined me, like I was some sort of animal that disgusted him … and he left, without—without doing anything … And now they’re all going to die because I didn’t … Oh, God, Henry, forgive me…’

  She felt his kisses on her cheeks, her eyes, her ears, the tight pull of his arms round her shoulders. ‘Nobody’s going to die,’ he said. ‘It was just a game. A bloody game. One of the Mandarin’s bloody games.’

  ‘I would have done it,’ she moaned. ‘I would have done. I wanted to do it. Don’t you see? I betrayed you. Oh, God—but he just walked away.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Henry said. ‘Nonsense. You had to steel yourself, that’s all. You did what you had to do. You were bloody brave.’

  ‘Hold me,’ she whispered. ‘Just hold me. Don’t leave me again.’

  And probably, after a while, her anguish might have subsided in his familiar embrace—but at that moment, with a crash, the door burst open and, through the curtains, she made out the shapes of three men forcing entry into the room. Immediately Henry leaped to his feet to confront the intruders, and she watched in horror as one of the figures kick-boxed with his foot and Henry’s head crashed back against the bedpost. She had been too startled even to scream for help, and it was too late now, for rough hands were pulling her from the bed. She felt a stunning blow to her head, and she dropped on her knees. A kick in her back sent her sprawling over the carpet. She felt herself retching. Dizzily she was aware that she was being turned over on her back. She gagged as a rough cloth was forced tightly into her mouth and for a while she could not breathe. Strong hands pinioned her shoulders and arms to the floor. Someone slapped her again, and she opened her eyes to see a pockmarked Chinese face grinning over her. She saw Henry, also gagged, struggling against ropes that tied him to the bedpost. His eyes were angry white fires, screaming in their impotence. A tall figure in a white uniform stepped into view, and for a moment she felt a surge of relief when she recognised the handsome, familiar features of Major Lin, but then she saw the wolfish sneer, and the reptilian eyes, which coldly surveyed her nakedness; she saw him unbuckle and drop his belt to the floor and his fingers fumble with the buttons of his trousers.

  And she screamed, and kicked with her lower body, but only moans came through the gag, and another man caught her feet and wrenched her legs apart. Lights exploded as she was slapped, again and again. She felt a heavy, stifling weight on her belly and chest, the scratch of thick serge and the cut of brass buttons on her breasts. The sour smell of garlic filled her nos
trils and a man’s breath blew on her cheek; and when she could focus, she saw the hate-filled eyes of Major Lin inches from her face. She felt his exploring fingers, and with all her strength she tried to shake away her attacker, but the other men’s hands held her legs and arms fast to the ground and she could not move. She gasped at the sudden fiery pain. Major Lin, like a demented animal, was thrusting inside her, tearing flesh, splitting tissue, pushing deeper through the resisting folds. He grunted over her as he pushed; his spittle dripped on her face, and an explosion of pain ripped through her lower body as he broke the last obstacle, and her blood became the lubricant for his burning thrusts into her womb. She felt the hard thing inside her, violating her, ravishing her, jarring the very breath out of her body as it intensified its thrusts. It was as if time had stopped and she was caught in a slow-motion nightmare defined by pain and shame.

  Over the shoulder of her ravisher she saw the beams of the ceiling, the pockmarked Chinese who was holding her down, and Henry at the corner of her vision, his face purple with his efforts to break his bonds, his eyes bulging despair and hate and wordlessly shrieking messages to her that she could not understand. Yet they might have been inhabitants of another planet for all their relevance to her now. Whatever was happening to her was an internal drama. Every painful thrust diminished her, tearing away another shred of the little self-esteem that remained to her.

  She had a clear vision of herself being whipped in the hall of her school; everyone she knew was pointing at her naked body, reviling her for her foulness and laughing at the dirt that covered her. Major Lin climaxed and she felt her deepest parts running with his polluting, defiling liquid. The thrusting stopped, and the weight became heavier on her chest as he relaxed. The hard rod that had scorched and torn the inside of her had transformed into a soft, revolting stuffing of meat, swilling in a disgusting gravy of sperm and blood. She felt a trickle of the cold emission seeping on to her thigh, and began to gag with shame and self-hatred. How could she ever be clean again?

  Major Lin pushed himself to his feet and pulled on his trousers. He gave one last, sneering glance at the girl he had raped. She was lying where he had left her. Ren Ren and Monkey no longer bothered to hold her now. She still lay with her legs apart. Her thighs were smeared with blood and there was a slime of pink liquid trickling on to the wooden floor. Lin spat, and his phlegm landed on her stomach. She did not react. He turned to Manners, whose struggles had also subsided.

  ‘The da ren ordered me not to harm you,’ he said to the gagged man, ‘but he said nothing about your whore. That’s what you made her, isn’t it, when you gave her to the Mandarin? So you can look upon what I did just now as merely another bit of business for her. As you gave business to my whore a while back. I think we can consider ourselves even now, Ma Na Si.’

  He turned to leave, then stopped as if he had suddenly remembered something. He reached in his pocket and withdrew a few copper coins. ‘I am being remiss,’ he said. ‘I haven’t paid you for her services.’ He flung the coins on the floor by Henry’s, feet.

  He left without another word.

  Leaving Helen Frances to Ren Ren and Monkey. With great ceremony they tossed one of the coins. Monkey guessed tails, so it fell to Ren Ren to pinion Helen Frances’s shoulders while the other took his reward. Monkey pulled his pyjamas down and knelt between her legs sniffing humorously. He made great play of lapping like a dog, then his excitement getting the better of him, he hurled himself on the recumbent body. Both Ren Ren and Monkey turned when they heard the noises from the bedpost. Henry was violently, and again impotently, struggling against his bonds. He was trying to shout too, because muffled sounds were coming through his gag. Ren Ren and Monkey laughed, and went back to their play.

  Again Helen Frances felt the pain, the invasion of her body and the defilement. This time, weakened and broken by her shame, she did not struggle to resist, but Henry saw the tears running down her cheeks. They flowed in haphazard runnels across the bruises and the smeared makeup. Monkey’s thin haunches wriggled and it was over.

  Ren Ren sneered. ‘Don’t think that I’m going in that polluted hole, not after you animals have used it. Turn her over,’ he said.

  Roughly Ren Ren and Monkey rolled her on to her front. Ren Ren pulled her into a crouching position so that her bottom faced him and he, too, removed his trousers, adjusting himself between her parted thighs—but this time when they moved her the gag had slipped from her mouth. In her dazed state it took her some moments to realise that her mouth was free, but the intense agony of the new indignity that was being inflicted on her, and even more the horror when she understood what it was, made her scream, a piercing shriek that echoed around the walls of the room and penetrated the whole corridor outside. She screamed and screamed again until Monkey had beaten her into silence and replaced the gag—but by then others on the floor had been alerted and they heard the drumming of feet outside.

  The doctor was the first through the door, followed by Nellie, and Fan Yimei. Ren Ren reacted quickly, pulling himself away from his victim and bounding to his feet—but they saw clearly enough what he had been doing. Helen Frances still crouched in the position in which he had been abusing her. They saw her nakedness and the ruin of her painted face. They saw the blood, and the bruises, and the foulness that stained the floor. They saw the drooping manhoods of the two trouserless Chinese men, the blood and filth that smeared their thighs; they observed the truculence on their guilty faces.

  ‘My God. My God,’ whispered Airton, leaning in shock against the wall. Nellie was already by Helen Frances’s side, folding the girl into her arms, staring defiantly at Ren Ren as she did so. Fan Yimei stood hesitantly by the door.

  ‘I can’t believe this depravity,’ shouted Airton, rage overtaking him. He directed the main force of his anger at Henry, ignoring the fact that he was bound and gagged. ‘What sort of monster are you?’ he cried. ‘Was this—was this your bargain? My God, man! You told the Mandarin I’d agreed to this?’

  Ren Ren and Monkey exchanged amused glances.

  ‘And you—you creatures! What have you done to her? It’s—monstrous! Monstrous!’

  Ren Ren laughed, and Monkey giggled. This was too much for the doctor, who flung himself at Ren Ren, pushing the younger man’s chest. His strength was feeble, but the carpet slipped, and both Ren Ren and Airton fell to the ground in a flurry of flailing fists. And such was the way they fell that Ren Ren, who was the stronger man, had his arms pinioned by Airton’s knees, and had to shake his head to avoid the blows raining down on his face. ‘Monster! Monster! Monster!’ Airton was shouting, as he struck.

  Nellie screamed and there was an eruption of movement from the gagged, bound Henry. Both had seen the knife Monkey had pulled from his sleeve.

  ‘Edward! Behind you!’ shrieked Nellie, but it was too late. In two steps Monkey had reached the struggling pair and raised the knife high above his head, ready to strike between the doctor’s defenceless shoulder-blades.

  A loud, cracking explosion echoed round the small room, followed by another. Monkey staggered backwards, blood seeping from a spreading red patch on his white shirt. He turned, and there was an expression of amazement on his face before he pitched forward, dead, and the knife clattered on the floor.

  Fan Yimei stood in the doorway. A haze of smoke was rising from Hiram’s revolver, which she held out at arm’s length in her two small hands. She was shaking and the barrel of the gun was pitching up and down but she still pointed it forward into the room.

  With a heave Ren Ren knocked the doctor off him and jumped to his feet. His eyes were blazing with anger and venom, his fists were clenched—but he froze when he saw Fan Yimei.

  The foreigners in the room watched hypnotised as the slim girl with the revolver stared steadily at the half-naked Chinese man, her eyes fixed on his in a battle of wills. Only Henry knew what torments Ren Ren had inflicted on the girls in his power, and the terrors of his unspeakable regime—but the others coul
d sense the deadliness of this silent exchange. For a moment it looked as if the man would gain his accustomed ascendancy over his slave. Ren Ren’s lip curled into the beginnings of a cruel smile, and slowly he raised his arm, palm up, in an unspoken command for Fan Yimei to hand over the revolver. For a moment the gun wavered, but only for a moment. Nellie, who was closest to Ren Ren, saw his expression suddenly change, his head shake in disbelief, his mouth open as if to plead, and the pupils of his widening eyes dilate with fear. Then the revolver cracked again and Nellie saw his throat explode in a messy scatter of blood and bone. He toppled backwards, his body tangling with the pink hangings of the bed. The legs kicked and horrible, gurgling sounds rasped the silence, sawing on their stretched nerves. It was a long time before the twitching ceased