"Jist keep yer big bliddy hauns aff Hazel!" Johnnie repeated.
Razor King lurched towards him with an oath.
Johnnie was quick but he had underestimated my father's strength and it was brute force that counted in that confined space. Johnnie tried hard to hold Razor King in the full-Nelson, but the older man stiffened, ducked with a grunt, making a butt of his bottom, and hurled himself backwards with his full power. They crashed together on the floor, Gault's body like a sack of sand knocking all the breath out of his son. And then Razor King was up and as Johnnie struggled to his feet, my father's boot took him heavily on the mouth so that Johnnie's head struck backwards with a sickening thud on the floor. He didn't move after that.
Hazel slipped quickly into bed, accepting Johnnie's defeat with equanimity.
Johnnie crawled out some time during the night, leaving Hazel in his father's arms.
But in the morning, I knew even before Allison came. I had been out as usual for milk and the Sunday papers. I saw the crowd collect. I even saw the razor thrown from the third story window. I knew that it would take place that morning in the open street.
Less than two hours later, my father was dead.
The Painmistress
-1-
"Take me to the big house, Hazel."
It was two hours since the police and the ambulances had left. Hazel was sitting staring out of the dirty window at the street. The Gorbals would be quiet for the rest of the day.
"What?"
"I want you to take me to the big house. There's no point in staying on here now."
"Don't be silly, Gertie, I can't just take you there. I have to wait for orders."
"You'll be taking orders from me in future," I said. "Didn't they tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"Oakes is dead. Didn't you know that?"
"Yes, I heard," she said quietly. "And I know more than that. Imagine, some woman is to be Painmistress!"
"What's wrong with that?"
"What's right with it?" Hazel said. "Oh, I could handle Oakes! He liked a bit on the side now and again. I got on well with him, specially since he knew I was with Razor King. He liked the idea of that, having the King's woman, I mean."
She got up.
"Is there a cup of tea, Gertie?"
"I'm the woman, Hazel."
It still didn't seem to register.
"But a woman, imagine that! Probably some old bitch that wants her tits bitten off!"
She had gone over to the fire. She shook the kettle to see if there was water in it.
I took off my skirt.
"Look, Hazel!"
She turned. "What the..." And then she stopped. She was staring at the black cross. "Where did you get that?" she whispered.
"You know what it is?"
"It's the Holy Seal!"
"Yes," I said. "And I am the new Painmistress. Now, will you take me to the big house?"
-2-
"Gertrude!"
Harry Prentice hurried across the room and kissed my hand. He nodded to Hazel.
"You'd better wait here," he said to her. We were in the big reception room. "And if you don't mind, Gertrude, I'd like you to come with me."
I followed him into a large, comfortably furnished library where a fire blazed in the open hearth. He sat down opposite me.
"I was going to get in touch with you in the middle of the week," he said, "but now that you're here, it's just as well. What brings you?"
I told him of the fatal battle.
"I see," he said. "So really, you don't need to be back now. That's just as well too. Since I spoke to the special Nuncio I've been worried about you. Your father was a dangerous man."
"Nuncio?"
"Yes. The man who put the Holy Seal on you, a kind of traveling ambassador from the Holy Seat itself. He has returned to Madrid."
"Madrid!"
"Yes. The Holy Seat is in Madrid, Gertrude, but I have a great deal to explain to you, so it would be better if you listened for a while."
I nodded.
"First, about myself," Harry said. "As you know, I was Mr. Oakes' secretary. But it wasn't in a private capacity. I am a Permanent Secretary to the Holy Seal. Thus I am automatically your secretary, for it is you who now bear the Holy Seal. I am now entirely at your disposal as a counselor and servant. It is my job to make you entirely conversant with the duties and privileges of your office and to be always at your side to advise and help you.
"Now, I must tell you something of the organization of the Order. At the head of the Order, in the Holy Seat at Madrid, is the Holy Pain Father. His identity, like the identities of most of the members of the upper echelon, is not known to me. Under him, forming the Central Executive Committee, are the twelve Pain Cardinals. They have a position roughly equivalent to that of the Cardinals in the Roman Church. They meet in a conclave to elect the Holy Pain Father who is most often referred to simply as Pain. Each Pain Cardinal has six Grand Painmasters under him, and they in turn each have twelve Painmasters or Painmistresses under them. Thus you see that you are one of eight hundred and sixty-four Painmasters or Painmistresses. In your present capacity, the nearest you will come to the Holy Seat is to have direct contact with your own Grand Painmaster, Sir William L., who will be present at your official inauguration. Then there is the Permanent Secretariat of which I am a member. We have only that authority delegated to us by you, the true members of the Hierarchy. If you were chosen as a Grand Painmistress while I was still in your service, you would have the choice of taking me with you as your secretary or of accepting the secretary of the ex-Grand Painmaster. In one sense, his services would be an advantage since he would be already acquainted with all the customary forms pertaining to his master's office, but that can be learned and I don't suppose it's necessary to point out to you that a man who has risen with you is likely to prove more loyal.
"Then, there are various Nuncios, one of whom you met the other night. They are the private messengers of Pain and hold a kind of honorary position within the hierarchy.
"After that, there are any number of paid retainers. Hazel is one of them. She is a Whipmistress. Theoretically, her services can be dispensed with at any time, but if that decision were taken, it would be necessary to do away with her because she knows too much. Once she had the honor of whipping Sir William L. himself, for example.
"Finally, there is the main body of ordinary members, the Members of Pain. The gentlemen you met here on your first visit were in that category. There are the Novices, and from time to time Men or Women-Elect, as they are called. You became automatically a Woman-Elect after your first visit here. Under normal circumstances you would have become a Novice at the next General Meeting. But before his death, Mr. Oakes set out his reasons carefully and persuasively for recommending you to the Office of Painmistress. Sir William was evidently convinced and got in touch at once with his Pain Cardinal. That's all I know."
He got up and poured himself a drink.
"Would you like one, Gertrude?"
I nodded.
When he handed it to me, he said: "I agreed with Mr. Oakes. I think you are just what is needed to bring discipline back to the Order in this area."
I smiled and thanked him.
"If you have any questions?" he said.
"I have," I said. "Does this house belong to me?"
"As long as you are Painmistress."
"What about money?"
"You needn't worry about expense," he said with a smile. "You have a rich congregation."
"Will they like me?"
"They will obey you."
"Can I chose new retainers if I wish to?"
"Of course."
"I know a man."
"Ah, you have one in mind?"
"My personal Whipmaster," I said. "A Glasgow cobbler. It was he who groomed me to be what I am."
"Excellent! We should employ him at once!"
"Tomorrow I shall fetch him. I'll want you to come with me."
>
"Gladly, my Lady!"
"I like you, Harry."
"I like you, Gertrude!"
I smiled at him. "Why did you call me 'my Lady?'"
"In public, Gertrude, I shall always call you that in future. We must preserve the dignities of the Order. Mr. Oakes had become too lax. Many suspected it. You, Gertrude, must be a disciplinarian from the beginning."
-3-
I watched the cars arrive from my private apartment on the top floor of the big house: Rolls Royces, Daimlers, Talbots, and many others. Two uniformed attendants were directing the parking. Harry had already gone downstairs and I assumed he was occupying himself with the more important guests among the Members, for of course I found out at once that our Order, like all earthly orders, admitted of privileges for the rich and powerful. Harry had explained a great deal of this to me. Mr. Oakes had been a millionaire. Sir William L. was a great landowner. How then had I been chosen? In what way could I enrich or bring power to the Order? All Harry could say was that Oakes himself had on more than one occasion referred to this kind of corruption within the Order, to its being spoiled by wealth and privilege, to the possibility of its degenerating into a private club in which the wealthy could indulge in petty obscenities, and it was Harry's opinion that a stricture must have come from the Holy Seat itself both to Sir William L. and, perhaps through him, to Oakes, for at no time, Harry said, had either man impressed him as possessing a holy zeal for the commission of their trust. There was too much amusement, too many gatherings which were merely lascivious, too much hiring of professional exhibitionists from without the Order, couples who would dance in the nude and copulate at the same time, sleek-bodied women of various races and preferably of Lesbian tendencies who would rub and lick each other's sex for the delight of Members; in fact, in Harry's opinion, and that seemed to be borne out by the fact that those Members who actively participated in flagellation were becoming fewer and fewer in number, the big house was in danger of degenerating into a profitable brothel. There, he suspected, was the reason for my election. Indeed, Oakes' last letter to his Grand Painmaster, Sir William L., had hinted at this. New blood was needed in a decadent sect. "More blood," Harry said with a smile, "more blood and less titillation." It seemed that our Congregation had swollen to two hundred members and that not five percent of those members had appeared more than once for flagellation.
All this worried me as I watched the Members arrive in their fine cars. How on earth would I be able to control two hundred idle and lascivious men and women, some of whom, according to Harry, were very prominent in public affairs in this part of the country! What if they refused to obey me? How could I hope in one night to clear away all the corruption which my predecessor had allowed to come to exist during the ten years of his office? What if I was faced with mutiny? Harry had done his best to console me. He would be there at my right hand. Every one of the two hundred had sworn to obey under the penalty of Excommunication, and that, in the Order of Pain, meant death. Again, some Members would be firmly on my side, Mr. Bing for example, and Mr. Duval, and the redoubtable Mr. Coldstream. And I was not to forget that Sir William L. would be present, incognito of course, for none of the Members knew him except as an ordinary Member. No, in Harry's opinion, my Congregation would obey.
But would it?
I had no means of knowing in advance.
"Is everything ready, Willie?" I said.
Willie, who had been reading the evening paper, looked up. "Aye," he said.
The flogging room in the basement had been altered. Willie himself had attended to the installation of the new fixtures. The whipping board had been removed. Metal rings had been sunk into the floor and ceiling. Victims would now be stretched as I had been when I delivered myself over to Willie's doting punishment in the back shop of the boot maker's in Cumberland Street.
New instruments had been provided. No expense had been spared. Somehow Willie's company was a great comfort to me. Here was a Whipmaster of imagination. He was to have his own will with any female member of our organization: to whip, to suck, to dote, to bring religion where religion had not been before. But his loyalty touched me. It was my body which interested him. And it was his. Before all the world, it was his.
For some time now no more cars had arrived. If that meant that everyone had already come, then Harry would soon be sending for me. I pulled up my skirt and lay over a soft leather stool in front of Willie.
"Whip me a little, Willie!" I breathed.
He took a three-pronged leather strap from his pocket and with his full force, gave me six cruel blows across the soft, sweat-smeared surface of my buttocks. And then his nose and tongue were there, nudging, exploring. I raised my palpitating rump so that my slimy cunt came in contact with his darting wet tongue, and to feel it there, at my body's center, strong, hard, and masterful, just that, gave me back the knowledge of my own power, the religious certainty of my commitment.
Someone knocked at the door.
Willie got up and I slipped off the stool.
"Come in!"
It was Harry.
"They've come, Gertrude!"
"All?"
He nodded. "It's time you put in an appearance. They're all anxious to see you."
"Where have you put them?"
"In the Temple."
I nodded.
The Temple was a large, sparsely furnished hall at the back of the house, its ceiling domed like that of a mosque. There was a pulpit and beside it, a large whipping block. Chairs were arranged as in a church, in three segments with two aisles running between. Behind the pulpit and dominating the whole auditorium was a sculpted version of the picture I had first seen in the reception room, the Virgin Death.
"I shall come now. Go and prepare them."
He bowed and went out.
Willie helped me to dress in the plain toga of black cloth. Underneath, apart from a chain of iron drawn tightly about my waist and the black crown which fell from my cunt against the soft white surface of my right thigh, I was stark naked. My nipples and my navel had been treated with mascara. I stepped into my leather thong sandals and wound my soft black hair out of sight under a tall black turban.
"Be near, Willie," I said just before I went out.
There was a trapdoor in the pulpit so that the bearer of the Holy Seal could appear suddenly and impressively among the Congregation.
A moment later I was standing high in the pulpit, a green arc-light directed skillfully at me, and below me in the auditorium, a complete silence reigned.
I could see the faces craning up towards me: old faces, young faces, handsome faces, ugly faces, tired faces, fat faces, thin faces, gaunt faces, all alight with anticipation. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Harry, wearing a black mask across the upper part of his face, standing naked and rampant, the Whipmaster at his block. I raised my arms, my long fingers extended, making an impressive cross of my body.
"I am Gertrude!"
"She is Gertrude!" Harry echoed in a deeper voice.
"I am the bearer of the Holy Seal!"
"She is the bearer of the Holy Seal!"
"I am come to live amongst you as Pain!"
"She is come to live among us as Pain!"
Hazel, behind the wings, struck across her quivering buttocks at that moment by the five-fingered-spranger, let out a bloodcurdling scream of agony.
When that died away, I spoke again to the sea of white, straining faces.
"I am Gertrude!"
"She is Gertrude!"
"I am your Painmistress!"
"She is our Painmistress!"
"I am Mistress and Minister to your pain!"
"She is Mistress and Minister to our pain!"
I looked down to the front row and my eyes singled out a plump but pretty, well-dressed woman who sat next to an impressive-looking man with a military moustache.
I pointed my finger at her. She cringed closer to her escort.
"Stand up, woman!" I said.
>
She hesitated. Her escort looked indignant. But after a few seconds she shifted nervously to her feet. She was really quite beautiful in spite of the slight plumpness. She would be about thirty-five, I guessed. I could imagine the soft white flesh, tremulous and slightly damp under her fashionable dress.
"You are a Member?"
"Yes ... my Lady!"
I smiled and stretched out my hand toward her.
"Come," I said gently. "For my first Mass I have chosen you to perform the Rite of the Virgin Death!"
A wondering murmur ran through the auditorium. I knew why. Harry had told me that the corruption in our Congregation extended even to the holiest of rituals so that for this particular Rite, Mr. Oakes had been in the habit of employing a professional to be whipped on the block below the sculpted passion of death. Thus my command struck deep at corrupt usage, especially as I had chosen a woman from the front row, that's to say, one who was probably a celebrity or the wife of a celebrity in the outside world.
"I..." Her gaze broke with mine and she glanced at her escort. He was already on his feet and he looked furious.
"Come!" I repeated, ignoring him.
She still hesitated.
The man spoke. He was furious but his voice was restrained.
"Excuse me, my Lady, but this is not the usual practice in our Congregation. My wife..."
"Silence! In this Temple she is not your wife, nor are you your own master, sir! You are the creatures of Pain and by your obedience, Pain will judge you! Sit down, sir, before you offend mortally!"
I raised my right hand, and a beam of white light fell on the gentleman's face.
"Lord E.," Harry's deep voice intoned, "you will obey the Seal!"
The woman, terrified, made as if to come forward, but her husband gripped her by the wrist. He turned to face a thin, gray-haired man who sat quietly at the end of the front row.
"What have you to say to this, Sir William? It's an outrage!"
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