Tipping the Velvet (44 page)

‘What a little jewel you look tonight, Nancy - doesn't she, Diana? How my husband would admire you! You look like a picture from a buggers' compendium!'

Diana laughed and said that I did. Then she reached and put her fingers to my chin and kissed me - so hard, I felt her teeth upon the soft flesh of my lips.

And then the music started up in the room across the hall. Maria brought me a glass of the warm spiced wine and, to go with it, a cigarette from Diana's special case. One of the Marie Antoinettes weaved her way through the crowd to take my hand and kiss it.
‘Enchantée.'
she said - this one really was French. ‘What a spectacle you have provided for us! One would never see such a thing in the salons of Paris ...'

The entire evening sounds charming; it might, indeed, have been the very high point of my triumph as Diana's boy. And yet, for all my planning, for all the success of my costume and my tableau, I got no pleasure from it. Diana herself - it was her birthday, after all — seemed distant from me, and preoccupied with other things. Only a minute or two after I had placed the garland of lotus flowers about her neck, she took it off, saying it did not match her costume; she hung it from a corner of the pedestal, where it soon fell off - later I saw a lady with one of the flowers from it, at her own lapel. I cannot say why - heaven knows, I had suffered graver abuses at Diana's hand, and only smiled to suffer them! - but her carelessness over the garland made me peevish. Then again, the room was terribly hot and terribly perfumed; and my wig made me hotter than anyone, and itched - yet, I could not remove it, for fear of spoiling my costume. After Marie Antoinette, more ladies sought me out to tell me how much they admired me; but each proved drunker and more ribald than the last, and I began to find them wearisome. I drank glass after glass of spiced wine and champagne, in an effort to make myself as careless as they; but the wine - or, more likely, the hashish I had smoked - seemed to make me cynical rather than gay. When one lady reached to stroke my thigh as she stepped past me, I pushed her roughly away. ‘What a little
brute!'
she cried, delighted. In the end I stood half-hidden in the shadows, looking on, rubbing my temples. Mrs Hooper was at the table with the hot wine on it, ladling it out; I saw her glance my way, and give a kind of smile. Zena had been sent to move amongst the ladies, bearing dainties on a tray; but when she seemed to want to catch my eye, I looked away. Even from her I felt distant, that night.

So I was almost glad when, at about eleven o'clock, the mood of the party was changed, by Dickie calling for more light to be brought, for the lady on the piano to cease her playing, and for all the women present to gather round and pay attention.

‘What's this?' cried one lady. ‘Why has it grown bright?'

Evelyn said: ‘We are to hear Dickie Reynolds' history, from a book written by a doctor.'

‘A doctor? Is she ill?'

‘It is her vie
sexuelle!'

‘Her vie
sexuelle!'

‘My dear, I know it already, it is terribly dreary ...' This was from a woman who stood beside me in the shadows, garbed as a monk; as I turned to her she gave a yawn, then slipped quietly from the room in search of other sport. The rest of the guests, however, looked just as eager as Dickie could wish. She stood beside Diana; the book that Evelyn had referred to was in Diana's hands - it was small and black and densely printed, with not a single illustration: it was not at all the kind of thing that people usually gave Diana, for her box. And yet, she was turning its pages in fascination. A lady dipped her head to read the title from the spine, then cried: ‘But the book's in Latin! Dickie, whatever is the point of a filthy story, if the damn thing's written in Latin?'

Dickie now looked a little prim. ‘It is only the title that is Latin,' she answered; ‘and, besides, it is not a filthy book, it is a very brave one. It has been written by a man, in an attempt to explain our sort so that the ordinary world will understand us.'

A lady dressed as Sappho took the cigar from her mouth, and studied Dickie in a kind of disbelief. She said: ‘This book is to be passed among the public; and your story is in it? The story of your life, as a lover of women? But Dick, have you gone mad! This man sounds like a pornographer of the most mischievous variety!'

‘She has taken a
nom-de-guerre,
of course,' said Evelyn.

‘Even so. Dickie, the folly of it!'

‘You misunderstand,' said Dickie. ‘This is a new thing entirely. This book will assist us. It will
advertise
us.'

A kind of collective shudder ran right around the drawing-room. The Sappho with the cigar shook her head. ‘I have never heard of such a thing,' she said.

‘Well,' answered Dickie impressively, ‘you will hear more of it, believe me.'

‘Let us hear more of it
now!'
cried Maria; and someone else called: ‘Yes, Diana, read it to us, do!'

And so more candles were brought, and placed at Diana's shoulder. The ladies settled themselves into comfortable poses, and the reading began.

I cannot remember the words of it now. I know that, as Dickie had promised, they were not at all filthy; indeed, they were rather dry. And yet, her story was lent a kind of lewdness, too, by the very dullness of the prose in which it was told. All the time Diana read, the ladies called out ribald comments. When Dickie's history was complete, they read another, which was rather lewder. Then they read a very saucy one from the gentlemen's section. At last the air was thicker and warmer than ever; even I, in my sulkiness, began to feel myself stirred by the doctor's prim descriptions. The book was passed from lady to lady, while Diana lit herself another cigarette. Then one lady said, ‘You must ask Bo about that: she was seven years amongst the Hindoos'; and Diana called, ‘What? What must she ask?'

‘We are reading the story,' cried the woman in reply, ‘of a lady with a clitoris as big as a little boy's prick! She claims she caught the malady from an Indian maid. I said, if only Bo Holliday were here, she might confirm it for us, for she was thick with the Hindoos in her years in Hindoostan.'

‘It is not true of Indian girls,' said another lady then. ‘But it is of the Turks. They are bred like it, that they might pleasure themselves in the seraglio.'

‘Is that so?' said Maria, stroking her beard.

‘Yes, it is certainly so.'

‘But it is true also of our own poor girls!' said someone else. ‘They are brought up twenty to a bed. The continual frotting makes their clitorises grow. I know that for a fact.'

‘What rubbish!' said the Sappho with the cigar.

‘I can assure you it is not rubbish,' answered the first lady hotly. ‘And if we only had a girl from the slums amongst us now, I would pull her drawers down and show you the proof!'

There was laughter at her words, and then the room grew rather quiet. I looked at Diana; and as I did so, she slowly turned her head to gaze at me. ‘I wonder...' she said thoughtfully, and one or two other ladies began to study me, as she did. My stomach gave a subtle kind of lurch. I thought,
She wouldn‘t!
And as I thought it, a quite different lady said: ‘But Diana, you have just the creature we need! Your maid was a slum-girl, wasn't she? Didn't you have her from a prison or a home? You know what the women get up to in prison, don't you? I should think they must frot until their parts are the size of mushrooms!'

Diana turned her eyes from me, and drew on her pink-tipped fag; and then she smiled. ‘Mrs Hooper!' she called. ‘Where is Blake?'

‘She is in the kitchen, ma'am,' answered the housekeeper from her station at the bowl of wine. ‘She is loading her tray.'

‘Go and fetch her.'

‘Yes ma'am.'

Mrs Hooper went. The ladies looked at one another, and then at Diana. She stood very calm and steady beside the bust of cold Antinous; but when she raised her glass to her lip, I saw that her hand was trembling slightly. I shifted from one foot to the other, my briefly flaring lust all faded. In a moment, Mrs Hooper had returned, with Zena. When Diana called to her, Zena walked blinkingly into the centre of the room. The ladies parted to let her pass, then stepped together again at the back of her.

Diana said, ‘We have been wondering about you, Blake.'

Zena blinked again. ‘Ma'am?'

‘We have been wondering about your time at the reformatory.' Now Zena coloured. ‘We have been wondering how you filled your hours. We thought there must be some little occupation, to which you turned your idle fingers, in your solitary cell.'

Zena hesitated. Then she said, ‘Please, m'm, do you mean, sewing bags?'

At that, the ladies gave a roar of laughter, which made Zena flinch, and blush worse than ever, and put a hand to her throat. Diana said, very slowly, ‘No, child, I did not mean sewing bags. I meant, that we thought you must have turned frigstress, in your little cell. That you must have frigged yourself until your cunt was sore. That you must have frigged yourself so long and so hard, you frigged yourself a cock. We think you must have a cock, Blake, in your drawers. We want you to lift your skirt, and let us see it!'

Now the ladies laughed again. Zena looked at them, and then at Diana. ‘Please, m'm,' she said, beginning to shake, 'I don't know what you mean!'

Diana stepped towards her. ‘I think you do,' she said. She had picked up the book that Dickie had given her, and now she opened it, and held it oppressively close to Zena's face, so that Zena flinched again. ‘We have been reading a book full of stories of girls like you,' she said. ‘And now, what are you suggesting? That the doctor who wrote this book - this book that Miss Reynolds gave me, for my birthday - is a fool?'

‘No, m'm!'

‘Well then. The doctor says you have a cock. Come along, lift your skirts! Good gracious, girl, we only want to look at you — !'

She had put her hand upon Zena's skirt, and I could see the other ladies, all gripped, in their turn, by her wildness, making ready to assist her. The sight made me sick. I stepped out of the shadows and said, ‘Leave her, Diana! For God's sake, leave her alone!'

The room fell silent at once. Zena gazed at me in fright, and Diana turned, and blinked. She said: ‘You wish to raise the skirt yourself?'

‘I want you to leave Blake be! Go on, Blake,' I nodded to Zena. ‘Go on back to the kitchen.'

‘You stay where you are!' cried Diana to her. ‘And as for you,' she said, fixing me with one narrow, black, glittering eye, ‘do you think you are mistress here, to give orders to my servants? Why, you
are
a servant! What is it to you, if I ask my girl to bare her backside for me? You have bared yours for me, often enough! Get back behind your velvet curtain! Perhaps, when we have finished with little Blake, we shall all take turns upon Antinous.'

Her words seemed to press upon my aching head - and then, as if my head were made of glass, it seemed to shatter. I put my hand to the garland of wilting flowers at my throat, and tore it from me. Then I did the same with the sable wig, and flung it to the floor. My hair was oiled flat to my head, my cheeks were flushed with wine and anger — I must have looked terrible. But I didn't feel terrible: I felt filled with power and with light. I said, ‘You shall not talk to me in such a way. How dare you talk to me like that!'

Beside Diana, Dickie rolled her eyes. ‘Really Diana,' she said, ‘what a bore this is!'

‘What a bore!' I turned to her. ‘Look at you, you old cow, dressed up in a satin shirt like a boy of seventeen. Dorian Gray? You look more like the bleedin' portrait, after Dorian has made a few trips down the docks!'

Dickie twitched, then grew pale. Several of the ladies laughed, and one of them was Maria. ‘My dear boy - !' she began.

‘Don't “dear boy” me, you ugly bitch!' I said to her then. ‘You're as bad as her, in your Turkish trousers. What are you, looking for your harem? No wonder they are off fucking each other with their enormous parts, if they have you as their master. You have had your fingers all over me, for a year and a half; but if a real girl was ever to uncover her tit and put it in your hand, you would have to ring for your maid, for her to show you what to do with it!'

‘That's enough!' This was Diana. She was gazing at me, white-faced and furious, but still terribly calm. Now she turned and addressed the group of goggling ladies. She said: ‘Nancy thinks it amusing, sometimes, to kick her little heels; and sometimes, of course, it is. But not tonight. Tonight, I'm afraid, it is only tiresome.' She looked at me again, but spoke, still, as if to her guests. ‘She will go upstairs,' she said levelly, ‘until she is sorry. Then she will apologise to the ladies she has upset. And then, I shall think of some little punishment for her.' Her gaze flicked over the remains of my costume. ‘Something suitably Roman, perhaps.'

‘Roman?' I answered. ‘Well, you should know about that. How old are you today? You were there, weren't you, at Hadrian's palace?'

It was a mild enough insult, after all that I had said. But as I said it, there came a titter from the crowd. It was only a small one; but if there was ever anyone who could not bear to be tittered at, that person was Diana. I think she would rather have been shot between the eyes. Now, hearing that stifled laugh, she grew even paler. She took a step towards me, and raised her hand; she did it so quickly, I had time only to catch the flash of something dark at the end of her arm - then there came what seemed to be a small explosion at my cheek.

She had still held Dickie's book, all this time; and now she had struck me with it.