

### LILITH

PHILIP MATTHEWS

Copyright Philip Matthews 2017

ISBN

PREFACE

A woman should have written this novel. A man could get lost in all the fantasies, not having direct access to a woman's soul. So bear this in mind when reading LILITH.

The story is simple. A man has a purpose in reuniting his incarnated and spiritual entities, of profound significance for the destiny of mankind. The woman has a role here as a kind of midwife, her gift a special light to help man find his path in the dark. A woman might want to imitate the man and seek to unite her incarnate self with her spiritual part. This is not possible, but that would not keep a woman from wanting to unite them anyway.

LILITH tells the story of one such woman. It will show you the source of her overwhelmingly powerful desire and detail the extraordinary lengths she will go to achieve her goal.

It might be that this woman is completely deluded, and yet she might even so achieve something of lasting value, if not for herself, then for other woman who might be tempted to follow on this path of Lilith.

2 October 2017

THE CHATEAU

'Fortitude. You reach for grace and all you get is fortitude.'

This is an example of what I had to listen to at first here. I was told this was a routine assignment, just another biog of another nut. The trouble is, this woman is not mad. No one will want to know about her. I mean, she is still strange, but I have never met a more cultured person in my life. Like she carried all her knowledge so lightly.

So far, I have had coffee with her. It took an hour, no less. She is a queen in her composure, a servant in her ministrations, a beautiful woman in her mind. She reaches so well – you suddenly think you are the only man alive – her long hands moulding an airy world for you. Everything was lit so clearly, a golden glow – hackneyed as that image is – and she moved through this floating world with grace and candour.

We will dine in an hour's time. But before that, I'll fill you in on what I have learned so far. She is rich, as might be expected, in fact very rich. She is of Anglo-French origin, fifty nine years old, and famous for precisely nothing. She says that there will be only one audience for this work, though she has not so far told me anything about this audience. But I have managed to dig out a few facts about her. She is by profession a solicitor, one that came into a large fortune in her mid-thirties. I'm still surprised there was no news about that at the time. I'm mean, Dan, this woman is a virgin. She didn't marry for it. When I asked her – the first time – about it, she just said 'One gets what one needs.'

I admit I was irritated by that answer. I could not believe that she was so selfish – not when she is so generous to me – so that I felt strongly pressed to ask her again, referring to the possibility of theft. This time she came and sat by me. Her perfume raises you, slowly but steadily, on a bed of roses. Her hand hovered over my wrist, so that I was afraid she was going to clutch me, which I would hate. And I think she was – no, she was not going to touch me. It was like there was a barrier of some kind between us. I think she drew some an energy from me. Not frightened at that stage, for I could see how she used that energy to make herself seem impossibly close to me, shaping herself to the barrier that seems to surround me. Then she said, deliberately:

'Two rules: take what you need, give nothing in return. And that's about all it is."

And still I wonder, you know, could she possibly be so selfish? In my experience, Fred, selfishness is always offset in one way or another. There seems to be no offset here, unless you think culture is a virtue. Is she being ironic in an exalted way – she has the cast of mind for it? I told you that she is a very beautiful woman. You need to grasp that fully. You would never tire of looking at her, no matter her condition. She is not dried out, in the way that the mean-spirited become.

And what if she is being sincere? Why should it not happen that way? As a reward for help given, I mean. What help could she give that was worth a fortune to some man – and it was a man, I'm sure of that? It makes me curious. I could not see what this aging woman could give me that was worth anything at all. Perhaps I am not that kind of man. To me, this woman is a fantasy, only that. I am already fascinated by her, but I know that by next weekend I will be back in Ontario again. Yes, it is an indulgence. And yes, one that I am enjoying very much.

But, seriously, what could this spoiled nun give me, who seems never to have given a man anything at all? That is what she said: give nothing in return.

It has to be theft, one way or the other. Probably cajoled it out of some old lad in a home somewhere. No. I cannot believe she is that callous. Look, believe me, lads, that this woman waits on me with a curious kind of equality. It's like she has been waiting for me for a long time. It's like she thinks that I am a fantasy too!

Yes. There's something in that, Dan. It has that kind of feel here, like we're in the same place, but watching different movies.

Must go now. Speak to you later.

Don't think it will work here, Dan. I mean, we're floating around here. There are servants of all kinds, always one at my elbow. Such grace and deference. We sat for an hour in a large room filled with pictures – both photos and paintings. We sat side by side on a divan, covered by a satin brocade coloured the merest pink. The wine was weak, a Loire rosé of exceptional subtlety, that lingered on the palate. Our glasses were never empty, yet we spoke not a word. There was a peace I had never experienced before. I have never felt so rested in my life. And when she moved to go, believe me but I was at her side instantly. I was so alert in myself, and yet there was only silence.

She carries herself in a curious manner. It must be her French heritage, but I could see her as though we walked the sand of a Mediterranean beach. You know how a woman swings her body, breasts forward, when fully relaxed. Like that, only she seems also to walk as though we were both on parade. I walked close beside her, but all the time I wondered how I appeared to her. She looked at me often, and I could tell that her eyes did travel over me, very discreetly.

You guys know what a scruff I can be. But I did clean myself up for this gig. Samuels made that very clear to me. But even so, how must I look walking at the side of this woman. Do you know what wet crimson is like? Hard to match, but her dress was of that colour. A kind of taffeta, I'd say, the dress composed of layers of very fine cloth. This must be how she can achieve such a bright and intense red. The colour is that livid. Barbara advised me to wear black, tight and loose. You'd want to see those two colours together, lads. But I don't have her serenity. I feel I am tumbling along in her wake, like dust on her heels.

Oops. Not sure I should put it quite like that. It was strange that I could see her so well – when the park we were crossing was dimly lit, though the pathway was clear – and see how her body moved. My intuition that she is a virgin I think is true. She moves her body as though it existed in a world of its own. No man had even laid claim to her body. It was the flow of her body that captivated me: the thrust of her hips, the suppleness of her neck, the utter exposure she permitted to my gaze. Yes, a body like any other, but so alive just then.

But a face is a strange and wonderful thing to behold. The surface of the soul. Always look for light in the faces of others. It's not always there, even so, still look for light anyway. Some hide their light from others, fearing some unimaginable loss. The face beside me spoke a noble soul, patient, expectant, ready to greet. And again I wondered: how does my face seem? Is there even light there in my face? In her crimson dress, she looked just like a birthday candle all lit up. How do I appear, ashen atop a dark stump?

Then she said to me, turning her head so she faced me:

'In the evening air, you see, dear man, you see the ease of the Earth."

I did falter then. I'm not stupid, so I know the limits of my own intelligence. I simply did not understand her. I knew what she said to me. I even knew much of what she meant there. But in her face I saw so much more. Not that she did not express herself well, but what interest had I in the Earth when I could see into Heaven in her face? What could I say to her? She already knows that I am dark and deep, not at all worthy. But I am here with this woman – that must count for something. I know this is an assignment and must be finished by Friday. But you do not know this woman.

I see eternity in her face.

I am in a small Chateau in the Midi. Beautiful countryside all about. Tomorrow morning I will ask this woman a lot of awkward questions. If not altogether true, a biog must at least seem true. Will I see eternity in her face again tomorrow? What will I do then? I would be a slave to this woman, a heavenly slave. So all I can say is, speaking as calmly as I could,

'We can trust the Earth to have ease."

She understood me at once:

'And the heavens have their depth?"

That's when I knew I liked her, regardless of the business between us. That's how we connected – with a falsity that was in fact a code. Like there is a middle ground where truth cannot enter. The façade of deceit, where the real is disguised, but naked to our gaze. Her soul is like a long hallway, dimly lit, a warm room at its end. My soul – just to keep a balance here – is like a pool at night, still and dark.

You need to keep a balance here, Dan. Bear in mind that I am myself unchanged – as you will see early on Saturday morning – simply that I see in her everything that I have ever wanted to see.

I said to her anyway, pausing on the path for a while – wanting to look about me:

'The heavens have their delight, dear lady."

She liked that, as I knew she would. Do you understand us yet? Is our love real or pure fantasy? Do you know the answer yet?

She has stopped by me, to my right and a little forward. She raises her left hand in a mild flourish, the soft light of the garden scintillating on her nails.

'And we are here in its pale light?"

And suddenly it was real. I was in the company of a very beautiful and accomplished woman in a garden in the moonlight. And I knew I had only three days to get to know her. How could this be done?

No. We did not embrace in the moonlight, swearing everlasting devotion. No need. As I have said, I have only three more days with this woman.

But we both knew that we were already in eternity. That is what we discovered a little while ago. You see, while for me the heavens are full of light, they are a sink of darkness to her. Yet more, she finds a promise in that darkness. And what do I look for in her Heaven? Nothing, strangely. I am content to see Heaven. That is sufficient.

So we went on into the house by the side door that leads into the private room she likes. There we awaited the call to dinner. Should I describe the room? It is a perfect cube attached to the Chateau by a short corridor. The walls are white, the ceiling is white and the carpet is wet crimson in tone, very active. We drink a thin sherry from little glasses. The paintings she showed me were very vivid, mostly modern but some interesting old masterworks.

There's a feature of pictorial art that always unsettles me. I look at a painting and I always ask myself, What is missing? You know, to take your eyes off this world and be content with a painted substitute seems very strange to me. What would draw you out then?

I asked her:

'Do you have any movies?"

I was surprised at myself then. What is a moving image but an act of deferring. There is no end to the moving image; there cannot be, for how can we have stillness now, when we have broken the spell?

The woman moves away from me then, brushing down her dress with spread hands, nails like meteor flashes. She turns then, pivoting on a heel, her hip swinging towards me. She smiles at me.

Get the picture? Yes. The woman is the movie.

I smile, of course, feeling myself slipping back down into fantasy. And who am I in this movie? Yes, I move darkly: an absence and yet so near to you. Not Beauty and the Beast, more like the Prince and the Doe.

Does the woman understand that, do you think? An arrow, for instance. Pierce her and bring her down to earth. Yes, she does, for she answered:

'As needs to be entered so that Beauty can tame the man."

This is the woman's tale, a catalogue of closures. Does a woman see only the mirror? Where the man reaches for what he sees as in a window, is the woman content to be a mere receptacle?

I ask her as I turn away from this particular daub,

'And what if the man is content to witness your beauty?"

Not as cavalier as it might seem. I'm telling her that the man might not be enraptured by her beauty. I don't contemplate seduction. I am happily married, my wife waiting for me at home, used by now to my excursions. And it seems the woman can accept that fact without the merest qualm.

The Housekeeper greeted us in the hall, very civil and composed. The hall is a relief from that utterly utilitarian annexe. A timeless quality, a study of mastery in a way – how we try to write some heaven into the Earth's permissive soil.

I mean, you see the perfection and know at once that it is simply not true. It is only imagery. I could see then why the woman could like the annexe and its greater reach. That's not real, either – should you think otherwise – but it seemed for her that all the movement in that room had a direction.

We were very quiet as we followed the Housekeeper into the Dining Room. The chandeliers are meant to seem as though too heavy. It was that sort of room: where there is no protection at all.

I am not a meek man, but my regard, let me say, is open to all. On the table was a red candle, already lit. At once, I was the glow that encircled that candle. We did not speak throughout the dinner, only eyes to meet across the table. But the thing about eyes – if you think about it – is that they are windows into the soul. How my soul appeared to her as hers opened me to everything I could not tell. Should I trust her? Do I want her to tell me who I am?

Has she done this before? That's what I thought at once. But I am not rich, there's nothing she can take from me. Why would she do that for me for nothing? Perhaps because she has everything now. Whatever about the ostentation, she has not been changed by it. Still always the first girl for anything. As she told me, if you need it then take it.

That's when I first began to think about what I might have that she would want. I don't know what she wants. Is it just to be seen, do you think? So she can smile and do grace very well. Does she want to see herself in me?

Why am I impressed? What if she comes to me, what do I say? Only that I don't believe it. Yet I ask, why does she do this, knowing it is only a mask. So I ask,

'What do you want?"

At once, the room went quiet, servant withdrawing quickly. She leans across the table and asks ardently:

'Can you help me. Please."

How could I have expected that? Not that the universe shifted or anything, but it was a transportation even so. Like I was donning a new skin. I think I would have gone down on one knee if I had not been sitting at the table across from her.

It wasn't that I mastered her, nothing like that. I'll tell you the secret of this woman now, just for the record. She is not worth it. That is how she thinks of herself. Even so, I felt close to her. Not love, in case you are thinking that. No, more like we had known each other always. A simple familiarity. So I said frankly:

'How could I help you?"

'Advice, if you will."

The candour is real, believe me. And when I said I would certainly help in whatever way I could, the change in her was almost instantaneous. Gone was all the charm and vanity, and in their place she was alert and ready.

You have no idea how this woman presses forward as she rises from the table, drawing the skirt of her dress carefully in her wake. She is still a very beautiful woman, no less. She reaches for my hand, so that I must scramble to my feet to meet her. She smiles for me:

'Come and I will show you."

Oh, but her hand is warm in mine. As though our blood ran together, warm and lively. Could you really be so close to another? She draws me away, smiling again for me, and I am no more than a wisp of cloud in her wake. There was a lift. I hadn't expected that. I don't how many floors we ascended, but we must be very near the top.

Again a very utilitarian atmosphere, quite a lot of electronic gear, screens everywhere. Like an office at the weekend, that sense of waiting. A lonely life, you see. And again I wondered what help I could give this woman? I'm only a jobbing writer. I could only create a fantasy for her.

Isn't her own fantasy not enough? Ah. Got it. Bear with me here. The fantasy we are in is not hers, but that of the man she stole it from. You see that I am in a rich man's fantasy, all the style and luxury that surrounds me here. What of her own fantasy? Where is it now?

Strange that I could see where it is, though I couldn't point it out to you just now. I don't have the map.

This must be her office. It's imposing, a lot of red leather as you might expect. The dress hampered her in the confines behind her desk, so she ripped it away and threw it into a corner. She was wearing a silken shift that only hinted at her body. Then she loosened her piled up hair, let it hang about her shoulders for a moment before tying it back out of the way.

The shift unnerved me completely. Was it going to be seduction, after all? But I don't feel I need at this moment to let that worry me. After all, she seems to have problems of her own. Keep her to her problems and I will be safe.

After she is seated she points to a chair on the other side of the desk for me. I stiffen, slightly flummoxed. What planet am I on? What's to keep me from laughing out loud? I look to find something I could scrutinise for a minute or two. I would rather she got the message that way.

Her name is Vivian. Vivian Palmer. She has letters after her name. Some of her essays have been published, though not really journalism, only stray articles here, there and nowhere. And yet they seem interesting. I ask her as she searches her crowded desk,

'When did you write these?"

Her glance was initially strange – as though she didn't know me at all – then she smiled again for me.

'Over the last few years. Don't think I was rotting away in this pile all those years."

She stops searching and straightens up in her seat. She beckons to me.

'Please. Will you sit down so that I can speak to you."

She stands up as I approach and only sits again as I sit in the red upholstered chair. It is far more comfortable than it seemed at first. I say, with an honest warmth:

'Can I read them?"

She shakes her head abruptly, obviously being pulled back from some more serious preoccupation. I can see that she thinks I am either not intelligent enough or not suitably informed. She tilts her raised hand, the nails glinting in the clinical light,

'You would need to understand them."

Most of the journals she publishes in are pretty arcane. Not weird or anything like that. How will I put it? Like you wouldn't understand them if you didn't already understand them. I would like to read them, even if I can't fully understand them. I'm honest with her:

'Still, I would like very much to read them some evening here."

She continues to appraise me, a glint that wants to be recognition in her eyes. Then she gets out from behind the desk and crosses to a tall cabinet. It is crammed with books and bundled papers. She pulls down a hard-backed volume and gives it to me. But as I reach for this quite unexpected gift, she says, 'Oops." And draws it away from me again. She bends to the desk, takes a pen and writes on the title page:

What you read here is given to you with an open heart. Please read it with an open heart. Love. Vivian Palmer.

No date. But I will remember. I was very abashed by the gift, even overwhelmed. What made her believe I might have an open heart? I could cry now. What strange tears they are: pain and joy, so sad and unworthy. Even so, she seems not to know how different reading and writing are. Writing is so masculine: pushy, know-all. Reading, on the other hand, is receptive. You see? I'm afraid I was slightly annoyed by this and asked:

'While you give me the essays with an open heart, how was your heart as you wrote them?"

All she had to do was smile and say something like that I would find out as I read them. But no, candid to the bitter end:

'My heart was in hell."

No answer to that.

She had by now found the file she wanted as we spoke. She raises it into my sight, waving it with a deliberate theatricality.

'These are the details. You can read them later. Let me give you the story with a broad brush stroke. For reasons we needn't go into, a very kind man left me his entire fortune after he died. It is a very great fortune. It has taken three thousand years to amass, starting out shipping grain on the Tigris. He had over twelve thousand relatives, by now living everywhere in the world, all tied up together with contracts, an awful lot of contracts. I was a contract lawyer back then who could afford to be picky in her clients. Mark, as I called him, was extraordinary. Both a brilliant businessman and a brilliant companion. It was a classic combination, frigid English woman and a hot Phoenician. But of course it was not like that. I think that knowing your lineage seems to enhance a person's wisdom. He was a man twenty five years older than me and married with three lovely children and a very striking wife, who shared her husband's gaze, as though she too could see back all those years, those generations that informed them.

'You might wonder what this wonderful, kind and enlightened man might have to do with me, a woman with an overly self-conscious regard for herself. He said to me one day, lunching at some race meeting or other – he had many racehorses – with the gentlest of tones: "Let me tell you one thing about yourself, Vivian, and then you can tell me one thing about myself. Do you agree?" I did agree, and pretty quickly too. You can see that I trusted him. So he says simply: "You have this unique quality: the mask you wear shelters your true self. You await the day." I was astonished as how clearly he saw me. More naked and revealed to him than I would ever have expected of any man. So you see... Sorry. But what is your name? I think I had it on a bit of paper earlier and I must have dropped it somewhere in the garden."

Surprisingly, I was frightened by this. All I could do to cover my fear was to ask her:

'But what help do you need from me? Sorry. My name is meant to be kept secret from you. In case you might want to influence me."

She seemed was momentarily stunned by this, for some reason. She brushes a splayed hand over her smooth brow:

'But what can I call you then?"

Now that was like an invitation. I am suddenly cool towards her. I think the fantasy is closing down. Not jealousy on my part. How could I match a man like Mark, as she called him, of such memory and discernment? What would he have said of me? I hardly remember my grandparents. Didn't think it was necessary. How could you separate out all those lives, with their gain and pain?

I don't think he would have seen me at all. His vision would never have reached down here to me, mere life to him and he with his gold and his family wisdom, and no doubt a God that approves of him. I could be in a different reality as far as he was concerned.

Strange, you'd imagine I would feel something at this point. Despair in the darkness of nonentity? The truth is, I felt nothing, nothing at all. But I did see this: The woman basks in his light. I don't have that kind of light. Why me then? I am just a man that she can cut up? Strange way to describe it. But I said to her, leaning across the table towards her:

'I will not invent a name for myself, either.'

She smiles, a kind of stony fondness – where she finds that her love is always misplaced – not taken aback, as I thought, but more a kind of habitual patience. It was an integral part of her image, like she waited for a day of release.

'Then I must choose one for you, yes?'

The only person so far who has named me is my mother. This woman smiles as though it is a kind of joke. How will she choose? That's what I think right now. Will she mark me, or will she raise me? I shake my head, suddenly serious. Yes, I was caught out by not taking her at her word – that she will name me – rather than belittling her presumption. What will I do? You can see how this can play: if I reject her the name she bestows on me, I would then have to raise up a name myself to combat her. Who of us has been in this situation before? We take names so much for granted, not knowing their true power. But see how people change their names: we must already know how powerful names are. You, Dan, and Fred too, you don't mind having your names truncated by all, while I always use my full name in public. So I deliberately say to her, sitting back in my chair and reaching for the wineglass awaiting me on the table:

'I have your name, Vivian. Will I change that for you?'

Ready for the struggle, I was a bit stunned to see how she reacted. Not immediately, mind you, but bit by bit as we talked. She retorted, tossing her head, her hair flying up behind her – very curious to see this in this drab office:

'So what name would you call me?'

I could understand then why I had thought she was joking. It could be that her name in fact is not Vivian. If that was so, then I would lose any contest between us. I have no name here and the woman might well have a false name here. But I do have to answer her, she has created a particular atmosphere about us. So here goes:

'I will typify you, if I may?'

She purses her lips in a way that tells me that she is at least intrigued by this. She nods once and I say:

'Lilith.'

She takes her wineglass up slowly and deliberately. I could see how well I had named her. Lilith was a virgin: that was her secret. She knew its power. I drink as well. The wine is slightly heated, no doubt thanks to these wretched fluorescent lights overhead. Hard to judge just how she is taking it, though. She is looking down at the table, but I feel that she is burning up inside, whether passion or rage is not clear. Finally, she looks up at me and says, quite calmly:

'That shows how little you know about women. I will call you Pan, and leave it to you to find out why.'

With that she gets up abruptly and sweeps – yes, sweeps in her tight shift – out of the office.

A satisfying end to the evening, to an eventful day.

The maid took me to my room, somewhere far away at the back. She was very attentive and even engaged in light conversation during our walk. She told me that Mistress was not often here, but usually in cities, where they all had more to do. We were talking outside the door of my room for quite a while before I remembered all the papers I had left in the office. The maid was good enough to run and get them for me. I was ready for bed by the time she got back, so I had her lay them out by the bed. She then offered to get me a drink if I wished one. But the water here is sufficient.

When she finally left, I sorted out the papers – the essays had been stored loose in a folder made to look like a serious book – but often unsure of the sequences. Everything was on plain paper, the essays and the notes she gave me about her problem, and nothing was dated, so it was hard to separate them completely. Both the essays and the notes are very strange. Is the woman mad after all? She seems to think that she is in the middle of some kind of cosmic struggle that has gone on for all time. I'm not sure how to put this otherwise. The notes are lucid and to the point. For instance, the Family has almost fifty thousand contracts between each other, and they are all in a vault behind the office upstairs. Some of these contracts are over a thousand years old and cannot be read by anyone now. Yet they are held to be valid. The Family operates exclusively with gold, and gold alone. They trade almost entirely among themselves, into every market in the world, converting every currency to gold at day's end. The essays, on the other hand, read like this:

The shaft that reams through time burns to the touch, melting you like butter in the sun. Contain it only with your spine, the discontinuity short-circuiting the charge. Then you are immortal.

And elsewhere, to a different audience, obviously:

You must bear in mind how petals array – always to sufficiency not efficiency – and consider then that only steadfastness and constancy makes this possible: the light of the sun.

I read until about half eleven, finding little that I could relate to in either sets of her work. The woman has a real problem, that was very clear. Simply put: the Family reject her as their King. The problem then was that this had implications for all those contracts. No one else could be King, if only because she had been chosen by the late King, and only a King could induct the successor King. This means that at this moment right now, all of those near fifty thousand contracts are no longer valid. It also means – which you should note – that all the Family's gold belongs to no one.

Just after midnight, snug in bed now, and I laugh out loud. They are all crazy. If only the gold means anything, then it doesn't matter who is King, a King or a King's whore. Strong words, I know, but I have read what has been said about her, the names used by many to curse her. Being called a whore out of the purest ignorance is the least of it. But it is so serious. A calamity to which there is no solution. Well, not quite. One of the last notes I read had only the words: NAME A KING.

I go click. Then I catch on to myself. Yes, she could name me King and even invent a name for me. But what difference would it make? I have almost all I need in these writings of hers. We could sell her mad, after all. Easily splice the paranoia with the delusions. I could sit down now and write it, you know. The way women are. Barbara will tell me sometimes that she really believes we actually live in another world altogether. I don't think my wife is crazy for telling me that. I can often see it in her, like she was waiting for someone yet to come. Do all husbands experience that, do you think? And she would look at me sometimes as though I was a familiar guest in her life.

The woman is really no different. Only the wealth has distracted her for now. You see how she will not let the gold go. The gold might even be not real, but she believes in it just as the Family does. No, not quite. She sees the gold in a somewhat different light. She is Western, for whom gold is a currency, not a holding. Does the Family fear that she would spend it and drain them of their gold.

But why does she cling to this kingship, except that she does not see another world for herself? Does she feel condemned because she is here incarnated on Earth – as some kind of punishment, even. And yet, remember the beauty she created for me today. I don't think she does feel condemned. To me, it's as though she leaned into this world and brightened it, for me at least.

A low knock on my door, though I must be miles away from everyone out here. It is the woman, dressed for bed as I am. I open the door wide for her. She says as she passes:

'Juliette is bringing some refreshments. She'll be here in a moment. Ah, her she is now. We won't have to wait for her after all.'

The nightgown she wears must be too large for her, she resembles a little girl as she walked before me to the bedside. We waited until the maid had laid the table for us and had departed with the usual grace. This wine was much better, very suited to the night. The woman swings around, a broad smile on her face, and asks very brightly:

'Have you been reading my work?'

She sips her wine as she leafs through the somewhat scattered pages. I sit on the edge of the bed and crunch shortbread to sweeten my mouth. She seems different again now, more like a very sweet attractive woman suitably charmed by a man. I wonder now just how important these writings are to the woman. It will be at least interesting to see which mode she would choose in speaking to me about them: high or low, paranoid or deluded. She is reading passages with such apparent interest that I wonder if she actually did write them herself. Yes, it will be interesting to see what she makes of them – I suppose to what extent she understands any of it.

She suddenly looks up at me:

'You know, Mark once told me that I should let things be, that they make more sense that way. But I always answered him by saying that it's not a question of understanding. I used to tell me that he was already there. And I knew from his expression what he thought of that. Of the two of us, a mighty man and a virgin woman, he said that only I could be there. He could only helplessly let the world happen, as though it already existed apart from him. I could see how he sat on top of a pillar of gold, knowing only that the pile of metal was not high enough yet. Almost religious, if you think about it: as though making an offering to some distant God. In contrast, he told me that I was like a drop of water in a stream on my way to a distant ocean and rest.'

Her candour moved me. I had not expected that. I indicated that she should come and sit by me on the bed and eat something. Looking at her now beside me, the springs sighing under her body, I saw her more like a leaf in the wind, something already completed. It was a sad vision of her, perhaps promoted by my awareness of her age. I felt I should reply. Though I planned something comforting, I found myself saying:

'Men build because that's the only way something will be there. But the wise man builds only for himself and his kind. Only fools build for anyone else, God or man. But the only way the wise man can sustain himself in this delusion is by pulling down again what he has built. It is like death, for instance, it is death that defines life as nothing defines something.'

Only then did I see the contest already under way. Does she realise that she has already situated herself? She is alone here. And where am I? In the dark, as always. How do I appear to her now? These pyjamas are tighter than I would like, so that I am slightly on edge with much to absorb in a short time. I am a definition of sorts, a kind of boundary for her. She says, continuing to look ahead of her across the room:

'If you like, then, regard the woman as a context for you. How is that? It is as though we are frontiers of strange and wonderful lands.'

She looks at me now:

'Is that it? But no wonderful lands, only your abyss at my feet, yes?'

One hell of an admission to make so early in the game. Already she has allowed me to invent our world. So I say, meaning it to be a conclusion of a kind:

'As always, I'm afraid.'

She shrugs and fills our glasses again, taking some of the red grapes to eat. I ate some of the dried apricot segments, savouring a faint flavour that should be familiar to me. I get it then that she is temporising, getting me into the mood, as it were.

I was right, for she suddenly looked up, licking some grape juice from the corner of her mouth, and says:

'And that is how you can help me.'

Which brings us full circle. I wonder now what we have been doing in the meantime. I feel I know her better, yet still can't grasp her. The bedside clock tells me it's after two. I stand up, having had enough for one evening:

'Then it will have to wait until tomorrow.'

She took that with good grace, only saying as she left, throwing her head up – flouncing just as a certain kind of girl would:

'Nothing waits for tomorrow. You'll see.'

And she was right. There's a passage in one of the woman's essays where she says, and I quote:

It's not that human history is long – it is not – just that man's memory is so short.

It would be easier for me in so many ways to call her mad. A lot easier than trying to understand her. I can show her mad. There must be upwards of twenty five thousand words here that we can use. The making of a saleable biog. We could make up a novel, too. I could write that in a few weeks. But trying to comprehend her is beyond me, I think. It's not that she is more intelligent than I am, I just can't see her. I see masks, charades, banquets, balls, even a coronation, but I do not see who she is.

Don't misunderstand me here. I don't admit this out of love. Just curiosity, that is why I am here: to write her down. You see, Fred, to write this woman down I must first know her. It's easy to love, so hard to know.

And what do I want to do? I will do both, the biog and the novel. That woman wants this biog for a specific reason. She said there would be a specific audience. I will give her the book that she needs, serving her here as so many men before me may have, but also I will then draw back the veil she covers herself with. I will see her naked, as the Goddess Diana was seen once by a man.

And what then? The rest of my life, what else? I will know why we love the Moon, and I will be content with that understanding.

What a thought to have at the end of an eventful day.

I slept surprisingly well. The maid – Juliette – called me about eight. She is so sprightly in the morning, a joy to see. She had the little table set for me when I had showered and dressed. She wanted to stand service, but I had to insist that I could help myself.

She'll be back – wait and see – as soon as I finish this meal. So let me tell you the layout. You'll have a more worked out proposal by the evening,

It's a familiar story, poor little girl becomes the rich little girl. This allows her to live out her childhood fancies. This is not the madness – though it is pretty weird at times. No, that lies in the grown-up fantasies that haunt her. She is a Queen there, looking for her King. Looking throughout all the ages of man. So see her in Wonderland looking for her King, a land that changes, and changes utterly, in the blink of an eye. Now the madness. She finds her King, he is a secret King, a ruler of no one but himself and yet loved by many.

That's what happens to her in her Wonderland. And all this happens in a white cube in the middle of nowhere. Believe me on that. I have been in that room with her.

Anyway, we'll use her stuff to flesh out these two themes. I suggest using the essays to express her Wonderland, and the journalism to flesh out the fantasies. This might be counter-intuitive, but you'll see for yourself in a day or two, when I get back.

And yes, Juliette reappears as I put down the drained teacup. She means well, seems extremely happy. To resume. For background I suggest borrowings from the range of European art. You'll get the stuff in art books, especially auction room catalogues. Head in the clouds stuff, you know.

Ah. And here she comes herself. Yes, dressed all in white, elegant, gift-wrapped. You have to love how she does it. On the spot every time. Yet she is genuinely relaxed. She waits while I clean up after breakfast and then we go together down those long corridors, better lit now that she is here. I remind her that we should do the interview this morning and get it out of the way. She waits until we get out onto the lawn before saying, quite simply with her candid look:

'Let's do it now, then?'

Not what I had in mind – I wasn't prepared yet – but very well. She led me through a small doorway in the side of the large building to the left and on into a very intimate room. It is remarkably comfortable. The suite itself must be over three hundred years old, the carpet a thousand years or more. But I like the wood very much. Cherry, I think, wainscoting burnished by now to a rich soft tone. I had thought to use the table off to one side, but she smilingly drew me to the sofa. On guard immediately, but then I saw our Juliette setting out the coffee cups on the low table beside us. Dutch coffee, very pure. I would have liked a nibble of some sort to sweeten my mouth.

She obviously waited for the strong coffee to kick in before starting, looking very directly at me over her cup:

'You may ask me any question you wish. I will answer to the best of my knowledge.'

She is looking at me with an open face. What fantasy is she in now? I would have said Alice, except that the dress is too short and the blouse is too tight. I don't seem to respond to her physically, but yet I do love the sight of her. To see her walk, her hips swinging by my side, is an utter joy. To see her sit, ankles crossed to emphasise the sheer quality of her long legs, demure even so. To see her reach, her hair flying up, is to be raised yourself. Then I see her: this is a sexual fantasy, dating from early teens. But it is not about sex, only that sexuality will be the vehicle, as it were. So for a first question, I ask her:

'Did you go to boarding school?'

'Yes.'

'Did you like it?'

'Yes.'

'What did you like about it?'

'I don't think the nuns were stupid, but they couldn't see what we got up to. They thought all virgins were like themselves. Already married to God.'

Well, I asked for that.

'Did you like your primary school?'

Can't quite grasp the answer to this, can't see the fantasy, I mean. But she says, confounding me:

'I stayed away.'

'What did you do instead?'

'I built a future for myself.'

'How did you do that?'

'I found another world that I could live in.'

'And no one try to get you to go to school?'

'You forget. I was in another world.'

Oops. This is a potential minefield. I'm not concerned with the truth of her life. If she doesn't like it, I doubt if I will either. We don't need it anyway.

'Were you a successful lawyer?'

'Yes. Contract law. Like tying knots, interesting in itself for what it tells you about people.'

'And this is how you met the man who became your Benefactor?'

'Not really. We became known at that stage. But I had already known Mark for two years.'

'That long?'

'It didn't seem long, not long enough.'

'How did Mark fit into your other world?'

'He had no need to.'

'No?'

'He was already there.'

'Ah. In the sense that you had imagined someone like him in your other world?'

'No. It was Mark. But it is a dark subject that will not interest your readers.'

The minefield again. Not putting words on this, though do I have to? This stuff is of no use to us. But it does explain a lot. I feel a sympathy for her now, sensing her vulnerability and how it was once exposed to her – before she found the source of that vulnerability. I understand her world now, and how she came to terms with something she tried to forget. Mark expiated an earlier sin, but he also took something from her. Let me try:

'How did you help Mark in turn?'

'Mark has sons but no daughter. I was a daughter to him.'

'And he was a father to you?'

'Yes. Like that. But he was exposed to me. He knew nothing of daughter-love, and I knew of Father-love. You see? I could make him a Father, but he couldn't make me a Daughter. So instead, I could become the Daughter I wanted to be with him. He brought me back from that other world of mine. And look what he gave me in return for the joy I afforded him.'

'And where are you now, Vivian?'

'I am where I always am. But your description of my fancies, as you nicely called them, is more accurate than mine.'

'Ah. How do you know about my... You've hacked my stream?'

'You would not have access to it if we could not. In any case, your description of me with Mark there is remarkably apt. That is precisely how it was with us for almost ten years, until he had to leave me.'

'Why did he leave you?'

'No. Not that. That's not part of the agreement.'

I think there is another way of getting at that subject, but I will leave it for another time.

She paused for a while, looking down at the table and our coffee cups, then looked up and said:

'I don't intend trying to convince you of this, but Mark and I lived in a real world, even as we trotted around this one. The dullest corner of this world was bathed in his light for me, the dullest person, the dullest case. And Mark once said that I filled him with new life. Are you married?

'Yes. To Barbara. For over ten years now.'

'Then you know what that is like. The exposure and the trust.'

I had to nod. But I said anyway, with I still think was sharp prescience:

'No. Not in isolation, but with trust in each other without the exposure.'

It did affect her. Head down, hands flat on her thighs. She says, her voice somewhat muffled:

'You love you wife?'

'Yes.'

'Do you know your wife?'

Is that intuition or has she read all of my stream? I do honest:

'No more than she knows me. There has to be a balance between us.'

'Do you know me?'

'No. But I do know what it is like to know you.'

'Do I know you?'

'I doubt it. You don't feel the need to.'

Now she smiles, again more relaxed:

'I can see you coming and I can see you going. If you tell me your name, I will tell you more, much more.'

Strangely, I could see what she meant immediately, though I have never given a thought to it before. I'm like a history to her, as though I went on ahead of her. And if I tell her my name? Is it only a label for her to pin on me? So I reply, gently in the circumstances:

'No. My name would ensnare you.'

'Can it be any greater than what I have already called you?'

It's in the stream somewhere, but I can't remember.

'That's your fantasy, my name is mine.'

That stopped her. I am aware that I have lost control of this interview. Don't think it matters. Useful information here, probably more than I would have got from her otherwise.

She rose from the table in a glide then and walked away without saying goodbye. I was at a loss, not liking how I was dressed, and not knowing where I am. And of course, there's a little tap on the door and in comes happy Juliette, a smile for me. She does that little courtesy she uses to attraction my attention and asks me if I would like to listen to some music.

No reason not to – lunch not for another hour. But I first get her to lead me back my distant room so I can change my clothes. She tidies the room while I change, asking only where she should put all the papers. Which reminds me: I'll try to photo these sometime in the afternoon and send them out. We'll know soon enough if she doesn't like that. We finish at almost the same time, just that Juliette, smiling that spontaneous smile of hers, can prepare and present herself again, all attention on me.

Luckily, the music room can be accessed from here by means of a short walk through an apple orchard, fruit already ripe. Tasteful is the word. Sort of suburban baroque, if you can imagine that. The way the room is so small, the hangings heavy, the chairs hard. A harpsichordist tinkled away for a while, until I asked Juliette – who wanted to wait on me throughout the recital – to sit down at my side. She did this with alacrity, hands folded in her lap, head down. I asked her if she like this music. When she said she didn't, I took her hand and led her out into the orchard again, the ringing tones of the birds in the tree tops a welcome relief from the pettiness of the music we had heard.

This all definitely discombobulated poor Juliette, her shy blushing a novelty to me, who grew up in a city. So I told her that she didn't have to suffer on my behalf, that her service pleased me as she hoped it would. That settled her again, so I could ask her if there was anywhere else we could go until lunchtime.

You are not to misunderstand me here. You know as well as I do the dangers of getting involved with a client or her staff. Juliette was a genuinely nice young woman, eager to do her work properly. In any case, she takes my hand again and draws me away towards a screen of young trees over to our right, away from the Chateau proper. I hadn't noticed that building before, perhaps because it blended in so well with what I discovered to be a small wood. Mostly hazel, I think, or some small tree like the hazel. It had such a quiet, unmoving quality in among these lovely trees, the light a startling blend of a silver sunlight and its reflected glow from the greenery at my feet, a very pure radiance indeed.

The building itself was very slight, no more than a loose sheeting wrapped about a pattern of poles. Yet inside it was like being in a bubble. Yes, a bubble. See it this way, imagine floating with no effort, how you would float on water as though there was no water there. I moved without apparent effort, wherever I wished. And all the time lovely Juliette was by my side, her hand still in mine. It was as though we were expected. Yes, like someone was coming to greet us. How would we appear them? Look how Juliette glows, her face perfectly open and expectant.

She had expected it to happen like this, so she had made some preparations for our arrival. The food was, as might be expected, simple, only rich strong coffee to drink, we seated in what I can best call a little summerhouse, all pink and blue. She tells me she is from the Pyrenees, on the Spanish side, her family farming high pastures there for millennia. She likes the woman, finds her considerate and very perceptive, believing that she sees from another world. I tell Juliette about my family – and how grey that family seems here – what I do for a living, and about my wife, and how she embraces me at times.

Imagine my surprise when I realised that I was surrounded by music. Why had I not heard it before now? If you were to ask me what makes music beautiful, no doubt you would expect me to say that the harmony is the beauty of music. You would not expect me to say something like silence. The music I hear now has so much silence in it that I virtually carry the notes along. This music lives. When I remarked this fact to Juli, she just smiled and pointed down to my recording device and said:

'Listen. The dark, the cold, the silence, all have one thing in common: they are extremes states of absence. One without light, another without heat, the last without sound. And what is there, then, in each of them? Yes, what they have in common, absence. And yet how they affect us, terror, dread, and emptiness. How close is the dark, so close we live in fear of it. How stiff is the cold, the worst of deaths, immobility. And at the last, how confiding is silence, a warm repose of expectation. That is where you are now. This is how Adam felt before he met Eve. And the first sound he heard was Eve's voice. That is how it is when a woman sings: how Eve sounded to Adam, an eternal shiver down his spine.'

And then Juli sang for me, standing just by my knee, slightly angled away. I could see the music move in her, the way her breasts trembled, as though to a beat I could not hear. It was extraordinary just how fixated I became with Juli's breasts, watching them slip easily against the soft fabric of her blouse. And yet, and yet, I felt no desire for her, though her breasts were perfect and responsive. Instead, it was as though I became a part of Juli while I watched her sing and could feel her sense of utter openness, like a lit tunnel in a dark dark mountain.

And, yes, I did shiver. One almighty shiver that ran right up my body and out into the open. Is this how Adam felt, hearing Eve call out to him in greeting? Yes, anticipation and appraisal, the difference between them Eve's very life. I mean, again it is vulnerability, the man enslaved by his beloved's voice, the woman enslaved by the man's sex. And you'd wonder what Adam's attitude to Eve really was. A pair of dopey peasants? A sex romp for all time on that soft green grass? What's to stop them – this is Eden, after all?

And then Juliette was finished and it was time for me to take lunch with the woman.

Make a break here, Dan.

All in black this time, the two of us in black at last. No doubt the sojourn in Juli's little place helped me a lot in this situation. It's not that she was angry – with Juli, at least – more that she saw something in me that she did not like. Not a jealousy, or anything like that. I suspect she disliked what she saw because she did not know what it was. Something that Juli had brought out in me; something she had failed to draw out of me. What is it? Ease. That is, I am not as hungry as she is. What else would a servant do for a guest? Servants are like the filling in a sandwich, otherwise you have dry bread and nothing else. A kind of life-support system, very discreet.

We never settled down at the table. Can't remember anything we said, not a word. And yet I watched her mouth avidly, eating and drinking with such attention, and saw how her hands were in service to her, providing such pleasures. She seemed then like a close-circuit system, utterly self-reliant in a way, commendably so, maybe, but you must also consider the price, her utter indifference to anything that lives. So you see why there is no jealousy: would she be jealous of the grass you walked on, of the trees you touched? But I am not like that, she knows now. And that is all she knows so far – what I am not.

The woman doesn't know what I am like. But am I any better? Do I know what the woman is like? Strangely, yes. I have seen her exposed. There is always a moment in a situation like this, where you feel you have exceeded some rule or other. No, I saw her exposed and understood what that meant, even if it was only in my imagination. She is too self-absorbed ever to know what I am like.

But see it from the woman's perspective now. She does not need to know me, if only because she thinks she already knows me. Is that not the same for me? Have I made her up too? No, when I saw the woman exposed, I saw who she is. This woman is not interested enough in me to want to see me exposed, to see who I am.

And I know why. It is very simple and obvious: I am not the object of this set up. Another man is, a man now dead. Put otherwise, the woman is a daughter because she wants only to be a daughter. And what does any daughter want to do for her Father? What the woman is doing, of course. What role can another man have in this relationship? There is a darkness in the woman, I've see that clearly enough. I am connected in some way to that darkness.

It was only after the meal, once we were seated out on the balcony – the sun having passed its zenith – that she began to speak to me. Slowly and in a disconnected way at first – which I adapted to very quickly – she tried to tell me about her relationship with her Benefactor.

'Mark was the kind of man no one could love. It was as though he had no love-hooks in him. But it was different for me. You see, I only wanted him to love me – I knew I could never love him. This is a thing that is hard to fathom sometimes: how one could love without being loved in return? You see, there must be something that the man hid. Something I thought I could grasp by observing him closely. I could see quite easily in how he resembled my Father, even how I related to both of them in precisely the same way. Is it anything more than parental guilt, do you think? And for the little girl, is it as though she is always preparing for him, that he might see her today? Yes. But there is more, much much more. Ask the question, what was the little girl doing before her Father came into her world? Yes, that is the question to ask. Yes? You see: the child knows the mother first, then the Father. The disadvantage for the son is that the mother binds him before he is even aware of her, and the apparent advantage for the daughter is that she knows who she was with before her Father came. Not, as the mother believes, a shining innocent version of herself – no, she is with her cosmic half. Laugh, if you will, young man, that is what haunts the woman throughout her life: the memory of separation from that being, forced away into this dismal existence. And this is the woman's gift to her man – as you will learn – she reveals this secret to him, and to him alone.'

She had crossed her legs, left hand resting on the upper knee. Now she uncrossed and sat in such a way that I could see up her inner thigh. I said:

'And if the man doesn't want to know?'

'Then he is not ready.'

I had no idea that the woman could be so sexy. This was the first time I had seen her in natural light. She had a lean spare quality, long graceful limbs, limber, her hips in repose today yet seeming so alert and poised. It's only now that I wonder about her sexual nature. I believed her when she said she was a virgin – it is how she moves, always as though ready, whatever this male entity might be. I replied, looking at her waist and how it curved one way while how she sat tilted it just slightly off-balance:

'What do you think happens when a man finds that he loves a woman? That he falls in love? No, when a man falls in love he knows he has seen his own cosmic half – as you call this being – seeing how she is lit in the face of the woman he loves, how he can love this woman because he already – and has always – loved his cosmic half, lamenting – with her – their separation.'

I could see the puzzlement so clearly in her face. She is suddenly discovering – at such a late stage in her life – that she may not have been loved by anyone, after all. I can see the fear, that sense of recession, like she is falling away. I wondered then how long it would take her to see the truth for herself. Can she? Can a woman be – like a man – a nothingness?

What would she do now, I wondered, seeing her switching high and low in rapid succession? What she did was, she just walked away, off the balcony and away into the Chateau, Juli just coming into view along another path, prim and proper as ever. I could allow her the impulse to walk away, but the trouble with walking away is the question of where are we going now. I could see as she walked down the gravel path that she didn't know where she was going. Back to a familiar room, surely, but look what she brings with her, the truth of human love. And lying back on a soft chaise lounge, she will think how she will love me, if only to see what this love is like. And Juli bends to me – no doubt aware of the strangeness of her mistress's withdrawal – and says in a low voice as though someone else might be listening:

'You look tired now, Jim.'

A few hours' sleep has made the difference. I had underestimated how much sleep I has lost last night. It looks as though I have time to myself now, so I'll sketch the project out now for you.

The situation is not as clear-cut as I thought. As you have seen, there is far more to this woman than might be expected. Repression has tested her over many years: she knows how to forbear. But the problem for her is that she may not remember how to love. You can see how she could not love even her Father. She believed as a child that she was born to be worshipped. A strong word to use, perhaps, yet a revealing word to use. That is what love is to her, a memory retained from her earliest days, how she saw what she has called her cosmic half then. That is how this woman would love a man, as though he was King, her King.

If this is madness, it is an almost divine gift. Seeing the woman as though she was with her King, I can understand the force of her approach, how like an angry sea she is, tossing up on uncaring rock. And why is she like this with her dream man? You see, she doesn't know what the King will say to her. What did her Benefactor first say to her? Just what her Father had said, Hello. I can't remember my first word to her here, coming up from the car. She was prepared for coffee, a tight gown of silk, and long legs down to extremely expensive shoes – bright red shoes. She was attentive because she knew the way, her eyes very fast, appraising me. I didn't need to do anything like that, this was work-time. The Chateau at first sight was more than a little weird. It dates from late fifteenth century, when castles were giving way to mansions. Restored, renewed, adapted, rewired and updated, and it is now a remarkably variable experience. No matter where you look, you will find only difference. To a single glance, the Chateau is coherent, beautifully so. But try to take it all in and your head is full of images, some downright weird, some of an alien beauty. What did I see? I saw the woman walking before me, how upright she was in her manner, self-possessed, assured.

She did not speak to me until we sat at the coffee table and we had each drunk some of the delicious coffee. Then she said:

'Fortitude. You reach for grace and all you get is fortitude.'

Looking at my surroundings, a gazebo that seemed constructed from the lightest of woods, its wide grain flashing in the sunlight, do you think I could take that seriously? I said in reply, speaking as though professionally:

'Grace is showered on us every day. You would not need to reach for it.'

That's the word: grace. Yet it was the woman who spoke first, remember that. I wanted to kiss her just then. To put my lips to the mouth that spoke like that. What I said was almost a prayer, like she was being offered everything. And all she did was smile and turn forward again, me watching how her hips moved, like mighty pistons. What is love? You become the other. See how I loved the woman from the start, as though we had parted only moments before. And yet we can never be together. When I look at the woman, I become what I see of her, feeling intimately the shape of her hips, her long legs. And though I could not prove it, I swear that she walked because I walked with her, step to step. The woman has no sense of space. And that is what she got from me then: I gave her a context. And she then inhabited the space I made for her, using the props left her by her Benefactor.

She got to her feet and went across to one of the entrances, exposed to the sun, and stood there. Of course I saw her through that pale silken gown, the long torso with its perfect waist, that swell of her hips, and when she turned to reply to me, I saw the swing of her breasts, not large but heavy even so.

'What I can't tolerate here is the constant distraction.'

And yet as I say, not sexual. Arousing, yes – powerfully so – but not sexual in itself. When I say I am her I mean that to be true. And when I become her, I can feel what she is like because she becomes me, like we occupied the same space, same body, at once male and female throughout. But if I were to touch her or she touched me, then all this would vanish and we would be a sex-starved old woman with a watchful young man. I got up from the table as she came across, an idleness in her walk now, like she was seeing her virginity as some kind of yoke that had drained the life from her. I said into this insight:

'You shouldn't focus on one thing only.'

I hadn't planned on saying more, but as I sat again with her, I found myself saying further:

'See how the whole world moves and yet everything hangs together.'

Still not sure how I meant that to be taken. Am I distracting her too – trying to turn her away from me – or can she see what I mean here? How she might trust me. It wasn't clear initially how she was responding. Defensive at first – curious to see in her – then she must have grasped something of what I intended. She reached forward to the table and picked up the bowl of cherries and said with a smile:

'Nothing moves at the centre. Everything does move and yet seems not to move.'

It was then I realised how I was being affected by the woman. The thing about the kind of mad people we are interested in is that we can encompass their obsessions and fantasies, cataloguing these in purely commercial terms. We have words for who and what they are, hence the biogs – selling the standard biog every time, only the names have been changed. Even at that stage I knew that this woman was not mad; deranged possibly, but not insane. Have you ever encountered insanity? It is so utterly different in a profound and perhaps obvious way, as though our reality itself was a haphazard conglomeration of essentially irrational intentions, hopes, dreams, nightmares, where insanity is just another way of viewing reality. It is the difference that shocks us, like suddenly seeing into an entirely other universe. This woman is not insane. I can see into her world, her fantasies, her hopes. It is in a way even familiar to me. I can feel her move in me even now, when she is absent goodness knows where. I stand up and I feel how her heavier body moves, more supple than mine, and how she is there, just this woman standing up.

That is how she affects me. We are not eternal but we do persist. Now you see what I meant by the word grace, and also what the woman meant by fortitude. It is as though we must reinvent ourselves all the time, the survival of ourselves from moment to moment an abiding mystery under such a condition.

Juli came in just now to call me to dinner. She waited while I freshened up, standing in the doorway looking at me, her right hand behind her back grasping her other arm at the elbow, what I assume is a habitual pose of hers that comforted her. No sign of the woman in the little dining room, just off the kitchens. It was only than that Juli told me that her mistress would not be dining this evening. Yet the table was set for two, food and drink for two. I managed to persuade Juli to join me, and though she never fully relaxed in her mistress's chair, I could see that she enjoyed the experience very completely. She told me about her boyfriend – a system analyst in Toulouse. How some people can fit together, meet and get locked into each other for life, no regrets or second thoughts ever. And this other feature of her, that I must really record here. There is this young woman, a servant in a servant's uniform, who is betrothed to a young man who in no doubt a dedicated bureaucrat, and yet if I were to put my hand on her shoulder she would surrender at once and fully. I can see my hand on her thigh, feeling her opening her legs, head lolling back so I could kiss her.

Which I won't do, of course. I am not her King. Even so, it was quite a pleasant experience if only a fantasy. But it allowed more freedom with each other, both talkative, one earnest and the other considerate, and then the other way round, like a pair of gossips with a lot to tell. Can't remember a word, except perhaps when she said at one point, towards the end of the meal:

'I am open, Jim, and very trusting. As I was raised.'

It was then that I wondered just how liberated she was, given how tightly controlled her upbringing was. The temptation to reach across and take her hand was over-whelming. And what moved in me I knew was not mine. This wasn't lust, more a kind of invasion, a land grab, even body snatching: taking her home with me and keeping her to myself in a room there. If I were to touch her and be aroused by that touch, I would never be un-aroused again. I would ride her into the grave.

A fantasy, in other words, and you know whose fantasy it is. A virgin's fantasy, knowing nothing of spent seed and the need to rest. I could understand that so clearly. How will the woman take ejaculation and detumescence, the man rolling away, satisfied for now? So I asked Juli if she loved her boyfriend – Anton. Of course she does. They are to be married next spring, the little chapel in her village, high up in the Pyrenees. And she does, if only because she has committed herself to him for life.

I found my own way back here afterwards – becoming familiar with the layout of the Chateau, leaving Juli to tidy up.

How different it is with the woman. She will be dead before I am forty. She will age with bad grace, knowing the reality of life now – how we all live afterwards, as though something happened that brought us here. And her King? There is pathos in this. The Perfect Man, what else? Like someone she can cling to and with whom she could stop all time, how she could be young and beautiful again, and never age. It's like she is always just setting out into life. Did she look for a boy she could lock on to, in the way that Juli has done? No. She never left her Father's loving gaze, wanting only that.

Where is she now, then? Did her Father not love her? How did she want to be loved? Yes, she wanted to be worshipped. And perhaps she was – but she knows now that worship is not the same as love. So the question for her now is: does she want to love? Put like that, obviously not. How Juli put it when she talked to me about the cold, dark silence. I ask again: can a woman know nothingness?

The evening is long in my room. I'm watching the sun set beyond the beeches. You can see why I agreed with her to present her as mad, though not so. Deflection, yes, but not as usual. This is a deliberate tactic of hers. She set us up for this, choosing us to print her biog, knowing how we would present her, another crazy rich woman fair game for an enterprising man. This is not true, as you have seen so far, and she knows it is not true. So I ask again: Who is the biog intended for? A lot of men would take their chance with her. Bang her stupid, spend her money buying something nice on the side. She would suck their minds away, a dispassionate exploration, and leave them utterly empty, even happy.

But what she doesn't seem to know is that a man's mind is not his core, rather that is to be found in his devotion, his attention on her. And how will she be there? As you have seen her already: fantasy after fantasy until ejaculation and exhaustion intervened.

Doesn't she know that a man's primary gift is his capacity to discern? A woman thinks she sees because she knows what's going on, not realising that she only ever sees what she has seen before. A woman gives us culture, but a man gives us the future, seeing into the dark – the unknown – as he can. The woman doesn't know this about me, for instance, that I can see what is coming, having written the script for her. Is imagination any different from reality? I can see in my imagination what this woman wishes to create in her reality. Mr Right, who else? And the source of her love lies there, where the quality of her man is written for her.

Strictly, the woman is already a Queen. I am not being ironic here. What is a Queen like? She is like a woman set in stone. She is always there. You see how the woman abides here, in that functional room she calls home, where her man is splattered all over her walls, already her absolute master. And how did I behave there? How did I match up with her man? Remember, I did not like her art, yet this is what she sees, a gaudy spiv in flashy clothes, cheap and feeble. Not a King by any means. Why does he appear like this? Because the woman knows no better. Her Father and her Benefactor made sure she never learned about young men, for obvious reasons. She never learned that the young man is either eighteen or striving to become eighteen, and that if he need strive, he will strive all through his life to become eighteen. She thinks that just because a man has a penis that he can either become potent or spend the rest of his life becoming potent. True to a point, but a woman should know which kind of man she will deal with and in what mode, being here or getting there.

So how was I in her room of paintings? Can hardly remember now. I could go back through the stream and check. But no, I will see what I can remember. Yes, I remember the woman now, how she followed me about the room, telling me about the paintings. I saw very little in fact, looking only at her when I could. And she knew this: that I found her directly and so did not need a mask. By saying that I found her directly, I mean I found her more interesting than myself, and so more interesting than any mask I might don for her convenience. And what did she see then? Yes, that dark pit. And how did she respond? She first tried to find matching fantasies, like light trying to see the dark, until she allowed me to provide her with a comfortable version of what she was seeing. Until, that is, at lunchtime, when she saw the darkness in herself. And that is where she is now. And where am I? Here. I am here, the fatalism a novelty to me.

How will she be tomorrow, if she does appear tomorrow? Lost. She will believe at first that because there is the dark, there cannot be light. A natural reaction, after all, light is always consistent and unitary: there is no place for the dark there. Then she might see that light, as it were, lies on the dark, beauty and the beast. Then she might understand that the beast – which she fears – is of her own invention, imposed upon the dark. Should she make it this far, then she can enter upon the darkness and learn that all fantasy resides in the dark, many more fantasies than she could hope to invent in her lifetime. Then she will realise that the man is actually like her paintings on her walls: he is all around her, seeing her fantasies even as she lives them out for him.

And beyond that I don't know. Could she even get that far? And what then, what will...

Three o'clock in the morning. I hadn't realised it was so late. I thought at first it was the maid with a nightcap, but it was the woman who stood out in the hall, a rather gaudy wrap of sorts drawn tightly about her body, with weird go-fast flashes all over it. I was genuinely dumbfounded to see her there. It must have been because of what I had been saying about her, for I could see her in a very clear way, but without knowing if this clarity was real or not. Was I projecting a fantasy onto her now? How did I see her in those first few seconds? Like her body was aflame with a cold fire, while her head remained unmoved. Her eyes regarded me, her gaze open but steady. She spread her hands at her hips, shifted her balance onto one leg, her red lips moving as she said:

'What does the woman see when she falls in love?'

Ardent, that's the word here. Like a very fundamental hope can be realised. Then it struck me: the woman thinks I know the answer. But she should know this already herself. I ask her, still standing in the doorway like a guard, the only question I could ask her:

'What do you see now?'

She nods, and turns slightly away on her heel, peering off up the corridor now. She speaks without looking over at me at all:

'I see you. And I still see that you are the little man with the cheap briefcase, coming along the drive with your businessman's walk. And yet you are also responsive and yielding, so that I can see the world as though it lives for you, that you can perceive it for that reason. And you are also sharp, like a needle stuck into me before I knew it, piercing me to the bone, as though trying to see me without this quotidian body. And then you are dark and I see again why I called you Pan. The word means all, everything, and that is what you did for me. You are like a centre for me, from which I can reach out into the world. You can see that I am not merely a Queen, frozen in time, as you said. Even now, in the middle of this night, I can feel the Family in the world, always active with each other, collecting gold. Do you understand this? I am a King in this world. But you, you do not treat me as a King, you treat me like a common prostitute that you can make free with. No. Listen. Understand this, I said I felt as though your treated me like a prostitute, but I found instead that you actually treat me as a customer, as though I was buying something from you but might not have enough money for it. Not a pleasant feeling, though I went out of my way to please you, if only so that you might lower the price, as it were. I thought you would be pleased with me at lunchtime, for I dressed as you do and hoped that would give you confidence. I did not know that you had just come from Juliette's Apartment, with goodness know what consequences for us all here. But you did see me, even so, saw what I hadn't yet seen, that I was dark, too. And what did I see when I looked at you as you arrived? A man already replete, easily satisfied, making do all the time. I can understand a man getting comfortable with a woman like Juliette, and I suspect like your wife, and it was then that I saw that you have never loved. That's why I let you into the secret about love, so that you might come to love someone, even to love me.'

My state of mind was such I was strongly tempted to shut the door in her face. I had all the material I needed and could clear out of here first thing in the morning. To see this woman, on the brink of her sixties, dressed in really vulgar clothes and with her mouth as though smeared with blood, trying to woo me was an absurdity. This is what happens because I relaxed in her company and spoke freely, very unprofessional. What a paltry place this house is, that is what I thought then, the cheapness of the woman seeping out into my surroundings like a grey net. I was suddenly very tired, the last two days piling up into my mind. I had enough. I just turned around, got into the bed, closed my eyes and slept.

I awoke sometime in the night. The room was in darkness. The woman lay in the bed beside me. I worried in case she was naked. I wasn't, nor are my clothes disturbed. I haven't had sex with her, my penis would tell me if I had. I have my back to her. I plan on slipping quietly out of the bed and finding refuge elsewhere, when she says in a low voice:

'You're awake. At last. Do you want to have sex with me? You will be the first, so be gentle with me. Or would you like me to serve you in some way, but you will have to tell me what to do. You are like a full stop in my life. I do not know what I will be like in the morning. I do not know what the rest of my life will be like, either. What you said about age limits – about being eighteen – is true for me also. I have never been impregnated, so I must have striven all my life to be impregnated. But I was eighteen when I should have been eighteen. A flash of light then that awful sense of loss, as though in gaining one advantage I lost another, greater gift. I was alone afterwards then, a solicitor arranging contracts, tying people to people while I looked again for my Father. I didn't know until yesterday at lunch that I had made a mistake in looking all my life till now for my Father. Only then did I see what my Father fantasy hid from me. And all I could see then was you, the young man that had been hidden from me by my Father. You see that I read you closely, even knowing your name now. And in knowing your name I could see so deeply into you. You are like an eagle alone in the sky, and I am like a fish in a sea. Do you appreciate the imagery? Your talons will tear into my body, and you will eat every part of me. You will consume me whole. Will you have sex with me now?'

I could get out of the bed then. Sex to me is Barbara laid out on our bed, her soft curves inviting me so that I fall into her embrace and we ride so sweetly together. If it is a terminal state, then it is the only one available to us here on earth. Here on earth, we die into love and are resurrected again renewed. Gets us through another day. The difference between my wife and this woman is that I live with my wife, sharing our life together, while I try to possess the woman, even as she tries to possess me. This is not love as we know it: there is no death here. But I do not like her physically. There is a kind of heaviness about her, it is what pulls me down. I float on my wife, while this woman in a sense wants me to swim. I find this insight hard to grasp. The image suggests that I swim in the woman, that I could dive into this woman is some way and enter a completely different world. I say to her from the sofa, where I sit:

'I am not attracted to you. I was impressed by you, but your appeal never drew me. You must also remember that I am here on business and that I have already exceeded my remit here. I have found you an accomplished woman, an excellent hostess and a careful companion. I have borne in mind the play of fantasy in you, how you sought the right image for us both. But there is no such thing. I am not like you. My wife and my work are enough. I don't know the difference between life and death, never having been dead, so I live my life into an unknown state, content with what I have. And even if your cosmic half – as you call it – exists, so that the cosmic self you claim for me also exists, I don't care. I was eighteen also, but I knew that the light signalled an entrance that I accepted, and so want for it no more. If I have a cosmic half, then I have a cosmic self. What this means will become clear to me if that is required. You seek a cosmic self that you may not be able to obtain here in this life. I am not that cosmic self, nor can I be made into it. So I have no desire to have sex with you, and never will. I was entranced by your appearances, but not moved at all by you. You should look for a virgin man, who will not know any better than you what sex is about. Sex is about death, whatever it might be for the child that might ensue. I cannot teach you about death; I would only show you the abyss that you fear. You would shrink from my penis as though it were ice that would suck the life out of you.'

I know this will seem a bit theatrical, but you have to see what I was doing. Like cauterising a wound with fire. I couldn't understand how I felt just then. Like with Juli yesterday, I could both screw this woman all ways and leave her a virgin full of empty longing. See? Sex with this woman would make no difference, to either of us. So I said to her, chancing fate again, drawing close to her in the bed:

'You can touch me, if you like. See for yourself.'

What a temptation for both of us then, I only realising then – too late – that she felt the exact same barrier as I did. Crossing this line would be as life-changing for her as for me. I think I would have stopped her if she had tried to touch me in any way. Instead she looked up at me and said:

'You are the end for me, whether I am mistaken or not. I know the limit now. And I know why there is such a limit. The absence Juliette spoke to you about. I understood that, but I think that she did not. She does not know, nor will never know – as your wife will never know – what I know about you. I have looked into your darkness. I am glad I did, though it has shown me my own darkness. I know who you are, seeing that part of me in you. And I know that you have seen me, and not only because you told me. How do you think I felt when you saw me so clearly? Diana. Better than Lilith. Why did you not call me Diana? Can't I be a goddess and not just a demon in your fantasy? You think there is a beginning that you can get back to, as though you are descended from some god, where we can be like Adam and Eve in Paradise, or even transcended, as though we could be one somewhere. It is not like that. As any woman will tell you, there is no past, only the present with its memories. You cannot go back, ever. You claim the gift of discernment and can't even see this about the woman: how she stands in the middle like a window onto a world. That world for you is dark, so that you see nothing. Well, then, does some woman lighten that world for you so that you can see all its wonders? No. But this is what I offer you. I will show you reality, which is all I can do for you. I would do this out of love for you.'

What fantasy will I project onto her in response? None. I say to her, firmly:

'Can you arrange a car to take me to the airport first thing in the morning?'

Have I learned anything new here? Yes, actually yes. If I ever had any illusions, I have not got them now. My world is colder, yet more certain; it is my world, a world I share with my wife. And the work I do? In our first years together, while Barbara worked to support us, I wrote two novels. It took time to recover from the disappointment when we couldn't find a publisher for them, and it was only by chance that I met Jonathan Briggs and found a job writing to order. That is what I do – I rewrite those two novels over and over, and have them published at a profit. The novels? Why not, Dan? Won't make much difference. One novel – as I realise now – was about me and the other was about Barbara. And what was wrong with them? I forgot about the readers.

It is the reader who makes everything happen. The writer is as though just feeding the hopper. And it is the same old story.

I kept my eyes closed as she left: hearing her raise herself on the bed and step out onto the floor, not wanting to know whether she was naked or not, her feet bare on the floor as she padded away from me.

THE HOUSE

Barbara does not read my commercial writings. She knows the stories, having typed my novels up for me. So she has no interest in the people I research for the biogs. To her they are just a kind of ghost. I know I have spoken intimately about my wife when I was in the Chateau, but you must appreciate that the situation was extreme. What I told you then acted like a screen for me against the wiles of the woman. But there is more to Barbara than that, much more. It's like this, she actually believes that she lives another life in another world, a very different world too. And she believes that I live there with her too. She believes that I created that world in my two novels, and that I put myself in the first novel and put her in the second. So you see, the people I interview for their biogs think we will make them famous, while I am servicing my wife's fantasies, here an old general becomes like me, there a retired solicitor can become her.

I don't see anything unusual in that. It probably is what most writers do anyway, endlessly relive an early vision that opened them to the world they exist in now. I first met Barbara when she was still a student. I had the task of testing her papers – in the Eng Lit course – and what I read in her mad jumble of words was that she was simply unable to make the words fit. As though the world around her didn't fit her words. She said to me once, early on in our relationship, it's like she was trying to fit one world – that she knows – to another world, which she does not know. I could understand that perfectly. But it was only when she read something I had written, after an argument between us, that she saw why she could not fit words. She simply did not know how to do it. Then she said to me: but you do. That got our relationship started very soon – strictly against the law, to be true – and together we created those two novels, with me fucking her and she talking to me. Then I wrote them and she supported me. She was far less concerned than I was that they were not accepted for publication. You can see why. First they remain private to us, and second we can make a living producing copies of them to order.

Now you see that she lives the fantasy as far as she can. I suspect she really thinks she only works here, but lives in that other world. I'd say that's no worse than most people's fantasies. And what, you might wonder, is my fantasy. Unfortunately, I don't have a fantasy, what I know is bitter, though not necessarily true for that reason. My fantasy if I had one would have no shape, no age, no place. It would came from nowhere and would be going nowhere. And can you see how that suits my wife? I am like a blank screen that she can shine all her fantasies on, the nothingness that the woman feared. As we lie enwrapped on our bed, my full penis in her warm vulva, I can relax and let my wife shine into me all her fantasies, which I write out and publish as biogs of this and that wealthy and vain individual, using them for local colour. That's how I write, in case you don't know already. I don't think all this means anything. It seems pointless to me for some reason. Ten seconds, at least, of this vivid living reality that surrounds me here on earth is worth more than all the fantasies that could possibly exist in the imaginations of women. I'm am alive: it radiates out of me and spreads out into everything I know. To quote: I see real.

Quite a lengthy preamble, but all worth saying. I am in the study, taking a break between chapters, when there is a knock on the front door. In this part of the world, such an event is very rare and loaded with foreboding, worst most of all is the afternoon knock-knock, as this knocking is. I braced myself and the first thing I saw outside was this big car parked among the little suburban cars. A door opens and the woman steps out on to the street, closing the door with a perfectly balanced push, so that the door swung back and locked with a satisfyingly expensive thunghhh. How she flabbergasts me. I couldn't work out this time just who she was. The car was wrong, for a start, just a piece of pricey trash. I think she thought she was dressed simply, for those little suburbs that ring our cities now. Weird again. Simple for the woman must cost big. That is how she thinks, I understood just then – like a flash – that it is size that is important to her, not value or utility. Is that just another penis fantasy or does she see something else? I was intrigued by that insight. Does she see something else, looking into another reality – just like my wife? What is her fantasy, then? It is not a shared fantasy. That's what drives this woman on, she wants someone to share her fantasy with her. Has she already shared some of it with me?

Anyway, she braves a wry smile, extending her bare hand to me, saying:

'I asked for fifty one copies of the book, but I only got thirty five. Did you not print enough of them?'

Dumbfounded. I just can't catch her. She can be so different each time I meet here again. Today she didn't look like anyone at all. I look hard for the irony, but there was none. I did the forehead scratching routine and told her, in very stilted tones:

'You should take delivery problems to Distribution, order problems to Packaging, and accounts problems to Bills, where the staff will be delighted to serve you.'

How do I seem to her now, dowdy overworked scribbler in his little trophy house, no doubt populated with an equally dowdy wife? So what? It has to do with fantasy, face that fact. Yet she came to me this afternoon, big car jamming up the roadway, dressed only for the me she knows. Can you see that? Her clothes were entirely honest, down-to-earth: heavy boots, black with yellow laces; dress of such flimsy material, spun with gold and silver thread it seems, that was as though painted on her body, but a brooch of such magnificent workmanship, a fine web of gold and silver wire sheltering a vivid ruby. That's the woman's idea of simple dress suitable for the little people in their little houses in the little suburbs dotted around our city.

And me, in case you wonder? A bathrobe, I had just taken a shower. I closed the front door and went upstairs to dress and get back to work. The woman is sitting in the kitchen when I go downstairs again, the flimsy dress pulled right up her thighs so she can sit down at the table. We don't lock our doors around here during daylight, a gesture of goodwill and a complete sense of security. She looked completely absurd in her stupid dress and workman's boots. If she would only remove them. Yes, I caught myself on pretty quickly. I asked her:

'Tea or coffee?'

Strange watching her do ordinary. A bottom-of-the- class actress forever fluffing her lines. See her catching herself on: Remember where you are. But she did say in a very uncertain tone:

'Do you have anything to drink?'

A gasping sort of sound too. Is she an alcoholic? Why not? She's been a long time with nothing to do. I say, as though listing house rules:

'Only tea or coffee.'

She understands at once, which seems perhaps surprisingly submissive, but really indicated that she knows what sort of game this is. And she does say, nodding towards me – now standing in the middle of the kitchen – placing her spread hands on her long thighs as though out of modesty:

'I'll have whatever you are having, my love.'

It was a frank appeal, but one that only accentuating the differences between us. Convenient for me, get us both on the same plane, as it were, tea spread or coffee high. And for the woman? What really allures me about her is that she is like a pool of water in sunlight, sparkling and continuously shivering. No, I don't swim in this pool. But I do see some kind of reality in there. Not paradisiacal, not prosaic, either – a world truly simple, like a grand Palace, luxurious and quiet. And yes – it is her Spartan room with its gaudy paintings again – but in this case I am shown the woman herself, who needs warmth and assurance most of all. And yet – being the woman – she brings what she believes is a greater gift in return for my kindness. The gift of her wretched fantasy, seeing her as just so much wallpaper, not a window in sight, or a door, either.

At least she said she liked the coffee, even nibbling part of a biscuit. She was very ill at ease, pulling at that awful dress and settling her bra back on her shoulder. She wasn't like that starting out as a young solicitor. No men between her Father and her Benefactor, not a mention. Keeping herself for Daddy: why did she need such assurance? I said to her, after one cup of my special strong coffee:

'You never speak of your mother.'

She is completely absent from her life, at least her public life. That question does catch her out, yet doesn't faze her manner one bit. She lays the forefinger of her right hand on the edge of the table and pressed once, very steady. There is a tumult in her voice:

'We do not speak of that woman.'

Ah, more like the plot of a novel now. What a stupid way to put it: that woman. She turned her mother into a woman and lost her. So I ask:

'Did she leave you?'

Yes, and became that woman, her mother not dead but lost to her forever. Why her Father loved her so intensely, she was all he had left. And the woman as the beloved daughter? She became her mother, that woman. No one would ever tell her what happened between her mother and her Father.

She showed me the one photograph only she has of her mother, taken when she was still a teen, a long-legged beauty. She says looking at the photo by my side:

'My mother flew away from me. I swear I saw the plane go over, though no one believed me. But I know I could search the world now and never find her. She is lost to me, Jim.'

I had been waiting for that. My name seals a bargain, she is a contracts expert, after all. Only if I assent, only then. It was bathos to me, I said, to balance things out:

'My parents were blown up by faceless people from central Asia.'

She looks at me, an exaggerated expression of horror appearing on her face:

'But that is so awful, darling. How must you have felt?'

This is not true, of course, a harmless pair of buffers with ruts so deep they can no longer see the world outside. But I may have got her into a siding or sorts, to head her off. I elaborate:

'In Soho, the one in London, that is, and they only walking by on their way to the opera, a short visit to take in the season, or part of it, anyway. Couldn't find all the pieces and what we had would fit in a shoebox. Burned the lot together and keep them in a single flask upstairs in the loft.'

I'm doing something to her, but I cannot work out what it is. Watch the way her face follows my gruesome account. She is looking at images only. She doesn't listen to others. So I say further, really topping it:

'I have a video of the explosion that killed them on my phone. Would you like to see it? Very good quality, considering.'

She still hasn't caught on. Revulsion, is the word: a little too much reality there. It's the word video that did it. So I try again:

'But I have other videos you might like to watch. I remember that you don't have any videos in your place. Would you like to watch a video? Something light and entertaining for you?'

What am I doing now? Stay with video. No, surely not. They wouldn't need to. Her people were well-to-do, she must have other videos, many more. Plenty of entertainment, should they want it, an innocent little girl, all full of trust in her Daddy. If you want vulnerability, there you are. And she says, nodding in some kind of assent:

'I don't actually like moving images. They nauseate me, images of stolen souls, innocent souls.'

That clears that problem up, no peeking with cameras. Then there's nothing else. Just like that, shutters going down. It's the nausea she remarked just now. Vivid, to see what moving images do to her. See her trying to stop something, some process. Yet not physical, certainly not sexual, a kind of soul response, like a baby's cheek when you chuck it for the love of it. Too fast for comprehension: helpless before that vision. What did she see, I wondered, to so move her? A kind of message? Would not have thought it was about a message, but I do ask her with the merest command, judging her distracted enough for this to work:

'What did it say, Vivian?'

She looks up at me, suddenly appraising, and asks as she gets to her feet, the dress reluctant to drop and so cover her smooth thighs from view:

'It said nothing, my dear man, that you could understand what it meant, could you comprehend it. But I will try to tell you, even so. Before my mother left, I saw this: I saw how she released me, and how I floated up into the sky so that we could be together for a while. Then it was time for my Father to draw me back, as though he pulled on a string attached to a balloon. But, you see, I never forgot, as another might, who I was in Heaven with.'

She has by now given up on the dress, it badly rumpled by this time. Her legs seemed very bare until I saw that she had removed the boots, leaving them under the table. Then they were naked. The trouble is, I can only see some younger version of her. Very pensive, off to herself. She turns towards the front door, the dreadful boots now in one hand, saying

'I wanted to see how you were. I mean, you left in a huff. I didn't expect you to make such a good job of the biography. You really caught that about me, didn't you, how elusive and desirable I am. It served me well, thank you. By the way. About the other business we had up at the Chateau. There's a meeting of the Elders of the Family tomorrow in Bern that I need to take you to. Can you come now? We can go by car, be company for each other. There are quarters there, so you needn't bring much.'

No time for chat, must answer at once, in case she misunderstands:

'What business? We had no other business.'

She has gone to the front door by now, the jewel at her throat suddenly lighting up in a stray beam of sunlight from the garden outside. It would be a lot easier if we desired one another, then we could talk as we fucked, just as I do with Barbara. She turns and says, exactly as I expected:

'But we have a contract, darling. You agreed.'

I'll need to go back over the files. I don't remember that at all. Anything but. I parry immediately:

'We don't. Just one of the many fantasies you had there. Your biog has been published and it is selling very well, a popular theme. Like the song: Looking for Love. You will be famous one of these days and someone might actually like you. And that's what you paid us to do. There is nothing else between us.'

That's when the front door opens and Barbara comes in, back from her dental appointment.

I knew she had already seen the car out on the road and would be worldly enough to know it would be one or another of the nuts I write about. Never happened before, mind, we writers have guaranteed anonymity. It seemed not to trouble her too much at first, glancing at the woman before saying to me:

'Bringing your work home, Jim, are you?'

Not the usual Barbara, too colloquial, so she is setting the scene as she best sees it. The woman takes the hint immediately and stands away from the front door, very carefully balanced. She is now between the open front door and the front window, shaded by the sunlight pouring in there. Barbara was uneasy, I could tell that, it was in a way a new scenario in her life, possibly unfaithful spouse who might ruin their otherworld. That had to be the clue. I was frank:

'A customer, delivery error.'

And I say, fully in character in my home, to the woman, without turning round:

'Why did you not go to the office?'

She has solved the problem of her funny little dress by removing it. I can't imagine how much her underwear cost, but very stylish on her, as though she was made for bed. It worked, too. Barbara said to me, visibly relaxing:

'No, Jim. The office was closed this afternoon. Sam's funeral, if you remember.'

Then she turned to the woman and said very briskly:

'Perhaps if you give me the details and I will see what can be done for you.'

Barbara extended her arm in invitation. The woman was charmed, forming her lips in a mock kiss, and looked as though she had a friend.

Curious in a way. To see the two of them go off down the hallway, arm in arm. My wife looked like a man and the woman looked like a stripper on the game. And I wonder now, who is going to come out? My wife looking like a businessman and yet so yielding in bed, and the woman coming on like a whore and yet never known a man. Does my wife know that the woman is one of her ghosts, written out into the world in her place? But now I ask: does my wife knows what the woman wants? She doesn't. I see that now. Do I know what she wants? Actually, yes. She wants to make me her King. Yes, it is that simple. It's her first memory, you see, who she was with then. She wants to make him real, to have him here with her. Barbara would never see that in the woman's behaviour – she would just see a love-sick old woman chasing a young man, something she might have to do herself in time. And what if that is not the truth, so that fantasy counts for nothing and we are just blind creatures? You see how I hold on to fantasy and yet claim I have no fantasy of my own.

And then they come back, old Mick from the store behind them with a box. My wife and the woman were talking freely together, both seemingly oblivious of their surroundings, lost in each other's charm. And yet they were still so very different. My wife had dropped her jacket somewhere and even rolled the cuffs back to reveal her strong hands. You see why my wife wears a business suit, otherwise no work would get done. The woman, on the other hands, had managed to get her hands on a decent dress and some court shoes. Allowing that she had just grabbed the nearest to hand to wear, it is remarkable how well they suited her. The dress belongs to my wife's niece, a simple affair suitable to the very impressionable, but on the woman it becomes so expressive of her: what she would look like in a world without sex. And the shoes seemed like wings, bearing her aloft into the far blue beyond.

I'm still lost in thought at that point, thinking about fantasy, how it persists – as though it had presence. And looking at these two women, so different in so many ways, I can understand them only if I resort to fantasy. Do you see that? These two women, one important and the other not, would be unknown to me if there was no fantasy. Perhaps I couldn't bear what I'd find there without the help of fantasy. Not just mortality, more something like a not knowing because you cannot know. Imagine the emptiness then, just brutes with a span of years.

I was thankful, for some reason, that the woman spoke first, she pointing back in her dress at the box being carried behind her:

'Your wife has been very helpful, Mister Halpin. We have all the volumes we need now.'

She could do charm, too, radiant like sunburn, cutting through the air at me. She knows my name now. I felt it was for me to answer, but I managed to catch Barbara's eye to signal that she should reply. She said nearly as brightly, her hands extended like plates:

'Vivian's order was not right, Jim. That's the second time this month. Luckily I found some copies in the store, held back for some reason. So. We're fine now, yes, Vivian?'

Of course Vivian was fine, though my poor wife doesn't know why and may never know. And how will my wife cope with the collapse of her otherworld, adrift on a strange dark ocean after that? Perhaps I can write a fantasy for her – there will be time. But where can I take her that she won't be on her own? What then? Will she find another man? But she will fuck with no fantasy then, grunting in the dark with him like pigs. So be it. The woman's riposte was equally as cheery:

'We certainly have, my dear. I can fill all my orders now, once we are in Bern.'

Where is Bern? Why am I going there with the woman? Then I see the secret of power. The secret of power is trust, unlikely as that may seem. This woman believes she knows exactly how to make me King, and yet she does not see how I come to rule over her, she thinking only of statues in a church somewhere far away. And that is the root of my indifference to the woman: she thinks only in terms of ends. The woman is a terminus, should you need one, she is going nowhere, and so neither are you. And when I rule her? I'll set her walking in a circle, for ever heading for her end. And what will I do then? I will be me. I will still be me.

It was the woman's slightly giddy, 'I'll wait for you in the car, my dear.'

It set the tone for my last moments with Barbara. To be honest now, I was surprisingly indifferent to her too. She knew that she had been indiscreet, and that I was bound by her mistake – though this is not strictly true, for I had disclosed my name to the woman's chambermaid, if you remember. I poo-poo'd her attempted explanation, yet listened closely to it. The woman had used my first name as bait, drawing the remainder from my wife like a fish from a sea. I did try to explain how I betrayed my name to the woman back in her Chateau, but it was as though Barbara was fully aware that the consequences of either route will lead to the destruction of her dream, for she said forthrightly:

'I will save what I can, my sweetheart, it will not die when you leave. I will keep a place there for you always, Jim.'

Should I tell her that she can't do that? Her expectation should be open to this world, no longer to her dream world. Perhaps she will learn. Did I have words for her? Simple words:

'Thank you, Barbara, for being my patient and resilient wife. What we shared will always have value, written into so many hearts by how. Otherwise, I know nothing about life.'

In the car, the woman says, out of the blue:

'Barbara is such a soft woman. You were lucky, I can tell. But you are not a sexual man. Is there something here that I don't understand.'

The car is comfortable to an excessively expensive degree, plush you could get lost in, lying out on one of the divans. The wine was very peculiar, like something sweet eddying away into a darker tone, yet warm on the tongue even so. And marzipan. What can I say about marzipan, except that it exists purely in its own excellence, the quintessence of sweetness and sunlight, everyone's vision of Heaven. I am savouring the atmosphere here, the mixture of a very pure languor and an abiding anxiety, very like a child's fear of the dark. I speak into that fear:

'Of course. What else can I tell you? By the way, were you naked that night, when you got into my bed and wanted me to fuck you?'

The woman looks her age, then the little girl dress brought her back. She raised her eyes to the heavens, very practiced, and said:

'You didn't want to know then, why do you want to know now?'

Hadn't expected that: a good question. I meant to throw her off that way, like she made such a fool of herself over a young man. Now I wonder why I do want to know. Yes. I want to see her naked. Again, not sexual, more that I just want to see her stripped bare. I want to see if Diana is there, after all. She is Lilith; can she also be a virgin goddess?

'I had a vision of you naked. Back in the Chateau. You were like...'

The woman holds up her hand:

'No. Let me say it, because I remember what you said to me: that I was like beautiful Diana. And yet you call me Lilith. Why?'

What can I say? If she cannot see the difference, is there any hope that I can? One of them is real and the other is a fantasy. Which do you think is which? Beauty abides, Lilith chases her dream man, forever chasing him. I say to her, speaking in a low voice, just above the surrounding hum of the aircraft:

'It makes no difference whether Lilith is dressed or not, but Diana is always naked, nothing to hide if you dare to look.'

The woman puts the glass down on a nearby table and gets to her feet, asking:

'Will I do it now?'

Not the invitation it might seem to be. For a start she will not be able to open the zip down her back on her own. Anyway, I didn't know what we might do, trapped in this tin can. I fenced with her to allow her change her mind:

'What? On an aircraft miles above the earth? We have nowhere to go here.'

She came over to where I lay out and looked down at me, her breasts heavy in the tight little dress. She pointed to my couch and said:

'We can go there, if you want to. But we can sleep together too, naked like husband and wife.'

Put to it, I saw that I didn't want to see her naked. What I wanted was that she would undress for me, but to reveal herself to me because that is what she wanted to do, and not just because I asked for it. What if she is just an aging woman hungry for youth? Yet she now wants to see me naked. Then I realise two things about her: she was naked in the bed back at the Chateau, and she doesn't want to see me naked, only for us to lie together body to body. I nodded assent, but said with some firmness:

'But only in the dark.'

That suited her well enough. She killed the light, and we lay together in that cabin in the sky, the murmur of powerful engines our accompaniment, she pressed to my back, the pressure of her breasts ageless. She said at one point, voice very clear in the dark:

'The other way round next time, yes?'

I don't think there will be another time. It's like she never read the manual. She is naked pressing against my naked body and yet she feels no spark. She lies very still, the pressure of her long body against mind. Her breath on my ear, very regular, her nose in my hair. Her hand on my shoulder, lightly spread, tiny clutches as though something was trying to escape from her. And her breasts, warm and soft, cushions for my soul, held with steady pressure against my spine – remembering something she wrote about how the spine was the best conduit for heavenly gifts, distributing the effect evenly throughout the body. And her belly, rounded and forbearing the hardness of my spine, and her pubic bush grazing my bottom, hair clinging to hair, her legs up against mine, rounded kneecaps notched in behind my knees. And nothing else, no tremor, tightening, not taking strange when her hand encounters my penis and then grasps it like it was a joystick, as though able to take her wherever she wanted to go.

I couldn't do that again. I spoke twice and received no answer. Once, I thought about the problem we were due to face eventually and wanted to tell her that I would be powerless there. I said to her in the dark:

'You really don't want me to see you. Why?'

No answer, because I already know the answer. The woman is fifty nine, and nothing can hide that fact naked. It was only later, when I reached the conclusion that I would be rich and powerful, while the woman will still want to be someone's Valentine, that I spoke to her again. What she offers me is real, what she wants in return is not. And not even fantasy can save her from delusion, what might be a grievous lack of understanding, quite profound. You cannot make a dream come true, you can only turn it into fantasy. That's where Barbara had been more realistic, letting herself be fucked at sixteen, she filled with nothing but her fantasies. And her instinct proved true, I could tell her story, our lust a power that pierced Heaven itself, so that I could see her: always at attention, always ready, whatever came her way, taking it all in like a sponge. That's what sex had been to us, pure heat. It was this thought that brought me to say to her in the dark:

'Passion lies in the endurance, not in the performance. Permission is the strongest word we have in any language. Permission opens the gates to every reality. It is not just saying, Yes; it is a matter of submission, knowing nothing is lost because nothing can be lost.'

Silence. Did she hear me? Will I ever know?

THE OFFICE

The woman is surprisingly forthcoming about this place. Judging what I saw from the car – the glass was heavily tinted – we seem to be near the centre of a European city. So Bern is in Europe somewhere, perhaps Germany, though more mountainy that I'd expect, so maybe Austria or even Switzerland. Don't have the nerve to ask the woman; don't think it matters anyway. This is what the Family calls the Office. We were shooting down a ramp before I realised what was happening, so all I saw was a characteristically ornate front and the heavy gates that are now no doubt locked and guarding the ramp.

You know – and it is strange now – that the great struggle of the Father is between his mother and his daughter, and not with his wife. Why? Because the man is related by blood with his mother and his daughter, not so related to his wife, who you must remember is at once some man's daughter and could be someday his son's mother. There is a balance here, so that let us concentrate on the condition of the man and see how he handles this situation. My mother is like a dot getting further and further away. And my father does not move at all. I have no daughter, but if you were to ask me what I think she would like, I would answer now – thanks to what the woman showed me – she would be a vision of my cosmic half, as the woman called it. I would see the other part of myself. But you see how it was for the woman. Who does the daughter see when meeting her Father but her cosmic half, and sees how her Father makes her one in a shared image. Given all this, the next step would have been for the woman to understand that she must have a son. The woman is only now beginning to understand this, when she cannot now bear a son, in whom she would have seen her cosmic half united.

What then? I have already suggested this would involve her finding a substitute for her son. She would search through him for the image of her son. And when she found it – allowing that she can – she would see her cosmic half and they would be united for ever. And she has chosen me, trapping me in a bond I do not believe in. The only problem for now is that she must really go through this ceremony with me, of making me King of the Family in her stead. Do you see now how she is uncertain of what will happen then: will I become the King? I could have anything I wanted then. She would be lost then for ever, alone.

A lot of offices, a lot of people working in a lot of offices. They are all Family. The woman explained as we strode through that the Family is very carefully layered in any society you can think of. They do everything, and they do it only for each other. No lift here for some reason, so we climbed stairs instead. The room was smaller than I expected, functional – something hidden at the back away from the street outside. So I am not surprised when the woman says to me, moving across to straighten a curtain on a window:

'Remember, Jim, that as King you will have all authority but no power.'

Did I take that in? I answered, a little too smartly though:

'Which only shows that you were never satisfied.'

Even though some people were coming in from the farther door, the woman took that pretty badly. I don't think she even knows that there is such a thing as satisfaction. Satisfaction is the glow of the man in the dark, that is, what if you don't need power in this world? In any case, she reached and took my wrist, her hand locking down on me in such a practiced way that I feared she might have done that before to me. She said with a genuine earnestness:

'What do you think I would give for your satisfaction? And what have you that is worth my satisfaction?'

Really very nicely put. Go on, read it again. What is she saying? She telling me what her satisfaction is like. Not so much what she would do for me – as though she was a whore – no, it was more like giving me a way out. Try this. It would be more like a suicide pact. Yes, that simple, strictly personal. Does the woman think this is an expression of love? Does she think that we cannot meet, and so we should no longer be? Yes, that is how the woman sees it. Remember, however, that the woman does not know what satisfaction actually is like, so she might well be easily fooled. And I am a fantasy writer, one with a new story to tell, the one about woman's ultimate fantasy. It's about annihilation.

I hadn't realised it – hence breaking off just there – but a meeting of sorts was under way. There is a long and curiously curved table, around which were seated over fifty people, of all ages and races, each of whom had eyes only for me. But I did say to the woman, a darting response:

'To see me as King?'

It's obvious when you think about it. So I added, with momentary humour:

'And what will you give me?'

I hadn't implied anything in saying that. She really had nothing else to give, everything else belonged to the Family. When she reached across and touched my cheek, I thought it was a clumsy attempt at familiarity, until she said, simply:

'I am making you King.'

Something big happens and you think small. Look at your own lives. Anyway, I see in a kind of flash Barbara standing so still under a tree. You see that I was only then realising that I had been King in her otherworld, and she had been my Queen. In this wretched and mean-souled Family, you can see how they do without a Queen, married as they are to gold. And I see what kind of King I am. I am like a God to these poor deluded people. Only the fifty one (counted them) Elders could gaze on me, but only when I am being inaugurated by the retiring King. After that no member of the Family, high or low, will be able to see me, except those who minister to me. And yet not one of them would ever even consider disobeying me. That is how it is here, like we all know the script very well, very well indeed, all playing their parts exactly. Yes, it is like death, going nowhere and coming from nowhere. And I realised also that I could never leave, not, that is, until I appointed my successor King. Apparently that it very easy to do. You can appoint anyone you wish, just have him or her brought to this chamber before the Elders. That's all there's to it. Stay as long as you like and then clear off when you like – once you have appointed a successor, that is. But how easily will you give up all that authority? And what about power, then? Not obvious, this, but consider what else is obedience but the greatest power available to us. The secret is that obedience compels, the engine of eternity. You must give up that too, and become like other men, like leaves in a wind, a mighty wind.

Can't get it much clearer than that. But you get the drift. Genuine either/or situation, either way your screwed. Crudely put, perhaps, but the woman was an open option while the Family is closed, as I have shown. Of the two of us, only the woman will be allowed to go back into the world, free to do what she wanted, though destitute and homeless. Could I find some way to walk out with her? She will do it, I know: the woman knows how rich I am. I was going to raise the matter with the woman, only a thin Chinese woman came – one of the Elders – and asked to speak to me. In a quiet part of the room, she said this to me:

'You will take a wife at once, no seed to be wasted, Loni. There are ten available, so you have a choice this time. Each woman is of the purest breed, so that the blood of the Patriarch will be joined with yours and so making you part of the Family.'

Then she took my arm and pulled me closer to her and whispered:

'I will humbly serve you, master. You will want for nothing, and no one will want you in my place. And in the night, I will take you in my arms, Loni, and show you Heaven every time.'

She stepped away before I could react in any way. Then it was as though she had never been here with me. But she had: I could feel her as though standing at my side. A small, thin Chinese woman, defenceless and inviting, had just promised me good sex. So if I got stuck with a dud wife – of the purest breed – I could slip upstairs and fuck the maid stupid. See, the Family thinks of everything. To be honest? I couldn't wait.

The woman was over by the door, coat in hand, and nobody was saying goodbye to her. Now that was just bad manners. I went across and said – knowing perhaps more about where she was going that she did:

'You don't have to go off like that.'

She nodded as much as say that she really wasn't bothered anymore, come or go. I said, thinking I was consoling her:

'You know there are comfortable rooms here. Where else have you to go to, Vivian?'

Strictly solo, that was the word. The woman can stay here as long as she likes. But if she ever leaves she can never more come back. Perhaps there's a male Elder deputed to be her slave – that might keep her here. But why do I want to keep her here? For friendship, what else? I want us to share our lives here, she with her Elder and me with mine. We could be friends then, discussing her writings, writing her story for her. And for me? An evening out, say, perhaps a good restaurant here in Bern, a good restaurant anywhere in the world. Then a night and a night with my Elder, then a night for the four of us together, like a circuit board. I have no idea who she will choose as her Elder, but he will fit in, believe me on that. And then another night and a night with my Elder, being serviced like a stud.

Is there anything else? To this, the woman seemed to address:

'Then you are dead already, King, with years of the profoundest boredom awaiting you. Unless you become a proper King, that is the life awaiting you. Just another cog in an ageless delusion, that we make life, actually make it out of nothing, like Gods.'

I was going to front her with the King again, but I decided instead to be me:

'These people know nothing but their trade and their role in the life of the Family. They act as though they still tilled fields along the mighty Tigris, and others dream that they still flow down that mighty river in their boats. And the thing is, what you really have to understand about them: they don't care whether this fantasy is true or not. They are in it and it is bearable. What else are human societies? They are fantasies. But there is no harm in that, fantasies are the best record of humanity. I am a historian, and my job is not to find out what actually happened – as though anyone gave a damn – but to gather in all the fantasies and try to read them for sense, for purpose. A fantasy is a trace, the most reliable trace, for a fantasy must be true – true to its vision – no other medium can guarantee that, they can all be falsified.'

We were alone by them – not knowing and not caring where the rest of the Elders were, the forty nine of them. Ask for something, anything, and you can have it promptly. I left it to the woman, she is better at ostantation that I could be. To be honest, genuinely vulgar all the way. She was grossing out on excess, as though saving it up for tomorrow. All the energy she used, which would have been better spent on a moment's reflection. The point about anything is this thing here and now. We could have sat at a table – light wine and some mint, I think – or we could have walked under the moon that night, shining full as though only for us, or we could have gone to bed and I would lay my penial shaft right down the cleft of her wonderful buttocks and fondle her to my heart's content. We could have done any of that, but what the woman did was stand up from her chair and walk over to face me, standing very close. Did I describe her dress? Don't think so. So here: only now do I see the commanding quality in her, what I suspect both her Father and her Benefactor would recognised quite easily. She says, graciously:

'Let us walk by the lake tonight, dear man, and let it speak to us.'

Her dress: a vivid blue, highlights this side with jade and on the other side with her familiar wet crimson. It fits her tightly, curious folds that you only later see set her contours, her long legs so sheer in their nudity, the hips I craved, in my arms all night. And her breasts? Tonight I would fondle them, feel their weight, their drag. And then my finger will find her, her clitoris not a virgin, anyway, responding strongly to the new finger, love pouring out of her. And yet we walk in low light along a stony beach. This is Lilith I am walking with. Finally, there is the woman I knew was in her. Call her Wisdom, if you wish, but it was Wisdom in a box, as it were, knowing only what she knew and no curiosity. Her body is like that, her breasts both the prow of her ship but also listening devices, nipples sensitive to every eddy.

I wondered then if I could touch her now. I know you might think I was using her as a disposable service, like a napkin you would leave with the drained coffee cup. Yes, touching her would be important to me – a test run, as it were, never having touched her yet, to see if she was compliant. There can be only submission, I've already told her that, she must open. I will not force my way – as I might, should I wish. So I said to her – though it will seem like evasion, and perhaps it is:

'I would like to touch you.'

Yes, I know, I should have just touched her, on her hip perhaps or under her closest breast, if I stretch the fingers of my left hand. She stops, but doesn't turn, sensing no doubt my close attention on her body. She waits, arms by her side, the openings in her dress very obvious from where I stood. Then she asks:

'What part of me do you want to touch? You know that you can now touch any part of me. I am yours for as long as you want me.'

Would touching her bind me, do you think? I know from my little lithe Elder what pleasure is, and that the only reason I have not locked her in my room for constant attention, is that pleasure is not enough. For pleasure, the woman could never hope to equal my Elder, who has loved for three hundred and forty two years a long line of men, so that she knows what a man wants, knows what every men wants. So why do I pause with the woman, in her fuck-me-quick dress, walking all vulnerable in a dark and lonely place by my side? I knew it was a trap, don't worry about that. What I was after here was to trap her before she traps me. And then I had it – the earlier fantasy – how her clitoris is not a virgin. So I instructed her:

'Remove you underwear and open your legs so I can touch your clitoris.'

She had to do – that's how it works here, everyone in bondage. I pressed my forefinger into the sift bulbous head and could both feel and hear her sob. Yes, the first time a man had touched where she alone had ever touched before. She gripped my arm, in a way breaking the rules – but I knew it was capitulation. I could massage her little penis – proof to her of her cosmic half's reality: why else would she have a penis, except that she is in some way also a man? And I have taken command of her clitoris, and so of her – with one proviso, of course: I could never touch her elsewhere, never. And yes, it was her breasts that entranced me, seeing their outline so clearly in her amazing dress, how rounded, how full, how available all the time.

What to do? You see now the difference between Lilith and Diana, how I can be free with Lilith but face death should I see Diana? And the death is not your average death, by no means – you would be wherever Diana is, and you can never know where that is, not worthy of that gift, a mere seducer of women.

The woman watches me, saying:

'The Persians fell from the Light when Zoroaster glimpsed the Dark because they could not comprehend the dark within the light, could not see both the Dark and the Light. The beginning of our age. It takes a long time to conquer the Dark, the darkness itself the greatest threat to us – that is what you believe, Jim. Be trustful. Step into the Dark. Come, you want to feel your rod stiffen in the crevasse of my buttocks. Come, let your rod find its way: it knows what it seeks.'

And would it not be better to risk Diana's wrath, confessing my love for her beauty? Of course not. Why do you think they go to all that trouble to make themselves attractive, while men don't even bother? Lilith was first: every man knows Lilith before he sees Diana. And whichever way you go about solving the problem of the woman, Lilith will be waiting for you at the end of the line. See, that is what Diana, the enticer, offers: a secret pathway that leads to Lilith. If I am with Lilith then let me be with Lilith. The woman still stood with her dress up over her waist – she had not been wearing underwear this evening – legs spread, one hand down between her thighs. That's the thing about enticement: there has to be a reason for it. I wondered then if the woman was just another scrubber, that she could not see beyond herself either. I said to her, signalling that she should cover herself up:

'The Dark is Lilith, it is her presence among us.'

The change was immediate. But seeing her change so completely was unsettling. If Lilith could switch so easily with Diana, why then do I make a distinction between them? Can't you talk with Lilith in the day and fuck Diana all night? Wouldn't that be nice? And then? And you might ask me what then, so let me ask you this: where is Lilith, once you know what she has to say? And where, for that matter, is Diana, once you have taken her virginity? You are with a woman, someone who has been emptied into you, and with whom you will spend your life using as though she were a doll. And the man, to balance things, what is he? What does the woman see coming to her? She sees the Father's hand on her shoulder but waits always for Mister Right. See how she likes control purely, whether her own or another's, but wants only to suck the life out of the man. You see? No one wins.

I won't say that the change in the woman was for the worst, she would not know how to express herself now anyway. Really, I found it abhorrent for some reason. The woman looked her age, a face of such beseechment, eyes like over-ripe fruits. She said evenly, looking me directly in the eye:

'You are still here, Jim. And I will stay with you and keep you company for as long as you wish. I will comfort you, like the mother you never had. You will marry a Family Princess and have a number of children, including it is to be hoped a daughter, LeiLie will make you happy at night and I will wait on you hand and foot. As long as you are King, that is how it can be.'

That's the third option, I suppose, the nun, the whore or the mother. I have no idea how a mother can be, so I could not tell if the woman would be a good mother. It is her breasts – and the woman knows now that it is her breasts that work for her. Give the man a taste of them and he's yours to keep. And it is true. See how quickly she could change? And I wonder if she realises that the man might return to the mother as an act of incest. So the man-child can Father his own brother. Torturous, yes, but consider what the man is also doing: he is trying to remake himself with his own seed. A kind of eternity, if you like. I see how she holds herself in the loose dress, how well her hips swell against the fabric, her full breasts pushing out against the cloth. It is so hard to see her otherwise – she was in the shade of a tree. There was a quality in her face that I could dimly see, as though she did have a capacity to love, after all. But why love so ambiguously, making a cow of herself? I could see it all so clearly, how she had only wanted a son, and wanted him for one purpose only: to make him love her more than he would anyone else.

Do I need such a love? Is there any other kind of love? Is this what the Father does, get the daughter to love him more than any other man? And if you don't have a daughter, do you then look back to your own mother? But why would you do that? After all, a son is only a mirror for his mother, just as the daughter is for the Father: they see themselves in their children. A regular conveyor belt, life on the move. So I said to the woman, turning away and beckoning to LeiLie, who was coming up the path to collect me:

'A King needs a Queen, not a mother.'

I had seen her do queenly, and do it very well indeed, and I began to suspect that the locale of the Office did not suit her. What kind of Queen could she be here, tottering in a few years' time? She does not have that kind of distance in her. But I will allow her this option, saying as I left her to go with LeiLie for the night:

'Is there somewhere we can be alone together? Away from here, I mean. Where you would feel more at ease.'

She nods:

'The Palace. Tomorrow?

I nod:

'Good night.'

Don't imagine that I live in luxury, just because I am King of the richest people in the world. Luxury is just fat, that's all. I do lean, so my room is blond wood with a faintly green cast, very faint but present. Furniture is secondary, a bed to couch to sofa to ottoman to settee to settle for the visitors, and a table that always has some room on it. The only embellishment is LeiLie's banner – all Elders must display their banners in public. An interesting device, it shows red fish, green peppers, and at the bottom, blue roses. She explained it to me one night, see what you think:

'Age is not a simple state. You can come to see and so live forever. Are there any blue roses in the world? So think of a blue rose and see what you can see. You will see this: a flower growing that could not exist, yet you can see that it is growing. Here you reach across into that realm called Imagination, where the signposts are. And what of the green pepper. Almost a joke, yes Loni? Give the pepper another colour, red or yellow, and see what happens. The surfaces change while the pepper itself remained the same. This is the realm of Knowledge, the land of signs. And what do you think of this, my sweet young man: consider now the red fish. Would you hold it in your hand if it was alive? You see, Loni, how far my Wisdom extends: this is the realm of Intuition, separating life and spirit.'

I did appreciate the subtle way she did that. Without the images on the banner, I would have stopped listening to her after a few sentences, watching how she moves and bears herself, a dignity that could not be imitated. Tonight, though, the mood between us is quite different. My understanding is that she is mine as long as I remain King. She fascinates me, how life seems to flow through her, like a great swollen river. She is not beautiful or the like. Quite thin, in fact, body quite unpronounced. But she moves with a grace that is so smooth, like a rich dark oil, fully at ease with me naked. It is more like dance than foreplay: I move and then LeiLie moves in a way I still cannot fathom, like I was being balanced off some other being. I walk around the room, sorting papers, making notes, recording this, and LeiLie moves about me like some glorious being, the shift she wears – of a pure yellow dye – like the wings of an angel. And what I understand already is that this is just so much show. It's only when I finally settle down for the evening, to read or listen to music, that she will come to rest near me. And if I think of an action or gesture, she will perform it immediately. Try reading your work-notes while this woman's slender hand caresses your penis. Like being plugged into the main circuit. You could hardly appreciate what this woman is like. If she is masturbating me, then this excitation will last a thousand years. And I would read until I could read no more, lost in the memories of the lives I am recording. And then I would go out onto the balcony, to take air before bed, and LeiLie would be at my side, her warmed hand in mine. I think it is because I want to experience her only as someone coming to me, that I will talk rubbish to her, to stop her filling me with her Wisdom, as she calls it:

'If I were to ask you a question – no, no, LeiLie, I don't intend actually asking a question – and you could not answer it, what would happen? I listen to you telling me things I cannot possibly know and yet I don't complain, knowing I most likely would not find the answer interesting. No, listen. Pretend you are sixteen years of age, still thin with development to come. And I stop you in some street and ask you a question, what would you do? Yes, you would run away. You have lived so long, LeiLie, that you have forgotten about growth, so long since anyone died here. You are no longer coming into being, you're just another pit-prop by now.'

But tonight, as I have said, it is different. I showered and changed, instinct putting me into a robe of soft rose, relieved at the seams with a low yellow thread. LeiLie had also acknowledged the situation, a simple gown of a pure blue and a red silk scarf. She leads me to the bed, arranged for the occasion as a low divan, awkward to sit on. She gives me a musky wine, dark and heavy in taste, reminding me of blood though not at all like blood. It's only when she puts her hands together at her groin do I realise that this is business this evening, not pleasure, not yet anyway. She speaks slowly, with the curious inflection all the Elders have, like all the vowels are too short, so that they trip over them:

'Tonight you must choose a wife. There are now three remaining contestants, from which you can choose. Feel free with these woman, so all of them get something to take home with them from their time with the King. Now, they have together drawn lots so I can call in the first candidate. LoruSu is from the Kantzith clan, who trace their line back directly to the Patriarch, out of his fifth son. Her line produces an abundance of children, all kept happy for the joy of it.'

The woman was quite squat, and seemed to have a turn in her left eye, as though she was always peeking around corners. She showed me photographs of her two sisters, both extremely beautiful, with the insinuation that they could be part of some package. The trouble, as you no doubt already understand, is that I couldn't tell one of these well-reared young woman from the other, and couldn't detect their deceit therefore. I smiled for her and patted her shoulder, then led off into a side-room.

The second offering was very different. LeiLie told me that she was called Howusa and came from the Chugrith clan, who trace their line back to the Patriarch, out of the seventh daughter. She was tall and very sprightly, want to fuck right off, even if only a sampling of what she could do. No sisters, this time, but she has a horse that she would like to bring with her, to ride out in the evenings. Should I get a hobby too, do you think? Shooting birds in the evening, in the twilight hour? She is certified a prolific breeder, given the women that line out behind her into the far past. I put her out on the balcony, in the night air.

The third offering was also very different. Rather sweet, not shy but very composed. Her line descends from the Patriarch, out of his second son and fifth daughter, thus making her the purest bred of them all. Giselle is practical, she had arranged some notes and images for me. We sat side by side on the low divan, my thighs at an awkward angle for her presentation, so that I lay out sideways on the couch and she would sit in against the crook of my body, pressing against her soft back into that sensitive area. What she told me in effect was that it didn't matter who I chose, everything would remain the same. Made sense: just like refills, really. So I chose Giselle, and bred with her there and then and sent her off to my residence in the hills above the city.

It is as though I have completed a long journey. But I am so lost now. I might have the power to do much, but is there anything worth doing?

Is this the end?

And back comes LeiLie, hands still joined before her. She bows to me and says in that official voice:

'It is acknowledged that Giselle von Baruch, late of Kesselbad and now of Palm Springs, is your wife and ally, who has sworn to serve you faithfully for all the years that you may have together. And she will breed your children as needs be.'

Then she lightly clapped her hands and said, with some satisfaction:

'Now. That is done, at last. Let us have a drink together, Loni, and talk. One of the best things about longevity is that you are young for so long.'

I had never seen LeiLie smile before, a real smile too. I could see her happy somewhere, alone, with so much time on her hands. That sort of smile: real contentment. She drew me by hand across to the divan, where some refreshments were laid out for us. There, she unloosed her gown and let it fall to the ground. That should have stunned me – I thought that only her hands could love, body too old – but no, LeiLie, as she has just told me, is only sixteen years old. Then she sat down on the settee and signalled that I should have a drink with her, indicating the glasses on the table beside us. What stunned me was to see her moving differently, as though the music had changed, from polka to house. LeiLie now moves as though turned inside out, hot as burning flesh, an appeal transcending any other woman. I take a glass of water only, in case I get thirsty, and sit on the settee near her. LeiLie says to me, without looking round to me:

'Time stops only for youth, allowing them to see out of time. What do they see then, Loni, that you don't see now? You hear it most of all in their music, what they saw was time as though speeded up on another track. And what if you found out that you could not have that experience, what would you do? You must remember that the old have been there themselves, so who could you be but someone who is too young. You see, Loni, where the young miss out? We never see ourselves whole. I was lucky, bought by a kind woman who gave me what I wanted. You have to see how one woman's sexuality could be transferred into another woman's body. It requires complete submission to this penetration, and it makes you a whore by day but Queen by night. The wonderful thing about this kind of transference is that it energises you so, makes you so alive. Then I would go out on the street and get me a boy that I could rape. Then one day the woman was gone and I was alone. I didn't know what to do. I fell in with a crowd that I liked. At first I was very frightened of them, they seemed so unconcerned for themselves, as though they might be useless. Then I spoke to a girl in a bar, just in passing, and she just smiled and said hello. It was like I was plugged in suddenly, the whole stream of their lives pouring into me. We talked for a while, first at the bar then later in a snug. It was then that I learned the lesson of life. I had been only a kind of receiver, the power pushing down into me, but suddenly it was like all that power stored in me shot across the table and into the girl. It is not domination, more like, as I said before, submission, submission pure and simple. The power is very great, as I came to understand, overwhelmed by the sense of being in another woman's body, how ripe it is – and yet, it is only a fancy. What happens is that the younger woman is drawn magnetically towards the older woman and enters her body, cleaving to her constantly. Lesbos, that is. Don't look surprised, Loni, it's quite obvious, once you think about it. And who do you think you are to me, my love, but the body of the man to come after you? Can you see how we young are cursed with such vision? But can you also see the other side of that story, your side. How is this experience for you, a determined straight being fucked by a dominant lesbian? And do you see how I can measure you so well, with a body that fits all around you tight. And do you see how it sucks at you all the time? What do you do then, Loni, how do you respond? I know. I make you happy. But I also make you wise, yes? I raise you in your mind, setting your sight free. You see, your happiness allows me to fill your mind. With my hands on your penis alone, I can enter into your very heart and be free there. Now your penis can enter me, now that you are a father-to-be, I will be in you too, all the way in, my love. And you will see Heaven as you have never seen it before. And I will also free your mind for ever, thus render you immortal.'

I didn't want to interrupt that feed, but you need to pay attention here to how she is phrasing her sentences. LeiLie believes everything she has just told me. That is uncanny. At once the aura that LeiLie had established around us vanishes, and LeiLie smiles for the second time.

'And yet it is true, Loni, as you well know. Why else are you here? We have taken generations to reach each other, one life of longing following another, until now and here we are together. That is how it works, no matter which end you work at it from, either coming from somewhere or going nowhere. I have been a scrubber in this city for four hundred years, servicing bulls and pigs, loving only my girlfriends. And where have you been? You don't know. You feel as though you popped into being some years ago and that you will pop out again someday soon, and in the meantime you look out for your comforts. Yet I see you as an knight, but a blind knight. You don't know that aspect of yourself, how kind you are, how attentive and intelligent. You could watch whole planets burn without a qualm, thinking only of your darkness. You are a perfect screen for me, for any woman. And I would keep you here if I could, I would love you constantly and ride you to Heaven every night. And I will ride for you too, how you try to think your penis, as though it was just a nerve end and I was a socket for nerve ends, connecting you to the mains. Do you think that the same tricks would not work with men as they do with girls? How deep into you am I now?'

I don't think LeiLie realises that I am studying here; she thinks I am just paying attention to her, my excitation all consuming. She really knows very little about men, thinking they're just dicks that need attention. This is what she is doing now, distracting me with her fantasy, while she opens her body to me. She has lain back across the divan, so that I can see her nakedness up her body, she thinking that is the best angle for me. It's not, but I suspect LeiLie prefers sex to dance, like she was fucked before she could hear the music. Not only is she still young, but she was fucked while young. After that it was for her how women always try to fill the world, as though striving to replace something lost, virginity lost.

'What age were you?'

'Twelve.'

'Rough'

'Oh no, Loni, in fact very nice. I will tell you that story another time. Now I want to tell you the truth. It's like there is a straight line that struggles to enter our universe. That is what it feels like. But in reality, it is like you deep inside me, here on this couch, where you conceived a daughter. I will never breed, another price to pay, my girlfriends like daughters I love, myself to myself. But you, Loni, for you I will abase myself this night in your company and allow you to freely penetrate me. I will show you Heaven while I am stuck in your dark pit. And let me see into your darkness, Loni. But an hour or two will be sufficient, and I will read your very soul and save you from your darkness. You are free now, a bred man, so you can fuck anyone you like as long as you like. And I see that you are in darkness because you have no love in your soul. You have never loved, Loni. You have never suffered love, my dear, you have never looked into Hell and seen that emptiness look back at you. Everyone should love once, for that is all it takes, for then you understand what love is, painful as the lesson may be. I will teach you love tonight, Loni, such love as you can never imagine. With love, you can surround others and let them surround you, like wiring: a circuit then. The woman who bought me was like that. I could never fathom how she could love me. She had been married – this I discovered years later – and had her daughter taken from her at the divorce. But she would never have touched her daughter as she did me. Believe that, because her daughter would have been too close and personal to her mother, reflections of each other really. It was like she was stroking herself when she stroked me. I could see that she would never accept a man's penis after what they did to her at the divorce. Even so, I liked her attention, even if it was impersonal. She knew the contours of my body so well, watching me grow and grow and not get any older. In a crowded room, I could look over at her and feel myself touched all over my body at once. You see how I know about the mantle we wear, how I felt its soft compress. That is how it was with the woman. And then with my girls since then: the same routine, only I officiate like a priestess initiating a novice into a mystery. My control grows, even though I still seem only sixteen. I can handle up to four girls at a time, working in rotation, enveloping each of them degree by degree until they became like me, utterly submissive but powerful. People treat me as a lesbian slut, trying to get my hands into every vulva. But I am in fact almost abstentious now, just one pretty girl to warm my nights. A sweet girl but who cannot concentrate. I would surrender even her for a night with you, Loni. We'll be out among the stars, I tell you, the whole universe inhabiting you. Do you understand me? I am saying that I will give up everything for you, lie at your feet and lick your hand. What more can I offer? I will follow you in the street and hold you in the dark and squeeze you.'

I stood up at that point, perplexed to find myself completely unmoved by her. She can't understand that she is only a vision for me, no matter how real she is here on the couch. I am entranced by her movements, all of her movements. But I have no curiosity about her body, like it's just an energy source powering her display for me. She thinks she can fly higher than she has already done, but I tell you that this Chinese woman hates the penis with a holy terror.

'But you do hate the penis, LeiLie, that is obvious. You are fascinated by it, like to play with it for hours on end, never tiring of its wonder. It's like someone broke you with his penis. I mean, I hasten to add, that is how you learned about submission, such awful power in the hands of an idiot. That is how you are, not seductive – that would be too vulgar for you – but enticing, drawing me in not pulling me in, like coming in to land on a fertile rich land. But what do you have for me, beside happiness? I could be perfectly happy with my wife, Giselle, and never want to see you again. You are a tart, as you have already said, and you scrub about because you are too knowing to learn anything new here. Your Heaven is just so much text, so many signs. Where we are, LeiLie, there is no salvation, your family trying to buy its way out, as it usually does. We men abide, that is how we are: men are just here, and nowhere else. And allow me to tell you more, who has been silent all the while with you, about this matter of love, that you find so important. For a man, love exists in the hand, not in the dick, as you believe, for dick belong to Pan. You can only touch my penis, trained for getting screwed, the frustration evident in your face, seeing dick in the hand much like a handle opening on nowhere. But inside you, believing that profound lesbian envy – no dick to pull here – you expect fireworks, a cosmic experience in itself, that is if we can warm my cock up enough to push it into you. And you can't see what is missing, can you? Room to move, as I have already said, the man is always on his way. He might fuck you good tonight and be gone forever in the morning. Make sure you get a souvenir, won't you? Something to remember him by. A man takes a step forward and instantly reality dissolves and only reforms when the man has completed that step. You could easily get lost in that abyss, LeiLie, and fall and fall in love with him. And the man will go on taking steps, with an abyss each time. And you could learn from such a man, though it would be very hard for you at first. He would destroy all your memories first of all, and would then drag you through the dark, your fitful illumination only shining into the dark and lighting nothing there. Would you follow him, LeiLie? You with him in the profound darkness and he never looking back at you? Could you bear that, which so many women must do, with only nagging to relieve the strain? No, you would not. I can see it your face. You want your comforts, the ambience of submission, getting comfortable together for the night. And what makes you think that I would play that role? You have nothing for me – though you have been very kind to me for the duration of my stay here, for which I thank you and stand improved thereby – ultimately, LeiLie, you have no news for me.'

See her shutting down area by area, like a department store at the end of the day, bedding and kitchenware, then the dresses, then the shoes and, then last but not least, the perfume counters. I'm very surprised at the ease of my victory over her, like a clever fish that got the bait and ducked the hook. Yet I watch her carefully, seeing her calculate and stare at nothing, getting ready again. Will she ever give up? I was tempted to pre-empt her, shutting down her head games before they even started. But no, she got in first:

'You forget the power of attraction, Loni. You can never know how you are trapped until you try to get away. Not me alone, you understand, but this world that the woman has brought you to as well. She knows how we are disposed, with thousands of years behind us and the world's greatest fortune surrounding us, utterly indifferent to the future because we are future-proof. See how you are spread out now among us, with a loyal wife, attentive slave and a watchful mother. You need never lift a finger again, all of us willing to take the strain. And why do we do this, Loni? To bring you to love? Your mother wants the best for you, making you the richest King in the world, absolutely top flight socially. Your wife wants to provide you with the children that will reassure you. And your whore? I will let you ride me as you will, when you will, how you will, wanting only to suck you dry. You see? None of us can give you enough in return for what you give us. Do you give us love? Of course you don't. What do you know about something like that, seeing your terminus in another, when you cannot even find a way out of yourself? To you, we are no more than stopgaps, while to us you are like an image of the Beginning. You think yourself lost in the dark, as you call it, while we don't care about either your loss or your darkness. For us, as our King, you are what we are always starting out from, and at the same time what we are always heading towards. There is no darkness in our world: we provide our own light, where you are a screen holding back what is not ours – this human world and whatever else you want to find in it, even what you think is love. The problem for you, Loni, is that you do not want strongly enough. Do you not want gold? For us, gold answers for everything; gold will buy us everything we want. Are you really content with your dark? Or is it that you are condemned to the dark?'

Then she stopped talking and sat up, reaching down for her gown as though she had realised that her nakedness was not enough, either. Do I answer? What is there to say that would add to what has been said?

THE PALACE

I am waiting, sitting in this chair out on the balcony, waiting for the woman to call for me. I cannot place myself anymore. If I am the greatest King, then I am also the lowest low. But I do not feel myself low, and so I conjecture that I am not King either. I have no power, other than the power I myself possess, no Kingly power taken from me, you see. You might think that the temptation would be so great – a mother, a wife, a slave, all for free – that you would make a grab for it. But look what you would lose: yourself, for they have bought you, and so they own you, spread out among a mad mother, a tempting wife, and a useless slave. You see, the woman must come to you, not you go to the women. How is that done? Only in time that's coming, so that you feel that the woman is coming to you. It will be done in the future, when the time is right. In this time now you must forbear the women, who may themselves be in vision too, with a man of their own who's coming to them. And then, of course, the woman comes out on to the balcony, looking very spry, the trouser effect not quite working for her. Who is she today? She points back through the house and says:

'I have the engine running outside. Are you ready?'

I cannot figure her today. It's like she is not there, and yet I can feel her all around me. There's a shrewdness in her that is so dark, the look of one who cannot judge, who cannot compare. The way women never know where to look, trying to see everything at once. That is how she is. She's driving the car too, which I have never seen her do before, her hair blowing out freely in our wake. Then I get it: she's twenty five today, and she is getting out at last, a nun on the run. Has she been other ages – other versions of herself – on other days? Is she working up a scale, or is she working down a scale? And what am I to understand from this, something like guessing who the other woman might be this time, after the manner of LeiLie and Juliette? Well, I've had the seduction and I have had the attention, so what is next? No doubt I will find out at the Palace. But I asked the woman anyway, giving her an out if she wanted it:

'Who were you at twenty five?'

She smiles hearing that, head going up slightly, her nose catching the sunlight. She didn't try to speak over the noise of the car, yet I could hear her clearly:

'No, James, not twenty five. I was only starting out then. Try thirty one, just over the hump and could see more clearly. By then I was reasonably successful, with a bijou house on the seafront at Brighton. I lived with my childhood friend, Gertrude, and we had good times together. Not lesbian, you know, closer again, we meeting each other always in the middle, too close for comfort, so far for pleasure. Then one evening, there what was a serious accident out on the road. There was this man lying there, his face broken, one eye staring at me. I took his poor broken face and rested him on my lap, kneeling before him. And still his eye regarded me, so that I bent down to go close to his consciousness and I talked to him, almost without pause, not knowing what I was telling him in my distress at seeing him so mangled. And then these men with a van stopped by and they offered to take him to the hospital. I wouldn't let them do it at first, then I realised that instead of phoning for help, I had been talking to him. They took him away and I never heard anything more about it until I got a phone call one Sunday telling me that Ossie was still alive, if only barely so. I couldn't get to him for ten days, and when I found him in that dingy place, he was dying in his own excreta. All I could do was hold his head again until the ambulance arrived. Then he died. But I will tell you this, Jim, I did something to that man and then I did something else to him. And all that man could ever do was look at me, just keep looking at me. That's how it was afterwards, especially before I met Mark. There is another strange twist here. I should never have met someone like Mark in my own circles. We are just professionals, all the same all the time. He should never have taken any notice of me, black mortuary clothes and blood on my lips. He asked me if I knew where the toilets were? I didn't and I told him so. I was in the dining room, reading from the menu, when he suddenly appeared before me, towering over the table in his beautiful clothes, and told me where the toilets were, in case I needed one. Then he stops, looks at me closely and asks, "Are you one of the Robsons?" I stammered that I was not, shrinking from his darkness. He apologised immediately for the fright he had given me. I was the one who suggested that he join me at the table. You know why? He loitered around me like my Father did before him, already guarding me against every danger. A snug Father, if you like, it matters not. In Mark's company, I was once again known, and could see that I had crossed a desert with poor broken Ossie for the span of his god's life, helping the birth and assisting the death. Was it a reward? Yes, and a very great reward too for the service I had provided: for the gods still do try to incarnate among us, but are slaughtered by our grip on the material pressing upon us, a mantle too great now for even a god to penetrate. If I saw the death of a god, then I saw the death of the last god we will ever have. How do I live with that knowledge? Simply by assuming that I am insane and yet I am sane, providing one world does not encroach on the other – and who could tell anyway? What's the difference between watching a god die so young and watching men trying to live forever? And it turned out, coincidence of course, that Mark was King of the Family, the richest and most powerless man in the world. And I was not to be his Queen only – a breed mare – but to be King in his stead for as long as I could bear it. What I liked most of all about him was how he would sit close by me in cold places, so that I would feel his warmth all about me, just as Father used to do. And sometimes, especially if we were boisterous, he would reach and lay his warm broad palm on my knee and squeeze me. It was reassuring, as it would be for any innocent. And no more than that – for I am thinking about Mark here, not my Father – for I knew all about sex by then, though still a virgin. I could see how to pleasure him, becoming a little girl that he could not hurt, his daughter. Remember that we are speaking of fantasy here – as you have pointed out before to me – role-playing if you like, the temptress running away from the tempted. Where is she going, you might ask?'

We are in a big sort of small castle somewhere near Corinth, which I know is in Greece, so I am still in Europe. It is very nice in that rather insipid way that niceness is nice, because niceness can't be anything else. I have never seen this place before, but everything is so familiar, as though I have lived here for ever. I see everything but don't look at anything. The woman is achingly something like nice herself here, very warm and welcoming, going over at once to ring for service. And the same question: who am I this time? Will there be a crash here too and I end up a god? Is the woman really that serious this time? Where did she get this idea from? No, it happened, I can see it as though written in her, something she learned from the broken man. The woman knows something but doesn't have the words to utter it. And, once again, this is where I come in. Not biog tripe this time, but the real story, full-blooded and very readable as a novel. It was only then that I realised that the novel was in fact being written, most of it already recorded by me and stored far away from here. I relaxed then, not surprisingly I suppose. I was back in business, and the woman was again my client, who I was working up for a fee, excellent material, genuine madness after all the duds.

'The ultimate weakness of Mark as King wasn't that he was actually powerless – he could have burned all the contracts in an hour, for instance – only that wanted to be powerless. Call it a peculiar faith in fate, as it were, the purest fatalism. It came to me when he asked me, one afternoon during a matinee at the opera, to tell him who he was. I was taken aback until he reminded me of our game, when he had burdened me with the truth about myself. I had to tell him now the truth about himself. I hadn't given any thought to this before, so could only tell him what came to me at once when I did think about it: that he wanted to lay the burden down before he died. Hearing that set him to persuading me to become King in his place, a power he assured me he did have. I would become everything and he would become nothing. And that's what happened, roughly speaking. He still drives trains in Peru, I believe, loving the invigorating air on the coastal runs. But before that, I must tell you, I discovered I was not the only one to witness to this god. A remarkable coincidence: Ossie's confidant was none other than Hilary Crowley, whose poetry had such an effect on him while we were together after meeting at the poetry reading: it took me a long time to see the connection between Ossie reading Crowley and being mesmerised by that cycle of his, Fine Time, which he read and reread during our evening together. Not only that, but Hilary had recorded almost everything that the Ossie said to him on his visits to him in that mean flat he had. Publication was a sort of damp squib that lingered on, the odour of its ash spreading everywhere. Panned by all the critics, those who bothered to read it were more tempered in their response, a kind of universal hesitation before a questioning sanity and an illuminating insanity, insanity being a more powerful word than madness in this context. It did poor Hilary no good, overwhelmed by the attention he got, a voice recordist only in this matter while the poetry that helped make all this possible was ignored. He shrivelled before our eyes while Gertrude and I cared for him, a beautiful man who held my hand till the very end, not even relinquishing it as death took him away from me. But there is one poem of sorts that does express that message in clear and striking terms. And the man in that poem comes back from Paradise with a postcard and a rose, while the woman grabs everything she can, even the child grabbed at gold. And no one reads it, not even today. I know it looks as though Hilary was dismissing Ossie's message, but he wanted to show at the end that the man did not find what he sought in that god's heaven. You see, Ossie's message was a word of farewell, not the offer of an easy way out. The god had come to say goodbye, mankind having exceeded him at last, out on its own now for good or for ill. And this place, and all the other places that are yours now, they are as nothing. I see myself, Jim, and know that when I die there will be nothing left, and I will be thankful for that. For if there is no god now, who then will maintain me in my death? I will vanish completely, such that it won't matter whether I am in eternal Heaven or just dust blowing in a field, no difference at all – there is no time in eternity and so no time in Heaven.'

Lunch did stop her for a while. She has rehearsed all this, I'm sure of that. See how she can flash the darkness about, calling it the grave of a god, no less. But she does search, more persistent than I might have expected – if I had known what was afoot – than those sent to try me. And speaking of which: the maid here is a slut, a slut who is so used to being fucked stupid that she no longer tries to stay awake. And I know at the same time that this is not true, that she lives with her honest parents above an honest workshop nearby. But when I look at this girl I see the slut, but when I think of her she simply glows before my eyes, a perfectly innocent and unassuming girl from the local village, come in to help as her family has always done. What if I were tempted to touch her, no matter how innocent I would make it appear, what would that be like? Embracing death? No, I would never leave this Palace, a scrubber for my bed and a sister for my life.

The woman seems not mind all this, I assume because it was calculated. Her name is Jocasta – figure that for yourself, you know as much as I do about this place by now. Write your own script even, why not? And see where you end up, not far from where I am now, I bet. But Jocasta has one surprise for me: she has been assigned to be my companion. She explains what a companion is, how it's more like glue than a light in the night. You have to attend to your friends, but your companions look after themselves. In other words, I can ignore her if I want to, no harm done, just part of her job here. Even so, I gave some thought to her, remembering how the other Jocasta's son blinded himself after seeing her naked. Is this Diana again, but with the man doing her work for her this time? Yet consider that Diana killed the transgressor, while Jocasta could only get him to blind himself, impairment but not death, a finality. The action of a mother, not a virgin, wanting yet to be remembered by her son now that she was herself impaired, no longer a virgin, a son who is still whole. Yet what about this Jocasta, a virgin perhaps if appearances are to be believed though maybe gagging for it, as they say? She is standing at my left shoulder as I speak, waiting on me with a mindless patience, lost in some daydream. The woman had stood up from the table just then and is looking for something on a sideboard at her back, at the wall there. She says, as she searches the top of the sideboard – on which there seems to be an awful lot of bits and pieces:

'With Hilary's death there was only my word to maintain the myth that had sprung up around Ossie, some kind of god with a message of salvation for all mankind, and the best kind of salvation, too, the kind that does all the work for you. It wasn't enough, of course, you make it easy for them to the point where they lose interest, their fear abated by your concessions. Religion is always like that: fearsome threat to begin with, then gradual easement until a new threat is found. No more gods: it seemed a big threat this time, that could run and run, fuelled for once by a real fear, real panic, and not just a dark thrill. I saw that it was time to move on. Mark seemed a good alternative: in fact a return to earlier form with my Father. But you really cannot replace the Father, the blood link is a chasm very deep if not apparently very wide. It would not have been incest, and perhaps I could have become his slave as the skinny Chinese woman wants to be yours. No. I may be deluded, but I saw a god live and die, if only for the last time. No, when I told Mark what it is he most wanted – to lay down the burden of kingship – that is when he decided to appoint me King in his stead, telling me that only I understood what Kingship is, an unremitting burden, watching out for everyone, big and small, near and far. You would not make LeiLie a King, would you? She only wants a King to fuck her, to be a King's tart. But why did I want to be King, I thought about that in the days and weeks after Mark made me King and departed quietly in the middle of the night? Is there a reason? Of course there is: there is no one to stop me, the woman who helped a god enter and leave our world. Did I want to fill a gap left by the departing god? How could I serve my subjects? I have already told you: by accepting their rejection of me – as the King's whore, as they believed – so that everything was put in suspension, like time stopped for the duration. You may laugh, Jim, but look at the world economy – the Family has increased its hoard of gold in the meantime by over three percent, no mean feat when you consider their total holding. The only reason you are King now, James, is because I want you to be King. You see how it works, the Family will give you what they think you want – security – when most of those made King want to use that position to get what they really want. Now some can get out pretty quickly – as I have done – but many are locked in for many years, decades and more, and a few just die here and are buried in the Family plot, somewhere in deepest Asia. Mark had to wait for one hundred and twenty years before I came. And how did he know me? Mark told me once, I think we were in Mogadishu – the Basildon Yield contract – when he remarked that I was not quite as outstanding as I liked to believe, that it was an angel who chose me for him. Looks like more of his Fatherly role, I agree, but Mark was giving me important news. I never told Mark about Ossie as the last god. The Family would simply not believe it: they are dependent upon a return of their first god, who created them and made them what they are. But I felt strongly marked by my experiences with Ossie. I did feel different in myself afterwards. Hard to pin it down, but I think I have shown you many of the signs given to me by that departing god, and I hope to show you more yet. I have said that Mark replaced my Father for me, but you must remember that my Father appeared to me only after I had seen my cosmic half and had been with him awhile. In the same way, Mark appeared after my time with Ossie, and I knew him and who he was instantly. And now you ask yourself, how do I know who you are? You think you are a happily married man with a good line in writing, churning out facsimiles of your romance with your wife. And your wife, Barbara, supports you in every way, so that most often you are lost in another world, your latest biog – as you so dismissively call them – who is so like the night-ride and day-skivvy that you are so fearful of here. You will not be deprived here, Jim, your every want will be addressed by the most beautiful and enticing young women that the Family can send you. But now consider your life with Barbara in this way: pretend that you live in a little flat in an old part of town, that you shovelled shit all day and spread it all over your wife at night. That's crudely put on purpose. Do you even know the fantasy that you live with Barbara? There is only one question you need ask of a fantasy: Whither goes thou? Fantasy is a conveyor belt, a movie in your head, numbers one by one: it's what we call the world. And you might ask – as is often asked – why are there so many fantasies when there is only one world? To which the obvious answer is: Then there must be many worlds. But the situation is saved because fantasy is not free – as the situation of many of the insane will show – fantasy follows very strict instructions. If you study fantasy deeply enough, you will come to understand that all fantasies can be reduced to a handful of what could be best called themes, and you would also quickly see that all these themes reduce to one great myth. And consider your family fantasy again, Jim, and see where it is going? You and Barbara are King and Queen in a never-never-land, and there is nobody else there: you rule a realm but do not rule people. How powerless is that, do you think? But because it is never-never-land, you will never want for anything, either. You will have everything you think you need. You see, Jim, how you fantasised this realm before you ever experienced it. You see how deeply you and Barbara wanted security together? And you might ask now: But where is Barbara in your new realm? Barbara is everywhere here. Not me, obviously, but every other woman here is Barbara – that is, if you wish it. That is one freedom you have here, King James, you can do anything you want with any woman in the Family. Do you know why they let you do that? Obvious, you are King and everyone wants some of your sperm. Try it and see how quickly they suck you dry, good business women each one of them. So where is Barbara, Jim: you tell me?'

The woman had moved across the room as she spoke. I didn't catch much of it then, so that is was only later when I had a chance to listen over today's take and realise just how in her body she is. The woman believes that everything – absolutely everything – is about sex, so that her abiding fantasy is of her dream man, the cosmic half, coming to meet her and entering her deeply. I could see then where she is taking all this. I wanted to avoid in my reply this empty tone she has assumed, but not with much success:

'You should really decide for once and for all what it is you actually want. You both want a man to fuck you while your dream man follows suit in your own personal fantasy. But the dreadful truth you already know: all you'll get is some dick that won't go deep enough. Then you will be just like every other woman in town. Don't you think men already know that? Don't you think we already know that the only way into a woman is by means of fantasy. There has to be a story, and the story must have an ending. But do you know this, Vivian – perhaps your god told you – that a man can step out of the fantasy, something a woman cannot do? You call it the Dark, and you have seen it in yourself. But where a man welcomes the dark, the woman runs from it, fearing possession. So, understand this: you will not seduce me with a fantasy.'

I was faintly annoyed that I could not see her legs, wrapped as they are in that ludicrous outfit she has on today, when I didn't want to look at any other part of her. She looks so yesterday now, like she has let herself down badly: I can take flattery and charm, but cannot tolerate posturing. The woman is dressing way out of her range, like someone with the blood and the money that will allow any eccentricities. She looks like a little girl wading about in her Father's wellington boots. It's either stupidity or desperation, and you can make a choice there yourself for all that I understand of her today. What is she looking for in those boots? Imagine yourself struggling in those huge boots: what are you doing, just trying them out or are you looking for something and using the boots for protection? The woman is out on a limb today, that's for sure. Then she comes back across the room, a bunch of keys in her raised hand, and tells me that we are going to the Crowning Room, where every king is sanctified by the outgoing monarch. She explains on the way:

'This ritual can be witnessed only by the departing King, when the secret oath is taken. I mean, we could play cards all day down here and nobody would be the wiser. And again, Jim, you could give the new King the most nonsensical oath to tuck away for the future. You see? The incoming King is totally in the power of the outgoing King for the duration of the ritual.'

Dingy, very dingy. Apparently it was used for hundreds of years as a torture chamber, back in the days when Greeks, Romans and Turks, and goodness knows who else, held this place, the centre of a whole system of fortifications and defences. There is a deep carpet on the floor, thankfully, because it is really dank down here. There is a short bench along one of the walls, deep pitting above it, no doubt for the chains. It also has a heavy door, and apparently the outgoing King has possession of the key now and will only pass it over at a given point of the ritual, when the outgoing King becomes subjected to the new King. Apparently, also, these two Kings can be quite pally for a while afterwards, until the new King thinks it is time for the other to be gone. I suspect it is not that straightforward. For instance, I think the woman hopes to capture me in some way in this place. But why torture, even if only by analogy? Yes, I think I have it? I think I have completely misunderstood the woman, thinking that she wanted to insert her cosmic half into me in some way, while all the time she is try hard to take something from me. What can it be? She tries so hard to capture me and cannot see that there is only one price for that gift, a price she either will not or cannot pay. What does she think is the price? I am tempted to short-circuit the proceedings here by asking her this question, but she speaks first, indicating the bench over by the wall:

'No one can hear us here and no one but Jocasta knows we are here. There are three parts to this ritual, the first of which will hurt you most and me least. I might add that the third stage might kill me. The first stage, now, requires that you strip naked and lie out on your back on the carpet. Do it.'

This wasn't going to happen, I am already King, one with a family to protect. This I do quite suddenly and with maximum speed: I turn so that I have my back to her and step forward to the facing wall, which also has pits for chains. Silence. I couldn't see what she was doing, but I still decide that my position is the best one for now. Then of course – why didn't I think of this, especially when she warned me? – did Jocasta come and stand at my side, her right arm grazing my left arm. You have no idea of the kind of erection I got from that: Jocasta is dynamite, she could easily fuck me to death. That's when the woman says:

'Now you know why the little maid is here, yes? And see how vulnerable you are, your hot penis aching for her hand. And you accuse me of turning all this into sex? Jim, you have no idea what I'm doing to you. When I am finished you will be unchanged: only you will be inhabited by the one you derisively call my dream man. You will see everything and feel nothing, just a presence left in your mind, but my beloved will own your desires and he will love me forever with them. You might wonder how this is done. Well, we've just completed the first part, so let us move onto the second part now. Here is what happens. Jocasta is going to leave the chamber now. See? Next I will come and stand at your back. I will not touch you in anyway, and will avoid any involuntary movements on your part, but I will stand perfectly still until you relent. And how will you relent, Jim? You will beg me to touch you, to touch you anywhere at all.'

So that is what she does. Her perfume is soured for some reason, as though she is sweating very heavily. Very unpleasant sensation, almost sowish in fact. Now I know there has to be a progression of some kind here. But why the sourness? Repulsion, the woman is struggling to overcome a revulsion. I wonder then if she is a lesbian in denial. I can check that. I call out in a particular tone, casual as you would call to a companion:

'Jocasta!'

She comes quickly enough, her come-to-bed eyes taking it all in immediately. She goes to stand close by me again, but I signal that she is to touch her mistress, but gently, on her shoulder. The woman sags the instant Jocasta touches her, drawing back as though in defeat. But Jocasta steps into the woman's erstwhile position at my back. The woman says from the other side of the room:

'If I were a lesbian, do you think a waif like this chit here would satisfy me? She might give you hard and long – even kill you, as you fear – but for me she is not enough. You heard LeiLie's version of that world, so let me tell you the other version. If one woman will serve her Cosmic half faithfully, be sure that there is another woman who would be happy to do the cosmic half's work for him. You see the path of enchantment for LeiLie, totally at your mercy and yet utterly indifferent because she did her cosmic half's work on a nice young girl, a new one every month. She wanted to use your desires, that's all, Jim, nothing else. You'd be dead in a year, be sure of that. But I will serve you faithfully, Jim, as I have already avowed. I will give you all the power of my cosmic half, after which you will no longer need to be King here. You will stand at the centre of the universe, all the stars gathered about you like admiring women, for all women will see you for what you are, proof of the existence of their cosmic halves, whose coming they await patiently.'

Allow everything she has just said to be true – after all, it is for the woman – what would it be like to be her cosmic half? I will have complete control of her, even more than I have now already. The thing is, unfortunately, that she simply does not interest me. I could go to her village nearby, and be with Jocasta for the length of her days and, I think, be content enough once I found some useful work, the language notwithstanding. So I have to ask her again, the old question, perhaps the oldest question – asked of God even:

'Why me?'

Is there an answer? I can't think of any other than: Because it is you. But the woman wants to try to answer this question herself:

'The curious thing about fantasy is this: it has a kind of backing, as it were. Let me explain. It's like some kind of life has to be breathed into fantasy, like air or helium to inflate a balloon, so everyone would know what it was, I mean a balloon rather than just a funny condom. What would a fantasy be like without this kind of life added to it? It would be like a child's picture book, full of beings, real and imaginary, but with nowhere to go. But that is how the child likes it, Jim: the child is only growing, it is not going anywhere yet. You already know in what way this inert world of the child is animated, so we can also assume that the child would know where this animation is taking her, once she is old enough to know about it. You would tell me that it was my Father who animated me, an expectation quite unrealisable, and hence my abiding sense of frustration and restraint. But you have to understand this, Jim, the Father to the daughter is like an already-used appliance, left by her mother to block her daughter's way. No, the girl wants her own man, not someone else's, a man she finds within herself – there being nowhere else to look at that age. But she does find that man within her, perhaps because that is how it is all designed. Whatever this being is to her, it animates her still-life to create a fantasy for her, which will remain with her to the end. So you see, Jim, how the fantasy is enlivened, but how does that explain your role here? Most women can impress their cosmic halves into their men, I suspect by exploiting a man's expectations rather than his desires. How can I hope to do it with you, when you do not desire me?'

The woman has paused, and I can tell from the expression on her face now what she is thinking. She is wondering what desire has to do with it. Then I see as she turns away from me that she is trying to work out where the desire – such as the desire she experiences – is coming from. Is it coming from me or does it come out of herself? And finally she gets to asking herself where the desire in her comes from. This is not magic, as she believes it is – if only because she believes that only by magic can you pass a desire from one being to another, making them want what you wanted them to want. I say to her, when she stops moving about the small chamber, Jocasta impassive over by the door – this little drama no doubt already familiar to her in her young years – and stands staring at the facing wall, it too deeply pitted:

'A desire is only a memory. This is the memory I draw upon in my work with these mad people I write up. The most obvious thing about desire is that you always know what it is about. Desire is about repetition, a curious way of keeping some primal experience alive until someone can perceive and even understand it. And it is easy to learn what that primal experience was by trying to satisfy it, that is, by trying to correct it. Correcting it in the sense here of making good, a reunion, if you like, of long lost husband and wife, brother and sister, Adam and Eve, and let's not forget, Adam and Lilith. And why go back all the way to Lilith, you wonder, and I tell you it is because Lilith is a virgin and Eve is not. It is only as a virgin the she is wise, that she can see the real Adam in all his glory. What a story for the girls. You see the play of memory now, how it issues in us, and we its dupes, expecting what is long gone. That is where you are now, Vivian, looking for the real Adam among us men, doing Lilith's work for her. Think beyond desire now. Consider this: if you have a cosmic half who complements you as a woman, then you must allow that I also have a cosmic half, and female now. Is she my real Eve or is she my real Lilith? You see, you must decide which of these real women she is, so that can you can face her directly. I confess that I know nothing about this being, allowing that she exists, and feel not the slightest interest in her either. Do you want to know why? I will tell you: Eve and Lilith are just fantasies, raised up by people blinded by the light. Do you think that the real can enter the human mind? It cannot: it remains always in the dark. That is what every man knows. And if I do have a cosmic half, then she will be there because she is real. And I will know her reality, but I will not be with her until we are re-united at the end of time. Let me put it this way: Eve was once a virgin and she saw the real Adam too, and knew they were integral, she born of his flesh. Eve became a mother because she wanted to go and meet the real Adam again, at the end of time.'

I was in full flow of thought by then, when the woman suddenly threw her arms up and walked out of the chamber. I told Jocasta to run after her and see she was all right, but Jocasta indicated that she was to remain by my side. I was thrown out by her gesture. Had she given up? I don't want her to, I want her to go on to the very end. It was only when Jocasta indicated, that I came away from the wall and followed her out of the chamber of torture. The corridor seemed very long for some reason, but I thought back on the meeting and could see that we were not finished: there was still the third stage, where I will rule. And I will rule where there is nothing to rule, where there is nothing on offer so nothing to buy. And the woman will find that she is fact rules only herself and no one else. Then I will let her go back to the world, see that she is fixed up fairly well. And I will be King with only fair Giselle as a wife and the LeiLie to fuck and, probably, little Jocasta as my companion, always there when I want her to be there. Only now have I discovered that Jocasta is dumb. There is a little incision in her neck, which she showed me, and it is done to all the girls that come here as maids. I will tell you this, also, about her: I am the first man she has ever seen who resisted the woman. I thought that the woman had done nothing here while King, but it seems that she had a very good time of it here. How will I put it without too much ambiguity? Jocasta indicates that the woman would suck any man's dick, and do it for nothing, not needing the man's money. She makes men small, it seems, but I stood up against her, so that she had to stay on her feet with me. A good way to put it, except that you must remember that I was indifferent to the woman, especially an old woman using a girl's attraction in that cheap way.

The suite of rooms here, away from the dungeons – which are adjacent to the torture chamber, as might be expected – are extremely comfortable, not too big not too small, not too many and not too few. Jocasta prepared a meal for us, simple fare, which we accompanied with a fruit juice – a very unusual fruit, too, delicate to a fault and lightly coloured. She couldn't speak so I spoke for both of us, I very comfortable in Jocasta's company by now:

'The way you fit in here, how you move so quietly and with such a sure foot. You grew up in a small house with small rooms, where you had to pick your way carefully among many. Strange that I can't imagine you ever speaking, seeing you only flitting about in the shadows, as though extremely shy. And though you cannot speak now, I am sure you would have much to say if you could speak in some way?'

This was true, as it turned out. I had forgotten that this recording device has a keyboard. It is also connected to the internet, so we can have instant translation from Greek to whatever language you are reading this in. This is Jocasta:

'Say hello, Jocasta.'

'Hello. I am Jocasta Pallides. I am from a village near the fortress, where my family has lived for two thousand years. I was struck dumb as a child, but they slit me anyway just in case. I am very glad of this opportunity to speak my mind, because I have seen a lot in the world that I want to tell you about. I have seen dogs die baying at the Moon, and I have seen fish drown for the Sun. I have seen how the world is held together by the plants, all working together as one. And I have seen men go from glad to sad and sad to glad many times, like a tide rolling in and then out again. But what I have seen that is the worst is when a child is born, when I see all its future pain and joy rushing out of the mother afterwards in its wake. Many think that death is the time of sorrow and birth the time of joy, yet you see how happy a death can make many if there's a good will, while a new child is always an extra cost. This the Family has taught me: if plants hold our world together, then mankind makes the plants grow. Not so strange when you think of how we make war, how we can interrupt everything, like starting all over again. But I didn't think much otherwise, King James, at least not until I was shown you as my companion did I think as I think now. I dreamed before I met you and now in your company I am awake at last and can see everything so clearly. And I know what you see, too, when you look at me. Your lust is very great, but has only gratitude in it, not love. You will pass beyond me, but you may pass through me if you wish. I am your companion now, so there is no distance between us. You may do as you wish with me, but you must allow that I can do anything I wish with you. And you see how you are already so free with me, seeing scrubber and thinking angel – as you always do. And how do I see you? I see someone lost: you are like a sea I could swim in, I could dive deep into you, should you permit that. You see, being dumb I talk through my body. If I am a slut, that is because you are a fucker, and if I am an angel, then that is because you are a wanker. I could make you come for ever with just one hand – so think what I could do to you with my whole body entire. You would find a mountain you cannot climb, an ocean you cannot plumb, a desert you cannot cross, a being that looks out on eternity. Just once, Jim – if I may call you that now – just once will be enough for the two of us. And what will I see of you? I will tell you: I will see a deep dark pool, and there will be a path all shining clear from where my feet are to its very edge. But would you let me enter that pool? Look at me: would you let what you see here of me now enter that pool? Am I not made for swimming in the dark, my own light sufficient? I will find your lost being for you and bring her back her to you, your companion for ever then. I will do that for you in service, hoping someday that I will also be served.'

We were by then in the little annexe, facing each other over a glass table. Jocasta had wanted us to undress after her speech – hence the glass table, no doubt – but I was still on the job, still getting copy and material for my work. If there was more to learn here about the woman, then good, but Jocasta's fantasy will have to be another book and at another time. The food, as expected, was excellent and I had a good appetite for it. Some music played low, as though in another room, sweet then sad then sweet again. Whatever else, I could watch Jocasta's body move, my view blocked only by some – strategically placed? – plates and bowls on the table top. Her breasts didn't swing at all, but her legs seemed to twitch constantly as though a current ran up through them. Is she aroused, I wondered. I hope not, I am not comfortable with twitchy women, liking them slow and deep. Twitchy women always want to eat you, where the others are replete. I didn't make it easy for her, either, staring at her when she might have nothing to see. Then I noticed that she was eating with one hand only, and that a large bowl on the table conveniently blocked my view of her groin, where no doubt her other hand was busy. Why not? I'd say she spends a lot of time alone, here and down in her village. I slipped away from the table and went into the other annexe, where there were two long couches at right angles before a blocky coffee table. I dismantled the recording equipment and took the jacket off, glad to be rid of their weight. I lay out on my back on one of the couches and closed my eyes. I hadn't seen any bedrooms or beds, so I concluded that this was some kind of recuperation zone, where Kings could come afterwards and have a doze, but I had determined – giving the trying conditions here – that I would rest when able, like now.

I hadn't planned on thinking of anything, but suddenly I saw quite clearly and for an instant only just how the woman's scheme could play out. The woman wants to turn me into her Hero. Seems farfetched, to think you could make anything else of a man other than what he is. See how her Hero is expected to act: he is to make the woman whole in whatever way she understands that state. She thinks she knows this state, when in fact she is chasing a fantasy to its end. And I would all the time be me, just looking at another mad woman going through her agonising revelation. Even so, the woman's mad is different to what I have witnessed before. The madness of most people, in my experience, is more like something from a child's comic book – not in content, I hasten to add, these people know horror aplenty – than say, as in the woman's case, a full screen, high definition, surround sound blockbuster movie, eager to be watched by many many people. It's as though the Family is paying for the woman's fantasy, a really big-time production pulling in the gold. And yet I am unmoved by all of this. I'd say that, to the extent that my experience of my cosmic half is absolutely different from the woman's experience of her cosmic half, the Hero, that I am already linked to my companion, separate but linked by another power, not greater but beneficial for all that. The woman seeks her cosmic half in the earthly realm, indicating that the woman will never manage to join with her cosmic half. That must await another time.

I was interrupted then by the entry of Jocasta into the annexe. She seems so different now, not the servant girl but a self-possessed young woman who trusts me. She did carry a tray, but that was because Jocasta saw me as a guest of hers, a man from another country not familiar with local ways. She wore a woollen knitted dress, quite heavy on her light figure but expressing deep comfort, coloured a blend of yellow and blue, sun and moon, her hair brushed down over her shoulders. I had not realised she had so much hair, usually tied in a bun behind her cap, and it shone a full chestnut in the soft light of the room. Is she beautiful? Strange how the whole connotation of the word is different when applied to a woman. A woman's sense of beauty is like sitting on a magic carpet looking out a window, near to everything yet safe. And the man? The man's universe has the proportions of a beautiful woman as she wakens in the morning. Do you think men would work in this dead world otherwise? So, is Jocasta beautiful? She is dumb, so she speaks through her body, enwrapped this evening in soft wool that flashes the sun and the moon. Do you see how she can turn words into dance? And Jocasta tells me that words are not needed here, because she can read bodies the way she can read her own. And I realise that she is reading me – just as I read her – and I have no idea at all what I am telling her. To disprove this theory, Jocasta hands me a cup of hot coffee from the tray and indicated the dark chocolate on the little plate. She takes her cup and sits on the other settee – which surprises me as I had expected her to sit by me as she usually does – a piece of chocolate in her other hand. It is a kind of dance, once you get the beat, that is, and now I can feel the softest quiver in my flesh, seeing my body as a kind of echo of hers. I am in my mid-thirties, not especially attractive or the like, a fucked-up sort of body by now, running on neutral. And yet I can dance with this girl in her woolly dress, like a finger in a glove, matching her beat for beat, drinking hot coffee over a bed of melted chocolate, looking across at her as she looks across at me. I did want to speak – to ask Jocasta a question – but feared offending by speaking when she cannot.

It was then that I felt as though drifting off, not like losing interest but more like feeling so secure with her that I could afford to daydream, enter reverie. I didn't go anywhere, but it was as though the whole world paraded before me, waving for some reason. I knew this wasn't a fantasy – I had no idea where it was going – and I knew that the image was wrong but the thought was not: I was connected in some occult way to everything. I could not see everything, or even remember everything, but I was even so connected both ways, with me going out to the universe and the universe coming into me. And what I realised then was the unitary nature of that place, so that I was certain that Jocasta, sitting quietly across from me – we looking into each other's eyes – was also in the reverie, that we were sharing a universe, a world, a place someplace, together there. Before I could stop myself I looked at Jocasta herself. For an instant she radiates such a peace and settlement. Then she opened and focused her eyes slowly on me and smiled. Then I realised that Jocasta had done to me what she said she would do if I allowed her in. And I also realised also that it would, or could, be done only once. I could only shake my head, genuinely dumbfounded by her skill, in one so young especially. Then I needed to speak so badly that I just blurted out:

'Why is place necessary, Jocasta? True union doesn't need a place, only a context, usually filled by one fantasy or another.'

Jocasta made a gesture then that was so apt that I just shut up again. She put her left hand over her face, fingers spread wide, and placed her right hand on my face, fingers also splayed, and I saw a brilliant light that flashed up and disappeared in the dark. You see, a bridge was needed, and I understood when she lowered her hands and shaped her lips into a vesica to indicate that a woman does not possess such a bridge as the man does. Was it that clearly stated? I suppose not, but the sense definitely was that a man has a fundamental capacity not available to the woman. The question I asked myself then was – remembering how impressionable Jocasta is – are these my own thoughts being mirrored back to me? To test Jocasta, I asked her, finally breaking our shared gaze and lying back on the settee again:

'How could you know that? Only a man would be aware of that difference.'

She came and stood by my head, bending over me. Her hair hung long and smooth, reaching almost to my face, and I see the forefinger of her left hand reaching towards me and coming to press into my forehead just above my eyes. I understood immediately: she had been told this news a long time ago, back at the beginning: you can try when a man but only cry when a woman. Then she left my sight and I heard her undress and lie out on the other couch. I knew I could go and lie beside, clothed or naked, or I could call her over. She would have come. But instead I remembered my resolve to rest when I can and let my mind go blank.

The is how the woman found us, asleep, one naked, one clothed. She looked at each of us in turn and then went and sat at the table in the other annexe in full view of us. What she said to me later, when we were finally alone together, was:

'Are you primed now, Jim, ready to go?'

This is not as suggestive as you might think, as you will see. Then she had no words, just a rough shake of Jocasta's bare shoulder and a glance down her body, before she came and bent low and said to me:

'And now the final stage, King James.'

I knew exactly what she meant and knew also that I was King now. I think she expected me to demean her, especially in the eyes of Jocasta, a common servant here, and I knew that was what she believed I really wanted to do to her. Put her down and rule over her: she had said it at the beginning and now she thinks this is the moment when I walk into her trap. Now she waits at the table in the other annexe, watching me follow Jocasta's path to my side, thinking I will do something utterly novel. But what? The only thing I can think to do at that moment was to help Jocasta fix her fluffy dress, a complicated structure as it turned out. To the woman I said, not coldly but preoccupied fitting Jocasta's dress to her body:

'You are in service to me now, Vivian. You are to wait here for me until I return.'

I signalled that she should make herself comfortable in the suite, a grace seldom offered to the departing King. Jocasta knew the way up to the Palace, of course, where I could ring for a car to take us to her village.

I was curious, mainly that. The house was as small as I expected, tiny rooms for so many people, but I could see almost at once – thanks to my experience with Jocasta – that they all tripped to the same beat, even her youngest sister, only five years of age, moving in time. And I expect the whole village moves to a beat, its own beat, together on market day and at church and disasters. The family is not obsequious, though they have served the kingly office for many generations. Perhaps Kings have hung around here before, checking out the daughters. I can see that the parents have absolute trust in their daughter, acknowledging her as my companion in a simple way: by getting her to hold my hand. This gesture took me by surprise: it seemed at first very impertinent – enacting a kind of Royal Wedding – then I could see that it was done primarily for Jocasta, a sanction she required from her own family and regardless of who I was in their world. We sat at a table then – just Jocasta, her parents and me – but other people began to arrive, squeezing into seats around the table, until there was quite a crowd of us, and I was as dumb as Jocasta there, not understanding a word they said. Not as bad as it seems, Jocasta still held my hand and I held hers, a steady abiding clasp of trust, both of us fatalistic now. The wine was very light and the cherry cake was so suited to its dry tone, very angular in a way but holding fast on the palette even so. Only slowly could I see as though Jocasta was written in the faces of many here, of all ages and sexes. And I could identify another face then in many of the remaining brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, and found it best expressed in the face of Jocasta's mother, who once must have been a rare beauty indeed. Are these two faces I see here an expression of distinct bloodlines bonded for generations and centuries, as though they had a fundamental reason for being joined in this way?

The evening would most likely have run on into the night with Jocasta and me led into the master bedroom for this night of nights, the fitting end to a wedding feast. I wonder now – before continuing – just what kind of relationship did Jocasta and I have in the great scheme of things for the Family? I have a wife and I have a slut, where does Jocasta fit in here? I thought initially we would be one of those relationships that can exist between the older man and the younger woman, where sex is out of bounds because it would not work, differing outlooks on life, one with a future coming and the other already in the future, for good or for ill. And yet any view of her body inflamed me intensely, my body moving in unison at once. It's like we have just had a good long fuck, like that, we both stunned in a way that tells you we are virgins with one another. The woman, of course, hammering on the front door. Courtesy alone would have allowed her entry, her ex-regal rank also, but she just pushed in, like a crack in a disc in the room with us, the dance off the beat for a moment. She shouts at me:

'If you can say no, then I can say no too.'

Jocasta's father stands up and takes her by the arm in such a way that I know he has been sucked by the woman – how he keeps his dick as close to her as he can – and leads her to a spare seat at the table, at the far end. The momentary silence tells me that many of the men here know what the woman's mouth is like. Did she do all of them? Why not, she was around for a long time with nothing else to do? They feed her drinks and compliments, men gathering around her, getting closer until Jocasta's mother signals her husband, her eye resting momentarily on Jocasta, who has herself lowered her face, whether in shame or revulsion I could not tell just then. The other wives remained impassive, no doubt knowing the woman's reputation among the men and perhaps relieved that another woman was willing to take some of the strain. The woman herself looked like a common tart, a tight red dress making her breasts seem fat and her legs skinny, looking just what she was, the older women in camouflage hunting the young man. She shouts across to me, with just a passing glance at Jocasta:

'I knew you would come down here, Jim. It's how the Family handles it. Always a daughter up at the Palace in case a King happens by. Do they breed, you're probably wondering. I doubt it. The upper reaches of the Family are far more mongrel than the lower orders down here. I think they come to have their dicks sucked, like the rest of them here. Has the little slut offered you that service yet? No. Ah, Jocasta, falling down on the job, is that it? Falling for his charm, how he keeps his distance. Well, I can tell you, my dear, that his dick would be well worth the effort, though I have only managed to handle it. His dick is warm and quick and never comes for you. Why don't you reach now and touch him.'

Only Jocasta and I knew what she was saying, gibberish for the rest at the table, who were well gone in their cups by now, the wives slipping away when let. What Jocasta did was to let my hand go and step back away from the table behind me out of sight. I knew from everyone's expression – including the woman's – that Jocasta had slipped her dress off – and could even register from the movement of eyes that Jocasta had pushed it down her body, shimmying her hips to do so. Then she came and placed her hand on my left shoulder, standing so close to me that I could feel the heat of her bare body, though I still couldn't see her. It was left then for the woman to respond, and respond as only she could in the circumstances. She stands up and gets the man seated at her side to draw down the zip of her cheap dress, so that it too slides from her body, though it jams slightly on her prominent hips. This is how I come to see the woman naked for the first time. A better figure than might have been expected, her full breasts actually quite magnificent, should you like that sort of thing. But her legs seemed merely gangling, quite inexplicable in relation to her compact torso, like a mule with racehorse limbs. I could see why she doesn't like herself naked. She can sell herself in parts only, as it were, but not the whole lot at once. Even so, the men seemed to appreciate her – most of the wives gone home by now – probably used to taking women in by the part at this stage of their lives, with the legs the last to go. Me? Not exactly bored, more a feeling that we were off-track now: I less able to cope with the unexpected, perhaps. I did not know what to do. My instinct tells me to just take the woman away from here and leave these good people in peace. Back to the Palace of course, probably another night of it in store with her, but copy to be had all the same.

What actually happens is that the woman's face had an expression I have never seen on any woman before, though I daresay it's not that uncommon: the woman fears a rival in Jocasta. That simple. The expression on the woman's face was sincere, an honest admission of Jocasta's greater claim on me. I was stunned by this change in her, seeing a vulnerability in her I hadn't thought was possible, and I wondered just what had she seen – and was still seeing – when she looked at Jocasta naked? By reflex, I went to look back as Jocasta, but she pressed her hands into my flesh as an unmistakable warning not to look back. I wasn't really surprised by her response, Jocasta was right, of course: to see her naked – which I longed to do, if only out of curiosity – would neutralise my ability to resist the woman. I said without at that point looking back at her:

'Thank you, Jocasta, but I must look at you.'

Jocasta looks pretty much as you would expect any sixteen year old to look, very sweet and graceful. It was only then that I realised what was happening here. The woman knows that I prefer Jocasta, so that what she sees in naked Jocasta are the woman and her body that I prefer to her and hers: not simply age, it's just that the woman can see that Jocasta and I are better suited to each other. Again, that simple. Did Jocasta understand this? Is she still just doing her job up at the Palace, matching herself to whatever King came by? How otherwise could this happen? Jocasta cannot see beyond her job of work, Family business like all the work of Family members. Doesn't the woman understand this, after all, she's been around here for twenty five years? So I ask the woman, looking back over at her, still standing undecided down at the end of the table:

'I don't own Jocasta, Vivian, she's merely at my disposal, like all of the Family. And now that you are outside the Family again, I cannot command that of you. More significant for you, I suspect, is the fact that you could cannot submit to me with any guarantees for your very identity. No matter what I do to Jocasta – or any other member of the Family – they would each know who they were right to the very end. You are only a dead man's daughter who wants to marry a King, something you will never do now, if only because you are barren. What has just happened here – in the third test – is that you have been brought face to face with this fact: there is no real living man who can do what you want him to do. Let us go, then, you and I, Vivian, back up to the Palace, where we can make the final arrangements for your departure.'

The woman couldn't fit that silly little red dress back onto her body, so she was obliged to walk naked down the room, past all the husbands and sons, and out into the village street – where half the inhabitants it seems have gathered to watch the procession: first the naked woman dragging her useless but hideously expensive dress behind her in the dust, then their King in his usual black, very much in control of the situation, a real King at last.

The woman sat away from me in the car, looking out the window at her side – out towards the crowd, as it happens. Her body odour was quite strong, but an honest human smell, slightly sour though also a trace of musk. It was as if she had just been severely whipped with a broad leather strap: her whole body had a raw vulnerability that would tempt even a saint to sin against her. Was she humiliated, or was it that she was just put out because she had miscalculated so badly? I couldn't tell by just looking at her. Her legs, especially, looked very vulnerable, as though she never really had full possession of them, and now they were lying abandoned on the couch. I even wanted to stroke them as a way of reassuring the woman. I decided to test her:

'That should have happened to you when you were young, the younger the better for you. No one put a limit on you, Vivian, and you could not – or would not – put a limit on yourself. But you did go very far, I grant you that. It's a familiar situation now: the higher you fly the further you have to fall.'

The front door offside door opens and the maid gets in behind the driver, the signal, in effect, to start our journey up to the Palace, somewhere up on the hill before us in the dark. The woman jerks when the car starts forward, as though awoken by the sudden motion. She straightens up and turns towards me a little, letting her right arm fall back so that her nearside breast swings towards me, full nipple in a dark aureole, heavy breast very steady even so. She opens the hand lying on the seat between us, palm up, and says, looking down at her flexing fingers:

'And you think women are limited by the restrictions men place upon them, Jim? You know better than that – how have you restricted Barbara, you wife, for instance? You live in her fantasy: that you have admitted to me. There is no woman on earth who does not know that a special man awaits her. She need only go to meet him.'

I could see that distinction again – the one between the man who awaits a union with someone he already knows in some way or other and the woman who has still to meet her man – seeing it so clearly in the woman's admission now. Should I bring this up? No. I decided not to. I don't want to humiliate the woman: she has taught me much though she really didn't intend doing that. I could understand now how Barbara and I were involved together in a holding operation, each awaiting the destiny specific to us as man and woman. We kept each other company. I leaned forward towards the front of the car and touch the maid's shoulder, saying in a low voice:

'Thank you, Jocasta, for teaching me about companionship.'

The girl looked like Jocasta, but she said, her eyes flaring in an intense way that spoke of a tight compression:

'I'm not Jocasta. I'm her sister, Lorraine, and I am a year younger than her.'

I looked in reaction at the woman by my side. She smiled, her lips compressing, and said very evenly:

'Jocasta's work is done here. A new maid takes her place, Jim. See? You didn't heed Jocasta's warning, did you? Curiosity got the better of you. A failure of trust, yes? You see your weakness here? You think you are merely doing a job of work and so protected from my wiles, and the wiles of all the other women you have encountered in your line of work. You don't realise how exposed you are, thinking that a head filled with nonsense is sufficient protection in this life. Well, Jim, it's not, as you will see presently.'

And with that dire warning ringing in my ears, the car swept over the drawbridge and in through the armoured gates of the fortress. I could see the drawbridge rising in the driver's rear-view mirror, the heavy steel gates closing with a mechanical steadiness. Do I have options now? I am King here. I say to the woman with a forced nonchalance:

'Yet I am King here, Vivian. I can command all the personnel here.'

I lean towards her, still surprisingly unaffected by my situation – despite the rock-solid confidence I see expressed in the woman's face – and add with what I knew immediately was a false theatrical bite:

'We need only arrange a severance package for you, so you can be on your way back into the human world. This is something we can do first thing in the morning.'

My plan was a good night's sleep. I badly needed rest: I was getting to that stage where my thoughts and memories were concatenating, so that my sense of reality was weakening. But one question was still clear in my mind, even so: Do I have the woman's story now? Is that it? All her dreams and fantasies collapsing once she was brought to undress herself for me? Is that how it ends? Perhaps. But even as I framed the question in this way, I remembered the word, the name that had always haunted the prospect of seeing the woman naked: Diana. Where is Diana?

The car was drawing up at the foot of the steps leading up to the Palace, the woman turning in the seat to open the door. Her naked back was so anonymous, any woman's back, her hair stuck to the flaccid skin, compressed by her pressure against the back of the seat. Where could Diana be in this woman? Where could Diana be in any woman? I reached and touched her shoulder very lightly, to detain her and ask:

'Where is Diana now, Vivian?'

Even before she answered I understood what it was she had seen in Jocasta, what I was not supposed to see, under pain of death. The woman sat back in the seat and glanced at me. Was it sadness, or was it pity I saw in her eyes? She answered:

'You called me Lilith, Jim. Where do you think Diana is? Jocasta? Jocasta is only a nymph, just like her sister here.'

The woman pointed at the maid in the front seat, who turned about at once so that she could smile for me. The driver by now had opened the door beside me, so that the cool night air swept through the car. I didn't like the maid's smile, cheeky and knowing, so unlike Jocasta. I got out and started up the steps – of which there are many – wondering with some cynicism if this girl, Lorraine, was simply doing her job too. What are people like when left completely alone with no demands on them? Asleep, I suppose. The great doors were wide open, light streaming out. I didn't know where my room was, so I went into the first room I saw that contained something I could lie out on. It was another couch or settee or divan, this time covered in a bright yellow fabric, easily stained no doubt but unmarked just now.

I am drained now, feeling lost in a charade. I am lying on the couch – which is what I have decided it is – staring at the ceiling so high up from where I lie. I realise that as King I am just as much a part of this show as any other member of the Family I have encountered. Only the woman is free now, able to suit herself. And yet, what can she do? Nothing, she can do nothing at all.

Yet here comes the woman to stand over me, head bent, her hair hanging down about her face. She looks wild, even though the wrap covering her body is a cool blue, like cold water on a clammy night. She raises her right hand, palm out, and speaks in a low voice:

'I should advise you, Jim, that all these coronation rituals are not completed yet. Tomorrow you will need to take the Oath of Allegiance. To do this you will need to travel to the Tower in central Asia, not too far from Samarkand. It is one of the Family's oldest possessions and it once guarded their interests in China. Yes, I know it is far from China proper, but that is how the Family arranges its affairs. Do you know where their guardian keep of Europe is? No, you won't even guess it, but you can be sure that it is not in Europe. This kind of arrangement is rationalised in terms of what the Family calls the Flow. I had time to study all this, you know, with access to all of their records. The Family believes that the world is divided between a number of bloodlines that have their origins in a family that lived ten thousand years ago. This is nonsense, of course, but like all delusions the Family nonsense is real to the extent that they act out of it. There is nothing unusual in whole peoples warring each other in the name of what is in essence the same God, so imagine what the bloodlines are capable of in the name of gold? Yet, you might ask, is this all only a rationalisation of some very real impulse working in all people? From my own experience, I would say that each person is trying to get back to some origin, a kind of original point of rest. The image I use is this: imagine a group of people locked in a dark room struggling with each other to find their own seat. Each has a seat already allocated to them, so that the task of each individual is to find that seat and sit down and be quiet.'

Then the woman turned and walked away. Bemused, I fell asleep.

The maid, Lorraine, was standing by the bed when I awoke. I felt very refreshed until I remembered where I was and what was going on. Then I was simply confused, and became annoyed at my stupid over-confidence that had brought me to this condition. Whatever novel I had in mind to write about this woman seemed no longer viable. Whatever thread I had been following was lost to me.

The presence of the maid didn't help. I disliked her, resenting the fact that she had replaced Jocasta, who had seemed such a loyal and trustworthy companion. I had believed in her while utterly sceptical of everyone else. Had that been the plan? To bring me to placing my trust – a kind of fundamental commitment – and then seeing that trust betrayed. Yes. I was the one who broke trust, though it took me longer than I would otherwise admit to acknowledging that fact. I could cry then for what I had done. Even if Jocasta was just doing her job with me, the trust I placed in her was real for me, so that my betrayal of that trust was real too.

The maid was studying me with the kind of impassivity you would use with an animal, say before slaughtering it. She was utterly empty. But I said to her anyway, with a kind of abandon that was either sentimental or sincere – I could not decide which it was, knowing only that this is how I wanted to feel as I spoke:

'Will you apologise to Jocasta on my behalf? Tell her that I regret very much my lack of faith in her.'

The maid looked more closely at me, as though I had done something very unusual, then said smartly with a childish earnestness:

'I am a year younger than my sister.'

That was the point at which I lost all patience. I shouted at the maid:

'I don't give a fuck what age you are!'

I am being sentimental, very sentimental, but the flow of feeling – no matter how insincere – was a source of relief. If I could have brought myself to tears, I would have been happier again. I know this is all a kind of fantasy and that the falseness of my feelings was appropriate here, yet I meant what I said about Jocasta, and wanted this flow of feeling as an expression of my regret. I would have lived my life with that girl – everything else being equal – and lived in that village among all her relatives. I admit that one of the reasons I can be so open with this sentiment is the knowledge that it was never going to happen. After all, I am King here and I already have a wife, named Giselle (if you remember).

I felt better after that outflow, as it were, so that I could sit up and swing my feet out onto the floor and stand up on the far side of the couch from the maid. I walked away towards the door, not knowing where to go and not wishing to have the maid tell me or show me either. But she says at my back in any case:

'Madame is waiting for you in the Conservatory. She said to remind you that you are to fly to the Tower tomorrow morning. She said I was to show you to your chamber here so you could prepare yourself for the coming day.'

So we have to be practical. The maid led me up some stairs off to one side of the great entrance hall to a suite of rooms overlooking a small lake surrounded by old trees. Two swans set in the centre of this lake, motionless, heads very erect as is their custom. A surprisingly pleasant view in the circumstances. The maid was standing by the doorway, hands joined in front of her, watching me closely again. I wondered then if she was so new to her job that all of this was a complete novelty to her. I asked:

'Have you been in the Palace before?'

She replied with the same automated earnestness as before:

'Only for training, Your Majesty. This is the first time I have worked here. Have I missed something?'

Is she really as stupid as she seems, or is this just part of the job description? In any case, it is hard to connect with her in any way. I think she is in effect an emergency stand-in for her sister and so has no role here other than that of a servant. I answered with unconcealed sarcasm:

'How would I know, girl, this is my first time too.'

Then I flicked my hand at her to be rid of her presence. Thankfully she just turned and left the room, shutting the door quietly after her. I took all my clothes off and stood at the window looking down at the swans floating in the centre of the little lake. The sunlight was very soft, shimmering on the leaves and on the water. It would have been nice to sit at the edge of the lake and simply spend an hour or two gazing at those beautiful birds. The best I could do instead was stand at the window, separated from that lovely world by a sheet of thick glass, but able at least to look out and feast my tired eyes.

The sentiment is still running in me, as you can see, now attached to this view outside. I am not normally a sensitive person, more practical in the sense that there is always work to be done, business to attend to. The sense of fantasy is still strong, and it seems that this feeling-state is derived from the fantasy. How is this possible? I seem not to be able to find the source of the fantasy. Thinking back, I see only my decision to go with Jocasta to her family home. I had told the woman to stay in the Palace and she had ignored that command, which she of course could do, not being Family. Is that it? Yes, that is when I thought I was finished with her, that she had given up trying to command me. But why am I left like this, with a surplus of feeling? Is it a trap?

That's when the woman said at my back:

'Are you primed now, Jim, ready to go?'

My first thought was that it didn't matter that the woman could see me naked: it had never been an issue, to the extent that the woman was not interested in me personally, only in what she could use of me. As for looking primed, as she termed it, I didn't feel it. I was reluctant to turn away from the window: the swans were a more agreeable view than the woman will be. I was right: she was dressed in some kind of overall, loose fitting in such a way as to make her seem overweight and heavy. Even her hair was tied back in a utilitarian bun. The main effect of her presence was to force me away from the window. I went and showered and found clothes laid out for me on what seemed to be a tailor's dummy, laid out thus so I would know where each garment went. There were light pants, very tight – uncomfortably so for me – of a dense stiff material and coloured bright red. Then a blouse-like top that was tight at the waist and below, but loose-hanging from my shoulders otherwise. This was coloured a vivid violet-blue, harsh on the eye. The headgear was ridiculous: a combination of a miner's pit helmet and a tribal feathered headband, the long feathers especially silly, bright orange and so fluffy as to be useless to any bird. I refuse to wear this, emphasising this fact by taking it from the dummy and dropping it on the floor. The woman says immediately at my back:

'But you must wear the complete outfit, Jim. That is the Family custom.'

I didn't reply, simply kicked the stupid gear as far as I could across the room. But I did ask the woman, obviously a rhetorical element here that betrayed how the sentiment was still working in me:

'I can appoint anyone I wish to succeed me, that is true? Even the new maid – while she can still talk, I mean?'

The woman's smile was forced, not exactly an anxiety there, more an abiding apprehension coming to the surface again. I could see the calculation in it, though I could see no good reason – except a life-long habit, perhaps – to explain it. She replied in a measured voice, like reciting something official:

'Not really, Jim. At least not yet. You must first take the Oath of Allegiance. You see, your situation differs from mine. I was a King, but I couldn't take the Oath because the Family refused to accept me. They call it King with Opposition. But because you have been accepted, you can only become full King, as it were, by taking the Oath.'

Hearing that really pissed me off.

'You mean I have to go on with this fucking charade? What do they have in store for me at this Tower, as you call it?'

The woman was very pleased with my response. I can't see her angle here: she has already lost to me and looks as though she has dressed for the long journey out of here, out of the Family. Her parting shot was, as she turned to leave the room:

'You'll find out when you get there, Jim. As always.'

It was tricky in an irritating way, walking in these ridiculous clothes – with a gaudy cape, by the way, yet to be thrown over my shoulders in a cavalier manner – but I made my way back to that window and the view of the swans on the lake. Guess what? The swans were no longer there, only a now vacant expanse of shimmering water. But I wanted to think of something that was initially hard to grasp. Something about the woman this morning had triggered an insight. It was the memory of the beautiful white swans that gave me the first inkling: it had to do with Diana. I would swear that the woman saw Diana in naked Jocasta – that was why she was so stunned. And then I understood very clearly why Jocasta had tried to stop me looking back at her naked body. In doing so, I broke the Diana spell that held the woman in thrall. But why, I wonder now, did I not see Diana also when I looked at Jocasta? Simple: I saw someone else. The rush of feeling just then told me practically everything all at once. In seeing Jocasta under those conditions – as a counterbalance to the woman and her fantasy about her cosmic half – I saw my own cosmic half imaged, as it were, upon Jocasta's form. It was not the nakedness of Jocasta as such that permitted this to happen: no, Jocasta was revealing to me what she said she would bring to me. It was, as I said, the circumstance of the moment. The woman's attempt to cast her cosmic half upon me in some, perhaps magical, way created the condition which allowed Jocasta reveal to me the presence of my own cosmic half.

And all this sentiment – which I assumed was merely fantastical – had sprung from that vision, even though I saw only the quite ordinary body of a sixteen years old girl. And what is that sentiment, do you think? Is it love? Or is it just disappointment, being so close to my other part and yet still so far away. It is both, of course. And in finding love – so late in my life – I also discovered the very first lesson of love: the pain of separation.

You don't know how relieved I am to have worked all this out. And you don't know how the gratitude I owe that simple honest girl, Jocasta, expands in my hitherto frozen heart. What knowledge she has in her simplicity, no doubt a kind of clarity that allowed her to see so deep into me. Yes, I was struck with wonder: and to have that happen to me here and under these circumstances – where I was merely making my living, as I believed all along. And what has the woman herself got to do with this? I doubt very much that she intended bringing me to this revelation. I think she would be indifferent should I take the trouble to tell her. But perhaps I should tell her, as a kind of consolation prize – that she did some good in pursuing her delusion that she could bring her cosmic half down to earth.

How satisfied I feel just now, so satisfied with what is for me a complete knowledge – not certain but actual, open to scepticism but not doubt – the satisfaction itself sufficient proof, should I need proof. It also gave me a tremendous boost in my confidence, so that I tore the stupid clothes off and put on my – by now shabby – black clothes, which lay conveniently at my feet.

After that, I went through the Palace shouting out the woman's name until she came down the main stairs at a run. I called to her once I saw her:

'How do I get to this Tower?'

It turned out to be pretty easy. The maid had the task of making a call over the Family network – which is how the woman described it – and the car was below at the bottom of the steps in fifteen minutes, ready to take me to an airport somewhere. I had assumed I would travel alone – the woman now a supernumerary – in the Family scheme of things, but an instinct told me to ask her:

'Do you know anything about this Tower?'

I could see the woman relax, her anxiety easing just like that. She gestured with her hands, this and that, and said plainly:

'No. And Mark never mentioned it to me. He must have known that the Family would never let me go there. All I know is that the accepted King must swear the Oath of Allegiance there.'

The woman had repeated this phrase often enough by now for me to ask:

'Allegiance to who or what?'

The woman shakes her head:

'Haven't a clue. I would assume their God, whoever he is. The Family is loyal to no one else, except of course their gold. But I'm sure you'll find out once you get there.'

Her smile was a touch sardonic, implying that I might well find out when it is too late to do anything about it. I had the idea then of getting her to come with me. And as I got this idea I saw at once that she had been angling for this invite. I match her sardonic smile:

'Could you come with me, do you think? Keep me company on this last stage?'

Now she did smile more openly, an expression more of familiarity – even friendship – then say complicitly:

'Why not? Who's to know, Jim? I'd say you could bring a busload and have a party up there for all anyone in the Family would know.'

Well, we have been through the opening stages together with both of us surviving them in one way or another. So I pointed back upstairs into the Palace and said in a lighter, even bantering, tone:

'Then maybe you should change out of that horrible gear, Vivian. I'll wait for you in the car.'

And off she went up the stairs, her long legs allowing her to take two steps at a time.

You might wonder at the general change in mood here, thinking perhaps that I have gone soft out of sentiment, suddenly full of loving kindness or the like. Yes, there is something of that here, but there is a curious kind of confidence in me now. Let me put it this way. I don't know what you think about the idea of reincarnation – but I know quite a lot about it from my mad informants, some of whom accepted it without question as a fundamental spring from which their fantasies flowed. Allow that reincarnation is a fact now for a moment. Consider human existence in its light. Allow that you have had many lives, sometimes as a man, other times as a woman. Why would this occur, do you think? Say for instance that a human being had a lot to learn, more than could be learned in one lifetime. Consider how long it takes us to learn the simple lessons of life: for instance, that we are better served through goodness than through badness, that charity allows us grow in a way that selfishness cannot. Simple facts like that. Now consider larger issues. Consider the phenomenon of divinity, of God. Look at the history of mankind and see how our understanding of divinity has grown over the millennia, see how subtle we can be in this area. Very few now believe in God the Father, or in God the Son, for that matter. Instead, what has once been called Soul is now studied under a host of quite specific terms: in psychology, marketing, even in sexual relationship. We call our modern societies secular and yet they are riddled with concepts to do with completion and openness. We can think of death as a total annihilation and yet remain open to every phenomenon available to our sensibility. We tear down received beliefs and practices, replacing them with contingent practices that could collapse at any moment but which yet go on developing along paths that are beyond out present understanding. We live at a level of abstraction that would render the wisest man or woman a thousand, two thousand years ago instantly insane. And at that level of abstraction, we are building a whole new universe of machines so subtle and able that we are on the brink of finally establishing a real understanding of divinity. We are concerned not with the question of power – which our ancestors grappled with for long generations – but with the question of motive: why do we seek divinity in a universe that appears to run by itself. We are on the brink of learning why we want divinity, why we wanted a God.

Sorry if that is longwinded: blame it on an excess of love. Why do we want divinity? We want it because we know of a state of being that we could only grant hitherto to a God: a state of perfection. It's not that we desire perfection as a way of being able to do nothing but have fun. No, we already know perfection, so that it is only a question of bringing it into being: a millennia-long quest by the whole of the human race, living and dead and to come.

The implication here is that such a knowledge of perfection could not be discovered by merely incarnated beings such as we experience ourselves now, restricted as we are to sense data and subject to the relentless pressures of a contingent world. And we must be more than Soul, because Soul follows on the fact of our existence, seen in how we can traduce Soul, can lie and betray each other at will. No, there is a higher level, call it Spirit, if you will, an entity like an essence that persists over repeated lives, simple and direct, that can know anything though not everything, a constant entity that abides beyond all our strife and striving.

See? We are each more, much more, than we can ever know.

THE TOWER

The airfield – a Family possession – was close by, so that by noon we were already out over the Black Sea, high in a clear sky. The woman was dressed as she might have been in real life as a mature contracts lawyer, successful, confident, and still looking for Mr Right. Yes, that way: black and grey, come-on sexy yet never giving way. Still, she was happy enough, at least the sense of adventure still alive in her. She was also speaking, chatty to an extent, tendentious to another extent:

'Mark once said – we were in New Orleans, a Family meeting, though I didn't know that at the time – that the final step is always irrevocable. I supposed that he meant that he was married to his work, as it were, which I took as an indication of how far our relationship might go, that is, not much further than we were then. But he did say another time – can't remember where exactly, near some river in eastern Europe, Poland or Bulgaria – that nothing was fixed unless you wanted it fixed. Strange that though I cannot remember where Mark said this, I can remember clearly how I felt at the time. Mark hadn't yet asked me to define him – which I told you about – but I knew that day that he wanted to get out of the kingship, escape the Family. And I also knew then that there was some fundamental bond with the Family that he feared he could not break. Look, Jim, I might as well tell you the rest now. Those essays you used for the biog of me that you published: I don't know how much you read – not much, judging from the use you made of them. No. No, hold on, let me say this first. I did go back to university after I was made King, when I realised I had little or nothing to do in my role as supreme ruler of the family. My attitude would have seemed superficial to the academics that taught me, no more than grazing a wide field of ancient studies. They didn't know, of course, that I was using the techniques they taught me to delve into the Family archives, which are stored in the Palace. The essays I produced were in effect an attempt to pull together the history and beliefs of the Family, which were published in journals affiliated to the Family. I must admit I was very surprised at your prescience when you chose a quotation about what the Family call the Shaft of Eternity as an example of my more esoteric writings. Yes, the Family believe they have the power to confer immortality on individuals. You see, as I came to understand it, the Oath of Allegiance is required of an Accepted King prior to making him immortal. This is what worried Mark once he decided he wanted to surrender the kingship: would he remain immortal? No, I hasten to add that Mark did not want to be immortal. He remarked once – a dinner in Hong Kong, a very tedious affair – that only the truly stupid would want to live forever. It's obvious when you think about it: you would be cursed with a lengthening memory and no way to escape that burden. That is how he saw it, Jim.'

The woman's silence at that point was an obvious prompt for me to ask a question. The aircraft was very small, so that conditions were cramped – prepacked coffee and sandwiches, for instance – and we were obliged to sit facing each other almost knee to knee. I might as well say now that I simply don't believe the Family's nonsense about immortality, witness how that Chinese tart could use the word so lightly to represent sexual bliss. Even so, I feel the woman is trying to get at something by this means. Does she herself want to be immortal? Would that make sense? Consider what she wants: to be with her cosmic half. Do you think she wants this in terms of growing old together and dying in the fullness of time? Of course not. She seems to believe that her cosmic half is some kind of transcendent being and as such would be immortal. The only way a relationship with it – however it is contrived – would make sense to her would be if she was in some way immortal too.

Well, I can understand one thing clearly from this line of thought: the woman is not finished with me, that is, she does not consider herself defeated and so ready to be dispatched back to the human world. So where does that put me now? One thing I am sure of: she has no power over me. When Jocasta showed me my cosmic half, I was assured of my own transcendence, regardless of the exigencies of my incarnated lives. More, I now understand what I live towards, from life to life, the ultimate union with my cosmic half, becoming a more complete being in some state that could bear this new being. I don't know what this being would be like, man or woman, angel or god, maybe something else altogether. But it would be a being that once existed – before human time – and in a reality absolutely different from this contingent universe. Can you understand now how I feel, both about myself and about the woman? Whatever delusion she seeks to enter, I will be just a bystander, an observer recording every step of the way, notes for a sensational best-seller. And even if she ensnares me in some way in her madness, it will make no difference to my destiny. No woman can affect any man's destiny, that's what I understand now. She might help him – as Jocasta did me – but she cannot hinder him, not in some final way.

You see now how profound is the difference between the woman and me here? The woman has trapped herself in a belief that only by being alive – incarnate – can she be with her cosmic half, while I can allow that union with my cosmic half would be the death of my incarnate existence and a precursor to a new transcendent existence, a true immortality, if you like. So how do I answer her now? I need not answer her, of course: I could sit here and look out the little window at the anonymous terrain below and wait patiently for this journey to end. In fact, I could wait patiently for this life to end, and then wait patiently for every succeeding life to end until that supreme moment arrives.

Except that I have a job to do. So I say to her by way of comment:

'How will Mark handle his immortality? You told me he drives trains in South America. What will he do when trains as we know them disappear, will he just find other work? That sounds interesting in itself. Imagine him in a thousand years' time, a qualified captain of a faster than light vessel on its way to the Andromeda system with a cargo of anti-gravity plates. No, no. I am being serious, Vivian. Can Mark die, perhaps in an accident? Would he want to die in an accident? Imagine what he would lose. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so flippant, but I do not believe that anyone can be immortal. If you were immortal, you would be outside time and so could not be conscious of the fact of your immortality. Alright, I will stop now. I don't want to hurt you, but I cannot go along with you here. Sorry.'

Silence. The woman stares before her, face stony, eyes flat, looking her age again. I close my eyes. My memories are still confused: no matter, I can consult these recordings when the time comes. And I speculate – to pass the time – will the time come when I sit down in my little study in my little house in that little suburb of Toronto? Yes, it will. I have no trouble seeing that happening. Barbara calling me to dinner in the evening, both of us with a day's work completed, talking shop as we eat together at our little table. I can see that so clearly. You see, it's now as though I have been immersed in the madness of other old women, seeing their desperation, their struggle against a fundamental female despair as they realise that there is nothing for them personally in this incarnate existence, that they are born to be incubators of the next generation of human life, and nothing else.

I woke up as the little airplane tilted and begun its descent to a grass airfield in a wide land. The Tower is immense, standing isolated in the middle of the anonymous plain, high mountains in the far distance lit red by the setting sun. The woman still stares before her, and I assume that she has not moved while I slept. Remembering what I said before I slept, I want you to understand that I sympathise with the woman's predicament. It is a bit late in her life to realise that she has been on the wrong track for almost all of her life, and that it is too late for her to do anything about it now. How could she be consoled now? I don't know. I do care – if only because I have come to know her over these last days, and regardless of whatever deceit she had planned to practice on me. I mean, I could offer to let her live with us in Toronto, as a kind of maiden aunt, and use our home as a base for her activities for the rest of her life. We could even use her skill as a contracts lawyer.

But the woman says, speaking suddenly with no change of expression:

'There has to be continuity, Jim. Say you cut the throat of a chicken, cook and eat it: where is the chicken? And then the chicken passes through you into a sewage farm somewhere and ends up spread over a field far away. Then it becomes cabbages or carrots and you eat the cabbage or carrots and the chicken passes through you again. You see? There is always a trace. Take any molecule you wish and examine it for traces. How many living entities have left their trace there? Millions upon millions by now. That is our world. Everything living thing that ever existed has left its trace in this earth. Try to think discontinuity, Jim, and you will find that impossible to do. Such an ending, now existing then non-existing, is not possible: the vacancy could not have an abode in you. Try not to have a thought: can you do that? No, you cannot; once you have a thought it is always in you, somewhere in you.'

There are tears in her eyes. Is this desperation or perhaps some kind of subtle understanding? I don't know. I would prefer it to be desperation, a comforting abstraction, otherwise another piece of nonsense. I say to her, somewhat detached as I watch the aircraft descend towards the field, smoke canisters marking the end of the runway:

'The molecules that compose you might last for ever, but who cares? Vivian Palmer will die and leave a history for those who knew her, until those who remember her die also. Whatever about blind chemicals, memory must have an end, otherwise we would drown in tears and laughter, no more than audiences for the past. Mankind is always starting out each morning fresh and forever expecting better tidings.'

The aircraft hits the ground with a dull thump, the grass suddenly agitated in the wake of the propeller. Why is landing always such a disappointment, even when you can't wait to arrive? Is that why we are so eager to disembark, wanting to erase this experience as soon as possible? The aircraft really does trundle across the dense grass, jogging and yawing, the propellers thumping the air. The Tower draws ever closer, dark now in the fading light, and all I can think of is the hall-light illuminating the glass panels of the front-door in that little house in the little suburb away in a city in Canada. Yes, that is how it is now: story ended finally. I speak again, this time looking over at the woman – tears still in her eyes:

'What happens to memory then, Vivian? It becomes fantasy and fantasy ultimately becomes myth. You see? Memory descends to truth. You are right in that sense: coming to meet is the one true story of mankind. Always coming to meet. Be comforted by that knowledge.'

The first thing I see when I descend from the aircraft and stand still upon the grassy asiatic earth is a broken-down bothy, sod roof in full sprout – even dull yellow flowers sported there – rough wood panels sagging in the nearside wall. There are fields of a sort stretching from the hut over towards the Tower, ragged growth in some, a crop of what might be turnips in one field, ripening grain in another. There is even a milch cow grazing an embankment to the left of the bothy, and in the distance can be seen an old tractor, spindly and lopsided, perhaps a punctured tyre. I look back at the woman, quizzing her with a look. She just shrugs, no wiser than I am. Now an old man appears, coming around the building, a bucket in his right hand. Behind him trail three goats, two black and one speckled white. Only the goats look at us. I indicate that the woman should call to the man – you see that I am assuming that she still knows what is going on here – but she jerks her head away. So I call:

'Hello, there!'

The man looks up, squinting in the low light, and then waves – at the pilot, who is coming up behind us with the woman's luggage, not at us. He speaks in a language I don't know and the pilot answers him. Both laugh, a short biting laugh. I say to the woman:

'Surely the pilot has never been here before. How long since the last King came here? Must be hundreds of years ago.'

The woman addresses the pilot in his language and he answers, speaking slowly for her benefit. The woman says to me:

'He brings the news every year. He says old Joachim is surprised to see him again so soon. He was here only last week on his annual visit. So now we know, Jim.'

I'm nonplussed. What do we do now? The old man looks as though he will carry on with his task of milking the goats over by the bothy. The pilot has continued on before us, heading in the direction of the Tower. The woman decides this impasse by indicating that we should just follow the pilot. So we follow the pilot and a rough track, the ground dry and hard. The air has a metallic tinge – perhaps this is what air is like far from the water, not only dry but also electric in some way. It has a tightness that I dislike, as though it shrinks my soul and tries to draw it up into my mouth so that it can float away from me. Silly, I know, but that is the effect it has on me.

The light has almost gone, taking the world with it. Only a dull glow ahead in what I assume is the entrance to the Tower remains to comfort me. Yes, I do feel very isolated here, more so because the woman is also a stranger here. I assume she feels much as I do, but I feel no sense of companionship with her, which indicates how much of a loner she is. I would draw close to her if that was permitted, maybe chat in low voices to fill up the void, but she seems to me to be as vacant as the world around me.

Yes, the low light is in the entrance to the Tower, a low flickering light as though it consumed a kind of primitive electricity. The pilot drops the woman's cases on the ground just inside the door – surprisingly small for such a huge edifice – and just nods to me as he passes on his way back to his aircraft and no doubt on his way home after a long day. The woman comes in behind me and goes over to stand by her cases, shoulders slumped and head bowed. I say, driven finally to try to connect with her here at what is our journey's end:

'Remember you volunteered to come here, Vivian. No one asked you to.'

Her eyes burn with sudden anger as she looks up:

'You are so complacent now, Jim. Do you honestly think you are invulnerable here? Nothing will happen to me, only to you. I have tried to prepare you but you just don't want to know, do you?'

Her anger steels me:

'You should not have come, Vivian. You are out of your depth now. Putting the frights on me won't work. You don't get it. I don't give a damn what happens to me here. I will go through this routine and then I will arrange for that pilot to take me to the nearest international airport, so that I can go home to my wife. Look, Vivian, you can come with me. We could use a good contracts lawyer in the business. You can shack up with us until you find your feet. Just admit to yourself that this strange project of yours is over. You haven't lost or anything like that. In fact, you have probably deepened your knowledge of yourself. Be consoled by that knowledge and try to enjoy the rest of your life.'

I thought she was going to explode with real anger, but instead she just deflated in exasperation, waving her hands dismissively at me. Though I was annoyed with her – why was she persisting in pretending she was still in control? – I had not expected her to give up so easily. I am convinced that a middle ground is available to us, where the nearest we can get to reason would prevail. I don't want to see her lost or abandoned because of her obsession.

I don't know what would have happened next between us, but at that point this old woman came through a low door I had not noticed in the wall opposite the entrance. She carried herself well, though obviously of great age, a long soiled apron wrapped around her waist and an old shawl over her shoulders. She stopped when she saw us and appeared surprised. I didn't understand her, but the woman could reply, which she did in a cold tone, not at all appropriate in the circumstance – which only helped persuade me that my view that she should not have come with me was the correct one after all. The woman then said to me without looking around:

'She wants to know what we are doing here, that this is private property and not a tourist attraction.'

I had to laugh:

'Are you sure she said tourist attraction? No one has been here for hundreds of years. Surely there were no tourists back then.'

The woman's temper softened somewhat:

'I think she meant something more like the only habitation for miles around. I suppose there would have been nomads in this part of the world back then.'

I'm beginning to think that not only is this part of the charade going to be mysterious but that it will also have a touch of absurdity. Why not, I suppose, and decided we might as well dive in the deep end:

'Then tell her that I am the King come to take the Oath. See how she reacts to that.'

The woman translates this and the old woman looks at me sharply, a really piercing study, before replying at length. The woman duly translates:

'This is reasonably accurate, Jim. You don't look like a King, and where is your kingly get-up. As far as she remembers of what her mother told her five hundred years ago, you should have the mantiko – that's the word she used, not my translation, but I think it is the silly cape or shawl they laid out for you – with you. She is convinced that you cannot undertake the ordeal – and that is an accurate translation of how she describes it – without it, because you will be cursed for all eternity otherwise.'

Did I hear five hundred years? How old this this woman? I was afraid momentarily that the woman's earlier warnings might now have a grain of truth in them, but I assumed that being King I could make the ritual up as I go. So I say to the woman:

'Tell the old dear that times have changed and that the King can now undertake the ceremony – and make sure you translate that word accurately – in any manner he wishes.'

So the woman translates all this, and the old woman glances at me again, shrugs her shoulders and walks on past us going to the entrance to the Tower. There, she shouts out into the gathering darkness, a lusty shout, and then steps back as the old man comes in, the bucket now weighed with milk. He replies gruffly, and just trods on past us, with the woman coming up behind him, speaking to him at length in a monotone. The woman translates for me:

'Their evening meal is ready and she wants him to hurry up before it goes cold. He tells her that one of the goats was being awkward, and now she is telling him that he shouldn't take any nonsense from them, that they are only animals after all. Married folk stuff, you see.'

The three goats have gathered at the entrance, half in the weak yellow light and the rest lost in the exterior darkness. They bleat pathetically, no doubt wanting to come in out of the dark too. Now the old couple have reached that door in the far wall and in they go, the woman shutting it carefully after her with not a single backward glance.

I feel a strong urge to say something, to say anything at all to fill up the void that now surrounds us, but it is the woman who speaks, arms akimbo and staring at the now closed door:

'Jesus, Jim, what do you think of that? They don't give a damn one way or another. You'll need to tighten up discipline around here. These people are being left too much on their own. They've no sense of duty.'

Feeling abandoned, I become aware of how thirsty I am, then how hungry I am, then how cold. The intensity of the last few days have drained me. What to do? I could go and hammer on that door, demand some kind of compliance – but without knowing what they would have to comply with. I haven't a clue what is going on. I say to the woman, so tempted to blame her for this mess:

'Do you know anything about this place, anything at all?'

The woman bends and zips open a pocket in the top of one of the cases and draws out what looks like a small laptop. She boots it and searches through a folder, then turns the screen for me to see. I go closer, knowing in any case that what I am looking at is a scan of an ancient vellum scroll. The woman holds it up to her own face and says:

'This is all I could find. It's believed to be Babylonian, but I don't think so. Marduk is in it alright, but the tale is older than that, older than Sumer even. Some authorities believe it is the source of the biblical story about the Tower of Babel, but they are the kind of people who want everything to be about the Bible. Strangely, the Tower doesn't have a name: it's simply called the tower. Now, the only other information this text contains says that the whole of creation can be seen from the chamber situated at the top of the tower, and that Marduk spends his days there keeping an eye on the doings of mankind.'

The woman closes the laptop abruptly – I feel she has just realised how little useful knowledge could be gleaned from the text – and looks up at me with what can only be a defensive stare. I say to her, not angry as such, just suddenly frustrated by what she has been trying to do:

'And you have brought us out here based on that? I should never have listened to you, you know. You really haven't a fucking clue, have you?'

Laying into her like this doesn't help either of us. I am as much to blame as she is; after all, I thought I was getting something tangible out of her craziness. Even so, blaming myself also doesn't help matters either: we are stuck here with no idea how to get out. But we must do something, so I say to the woman, moving away from her:

'We'll have to get those people out here. They're going to have to help us.'

But the woman reaches and takes my arm to stop me, saying:

'No, Jim. You don't know what you are dealing with here. Let me try.'

The woman screams very loudly, some word I think in their language. Silence, intense silence afterwards, even the goats still loitering around the entrance have fallen silent.

The door in the far wall opens and a young man steps through, head down as he checks that the door is securely shut after him. The shock of seeing him so unexpectantly prompts me to step over to the woman's side, as much for her support as to protect her, should this be required. The young man now looks up at us, smiles broadly and waves, asking:

'A ty gavorish' po russki? Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Parlez-vous français? Do you speak English?'

The woman raises her hand now, just like a girl in school, hand shooting up, eager to answer. The young man smiles again:

'Ah, English it is. My name is Bill: it's not my real name but it will be easier to remember. I should apologise for my parents. They cannot remember how to greet the King and his entourage. Entourage, yes? Or are you his wife or concubine? No matter, no matter. My languages. You are surprised, yes? The Soviets were very good in that way, you know. They allowed me study at Moscow University. Languages, I thought learning foreign languages would be a good thing to do, you know. The Soviets classed us a peasants and made our little farm a collective. There are no other farms here for many versts – though I don't think that unit of distance is used anymore. Is that right, do you think? However, let me continue. The Soviets were better than the Czarists before them. They only wanted to dig in the ground looking for treasure and rape my sister. It was the Cossacks who raped my sister. The Russian Czarists only wanted gold. But the Soviets were very good. They gave us a tractor and seed to grow cotton. But there was no fuel for the tractor and not enough water for the cotton, so we went on growing oats and turnips like we have always done. Have you come to make the Oath? Good, that is what I told my father when he heard you call for attention. My mother told me to tell you that she could cook you some food if you were hungry enough. Are you hungry enough? Good. Let me go now and speak to my mother. I will return soon and take you to see my sister. We are not yet breeders, so I do not have to be with her yet. You understand? We are the only descendants of the Father of All that are pure and unadulterated. Unadulterated, is that a good word to use? Do you understand me? We are pure for ten thousand years. I will go now and speak to my mother and tell her to cook food for you. Then I will take you to see my sister. She might like to see you too.'

Struck dumb, yes, completely stunned. Even the woman is gobsmacked, mouth hanging open, not sure whether to laugh out of relief or mockery. Strange perhaps, but how would you be if you found yourself greeting the first King here for several hundred years? I'd certainly run at the mouth too, desperate to cover all bases at once. I must say for my part that I rather liked him, liked his candour. I can imagine him at university in Moscow, one of many like him from the back of beyond within the vast USSR, perfectly innocent and trusting, head being filled with learning and Marxism. I say to the woman with an unfamiliar intimacy, as though only three people in the world now spoke English:

'Who would have thought of it, Vivian? Our own personal tour guide.'

The woman, unfortunately, is not so permissive, for she said bitingly as she returns the laptop to its place in her suitcase:

'He won't ever stop talking, you know. God, we'll never get out of here now.'

And here comes the young man, Bill, again, another big innocent smile for us, obviously the bearer of good news. I might be his King, but it is striking how at ease he is with us, casual to a fault, in fact. I suspect that he either does not know what a King is – certainly not the King of the Family – or else the Soviets made a good comrade of him – hopefully not a revolutionary intent on stringing Kings up with the guts of Popes. Sorry, bad joke. Am I becoming kingly, expecting awe and deference? Anyway, the young man is now close enough to us to resume his monologue:

'My mother is now cooking hot food for you. She will tell us when it is ready. We can go and see my sister now and say hello to her. It is this door over here. You must be steady with Britta – that is not her real name, but you can remember it better – she has never seen a King before or seen a King's entourage. Say kind words to her. She will not understand you but she knows the feeling of words. That is true, I tell you. I would like very much for you to believe that. When we are ready I will love her very much. Your kindness to my sister will be a kindness to me.'

The thing with the doors here is that you can't see them in the wall until they are opened, so close-fitting are they. This door leads into a short corridor, other doors – not so close-fitting these – line the walls on either side, a total of six doors. The young man calls out his sister's name – not the short one intended for our use, but a longer one in their own language. A door opens on the left, the one at the end beside the blind wall. The woman is really only a girl, sixteen or seventeen, extremely beautiful in a quite wistful way, like a lingering autumn evening with a golden sun. I know that is what would be called poetic, but she really conveys that image to me – one who likes golden autumn evenings. The young man turns to us and indicates his sister:

'This is Britta. She prefers to live alone like this.'

Whatever he might otherwise say was cut short when the girl cried out at the sight of me. This is not vanity, for she ran straight towards me and presented herself to me in an unmistakeable manner, drawing up the long gown she wore. I recoiled, surprised at first then shocked. The young man confirmed my suspicion when he said:

'My sister believes that rape is true love. Love, is that right? Not too romantic? Should I say true passion?'

All I could do was look over at the woman in entreaty, caught as I was between a deep pity for the unfortunate woman and a fear of making matters worse by appearing to reject her. I couldn't read the woman's expression, as though the girl's behaviour struck some fundamental chord in her. Submission, that was the word. This is what the woman sees here, seeing perhaps for the first time just what submission is, not a matter of will or disposition, but just a brute physical surrender on a par with a beast's presentation of itself for slaughter. But no animal does that, fighting instead for its life to the very end. I could see the shudder run up the woman's body, her hands come up as though to ward herself from this sorry sight. But I had no time for niceties here, so I spoke sharply to the woman, intending another kind of brutal domination to counteract the girl's surrender:

'Do something, for Christ's sake. You must know what to do.'

But she didn't, just stood there, her hands warding the poor girl off. And the young man, her brother, was no better here, standing arms limp by his sides, watching his sister gyrate her hips, her pubic hair limp and wet for some reason. Yes, this was how the girl handled her deep terror, collusion as a kind of avoidance strategy, that it can't be a violation if she takes part.

I knew I could not move in any way, either forwards to perhaps quieten her and get her to drop her gown and hide that awful wound, or else move backwards out of my own terror, seeing the brute beckoned in me, another kind of darkness here, very much like an assent to another kind of slaughter: an animal running amok, out of control.

What would have happened I don't honestly know – would I break or would the poor girl see her horror writ large and present in my apparent rejection of her pathetic advances? But what happened is that the door behind us opened – silently, but I felt the draught of cool night air immediately on my back – and the mother spoke calmly, so that the girl started up and let go her gown. I was shivering, the woman was crying quietly, and the girl just turned around and walked back into the room she had come from, at the end of the corridor, back to some kind of unimaginable limbo that stretched over long years past and to come.

Then the mother touched my elbow with a remarkable gentleness, spoke softly, which both the young man and the woman translated for me, voices almost simultaneous:

'Come. You must eat before the food goes cold.'

I did cry, a pent-up sobbing of release on one hand, a relief at being reprieved on the other. The mother drew me away with her and I could feel my grief – no other word for it – flow out of me into her, into the reservoir of her mighty acceptance as though she had a deep deep well into which all pain and suffering could drain away. I had no mother like her before now – my other mother fleeing from the pain of others, from the very fact that she had ever given birth to me, horrified to see me unhappy in any way. I went with this mother, utterly docile in her care, but I did remember to look back to find the woman still bitter in the corridor and stare at her until she nodded and turned to follow me. The last I saw of the young man he was standing in the middle of the corridor, hands hanging by his side, looking as though someone or something had simply switched him off at the mains.

Beyond the door the mother drew me through next was a large kitchen. It was warm in the room, the heat radiating from a fireplace over to the left. That was the first thing I noticed – the radiating warmth – no doubt because that is what I most wanted at that moment. The old man sat to one side of the fire, elbows on his knees, staring into the low blaze in a steady way that showed it was his habit. The mother let me look around like this before pulling very slightly, so that I began walking again, towards the large table that filled the centre of the kitchen. She had places set for both of us, large plates, wooden spoons and forks, chairs pulled back. Once she had got me seated, she patted my shoulder and said something in a low voice before going off in the direction of a large iron stove. The woman sat beside me and translated:

'You must eat your fill now.'

She brought us first a large bowl of cooked turnip, chopped into bite-sized chunks, then another bowl, this time loaded with oaten cakes, hot from the stove's oven, and next she fetched a small bowl of what turned out to be a sweet relish, intended to add savoury to the vegetable. The final offerings were a jug of goat's milk, to be drunk from wooden beakers, and a dish of bright honey for the oatcakes. The wretched experience behind the other door had taken my appetite away: in fact the sight of the food at first nauseated me. I was thinking all the time about memory, remembering, how we cannot escape memory, whether we like it or not. How can memory be borne?

The mother had gone to sit at the other side of the fire. She sat with her palms flat on her knees, only slightly bent forward towards the fire, looking into the flickering blaze with unblinking eyes. I could understand then how this old woman – how old is she? – could bear her memories: she faced them, all of them, with an unnerving fatalism, understanding that it was the past that spoke to her, calling for an impossible reconciliation. And I could see in her uprightness how the awfulness of her memories served to clear a ground for her, how she occupied a place of grace from which she found it possible to acknowledge the terrible things done to her daughter. This old woman saw that the boundary of evil lay in some kind of heaven, as though evil could only exist because goodness already existed – otherwise how could we have knowledge of evil rather than being merely its victims?

It was at this point – operating out of a profound intimacy between us – that the woman chucked my elbow and pointed to the food on the table before us. I nodded, crossing my glance with hers, tentative then momentarily locking. She said to me as she reached to spoon turnip onto her plate:

'Now you see why there is only one place to go, Jim. One destination.'

The turnip was sweet and the relish created a backdrop for this sweetness, so that it did not becoming cloying. The oat cake was hot and dry, another sweetness here, but as though elevated above the vegetable by the sublimity of the honey. A monotonous diet surely, yet wholesome and enduring. I found it difficult to drink the milk, though: can't explain that. It was the young man – coming into the kitchen now and crossing directly to us – that noticed this and who brought me water from the deep urn sitting in a corner away from the fire and stove. He sat then on the other side of the table from us, took the beaker of milk from before me to drink, then said:

'We live almost a thousand of your years, young for a long time then old for a long time. My mother is older than her brother, and she can sometimes remember the day Genghis Khan came here with his army. She can sometimes remember too how her father was tortured by the Mongols, who wanted to know who owned the Tower. Genghis Khan wanted to climb to the top of the Tower, so that he could look out and survey all his conquests. My mother's father could not tell Genghis Khan how to climb to the top of the Tower, because as he told the Mongols, only the King knows how to get to the top of the Tower. And my father told me once, I think because I was learning so much at the university in Moscow, that a long time ago a group of scouts from Alexander the Great's army came here too. The scouts must have got lost somewhere, because the Greeks never came here, though they went everywhere else.'

I raised my hand at this point to stop him, so I could ask a question that had been in the back of my mind since we arrived:
'Why aren't more people around here now? I mean, there are satellites passing over every few minutes, I bet. Surely there would be archaeologists, at least, sniffing about?'

The young man surprised me by getting up and going over to his mother, where he bent and whispered in her ear. The mother looked over at me, then nodded. The young man came back to the table, seated himself, then said:

'This is a different sky. In your world, this sky is like a pin-prick. No matter how many satellites there are above, there are not enough to chance upon the tiny window onto this place.'

Needless to say, that meant nothing to me. I looked at the woman – who had her head supported by her bent arm, elbow on the table, face strained with weariness – who shook her head slowly:

'I don't understand either, Jim. Maybe it's just wishful thinking. I mean, he at least knows something of the modern world and what they might do to a place like this.'

The young man leans forward to get our attention:

'The Russians mapped the area, flew aircraft and helicopters around photographing everything. Where are those records, do you think? The Americans will come someday soon, that is true, and what do you think they will find? The Family is everywhere. And what would it matter if they came? We are just poor peasants, scratching the dry soil for a meagre subsistence. Remember how it was in Rome? Poor shepherds among the ruins of the once great Forum.'

I stood up from the table. Had enough of this. I said:

'We are tired and must rest.'

The young man paused long enough to arouse a suspicion in me. Remember what he had said earlier? That only the King knows how to get to the top of the Tower. I haven't a clue: so where do that leave us? And what to make of this farrago about the hiddenness of the Tower, which is manifest nonsense? Whatever the situation is, a night's sleep will be needed before we try to sort it out. I signalled the woman and she stood up at once. The mother said something from over by the fire, which the young man translated as:

'We have guest quarters prepared for you.'

And which the woman rendered as:

'Put them in the readying room. That's my version anyway, Jim. Readying could also mean being fixed up, with a negative connotation.'

I nodded and remarked:

'Probably doesn't matter either way at this stage.'

The woman obviously agreed, for her shoulders sagged. Her business suit was by now sadly rumpled, so that her resignation made her seem older than her years this evening. Even her hair had lost its gloss. I have to admit that the sight of her then gave me a sneaky satisfaction: too long had she played queen of the game. It was no harm to see her brought down to earth, even at this late stage, when both of us seemed badly caught out.

So the young man led us out of the kitchen and back into the foyer of the Tower. I was surprised – and a little disappointed – when he led us to the door we had previously been through to meet his sister. I was hoping to get away from this family and its misfortunes for the night, to have a semblance of normalcy to aid our recovery. The young man went to the door opposite the one his sister had passed through. Within was a suite of rooms, bedroom, bathroom and toilet facilities, plus what could be best described as a panic room – padded walls, floor and ceiling, straps hanging from the walls and suspended from the ceiling. The young man stood in the centre of the bedroom and said:

'I had to be careful in the presence of my father. He is almost nine hundred years old and can no longer cope with his life. He cannot bear to hear that the Oath Chamber above is still in use. We cannot tell him that you are our new King come to take the Oath of Submission. So I ask both of you to continue to behave as stray visitors in his presence.'

Then he was gone.

You would expect that the woman and I would have a lot to talk about. We did, but all I could think of was sleep, long hours of blessed unconsciousness, far away from this weird realm. And that is what we did. The facilities were adequate, hot running water, deep bath, soft beds, and a night of deep sleep.

I must surely have slept for hours, for waking up was a shock which took me a while to overcome. Yes, and the nightmare returned in a curious form. I thought I was someone's son, and that I was only now starting out on this path. But the path this time was not dark – it was radiant now. What a fantasy. The only light that a son could see was the radiance of his own mother. But the son could never grow up there, never become a man. Dark thoughts I am having as I awake to this hell I inhabit for now. You know, I never thought to ask how they lighted their rooms, but the room was lit a yellow to pink blend, shading in corners and lighting up the sky, as the ceiling seemed then. A bigger shock was to see the sister standing in the middle of the room, watching me. She raised her hand at once to quieten me, a slow watchful light in her eyes. I could not grasp the reality of that, to be known to someone else like that, so that when she signalled that I should follow her, I got up at once and dressed, and went across the little corridor into her place. She closes the door, turns and says to me:

'This is not what you think it might be, is it? You can smile if you wish, but you do not have the slightest clue about what is going on here. You no longer know who you are, only Jim to an old woman. Nor do you know where you are, your charm just a mirror for yourself. And you definitely don't know what you want. Now, you have only one way out of this place – you must become what the Family expects. And I am your guide on that path.'

That when I raised my hands and she stopped and looked at me. Still appraising me, you see, as though I was a candidate in a race. But there is a world in her eyes, stars and galaxies, as though I look into another universe altogether. Very agreeable for the moment, and then what? I said to her:

'Then just tell me what the Family expects. Can you do that?'

She smiles – so surprised to see that, if what I know is true about her, that she submits too easily – a fond smile at that, and said:

'How can I know what is to be expected when I don't know you? You froze stupid when I waved my fanny at you, and now you are on your knees when I look at you. Who are you, Jim? That's what we want to know. Who are you, what do you look at when you look at a woman: her eyes or her cunt?'

Good question? Another way to look at it is this: we cut a woman in halves at the waist, which half would you want, top or bottom? Pity it doesn't operate that way for the man: all they want is cock, and they throw the rest of him away. Boring. Yet I think it needs an answer, so I say in reply, eye to eye:

'And when did you ever look into a man's eyes when a man looked at you? Was it shame, do you think? Or perhaps, you were really looking somewhere else, yes? It wasn't modesty, was it? Prurience, a lifetime of dream dick. And look at you now: airing your cunt in public like a dancer in a show. But now you know how to look a man in the eye, eye for eye, yes? And what do you see of me, I wonder? I am no one from nowhere, so I am not on your map, sister. But I will do this for you: when I look at you I see a better place, and every time I can look at you I will see that other universe, all its stars and galaxies.'

There, it's said. And do you know what she said in reply?

'I see you approaching me, Jim, walking so straight and firm.'

This cannot be true, nothing in my life before now would suggest that I was a straight-track walker. But let fantasy take a part in its own fantasy: let us pretend that I am such a son, and that I had a mother who didn't feel she sinned by bringing another being into this godforsaken place. If am approaching someone, it means that I was expected. Someone knows I am coming. Perhaps a cosmic mother here, my own mother gone everywhere now, spreading light everywhere. So I ask, logically:

'And how far away from me are you, sister?'

Answer (is this smart or true?):

'As far as you want me to be, Jim. And I will always be there, it seems.'

Which is true, another Mona Lisa, wistful like being left behind. But I felt it was time to get down to business: I wanted to get out of there and she could do that for me, so what I needed to know was: what does she want from me? Since the price is escape from this hell, she could get nothing tangible – tangible to me, that is. So my only question is, What else can she have of me that I don't know about? And then I could see why she fascinates me so completely: how she gains knowledge of me so quickly, an experienced lover, you see, knowing where to look. And I do wonder at that: a slut would never get a chance to look at a man anyway. So I say, not spitefully, though it may seem so:

'You have been well trained.'

She realised at once that I had not addressed her this time, for she stepped forward, reaching her right hand for mine, and said simply:

'Gretta. Please call me Gretta. But if I know you to the extent that you think I do, then don't you think I would know your every curvature? That I can see into your very soul? I see the darkness behind you, Jim, that drives you on and on. And how you float in the darkness, cursed only by memory. You have lived your life so far like driving into your rear view mirror, always stumbling back again from the abyss at your feet. See how I know you? Who do you think watched your back all those years? I was like a guardian angel to you, like a reassuring hand now and then, helping you stumble up through that wretched existence you have wasted on a blindness. But I know already that you cannot change, like someone on a ledge more afraid of falling off than trying to escape and failing. And that's it, Jim. That's all, just plain wisdom. How easily you confuse falling and failing: seeing in one only eternity and in the other condemned to relive your life for ever. Do you believe all this nonsense, all this fantasy? If I were to touch you, do you think you would expire? Or if I left you alone, would you come running after me? You know my history, you think we watch your dicks because we desire then. Who told you that? We watch dick the way you would watch a blade coming for you, do you want it or don't you? A sharp blade probably the most apt image for mankind, cutting and being cut, all at the same time.'

She stopped talking, and seemed even to wilt a little – perhaps just tiredness – a look of such confusion on her face, as though looking at everything and seeing nothing. Ah, but she did see me and knew me already, that is what surprises her, that she in some way already knows me. And that is how it is for her, knowing me but not understanding me. And you can see her life now, put simply and directly, of inviting that blade to strike her, over and over again, all through the night of her life, yet never killing her. What can I say? Only this:

'Think this of men: they built – are building – the ledge they cower on. And there is nothing else, absolutely nothing else.'

Like closing down a connection, plugs pulled, exhausting gases for deflation. I remember then where I am and turn to cross the hallway to see how the woman is, if she is awake yet. The girl says at my back, more authority in her voice now, schoolish sort of teacher, yes miss:

'Except you have to get out of this place. Understand this: the woman cannot leave here now: she can neither go forward or backward, exhausted by her fantasy. She is safe here and will be well cared for by my brother, who prizes her mature beauty and wisdom. You must now act for a while as a King. Courage, valour, dignity: you are now Mister Fantasy Man, the dream image of youth for the aged. It is quite simple, I assure you, all you need do is think erection without actually erecting in public. And such a man needs a compensatory fantasy: a guy who gets cunt all the time, no trouble, man, and yet he says no each time. Are you afraid, fear of falling here greater than the fear of failing, great when you have wings? But you know that you never get your dick back if you give it to a woman, yes? After that, banging other women is like a copy of something already achieved. So what does he think of, to keep dick down just now? I will tell you: he walks on the abyss, fear of falling here; then he might think that failing may mean something else, like failing false images, as it were, new edition every instant. As your guide, I will now lead you over to the device that will take you to the top of the Tower. There is nothing else to it. You do your thing and you go free. That's all, Jim.'

I thought at first we were entering a more intimate part of her suite, but no, there is a passage way running back into the Tower itself. The sister, Gretta, that is, presses forward in any case and I feel compelled to follow her, though the walls of this passage were rough, likewise underfoot. There is a different character entirely to this room – more like what I would imagine a chamber would look like, a lot of highlighting in a bright green stone, serene and grave. Gretta turn to me now and indicates a set of two buttons and explains:

'This one will take you to the top and the other one will take you down to Hell, or so it would seem to you. I will leave you now and thank you most sincerely for the interesting conversation this morning.'

Do you know what is happening? I don't. Try to understand it and it seems so familiar. I must have seen the show hundreds of time, on all the channels, all day every day. Up or down? Whither you? Look at a box of worms: see how they climb over each other, getting to the light at the top. And after a while you notice other worms, quiet and steady as they borrow back down to the dark again. So up or down? Nothing else? Only fantasy, I'm afraid. And what would I do in my fantasy only press the up button, already knowing what down is like? And so I do that. The floor rises, not a sound, and the wall is alive with dancing images, coloured only a hesitant blue and a bewildered grey. It's strange. Once I move in this gameplay – as I have just done – I find I have access to immense courage, a nameless expectancy, she's coming, even if I don't know who she is. It is another fantasy, as you can see, but a novel one for me, always a follower, as Gretta has just said. Now I go alone, as though I have a last task to do before I can depart. I need to remind you that I do not believe any of this nonsense. This is more like an enrolment in that I need only sign my name, should I know it. And there's the bind: what name am I? Am I James, or Jim, or the other name the woman gave me: am I Pan? I must be, for it was the woman who brought me here, even though it provides her with no benefit. Is there further to go, so she can have her dream? She is still in bed now, asleep and blissful, at rest. Does she dream of her cosmic half? What does the woman really know?

Well, let's see if I can get answers to those questions. The chamber is beehive shaped, like old corbelling, but lit a fine easy gold light. There is a plaque on the wall facing me, in a language so strange and old. Was this stupid or not? Couldn't they even organise a translation of sorts? What will I be swearing to? They think of everything and then. No, got it. The Oath has nothing to do with that plaque, probably a vanity project by some King or other. What else then? Can you guess? The down button over on the other wall begins to flash bright red, almost as though Hell called to me now. No, I feel at once that down will take me to the ground only. I can have lunch first. Then see how the woman is now. And the floor drops again. I can say I touched the plaque, who's to know – or care, perhaps – otherwise?

I am King now, better know it, chum.

Gretta was standing at ground level. She asks, really surprised:

'Wasn't that rather quick? You do know what you are to do, don't you?'

I walked across the hallway and into our suite. The woman was still asleep, flat on her back, a fine sheet contouring her body very closely. I know I can do it, so I step across and touch her brow, so that she awakens. She's slow to start – as I had been – but I say to her with some urgency:

'We must get out of here now, Vivian. There was no task here, just a blind.'

It's only then that I realised that the woman had arranged all this, not so much the place itself and its inhabitants, more the kind of drama she wanted to enact, making a pageant of her fantasy of exposure. As ever, the woman's agents do her work for her: here the sister rather than the slut or bride. How did I do? Sisters know their brothers too well, best shift her off to another man, someone she expects to meet. The brother is the sister's carefully managed dream image. So I ask the woman:

'What have you in mind?'

Looks scripted, but this is how it came out:

'We must go down, Jim, that's the only way out of here now.'

You'd expect me to cut the shit on this and tell her no way, that I will not go to Hell with her when I can bring that airplane back at once and get to hell out of here. There is no argument here, I am leaving this desolate hole.

HELL

The down button does not go down to Hell. Instead a door opens to reveal a flight of steps that leads into a kind of waiting room. Comfortable environment, easy chairs with fabric covers, cheerful colours, a small kitchen to one side. A door closed behind us and a low buzzer sounded. We were seated by the time movement began, gathering speed quickly as we headed in what I discovered later was in an easterly direction.

There is still a lot of argument between us on what is turning out to be a long journey. I must have suspected it would be a long journey – despite the speed we seem to be going at – for I got an urge to see what we had in the kitchen to eat. I was very surprised that we could have coffee with our oaten biscuits, so I called the woman to come and see what she could have. At least that broke the ice between us, long journey in slow time otherwise, sitting facing each other for goodness knows how long. It was only when she spoke that I realised who she was:

'And how long could you hang around me?'

The woman is the kind of woman who will not turn around. You would end up trudging behind her for ever. The coffee, no doubt, but I said:

'You would only do it if you thought it was worth it.'

If there could be a model of the perfect woman, then this woman I was speaking with was as close to that perfection as I have ever seen. What that makes me is another question, here I want to show you that woman: pure rock and roll, frolics in the park, only one light on show. And I ask again: why pick on me?

'How could I measure up to such beauty as I see in you?'

Said it before I could stop it. Silence. Just silence between us, not even a murmur from the train. Then she said, swallowing carefully first:

'But I am the ground you walk upon, my love.'

Best that, if you can. It could be that I am the sunshine of her life, but I doubt she would believe that. And yet I say:

'I am the sunshine of your life, Vivian, warming you up every day. But can you see the sun?'

And, yes, it works. And worked again – as intended – for she retorted:

'How could we see otherwise?'

It was strange that when I went to get something to eat in the kitchen that I discovered that the food available was very different from earlier. Cooked meats, pickles, hard cheese, and chewy bread. Wine. Did we argue about it? Not likely, we just got tucked in the two of us and ate and drank our fill. And then when we went back into the cabin, we discovered comfortable beds on either side of the room. Nice train, yes? Then the woman said to me, her back to me:

'Will you sleep in mine or will I sleep in yours?'

And why do you think you know what I would say to that? Yes or no? That simple? If you've known a young woman, what could you want with an old one? See sunshine in the young, only death in the old. If I am not on the road to Hell with this women, then I can only be on the road to my death. What we see in the young is an illusion, but so also is what we see in the old. The problem now is that the young no longer follow the old, so that the old take something from this world, call it experience, wisdom, kindness, reaching out. And the young? They'll have to find their own way out. As you can see here. They can only talk to those like them, so that the world becomes spaghetti hoops, all your friends, then all your special friends that come round to see you and say hi, and your best friend, a sponge that never overflows, and there's that special friend you go to see – the one woman in the world you would wish to be, each frightened that the other might be a queer, frightened also if you think you are, afraid to want anything else. Just like any suburban queen, in other words. Countless millions of us wired into those paradises. There. We come to that question again, change of tone: is this how the machine takes us over? The whole universe just a tv screen, lit any way you want it, temperature and humidity as you want it, companions who follow you, friends who are at your back, lovers who go meat to meat, the one who listens to you. If that isn't Paradise, then tell me what is.

The woman stirs in her bunk then, with the little glowing light coming on to show me the shape of her unclothed, and calls softly:

'I think your problem is, Jim, that you are not Pan. You do not spread out, you pull me in, and I have told you already that all I can see there is darkness. I don't mean to hurt your feelings in saying this. This is my honest judgement. If I could overcome your feelings of reluctance, don't you think I would have done it before now, and not have such an unhappy man sharing a room with me?'

And here is me bitching about paradise, yes, and this woman having to look into mine, so dark and yet so active, like another universe. So I say, meaning to be kind but not sure if this is the thing to say – it is the thing I want to say:

'I am not your father, Vivian, I am not a spectator, having no memory of my mother. I am me, all you have at the moment, a young man who does not want to fuck an old woman. Your craziness is taking me on an adventure I could never have created out of myself. I know you will not succeed, so the only question is, will you ever stop trying? In other words, can I drop off this merry-go-round any time I want? I don't know and I am afraid to try.'

On the ledge again, see? I did ask for a way out and was assured I would have it, just take her to her end and then you'll see for yourself. Actually, I didn't make such an agreement with anyone. I was trapped but never seduced. And it is still good copy. Wait and see. Anyway the woman was sitting up on her bunk now, her superb breasts so full, and she says across to me, peering into the dark part of the room:

'There's a short answer and there is a long answer: which one do you want?

It's the strange thing about a woman's breasts: men always, but always, look at a woman's breasts. And yet to touch them can be such an anti-climax, curvature being lost to mere fat, like an angel brought down to earth. Any woman with sense values her tits over everything else and leaves the men to fiddle in the mud. And again I ask: what is to be gained from looking at these breasts again? They do not change, will never change. The woman is always just coming into view, permanently onstage, selling only one product: herself. Even so, I nod to her that she should lie back again, so that her little lamp goes off and we lie side by side in the dark, nothing between us now. Then I say:

'The long answer, if you will. It might help pass the time.'

The word time brought us consider food again. Sure enough, roast potatoes, cabbage and a succulent lamb chop. Mellow red wine. Coffee and chocolate afterwards. Nevertheless, once we had dined and wined and coffeed, I said to her, sipping a cognac with mint:

'Remember? The long answer, now.'

So there we were, beds more like divans this time, lower, so more was always to hand. The darkness seemed to comfort her now, which is good, for she said abruptly:

'You were right, you know, Jim, I can see the fantasies now, like you said I would. But this is about reality, as such. A woman can do one of three things with a man in her life. One, she can cut off his dick. Two, she can suck his dick. Three, she can be fucked by that dick. And you would say, I'm sure, that the woman has failed to connect, can only see the surface, just like men see women. But I want to tell you another way, where we will both be happy together for ever. I am a virgin, dedicated to only one man, my cosmic half that I told you about. I can bring this heavenly being – on a par with the highest angel – down into your being. Then you will be my cosmic half and we will live in Heaven for ever as one. But you must give me permission to do this. You have permitted all my other escapades, why not allow me this last wonderful fantasy?'

There is only one answer and I decide to get it out here at the start:

'This is not a fantasy. The fantasies stopped when you stripped off your clothes for me. Circumstances, perhaps, if you wish, but it was only when I looked back at my guide that I saw myself, all of me. She may have been a young serving girl in your eyes, but she had an inborn wisdom that was never available to you. And that is what you saw, too, that day. You saw me, too, like I have never seen you. But you should not be fooled, men are only images of your true love, the closer the better, of course. And what of that man behind the screen? If he has any sense he will seek his other half too, so that however they can do it, they will both search. And they will be happier with their discovery, so that they are kinder to their women, knowing their pain: only as a man can you succeed.'

We fell asleep then, tired out by everything. In the morning it was like yesterday: croissants and rolls, soft cheese, a little sweet fruit to balance it, and apricot conserve with butter afterwards. Obviously a good meal. Only then did I remember the woman's translation of the mother's remark, and the sense of an ordeal awaiting me. But I feel no ordeal, as such, underway. No matter how many times I tell her, the woman persists in believing that I must move just because she has seen me move. She will not accept – very emphatic here – that she could move too, should she wish it. Well, so what? She's no dancer, after all, not moving to a beat. And she's not a whore either: no money selling tit, that's for morning time. She was better as the crazy old woman I first met. She knew I liked a show, not a voyeur, mind you, just like to see things, anything, everything. Then she thought she had control of me and ran me by her serving girls to try me out. There are always glitches, this is not a hard science, OK? The main problem was that this was the woman's first outing on the street, as it were. She didn't know what to expect so all the work was on me working it out for her. The fundamental problem is that, as said, she's not my type. No, why do unhappy fucking just because you can't get happy fucking? Hand jive if you need to, otherwise find something interesting to do with your time. She must have been reading my mind, for she suddenly said, no warning in the dark:

'I saw a god born and I saw him die. And my beloved heard his words, so the two of us were together in his memory, even though we hardly knew him. They are gone from me now, but my beloved calls to me always, knowing this universe and wanting to stay with me here for ever. What else is there, Jim? Love a god, man, one you like: good for you.'

You see that because this is just so much copy to me, that I can be indifferent to her barbs, that I do not want to take part in this charade. The woman is obsessed with dick and is just as frightened of it. This does not matter to me. I ride Barbara every night for an hour at least, sharing our happy world, steady work, if you know what I mean, keeping it up and up. This woman merely clutched mine in the dark and she is on her knees already. The problem here is – to break off on a tangent for a moment – that woman always wants the real thing, no duds definitely. See? Do I give her my dick or not? My inclination is not to. I would otherwise walk away from such a proposal. So I say, apparently pedantic:

'You need to consider what an erect male penis is like. I mean, what images would come to your mind.'

That should keep her quiet for a while. I close my eyes to sleep, when:

'Nothing in the whole universe matches the miracle that is the penis. Some men apparently even give it to others to play with, and many people, mostly men, pay good money for images of dick, all except images of their own. You see, Jim, even men worship the penis, the Phallus. Dick is only one thing, and anyone who tells you different you can be sure she's wrong, probably having a dick at home that's no good. I don't think it is indiscrete to tell you that having measured your rod, I think you will be able to fuck me good, when the time comes, that is. Have you come to the point of wanting to do that yet? No, so it seems. You will not surrender to me, I can see that now. So, we must use another method. Some people call this magic, but it is not magic – this is a power of the whole universe. I will make you mine, mine, all mine forever.'

What a change in temperature. To see her so clearly: always wanting what she can never have. Yet the depth of her conviction, what do I make of that? Might as well go straight in:

'But what do you want, Vivian? You cannot bring him down to earth, for him the earth does not exist, and in his darkness he sees only your light, like a fairy in the night. But I am not like that. In your terms I am a man who sees another light, more true than yours because it is mine. Do you see what it is that you want from me? You want that light, which you believe would allow you to see your beloved man, that light which beams to me from my cosmic half. How deep is that for you? Put simply: you see your beloved reflected in me, but I see my love directly, like a sun, not just the light of a moon. But what I don't understand about all this, and why I ask you now, is this: why did you pick me? We have nothing in common, the ages are wrong, I think you are a tart, and you think I am smart. It is strange, you know, how all your servants were charmed with me – did you stage that? – in just the way that Barbara is charmed with me. How you could create all that, surely an initiation rite of some kind, temptations and rewards as usual? Is it that I owe you something for that grace? The trouble is that you would will not accept my way of paying you back, you wanting more than I can possibly give you. How do I pay you back? Who else would have got you this far? Who arranged this train ride for you? You see? Paid in full.'

Lunch time then. Cottage pie and tea, some fruit afterwards. The wine was light, but neither of us could place it, but very delicate as though warding off the coarse food. I was beginning to get cabin fever, and I think the woman was restless, hands folded a lot. I didn't feel like talking anymore, and neither, it seems, did the woman. The silence was intense, as you might expect, but after a while the silence seemed to have a shape, like music would, or like a sail at sea – a hand to help you on. Very peculiar to think this under these circumstances – how strong gentleness is, how everything is sustained by it. The light in the cabin seemed to change very gradually, shading now with blue flowing into yellow, and yellow expanding into red, then red melting into blue: almost imperceptibly until you would suddenly sense the light shift, at what point blue lights up as yellow, or red dies into blue, and of course: where yellow surrenders to red. Very subtle, but I wondered why this display. Was this some kind of programming? After which the woman and I become Adam and Eve in a garden on the new earth? Only now do I wonder what the fuck is going on here. I mean, I don't think I have the big picture here. I was too concerned for my own wellbeing to pay attention to detail. When I think back over the last few days – how many were there? – it looks as though I am on a journey through a large, elaborate tunnel, tricked out like a French arcade. The predominant colour in the tunnel, especially on the ceiling is a very cheerful blue, lot of russet red among the throng below, very crowded but very good mood. The four women, Juliette so sweet and honest, LeiLie so sharp and sweet, and Jocasta, like an angel, so honest and sharp. And this last servant – how many names? – who was honest, then sweet, then sharp, what did she teach me: that open is never wide enough, with so much to take in? You see, Juliette gave me confidence – if someone as sweet as her could survive in the Chateau, then I could too; then LeiLie gave me the shield – that would allow me withstand the sight of Diana naked; and then Jocasta – with whom I would have lived and died – who made love possible in me, knowing now who I already love. What did the last woman – Gretta – give me, do you think? I can't see what it might be. We were not together long enough – even though we had no more to say to each other – she was like the last woman alive, exhausted already by desperation. How long has she been here, more like security than someone's raped sister, more aware than most of what she is missing, knowing the big picture? Did you see who she was? I didn't either, not until just now. I don't want the woman to twig that my cosmic half can enter the body of an earthly woman. That accounts for the different behaviours, you see, though not for the similarity of language if not of tone.

But the problem here now is what to do about the woman? She will have to be allowed follow all the way through to whatever end awaits her. It will require patience, but as you see, I am capable of that.

I must have dozed off then, for the carriage was brightly lit when I awoke. Through the windows I can see a lighted concourse, that you would see in a busy underground station in some metropolis. Yet the silence was so complete that I mentally filled the place with rush and bustle, air astir as a train shoots out into the light. There was a door slid open just to my right, so I could step out onto the platform. All the displays, indicators, monitors, were dark and silent, and the timetable was empty. I assume that this is not true, just part of the fantasy. Can I peek and see what the place is really like? Can I do that? Ah. I see it crowded, so much bustle and weariness, as though the people believed they were immortal but couldn't get home soon enough. And they are all gone, completely gone. Was that the Family somewhere else, some other time? Like they lived underground and had to come to the surface for some reason. This is the fantasy, remember? And all that gold – that is mine for now – is that what we took from their underworld – like Alberich's Ring, wanting to rule over everything? Are many like that, I wonder. What if there are, you are only passing through anyway, keeping your head down, like there's jam for tea tonight, everything you want within reach? What could someone like that do for the woman? I'll probably get her into a routine and pedal away until she finally dies. What else? She's been beautiful, she's been loved, she's been rich, she's been queen, now she's being an old woman. A routine will help her just slip away, a gentle swoon into the night.

I went to wake her and found her lying on the floor, face down, buttocks very relaxed. I assumed she was meditating or something, so I spoke gently to her at first to draw her attention back here:

'We have arrived at Grand Central. They're holding back the crowds, so you should be safe here.'

I went back out onto the concourse. I wondered if there was a switch somewhere I could throw that would get this show working again. I walked around while I waited for the woman, though nothing to see, everything gleaming bright. I have no idea what happens next. I assume we will try to get out of here, get to the surface of this abandoned city. What would be the point of that? I go back to the coach and search around for some controls, to see if I can get it to go back to the Tower. The woman rolls over onto her back – her full breasts coming into sight like the wheels of a truck – opens her eyes to look at me and says:

'This is the City of the Patriarchs, should you wish to know. It is buried beneath the Gobi Desert, accessible now only to the Elect. We are immortal now, you and I. Never will we die. When I have dressed we will go up to meet the Patriarchs, who will be pleased to see us, bringing the joy of true love to this realm.'

To which there is no answer. So the train has no controls that I could find. How will it work then? I say to the woman, to sound her out:

'How do I get out of here now? I have brought you to the place you sought, and that is what was agreed between us, so I can go free now?'

She's very surprised to hear me ask that, though she was busy fixing the zip on her dress. I went out of habit to help her, dragging the zip up by main force – the dress is only a prop for this part of the fantasy anyway– while she said to me:

'There's no going back, Jim. Did I not tell you that? I'm sure I made it clear: I am taking you into my life. In any case, the train will not leave here until we have left here. It will not take you back to the Tower and to that sneaky bitch there, coming into our room like that. What must the rest of her family be like? Are they squatters, do you think, wandering in the desert until they found the Tower, seeing it from afar, no doubt? I wouldn't trust the brother on my own with him in a room. I didn't say it at the time, but he was too familiar, just like his sister, I'd say. No upbringing, just senile parents with their noses to the ground. Squalid people.'

Well, I said I could put up with her. She followed me out once she had dressed – the yellow dress all puffed up like a lemon for some reason, her long legs all white and bare – and as I suspected she knew the way. So I asked her out of curiosity, to fill up the time as we crossed the great concourse towards some steps:

'Which part of you do you like the most? Your long legs? Your soft bottom? Your big boobs? Your movie face? You see, you dress them all in turn, and so revealing all of them to me, except of course your – what will we call it?'

Could see her attention switch around her body as I spoke, saw how she moved her unnameable – from side to side like a decision, not from front to back like submission – her past no doubt passing before her eyes, seeing all the gameplay with her body. She smiled without looking over at me, funny for some reason to see half a smile on half of her face, then said, head up:

'Which works, whenever it works, and to answer your next question: I think your liked my legs until you saw the back of me. My legs told you that you could get a good distance out of me, but my bottom told you it would be comfortable riding. And you think my tits just get in the way. As for my face, the fact that you do not see yourself in it – I'm not fooled by your bullshit – seeing only creeping old age, is not my doing, believe me. If I could show you Heaven, as some can, then I would do that for you, every time without fail. But there is someone else already in my Heaven, Jim, so there is no room for you. You see that I mean well by you, want you to be happy too. Oh, and to answer your question: I had chosen you because you have never loved any woman. I do not deem your shared fantasy with your wife love, only a stopgap to protect you from the love of a woman. I know you claim now that you love your cosmic half – as indeed you should – but that love cannot be realised in this life, can it?'

The steps, I discovered, were covered with a fine sand, packed at the edges as though blown there by wind. There were not many steps, but they curved up in such a way that the top could not be seen. The women followed me closely, still talking:

'I will allow that in time, perhaps after your death now that you know of the existence of your cosmic half – thanks to me, by the way – you will be able to unite with her hopefully for all eternity. But here and now, Jim, you cannot bond with her. You have admitted this yourself. So there is nothing to stop you from facilitating me now. And I promise that you will fully experience our bliss – that of my cosmic half and myself united in love here on earth. And what is...'

We have reached the top of the steps and you can see that the woman fell silent very abruptly. No city in view. Instead, we see some trees bending in a stiff hot wind, and beyond them desert sand stretching to the horizon.

We are in an oasis, obviously in the Gobi Desert. It's a small oasis, mostly marked by a large copse of exotic trees and bushes surrounding a deep pool of clear water. There is a platform of exposed rock to the north of the oasis, extending several kilometres away from us and about five hundred metres wide. I discovered a cavity in the rock – which didn't altogether surprise me – with steps leading down into a suite of rooms carved out of the rock. I had been close to panic before discovering this convenience, but once I did I settled down again: this is still part of the charade. But so far, no serving girl had appeared to try me. What I wonder will be the test this time.

The woman herself is in a bad way now and nothing I can say or do will comfort her. Loss of faith, no other way to describe her situation, a catastrophic loss. Will she ever overcome this loss, understanding that what is on offer is not another way of living, it is instead an offer of insight? She has been wiped of her delusions, so who will come out of her, who is Vivian Palmer, late of Brighton in England? That is one person I would like to meet. I caught glimpses of her at times, you know, so elusive and so inviting, like she was just there for me, and for me alone. And yet could she herself understand who she was hiding from and yet making herself known to someone else? You see, Vivian likes to feel pain, likes it because it is another voice we have, one that might be heard. Now I understand why the woman is here: she tested her abiding dream of the perfect man to the very end, but needed me here to guide her here. And I have brought her here, tracing this fantasy to its end, learning that what she wants cannot be had. There is now no fantasy, no story, no myth: so who is there instead, and what new fantasy could she have that is not just yesterday's news? Will it be the same old story, virgin or slut? For that is how Vivian is – you're either all the way in or else you are all the way out, either not fucked at all or being fucked for ever. In other words, your fantasy or mine? And yet what does she want? The world becomes like a swamp as you get old, alive to you then. Figuratively, she needs to be switched on first. No, don't misunderstand me here: I don't intend doing any switching on: it is only the fantasy that interests me, not the woman.

Anyway, better fill you in on the situation here. The woman had found a log to sit on, hands on her knees as though studying the great desert out there. There was no expression on her face, not soft, not hard, very malleable, as though all feelings flowed through her just then, all the pain and all the joy, horror upon horror, one prayer if she is lucky. I was going to leave her there for the moment – while I look around the oasis itself – when she said without moving:

'You cannot know what it is like to be a woman if you cannot bear to see her cry. You have seen me cry, Jim, and yet you brought me here to die. Could you not see me in my tears, Jim? Can you even remember them?'

Looking at a woman crying is like feeling that you are falling into a deep ocean. And yet we never drown, no matter how many tears women cry. Now you see what I mean about the woman being elusive? A woman vanishes when she cries, the more piteous the further away she can get. And inviting? The woman thinks glancing is the same as seeing, when all she is doing is counting. It is this that makes a woman's contour the most beautiful for men. You see, the woman doesn't see the man when she is scoping other men, so the man can enjoy the sight of a living work of art that is the woman's body without the woman knowing it, for otherwise she would put on an act for him, having an audience for this or that fantasy. This is what is called beauty. So I say in reply before leaving:

'A lack of control. Tears are so a thing of the past, don't you think? If a woman cried for me, I think I could ride her to the end. Who have you ever cried for? Did a man want you but who could never make you cry?'

I went back up to the Apartment – I'll call this particular suite of rooms, very commodious and cool, an Apartment, like it had no neighbours anywhere. Which is true, of course, unless there is an ancient city on the other side of every horizon here, of which there are a great many, with only trees to interrupt the view here and there. Everything is automated down here, wireless remotes for our use. Fresh food, wine, some beer, two showers, all very comfortable. Yes, the charade, as I said. The question is: when should I bring the woman up here, do I want her to be shocked or do I want her to be delighted? Believe me, it is a tough question to answer. Do I fuck her or not? Yes, it seems strong at first, but think about it: what question would fucking answer? None that I know of. And this might be me, but I need to know the question before I could know the answer. If I knew the question, what was required of me, then perhaps I would understand my reluctance.

It was then that a voice behind me said:

'Is there a balance, Jim?'

I knew the voice at an instant and swung around to see Gretta standing in the hidden door under the stairs, where I had searched less than an hour ago. She looked tanned for some reason, as though she had just come back from a really good expensive holiday. That kind of relief was so evident in her just there, like you could spread out to your real proportions when somewhere hot and dry. The gown was shameless, but she knew that as she knew I would. I wondered just then how we could be so tuned in, like sharing headphones. I smiled and said quietly:

'Why do I always see you as though set in stone, say in a museum garden? Is that what they call dignity? And yet it is though there are a million, many millions, of your statues all around me now. It's like I can see all of you at once.'

She liked that, really liked that, see her light up, a gravity there that shone brightly in her lovely retreating loveliness, that once again mesmerises me. And she said, laughing as we crossed the room to meet:

'And I see you as a rare script, a good story if you chose to tell it. You are the kind of man that moves without moving, a wonderful mattress for a woman like me.'

Strange that I would have married and settled down to family life with Jocasta, and yet with this beguiling woman all I want to do is sit and talk with her somewhere until I know her, know all about her. I parried her with a smile:

'Only if you did not know better, Gretta. I would rather move in your mind. Then we could set our bodies free with each other, for pleasure or pain, while I would know you and you would know me, a bond hard to break.'

Gretta nods her agreement immediately, then says folding her arms as a sign:

'But is that all, Jim? Is that the best you can manage as a proposal of marriage? Are you not interested in what our minds may know? What if there is some kind of truth in us, in us together, I mean?'

I went out then to get the woman and bring her in. It will be down to the woman what happens when she comes in here. Gretta nipped back out of sight pretty quickly, leaving absolutely no evidence of her stay here with me. I feel as though I know Gretta and yet I know nothing at all about her. Found the woman this time walking by the pond, seemingly relaxed and at ease. She calls over:

'They say that the evenings are always better here, because we prefer departing heat but not its arrival, which burns us up. I expect that, judging the location of the oasis – which places us in a very remote part of the desert – that it will take back its heat tonight in a gentle persuasive way, and not trouble us too much tomorrow morning.'

It's what I recorded, and that's what has gone down here. The woman has turned towards her death, not accepting the proffered wisdom on offer, as I have said. And all I could see was Gretta in her place, and knew that I did not want the woman to come out to the Apartment, which I am already sharing. The truth? This woman could die of thirst here and I couldn't care less, especially if I can call to Gretta, knowing she will come to me. The woman still can't accept that she is alone now. She can go where she likes in the world and I will pay for everything she wants. All she has to do is stand on her own two feet, just be there, for once in her life. And so I say to her, remaining on the other side of the pond:

'You are free now, Vivian, to be who you want to be, but you can never never try to make anyone like you, or make anyone to be like you, if only because you don't do fascination. I suggest you sit in some public place and wait until someone passing says hello to you, when you should reply with real kindness, letting it flow out into the world about you. You can also skulk in your room – as you have done all your life – and hide yourself from the world. Who will care? But if you go out to meet people you will find that there are many of them happy to meet you.'

That was it, as far as I was concerned. The woman will be monitored here until she comes to express the wish to travel somewhere else. There are detailed instructions somewhere. I walked off and left her standing at the far side of the pond, arms akimbo with the sun setting at her back, a wonderful golden sky that she cannot see. I'm sure my instructions have been noted. The woman will want for nothing, every comfort and aid. That left me free to make my way out to the Apartment. Gretta has moved in, as I hoped, and we can sit now and talk. She had me speak first, having news, while she has only history, and a lot of history.

'For a start, let me say this: this woman will never fly right. Why did she have to be brought to this terrible mess? She spoke before about her dream man, the cosmic half, as she called it, has spoken of him all her life apparently. How many men did she frighten off, as she frightens me off? No matter, circumstances contrived to bring her all the way to here, with me as her guide – all unknowing, I assure you – and we have left her with nothing at all except what gold can buy. We have sucked the soul out of this woman, and did it with cold calculation, just so you people could find out if there was something there or not. And what have you found? Do you know, or even care, Gretta, that the woman sat still with all human pains and joy flowing through her, and then when she stood by the pond she appeared to me as everyone in the world alive just now? Do you know what you have created? I know you wanted to know, but what did you learn from her, Gretta?'

We had decided to eat while we talked, and found the kitchen filled as usual with appropriate food for our enjoyment. Gretta is somewhat frugal in her habits – no bad thing if needed – so she had time to talk at length as I enjoyed my dinner – venison with a very good wine.

'The problem is, Jim, that if the woman changed as we thought she might, we would not know anyway, seeing only strangeness in the woman. We hoped she would teach us – women like me, that is – to see our cosmic halves. You see, what we understand now is that this woman was brought here by her cosmic half. If she can now call him into you, then she will have achieved her aspiration and taught us a valuable lesson: how to make good use of a man.'

I had to interrupt then, raising my hand was sufficient, we are so close:

'I can accept the technicalities when they are necessary, but what other use would a woman have for a man, is she cannot help him, that is?'

Her response was forthright, as might be expected:

'What help can a woman be to a man, when she doesn't know where he is going? You want women to help men only because they provide the light. And in my light, Jim, you are on your way, always on your way to nowhere. How could any woman help you there when we don't know what it looks like, it being dark in there?'

And well meant, more than you might expect in the circumstances, given that we have only just met. She still moves like stone, being always where she is. But she is seated here now, and so I see her like a queen on a throne, looking like every queen you have ever known. It is not the beauty, you see, but in the dignity and the grace there is sown a vitality of its own. Gretta has roots down into the earth's core. And she has arms that reach up to the very sky itself, embracing all that she sees. And she has eyes that just sit and wait until you arrive, eyes that wait for you, patiently wait for you. And I replied, just exact enough:

'You mirror Heaven, Gretta, the heaven we strive for.'

And now it is as though time has stopped and we are sitting for ever at that table, and I just look at her and she looks at me. Have you ever experienced a rapport like that, like you are one with another? And she said to me:

'I am only what I see in you, Jim, that close and that far away always.'

The strangest thing is that I went through some kind of vision then, as though I was looking down a tunnel that reach back to the beginning of time. Very vivid and yet not frightening at all. If you were to say to me that maybe I have got that wrong, I would point to a living being to prove that I had not. See in Gretta how she reaches back to the beginning of time, conscious of where she comes from. And who am I in that world, you might wonder: why, I'm the man leading her on to the end of time, who else can I be?

It was then that the woman found her way into the Apartment, blinking in the light, thoroughly exhausted. We didn't try to cover up, there was no point: it doesn't say anything to her, a virgin. The woman found her way to the table at last, a lot of shouting now in the Apartment as we guided her over to us, like landing a very big fish, like that. Anyway, we got her seated on the warmer side, a consideration she thanked us for, no realising that this arrangement allowed Gretta and I to admire each other, while she looked out the window at the night. But Gretta and I could not continue with our conversation, I said to the woman, to fill up the empty space:

'Has it cooled down up there?'

The woman was very hungry and was tucking into everything on the table like she had four hands, a timid grabbiness. But she stopped to look over at me and said:

'Jim, how could you see everything in nothing? Yes, never. But we can see the nothing in man. How is it that I see everything and yet see only nothing in man? There cannot be a nowhere in everywhere, not so?'

As per tape, like last time: but the woman spoke with such a frankness that you would have to give her credit at least for a kind of understanding. She is trying to fill the darkness she discovered in herself, but she doesn't know what to fill it with. I know, you would smirk and think you could fill it for her, but understand at this point that what you say is in fact true, only that her kind of darkness would burn your mind, not your dick. I waited to see if Gretta wanted to reply, then I said:

'Let it be, Vivian. Just let it be. We both know what you are about. Gretta is on your side here, while I am opposed to you. Fine. Gretta's people say it can be done, but be aware that they are studying the man here, not the woman. And I have told you more than once that this is not going to happen. Now, the plan is this. This is your personal end, the one you have sought for all your life, to which I have brought you, at your request. You can choose to live wherever you wish on earth and you will be provided for generously for the remainder of your years. You can tell everybody everything at once. You could easily make a living by the word, just see my publishers, where Barbara will fix everything up. You are being monitored here constantly, for your own wellbeing, so it will be easy to catch the merest sign. We will have you relocated in a matter of days, leaving you to reconsider your choice, how you will live then, only wealthy now, not rich anymore.'

We were silent for a little while, when the woman said without warning, almost barking the words out at me:

'And you think that I came all the way out here just to be fucked by a cheap scribbler like you? Maybe I should have sucked your dick for you, which is easy to do once you get the man's rhythm, or perhaps I should have made you suck my tits, to feed on the honey there. But the truth is, Jim, you're not worth it, no man is, with such dark minds in the night. Is it that men don't like me, do you think, or is it that I fear them? I have a dick too, as you might infer, proof that I belong to another man, a man not here yet, but coming to me tonight. I never wanted another man and put up with you for so long so that I can take you over tonight.'

I could feel the instant barrier linking Gretta to the woman. There was nothing I could say at that point – with the two women in rapport like that – so I slipped away from the table and went into the sitting room and found myself a comfortable couch that I could recline on. There was coffee – of course there was, what kind of cheap fantasy do you think this is? – and even some chocolate, left from lunchtime. It is a surprisingly handsome room – the entire suite in fact is very handsome – with a generous air, commodious. You wouldn't want to take Gretta's alliance with the woman too seriously, she is only interested in the man she can feel, while the woman as you no doubt know by now thinks that all men want to do is feel her up. Would she have liked that? Interesting: the woman knows what lies below the surface in herself, red hot earth, a real gimme-that sort of woman, frantic because of the heat in her. If but one man had felt her up, she would have wanted to fuck every man in the world, a genuine have-em-all slut. Touch her and she'll fuck you to death. That I can understand now, but what about her weirdness? I cannot see how it could happen that another being could take over all my bodily functions so that all I had to do was to enjoy the show. So forever and a day I will want to see an aging woman wanting to be fucked silly by a young man but terrified he will say no? Would you? Not on this planet, not on any planet anywhere. Transcendence? More like being late for the party.

The woman comes in here now, her clothes awry, so that I see her dark bush tonight, more to come, son, that sort of that complacency, that the cunt is enough for any man anywhere. She wants to sit on the couch near to me, but I point her away to the further couch, over near the door. She doesn't want to do this – and even looks as though she would fight her way through – wanting me to lie in the middle between Gretta and her, while she hogs the light and its warmth. It was then that Gretta says at my back:

'In terms of figuration, Vivian, you need to consider your situation here very carefully. Jim's offer is generous to a fault, I think, more than we could ever provide for you afterwards. You need to consider what you and your dream lover will do together till the end of time. You may want to fuck each other stupid, but someone will have to pay the rent, buy the food, keep the place clean for visitors. You will be so famous, within and without the Family, final proof that our aspiration is true, that we can wait for Mr Right. In the Family, women have been bartered between men for their own use. It is a surprisingly fair system, once the women learned how to make it, take it, fake it, all in one night. It gave women a certain kind of power: like they had their foot on the throttle, which they used to a set end, to hide themselves away from men; go dumb, in other words. Now we are learning. To see our last King select you from the whole of living mankind to have as his Queen, to see all your exploits together on tv, and now to meet you in person, then well? What can I say to you? You may have lived with a god, but you even so honoured our King, though no one believed your story, but here tonight I am going to witness you being screwed by a man, whether that will be Jim here or your fancy god, in my presence tonight.'

I had to laugh out at that last sally, so impish but so to the point. It also reminded me of something, so that I said in an aside to Gretta, by now encouched beside me, lying out on her back and staring at the ceiling?

'The agreement is that we leave here after this, agreed?'

She just nodded, then turned back to observe the woman's retort:

'No man has never touched me, no man. I am pure, even though I've had dick in my mouth. Do you think I am going to let the likes of him stick it in me? Only when I have taken him over for my cosmic half will I let that body near me. I will be fucked by myself and no one else. And that, Jim, is something only a woman can do, for a man is only a man, while a woman is both a man and a woman.'

If I am convinced that she cannot do it, why don't I let her try it on me? Good question. The answer: she will kill herself, for what will happen is that loving kindness will take her over and she will roll about to be petted and stroked, dying of gentleness, of not wanting to make a noise ever. So what? I have what I want now, and can't wait to get out of here and back into my life first thing in the morning. Just let her try it on, that's all. So I relent:

'Alright, Vivian. Do it now.'

There is one thing about being a god that always enthrals me: having nothing to do, nothing to want, nowhere to go. Just sit and be mighty. And yes, I know that her stunt has worked, but not quite in the way she expected: her cosmic half is in my mind, not my body. Where then am I? If I open my eyes here I might scream out in pleasure or pain, and give myself away. Yet I know already that I am sitting in a little room, reading a newspaper, at half part eight on a Sunday morning, waiting to escort my wife and our four daughters up to Church. The article I'm reading is about the sale of Pembury Cottage, after years of litigation. I still think my brother was foolish to run after that woman, we could see she was cheap and only after his money. And then he got her the cottage and had it done up for her, genuine 1490s believe me, only to have it overrun by what she called her friends from the city. How rough city people are, surrounded as they are by walls and floors, how they hit against everything without noticing it, sometimes even fighting among themselves over the silliest things, like football or money. We went only occasionally, tough to look and see your brother's careless ways, as though he lived his future here with this woman.

Did I tell you about the woman? No. Well, to start with, you would need to imagine her made out of alabaster, but very good shape to her even so. She could walk and walking made her very rich indeed. I cautioned my brother once, but all he said was: What if death was the only alternative? So we let him go, down into that foolishness, and he was like a candle burning down, all lit up and knowing the price. As for the woman, she glowed, lining up to take us over, but we had no use for her, being married with families. The end is that she will have to go somewhere else now, preferably far from here.

So now it is time to set off to Church. I am not a religious person, but being Lord of the Manor makes a difference here. If I go to church, then everyone will go to church, and if I do not go to church, then no one else will either. My wife thinks it better to get them all to sing together for an hour or so, and give them tea and biscuits afterwards. So, now we attend Church. And here comes my brood, my fair daughters, little Gretta, just starting school, then there is Jocasta, first in her class and obedient at home. And now our problem daughter, LeiLie, back home again to lick her wounds, a Goth this time. And finally, the young woman of the family, my pretty Juliette, all charm and grace and innocence, never having seen a man yet. And here comes my wife, Barbara, swaying on the new heels, party time for her when she can belt if out with the best of them. Not much, perhaps, but we are a quiet community, tolerant of each other to a degree. I ride my wife every night and only now do I wonder if we make much noise, so that the girls might hear? Why realise this now? Obvious: you can see it in each of the girls, Juliette not listening, LeiLie watching once upon a time, Jocasta with downcast eyes, seeing goodness knows what, and lastly, fair Gretta, who knows what's happening, last daughter to sleep in our bedroom.

I am perplexed by an element here now: I had expected something completely different as a fantasy, god's eye view of a god's world, and all I get is me in another dimension or incarnation, wondering where the woman is in all this. And then I get it. The woman is not here because she is somewhere else: in my mind, I bet. Let me tell you what I did here. I realised that if the woman's trick worked we would both have strong experiences so how could I capture both events, in myself and in the woman? I fixed audio for the woman and left that to record her response, while I typed out my own as it occurred. I have already given you the text of my event, so here I want to add the recording of the woman's event:

'That was a nightmare. To be so near and yet so far. Pussy too long or too short, dick not big enough, how the mind plays tricks on you when you least expect it. I am sitting somewhere and I think I am made of stone. The light is grey, but silver grey in places, the land monotonous and flat. And I am waiting for someone. I am wearing the kind of soft skirt that moulds itself to your hips and buttocks, coloured a crocus yellow. The blouse is made out of gossamer and wafts about my breasts, flushing the skin. The jacket is long and black, my legs enwrapped in bright fluorescent light. Who do I wait for, do you know? What kind of man are you, who can carry my wiles and pull my wishes, who can ladle the can or saddle the ram? Would you find me interesting, do you think? Some conversation over a glass? Would I look funny with you, me in this tat and you in that? That is the man I wait for.'

The woman was very gay afterwards, seemingly unsurprised to find herself still here with Gretta and me, when she should have been in seventh heaven, having fun. I emphasise that about her being gay, in an old-fashioned jolly way, quite dippy at times, probably reliving some earlier life. Gretta responded to her very well, more than I only realised then I expected. To be honest, at that very moment I wasn't very interested in the woman's state, having recorded her experience, I wanted to turn to the content of my own experience. Was it as banal as an exhortation to marry and breed? Kings and queens don't fuck in Paradise, finding enough comfort in each other's presence. I suppose you're either one or the other anyway. No, I don't think so, I remember now that I had a brother in that vision, who was destroying himself over a woman. Do you know what? That was the point at which my fantasy connected with hers, so that I could see into her and find out what the woman was like. As you can see, she was a femme fatale, a come-on girl, terrified of the first man who ever approached her in her life. She was lying on her back and he said, Fancy a run? She could never forget that word, run. Flowing like a river of rich thick honey. But where could she go? She wanted to spread herself out thinly over the whole world, and wrap it up and take it home for company, like a transistor radio in your room. Then she found she had to make her way in the world, to get to where she was going. She worked out, while still quite young, that the most important documents in the world are all contracts, so she became a well-known legal expert on contracts, called in by governments even, such is her knowledge of contract law from all ages and civilizations. Then she managed to meet the richest man on this earth, the King of the Family himself. That was when she found her path, the ascent to the Kingship itself, and made her first moves, familiarising herself with the Family's storage of contracts. Did the King know what she was doing, infiltrating the Family by stealth in order to become its King? Yes, he did, especially when you consider that his present occupation is driving trains in Peru. He wanted out and found his way through the woman: she wanted in and he let her in. Then she must hunt for the man she needed to get her through to the Kingship that the Family had denied her. She couldn't tell them that she only wanted to do the journey in order to sort herself out, so she sold the man she brought to the Family in return for a cop out for herself, once he was coronated. This is where it begins to unravel for her. What she hadn't told anyone was that she was planning on hanging on to the man right up to the very end, for that is where she is going. Ah, that was when I realised I had been thinking as though in a circle, seeing the woman everywhere I go, like the ghost of my mother to haunt me.

And that is how the woman regards me, as something she could keep for ever. I came out of this reflection to find both the woman and Gretta watching me, looking more like spectators at a favourite show than concerned bystanders. It was Gretta who spoke, rolling over to face me, her modest breasts pendulous in the loose cloth, her thighs flashing in the yellow light:

'And what do you think, Jim, did you become a god, as Vivian planned?'

Her expression surprised me: a fluidity in her face I had not seen before. And I could see from the lie of her beautiful body that her whole being was flowing, like a river of ripe cherries, all burst and flowing out. But a good question: who did I become? So I said, speaking to them both:

'Why do you think there are gods, beings better than you? The god I saw lived in a little village far from everywhere and had one wife and four daughter, all very well behaved, except of course for LeiLie's tendency to go off court at night, still trying to get a hit. He didn't even believe in god, going to church as a way of getting the rest of them to sit in the church with him for an hour on Sunday morning, when they could all sing their hearts out again. His wife and then daughters would sit beside him, where he could see his little daughter's knees, so innocent then. But he had a brother who ruined himself for a common woman. Your see the counterbalance: that was when I could see into the woman's vision and see who she is. And what did you see, Vivian, at that moment, when you could look inside my mind?'

Spur of the moment question. I would not have asked it otherwise, not wanting to invite her revenge that way. But there you are. This is what the woman said in reply:

'I saw everything I ever expected to see, Jim. Have you ever asked yourself if you even know what you are doing here? I could see that you don't, only an immense flow of strange energies, that had business somewhere else. What kind of universe do you live in? Why so much beauty, for instance, and so little comfort? It's like a picture gallery, with millions of paintings on show at once. And so much light, Jim. Strange that when I look at you I see only darkness, but see how brilliant you are within, a veritable palace. Yet there is nowhere where I can sit and be quiet with myself, to listen to that soft murmur, like a backing track to our lives. That is why women are both fascinated and repelled by you, you're like a snake ready to strike. And yet you never bite, coming in hard and staying soft afterwards, like a teddy bear. But you're not hard-boiled, flaky front mushy behind, you're more like someone who likes the embrace of a woman, so promising and already indicating the inevitable exhaustion. You like beginnings too much to stay in any relationship, yes? Barbara has you because she knew what you wanted: to have it like first time every night for ever. Easy to do if you get the man to do all the work, working like a trip-hammer all night, every night. Then you just daydream, knowing you are being all taken care of, back in your dream world, where there is no pain, no gain, no stain. The thing is, Jim, you like that world, a dreamer's paradise, a world with no face and yet housing the faces of everyone. And there you are content, dreaming at night of other women and what goes on there, lost in an ocean of cunt and dick. See what a little man you are: writing up all those fantasies of yours as biogs of mad women. How do you get pleasure, Jim, if you do not let go?'

Gretta said nothing, looking at me – blind to the woman – with a very slightly surprised look on her – showing that she has not had many surprises in her life – so I needed to add for her benefit:

'Remember that I am a writer, watching everything with words. Pretend that being read is the same as being true, then consider that many millions read these biogs, even if they are a load of rubbish. The books speak to people and people learn and understand. You may not be aware of this – as a member of the Family – but everyone in the world is good for a million fantasies in a life time, so that the play of fantasy in the world at any time creates a stunning kaleidoscope more complex than any other known activity in the universe. Face it, our world at any time is a compound of the fantasies of perhaps billions of us. And fantasies are not narratives, fantasies can interpenetrate each other like moon-dust in sunlight, never getting brighter, but never getting darker either. Don't make the mistake of looking for consistency when you need coherence, you might not always know when things fit together and what you should do then.'

The thing now is that I had nothing more to say to the woman. She took this very well, I think, smile tightening only a little, then turned to Gretta, hands in her lap position, confiding gossip, saying in a chatty way:

'I don't know about you, sister, but I find these long journeys very trying. We always seem to be waiting, just waiting for someone or something. But I try to keep up appearances, you know, easy to slip and let yourself go, dead before your time. I did want to come here, but now I don't know why I wanted to come. Am I to meet someone here? You are new in my life, sister, and I have memories of your brother that will live with me forever, so am I to meet you in some new way? Do you want to kiss me? Can I hold your hand for a little while? It is warmer than mine, you know, young blood racing through your veins, sister, the same blood as your brother. I would so like to be friends with another girl again. Could I trust you? Will you be jealous and resentful of me? I can see so far into you, right back to the beginning, I believe. You are like a deep pool, sister, dark and forbidding. I grow afraid of you.'

The impulse was to reply at once, a sudden heat of a frustration, like it is never still enough, not even at night when you sleep. But Gretta lifted the little finger of the hand that rested along her hip, so I let her speak instead:

'You should learn from my darkness, Vivian. Stop running for once in your life and just look at your darkness. You see it as a dark pool and are afraid of it. What you should do is this: go into the pool and once you are there turn around and look behind you. There you will see the man approaching you, expecting to see you too. But do not expect to see Jim then, for you will be in another fantasy, entirely on your own, uncensored, lasting as long as you like, with another one on standby. You are on your own there, all alone forever, waiting.'

I rather hoped that Gretta might tell us something about herself just then, seeing only the woman getting the brush off, clean and quick. But I spoke the words as they came to me:

'How did you get to the pool?'

I didn't speak Gretta's name because I don't want the woman to know it, otherwise she will get notions about the worth she has here, which is zero zero zero. Even so, it was the woman who answered, snapping out her words at me:

'How do you think they all do, by swimming there, through that long dark cave? Isn't that right, sister, with all that you know? Cock, yes, nothing but cock.'

Gretta raised the arm that lay along her hip and let the woman fall silent before telling us:

'I kept count. I was raped by fifty five men for a total of four hundred and forty five times. I survived because I let it happen, gave my assent, in other words. Men can be such fools, no knowing what energy flows from them when aroused, and which to us women can be stored and used at will. I was only fifty nine then, young by our standards – but we are young for a long time, as you know – and I gathered their energy, brutish Cossacks but efficient, fucking like skinning a pelt to them. And what have I done with it, you might ask? Well, I kept it until I needed to use it. And when was that? Since you came into my life, Jim, and showed me how to dance. I can do powerful things with this energy, all of which I will do for you. I have kept myself pure since then, because another man's dick would drain it from me, and I would never get rid of that man. I have contacts that would remove the woman immediately and place her wherever you wish. And afterwards, I will take you home with me, wherever you want that to be.'

I looked over at the woman and asked:

'Can you go back go Brighton?'

When she nodded I said:

'Then that it what we will do. It can be arranged in a day or so. Perhaps you would like to go to an hotel of your choice until then? Gretta, how long would it take to get the airplane in here?'

The woman's sudden smile told me everything. She had Gretta's name, dope that I am. This is like a whole new story now: woman on woman, mean and relentless. I excused myself and went up to the surface to get some night air. It was quite chilly, but the night was perfectly still, sounds of hunting animals on the air. The dispute between the woman and Gretta is not part of this story, but part of a story that only they could tell, if we can get the woman into contract with us. There was moonlight, the moon almost full, peaking within hours, I'd say. It cast a wonderful light on the flat desert, turning it into an astral sea, upon which the stars could shine. And yet it is strange: no matter what happens I do not change myself. No mystery in that: I am not the story here. I am like a ridge pole keeping the heavens from collapsing upon my characters, making sure no one gets lost in the dark. What can you expect of me, I am doing my best? Do you think I know these people better than you do? I just want my story and then to get out of here with Gretta's help. Do I want to be changed? What could I be changed into, another person with his or her quota of life filling them up to here? There's no change in that, just swapping lives. You see, I can't change into someone else and yet still not be me? I don't try to escape myself, as though there was somewhere else to go. You are always here, no matter wherever else you might want to be.

But the woman thinks that she can be me in some way, like a woman inside a man, like we are both screwing from the same side. You see, the nearest thing the woman has to a man's prick is a vagina that fits. That is how the woman feels: she wants to become a man so that he could fuck someone like her. She has wanted all her life to be fucked and fucked good, but to be fucked good by the man she is waiting for. Nuns, virgins, waiting for Christ to come for them.

That's when Gretta said:

'This is going to depend on the protocol, which I will have to check tomorrow.'

That's when I went from cheap scribbler to regality in just the blink of an eye, and said to Gretta, lovely Gretta:

'Do it now, please. There may be a time-limit on this.'

See the change now. Gretta moves with a grace that moves me. She goes into the room, then comes out and says – having no doubt just communicated with someone in authority:

'There is a lock down, I'm afraid. That's how it is, Jim, we don't think the experiment has been completed yet.'

She rubs her hands down her thighs to her knees, bending forward and looking up at me, a sudden impulse obviously, then continues, having the stage:

'I have watched the two of you closely for some time now, and let me say first that I still can't work how the two of you could ever meet. One of you is using some kind of power over the other. You, Vivian, work to control this man for a purely selfish and egotistical end, to make him your own. And you, Jim, lovely Jim, what about you? With your easy ways and smooth deliveries, you have built up a wall of charm that no woman could ever break through. You are no more than a boy with a dirty mind, the sort of boy that Vivian would love to know, who would think dirty thoughts while she held his hand. So the plan is this: you will copulate tonight on that couch – and do it for real, you hear.'

End of public announcement. I was thoroughly bemused for a while. I have always assumed that public announcements would be for someone else, not for me. So I didn't twig it at first that Gretta was addressing us. So then I said in return:

'I'll assume all your bosses are watching this, so I'll say it loud and clear just once: how long has this stupidity been going on? It cannot be done, your King tells you that.'

Are we still on the same planet? Have I just said that? I say to the woman, not coldly:

'Will you take the flight out?'

'Only if you insist, Jim. I would do anything for you now.'

She did say that, believe me. It's true, and it has been true for a long time, it seems. But you must understand that there is no value in offering yourself to a man who is waiting for someone else. It is impossible to get the woman to acknowledge that you cannot just make the man you want, you have to settle for what's available, just like everyone else. Anyway, I managed to say, before she got to swoon in my arms:

'Where's the point in offering yourself to a man who doesn't want you. Don't you understand yet, Vivian, that there's always someone else? That's how it works. Where you stop on that conveyor belt is down to you, and to the other person. You won't get what you want, but you might get as good.'

That didn't answer her question, but I had at that point just noticed Gretta in the other room, changing from her uniform into a party dress. I tell you, if they insist on copulation here tonight for the show, it is Gretta that I am going to screw all night long. You'll see. But the woman was saying, about the house in Brighton, that she had given it over to her friend Gertrude about twenty years ago and goodness know what the situation would be there now. I call Gretta over and told her to get details as soon as possible. It was fun to watch Gretta looking stunning in her cherry red dress walk with her long lovely legs out of the room with a red telepaz in her raised hand, holding the flimsy thing with fingers so fine.

I had forgotten when we had eaten, but to judge from the kitchen here it must be after dinner but before bed time. We both had good appetites and enjoyed the wine very much, especially after Gretta came back to join our party, decked out all in red tonight. Now, I need to tell you this, but I switched this bloody thing off for an hour while we three fed ourselves full and drank ourselves silly. But I promise you that we didn't say much and even less of consequence here. Yes, it was like a lunch-break, not much more than that, except we three at that table, Gretta, Jim, Vivian, were only now learning about each other: all of which is none of our business here. And yes, we did get to know each other, more and more. Ask Vivian:

'Well, I suppose I am an obvious sort of cop-out now. The question I ask myself is: who on earth do I know worth waiting for? I never felt like waiting for someone until I met Jim, and I have waited on you all along this way together and taken care of you in this trying time, so much new here for you to learn. How many times did I tell you that I knew a god, and saw him born in pain and die in misery, and you never understood what I was telling you, thinking I was just fantasising. I know I can raise a man to divinity, I saw it happen to another man. Despite what you experienced earlier this evening, when you coupled your soul to mine, I could show you to yourself, agreed? Very well, now we must couple our bodies, Jim, and you will see a different self, clean and noble, fit for a Queen. You will be the first man ever to enter me all the way, and we will do it bravely under the lights, as they say. It's the only way you are ever getting out of here. Do you think I give a damn about this Family's screwy notions and their grotesquely stupid greed? Does it matter who hoards the gold, driven mad by its proximity. As the song says, Jim, I just want you, babe.'

Jim speaking now:

'What surprised me most was how Gretta and Vivian complement each other. It's not that they are just living stupid in some mean place – what you might expect, given what you know of them by now – more like being very generous friends. Even their respective ages – Gretta is almost three hundred years old already and still so young – Vivian would look so old already. But no: Vivian bloomed in Gretta's company, so that I could see that young solicitor in Brighton, so prim and yet overwhelmingly beautiful. And while I suspect there's a lot more to Gretta than we already know, somewhere between utter vulnerability and savage discernment, Gretta has the quality I like in women, that she has a delicacy of tact behind the strong exterior, an extremely perceptive woman indeed. But what will happen here tonight? For a start, this will not happen tonight: Gretta will not do warm-up for Vivian and then probably fall asleep, nor will Vivian open her legs to me – and mannerly as I seem to be I can put up a good fight when needed. What will happen is this: we three will finish off what's here and then go inside and watch something in the dark. And we will not be interrupted until we contact you.'

Now Gretta, lovely lean Gretta, like warm toast:

'First, you've got to remember that I am stuck here too with you two. To start with, Vivian, you were never bitched as a child, so you do not know what pain is like, and you my knight, Jim, you will never surrender to a woman, already spoken for. But you will have sex with me, Jim, because I know the word. And it will be so good that everyone watching will want to see us fuck ourselves stupid through the night. So everyone will forget about the woman and her eternal whine that she can't find anybody to love, anybody at all. What experiment you might ask, Jim. Well, this one, and I quote: TESTING FOR WISDOM. Jim, you have been tested in every way we could think of in the last few days, and yet you do not change. But there have been additions of interest to us. Do you know that you will trade love for esteem? Or that you see people in the round, so that you can't tell good from bad? And then Jocasta struck gold, if I might say this here, when she saw your angel. That is what we in the Family call the Wisdom being that follows man about, always talking to him, night and day, so much to tell him. You see, we recognised very early on that what attracted the woman to you, my sweetest Jim. She saw only a hollow when she looked inside you, and she thought she could sneak her cosmic man in there and have him to keep for ever. And then we saw why you seemed hollow, you are with your Wisdom being all the time you can. And then we saw that link in you, between you and Wisdom, and that is what we tested this evening, though it could have ended with Jocasta's act to unite you with your beloved half – back in her family home in the village – except that there was now the secondary experiment – to be used if anything went wrong with the first test – where we can observe the spirit union, as such, between the woman and the man. Now, the successful completion of that test tempted my superiors to try for the full service, as it were; getting you two to fuck each other with something approaching enjoyment at least. It you're going to do this then do it with good grace. But I have seen a change here in company with you two, and would you let me tell you what it is like? We are in balance, full of desires, many we never knew existed, and full of depletions of desire. I think we should undress completely and lie together on the bed, with Jim in the middle between us.'

This will need a new section. Let me get the disappointment out of the way first. This is going to be only a string of words grossly inadequate to what they try to show. It is lovely how warm warm bodies are, especially if they move about constantly, slip and slide over each other, like sharks at a famine, wanting to eat each other. None of us could get comfortable at first, one wanting to lie down to sleep, one wanting to talk the other wanting to jive. So Vivian finally got the remote and settled us down in front of Roman Holiday for a while, until the plot was cranked up, as usual. It was as though we were sexless in some way yet driven almost wild by sexual desire. You have no idea how long that path to the vagina is, but it is a very long way, with a lot to take in. Anyway, we didn't find out that evening, because Gretta's little beeper contraption began to bleat, somewhere in a mountain of clothes. Turns out there is annoyance back at base at the lack of progress out here. The room came to feel stuffy and heavy, so that we took some blankets and rugs up to the surface and went and laid them out on the sand under the ripening moon. We even closed the door to the Apartment, thus cutting off the light. Vivian had snaffled some wine and glasses on the way out, so we could have a few drinks in the quiet together, watching all the satellites in the sky, three lane highway, would you believe? It was cold out there, but a good dry cold, and we sat in close, moving around a lot with much laughter, and rubbed each other's cold skin warm.

You work this out if you like. Was this arranged? Not by me, I assure you. I just do the typing around here. Is it true, do you think, or is it just another fantasy: the cycle of mother-man-daughter, the man good for both of them? Haven't we just had that fantasy? You can probably tell from what I've told what they are like together now, like they know each other intimately, having been together for over twenty years, when they have only just met. Look at them together, how they touch each other, both so shy now, and how they speak together, a few words only but it is all spoken with the eyes. Is that the solution? Mother to daughter in intimacy, mother to man in decency, and the daughter to the man in shyness. The truth – I will tell you now – I like both of them too much to want to spoil it by fucking either of them. I went back into the Apartment then, tired out now and wanting sleep. I was preparing for bed when Gretta came in and I just raised my hand to her and said:

'No. No more.'

She gazed at me so warmly that I felt I would vanish up in smoke, saying:

'Look, Jim, we can call this whole thing off if we want. I'm not supposed to tell you that, but I would like you to know.'

Strange, here is something that relieves a worry about what it would take to end this show, but only dumps on me a new worry, about finding a good reason for ending it, now that we have the choice. In other words, is there anything else positive that could be got from the three of us together? We were all pretty drunk by then, and so prone to fantasy, but we could see what we had together, like an orange light that enveloped us, together in a way I have never before experienced: like I was all our bodies, all the fluids and bone, all together as one. And yet I desired the two other bodies and could tell at once which woman I touched, Gretta or Vivian. Where has this power come from? Is it what Gretta saved up from the gangbangs, or was it stored up like prayer by virgin Vivian, or even is it sourced in me, who never feels any spirits at all? For me, it is a cancellation, an effort to exert much energy to control something superfluous in any case. Locking the man away will not hide the dark away too. The dark is already in you, shine a light and see for yourselves.

It was the woman who commented, rubbing her eyes as though awakening from a trance:

'The only problem we have is working out if anything happened tonight. If something did happen then I can't remember it if I saw it at all. I don't even feel any different, if how I feel now is so new, then why is it so familiar? And I feel the same about everyone too. I know I have been very intimate with you two, but I still don't know you any better. You may say that it's not important to know you, but I think it is: in knowing you I know myself, seeing me reflected in you. Is it that I want to be with people more than people want to be with me?'

I would have answered her if Gretta had not said almost immediately:

'Look, this really doesn't make any sense to me. I can look at you, Vivian, and feel my skin crawl to see such indulgence, how you waste everything to keep yourself afloat. As for you, Jim, you would rape me too if you thought me worth it – but you don't do sex, Jim, you do women. You are forever trying to get into my mind, to see all of me because my body is not enough for you. You ask if anything happened this evening, Vivian, then let me say that I saw the end of time and I looked at it. I saw that in Jim, and in you I saw a traveller climbing mountains and fording rivers, looking always for the man. And what did I see in myself? I was twenty feet high and wore my hair braided with ribbons, but I didn't know who I was. And all I could see was time like a rail I slid along, painful pleasure in that. And I thought at once: You have to hold your pain in the palm of your hand. And that is the thing about painful memories, Jim, that I think you should know: you never escape them, like lessons you don't want to learn. When I look at you, Jim, I still see a rapist. I don't understand that perception now. I would let you rape me, Jim, if that is what sex really is, but if you have another way of loving me, then please show me. And you, Vivian, where do you fit into my life? Nowhere, really. Unlike you, I do not wait for any man: I never had need to, never having the choice. Men come to me, none go to you. Why? Who cares why? What difference does it make? It's pain either way.'

This is not a question I want to answer. The thing about difference for me is that we see both causes of the difference, the same and the different. Everything makes a difference so that I can see anything. Ask me if I experienced any difference last night and I would say no, but then I would say: I wasn't the object of the exercise, I just hold the umbrella up, and I wasn't interested in the whole process anyway. I daresay I was required, as a man, for some occult reason, some kind of magic, maybe. I don't feel that I have lost anything by this, nor do I think that I have gained. There is a novel I can write about Vivian, that's all, called I think, obviously, Lilith. That's all I want from her. How I get my women, you see: I pay attention to them. So I say as my contribution:

'I am going to assume, on what you both have said, that you expected that I, rather than you, Gretta, would meld with you, Vivian. I assumed that also, seeing Gretta as an outsider, she would be no more than a bystander. Instead, I was the one who looked on, recording everything, and watched you two cavort together, as though on holiday in some sunny resort. All I saw later was the three of us tied up together with orange string. As for relationship, I saw none at all. We do not relate, though we can at least talk to each other in a way. I am so far from reality that only some words make sense, when nothing else does. Actually, I don't think there is any such thing as reality, like it is something that can be separated from our lived experience, second by second and story by story. We add signs in the way you, Vivian, added fantasies to our world, to fill up the emptiness you found in me. You have to understand, both of you in your individual ways, that it is the dark that should occupy you, not that you need venture into the dark yourself, but so that some man can charm you into going there with him. You see? Say dark and what do people think of? They think sucking dick will brighten it, drawing it out of its dark lair. No, think of the dark and feel what it is like to have no skin, no feeling in the skin. You see that there is no resistance: the dark is smooth, consistent, accommodating, above all, patient. That is the darkness of a man: it waits for you like a way out, when you need it. That is what we offer you. But, unfortunately, you must understand that this is not a real place or event. You cannot go there, as though you could transit from the light here to the darkness there. If you are in the light then you are in the light; same with the dark, darkness is always complete, no matter how much light you shine on it. But neither of you want the dark, Gretta will live another five or six hundred years at the base of the Tower, checking visitors carefully as always, and you Vivian, even the wealth of the world could not keep the darkness away from you, why do you think you scale the highest heights or go the greatest distances? And what have you found here, Vivian, but the darkness waiting for you, like Gretta's end of time, only for you it blocked a road you wanted to use? Will you venture onwards, do you think? But I must warn you of this, don't assume that because you found the dark in me that you will find me in that darkness. I am not there, and the only person you will find there is yourself.'

Preachy, perhaps, but I am lulling myself also, anti-climax coming. It is detachment, a genuinely pleasant experience for me, savouring how it lets you slip away if you want. I lay out then on the bed and closed my eyes: there are always tomorrows. Even so, I hear Vivian say as I slipped away:

'Did I see my love, do you think? I saw someone, but I'm not sure who he is.'

Actually, I left the recorder on, so here's the rest:

'He didn't look like anyone I know and he didn't seem to know me anyway. And looking at him I felt nothing, like I was quality control on a conveyor belt full of men like him waiting for inspection. What does that make me, sister, a voyeur of some kind ogling men? I was beautiful in my time, and had the pick of men and found none of them worth it. So I didn't find a man and I went back to daddy when I met Mark, your late King. I tell you, sister, I can work beauty like no other woman. It's all about lighting, as any stagehand would tell you, who to beam on today. Always focus on one person in a day, flashing the rest. It was Mark that day, and it was Jim on another. Will there be another one after this? How far do I have to go yet? Can I not rest now, even for a while? Let me grow flowers in a garden, or sunbathe on the patio of a penthouse somewhere where the sun shines all day long. I have tried, Gretta, but what Jim told me is true: I could not do what I wanted to do, it is not possible. I want to rest now, after so long, because I can rest with myself now, knowing the truth, the truth though bitter immensely consoling. I know now that there will be another time for me, another life too.'

I was consoled to hear this. But is it so easy? Is this not another fantasy, this time invented by me? No. I am linked, Vivian is not. We've been over this ground before, so no need to bring it up here. Instead, look at this, for Gretta spoke when Vivian fell silent, lying on her back by the tone of her voice:

'I am like a roadway, and everyone uses me as a roadway. Vivian, you will go back into your world again tomorrow, back hopefully to your friend Gertrude, and Jim will go back into his world, to his wife and his business, selling soft porn for the discerning. For Jim understands sex very well: knowing that sex is a power distinct from each of us, that must not be let into the mind, for it has no place there, where it will proliferate itself like a cry of pain, how pornography is the modern image of Hell, bodies writhing in agony, stating the obvious over and over. Sex happens, sex here connecting with sex there, any sex anywhere: connect, only connect. Like a disease, a contagion: pulsing through the whole human race like a universal virus. That's why he could resist my shameless advances: he knows that sex can also be used as bait; bait that discloses by its nature what is being fished for in the dark. This is how I know what Jim sought tonight. How he charmed me even then, when I was on my knees naked before him. He was curious at first, wondering no doubt if I was behaving as a raped woman should, then he was amorous – which surprised him – but the only way to get me to want to see him again, as though I might run a second test, if only to be sure. I was almost into his bed when he woke up and was startled to see me there in the middle of his bedroom. It was strange then, Vivian, how he managed to capture me: to see the delight in his still innocent eyes, that he liked me as I am, though mastered and raped many times. He sees me as though a woman with all the covers taken off, right down into my soul. And you can see then how he likes women: see her laid out so he can survey her, delighting in her beauty. You see, Vivian, Jim can see me because I let him see me, something you have always refused to do, fearing rejection.'

End here, Dan.

Can you run off a print of that for me by Friday, Fred. I'll start on it Monday am at the earliest. We'll make the Christmas market. This novel tells itself.

A note here not to be included with the print job:

Called an end to the exercise first thing in the morning and we were in Moscow by six that evening. We took advantage of the break to acclimatise ourselves to the world again, eating well and afterwards visiting some of Gretta's old student haunts, all very changed now, apparently. First stop next morning was London and delivery of Vivian to her friend Gertrude, who had everything ready on time, arms open at the front door to welcome her friend Vivian back into her life. Another pleasant evening and then it was on to Toronto and home again, Barbara meeting us at the airport – which was a surprise, but a very welcome one.

The arrangement is that Gretta – who is my exec now and liaison with the Family – has taken over the annexe, between the print-house and the river, to use as her base. The necessary equipment is being installed and booted even as I speak here. She has taken the spare bedroom at the top of the house – which she prefers – and lives family life with us, nubile for as long as Barbara and I will live. It will work now because this time the women are so different: Barbara is happy where Vivian was not, and Gretta already knows that I prefer happiness to unhappiness, like light in the cold and warmth in the dark, the relief of silence.

17 November 2017
