'I was wondering when we'd get to that,' said Bond with revulsion. 'I suppose people who look like you can't find any willing partners, so they have to tie someone up and- '
'Oh, no, no, no.' Sun sounded genuinely distressed. 'I knew you were on the wrong track there. True sadism has nothing whatever to do with sex. The intimacy I was referring to is moral and spiritual, the union of two souls in a rather mystical way. In the divine Marquis de Sade's great work _Justine__ there's a character who says to his victim: 'Heaven has decreed that it is your part to endure these sufferings, just as it is my part to inflict them.' That's the kind of relationship you and I are entering into, James.'
Sun went on pacing the floor, frowning in concentration, a passionately serious thinker intent on finding the precise words to impart his ideas. After a while he shrugged, as if finding the struggle for expression on the highest level beyond him.
'You must understand that I'm not the slightest bit interested in studying resistance to pain or any such pseudoscientific claptrap. I just want to torture people. But - this is the point - not for any selfish reason, unless you call a saint or a martyr selfish. As de Sade explains in _The Philosopher in the Boudoir__, through cruelty one rises to heights of superhuman awareness, of sensitivity to new modes of being, that can't be attained by any other method. And the victim - you too, James, will be spiritually illuminated in the way so many Christian authorities describe as uplifting to the soul: through suffering. Side by side you and I will explore the heights.'
As if flushed with excitement or some deeper emotion, Sun's cheeks seemed to have turned a darker yellow. His broad chest rose and fell under the white tee-shirt. Reversing an earlier judgement, Bond said critically, 'You're boring me, Sun. Because of your mental condition. There's nothing more totally uninteresting than a madman.'
Sun chuckled. Suddenly his manner speeded up. His arms moved jerkily. 'Predictable reaction, my dear chap. Let's get on, shall we? Here we are, James, the two of us, in a cellar on a Greek island. Not a very lavish scene, I'm afraid, such as some of your earlier opponents have provided. But then you and I aren't opponents, are we? We're collaborators. Right, then. What shall I do to you? Whereabouts in your body shall I attack you? And with what?
'First, the apparatus. Electricity can provide some of the most exquisite anguish known, if applied in the right place. But that's too easy. No scope for finesse. And, let's face it, here in Eastern Europe the supply isn't too reliable. No, I feel strongly that any self-respecting security officer ought to be able to make do with what the average kitchen provides - knives, skewers, broom-straws, such as you've no doubt noticed on this tray. I'm going to have to cheat a little when I give you the final injection that will send you into convulsions. The chemical isn't found in any average kitchen. But it is derived from a mushroom that grows in China, so one might semi-legitimately say that it's possible to imagine a kitchen that contains this particular essence.
'Now, the all-important question of where I'm to locate my assault. The obvious, all-too-obvious place is the genital organs. I'm sure experience has taught you that tremendous pain can be inflicted on them, plus the very valuable psychological side-effect whereby the victim fears for, then laments over, the loss of his manhood. But that won't affect you very much. I trust I've convinced you, James, that it's not your manhood I'm going to deprive you of, but your life. And the whole idea of a genital assault is so... unsophisticated.'
A pause. The blood thudded in Bond's ears. From his slacks Sun brought out a red tin of Benson & Hedges and offered them.
'No thank you.'
'Are you sure? It'll be your last smoke.'
'I said no thank you.' Bond had almost forgotten his nicotine-hunger. And the thought of those yellow fingers putting the cigarette in his mouth, helpfully removing it to shake off the ash, as he could so clearly imagine them doing, was not to be borne.
'As you wish.' Sun operated a leather-bound Ronson and puffed out smoke. 'So, then. Where? Where does a man live? Where's the inmost part of a man, his soul, his being, his identity?
'One can do very unpleasant things to a man's fingernails, for example. Or to his genitals, as we were saying. The knee-joint is a neural focus and the most surprising results can be obtained by interference with it. But all this happens, so to speak, somewhere else. A man can watch himself being disembowelled and derive great horror, as well as pain, from the experience. But it's going on at a distance. It isn't taking place... where he is.'
Sun came over and knelt beside Bond's chair. He spoke in a half-whisper. His throat was trembling. 'A man lives inside his head. That's where the seat of his soul is. And this is true objectively as well as subjectively. I was present once - I wasn't directly concerned - when an American prisoner in Korea was deprived of his eyes. And the most astonishing thing happened. He wasn't there any more. He'd gone, though he was still alive. There was nobody inside his skull. Most odd, I promise you.
'So, James, I am going to penetrate to where you are, to the inside of your head. We'll make our first approach via the ear.' Sun got up and went over to the table. 'I take this skewer and I insert it into your skull.' The thin length of metal gleamed in the muddy light. 'You won't feel anything at first. In fact, in the true sense you won't _feel__ anything at all. The tympanic membrane, which I'm about to stimulate, has no touch receptors, only pain ones. So the first you'll know will be when... well, I leave it to you to put a name to your experience. If you can.'
Crushing out his cigarette beneath his heel, Sun gazed over at Bond with a sort of compassion. 'Just one more thing, James. This cellar is well on the way to being sound-proof, down here in the rock. And blankets and rugs have been laid on the floor overhead to seal it even further. Our tests showed that virtually nothing can be heard at a hundred yards. So you may scream all you wish.'
'God damn you to hell.'
'He can't do that, James. He can't reach me. It's I who am damning you to hell.'
Then, with the brisk stride of a man anxious not to be late for an important engagement, Colonel Sun came over to the chair. With ferocious efficiency he seized Bond's head in a clamp formed by his powerful left arm and his chest. Bond strained away with all his strength, but to no purpose. In a couple of seconds he felt the tip of the skewer probing delicately at the orifice of his left ear. Teeth clenched, he waited.
It came without warning, the first dazzling concussion of agony, as instantaneously violent as the discharge of a gun. He heard himself whimper faintly. There was an interval just long enough for the thought that the cessation of pain was an infinitely more exquisite sensual thrill than the wildest spasms of love. After that, pain in bursts and thrusts and sheets and floods, drenching and blazing pain, pain as inexhaustible as the sea or the sands of the desert. Another interval, another thought: this is as bad as it can get. Immediately, worse and worse pain. Breathe in; whimper. Breathe in; whimper. Breathe in...
The scream ceased. Sun felt Bond go limp and released him. The head, running with sweat at every pore,
