'What have you to say to this, Sir William? It's an outrage!'
'I, Lord E.?' Sir William said in a hushed tone. 'What should I have to say?'
'Can you not control this upstart?' Lord E. demanded.
I realized at once that Lord E. knew Sir William's identity within the Order. Corruption, it seemed, had spread far. I glanced at Harry. He too had understood and his eyes flickered dangerously behind his mask.
'I…' Sir William stammered, coming to his feet.
'Silence!' I cried. I pointed an accusing finger at Sir William. 'Sit down, sir, or by Death you will answer!'
Sir William flopped back into his seat, a broken man. I clapped my hands. Two masked men appeared suddenly. They were dressed in black tights and black turtle-necked pullovers. They moved like ballet dancers.
I pointed to Lord E.
'Take that blasphemous rogue to the cellars!' I commanded.
Lord E. gasped and was about to speak, but one of my men in black had produced a short length of lead piping. He struck Lord E. once, hard, across the cheekbone, and the gentleman collapsed in their arms. Then, swiftly, they removed the unconscious body.
Harry meanwhile had descended from beside the block and was dragging Lady E. toward the dais by the wrist. The rest of the company were shocked. Half of them were standing up.
'Members, be seated. You are in the presence of Pain!' This was blared through the auditorium as if by megaphone. Harry and I had arranged a number of these stage effects against any eventuality. The reaction was instantaneous. The audience sat down.
'Now let us have silence!' I cried.
The hall was silent.
'Strip naked!' I said to Lady E.
She hastened to obey.
Her slightly fat, milk-white breasts sprang free of the brassiere like startling rubber balls. The soft fat on her shoulders and upper arms was pink and quivering. In silence she undressed, removing her girdle so that the soft flesh of her creamy belly fell in a tremulous melon-smooth disc over her thick-chevroned cunt. She stood shyly before the multitude.
I raised my arms to form a cross of my body once more.
'Let us pray!' I said.
The Congregation went down to its knees.
'To thee, oh Pain, we consecrate the agony of this woman's flesh! Help her to suffer! To feel the quick brightness of your movement in all the muscles and fiber! Teach her to scream! Teach her to treasure every humiliation, every violence that we, thy servants, inflict upon her trembling flesh! Take unto thyself her utmost misery and turn it by the shard of thy cruel tongue into the fire of purity in her veins! Amen.'
I turned to Harry.
'Let us proceed.'
He bound her tightly with leather thongs to the block so that her large spreading buttocks jutted out like marble toward him. Her big creamy thighs were thonged a foot apart at the knees so that her anus showed like a small red berry peeping beneath dark hair and the stubborn tuft of her hot cunt was visible from the rear.
I raised my right hand.
'Let the Great Lord of Pain visit the willing flesh of this trembling woman with his dark power, and let the Communicants who visit this, the symbol of the flesh of our Virgin of Death, with the seal of their doting lips be themselves visited with an eternal lust for his quick and striking fire!'
I turned to the Members.
'Let the Communicants come forward!'
The Members rose as one body. They formed silent queues in the aisles.
'Let the first Member bring his lips to the altar!'
And then they were moving, each member kneeling in front of the soft mellow buttocks, crossing himself, and sinking his tongue to the hilt in the hair-sharded little red anus of the lovely Lady E.
This part of the ceremony took about half an hour because of the large number of Communicants. At the end of it, Lady E. was shuddering with lust. She had no doubt come two or three times during the sacrament. The Communicants had returned in silence to their seats.
'Daughter! Are you ready to receive the visitation of Pain himself?'
'Yes, oh yes! Please!' Lady E. gasped.
I nodded to Harry.
He stepped back into position and struck her forcibly on the buttocks with the brand new five-fingered- spranger. I noticed that the wood of the block was wet with Lady E.'s sweat. After the third stroke it seemed as though her quivering flesh was trying to melt into the wood.
At the sixth stroke, she screamed and the terrible scream ran like a nightmare among the Members. Their faces were tense and receptive.
I directed Harry to go on. His big member flapped rampant on his gleaming white belly as he struck.
The scream came again.
He struck again.
At the tenth stroke I recognized the familiar scream, out of control. The sacrament was accomplished. The lady was 'beside herself: ' only then did she enter pure into religion. I threw off my black vestments and stepped naked down from the pulpit, the black cross swinging between my legs.
I motioned Harry aside and fell on my knees before the bleeding buttocks. Skillfully I ran my tongue in the sweating furrow of her cunt until I felt the shudder of response from her whole torso. Then, kneeling straight up, I crossed myself and turned again to face the members. The green arc-light had followed me and gave a ghostly radiance to the full curves of my flesh. I raised my naked arms so that my breasts were lifted high, my black nipples poised delicately like the eyes of an insect.
'Holy Father of Pain we thank thee!' I screamed. 'May the Virgin Death be appeased by this sacrament!'
In unison the Members said Amen.
Harry cut the woman from the block and she was carried out by the two men in black.
I returned to the pulpit.
The most difficult part of the ceremony was over. One of the most influential women had accepted public flagellation. True, I still had to deal with her husband who was locked in the cellars, but for them, the Members, he had already been dealt with. My authority was established. Harry, his arms crossed on his broad chest, and his member still rampant, stood below the pulpit to the right, facing them. I looked over the sea of faces and spoke calmly.
'Members of Pain! I speak to you now to recall you to your true discipline! Over the years you have become fat and idle and prurient. Instead of lacerating your own flesh, you have preferred to lacerate the flesh of hired minions; instead of knowing the joy of Pain, you have inflicted an unholy pain on prostitutes; instead of drinking at the well of suffering, you have come drunk, fat, and replete with earthly joys to make a brothel of your Holy Temple. You have made an idol of ordinary lust and come amused to exercise it in the Holy Temple of Pain! With your money and your earthly power you have bribed and corrupted Pain's holy servants and caused the sense of Order and Hierarchy in this Congregation to resemble an auction in a whorehouse! The repercussions of your blasphemous behavior are not yet at an end. But the Order of Pain will weed all corruption out. Men may die, but the Order is everlasting!
'Did you think that Pain was so weak that He would continue to overlook this outrage?
'Did you think you had bought Him too?
'Let me warn you of your error here and now! Rather would Pain thrust red-hot steel through each and every cowardly heart in this Congregation than suffer your blasphemies any longer! It is for you, the Members, to choose: Death or Purification! I warn you to beware! I, bearing the Holy Seal, am the Judgment!'
I changed my tone of voice: 'All Members in the first two rows will now leave the Temple. They will follow the Whipmaster to the Room of Flagellation. They will taste great Pain tonight!'
I fell silent until these chosen twenty had been ushered out of the Temple.
