me. Woof-woof! And when that happened, I would raise my buttocks by sinking forward on to my forearms. A big cock would be in from the back, right in my quivering cunt! Ooooh! And then they would clap their hands in time to our quivering movements. Ride-the-hot-bitch, ride-the-hot-bitch, ride-the-hot-bitch! And his last jolt would slap me forward on to the floorboards with my belly and breasts. As often as not they would pour a glass of wine over me before the next one slapped it into me.
And one night I had a good idea. I always wanted to stir up violence in them. I was making my rounds, sniffing chair legs and ankles as usual, and they were all just beginning to get bawdy and to describe to one another just what they were going to do with me, this back and forth across the tables in the midst of drinking and laughter. Well, suddenly I cocked up my little leg and winkled on a sailor's foot. The whole room roared the laughter. The sailor upon whom I had pissed stared for a moment as though he didn't understand and then he threw back his chair with a loud crash and booted me hard on the soft underbelly so that I went sprawling on my back across the floor. 'Ya filthy little bitch! Pee on me, would ya!' He leapt after me, grasping his prick from his fly as he did so, and it was hard as a bone, and he fucked me in the cunt there and then. And that night was wonderful and they did everything but kill me until the early hours of the morning.
One day Willie came. He looked worried and said that Miguel was looking for me and had threatened to kill him if he didn't find me. There had been a quarrel. Miguel suspected Prince B. of having spirited me off. Prince B. accused Miguel of having corrupted me. And it had ended in a duel. No one was killed, but Prince B. received a bullet wound in the shoulder and was still confined to bed. And it wasn't only Miguel who had contacted Willie. Prince B. had asked Willie to visit him and offered him the equivalent of a thousand pounds if he would conduct him to me. Willie didn't know what to do.
I told him to take the money and to conduct Prince B. to my kennel one night, any night when the sailors were there.
I was in the middle of my turn when he arrived, as pale as death, and leaning heavily on a stick. When I saw him standing in the doorway, I put out my tongue as a dog does and breathed quickly, like a happy bitch. He stared at me for more than a minute during which I turned my buttocks towards him and wagged my tail. That caused the sailors who had been silent since he entered to burst out again into drunken laughter. One of them got on to his knees and began to sniff me, and in that way he chased me amidst loud laughter in circles around the floor. My last sight of Prince B. was his almost collapsing against the door frame, and then suddenly he was gone. That made the sailors even more raucous. They fucked me and stuck me and made a fine mess of me that night. Willie joined in and began to show them how to use a cane.
After that I got a sound whipping every night until my bottom was red and black and blue.
Prince B. must have informed Miguel of my whereabouts. Perhaps he suspected that Miguel was the only one who could get me away. And that was true. And that was what happened.
Miguel came.
I had been wagging my little tail and a sailor was standing on a chair with his cock out and I was pretending to be begging for it as a dog does, and at that moment I saw Miguel standing in the doorway. I froze at once and stared at him. He simply nodded for me to follow him and I did. I walked right out of my wonderful life at the brothel into a carriage which took me to a country estate. There Miguel chained me naked to a wall and beat me within an inch of death.
— 4-
When I finally came to consciousness the next day, I was in bed. He must have been sitting, waiting. He was, as usual, impeccably dressed and he looked very severe.
He spoke at once when he knew I was awake.
'You are no longer a virgin.'
'No.'
'You are simply a prostitute.'
'Yes.'
'A sailor's whore.'
'Yes.'
'A cunt!'
'Yes.'
'And what do you expect me to do now?'
'Send me back to the brothel,' I said in a tired voice. 'I was happy there.'
'You were happy. Have you forgotten Pain?'
'No. I didn't intend it to happen. First I was raped. I liked it. Then it didn't matter. What else could I do?'
'You should have come back at once before you were seen by Prince B.'
'What difference does it make?'
'It makes a great deal of difference.'
I shook my head without comprehension.
'Do you not understand,' he said, leaning forward and speaking in an intense voice, 'that I will allow nothing, nothing, to stand in the way of your crucifixion?'
I shook my head hopelessly.
'I am no longer a virgin, Miguel.'
'But if only you and I knew it? That is why Prince B. should never have known!'
'Does it make no difference to you?'
'Not a whit!'
'But why? How could I become the Virgin Death?'
'I told you once, my dear, that you were too pure for us, the worldly people. I am interested in the Order in the world. Last night, in secret conclave, I was elected. I became Pain. Nothing now stands in the way of the crucifixion. Nothing, that is, except your stupidity.'
'We waited too long, Miguel. You should have crucified me years ago.'
'That was not possible before I became Pain.'
'Why not? Are you the only one in the Order who wishes a Virgin Death?'
'Not at all, my dear. But from the beginning I decided that I, and I alone, would drink of it. And it is the privilege of Pain, of no other.'
'And that's why you kept me waiting?' I smiled at him. 'I would have liked you to be the one to drink, Miguel.' I closed my eyes. 'So I was right. The Order is corrupt from top to bottom.'
'Corrupt? What is that? Everything is relative, my beloved Carmen, except death. Death alone is absolute and that is why you, the purest of us, lust after it.'
'Someone else said that — that everything was relative. Do you remember Harry Prentice?'
'The man was no diplomat. He lost you.'
'And you are, and you didn't?'
'That is correct. But for this one slip, this foolishness of letting Prince B. know that you had become a sailor's whore, everything would have been straightforward.'
'What about the sailors, the dwarf, the other whores? They saw me fucked, too.'
'They are not important. They had no idea who you were. For them you were simply an amusing lady who had become a nymphomaniac. It is Carmencita de las Lunas who matters, and everyone knows that she has never known a man. Why do you think you are the most famous courtesan in Madrid? Simply because you are unobtainable.'
'Prince B. knows.'
'Yes, Prince B., knows, but of course he has told no one, not even his closest acquaintances. You, he, and I possess the secret. You will die without revealing it on the cross. I will be Pain magnified by the last passion of the
