Alexandra is positively possessed. Or so she tells me. Her confessor is pissing his pants these days … . I suppose it’s distressing to have a conversion backfire on you. But he can’t tell her that she’s imagining things, send her to a psychoanalyst, because he has to play ball with the power of darkness. That’s one of the rules of mysticism … you have to admit the existence of the reverse side, and if Alexandra were to claim that the devil himself calls for tea every afternoon, her confessor would be obliged to swallow the whole story.
The machinery which makes the thing go is tremendously complicated.
Besides, this stuff which Alexandra tells me of the Protestant religion is absolutely vapid and without imagination. She talks of miracles and visitation as though they occurred day before yesterday and if I read the papers I’d know all about them … . then I learn that I’ve been listening to an account of something that happened in the fifteenth century … .
What about this Canon Charenton, I ask? Is he performing miracles these days? Alexandra’s astonished … so Tania was right about the dame … apparently about his reputation as well. Alexandra wants to know how I learned about him. I refer her to her demons.
“He’s a remarkably gifted man,” she tells me. “And through his offices things which might be called miracles have been known to occur.”
“Such as the inculcation of incubacy?”
Yes, Alexandra admits, she’s seen him several times and now … he has the faculty. She has only to think of whom she would like to be laid by, just before she goes to sleep, and soon after her eyes are closed that person appears to her.
And it’s not dreaming, she hastens to inform me! She’s had erotic dreams all her life, and they were never like these visits she’s been enjoying lately.
Well, there’s no arguing with her … I ask her what’s necessary for her to do to receive this gift. She’s vague about that. Well, yes, when I ask her outright, she slept with Canon Charenton … that was part of it. Jokingly I ask her if she had to make a pact with the devil … and she takes me dead seriously! No, she didn’t have to make a pact–she took part in certain ceremonies.
What about these creatures who come to call and share her bed, I ask? Are they demons and do they have any special properties? Surely Satan must reward his followers with some special fucking machinery?
“They’re simply men . . like you. Yes, I’ve called you to my bed, dear! But oh, such wonderful … such really terrible fucking as they do!” She watches my face, probably to try to learn whether I’m taking in all this shit. “Of course you know nothing about it… .”
Actual demons, she tells me, are possibly more entertaining … and also more dangerous. They take the shape of men … beautiful men, she says … but they have very remarkable pricks . . Adaptable pricks, in two, and sometimes three sections. There are authentic accounts of these, of course … there are authentic accounts of all the wonderful things Alexandra talks about.
The general form is a prick in at least two parts, the first branch of which is long enough to reach the woman’s mouth while the second is thrust into her cunt. The third branch when it is present, appears to wiggle into the female’s rectum where it may, because of its property of changing size and shape, squirm like an eel through her intestines until the end of it finally emerges from the mouth to meet the first.
Once these fellows are evoked, though, according to Alexandra, they may become hard to control and possibly get out of hand altogether. There have been instances she says, where these delightful bogies have ridden women for days … .
until incantations, prayers, or reverse magic drove them off. Decidedly they’re not people to be too chummy with … .
“This Charenton celebrates a Black Mass, of course?” I ask.
“Yes. Oh, I suppose I may as well tell you the truth … . in order to receive this faculty of incubacy I … was obliged to allow myself to be used as the altar.”
Ah! Alexandra has mentioned the altar before. A naked woman, of course …
sometimes on her belly, so that her buttocks are used; more often on her back …
I’d like to see that …
I tell Alexandra that I want to see this performance. She’s doubtful … it isn’t put on for curiosity’s sake, like a whorehouse show. Only good Catholics, or very bad Catholics, are given the opportunity to witness it. She’ll speak to Canon Charenton however. The blasphemy of having an unbeliever present might appeal to him… .
Just before she leaves I mention that there is a small service which she might do for me … I tell her about Rosita and what has happened to Ernest. Now, if she would have a very small spell cast to rid me of this nuisance, I would be very much obliged.
“If you could fix it so she would jump into the Seine I’d appreciate it,” I say.
Alexandra smiles … it’s possible that it might be done just that way, she tells me… .
She leaves without once having made a move or said a word which might hint that she was looking for a lay. Her imaginary boyfriends must be taking good care of her these days.
At the office I come across a small item which almost makes me shit green.
Rosita D’Oro, etc., etc., a cabaret entertainer, has committed suicide. For the past few days it had been noticed that she acted strangely, and last night, at the conclusion of a performance (undoubtedly the upstairs flamenco), she rushed to the street and disappeared. (How in Jesus name does a naked woman DISAPPEAR?) Several hours later her body was found in the Seine!
It’s unnerving … not that I believe in the potency of Alexandra’s magic, but because I called it so accurately. My God, I didn’t want the girl to kill herself, but because I spoke of it and she did it I feel a responsibility in the matter. Over a period I begin to see things in another way. She wasn’t through with me yet …
every day that she was alive I stood a good chance of not being alive. It’s a great weight off one’s shoulders, not having to worry about a knife in the back… . .
Ernest calls, carrying under his arm an object which he assures me is a beautiful piece of twelfth-century pottery … an antique which he picked up for next to nothing. Ernest is forever picking up something priceless for next to nothing … . and they are all very much like this object which he has now. It looks like nothing else but a bidet, but he tucks it cautiously under his feet while he tells me about this inventor he mentioned a few nights ago …
“We’re sitting there having dinner, Alf, and I couldn’t help it . . if you saw her you’d know what I mean. I began to feel her up under the table, right there with her nutty husband carving the meat and everything! Shit, you know how those things happen … pretty soon she had my cock out and was jerking me off. And that’s how we were when that bastard had to drop his napkin!”
“So he caught you at it? What did he do?” I ask.
“That’s just it, Alf … he didn’t do a thing! And his wife … she didn’t even bother to take her hand off my dick. She went right on pulling at my prick while he peeked at us under the table! Then guess what he does … he begins to talk about how sexual excitement interfered with digestion! Honest to Jesus, Alf, I’m telling you straight. I couldn’t just sit and listen to him and let that cunt of a wife play with me… . I made her stop. Then, when dinner was over he asked if I was going to stay all night. I tell you, Alf, that bastard is plain cracked.”
“Well, did you stay?”
“I did like Hell. What kind of a fuck would that be? Jesus, if you’re going to lay a man’s wife you don’t want him to just up and give her to you, like a cigar after dinner … that way it’s you who looks foolish instead of him, the way it ought to be … Maybe that bastard isn’t as dumb a cluck as he looks… .”
While Ernest goes on talking the mail comes. A note from Alexandra … she’s fixed everything with the Charenton bozo. I’m to go with her to the next Black Mass he celebrates.
Alexandra calls for me in her car. I’ve been expecting her. A note arriving yesterday informed me that her precious Canon Charenton was holding his Mass tonight … location unspecified. Since she neglected to name the time, I’ve been waiting since a little after eight. It’s around ten-thirty when I’m finally startled out of my doze by the bell.
Alexandra is more animated than she has been the past few times that I have seen her. She asks me, when we are entering the car, if I mind if she continues to drive. She’s keyed up to a high pitch, as nervous as a schoolgirl with her father’s car and a hot date, and she’d merely be restless if she didn’t drive. Besides,
