He struggles to his knees to kiss the instrument. She stands over him now, legs astride, pelvis cocked forward, fur cape held apart on her hips. He dares to gaze up at her cunt, that fearful vortex. Her pubic hair has been dyed black for the occasion. He sighs, and lets escape a small shameful groan.

“Ah… yes, I know.” She laughs. “Poor mortal Brigadier, I know. It is my last mystery,” stroking with fingernails her labia, “you cannot ask a woman to reveal her last mystery, now, can you?”

“Please…”

“No. Not tonight. Kneel here and take what I give you.”

Despite himself—already a reflex—he glances quickly over at the bottles on the table, the plates, soiled with juices of meat, Hollandaise, bits of gristle and bone… . Her shadow covers his face and upper torso, her leather boots creak softly as thigh and abdominal muscles move, and then in a rush she begins to piss. He opens his mouth to catch the stream, choking, trying to keep swallowing, feeling warm urine dribble out the corners of his mouth and down his neck and shoulders, submerged in the hissing storm. When she’s done he licks the last few drops from his lips. More cling, golden clear, to the glossy hairs of her quim. Her face, looming between her bare breasts, is smooth as steel.

She turns. “Hold up my fur.” He obeys. “Be careful. Don’t touch my skin.” Earlier in this game she was nervous, constipated, wondering if this was anything like male impotence. But thoughtful Pointsman, anticipating this, has been sending laxative pills with her meals. Now her intestines whine softly, and she feels shit begin to slide down and out. He kneels with his arms up holding the rich cape. A dark turd appears out the crevice, out of the absolute darkness between her white buttocks. He spreads his knees, awkwardly, until he can feel the leather of her boots. He leans forward to surround the hot turd with his lips, sucking on it tenderly, licking along its lower side… he is thinking, he’s sorry, he can’t help it, thinking of a Negro’s penis, yes he knows it abrogates part of the conditions set, but it will not be denied, the image of a brute African who will make him behave… . The stink of shit floods his nose, gathering him, surrounding. It is the smell of Passchendaele, of the Salient. Mixed with the mud, and the putrefaction of corpses, it was the sovereign smell of their first meeting, and her emblem. The turd slides into his mouth, down to his gullet. He gags, but bravely clamps his teeth shut. Bread that would only have floated in porcelain waters somewhere, unseen, untasted—risen now and baked in the bitter intestinal Oven to bread we know, bread that’s light as domestic comfort, secret as death in bed… Spasms in his throat continue. The pain is terrible. With his tongue he mashes shit against the roof of his mouth and begins to chew, thickly now, the only sound in the room… .