Page 123 of Tendu: Dancing in the Castle

She sat on an archaic wooden chair that had roaring lion heads carved on its arms. A laptop was open on a big flat table in front of her. She laughed. “I didn’t shut the lid upstairs. You’ve taken us to a new level. One level up. One level down. And now we’re going to find out exactly what that autistic brain of yours is capable of. Can you break your chains? Can you fight me? Try.” She stared at the laptop screen.

Was there anything I could say that would help the situation? Or, at least, not make it worse? My heart hammered painfully hard in my chest.

“You’re not trying,” she said in a sing-song voice. “I told you how to do it. Imagine Amalgamation C, and also whatever you want to happen here.”

“No.” Maybe if I refused to cooperate, she would give up. And we would go back upstairs. And I would find Aleks. And go on holiday. Because what was happening here, could not actually be happening, could it? I was starring in a badly made horror film, that was all. Yes, that must be it. My character started to shake convulsively.

Michelle noticed. “Oh, are you frightened? No men here to save you?” Hand on forehead, her voice an ugly falsetto, she said: “Oh, Aleks, the mean lady… Justin, make me laugh… Will, hit someone for me, maybe I’ll screw you then.” The play-acting ended, and she regarded me seriously. “You and Mr. Hearst should have been together, of course. My perfect mated pair. Just think what your children would have been capable of, the minds they would have had. Aleks got in the way of everything. None of you can be relied upon to do what’s needed. Animals, the lot of you.” She stopped speaking and stared into space.

I opted for saying nothing. The bizarre and chilling turn the day had taken was feeling less like a dream or film, the more my wrists and arms ached above me. Small sounds grew large in confinement. Breathing echoed. I was sure it echoed. Pulse became a drum, especially in my neck and my ears. I managed to take hold of the chains, wrapping them round my hands as if on some sort of insane and evil swing. They were something to hold on to, a sort of hope that I could alter and improve my lot. The carved lions on the arms of Michelle’s chair stared back at me sorrowfully as if they knew there was, in fact, no hope.

Michelle came back to life. “If you’re not going to participate properly, we’ll have to use good old-fashioned negative stimuli. Partial to a little film show, aren’t you, Miss Treadwell?” Her quick smile in my direction was a leer. “Let’s head to Aleks’s room first.” She stopped again. She glared at me. “You weren’t meant to get the top bedroom. It was all set up for my own use. The camera wasn’t even wired up.”

She walked over to a large flat screen that was embedded on the opposite wall. It was surrounded by lots of boxy little televisions.

“But, no,” she said. “Aleks always has to know better. ‘Leave that room empty,’ I told him.” She used a remote control to scroll through file names on the large screen. “But he installs you in it, and himself, though I didn’t know about that for a long time. Ah, here we are.”

Aleks’s room filled the central screen, and the two of us appeared on it. Him and me. He stood naked. My back looked surprisingly bony as he pulled the shirt off me. It was like watching peculiar self-starring porn, but the sight was nothing like the experience. A range of strong emotions passed across his face as I watched the film version of myself kneel down in front of him.

She paused the recording. “When you find yourself on your knees in front of a man, something has gone very wrong. Oh, I know you think it gave you power, but it didn’t. Look what you let him do. He hurt you and enjoyed it. They all have that in them, all men, they do.”

The gross invasion of privacy played on and, from an observer’s perspective, it did look rather brutal. But there shouldn’t have been an observer. Anger muddled up with everything else: fear, disbelief, shock. I couldn’t be watching this film of me and Aleks making love that night of the rebellion. The golden stars didn’t show up at the end, so it wasn’t real. None of this was real. It couldn’t be.

She stopped the action where the stars should have been. “The rest of this is really just sentimental claptrap. Amazing what a man will say to get sex, isn’t it? Especially sex like that.”

“That isn’t how it felt,” I tried to explain. “We love each other. You can’t see how it felt.” Tears ran down my face, their warmth alien and yet very human in the dark home of badness. I looked at the floor, only the floor; it was better.

“See, he has you now,” said Michelle. “You’re trapped.” The turn of her tone to tender was terrifying. As was the fact that she was now standing right beside me. “Let me show you how it should be,” she said, like a kindly teacher making a correction in class. “There’s never any need to demean yourself.” She held my face up, forcing me to see.

The large screen was now showing another film, set in a room I’d never seen before. There were three long windows on one wall, like in my bedroom upstairs. Michelle was there, on the screen. She wore a tight red dress as she sat down on a bed and turned to someone. Aleks. He undid his shirt. She unzipped her dress. He was naked quickly. She kept on her matching red bra and thong, but took a large pendant off over her head and laid it on a bedside cabinet. A red jewel glinted in its centre, like a dewdrop of blood.

Dungeon Michelle pulled the same piece of jewellery out from under her smart cream shirt, and turned it in her fingers as she watched the film.

Back in the unknown room on the screen, the undressing seemed unconnected with the conversation. I made out the words ‘choreography’ and ‘amalgamation.’ He smiled at her. He held her face and kissed her. I knew those soft kisses. He placed them all round her neck. His finger traced a line down the middle of her body, between her breasts and down, right down. She laughed, both on film and in the dungeon. Aleks laughed too.

This was what these familiar lovers did. Smiling, chatting, laughing. The sex was straightforward, grown-up, sensible. Screen Michelle looked directly at the camera and smiled as her disgusting perfume encircled us all.

They sat back. He lit a cigarette and told her she was beautiful. So beautiful.

My eyes took pity on me and blurred with water.

“There he was,” she said, still beside me. “Right where I needed him. Don’t doubt he could be there again. You’re just a bit of fun to him. He doesn’t see your true worth. Only I do.” Red claws trailed my cheek. “You’ll like this next one. It’s funny.”

Justin’s room in the tower appeared. My dear, dear friend had his back to the camera. Edward faced him and smiled. He laughed at something Justin said. It was an intimate moment between two people and, just like the first film, it wouldn’t look how it felt. It was private, and I didn’t want to see.

“Why did you record all this?” I asked, my voice high and shrill. “Are you completely stark-raving mad?” The question was ridiculous. If she hadn’t been then, she was now.

She ignored my questions and wandered forward a little. The video wouldn’t play. “You’ve blocked it,” she said, jabbing the remote in the direction of the screen. “You and Hearst, your minds interfere with the technology. I know it. His camera rarely sent signals properly. Where is he, anyway? He should be down here too.”

She pointed the remote again, and the smaller televisions sprang to life showing people moving about in various places in the castle. It was dinnertime in the great hall. We viewed it from high above. I could see Justin talking to Bekah at our table. The swimming pool: empty. The entrance hall: empty. No Will. Will was safe. That was good.

“Does this shock you, little Treadwell?” asked Michelle, back beside me, running a hateful red-tipped finger down my cheek again, her breath misting unpleasantly in my ear. “I’m only continuing a castle tradition, moving it on to its modern equivalent. My bedroom upstairs incorporates the old ‘Laird’s Lug.’ There’s a little hole for spying. You can both hear and see what’s going on in the great hall. The Lairds of the past liked to check no one was plotting against them. How history repeats itself.”

As Michelle spoke, Aleks appeared on one of the television screens. He was in his own room. He held a small black box in his hand. He opened it and inspected the shining object contained within.

“Aleks!” I called from my place against the hard, damp wall. He turned as if he had heard me.

“You want Aleks?” She pointed the remote at the bigger screen and the Aleks/Michelle film started up again. “We’ll leave that on loop while we work. Oh, and for a little added stimulation…” She pressed some buttons, and the vile music of Amalgamation C began to play as a background track. “Shame we’re not somewhere with better acoustics, but that wouldn’t have been feasible today. It was hard enough getting you down this far.”

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