Chapter Eighty-One
Annette stood on her soapbox, haranguing the heinous sex, i.e., men, with her sole auditor, Herra Brotherus, off in a darkened corner, nodding and smiling creepily. For hours, he listened whilst she cycled through her themes, encouraging passers-by to come pay heed to the irrefutable logic she was pleased to dispense. When she finally packed up for the night, he mustered the courage to approach her, and, unceasingly washing his hands with an invisible bar of soap, began to mutter: “Forgive me, mademoiselle, but I find your arguments most convincing, and utterly tasteful.”
“Convincing, eh? So I’ve convinced you to cut off your own penis?”
He giggled delightedly. “Almost, mademoiselle! Almost!”
She knocked past him, but he followed her. “Might I trouble you for your signature on a bit of paper? I would be so honoured, you see.”
“Fuck off.”
“Ha ha! Mademoiselle, you enchant me!”
She stopped and looked him up and down. Her expression did not signal that she was terribly impressed with what she saw. “What are you after, anyway?”
“Pardon me, mademoiselle, but is it not obvious?” He sighed, looked to the ceiling, and closed his eyes. “I am hopelessly in love with you. And I ask nothing more from life than to offer myself up completely to you, as a sacrifice, if you would have me.”
She nodded. “All right then. Come with me.”
Within minutes, he was in her small chamber, stripped naked, on his knees, tied with a strap by an ankle to the leg of a bureau, bleeding from his anus following intercourse with an empty wine bottle. One of her rules was that he must not ejaculate, but he was in ecstasy nonetheless. Annette, fully clothed, sat on her bed, reading her book.