Beauty and the Beast

I had some tidying up to do and I was in no great hurry. I needed to wait until darkness fell before moving them, so I had time to pack up my wife's clothing, jewellery and personal items that I thought she would have wanted to take with her. I made myself a light supper of tinned soup and a sandwich with the rest of the smoked salmon and then I went back upstairs to check on my captives. I could see they were beginning to recover, but were still unable to move much. Their angry expressions turned apprehensive then fearful as I prepared and injected each in turn with a general anaesthetic.

Some people will tell you it's difficult to move an unconscious person, but that's only if you don't know how. Having a collapsible or foldable stretcher available also helps if you're on your own. I got him downstairs and into the garage more or less without a problem. His head did get bumped a couple of times as I pulled the stretcher downstairs and once again when I dumped him in the back of the car. I covered his naked body with his clothes and a blanket. It was a cold night and I wanted to make sure he didn't get hypothermia during the drive to Surgeon's Hall.

My wife was a lot easier to manoeuvre. I threw her belongings on the back seat of the car, wrapped her in another old blanket and laid her on the front passenger seat, which I had reclined to the extent that she was almost horizontal. The anaesthetic would eventually wear off, but not before we got to our destination.

The surgeon had been looking forward to our arrival. He helped me ensure my wife and her lover remained sufficiently sedated to enable us to secure them in their new quarters. I had no desire to hear my wife's treacherous voice, nor did I want to listen to her lover begging for mercy. The surgeon provided gags that were more comfortable than my home-made efforts and we used padded restraints to secure them to the two hospital beds that had been set up in a basement room. When they woke they could see one another, but that was all. It was important they were aware that both were being held captive and rescue was therefore unlikely.

At some stage during the evening they soiled themselves again, but they were lying on rubber covered mattresses. It smelt pretty vile, but it wasn't a major problem. We got my wife into the shower and hosed her down without removing the restraints binding her wrists together or the gag. She struggled throughout this, except when I dried her off with a towel and covered her in a blanket.

The first priority was to get her to sign the letter I had prepared for her. In it she confessed to the affair, stated that she was pregnant by her lover and revealed they were running off to South America to start a new life with fifty grand in cash taken from our wall safe. There was a brief apology for taking the tax-free nest egg we had accumulated "off the grid", with the excuse that she needed it more than me.

In reality there was no tax-free nest egg and the fifty grand didn't exist, but I thought it gave credence to the idea she had run off with her lover. It would be worth the possible difficulties with the tax man. I might end up paying tax on a non-existent fifty grand, but that was a price I was prepared to pay for some useful supporting evidence.

The letter went on to say I could have sole custody of our daughter and keep the house, whatever other savings we had and anything else she had left behind. The final paragraph mentioned her hope that we could part as friends, but stated she planned never to return and would not be keeping in touch, as she thought a clean break was best for all concerned.

The surgeon and I strapped my wife to a sturdy chair and table in the little home-made operating theatre he had set up in one of the other basement rooms and I read the letter to her and explained that she needed to sign it. Although she could do little more than grunt with the gag in her mouth, she made it quite clear she was not inclined to do so, scribbling frantically over the text with the pen and scrunching the letter up with her free hand. I thought that might happen, so the surgeon and I went off to fetch her lover.

I administered some muscle relaxant to ensure he wouldn't be a threat, before we cleaned him up and took him to the operating theatre. We tied him down on the operating table, I injected his hand with a local anaesthetic and the surgeon carefully amputated one of his fingers between the first and second joint. He fainted and my wife then decided she would cooperate. I was glad she didn't faint, because it meant she might be able to cope with the other challenges that lay ahead.

I had printed several copies of the letter, just in case my wife tried any funny business, but she signed without further resistance. The surgeon seemed disappointed he didn't get to remove more than a single digit from her lover, but my wife probably thought both she and her lover would be set free without further harm if she signed the letter. The surgeon made a great show of carefully dressing her lover's damaged hand and I told her I would make arrangements to set him free.

We carried my wife's lover back to the basement bedroom and laid him down on one of the beds, where I injected him with a massive dose of morphine that would painlessly set him free from this world and send him into the arms of the angel of death. There was no question of affording him the protection of the Hippocratic oath. He was not my patient. He was my enemy and he had to pay for his invasion of my territory. He was fortunate I was comparatively merciful and he did not suffer unnecessary pain and misery.

As for my wife, the surgeon had considered performing a couple of surgical procedures on her to prepare her for her new role. After some discussion, we decided a clitorectomy would have been too extreme. Female genital mutilation was a step too far. While the idea appealed to my desire for revenge, the surgeon pointed out it would make Julie less likely to actively participate in sex. Letting her have her enjoyment would encourage her to respond positively when the surgeon required her for horizontal jogging duties.

Nevertheless, some surgery would be necessary. It helped that the surgeon had all the necessary resources in the basement of the house. His eyes were still as sharp as his surgical instruments and his hands were as steady as the close bond that had developed between us over the years.

When someone is bound and gagged, it is a lot easier to give them a clear explanation of their situation and what lies ahead. I knew what I wanted to tell her and I needed to make sure she understood her options without the annoyance of unnecessary interruptions.

"Life is full of choices, Julie," I told her, "and actions have consequences. You could have chosen not to have an affair. You could have chosen to respect me. You could have chosen to sign that letter without any harm coming to your lover. I could have chosen to ignore your betrayal of my trust, but I chose to take action and you will have to face the consequences. Now you and I have more choices to make. So far, I have chosen not to kill you, but there are conditions attached to your continued survival. You can stay here and serve the surgeon, or I will kill you. I will let you choose whether you wish to live or die. If you wish to live, you will be the surgeon's servant in every respect and you will have a hysterectomy, so that you can provide your services unhindered by fertility issues."

Stark fear showed in her eyes and they widened with horror as I continued.

"You can also choose to have the ability and be permitted to speak, but you can only have that particular freedom on condition that you exercise restraint and speak only when you are spoken to. If you can't agree to hold your tongue by your own free will, you will have your vocal cords cut. Those are the folds of tissue in your throat that create sounds and speech. If your vocal cords are cut you will be able to make grunting noises, but you won't be able to talk or laugh. Personally, I would prefer never to hear you speak again and the surgeon probably has little desire for conversation with you, but it's your choice."

I paused to give her a little time to fully digest what I was telling her.

"Choose obedience, respect and service, or choose death. Which is it to be? Nod your head if you agree to the terms and conditions for your survival or shake your head if you would prefer to die."

She could see I was deadly serious and her shoulders slumped as she nodded her assent.

The surgeon had an intense dislike of condoms, which he had to endure when he occasionally went whoring in Dublin. As Julie's sole user, he would not be risking any nasty infections if he screwed her bareback. However, he wanted to avoid any risk of Julie getting pregnant. The solution was simple. We would perform a hysterectomy. The surgeon wouldn't need to use condoms when he fucked her and Julie wouldn't have periods to annoy her ever again. The surgeon had all the special surgical instruments he needed for the procedure.

We got Julie strapped to the operating table, before I gave her a general anaesthetic. I carefully prepped her for the surgery and the surgeon worked his magic, making an incision in the top of her vagina, detaching the womb from the ligaments holding it in place, then removing the womb and cervix through the incision before finally sewing it up. The surgeon and I were used to working as a team and the procedure was completed in under an hour, with no fuss and very little blood loss. Julie hadn't actually been pregnant, so no innocent lives were lost.

While she was still unconscious I cut off her long locks of red hair and shaved her head. When the Americans liberated Paris in 1944, this was the punishment inflicted by the Parisians on women who had slept with Germans during the occupation. To me it seemed appropriate and her bald head would serve as an immediate reminder to my wife about why she was being punished.

I helped the surgeon get Julie back to the basement room that would serve as her quarters and then he helped me load the body of her lover in the back of my car, wrapped in the old blanket. He kindly loaned me a garden spade, before bidding me farewell. I drove about half an hour down the road to find a good location to dispose of the body.

With less than a hundred thousand inhabitants living in the few small towns or villages scattered across Donegal's two thousand square miles of rugged landscape, the chance of anyone finding a body lying in a remote and largely inaccessible area was between miniscule and non-existent. Even if the body was eventually found I wouldn't have to worry. Plenty of people had gone missing during "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. The surgeon had cleverly cut off the man's remaining fingertips and thumbs, which made his corpse look like he had been the victim of terrorists.

Lying in the open, a human body usually takes months to decay. In dry climates, it will mummify for years. You might think that an Irish bog would be a good place to dispose of a corpse, but only a fool would actually bury it. If you buried it, the chances are it would be preserved for hundreds or thousands of years, like the Stoneyisland man or the Meenybradden woman.

In the damp setting of Donegal, the secret of success is not to bury the body in the bog, but to place it in an exposed depression on slightly drier ground, hence the spade. All you have to do is hollow out a small area and leave the corpse naked and exposed to the elements and the attentions of buzzards and crows. With good bacterial activity and some hungry avian predators, a face becomes a skull in weeks and a body decomposes in about a month. Spring was upon us and the damp soil of Donegal would do its job within a few weeks, leaving only a scattering of bones.

Although I was curious about what would happen between Julie and the surgeon, he had insisted we remain incommunicado for a year, unless he encountered a serious setback and decided to end the arrangement. I had taken her wedding and engagement rings, as she had already broken her vows. A couple of bits of metal and a gemstone were no longer of any significance. I could sell them in due course.

During that first year I had much to occupy me, but I was comparatively free from hassle. As soon as I got back to Dublin that first night I emptied her Latin lover's dingy apartment of his meagre possessions. I got rid of most of his clothes by donating them to charity shops over the next couple of weeks and the rest went in the municipal dump, along with the keys to his apartment. His acoustic guitar ended up as an anonymous gift to a school in one of the city's most deprived areas.

Of course, I had immediately alerted the Irish police that my wife had run off and I asked for their help to track her down. Asking someone to do something for you in Ireland often means nothing will be done. To be fair, the police did make some enquiries and they alerted lover man's landlord that his tenant had done a midnight flit. However, my runaway wife was of little interest to the police. They had a copy of her letter to me, there was anecdotal evidence from third parties to confirm what had been going on and the newly opened border with Northern Ireland meant there was little chance of tracking her down, even if the police could be bothered trying.

I could see the police thought I was clueless. I was glad it was the other way round and I made sure to make the occasional forlorn request for an update report, which reinforced their lazy and arrogant misconception and protected me from scrutiny.

My daughter and my parents were understandably very upset to learn that Julie had absconded. It took my daughter a few months to adjust to my wife's absence, but the attachment between mother and child had been imperfect to begin with. My daughter was not surprised by the idea that her mother had chosen to go away with her special friend. Instead of being angry or resentful, my daughter's reaction was to strengthen her bond with me, particularly as I spent as much time with her as I could. It helped that I engaged the services of a lovely Irish lass as a nanny for my daughter and they shared many fun adventures together.

A year later it was with some trepidation that I parked my car in the courtyard of Surgeon's Hall. The main entrance featured a porch with grey stone pillars on either side of stark black double doors adorned with a pair of enormous cast iron door knockers. The surgeon knew I was coming and I was saved the task of banging on the door. It opened to reveal Julie in a plain black servant's dress that came to below her knees and a pair of flat-heeled black leather shoes. Her hair had started growing back. It was no more than about four or five inches long and combed in an austere style, framing her pale and anxious face, which was devoid of any hint of make-up.

There was an awkward silence until I remembered she was forbidden from speaking until spoken to.

"Good afternoon," I said.

"Good afternoon, sir," she replied. "The surgeon is waiting for you in the drawing room. Please come this way."

I followed her wordlessly to the drawing room, where a roaring fire burned in the hearth. The surgeon rose to greet me with a firm handshake.

"Happy St Patrick's Day!" he enthused.

He turned to Julie.

"Woman," he commanded her, "Take our guest's coat and hang it up and then you can return to your room. I will ring the bell if I need you, but in any case make sure our dinner is ready for seven o'clock."

She took my coat and I watched as the door closed behind her.

The surgeon's eyes twinkled with amusement. "Please have a seat. I took the liberty of opening a bottle of Chateau Margaux. Let me fetch us a couple of glasses and we can drink a toast to St Patrick."

"I'm amazed," I said, as he carefully poured the expensive wine from a crystal decanter. "It looks like you have been successful with the Stockholm experiment."

"Yes," he replied. "Progress was more rapid than I had expected. Nevertheless, maintaining the current arrangement is largely contingent upon her perception of a continued threat to her life."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means, my dear man, that she must continue to see you as a threat to her life and she will continue to see me as her protector. I told her you were coming to check up on her and that her survival would depend on whether you decided to grant her a further stay of execution."

"I'm not sure I understand," I said. "Surely whether she lives or dies depends on whether or not she has been of satisfactory service to you. That means it is you who will determine her fate."

"That's true," he replied, "but it is important that she perceives it differently. For my benefit I'm afraid you must continue to be the villain of the piece. She is grateful that I have given her permission to move about the house during the day for the purpose of undertaking the usual domestic chores, such as washing, cleaning or cooking. I lock her in the basement at night, after I have finished with her."

"And are you satisfied with her performance so far?"

"She has been extremely cooperative. There was no intimacy between us for the first few months. At first she was recovering from her surgery and I think she was coming to terms with the change in her circumstances. Eventually she approached me and asked me to satisfy her physical needs. She knew she would have to be of service to me if she wanted to survive, but I expect she also rationalised her advances by telling herself she was repaying my kindness for protecting her from your threat to kill her. I'm sure it helped that I did not put any pressure on her, but then who really knows why people do the things they do?"

"Perhaps you have been too kind to her," I remarked.

"I don't think so," he replied. "At first I fitted her with a dog collar to reinforce the message that she was under my control. Eventually, when she began to adjust and decided to occupy herself with domestic tasks, I removed the collar. Every now and again I put it on her if we're going to be fucking or if she needs to be reminded of her status."

"Do you think she will continue to be motivated by Helsinki Syndrome?" I asked.

"Well," he mused, tenting his spindly fingers, "That's the million dollar question. It's clear that she still sees you as a threat to her continuing existence and she sees me as her protector. In fact, she begged me to show you unequivocal evidence that she has been unstinting in her efforts to be of service to me. At first, she wanted us to give you a live sex show, but I could not agree to that. Let's be frank. I'm a very private person and even if you and I have known each other for many years, I am not about to do that. However I did finally agree when she insisted I use a movie camera to record an extensive session with her in my bedroom and make sure you watched it during your visit."

Later that evening, after a delicious supper of pork, cabbage and potatoes, I sat alone in the surgeon's library and watched the VHS tape of my wife in action with him. Apart from curiosity, I discovered I had no strong feelings one way or another. There was a vague sense of loss and I recognised the dull embers of what had been my fiery anger a year ago, but I felt no outrage or excitement as I watched their images jogging horizontally together on the monitor.

The French understand the relationship between love and death and that death comes when love has gone. They go so far as to describe the après climax as la petite mort. Even the French words sound very similar. L'amour et la mort. But the death of love in a greater sense will vary in how it manifests itself. The death of love is a certainty. After all, we will all die.