Citizen Kane Pt. 02

If Samson believed his strength came from his hair, Kane was convinced his testicles were the source of his power. They hung heavy, a light purplish tinge, and he kept them clean shaven. He would insist on women giving them close attention. "I'm going to fuck you," he would say. "It's nothing personal and then it will be over. While I fuck you must hold my balls the proper way. You must squeeze them, stroke and stretch them until I cum." And they did, frozen with fear of the Wolfman who was half man half dog.

Kane never said much. He was always on the move, crossing Continents in search of further conquests. He stole from his victims and carried out robberies if he needed cash. In France, he looked for rural women because they often kept their pubic and underarm hair unshaved. It intrigued and excited him. "You know," he would say in perfect French, "no American woman would dream of going like this. I will show you."

Her name was Celine, a pretty young clerk in a rural bank. Kane's nostrils twitched as he drew cash. His animal senses were inflamed by her powerful musk. Across the counter she felt his amber eyes burning and even though it was a hot summer day, she shivered. He waited outside the bank until closing time and followed her home. She was preparing for a date with her boyfriend when Kane burst in. He bundled her into the bedroom and pinned her in his powerful arms. "Listen," he said. "You must do as I say, then I will be gone." His lips curled into a snarl, exposing his sharp canine teeth.

Celine slipped off her black skirt and waited. Her heart felt like ice. His erection was huge and throbbing with menace. He took off his pants and pulled her bra down under her full breasts. When he removed her salmon pink French knickers he grunted in disgust. She had a thick bush. Holding her arm in an iron grip, he hauled her to the bathroom. She wept in terror and humiliation as he found a safety razor and soaped between her legs. With an expert steady hand he shaved her smooth, then stood back to admire his handiwork. "That's better, ma cherie," he said. "Now we will be just fine." As Kane fucked, he watched Celine's pretty round face screwed up in revulsion. Her eyes were closed. Her sweat smelled like weak coffee. At times her long fingers fluttered and he thought of a piano player. Gradually she lapsed into silent submission. Her licked around the tan lines of her breasts and thighs.

Later, Celine looked so melancholy that he said: "It's just sex, you know. Sex you didn't want maybe." He scanned her bookshelf, Proust, Zola, Camus. "Shall I read to you for a while?" he asked. "Look, here's George Simenon, not a French writer, I know, but close enough. Old George reckoned he had sex with 10,000 women but that's impossible."

But she did not want him to read, just wanted him gone. Celine reported the attack to police. She said: "He made me think of a werewolf." But Kane's assaults were random and without pattern, almost impossible to connect, and by the time rare complaints were made he was usually thousands of miles away across several time zones.

Back in New York, his nose led him to Tatiana, an official with Russia's United Nations delegation. He found her in a bar on the Lower East Side. Within weeks he had impressed her with his knowledge of international politics and persuaded her to get him a visitor's pass to the UN building.

It was snowing outside when they entered the Manhattan restaurant. Tatiana order beluga caviar and vintage Dom Perignon champagne. Expensive tastes. As she chatted about her work, Kane decided she was too bright to be a Russian spy and was more likely a double agent working for the Americans. He also decided she would not make a good partner for sex. She was attractive enough but his sensitive nose was not picking up the right scent from her body. The snow made him think of other places. He said to Tatiana: "Do you read James Joyce? That famous scene in Dubliners, in the churchyard?" She nodded and he went on: "It is about universal experience, something everyone shares." Switching to Russian. he translated: "He heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling like the descent of their last end upon all the living and the dead." Echoes of other worlds reached him. Tatiana said: "It's beautiful." She switched to vodka shots and suddenly grew sombre. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't know, just something about me, my life. When it's snowing and I hear something like that I remember too many things."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She told him about the darkness of the Russian soul, something no exile could ever really escape. Her mother has been raped by Lavrentiy Beria, head of Stalin's secret police, a mass murderer and torturer. Beria's henchmen would snatch girls from the streets of Moscow and take them back to his lavish villa for his pleasure. His appetites were huge and perverted. One of his favorite activities was the Flower Game in which half a dozen abducted girls, some as young as 12, would be forced to strip naked, except for their shoes, and form a circle on hands and knees with their heads touching. Like the petals of a flower. Beria would wander around the circle, closely examining his victims, parting their buttocks, fingering them and occasionally penetrating one from behind. When he had made his choice of one or two they would be taken to his apartment for a night of debauchery. Next day their bodies would be dumped in a forest. Beria loved torture. Following each session his valet had the task of cleaning the blood from his leather apron. After Stalin died, he was arrested, tried for treason and shot in the head by General Pavel Batisky.

Tatiana studied the menu, something called Diplomate Pudding, and decided against it. "I know a diplomat I would like to make vanish," she said.

The Wolfman's nose twitched and he cocked his head to one side.

"He is the director of my division and he is a paedophile. He is abusing his own little daughter."

Kane hated men who preyed on children. They were brutal, merciless and inhumane. His own behaviour was not like that. He was simply obeying the dictates of his nature. He had no human emotions but had learned over the centuries to display appropriate reactions when required. Now he put his hand over Tatiana's, looked into her pale blue eyes, and said: "This man, Maxim you say? We will deal with him, no."

Maxim could never remember the details, how he found himself drinking in a midtown cocktail bar, watched naked girls dancing on a stage, blacked out and woke up in a shabby apartment where he could hear traffic passing by outside. Some kind of basement. Dim flickering lights and a string of other lights like Christmas decorations. A woman in mask and surgical gown entered the room. Max tried to get up but he was drugged and strapped to a table, probably a weights bench. The woman did not speak. A masked man joined her. He felt pain, waves of nausea, and blacked out again.

Tatiana performed the castration expertly with a scalpel. She had once worked with a military field hospital unit. When it was done, she patted Maxim on his florid bald head and said to Kane: "I don't think he will bother any more young girls now."

They left together. Max would wake up with his bonds gone, along with his balls.

Tatiana told Kane: "You have probably heard of Skoptzy, the White Doves. They were an 18th century Christian sect in Russia who subjected themselves to castration because they thought it would help them attain their idea of sanctity. There were various levels. The one known as lesser seal involved the removal of scrotum and testes, leaving the penis intact. They used to do it with a red-hot iron so Maxim got off lightly, I think."

She smiled. "Maxim is now a White Dove of the lesser seal."

She kissed Kane and hugged him. "Thank you," she said.

Months later, a parcel arrived at Maxim's home. It contained his testicles in a jar of formaldehyde. Wrapped in a Russian flag.