"SUCCESSIVE SLIDINGS OF PLEASURE" "What time did you come home?" "Why were the blinds pulled?" "Where'd you go on vacation?" "Do you like eggs?" "Can you swim?" "You know a man named Boris?" "How many shoes do you have?" "When was your first communion?" "What are you?" "Actress?" "Dancer?" "Model?" "Call girl, cover girl?" "Script girl?" "Someone came." "Someone else was here." "Someone came." "Nora's dead." "I'm alone on the beach." "The sea breaks at my feet." "Someone else came." "Do you recognize this?" "You don't recognize this?" "Shit, no!" "It was found in your room." "Maybe it was Nora's." "They found your fingerprints on it." "No other traces?" "Only from the other cop who searched the apartment after the murder." "Did he take much?" "I'm talking about this!" "The murder weapon?" "No." "You know that." "So what's it to you?" "It could have been the murder weapon." "It's a bit of glass, a toy like children play with." "So, you keep claiming a man you know nothing about... but who seemed to be following you for weeks, suddenly entered your house." "How'd he enter?" "With his keys." "He had a key?" "A copy, of course." " How'd he get them?" " He had it made." "We kept ours under the doormat when we were not together." "Nora and I only had one." "One day he took it and had a duplicate made at the locksmith." "How do you know?" "I only suppose so." "Or he said he'd lost his key... and had the locksmith work on the door when we were both out." " Or maybe " " That's enough!" "Guesswork isn't your position." "You asked me to cooperate." "Maybe he took our key and left us the duplicate." "Once we noticed it didn't have the same band." "If this man exists, he didn't use a key." "The inspector found the lock forced." "The killer came from outside." "No, you could've forced the lock... as a part of setting the scene." "Please continue with your version." "With or without a key, this man entered your home and he calmly tied your friend to her bed so he could kill her at ease." "I'm the one who tied her." "I told you." "We were playing." "She was the model for a painting." "It's true, there was no easel in the room, nor unfinished or blank canvas." "I Wanted to take a photo and then Work alone in oils." "The inspector must have seen the brushes and paintings." "Only red paint?" "Yes, why not?" "When all was set up, the killer arrived and put a knife in Nora's breast?" " Scissors!" " Yes, yours." "With only your fingerprints on them!" "Because they are mine." "He wore black gloves." "Why would he do that?" "He was probably insane because the brothels had been closed." "Maybe he, too, wanted to play." "Isn't that what they call a "transfer"?" "And you just sat and watched?" "You're putting me on!" "Going to rape me to make me confess?" "Leave me alone, you dirty man!" "That's a classic trick." "It won't help you at all." "He tried to kiss you?" "You mean rape me?" "And kill me by stabbing me in the belly and between my thighs." "All men are maniacs." "They say you're guilty of murder." "Accused!" "That's different, almost the contrary!" "Come in." "They say you stabbed a beautiful girl in the heart." "Was she your friend?" "Did you love her?" "I don't know." "I guess she loved me." "That means nothing." "She had long hair, red lips and green eyes." "They're lying!" "I didn't kill her!" "I only thought it'd make a pretty corpse." "Maybe you'll kill me too?" "You're not pretty." "Your robe hides you too much." "Will you strangle me?" "Using what?" "I don't need to." "I have a magic power." "I only need to pronounce a certain phrase." "I've known it for some time now." "It was at the seaside with our French teacher." "All the girls were crazy over her." "I wanted to be alone with her." "She was fickle and would have private chats with anyone." "One day We went for a Walk on the cliffs." "It was too high and the edge was unstable." "The path was too close to the edge." "Now, love is going to slip." "Are you crazy?" "Her heart stopped." "Your lips are bloody." "I tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation." "She didn't drown." "She could have lost her breath in the fall." "What are you up to?" "Listening to music." "This might be a murder weapon." "Your tales are a lot of crap." "So let it drop, if you'll pardon the expression." "Theme of broken glass." "Talk to doctor about it." "Shit, I cut myself." "I better suck it." "Will you suck it?" "If not, I might die." "Now it's you who'll die." "Maybe you ate some glass." "There was a woman's shoe under glass in your room." "What exactly is it?" "A fetish." "We dipped it in the holy water of Notre-Dame." "It's for hustling." "When we're broke, Nora goes whoring." "Me too, sometimes, but it's more dangerous when you're under eighteen." "We find it very entertaining, like an adventure or a party." "The blue shoe's a talisman against bad luck:" "Cops, crack-ups, VD and trouble in general." "Stand up." "Spread your legs." "Bend it!" "Arch your back." "Dirty whore." "Maybe you'll pick up a sadist who'll want you to " "Hello, Miss." "Sit down." "Make yourself comfortable." "You're a prostitute too?" "Yes, like everybody nowadays." "And you like it?" "It's pleasant enough... and excites the mind, if you understand." "You mustn't be a slave to it." "I understand." "It's better to ask for a lot of money and do things that are more unusual and dirty." "I'm ready." "Good-bye, Miss." "We're going to torture this whore... but rape her first." "We had a wild time that day," "How did she bleed?" "A phony African fakir taught me a trick." "I'll show you one day." "You're a monster." "Here's lawyer David." "Nora." "What?" " Who are you?" " I'm your lawyer." "You look like Nora." "I doubt it." "Stop playing games." "Likeness, repetitions, substitutions, pretense." "Enough!" "Your case is bad enough as it is." "What do I think?" "They don't guillotine little girls." "Shut up, idiot." "You're innocent, but you try to prove the contrary." "Why doesn't the judge come anymore?" "He was nice." "He's sick." "It's my fault." "He's going to die." "He ate glass and drank my blood." "Don't play games with me." "I'm hereto help you get out." "Your spoiled brat imagination is a waste of time on me." "Just tell me about Nora and your connection with her." "Our exact connection..." "Connections, police connections... sexual connections... inverted connections..." "Nora was a bitch." "She scared me and was always punishing me." "I had to kneel and eat my soup on the floor, nude, my hands tied behind me." "When she was broke, she made me sleep with men." "Depraved men, like all men are." "Sometimes she'd watch and caress herself." "Days when I couldn't... because I was bleeding... she'd tie me on the bed and whip me with a dog whip." "She'd scare me by playing dead." "You're a beached ship, an open shell, a sticky bitch, a crushed frog." "You'll go to hell." "You'll be burned alive, disemboweled, impaled, buried alive." "Fish slipping through the overly-thick algae... caught in the iron bars of the sheetless bed, reddened on the spearhead that rips the silk beneath the skin when the sea is receding... with dead algae in the evening," "a black border edged in white foam." "Without moving the other hand nor looking to the sea... in the sand it drowns the violent wind and the pale, slow, cold knife slips into the flesh." "The body pauses in a last sigh." "I am the sole cause." "Death passes." "Blackbird." "Black beauty, weary seagull." "Sure, that's nice and cheap." "It's over." "It doesn't hurt anymore." "Don't cry." "It'll be all right now." "I'll paint you that way, as St. Agatha." " Why St. Agatha?" " She was the prettiest." "She was martyred on her wedding day." "They tore her white gown and tore off her breasts with red-hot tongs." "She's always painted that way." "What do you do in bed at night?" "I say my prayers." "Afterwards, all alone in your bed?" "You caress yourself?" "Maybe you do it wrong?" "I'll teach you." "I read an article by a doctor who gave advice for both singles and couples... with scientific words:" "Vulva, algolagnia, cunnilingus." "That's really disgusting." "What have you done?" "Sister, you'll be punished." "Here's your lawyer, daughter of a demon." "The Sisters look upset." "What's wrong?" "It's their problem." "You know how nuns are." "They have odd private relations." "Really?" "What sort?" "Sadomasochist." "Shall I do your hair differently?" "Stop." "This is serious." "What?" "That I'll be guillotined?" "Will it hurt?" "Listen." "You must help me." "What about the shovel?" "What shovel?" "Don't be a fool." "The one found in your cupboard." "The investigators are curious because you couldn't explain its presence." "It's odd to have a shovel in a city apartment." "Tell me why." "To kill the killer." "Explain yourself." "The man who spied on us had a duplicate key so we wanted to defend ourselves." "Where did you find it?" "In the basement." "A shovel was there?" "Must have been." "How do I know?" "I'm trying to help." "So you refuse to leave here when it could be so easy?" "I want to get out." "You've no idea what goes on here." "The cells are very clean." "So are the nuns and the prisoners, but for the least error we're taken below to the underground dungeon." "It's horrible." "It's medieval." "Come on." "Calm down." "I'm here." "You've had a bad dream." "Enter." "Hello, my child." "You're not as I expected." " You heard about me?" " Of course." "I'm the shepherd of all lost lamb." "I'm interested in every fresh arrival to this flock." "Sister Julie says you want to confess a crime " "That is my client." "I'm only her lawyer." "I'll begin again." "To confess a crime that mankind doesn't punish enough:" "Invention." "Are you hurt?" "No." "Why?" "It's red paint, not blood." "A splash of our young artist's work." "I see." "I'm somewhat reassured." "I'm going now." "That's a hard chore." "It's good exercise." "I wanted to ask you..." "I heard you receive corporal punishment if you misbehave." "Punishment?" "Don't worry." "I'm a lawyer." "I heard of dungeons, chains, whips... even worse." "I've never seen such things." "Pity." "It might be amusing." "Really?" "For whom?" "For the spectators." "Are you hurt?" "No, it's nothing." "I must have been scratched by a button or bitten by a mosquito." "I didn't notice." "You're a lawyer?" "Can I help you?" "No." "But you don't look like one." "Why not?" "A lawyer is like a judge?" "If you wish." "Or maybe quite the contrary." "What a strange lawyer." "The devil's advocate perhaps!" " You chose her?" " She was appointed." "Ah, not a holy appointment!" "Beware of these people!" "Beware of this place!" "Why, Father?" "Accusation is a prologue to crime." "Confinement entices vice!" "Religious prisons are schools of sin." "Vice, Father?" "I'm not your father!" "I'm pastor of the Non-United Church." "This place is hell!" "Don't act holier-than-thou." "I saw your game with that Devil-branded creature." "But Father, where's the evil?" "Evil is there... and there and there!" "One Sister often touches me there." "I thought it was by accident." "What?" "Poor child, tell me the details." "As many as possible, for your salvation." "I've seen acts I don't understand." "Is that what you mean?" "Acts between whom?" "Nuns and prisoners, mostly the pretty ones." "Tell me!" "Quickly!" "Describe it all or the God of Anger will burn you alive over a slow fire." "Father, I dare not." "Speak, you whore!" "So I told him what he wanted to hear." "That's why you requested paints?" "Yes, isn't it pretty?" "Don't you like modern art?" "Get dressed and wash your body, if that's possible." "How can I wash myself in this pail?" " All the perfumes of Arabia " " Hands off!" "Slimy, criminal, shameless child!" "One can see you're an assassin." "I don't understand." "Jesus was innocent but condemned because he had a talent for irritating people." "I'll tell my lawyer what you said." "Tell her!" "Do you know where she is right now?" "And what she's doing?" "Follow me!" "That's an order." "Look, Sister, it's St. Veronica's cloth." "Now." "I'll get it open." "Caress me!" " Here?" " Yes." "Better than this, idiot." "Last night I dreamt the pastor was marrying me but when I knelt to pray, he caressed me." "His hand groped through the lace and up my thighs to my genitals." "I knew he was sexually obsessed." "He won't last much longer." "He'll commit suicide." "All who approach you are perverts, insane." "But it's all in your little mind." "How's your girlfriend?" "You have too much imagination." "I don't know what you think you saw." "Sister Julia saw too." "I only saw you in a nightgown, like a Sleepwalker." "You say Sister Julia hates you." "So she'd say anything to hurt you." "Who talks of hurting me?" "That's not within your power." "The reenactment is tomorrow." "Try not to act foolish." "I'll take you to your apartment." "The police will meet us there." "The judge too, but probably not the same one." "Probably not the same one." "Listen." "Father, listen to the blood pounding to escape." "Hear the flow of pleasure no love can purify." "Have you seen a young girl's blood streaming on her flesh like fire?" "Touch my breasts and hips." "My body's a sweet, violent sea slowly flowing away and beyond me." "Father, exorcise me!" "Leave me, devils." "I'm already sick and old now." "Exorcise me." "Rip my dress." "Claw my delicate skin." "Crush my flesh in your hands and arms." "Leave me." "Leave me in my tomb." "Punish me, if you still are able." "Once you'd have burned me as a witch after prickling my body with needles to find the Devil's mark, hidden in the most secret spot." "You'd have thrilled at my cries and gasps." "It's too late." "Leave me, demon." "Libertarian!" "Li...ber...tarian!" "Offense!" "Structure!" "Disorder!" "Relapse!" "Evidence." "Reenactment." "Pleasure." "Recidivism." "Permutation." "Relapse." "Disorder!" "Toad." "Rape." "Parricide." "Division." "Inversion." "Bitch." "Games." "Sperm." "Sloth." "Whore." "One pair of shoes... two pairs... three pairs..." "Theme of broken glass." "Blood." "The sea breaks on the beach." "So, what do we do?" "We wait a little." "Wait for what?" "Well, for the prosecutors, the police superintendent, all the people who have to be here for the reenactment." "Who will play the murderer?" "I don't know, a cop probably." "Maybe that guy who's on guard at the door." "And to play Nora?" "They surely have someone." "When is it supposed to start?" "Theoretically, right now, but they are always late." "We're always waiting for someone, or something." "What are you doing?" "Well, the reenactment!" "They aren't going to arrive right now?" "In my opinion, if they are all here in an hour, we'll be lucky." "I'm thirsty." "Do you want some?" "It's amazing how much you look like her." "You are insane!" "Here, put this on!" "Shit." "Above all, do not scream." "It's going to stop and they won't know anything." "I think I'm going to " "You have no more blood." "You're going to die." "You're beautiful." "There." "It's over." "The reenactment won't take place." "Your innocence is finally proved." "We found the murderous voyeur, and he made a full confession." "Are you injured?" "Really?" "Then we have to start all over again."