Thus in a sense, man being a rationalizing animal, one might say that in the project of entrapping Marion to atone for her having set my beloved Alice against me, I meant to strike, as it were, a blow for all men who had endured frustration and sarcastic treatment at a woman’s hands. And I felt certain that I could dare affronting her without danger from the authorities, precisely because Alice was now fully converted and on my side.

It would have been ideal could Alice have been present on this occasion; I had thought of the fantasy of having her aid me as a lovely, inventive executioner against her very own sister. Then, knowing this to be impossible because of Alice’s unavailability in town, I had thought of summoning the eager Fanny, that charming maid who herself was so exquisitely acquiescent in passionate games. But no, this vengeance was rightly mine and no one else’s; it must not be shared with any stranger, as Fanny would be to Marion in such a game.

You can therefore imagine with what impatience I awaited the ringing of my bell this fateful afternoon, having envisaged all kinds of the most mouthwatering plans for the consummate and gradual humbling, stripping and fucking of arrogant Marion, who, slightly older than my dear Alice, represented an even more pedestalled and smugly secure kind of female goddess from whose pedestal I meant assuredly to topple her step by infinitely subtle step down to the mire of her degradation and despairing shame!

So all was in readiness at last. I wore presentable attire, not wishing to flout or shock Marion at the very outset-that would come later, when her suspicions had been lulled. It was curiosity that had killed the proverbial cat; it was the same precept which was bringing Marion to my apartment where she would come as respected guest to parlay warily-so she thought!-as to my future intentions towards her sister, only to discover in good time that Alice’s fate had already been settled and it therefore impinged upon me only to determine her very fitting own!