It's What Up Front That Counts

by Troy Conway

  But the Law is like a woman—fickle. It doesn’t give you a fifty-one percent run of bad luck than a forty-nine percent fun of good. It may stack the cards against you one hundred percent of the time in case after case after case, and then, on your next case, hand you what you’re looking for right on the proverbial silver platter.

  Evidently the time had now come in my spy career for the Law to throw me a bone. At The Safari Club, Andi Gleason was handed to me on a silver platter. Clarification: She wasn’t literally handed to me, but she was literally on a silver platter.

  The Safari Club, as I learned after I paid a ten-pound “temporary membership” fee and another thirty shillings as a cover charge, was one of those London specialty clubs that offer bizarre sex in exotic settings to anyone who can pay the price. Walrus-moustache had called it a strip-joint, and strictly speaking, that’s what it was. But it bore no resemblance whatsoever to the sleazy gin mills which most Americans think of when they hear the term, “strip-joint.” True, girls took off their clothes there. But they did a lot more than just disrobe. And the atmosphere in which they performed was anything but sleazy.

  The place was roughly half the size of a basketball court. The center of one side was given over to a stage about twelve feet square. Runways on both sides led to a pair of doors covered with strings of beads. The rest of the area was dotted with small wooden tables and chairs.

  The decor, as befit the name of the place, was African. The walls were covered with vines and live tropical plants, and the floor was carpeted with a wall-to-wall rug which, to my un-practiced eye appeared to be genuine leopardskin. The tables and chairs were exquisitely hand-crafted, with carvings of the heads of jungle beasts on all the arms and legs. For an ashtray, each table had a carved-out human skull, which the maître d’ assured me was the real thing. And the rum punch I ordered was served in a mug which I was assured was genuine ivory.

  I arrived just in time for the first show of the night. No sooner had my drink been served than a quartet of bare-breasted Negresses came scurrying down the runways, beating out tribal polyrhythms on native wooden percussion instruments. Once they were in place on stage, two muscular Negro men carrying conga drums made their way down the runways. Then the men squatted at the foot of the stage and beat out a furious conga rhythm while the girls did a frantic dance.

  The whole bit was authentic enough, I suppose, but it didn’t strike me as particularly erotic. I glanced periodically at the stage to make sure I wasn’t missing out on any dramatic new developments, but I spent most of my time looking around the room at the other customers. Among the items in Walrus-moustache’s dossier on Andi Gleason had been several photos of her, and a dozen other photos of Soho pimps and prosties who were known to be her associates. I was hoping I’d spot one or more of them, whom I then could ask to introduce me to her.

  No one in the rapidly filling club resembled anyone in the photos. There were a few couples in the thirty-to-fifty age range—all extremely well-dressed, and, judging from their rapt interest in what was happening onstage, newcomers to the circuit. But the rest of the audience consisted mainly of fiftyish, sixtyish and even seventyish men—all stag. Some came in pairs, but the majority came solo and were paired off at tables for two or four by the maître d’. They seemed about as uninterested in the tribal dance as I was, presumably because they were regular patrons who knew that the real fireworks weren’t quite ready to start.

  The girls on stage finished their dance and the two conga players stopped playing. An offstage microphoned voice announced that we had just witnessed an ancient Nigerian rain dance and that we now could see a Bantusi premarital preparation dance.

  The conga players resumed playing. Three of the girls formed a circle in the center of the stage and squatted down Indian-style, whacking away at their wooden percussion instruments. The fourth girl stood in the middle of the circle and went into slow, langurous series of motions that resembled the Hawaiian hula except that her movements were more vertical than horizontal.

  At this point the maître d’ ushered a monocled gent of about sixty-five to my table. The gent gave me a polite nod, then turned his attention to the stage. His expression was one of mild interest, sort of like the expression of a horseplayer watching the next race’s entries being paraded toward the starting gate.

  I took another look around the room. Most of the tables were filled by this time. I could clearly see the faces of seventy-five percent of the audience. If Andi Gleason and/or any of the others I was looking for were present, they weren’t among my seventy-five percent.

  Gradually the intensity of the conga rhythms began to build. I returned my attention to the stage. The star performer in the Bantusi premarital preparation dance was evidently getting farther along in her preparations. Somewhere along the line she must have loosened a catch on the waistband of the minskirt-like garment that was her only item of apparel, because it was slowly sliding over the curves of her well-turned hips, even though her hands remained above her head at all times.

  The conga rhythms got more frantic. So did the girl’s movements. Her legs were spread wide; yet the minigarment continued to slide farther and farther down. Its upper edge now stood an inch at most above her pubic hair. I had a sneaking suspicion it wouldn’t stand there much longer.

  I took another look around the room. There still was no sign of Andi Gleason and company. My monocled companion noticed that I was less than enthralled by the goings-on on stage. “Bored?” he asked amiably.

  “Not really,” I replied. “I just expected something a bit more outré.”

  He chuckled. “First time here?”

  I nodded.

  “Be patient. You’ll see all you expected and more. I’ve yet to hear of anyone walking away disappointed. Been coming here myself once a week now for nearly twenty years.”

  I was about to ask him if, during those twenty years, he had ever come across Andi Gleason and if he had any idea how I might find her, but the conga rhythms had suddenly become so loud that conversation was impossible.

  I looked stage-ward to discover that the dancing girl’s minigarment had just reached her pubic-hairline. Legs still spread, she began dancing more frantically than ever. At the same time, she gestured toward the minigarment with both hands, as if she were signaling it to slide off her.

  Abruptly the congas stopped, and the room fell silent. Simultaneously, the girl brought her legs together and threw her arms over her head. The minigarment fell to her ankles, and she stood totally nude, one knee thrust forward in a pose that invited attention to the sweat-glistened bronze beauty of her splendid thighs, belly and womanhood. She stood still for a moment, then slowly turned a complete circle, giving everyone in the room a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of her loveliness. There was polite applause, then it died down, and the girl lowered herself into a supplicant posture, one leg stretched straight forward, the other curled up under her buttocks, her torso bent completely over the axis of the first leg.

  The conga players began a soft roll. The three girls who had been squatting in a circle around the featured dancer scurried down the runways and out of sight. I turned to my monocled tablemate. “What happens now?” I asked.

  I got my answer from the offstage microphoned voice. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “we have just observed the Bantusi maiden offer her virginity to the sun-god. Now it is time for the crucial part of the premarital preparation ritual. So as to be ready to receive her husband in their marital bed, she will surrender her virginity to the wooden phallus which the Bantusi believe is the sun-god’s earthly representative. This is a ritual invented by the Bantusi in the fourteenth century, and still practiced among them today.”

  I knew the ritual he was talking about. Actually it wasn’t of Bantusi origin, and so far as any anthropological studies had ever disclosed, it was not now and never had been practiced by them. It was first described by the Greek historian, Herodotus, who wrote in the fifth century B.C. He cl
aimed that it was practice among the Babylonians. Subsequent studies indicate that it also was practiced by certain tribes of North American Indians, and while there is less than total agreement among scholars who specialize in ancient South American civilizations, many of these scholars believe it was also practiced by the Mayas.

  But I wasn’t about to voice any objections to the emcee’s distortions of historical fact. I had never actually seen the ritual performed, and, even if it was being presented under false colors, I was sure that the performance would be interesting.

  It was. Once the emcee’s spiel was over, the conga players started in with a rhythm strikingly similar to the contemporary samba. Then two of the girls who had exited earlier returned carrying long, gauze-like white veils, and the third returned with a huge and beautifully carved facsimile of a human penis and testicles.’

  The instrument was all of thirteen or fourteen inches long, and a good eight inches in circumference. Except for its size, it was extremely lifelike. I was close enough to the stage that I could see the tiniest details. Every muscle, vein and pore of the human organ were faithfully reproduced.

  The nude Bantusi maiden who was to submit to the ritual devirgination had remained in her supplicant posture throughout all the comings and goings. Now she stood and retreated to a corner of the stage, from which position she watched with seemingly keen interest the preparations being made by the other three girls.

  The girl who was carrying the facsimile phallus brought the object to the center of the stage and, after doing a little dance with it, rested it on its base. Evidently there was considerable weight in the base, because the device stood perfectly upright on its own.

  The girls with the veils now did their dance, swirling the material around the phallus as if trying to bring it to a greater state of arousal. The dance culminated with their wrapping the veils around the instrument’s testicles, upon the accomplishment of which they retreated to the sidelines. The girl who had carried out the phallus then knelt in front of it and gently caressed its tip with her bare breasts. While she did so, she chanted what presumably was supposed to pass for a Bantusi prayer—and for all I know, it may very well have been.

  “The purpose of the veils,” explained the offstage micro-phoned voice, “is to receive the Bantusi maiden’s hymenal blood—proof of her virginity. If blood does not flow, the maiden’s prospective husband will know that she is not a virgin. She then will be banished from the tribe and sent out into the jungle, where she will be at the mercy of the vicious beasts who inhabit Bantusi-land. The girl who now is praying to the phallus is imploring the sun-god to make the maiden’s blood flow freely, so that there will be no doubt in the prospective bridgeroom’s mind that the maiden is the virgin she claims to be.”

  All this, of course, was pure hogwash. The Bantusis never practiced this twist, and neither did the Babylonians, the North American Indians or the Mayas. But if the management of The Safari Club didn’t know much about anthropology, they certainly knew the tastes of their audience. The announcement was greeted by a delighted squeal from the few females in the audience and by approving grunts and murmurs on the part of the older men.

  “I told you you wouldn’t be disappointed,” my monocled tablemate reminded me. “This is one of the most exciting acts you’ll ever see. They perform it here only once or twice a year at most.”

  I again was about to ask him about Andi Gleason, but once again the congas made conversation impossible; The two drumbeaters, their bodies dripping sweat, set up a polyrhythmic racket that could’ve raised the dead. In reply, the nude Bantusi maiden started dancing toward the phallus, her body a storm of motion. The other three girls fell into place behind her, matching her movements with her own, as if they both were egging her on and were attempting to share symbolically in her sacrifice.

  The conga beating grew even more frantic, and the movements of the four girls took on a proportionate intensity. The maiden gestured with her body toward the phallus, as though she were trying to seduce it. Her acolytes imitated her every gesture, and the total effect was electrifying.

  The congas stopped suddenly. The three acolytes again retreated to the wings, and the maiden approached the implement upon which she was to be impaled. The room was so quiet that I could hear the girl’s footsteps as she padded barefoot across the stage.

  She knelt in front of the phallus and kissed its tip. Then, slowly and almost lovingly, she began licking its glans and stem. The audience was excited to fever pitch. Through the corner of my eye I could see my monocled companion. His hands were both in his lap. In one he held a white handkerchief. With the other he was masturbating.

  The maiden stopped kissing the phallus and began caressing it with her breasts. At the same time, she murmured what was either a Bantusi prayer or a nonsense-syllable facsimile of one. Then, ever so slowly, she stood and straddled the huge instrument. The audience’s breath was collectively bated as she squatted over it and maneuvered its tip into place against her vulva.

  The girl’s face took on a pained expression as an inch of the immense organ disappeared inside her. Her entire body quivered, and she appeared to be genuinely frightened. Her three acolytes encouraged her with lusty shouts. She bore down harder, and another inch or two of the organ disappeared.

  I watched, fascinated, as she struggled to take even more of the instrument inside her. I found it hard to believe that she actually was a virgin. But, if she wasn’t, she was doing an acting job comparable to any I’d ever witnessed.

  Clutching the stem of the organ with both hands, she began moving it gently back and forth, as if to widen the channel it was to navigate. Her expression grew more pained. The shouts of her acolytes became more lusty, and the audience began echoing them.

  She bore down harder still. Another inch of the instrument disappeared. I found myself holding my breath, as if I were sharing the pain she appeared to be suffering. Rivulets of perspiration dripped from her forehead and limbs, and her wide mouth was twisted into an agonized grimace.

  The acolytes began beating rhythmically on the floor with their fists. The congas took up the rhythm, and much of the audience joined in, clapping in tempo. The maiden was motionless for a moment. Then she began rocking in time with the others.

  “Boa-a!” the acolytes began chanting with each beat of their fists. “Boa-a! Boa-a!” The audience joined in the chant.

  Her face turned skyward, her hands still clutching the pillar on which she was being impaled, her body still rocking in time with the chant, the maiden let out a half-moan, half-scream that soon became a weird hymn. The words, if they were words and not just nonsense syllables, seemed to be a plea to the sun-god for help.

  The hymn lasted for perhaps half a minute. Then, eyes squeezed resolutely shut, the girl threw her hands over her head and let her hips sink to the floor. The phallus was immersed to the hilt.

  The audience roared its appreciation, but the maiden, if she was aware that she had an audience, gave no sign of it. Her expression now one of ecstasy, she joined her hands over her head in a prayerful festure, and the three acolytes hurried to her side. Clutching her by the waist and arms, they slowly lifted her off the phallus. Then, while two of them ushered her to a corner of the stage, the third displayed the white veils which had been wrapped around the instrument’s testicles. Sure enough, the veils were soaked with red.

  I couldn’t believe that the girl’s blood had actually been shed. My guess was that she had been holding some sort of capsule in her hand, and that she had broken it as she took the phallus entirely inside her. But even if it was only a trick, it was a good trick, and the audience knew it. The throngs at Nero’s Colosseum couldn’t have been more enthusiastic in their cheers when the Christians were fed to the lions.

  As the girl with the red-drenched white veils scampered down one of the runways, the lights went out. There was a soft conga roll. Then the emcee’s voice intoned, “Ladies and gentlemen, as the climax of this Bantusi ritual, the n
ubile maiden will receive her husband in their bridal bed.”

  A moment passed and the lights went back on. One of the conga players had now joined the maiden and her remaining two acolytes on stage, and the artificial phallus had been taken away. While the two acolytes ushered the maiden back to center stage, the conga player peeled off his loincloth. A gasp went up among the females in the audience and a few ribald shouts were supplied by some of the males. Though totally flaccid, the conga player’s penis was not much smaller than the wooden instrument on which his bride had just been impaled.

  The maiden lay on her back, her legs spread wide. The conga player strode around her, as if inspecting her. Finally he stood between her legs, but facing away from her, and gestured authoritatively toward one of the acolytes. She promptly dropped to her knees in front of him and took his penis in her mouth.

  It was at this point that the intended climax of the Bantusi ritual became something of an anti-climax. Whether because of exhaustion, lack of interest or just nervousness about having to perform before so many people, the poor guy just couldn’t rise to the occasion. The acolyte worked him over as best she could, but none of her ministrations could produce an erection.

  The guy pretended that it was all part of the act. Roughly kicking his hard-working fellatrice away, he barked a few harsh words in Bantusi and summoned the other acolyte. She dutifully bent to the task, and, as an added attraction, massaged the cleft between his buttocks. But that didn’t get his motor running either.

  The audience grew restless, and I with them. I turned to my monocled companion, figuring that this was as good a time as any to pop my question about Andi Gleason. Unfortunately there was no one there to pop the question to. Somewhere along the line, he had vacated the premises, perhaps for a quick trip to the bathroom.