It Had Been Years

by Malflic, Michael

  By this time Nadrea had been preening for hours having finally decided on an outfit that would require a little help to get into. “Where the fuck is the baby powder”, she yelled to an otherwise empty house as Marilynn Manson’s Mob Scene played in the back ground. Finally, settling on a little water based lube that would dissolve or blend in with her sweat that the garment created on her hips, thighs, and ass to help her into the dress. Gulping down her black Martini, made with Blavod English Vodka using a lint-less cloth and some Black Beauty to create a deeper luster on her outfit.

  Dinner was finished and the Husker was gently trying to convince Donna, to spend some more time with him. “Look tonight’s a big night for me and my friends. This party only happens once a year.” She tells him in a tone that makes sure he understands that she’s not changing her plans.

  “Well then I’m coming with you if that’s still ok.” He pushes not really wanting to go, but hoping to in some child like way change her mind.

  “Fine, but you’ll need to change and we have to get you a mask.” She states in a hurried tone, she needs to get ready and now find him something to wear. Originally she wanted to be there at ten thirty, now it going to be more like eleven fifteen, still early, but it was one of her favorite nights of the year and she really didn’t want to miss any of it. “What kind of party is this?”, the Husker asked as they headed out and started to hail a cab with the roses he had brought for her in hand.

  The Masquerade

  Friday night in a club, not an unusual occurrence by any stretch of the imagination and Nadrea arrived before the club opened the DJ’s were still setting the sound, the “models” were being briefed on their roles for the evening, as a group. As the music progressed to the type that would be pulsating throughout the evening, people took their places milling about and the rest of this little world filtered in. As the clubs flashing white light danced sinisterly over the now crowded room full of undulating flesh and flowing hair. An occasional beam of red or violet light caressing a section of humanity moving in their own unique interpretation of life and rhythms for a few fleeting moments of life until most go back to their otherwise soul crushing daily existence. But for those few brief seconds in a lifetime the sounds thump, flashes of light join them in their dance in what would otherwise be a dark cold empty space, but their energy floats along with the man made fog and the smoke. The room continued to fill and assorted chemicals, although they are strictly forbidden, flow through so many people’s veins.

  The room was now filled with images that would terrify the good God fearing people of the Midwest. Men were dancing with men, couples and groups writhing in rhythmically induced ecstasy. This was a part of the world that most cultures wouldn’t even try to understand. Something wicked was occurring off in the corner as he entered the club. An angry Goth DJ screamed encouragement or insults, it is indecipherable which, at the crowd. There was no judgment here, no intolerances of any kind for ones choice of preferences or partners. For such a misunderstood group they were very open and accepting of others. Although, one could never tell just by looking into the room they were just people indulging their own consented choices, living in their own personal Nirvana’s for those few fleeting hours, for their own hedonistic paradise before going back out into the light of day that required most to be something they truly were not. A handful of merchants with small tables full of their wares were on the one outside wall of the club, more like something one would expect to find at a chamber of commerce mixer or a small town country craft fair. One must wonder though what the people who typically attend those things would think or the lurid carnal that sins were being committed in the shadows of our nation’s capital. Perhaps they would view it as American’s reveling in the freedoms we have; although it’s hard to believe that most would assume it was anything more than a sign of the impending end of days.

  But unlike the Chamber mixers, the insurance agent was replaced with shoes and boots, instead of copiers there are implements of pleasure and pain hanging from a chain link display behind a table that didn’t have diamonds and pearls on it, but rather leather collars and metal spikes. It wasn’t Victoria’s Secret where matching ones lacey little undies to an allegedly racy bra is important, although Nadrea still thought about those types of things should always match or at the very least complement each other. Here it was leather and rubber. Silk was almost completely out of place: a woman in an woven unlined immodest silk top drenched in sweat dancing next to a seemingly gay man all in leather, a USMC tattoo peeking out from under hi ½ sleeved shirt.

  Don’t ask, don’t tell, right? The building looks more like a structure that should have been on a corner on Bourbon Street that someone just forgot to add the balcony to. But unlike Bourbon Street, the outside was calm and unassuming while inside the decadent underbelly of sexuality danced its pornographic little dance. Rituals and rights detailed to the ultimate end, such a stringent formal process for something so misunderstood. Tonight was a birth right, it was one of the events not to be missed it was the annual Leather Masquerade. Bodies in some cases painted to hide their nakedness or to accentuate the nudity without actually, truly being exposed. Feather masks and leather headdresses hid the faces of many of the party goers and add an element of old world European mystery to a scene that would have made Marquis de Sade proud.

  Nadrea in her black latex shined to a mirrored perfection, the boned lace up corset top drawing her waist in tightly and pushing her breasts into an opera singers dramatic cleavage, the compacted flesh of her breasts producing a fake roundness on her upper chest typically reserved for porn stars with ungodly gravity defying implants. The music stopped and the lights froze in place as if time itself had stopped. Nadrea saw Vincent as he passed through the inner doors of the vestibule. Peering through her one hundred and eighty dollar purple feather and faux diamond encrusted mask she sees he was wearing his well shined black Doc Martins, painted on black leather jeans and he had checked his shirt at the door along with his coat. Nadrea until this point hadn’t seen his skin except for his face and forearms. His stomach was not only flat but was ridged with deep muscular creases, quadriceps rippling through the leather pants as if they were a mere extension of his skin. His arms looked large and powerful from a distance, his chest barreled and his round shoulders looked like someone had evenly split a cannon ball placing a half on each side of his upper arm. Most of the other men in the club were toned, some were even muscular but none were built like his large brooding figure.

  He looked more like an All Pro linebacker planning to smash someone into the ground. “This disco use to be a cute cathedral” rang out as the evenings host explained that the building was “a den of inequity before it was cleansed to become paradise.” Here, paradise resembled a sadistic part of hell complete with its own demons who inflicted wickedness on the flesh and the mind of the all too willing souls present. As the DJ continued he screamed into the microphone “let the real beats begin!” And with that the music kicked back in louder and with a much different flavor as Vincent donned his simple black mask. Unlike the other parts of his wardrobe that fit into the scene his mask looked as if it was left over from his lone ranger costume when he was a kid. Nadrea watched from a distance as people who saw him tried to size him up. The women watched, they couldn’t tell but most were sure he was straight. At first he didn’t notice what was really going on, at first glance it was just another industrial dance club, Vincent thought to himself, “Ok, so they’re having a theme night. Music, smoke, lights and writhing sexuality” it was to him all pretty standard fair. As he stepped forward into the club things began to catch his eye, 12 men and 12 women alternating in gender creating two even rows of souls with their eyes to the floor kneeling with hands tied behind their backs forming a path that had to be walked through to enter the main club area. As he stepped into the space between the first two souls the lyrics associated with the music caught his ear. “Did I disappoint you? Did I let you down? Did I stand
on the shores and watch you drown?” As he entered his face was not stoic, his eyes were wild taking it all in as quickly as he could. On the stage there were men and women on display in various forms of bondage ranging from simple shackles and cuffs on the ends of the stage working it’s way to the exquisite Japanese style rope work in the center displaying both the front and the back on different “models”. Nope, he wasn’t in Kansas any more or Iowa either for that matter. As he progressed through the 24 souls slowly admiring them with a child like curiosity and taking in the other surroundings, he was greeted by a beautiful woman who looked like she was part dominatrix out of that issue of Penthouse when he was sixteen and part high end party planner. On one side was an Asian woman in what appeared to be a sea foam green latex outfit that was trimmed in black velvet around the sleeves, the skirt and the opening exposing her cleavage. On the other side was a submissive man and woman. Nadrea hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him since he entered. She knew he would come, her grin widening at the thought of the possibilities. The host greeted him “Good evening.”

  “Fuck.” escaped Vincent’s mouth as what was going on around him was beginning to truly set in.

  “Top or bottom?” the dominatrix asked as people in the club had begun to not only notice Vincent but to point him out to others.

  “Ummm, Aaaah” Vincent uttered sounding like he looked, a stupefied dumb jock.

  “Well what are you?” the hostess pressed just as Vincent was noticing that she was wearing a leather teddy and thigh high boots, although the term teddy usually implied something feminine and soft, her outfit was neither of these things as the word corset finally popped into his head.

  “I’m meeting a friend, first time here” he then replied in a more coherent and somewhat more confident manner.

  “Ahh, no wonder I didn’t recognize you, I doubted that I could have missed someone like you.” She then proceeded to go over “The Rules” as she put it. “No cameras, no pictures, no cell phones with cameras’. If you have a phone with a camera, Mira will cover it with a band aid. Just then the Asian woman with the dyed Raggedy Ann red hair produced a band aid that matched the green in her outfit.

  “No, I’m good, no phone tonight, only foreign substance in my pants is the ID and drink money.” Vincent replied starting to sound more like himself.

  “That’s nice, love” she said without a second thought then continued on with the rules, she came out of character ever so slightly sounding less like an enlightened sexual being and more like the mandatory legal ease at the end of a TV commercial. “We are pan sexual…No touching without permission, no exposed genitals in public areas” Vincent thought it was starting to sound a lot more like New Orleans. “Everyone is welcome here” she said and it did in fact seem to sound genuine. “Drink, dance and enjoy!” she said flashing a wicked smile at him. The afore mentioned Mira then spoke, her soft oriental features and skin clashed with the stupid red hair and mint green dress. She looked like something that they might have drawn in an episode of the Jetson’s.

  “Gay, straight or bi?” she asked again. Vincent who was thinking a little less about the Jetson hooker episode he had just devised in his head and more about why the fuck they cared if they were pansexual. “Meeting a friend not sure what she is.” He said producing the card Nadrea had given him the night before “Why does it matter who I like to fuck?” he asked with and edge in his tone. Mira hearing his question “It doesn’t, but it’s also a waste of my time if you’re gay.” She said taking a leash from the female submissives’ hand and gave it to Vincent. “She can finish the tour and help you find your friend.”

  As he followed her, which seemed somewhat backwards for the person holding the leash to do in this situation, but then again as a kid he had a dog that just ran ahead and choked itself every time they went for a walk, at least she wasn’t doing that, he thought. Pausing and realizing that there was probably someone in the club right now who would get off on that. By the time he was past the hostess, a group had backed up behind him clamoring and greeting each other with how great the night was going to be.

  As Vincent started to cross the edge of the dance floor toward the bar he spotted Nadrea coming across towards him. “I see her.” he said handing the leash back to the woman, he wasn’t quite sure what proper etiquette was, did he have to take her back to where he got her like soccer mom renting a stroller at the mall or bring her back full like a rental car to avoid an outlandish set of charges. He smiled laughing at his own thoughts, even here he could amuse himself with his own twisted sense of reality. She just took the leash and headed back to the hostesses’ side. He waited as Nadrea got closer, “Drink?”

  “Yeah, but not there asshole.” She said. Ok, looking around all the bars seem equally crowded. So he just continued to head to the closest one. Nadrea tried to tell him not to head in that direction, but he can’t hear her over the music. She grabbed his hand. Despite them spending time together before and kissing for the first time just yesterday their hands had never touched except to exchange metro tickets. Breaking stride and turning towards her. “Look it’s crowded there, I have a private table over there with a few friends, no line, one waitress to every two tables.”

  “I’m fine here” he replied mostly just to irritate her.

  “Dick head!”

  He laughed, at her frustration. “No thanks, I just came to dance.” And with that he took a bottled water from the passing waitress, flipped her one of those infamous 20’s that he tormented Deb with, gulped it down and took himself to the dance floor to join the throngs of sweaty bodies. He wasn’t there for the scene or the shock value, he wasn’t sure why he was there, so he decided to dance. Nadrea was baffled by just how aloof he was, how she couldn’t influence him. How he showed up and then ignored her, did he really think he was there to dance? Although as she watched him, he was fairly good at it. Nadrea headed back to her table.

  About an hour later a winded, sweaty Vincent appeared. He greeted Donna and her somewhat shell shocked Husker. He was the very kind of person that would be nervous by the raw sexuality all around him. He thought he was open minded, understanding and progressive, but in truth his tolerances were not all that far from the main stream. Perhaps last week wasn’t as wild, the music sounded the same and upon reflecting on it there were a few people around in leather pants, he just assumed they were French tourists. The Husker sat quietly with his back to the dance floor.

  “Nice of you to join us” Nadrea said with faked sarcasm.

  “My pleasure.” Vincent said as he slide into the overstuffed chair behind her.

  “That was my seat!” she said as she sat on the arm of the chair next to him. He ordered two more waters. The Husker added a third.