CHASING LIFE

by Steve Jovanoski

  ‘Yes, I don’t really have much planned,’ Dave answered with enthusiasm, ‘why not.’ He sculled the remainder of his drink. Vincant spoke briefly with Bennie the barman and they took off through the back of the club. A brand new Mercedes C-Class was parked outside in the alley.

  ‘Nice car,’ Dave said. On closer observation, he noted it was in a battered condition. It had badly scraped rims, scratched panels, a cracked mirror and dented bumpers.

  ‘Thank you.’ Vincant acknowledged. ‘Wait, let me get this out of the way.’ A laptop was in the passenger seat. Vincant grabbed it and quickly put it in the boot of the car.

  ‘Are you okay to drive?’ Dave asked, calculating how much they’d drunk.

  ‘No problem, mate,’ Vincant imitated an Aussie accent, sounding as good as Dave when he tried to speak French. The car was fitted with all the optional features, a luxury Dave was impressed by.

  ‘What kind of party is this?’ Dave asked as they took off.

  ‘A few friends in the hospitality industry get together four times a year to celebrate. We have the best music, great models, plenty of alcohol and other things’ Vincant smiled slyly. Dave had a pretty good idea that he was alluding to drugs. ‘It’s very private and a lot of wealthy people come for that reason. You’ll like it, I am sure.’

  ‘I have no doubt I will,’ Dave replied. ‘Where is the party being held?’

  ‘At an old chateau just outside Paris. We rent it for one night only. Women everywhere, man.’

  Vincant’s driving was erratic at best. For him, public streets seemed to be a racetrack, and he tested Dave’s nerves to the limit. Dave knew there was a distinct difference between a fast and reliable driver and a fast but terrible one. Vincant fell into the latter category. Although Dave’s eyeballs were rolling back in his head from the number of near misses they experienced, they left no visible impact on the driver. He realised why the otherwise beautiful car was in such bad shape.

  They managed to reach the outskirts of the city with its less congested roads, but that didn’t mean Vincant took it easier. Once on the highway, Vincant punched the accelerator until the Mercedes reached more than 170 kilometres per hour before they finally veered off at an exit.

  ‘You like it?’ Vincant asked, smiling gleefully like a little kid showing off his favourite toy.

  ‘Yeah, I think I swallowed my nuts, but what a great drive.’ Vincant nodded coolly and mistook the comment for a compliment. Dave was still shaking and staring wide-eyed at the road.

  ‘Relax. I’m a good driver. Don’t worry,’ Vincant boasted while fiddling with the CD player. The car slowly climbed the curb while his eyes were focussed elsewhere.

  ‘Er, uh, Vincant?’ Dave stammered, trying to get Vincant’s attention.

  ‘Oh, shit!’ He straightened the wheel just in time as tyres screeched and loud techno music pumped through the speakers. ‘We’re nearly there,’ Vincant announced as though nothing had happened.

  They slanted off onto a long and narrow street lined with trees, most of which had enormous walls around them. Vincant turned into a gravelled driveway that led deep into the grounds of a private residence. At the end Dave could see an illuminated white chateau and a variety of luxury vehicles. The various shapes and colours decorating its parking bays like Christmas ornaments.

  ‘Okay, Dave. Let’s go and have a drink.’ At the foot of the stairs two enormous security men greeted them. Both were in black suits and ties, professional in every way and courteous to the two guests. Vincant spoke to them in French and had a little laugh—it seemed that he knew them. Dave was introduced in English as Vincant’s personal guest and the two men opened the massive doors to the chateau. Inside, an extravagant chandelier flooded the main foyer with light. The only time Dave had seen such an impressive winding main staircase was in the TV series, Dynasty.

  Vincant was immediately set upon by his friends, catching up with them in a boisterous exchange of rapid French and laughter. Most of them were tipsy, loud and fast-lipped. Dave felt left out. It was a scene he couldn’t have imagined himself in, but here he was among high society. A few hundred guests milled around the opulent chateau’s ground floor. When a waiter came by with a tray of white wine, Dave took a glass.

  A tall, slim brunette wearing a black satin dress and high heels was looking straight at him. She had a bob hairstyle and lipstick that was such a dark red it was almost black. Her cleavage was very exposed. When Dave leered at her, the woman walked up and introduced herself, saying something in French.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Do you speak English?’ he said, politely sipping his wine.

  ‘My name is Anastasia.’

  ‘Hi. I’m Dave.’

  ‘Would you like to fuck, Dave?’

  Chapter 18

  Dave choked, and wine shot up his nose. The alcohol numbed his nostrils. ‘Excuse me,’ he replied, eyes watering, ‘I don’t think I heard you right. Could you repeat that?’

  ‘I said, “Would you like to fuck?” I am busy right now, but later.’ Anastasia’s alluring face and high cheekbones remained fixed and bored. She had the look of someone that was eternally unimpressed. Her words came out as though she were asking for directions to the toilet.

  ‘Well, I, erm …’ Dave stammered, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

  ‘I will call on you,’ Anastasia said and dismissed him. Her arse hypnotically swayed side to side as she strolled away. He finished the glass of wine in one gulp.

  ‘Hey,’ Vincant called to him, ‘let’s refresh our drinks.’ He pulled Dave by the elbow and took him to the main room where the fully supplied bar had been set up. He was still in shock from his encounter with Anastasia. Did that really happen? he wondered.

  ‘I’ll have a scotch and Coke. No! Make that a vodka, a double. I’ve got this round.’ Dave said, pulling out his wallet.

  ‘No, my Australian friend. This is a party. You don’t pay.’ Vincant said, pushing Dave’s hand away.

  The DJ was pumping out some wicked dance tracks. People of all ages either sat around talking or were hitting the dance floor. He was noticing more than socialising. These people weren’t there just to mingle. A lot of touching and kissing was going on that left him blushing.

  ‘Who was the woman in the black dress?’ Dave inquired.

  ‘Ah, that’s Anastasia. She’s a very good lawyer for a large firm in Lyon.’

  ‘She just asked me whether I wanted to fuck!’ Dave said. Vincant seemed unsurprised.

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I didn’t really get a chance to answer.’ Dave admitted.

  ‘She will find you when she’s ready,’ Vincant said. Dave was perplexed at his casual attitude.

  ‘Did Sam come to these parties?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. We had a great time.’

  ‘Did Erin?’ he blurted out and noticed a slight change in Vincant’s body language, as if he were choosing his reply carefully.

  ‘Don’t worry about her now. Enjoy yourself.’ Vincant slapped him on the shoulder and gave him a broad smile.

  ‘So what goes on here?’ Dave put the thought of Erin’s visiting there out of his mind. She’d be put off for sure, he thought. But Vincant hadn’t answered his question, and that niggled in his mind.

  ‘I must tell you the rules. Anything goes, and you cannot say no to any offer. But if you are not gay, then it is okay to say no. Unless you don’t mind, that is?’ Vincant quizzed him.

  ‘Nope. I play with the opposite team. Why such strict rules?’ he asked as Vincant neared close to answer his question.

  ‘The best way to keep a secret,’ Vincant confided, ‘is to implicate everyone.’

  ‘I see.’ Some questions were not in his interest to ask, he realised.

  The alcohol was beginning to do its job. Young and scantily dressed waiters and waitresses served finger food. He reached out and grabbed a handful from a platter of what looked like meatballs to keep him going for the night. W
here the hell did I end up? Is this a movie set? he asked himself. Every guy’s dream was unfolding in front of his eyes, but he felt uncomfortable and completely out of his depth.

  No one could refuse an offer, Vincant had told him. What world had he stumbled on? Two couples and a man with three girls walked upstairs and disappeared behind closed doors. In fact, Dave realised, the upper-level rooms might as well have had revolving doors. People walked in and out freely. Dave was curious about what was going on there.

  Vincant spotted someone he knew and called out to him. ‘Take a look around,’ he urged, walking away. ‘Get to know people and fix yourself a drink. I’ll be back a little later.’

  ‘No problem,’ he answered. ‘Go for it.’

  He left the vodka and took a bottle of water to give his liver a break. It seemed like beer was not served. It must be too vulgar for this establishment, he thought. Women brushed past him and smiled while he stood there with a dumb look on his face. He felt giddy and tense. There was no way he could participate in whatever was going on in this place, but he still was curious to see it.

  The chateau was fully furnished with magnificent period furniture. Paintings of aristocratic families hung on the walls, along with those of horses and dogs. The loud music drowned out audible conversations—not that he understood anything.

  The rooms upstairs took his interest and he ventured up for a peek. He opened the first door and found another entertaining area with a balcony overlooking a swimming pool. A bunch of people were standing around talking. It looked pretty normal, and they even invited him along to join them. One of the guests pointed to the bathroom, indicating for Dave to help himself and enjoy. Dave thanked him and walked in to see what he was being invited to.

  The bathroom was the size of a bedroom; white marble tiles extended floor to ceiling, and there was a huge jet spa in the middle. On the slate sink, ten lines of white powder were lined up uniformly, with a rolled up fifty-euro note next to them. He was startled that it was right there explicitly in front of him. With some hesitation, he picked up the note and bent well over, stuck the note in his nose and moved up and down the slate surface. He hadn’t snorted the powder, but, from behind, it seemed as if he’d taken a hit. He even wiped his nose for effect. No one knew the rule was broken. Dave just couldn’t do it—it wasn’t in his moral fibre. He’d tried a joint once as a teenager. But he’d drawn too fast and too hard, ending up flat on his back. And that was it as far as drugs went for him.

  The coked-up guests raised their glasses in an expression of solidarity and gave him a nod. Dave smiled politely, exited and moved on to the next room. There the lights were dimmed and the air was musky. Empty Moët champagne bottles were strewn all over the carpet among underwear and other apparel. Naked figures walked aimlessly about or stood with drinks in hand while indiscriminately groping others’ crotches—and not just those of the opposite sex.

  Dave was overwhelmed. A shocked grin spread across his face, but he was frozen on the spot, still holding the door with a dumbfounded look. A part of him said, ‘Get out now before you’re invited.’ But his primal urges were saying, ‘Take a running jump and dive into this pool of flesh, Dave!’ His feet finally moved and he found momentum to keep going further and further inside the den of sexual perversion. He was totally gobsmacked. Along a hallway, an older gentleman that looked like Hugh Hefner stuck his head under a skirt. His very-much-younger female companion didn’t seem to mind the intrusion one bit. She was enjoying whatever was going on under there and was oblivious to Dave’s openly wandering eyes.

  Another door led to more bedrooms, all of them wide open as if inviting willing participants. Groaning and moaning emanated from the first, where a couple were going at it wildly. Embarrassed, Dave turned his head and moved on. In the next bedroom, three naked girls were licking and kissing each other. One looked in his direction with sultry eyes and then went back to the job at hand. In yet another room, a couple of young men and two older ladies were intertwined in a free-for-all orgy of sexual gratification. It was a mass of flesh: legs, arms, sweaty bodies and genitalia. Dave couldn’t make out who was doing who, but it certainly seemed it was no holds barred.

  He felt a bulge stir in his pants, but he was disgusted at the same time. Beads of sweat formed on his brow and his heart rate jumped. Could he do it? Could he just walk into any of these rooms and join in? He didn’t have the guts—it just wasn’t in him. It was one of those things guys talked about doing, but when the moment came, they would chicken out. He’d heard of such places in Melbourne too, and seen enough movies to know about them. Some people participated and others watched.

  Being there and seeing it live was overwhelming, a visual overload. How were these people so different from him? He’d have bragging rights to this perversion and be revered as a god by Mike back home. Empty condom wrappers were all over the place and a distinct smell also lingered. Dave passed by a table with a glass bowl on it, full of multi-coloured condoms, right next to tissue boxes and towels.

  A voice called out to him from one of the rooms. A moustached man with a hairy chest was thrusting his pelvis furiously between the legs of an ecstatic blonde. Dave froze. Did he want him to join in? To his relief the man was pointing at a towel. Dave threw it toward him. The man climaxed on the girl’s chest and politely wiped off his load. With a heaving breath, he gave Dave the thumbs up and threw the towel back. The smell hit him first; he then felt the warmth on his hands. Dave dropped the towel like it was a hot coal. The sticky goo was smeared all over his fingers and he felt sick to the stomach. He darted for the nearest bathroom, nearly screaming like a little girl.

  He stuck his hands underneath the tap and scrubbed like he’d touched a terminal disease.

  How the hell did I end up with someone’s semen on my hands? he wondered. The smell still lingered no matter how hard he soaped and scraped. Then he saw the overflowing bin full of tissues and used condoms next to the sink: the smell’s source. That would teach me for gawking at people having sex, he thought. Julia would be ashamed of him if she were to see him there.

  It was too much for a semi-conservative trying too hard to be open-minded. The orgy he had witnessed was the last thing he had expected when he left his apartment that day. He was a private man and that was how he liked his sex—one-on-one, behind closed doors, and with no inquisitive eyes or uninvited guests. He walked out, and the air outside the den was refreshing. Dave thought of himself as a family man, minus the wife and kid. Would Erin get into this? He couldn’t believe she would, but what did he know about the girl? And he’d come all the way to Paris for her. He pushed the thought of Erin to the back of his mind so as not to sully her image.

  He decided that some numbing of the brain was required right about now. The adrenaline rush had sobered him up somewhat. Vincant was still gone, not that he minded— and boredom certainly wasn’t a problem. The bar was stocked with as much alcohol as a nightclub, so he mixed himself something different—Bacardi and cola with a dash of lime. He was sipping it slowly so as to avoid getting into a drunken stupor, putting a conscious effort to seem somewhat sophisticated and suave among the high-society perverts. That was what they were, after all. He was sitting back and contemplating the scene when Anastasia came back.

  ‘Would you like me to mix you a drink?’ Dave asked, deciding to initiate the first move.

  ‘Gray Goose vodka, a double.’ Anastasia replied. Either the woman’s face is carved of stone or it’s overwhelmed with Botox, Dave thought.

  ‘With lemonade?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t have to impress you know, I’m already hooked,’ Dave chuckled light-heartedly, but his attempt at poking fun resulted in no reaction once again. He shut up and fixed her a drink. Anastasia took the glass and downed its contents like water. He waited for some sign of reaction, even a flicker of her eyelashes to indicate normal human behaviour. None appeared. She just gave him the empty glass.

  ‘Shall we go upsta
irs and …’ she said slowly, fixing him with her unnerving gaze.

  ‘Yes, I know. Upstairs, downstairs, inside, outside—I’m not fussed,’ he rambled again. Even drunk he was nervous. His gibberish wasn’t helping and Anastasia was serious. He couldn’t escape now.

  ‘Your attempt at humour,’ she said, ‘is unnecessary.’

  ‘All right then,’ he said, chastened as a schoolboy.

  ‘Follow me,’ Anastasia directed.

  ‘Another drink, maybe?’ he suggested hopefully.

  ‘No. You won’t be able to sustain an erection if you consume too much alcohol.’

  ‘That’s funny,’ he replied.

  ‘Why?’ she asked, not very curious.

  ‘Never mind.’ Dave muttered, putting his drink down with a bemused look. He allowed her to lead him away. His eyes focussed on Anastasia’s arse swaying from side to side as they made their way upstairs. When they entered one of the rooms in the sex den, she gave him further instructions.

  ‘Take your clothes off,’ Anastasia commanded. From this close vantage, he could smell the vodka on her breath and saw that the make-up camouflaged wrinkles around her eyes that gave away her age.

  Dave didn’t know what to do. ‘Do you want to talk or something?’ he asked. They were alone in the room and the lights were dimmed. ‘I was told that you practise law. Is that right?’ He had a go at small chat to lighten up the mood.

  ‘No talking is necessary,’ she replied, starting to undress him. Dave struggled to maintain a precarious balance in his drunken state.

  ‘Aren’t you getting undressed?’ he asked. The same feeling of hesitation threatened him as that night in Hong Kong with Riza. But he was determined to go through with it this time. Damn the thoughts in his head, it was only sex.

  ‘And those.’ Anastasia motioned toward his underwear. He pulled them down and stood stark naked while being observed by the warden. He placed his hands in front of his crotch. Anastasia looked at his exposed body and then started undressing herself.