by Primula Bond
My invitation is handed to two figures sitting on huge golden thrones who are also painted gold but swathed in white and gold togas and crowned with gold laurel leaves. My curtsy feels curiously natural in the whalebone corset and wide hooped crinoline of my dress. Crystal and I practised this in my bedroom earlier, and my hosts incline their heads in approval.
I search for some kind of friendly signal from this king and queen as they nod and tap my cheeks and shoulders in a kind of papal blessing, but the Weinmeyers are keeping up the act and like every other person in the city they are totally unrecognisable, their golden faces pocked with diamonds, their movements, like everyone else’s, stiff as marionettes’.
The long wall opposite the French windows is entirely mirrored, and the walls at either end are hung with thick, ornate tapestries. It’s not as large as the kind of ballroom you would find if you were visiting a stately home, and the two or three hundred people who are filing in make the room feel crowded and hot. The masked guests move slowly about in their costumes. The majority are dressed in the traditional eighteenth-century style, the women gliding in their long dresses, the men stepping self-consciously in their unaccustomed breeches, but there are plenty of more outrageous disguises here too, such as devils or animals. As the room fills to bursting point people have to turn stiffly sideways to make way for one another.
I am helped to my feet and given a large black goblet full of a spicy punch. I drink it down very quickly and programme my camera. I can feel my senses popping, goosebumps rising on my skin. There has to be some kind of amphetamine or opiate in the viscous liquid, maybe a weird mixture of both, because, as I press the camera to my eye, everything I see through the slightly steamed-up viewfinder starts to look as if it’s been outlined with thick marker pen. All the figures round me become clear and stark. Movement and sound are slower than seems normal, as if I’ve stumbled into a jungle where half-seen dinosaurs or mythical creatures lumber and flit in the shadows cast by creepers and trees.
I pan round the ballroom in video mode, holding the camera away from me, which not only stops it pressing the mask painfully into my eyes but makes it clear that I am working. I want to capture this as a dream-state where everyone is moving in slow motion in that shy, awkward early stage of a party before they are loosened up with drink, when they don’t know each other. Except they will never know each other, because tonight everyone remains a stranger.
When the music begins in earnest I can zoom in on individuals under cover of the dancing. As I pan back to the starting point I realise I must be hallucinating because the door where I came in seems to have been sealed up. It’s like being shut inside one of those jewellery boxes containing a tin ballerina spinning arthritically to ghostly wind-up music.
I move from my position by the wall and start to circulate, switching my camera back into still mode. Yet again I’m reminded of Pierre’s burlesque show, because this is not like a random party but a rehearsed play. It’s impossible to tell behind these masks, but everyone seems to be acting like friends rather than being genuinely acquainted.
All seems pretty tame so far. Nothing like the orgy the Weinmeyers told me to expect. I relax into my stride. I’m right at home. All I have to do is what I’m best at. Watching. I can take part if I like, but not until I’ve recorded what goes down at a madcap Weinmeyer ball. It’s all presented like a readymade painting.
I shoot and sway and mingle with the crowd, zooming in on the tilt of a chin or the courtly wave of an arm, the clacking of a painted mouth, a tight red smile, the unintentionally amusing sight of one person addressing another who is not listening.
A harpsichord begins to twang out some perfect period pieces. The chandeliers start to spin like glitter-balls. They must be on some kind of electronic circuit connected to the amplifiers. The effect is making a shifting kaleidoscope out of the sedate masked figures on the polished sprung dance floor, as they move like puppets into position and start to sketch the stylised steps of the waltz and the minuet. The third piece I recognise as the cotillion, another antiquated mating ritual disguised as a dance that Crystal and I practised earlier, odd couple that we are.
‘Cotillion comes from an old French word meaning petticoat,’ she puffed as she marked out the places in the middle of my bedroom. ‘It was a four-sided dance, precursor to the quadrille, and it was particularly popular at dances to showcase young girls coming of age. You lift your skirt, like this, and show your ankles. Very daring for the time.’
I wish she was here. Apart from anything else she could have held my camera for me when I was trying to have a drink. I’m already very hot. Perhaps she could have dressed as a man, in matching emerald green, and escorted me here? Why didn’t we think of that? What on earth is she doing now, anyway? Rocking on a chair outside my room, waiting and knitting, like a tricoteuse by the guillotine?
A heady perfume hovers across the mirrored ceiling, so that when I look up all the powdered or hooded heads nod and twirl as if they’re exotic birds making formations through cirrus clouds.
As well as the moving statues and the odd angel or goblin, most of the guests are in costumes like mine, exaggeratedly sexy versions of Casanova-era clothing. These would be absolutely perfect for Pierre’s purposes – whatever they are. Stop it! Stop it! I try to push thoughts of him and his brother out of my head, but the combination of the cumbersome headdress, the heat in this ballroom, the wine and the effort of steadying and focusing my camera is already wearing me out.
I scroll quickly through the catalogue of false faces, hands, gloves, fans, breasts, chins, legs, feathers, feet, until I’m dizzy. If someone could loop those images together, together with any video footage, this would be a sensational montage. Or the backdrop to a burlesque show …
I put the camera back into video mode and push myself across the polished parquet, using it to search through the sedately dancing crowd and the chattering people around the edges for someone familiar. But apart from Mr and Mrs Weinmeyer these are all strangers. Even if I did know them, I would never recognise them, because many of the masks have a mesh across the eye holes to conceal even that slight flicker of familiarity. All the faces are either masked or plastered in thick theatrical make-up.
The Weinmeyers’ wide-ranging dress code, which they outlined to me the other night, has been adhered to to the very last stitch. Although, from what they’ve told me about past balls, they seem determined that every last stitch will eventually be unpicked. They wanted people to arrive at this ball ready to discard all inhibitions, and partners, at the door. An even more extravagant, outrageous version of the Club Crème, in other words.
I continue to mingle, shooting and watching as breasts and chests begin to heave for breath, and feet occasionally trip as the dancers start to tire. The impression is that these are all statues, come to life. No human foibles or weaknesses or sins to worry about here. No manipulation, or persuasion, or sorrow, or happiness, because there is no emotion on these blank faces. They are automatons. Maybe the dress code should have been ‘sex toys’. Anyway they are coming to life now. A hidden switch has been thrown to send them into debauched mode until someone switches them off at the end of the night.
Some dresses are so low cut that breasts rest heavily upon the whalebone of the tight bodice, the red nipples exposed and positioned like cherries stuck onto white scones. The full skirts of the dresses are slashed at intervals and totally see-through when the wearer stands in front of the light.
The low murmuring of voices goes quiet as the harpsichord trails off. The room is jam-packed now. I’m squeezed among blank-faced swordsmen, duchesses, gladiators and wenches, all playing musical statues. They are waiting for the next dance, heads tilted expectantly, beribboned wig-tails bouncing with an invisible pulse, painted mouths curved in patient smiles. Gloved fingers resting on chins as if waiting for a signal.
A violin tests its strings, followed by the discordant screech of tuning up, and then the members of the little orc
hestra, who have been sitting blank-faced on tiny gilt chairs, raise their bows and wind and brass, and swing the music into a mad, galloping polka.
I try to sidle to the side of the room as everyone is urged to follow the pace of the dance. Because the room is so full there is no sense of formation, and although some pairs manage to get hold of each other it’s becoming more a group dance, or a Scottish reel. It’s impossible to tell if some of the guests are male or female, but the form seems to be that those who are obviously women wait their turn, swinging their hips, clapping their hands and stamping their feet, while the men rush around in a kind of circling dance, first face to face with the nearest partner, then turning their backs to face a new one.
Suddenly I’m grabbed and spun round relentlessly with all the other women until we are dizzy and breathless. This is becoming more like the Weinmeyers’ stated plan for the night. I manage to sling my camera on its strap over my shoulder and try to open the little purse Crystal gave me, so that I can put the camera in and keep it from banging against my hip. All I can do is enter into the spirit of it until the dance is over and retreat to my position on the sidelines.
The madness is infecting everyone. The Weinmeyers’ trick is fairly simple, but has to be flawlessly stage-managed. Stir willing guests, potent wine, glittering costumes, beautiful lights and rousing soundtrack together to produce an atmosphere of wonderful abandon. And right on cue the music shifts with a great swooping crescendo from the fast waltzes and polkas into what I can only describe as an almost tribal dervish dance, complete with the thumping of a drum to replicate an increasing heartbeat.
It is so loud in this contained jewel-box of a ballroom that people have abandoned any attempt at polite conversation and are starting to sing and whoop along with the wailing strings and hooting trumpets.
Without being able to view this through my camera, and with my mask partly obscuring everything, I can’t focus on the figures cavorting around me, and I am still as safely anonymous as they are. My mask only covers my eyes, but my face is painted chalk-white, which obliterates any real expression or individuality. My lips are dark red, and Crystal has daubed a large black beauty spot on my cheek. I am the same as everyone else except for one thing. I’m the only person dressed in this sensational emerald green and I want to kiss the kaftan lady for kitting me out in the perfect costume.
I could be anyone. The lady in green. That realisation makes me exhilarated, and high. It’s exactly what I need after everything that’s been happening. The thoughts are only half formed, the faces of Gustav and Pierre faint and flickering in the distance, but the feeling inside me, here and now, is real. I’m free, and flying. For the next few minutes I’m free from everybody and everything. I’m part of this great big messy scenario and that’s exactly the way I want it.
I fling myself backwards out of the circle I’m in and rush back to the side of the room. My hands are shaking when I get my camera out again. I glance around to see if Mr and Mrs Weinmeyer are observing me. I want to show them I’m getting this right. I need to make this a sensational record, just like any other job.
My viewfinder is showing me Act 2. The scene, although in the same setting and inhabited by the same figures, is totally different from my initial shots. Guests are no longer sedate, artificial figures stepping through the traditional dances. Now the increasingly mad music has injected them with a hypersexual serum. I’m not zooming in on smiles and delicate waves of fans and fingers. I’m seeing mouths open wide in laughter, arms spread wide, feet kicking wildly, skirts raised, coats flung sideways, shirts and breeches clinging with sweat to thin, fat, muscular, flabby bodies.
And now it’s happening to me, too. I keep my eyes on my screen and film for as long as possible, so I can’t see clearly what’s happening around me, but as I’m dragged back into the fray there is no doubting the touching, the gloved paws starting to reach out for me as I am spun round and round. Despite waving my camera at people to warn them off, there’s no stopping the velvet fingers poking under my dress, plucking at the bloomers that the lady in the shop admitted were not made of authentic linen but of a flimsy muslin designed for easy access.
Through my mask I can see that the women are being flung about like tasty morsels at an anarchic picnic. Some of them when they land on the floor lift their gowns coquettishly, offering a glimpse of what’s beneath, and sashay within an ogling circle of men and other women. I am sweating now, too. A new impatience goads me. I’m wondering how soon before something really outrageous happens, just as the Weinmeyers promised.
People spread their arms, toss their heads with unholy laughter as they offer themselves to be grabbed and fondled. I film the increasingly daring antics, dresses being pulled down, gloves grappling at crotches, but always, always the masks in place.
But then someone grabs my arms from behind, making my camera fall out of my hands to dangle on its strap, and in front of me a man in a blackbird mask, which jerks and pecks like a magpie, waggles his white gloved magician’s hands then scoops one of my breasts out of my bodice and squeezes it.
I can hear my own squeal of shock, but nobody else can. I’m powerless to pull away or kick him off. This is probably what the Weinmeyers meant by me enjoying myself as well as working. Except the original plan was for Gustav to be here with me.
The arms behind are holding me like a vice, and gradually a kind of melting helplessness overwhelms me. I wrestle with anxiety that I will lose my camera and a shameful sense of pleasure at the feel of these random, anonymous hands feeling and squeezing my body at will. There’s probably a mischievous attempt to stop the camera woman working, or perhaps it’s my unique green costume, my sparkling sequins, my huge plume of peacock feathers waving from my fontange headdress, that attract them, because others suddenly start to elbow the magician out of the way in a feeding frenzy. Someone hoists the other breast out, holding both treats for inspection, and pinching the red nipples I secretly painted with lipstick when Crystal was out of the room.
Just as suddenly I’m flung aside, and I stagger against the wall, every part of me tingling and urging me to get back in there, forget the filming, just have more of those fingers on me.
But on the other side of the room things have degenerated even further. I can see a woman in a white dress trimmed with gold lace, her expressionless gold mask covering her eyes and nose, her yellow ringletted hair falling over her bared shoulders as she is stretched out between two men dressed in striped cat costumes. One is thrusting his face into her cleavage and drawing out one nipple between very sharp teeth.
I zoom in close so that I can see the nipple reddening as he bites it. Meanwhile the other cat man is lifting up her long skirt and crawling between her legs, pulling down her bloomers, tossing them with an exaggerated flourish into the applauding crowd, and oh, God, a third man, also dressed as a cat but in such a black costume that I can’t even see the glitter of his eyes or the wetness of his mouth, has approached and very calmly unzips his black leggings and lowers himself over the woman’s face, prises open her big, laughing mouth, and pushes himself into it so that she is forced to suck him while the others poke and prod and bite. She arches her big, artificially firm breasts at them as if feeding kittens, and she wriggles and writhes with obvious pleasure.
As I raise my camera to take a shot of the trio, the lady turns her head, still sucking, directly towards me as if she’s deliberately posing for me.
I’m not being held now, and I spin of my own accord, stumble here and there, my cloak occasionally wrapping itself round my legs to trip me. Even the king and queen on their thrones are being kissed and groped by a bevy of white-robed courtiers.
My whole body is burning and fizzing with filthy excitement, nerves and senses on high alert in the midst of this Roman-style orgy. I am a mass of sensation, vision and sound. There’s not a single rational thought or word finding its way through my brain. I needed this obliteration. Badly.
I am dizzy with the drink, hor
ny as hell, high on the intoxicating atmosphere. I want whatever’s going, whatever anyone can give me. The drug or whatever was in that punch has dragged me up to an unbearable pitch of arousal, and I find myself in the centre of the room, spreading open my arms and legs wide to say come and get me.
More hands smother me as I dance. A man covered in blue and yellow feathers and with an orange crest like a parakeet lifts my skirt and squeezes my buttocks. His fingers scrabble at me. I jerk with delighted shock and curl my leg round his to keep hold of him and maintain my balance, but then he vanishes and another figure in a flashing top hat like a magician spins me and rocks me from behind, pushing his erection into the bustle of my dress and bundling my breasts into his hands.
The crowd starts to whoop and clap, even sing. Hard bodies push against me, encased in velvet and Lycra and leather. I’m aching with excitement now, electricity darting all over my body.
‘La putana inglese!’
Or at least that’s what I think I hear in the brouhaha. Then the emperor Weinmeyer appears, all in white, stalking stiffly, holding out his arms to me. I hold my arms out to him. Suddenly I want someone to claim me. I like the fact that he and Mrs Weinmeyer are the only people in this room who have a clue who I am, and even then they only know me because I’m the lady with the green earrings wielding the camera.
As the white and gold statue reaches me, he bows briefly then turns me so that I’m wedged up against his white costume and something thick and hard nudges at my bottom. My breasts are still tumbling out and my knees start to buckle as Mr Weinmeyer’s gloved hand fans out on my stomach to bend me so that he can raise my skirt and push at me more easily. I know it’s him, because through his gloves I can feel the dig of his signet ring. So let him do what he wants. He’s the boss, after all.
All around us, featureless revellers elbow each other and gesticulate, unable to speak in the now deafening music. All pretence of period chivalry has vanished. The people around us start to clap as our host lifts my skirt higher for all to see.