by Hailey Lind
“It’s an S and M club, Pete. But we won’t be doing anything, we’re just looking—”
“What is this essenem?”
“A sex club,” Mary interpreted.
“A sex club?” Pete exclaimed.
“What did you think it was?” I asked.
“A music club.”
“Music?”
“Didn’t you say sax? Like the instrument?”
“ ‘fraid not,” Mary said. “This is a sex club, with all sorts of sexy stuff going on.”
Pete and Evangeline didn’t make it past the first bowl of free condoms. Stumbling over an excuse about having left clothes in the dryer, he and Evangeline fled without a look back.
“They’re the only ones amongst us with brains,” Bryan said wistfully as he watched them retreat.
As we entered the foyer, Wesley’s nervous gaze kept sliding over to Bryan.
“Don’t look at me, I’ve never been to a place like this,” Bryan said. “We’re not nearly as bad as y’all heteros. This is her doing.” He jerked a thumb in my direction.
Since Bryan was the only one of this motley crew that I had actually asked to come on this ill-conceived venture, I had the grace to feel a tad guilty. Still, I wasn’t above using my friends from time to time. This was important.
We approached the front desk to pay our entrance fees. Couples got in much cheaper than singles, so Bryan slung an arm around my shoulders, and Mary put hers around Wesley’s.
“He’s my boy toy,” declared Mary. Wesley looked up at her with liquid, puppy-dog eyes.
“It costs more if you keep your pants on,” said the bored-looking man behind the counter.
Wesley had a coughing fit. Mary slapped him on the back. Bryan glared at the receptionist, his eyes cold and dangerous. I stepped in between them, afraid for the first time in my life that Bryan might be moved to physical violence.
“We’re good,” I said as I shelled out several twenties to pay for everyone. It was the least I could do. “They like their pants. Do you happen to know where Kyle Jones is tonight?”
The man’s eyes drifted over me, clearly seeing me naked and, no doubt, in an advanced Kama Sutra position reminiscent of a pretzel. My yoga hadn’t advanced that far and, I hoped, never would. Unbidden, my mind flashed on the Indian artwork in Catrina and Victor’s house.
“He’s usually in the Dungeon, or the Pirate’s Lair. But you could check the Jail Cells, or the Coffin Room.”
Oh. Goodie.
Wesley paled. He would have left at that description, I felt sure, if Mary hadn’t been latched on to his arm as though he were the big, bad protector of a woman two inches taller, and no doubt much fitter, than he. Mary had been taking kickboxing for years, and wore serious boots.
“Where do you want to go first?” Mary asked. “It would be faster to split up, but I think we should stay together.”
“Oh, definitely,” I said.
“None of you are leaving my sight,” Bryan said, glowering at a clutch of young men entering the place behind us.
We started to look around. There weren’t many people in the first couple of big, open rooms on the main floor. There was an empty rec room with Ping-Pong tables, a pinball machine, and foosball games. Kind of like camp for grown-ups. Another, smaller room was decorated like the great hall of a castle, complete with an iron chandelier and a huge wooden table. I didn’t think much of the paint job, but the concept was kind of fun. Moving on, we found the Jail Cells, only one of which was occupied by a hopeful-looking young man who had already thrust his hands into the chains on the wall.
“Kyle?” I asked.
“I can be Kyle,” he said with a smile. “What would you like to do with Kyle?”
Bryan stepped forward and steered me away.
A handful of men, most of them clad only in towels, meandered through the rooms and hallways as though lost. Most of these were middle-aged and paunchy, giving the Power Play more the air of an executive locker room at the gym than a sex palace. It seemed anything but erotic.
“Shall we check out the Dungeon?” I said, my voice unnaturally high.
“Unless we can go home now,” Bryan muttered.
Wesley hadn’t said a word since we first entered. As we descended the stairs to the Dungeon, I looked over to see him swallowing convulsively, eyes popping out of his head. His black-rimmed Mr. Science glasses were fogged up.
We paused at the bottom of the stairs. This was where all the people were. As on the first floor there were at least nine men to every woman, and most were wandering the hall, which skirted a cyclone-fence encircled area, where racks, frames, and lots of ropes and chains were set up. A woman dressed in black vinyl was spanking a man who was leaning over a leather horse. According to a tall, thin, purple-haired passerby, this was Stain, the resident masochist.
“You’d think they’d get someone else for a change.” At my inquiring look, she added with a sigh, “He’s here every week.”
“Don’t touch anything,” Bryan told us in a fierce whisper. “Has everyone had their tetanus boosters?”
“Do you know a guy named Kyle?” I asked the young woman.
“Sure. Blond guy. Usually in costume.”
“What kind of costume?”
“Thinks he’s a freaking pirate. Thinks he’s freaking Orlando Bloom or something.”
A man tottered by in white pumps, wearing a pink Jackie O–style suit, complete with pillbox hat, white gloves, and vintage white patent leather pocketbook. It’s not unusual to see transvestites here in San Francisco, but usually they were sexier and more feminine than half the women in town. This man, in contrast, had no makeup on, and had done nothing special with his short salt-and-pepper hair. He wore wire-rimmed glasses and a glum expression on his unshaven face. It looked for all the world like Murray from Accounting had lost a bet.
A group of at least half a dozen silent, watchful young men started to trail us, duckling-like, as we moved down the hallway past a series of fantasy bedroom situations. I was trying to imagine being willing to lie down on one of those beds; all I could think of was that TV show where they bring special lights and cameras to uncover the invisible cooties on hotel bedspreads.
Mary grabbed my arm and leaned into me to say something.
There was an audible gasp from the crowd. They circled around us.
“Back off, you freaks,” Mary said. “We’re not going to make out or anything. Ew.”
One of the young men opened his mouth to say something.
“I said, back off!” Mary yelled, taking a step toward them.
Bryan glared at them, and they fell back. But when we continued walking, they followed at a respectful distance.
“We are in a sex club, Mare,” I whispered. “It’s not out of the question to assume we might be game.”
“Freaks,” she muttered, looking around malevolently. She put her arm back through Wesley’s. He beamed.
We poked our heads into one room where a big-screen TV was playing porn movies, then entered a long, dark tunnel that led down one side of the basement. A few couples and trios were making out in the dimly lit corridor.
“Kyle?” I yelled, just to see. No answer.
Most of our loyal ducklings were still trailing us down the dim hallway.
“What this place needs is bats,” said Wesley, finding his voice.
“Next time I’m bringing a flask,” grumbled Bryan.
“I’m bo-ored,” whined Mary-of-the-short-attention-span.
“Let’s just loop around quickly and then we’ll go on up to the second floor, couples-only. Then we can leave.”
I averted my eyes as we passed the rack and a masked man with a cat-o’-nine-tails. The burly masked man came over to stand just on the other side of the cyclone fence.
“Good evening,” he said as though a maître d’, greeting us for lunch. “You ladies care for a turn? Giving or receiving, it’s all good.”
“Maybe later,” I said, pulling
Mary back before she could speak. I wasn’t sure whether she would go for his throat or decide she was bored enough to give it a go—on the giving end, I was sure. Either way, we didn’t have time for such things. We had work to do. “Have you seen Kyle, by any chance?”
“Second floor, I think. Couples only.”
Our duckling entourage stuck with us up to the main floor, only dropping off as we ascended the stairs to the second floor, where men had to be accompanied by at least one woman. I glanced back at them. They looked crestfallen, standing at the bottom of the stairs in their towels. They appeared to be of every nationality and skin shade: Latinos, Asians, blacks, whites...it was like a dismal mini–U.N. convention of lonely men.
The couples floor seemed more like a regular club, with a dance floor and pounding music—complete with a stripper pole, of course—couches and benches, lots of couples around who seemed to be together and happy. One woman was dressed as a sexy Snow White, the man as the Woodsman. Another reclined in an Egyptian sarcophagus, with her attendant serving her needs.
The Pirate’s Lair was decorated to resemble below-decks of an old-fashioned ship. A woman, naked from the waist up but wearing Victorian-style bloomers, was tied to a rack with tasseled silk ties, while a blond man in a Mardi Gras mask, ruffled pirate shirt, and black breeches whipped her with what looked like the floppy head of the industrial mop we used to use back in my maid days at the Olive You Motel.
The crowd ringing the couple stood silently, just watching. Indeed, the whole affair seemed more like a piece of theater—or performance art—than anything particularly threatening. I spent a couple of weeks roaming the streets of New York City last year, and in comparison it was all pretty tame.
Still, I think I was experiencing sensory overload. As I looked around, all I could think of was how I could do a much better paint job. I pondered Victor and Catrina’s basement. There must be hundreds of rich people with a tendency toward kink. Just in case I didn’t get any better at the Annie Kincaid, Crack Art Investigator role, I could develop a whole new career adorning Smut Chambers. Think of the possibilities: Stone walls and gargoyles and...
The tied-up woman moaned.
“Is she okay?” I asked, looking around at the avid bystanders. No one moved or said a word.
She cried out again, loudly.
“Stop it,” I told the man in breeches as I approached the tied woman. “Are you okay?”
Everyone looked at me like I was the freak. Apparently I had broken Power Play etiquette.
“She’s fine...”
“Are you crazy?...”
“She didn’t use her safe word yet.”
The woman herself glared at me. The glare turned into a wide-eyed look of fear.
It was Destiny-the-maid.
“Oh!” she cried. “Cabbages! Cabbages!”
16
Is erotica art, or pornography? Well as they say, it depends upon the viewer. I believe that it is both, and that the vast majority of us are better for having seen it.
—Georges LeFleur, “Craquelure”
Cabbages?
The man wielding the whip stopped short, brought her a white gossamer robe, and wrapped it around her shoulders, murmuring to her as he released her wrists.
She turned her head and said something to him, her tone urgent.
The man swung around to gape at me for a brief moment, then took off.
I ran after him. Destiny chased after us, untied robe flapping out behind her. I assumed the rest of my gang was following, but my concentration was on the man in the mask and breeches, running away. Kyle Jones, I presumed.
At the bottom of the stairs our ducklings were still milling about, blocking access to the front door. Without pausing, Kyle careened down the main hallway, toward the Dungeon. I glanced over my shoulder to see Destiny behind me, Bryan, Mary, and Wesley behind her, and now the ducklings bringing up the rear, stirred up by the excitement or Destiny’s half-naked body, it was hard to say which.
Kyle fled down the stairs. By the time I reached the bottom, he was nowhere to be seen.
“Which way?” I asked the crowd.
No one spoke.
Mary grabbed the first guy she saw with a shirt on, squeezed the collar, and snarled: “Tell us which way he went or I’ll kick you in the balls.”
“Promise?”
Mary rolled her eyes, and tightened her grip on his neck.
“Tell me!”
He pointed toward the darkened tunnel.
Two hefty men wearing Power Play–logo T-shirts came up to us. “Everything okay in here? Everything consensual?”
“Yes, thank you, very consensual.” We all stopped and smiled like kids caught running in the school hallways.
“Okay then. Let’s keep it that way.”
We hurried down the corridor. It was empty but for one couple; no Kyle.
I grabbed Destiny’s arm and hustled her into a “private” room—it had walls and a door, but featured one very large viewing window. The ducklings jockeyed for position at the glass.
“Destiny, tell me what you really do at the F-U. You’re not just a maid, are you?”
“It’s not illegal or anything. I help set up the parties. I used to be part of them when I was younger, but now mostly I arrange them.”
“What kind of parties?”
She hesitated.
“Come on, Destiny. These guys are hurting people. Help us understand what’s going on.”
“You can’t tell the police. They’ll kill me if they find out I talked to the cops.”
“No police.”
Destiny twirled a lock of blond hair around one long-nailed finger and shrugged. “They’re like re-enactment parties. They choose a painting and then re-enact it. Usually paintings with naked women.”
Big surprise.
“And what do they do at these parties?”
“What do you think they do? Have sex. But there’s nothing illegal about it. People can have sex if they want to.”
“So they re-enact paintings for their parties? Is that what they did with the dead man you found? Made him look like the painting, The Death of Marat?”
“I dunno about that, but somebody made him look like the picture in the hallway. I don’t know why. I felt so bad for Elijah! He was always so much nicer than his brother.”
“Balthazar?”
She nodded. “At first Balthazar said Elijah had to leave, he couldn’t stay at the club anymore. But then he let Elijah stay as long as he didn’t leave his room.”
“That’s the room he was found in?”
Nodding, she teared up. “Room two-twelve. It was dreary in there, wasn’t it? It’s one of the few rooms that hadn’t been redone yet. It got water-damaged from the leak in the roof. It was damned depressing, you ask me. I think that’s part of the reason he got so sick. Depression is bad for the—whaddayacallit?—immune system. Poor Elijah had to stay in his room, wasn’t even allowed to mingle with the rest of the boys.”
“Even during the parties?”
“Especially then. Those are really exclusive-type-deals. Only the select membership gets invited to those.”
“So Elijah stayed in his room for how long, all told?”
“Months. He hadn’t felt well, so he just stayed in there, plus he was scared to leave the building, on account of he owed money to some scary characters. He only left once, last month, he went out for the afternoon when Balthazar was out of town. That’s about it.”
Out to sell a painting, perhaps?
I looked up to see a commotion with the ducklings. They had caught Kyle, and were hanging on to him for us, showing us through the observation window. While we hurried out the door, Kyle managed to pull away and ran through an emergency exit, blocking the door with a bunch of wooden crates. It took several of us to shove the crates out of the way. Finally it swung open onto a dimly lit brick alley smelling of trash and urine.
A single gunshot rang out.
We all hunker
ed down, hugging the wall.
Two more shots, then silence.
I looked up to see Kyle sprawled face down on the dirty concrete.
“Kyle! Baby!” Destiny cried out, running to him. She sank to her knees and turned him over. A large dark stain spread across his white pirate shirt. She took off his mask to show the young, handsome face of the Fleming-Union parking attendant-slash-guard. The one I called Blondie. Destiny hugged the man to her breast, rocking slightly, making an awful, pitiful keening sound. The sound of a heart breaking.
“Call 911,” I shouted to Mary. I ran to Kyle’s side, and felt his neck for a pulse. Nothing. I held my ear to his chest, his mouth, listening for breathing signs. More nothing.
Bryan and I jogged the rest of the way down the alley, which ended in a T. We hung back, then carefully looked around the corner, first one way, then the next. The alleyways were dim and shadowy, but empty. About half a block to our left was busy Gough Street. To our right the alley ended about forty feet down at a rear access door. We checked it. Locked. A dead end.
“Probably ran to Gough,” Bryan said, his voice subdued. “Long gone by now.”
“Yeah.” I trotted down to Gough Street and looked both ways, not really expecting to see anything, but needing to look. And using the moment to regroup. I was nauseated, and shaky.
I dislike murder. I mean, really dislike it. And in the case of the blond young man lying dead in the alley, I had the uncomfortable and profound knowledge that if not for me, he would still be alive and whipping.
We returned to the dead man.
“I have to get out of here,” whispered Destiny. She looked up at me and repeated with greater urgency: “I have to go. If they find me here with you they’ll kill me this time for sure.”
“Who, Destiny?”
“The brethren,” she said, shaking her head and crying. “They’ll kill me, too!”
“They won’t, Destiny. We’ll help you. We’ll figure this out.”
“They killed him,” she said, gazing down at Kyle’s lifeless form. “It wasn’t his fault. He tried to be good.”
The sound of sirens split the night. Destiny looked up at me in dismay.