by Anne Rice
But the genius of it, the real purpose, was that it wore you down. It wore down the nervousness, the inhibition, the raw feeling that around every corner was an impossible test.
I could feel the barriers going in my head.
And I was part of the system. It was working. I was grateful for the uncomfortable rest period, and oddly accepting that in less than six hours I’d be scrubbing again in a glare of lights as the fashionably dressed members came and went. Three days of this! And the real training hadn’t even begun.
And the real training meant Miss Dark Hair Dark Eyes Beautiful Hands Called Lisa. Elliott, you drew a royal flush.
But back off from that. My mind went a little fuzzy every time I tried to picture her, remember the tone of her voice.
Better to think about anything else. Better to hope that after three days of mop-and-scrub-brush purgatory I’d be all toughened up for hell.
Or was it heaven?
That’s the problem with all this, it’s both.
I think I was half sleeping when I picked a strange sound out of the shadows. Boots on the marble floor, probably in front of me, in front of the narrow strip of thin carpet on which my aching feet were planted. But what was it? A lighter, crisper clicking sound.
I opened my eyes.
There was a figure in the darkness off to the right. Tall but not as tall as all the men were here. And there was that sweet, intoxicating scent of Chanel.
No doubt about it. She was there. The woman in my life.
I saw the light touch the long sleek fall of her hair. I saw it glint in her eyes.
All the rest of her except for the gleam of a ring on one of her fingers was dark. Then a flash of light on the instep of her boot and something sparkling in her hand as she stepped nearer, and the luminous white of her blouse with tiny glimmering pearl buttons on it, and her face coming visible as if the darkness were thinning with light.
If it hadn’t been so dark still I would have dropped my eyes the way we’re supposed to do. But I just stared.
She stepped closer, and I felt her hot little hand on my cheek, and the touch of something cold to my lip.
I smelled the rich, fruity fragrance of the wine, and opened my mouth. Delicious claret, and just cool enough. I drank deeply, and when the glass was drawn away, ran my tongue over my lips.
Her eyes were enormous and dark and clear.
“Are you enjoying your little penitential sojourn among the brushes and buckets?” she asked softly, without even a hint of irony.
I heard myself answer with a low laugh.
Not smart. I tensed, but I saw the light on her cheek as she smiled.
Her naked forearm brushed my hip and her hand stroked my backside.
“Hmmm!” I winced too quickly, stiffened too violently. And my leg muscles weren’t the only thing getting stiff.
“Bad boy,” she said. She pinched one of the welts and her fingers sent that shock through me just as they had in the receiving hall upstairs.
My pulse was racing. I could feel it in my temples. Her breasts were almost touching my chest before she stepped back.
“What have you learned down here?” she asked.
Again, I almost laughed. I was sure she had heard it.
“To be absolutely obedient, Madam,” I said. It had a thin edge of humor to it, but it happened to be the truth.
What she was doing to me now, however, was worse than the brooms and mops. And every titillation of the day was making it worse. Sexual satisfaction was getting to seem mythical to me at this point. The dizzying arousal would go on forever with its peaks and its valleys, and this was one of the peaks. This was getting to be Mount Everest, as a matter of fact.
“Give me something in particular,” she said earnestly. “Something you’ve learned that was new to you. If there is anything.” Her voice had nothing of artificial drama in it. It was intimate and strangely raw. Soft pulse of Chanel. Light etching her little mouth.
I tried to think. But all I could think about was what was going on in the lower half of my anatomy, and how she looked and smelled, and what her fingers had felt like.
She lifted the glass of wine again and I drank slowly and took a deep breath. Not much help.
“What have you learned?” she asked again and there was a little steel in her voice. Like she was going to smack me with a ruler if I didn’t say my multiplication tables at once.
“That I’m afraid,” I said, surprising myself.
“Afraid,” she repeated it. “Of the men who’ve been using you?” she asked. “Or of me?”
“Of both of you,” I said. “And I don’t know which I fear more.”
Instantly I regretted it. I wanted to take it back. And I couldn’t understand what had drawn it out.
I’d been voice trained, as Martin and all his clients called it, that is, versed in making sort of ritualistic answers. And ritualistic answers aren’t just a turn on; they cover everything up.
“Did the broom and mop brigade . . . work you over?” she asked.
“Of course, when they had the chance,” I said. My face went hot. “They’re more into soap and water and name calling. There wasn’t much time for anything else.”
Was this me talking ? To her?
“You’re a tough guy, aren’t you?” she asked. Again, no irony. In fact, she sounded vague.
“Only if it pleases you, Madam.” Now that was a nice ritualistic answer. But it sounded as sarcastic as hell.
My heart was too loud, too fast.
But she appeared to smile again, yet not broadly, not easily. “Why are you afraid of me?” she asked. “Haven’t you ever been punished by a woman?”
“Not all that much, Madam.” I felt a distant catch in my throat. Just those exquisite creatures in Martin’s house in those frilly Victorian bedrooms, giving me the barest taste of it, driving me wild. And that Russian countess at the country villa who merely watched. Now, that was a trip—but not enough of a trip to buffet me against what was happening right now.
“Are you too good to be punished by a woman, Elliott?” she whispered. Ritual question.
“Not if it’s a good woman,” I said. Goddamn it, Elliott. Knock it off.
But she laughed. She tried to hide it, turning to the side a little, but I’d heard it, one of those soft little laughs.
I saw myself kissing her suddenly, subduing her with kisses, and pulling down the lace and the pearl buttons of her blouse. I couldn’t think of her in any other way, except in my arms with me kissing her and opening her mouth. Nice. This is real trouble, sport.
Why didn’t she just draw a blank from me? I mean the white-light blot-out of terror that came over me at the pavilion and in the receiving hall?
“Are you really that afraid of me, Elliott?” she asked. The blood was dancing in my cheeks. But she couldn’t see it, it was too dark. “You don’t sound like you’re afraid enough.”
I could see the white lace spilling down over her breasts. I could see the paler skin of her long throat. Her voice was touching some place deep inside of me that was as vulnerable as it was unexplored.
“I’m afraid,” I said.
Pause.
“Maybe you should be,” she said as if confiding an important secret. “I’m so disgusted you got yourself into this mess, I’ll make you sorry you did.”
I swallowed, trying not to make a little grimace, keep the ironic smile off my face.
She rose on tiptoe and her hair touched my naked shoulders, her perfume inundating me. I felt her lips against my mouth, high voltage, the lace of her blouse crushed against my bare chest. Double shock, taking the breath out of me, her wet little mouth opening. My cock touched the smooth leather of her skirt. I sucked at her hard, opening her lips wider, pushing my tongue into her, my cock pushing her. She let me go and danced back.
I strained forward on the leather tether as far as I could, and kissed her hard on the neck before she could get away.
“Stop it,” she
said, jumping back farther.
“I’m your slave,” I whispered. I really meant it. But I couldn’t resist adding, “Besides, I can’t get loose from this damned hook.”
For a second she seemed too steamed and too surprised to say anything. She was glaring at me. And she was rubbing the place where I kissed her as if I’d bitten off a little chunk, which I hadn’t of course.
“You’re fucking incorrigible!” she said furiously, but there was something tentative and uncomprehending in it, and in her face.
“I didn’t mean to be,” I said very contritely. This was a real mess. “Honest, I didn’t. I really didn’t. I came here wanting to obey all the rules. I don’t want to keep getting into trouble like this.”
“Shut up.”
Tense moment. Blood pounding in my head, and a couple of other places. I wondered if they had a jail in this place for the really bad guys. Maybe the slave convicts dug ditches on a chain gang. Would I get a fair trial? Would she testify against me? Would Martin send a telegram begging for clemency? Probably not.
She moved in cautiously, like I was some sort of jungle beast. I didn’t look at her.
“Now, I am going to kiss you again,” she whispered. “And you keep still.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
She drew in on my right, careful not to brush against me, and there came the 300-volt shock again, and this time I felt her burning up. I thought I’d come just kissing her, it was so hot. She was leaning against my side. She had her arm around me. And when she suddenly let go I turned my head. Mount Everest all right.
“I’ll be waiting for you, Elliott,” she said.
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said, still unable to look at her, absolutely tortured by the sounds of her footsteps moving away.
LISA
Chapter 10
Miss Teenage America
I walked towards the administration building like I was being chased.
I was in a low-grade fever. I kept touching my mouth because my lips were tingling as if he’d done something to them, like the hero in a high school romance, kissing me that way. I could still smell him, the salty clean smell of his skin.
Yes, a hundred times more beautiful than his pictures.
But it was his manner that was the killer, his manner that put it all into some sort of perspective. Because when he smiled and when he spoke, the character came out.
Stop it, Lisa.
I mean this is a healthy, red-blooded American male, here to play slave for two years, who just happens to know how to put on the charm for anything female, how to use his eyes and his voice.
I was just too wired right now. Shouldn’t have tried to check him out so early, should never have turned off the phone, and should never have kept everybody in the office waiting just to go down there and see him!
I mean sneaking down to kiss him on the mouth as if we were in the back of a Chevrolet, this had to stop, that’s certain, couldn’t go on for three days. Three days. The voice was like the look in his eye. Really present. But that’s what we want from all of them, right, that we take over their fantasies and become the fantasy. So what’s so terrific that he is really there?
At eleven, The Club was still alive from one end of the island to the other, lights pulsing in a hundred curtained windows, the sky overhead a fathomless dark blue under the lamp of the full moon.
I walked fast past the doors of the darkly carpeted casino, not wanting to be seen or spoken to, only glancing out of the corner of my eye at the naked slaves navigating gracefully the endless sea of tables, trays held high as they hurried to take orders, to serve wine, liquor, exotically colored and decorated drinks.
Behind thick and dimly illuminated glass wall panels the slaves on display writhed and struggled in their bonds, limbs polished in gold or silver, pubic hair studded with tiny jewels. On the stage at the far end a little playlet was being enacted, two Greek slave girls in delicate chains and bracelets, being severely punished by their Roman lords.
In the quieter lounges the drama was more intimate, Club members having brought their slaves at heel to the tables. Above the dark, glittering bottles of the bar, a string of young men with heads bowed and arms bound high above them, a series of statues by Michelangelo, turned silently on a carousel.
I saw Scott, the Panther, my dark and handsome genius Trainer of Trainers, in fast conversation with an old English lord, a recent member who’d been hanging around for months, and a little jet of excitement warmed me at the sight of Kitty Kantwell crouched at his feet, her lips pressed to the carpet silently waiting his command.
So he had picked Kitty. Good for her. He’d probably taken Kitty right to the new trainers’ class and used her for demonstration. I should have gone, might have learned something. Now that was thinking like the old Lisa, in the swing of things around here, as the old expression goes.
Wishful thinking, kid. Three days down there. No. The fact was, nothing had felt right since I landed. Nothing had felt right since before I even left.
Except kissing Elliott Slater just now, how about that?
Richard, the Wolf, got up from the desk chair as I came in.
“Sorry to wake you, Lisa,” he said. “Tried to get you earlier but. . .”
“I’m here to be awakened. What’s going on?” I asked.
Two handlers, looking a little smudged and dusty from the long day, were standing by with their arms folded doing their best to fade into the white walls.
And in front of the desk a girl, in a short, belted, white terry-cloth robe, sat sobbing theatrically, pounding her knee with her fist.
“Miss Teenage America,” Richard said. “The doctors say she’s not a day over seventeen.”
If it hadn’t been for the squabble over Elliott, I would surely have remembered her from the receiving hall. Luscious breasts bulging against the sagging lapel of the robe, and long, exquisitely sculpted legs. She tossed her black curls angrily, jutting her lower lip at me, and then her eyes squinched, watering fearfully, as Richard gestured for me to take his chair.
“You can’t do it! You have to take me!” she said shrilly, her lips looking almost bruised from her crying. And her whole face knotted as she shook her head and pounded her fist again. It was difficult to believe it just looking at her, but when she spoke, it was clear.
Richard pushed the medical report at me. He looked sleepy, his deep-set eyes a little red, but he was still amused by the whole thing. I wasn’t smiling. This was such tiresome business, and talking to her would be the worst part.
“Look,” I said. “You’re too young to be here, your papers are fake.”
“The shit I am!” she said. “I’m twenty-one. I was trained by Ari Hassler and I can . . .”
“Did you talk to Hassler?” I asked Richard.
“He denies everything, says she fooled him completely,” Richard said wearily. “She has a phony birth certificate and driver’s license . . .”
“It isn’t phony, I’m plenty old enough to be here, what are you trying to pull!”
“You’re a minor and you don’t belong here,” I said, “and you’re going out tonight.”
I looked at Richard.
“I can’t get anything else out of her, same routine.” He dropped his voice. “I’ll wager you she’s not the only one.”
“Well, then, find the others!” I said crossly. “Submit the entire group to another examination. If there are any minors, I want them out.”
“Please . . .” She leaned forward, her hands clutching almost modestly at her robe. “Let me stay, you’ve got papers saying I’m twenty-one, what are you scared of? You can’t tell me you don’t want me. Look at me. I saw the others. I’m as good as any . . .
“Pick a town,” I said coldly. “A nice private flight to Miami and first class from there to wherever you want to go. You’re leaving now.”
“I wanna stay here! You don’t understand what this means to me, talk to my handler, he’ll tell you I was perfect. Look, I’m r
eady, I’m telling you, I’ve been trained by the best.”
“Okay, dump her in Los Angeles.”
“No!” she screamed. She bit her lip, eyes becoming a bit vague and probably a bit practical. She said in a mumbling voice, “New York.”
“Okay, New York. Give her the usual two nights at the Plaza, and a thousand dollars.” I looked at her. “Use it wisely, as the old saying goes.”
“Bitch!”
“Oh, I’d love to teach you some manners before you go,” I said under my breath.
She studied me, calculating desperately.
“Get her out of here,” I said.
“Just give me one good reason why you’re doing this to me,” she pleaded. The tears were very pretty sliding down her rounded cheeks, but her eyes were like two stones. “You know good and well the members would love me, admit it. What the hell’s the matter with you that you want somebody six years older than me, for Chrissakes?”
“Honey, it’s a cruel world. But have you ever heard the words ‘consenting adults’? We don’t deal in crazies, we don’t deal in minors, we don’t deal in unwilling slaves. Come back in five years, and maybe, just maybe we’ll talk to you. But don’t try to fool us under another name. Now, get her out of here. Fly her to Miami as soon as you can.”
“I hate you, you bitch!” she screamed. The trainer tried to lift her and she sank her elbow into his belly. “You can’t do this to me, my papers are in order. Call Ari!” The other trainer had slipped her arm around her waist. “I’ll tell the goddamn fucking New York Times!”
“Don’t bother,” I said.
She was trying to unbuckle the trainer’s arm.
“But if you’re really serious, we have two New York Times reporters in Bungalow H. And there’s a guy from NBC in the main building on the fifth floor.”
“You think you’re so smart. I’ll blow the lid off this place!”
“Everybody’s done stories on us, darling. Go to the library and look it up. And when a slave ‘tells all,’ I’m afraid it’s the back page of the tabloids, right along with the tearjerkers by the ex—call girls and porno stars that have found Christ. As for the Times, you really can forget it. Ever hear the phrase, ‘all the news that’s fit to print’?”