Going Down For The Count

by David Stukas

  The count had some business he had to attend to, so he left me in the house with Michael. When Michael was fully ensconced in his bedroom, I paid him a visit.

  “Come in, Herr Schmidt,” Michael said through the door.

  I entered and found Michael unpacking.

  “What the hell is that?” I said after seeing an outfit covered with an ocean of tiny gold beads. “Liberace’s nightshirt?”

  “Robert, this is my costume for the ball! I’m going as a matador. This outfit really shows off my ass.”

  “I see. Michael?”

  “Yes, Robert?”

  “Do you always travel around with a matador’s costume?”

  “No. Just when I’m going to a masked ball.”

  “Michael, when you came to Europe, you weren’t invited to Mad Queen Ludwig’s. But you brought a costume anyway?”

  “That’s right. Be prepared,” Michael said, lovingly hanging up the outfit and putting it in a closet.

  “Michael! You came to Europe knowing you would cajole me into snagging an invitation to Ludwig’s ball for you!”

  “Well, the thought had crossed my mind,” Michael said coyly.

  “Your plan seemed pretty far-fetched. I guess it was lucky you were driving by our broken down car in Monte Carlo at just that moment. Otherwise your whole plan would have fallen through.” Ha! I had figured out Michael’s plan at last.

  “Who said it was luck that we drove by?” Michael asked without taking his eyes off a leather codpiece he lifted from his suitcase and put in a nearby drawer.

  I was speechless, but I managed to get two words out. “You mean?”

  “Robert, don’t be so Midwestern! I planned the whole thing. I found out where you two were vacationing in Europe, I followed you to Monte Carlo, paid a guy to put sugar in the gas tank of your car, then got Mother to take the sports car out and pass by you two when you were stranded. It may have taken me six years to get through college, but I’m not dumb!”

  “You did all this just to get an invitation to a masquerade ball?”

  “Mad Queen Ludwig’s party is the hippest party in the galaxy. I’ve known guys who have thrown themselves off rooftops because they didn’t get an invitation. Of course, they were flying high on crystal at the time.”

  “That’s pathetic, Michael. I’ve never even heard of this party.”

  “That’s what makes it so fantastic, Robert! Very few people know about it ... just the chicest people in the world. They fly in from around the globe under great secrecy. The guest list is handpicked by Ludwig and voted on by a handful of his secret friends. It’s all very hush-hush.”

  “If it’s such a secret, then how do you know about it?” I asked.

  “I slept with this guy and he offered to get me in.”

  “It didn’t work, did it?”

  “Would I be standing here talking to you if it had?”

  “Probably not,” I admitted.

  “So, Robert, what are you wearing to the costume party tonight?”

  “You’ll see tonight. It’s a surprise.”

  I looked out of the window of Michael’s room and noticed a Mercedes sedan with dark windows pull through the open gates and nose its way into the front courtyard. A towering redhead bumped her head on the low doorway as she emerged, shouted a few expletives, struggled with several ragtag suitcases, then stood looking up at the façade of the house.

  “Monette’s here!” I practically screamed. I opened the window and shouted down to one of the most welcome faces I have ever seen. “Just a minute, Monette, I’ll be right down,” I yelled.

  “You gave up your roach-infested studio apartment in New York for this? Sometimes I just don’t understand you, Robert. Oh, and bring a cocktail. The flight was bumpy.”

  I ran down the stairs, leaving Michael behind. When I reached Monette, she threw her arms around me and lifted me clear in the air. It was the first time a lesbian had swept me off my feet.

  “My, my, my, you look great!” Monette said.

  “It’s only been a week, Monette.”

  “Yeah, but you wear marriage well. So how was your grand tour of Europe? See a lot?”

  “Actually, a lot of ceilings.”

  “The Sistine Chapel?”

  “No, but I did see God several times.”

  “Those ceilings! I see,” Monette said, finally getting what I was talking about. “You little rascal, you,” she said, waving a naughty finger at me. “How’s everything else? The count still treating you well?”

  “I don’t know. The only thing we’ve done is make love.”

  “Don’t complain about the sex, Robert. Droughts always follow floods. I know. My vagina is going to be known as the second great Dust Bowl.”

  “Thank you, Monette, for giving me too much information—especially to a gay man. And speaking about another man who is foreign to a vagina, Michael’s here.”

  “Michael? Here?”

  “That’s what I said. He stalked me to Monte Carlo, set me up, tricked us into freeing him from his rapacious mother, and now he’s upstairs unpacking a latex tank top, if my memory serves me correctly.”

  “He’s not wearing that to the ball tonight, is he?” Monette asked, fearful of the idea of walking into any place on earth with Michael “in costume.” You never knew what he might wear.

  “No, no, he’s going as a matador because he can display his ass and show some good box at the same time. It’s two, two-man lures in one. Speaking of costumes, did you bring yours?” I inquired.

  “It’s right here in this suitcase,” she said, patting a piece of baggage that looked like it had gone twenty-three rounds with Steve Austin at a World Wrestling Federation smack-down—and lost. Black friction tape was apparently the only thing holding it together.

  “So what’s the costume?” I asked, dying to know what Lynette had whipped up.

  “I don’t know. She wins award after award for costume design, so it’s gotta be something spectacular. She didn’t want me to open it until the last moment, but I guess I could sort of peek at it now,” she rationalized, but I cut her off.

  “Monette, I’ve got so much to show you, why don’t we do this costume thing later? I’m sure you’re famished, so why don’t we do lunch first? Then we can do a tour of the house and Siegfreid will be home by then. He’s off on some business this morning.”

  “Sounds good to me. As long as you don’t try and make me eat sauerkraut,” Monette added, noting one of two things in life that terrified her. The other was clowns—she had a mortal fear of them.

  “No problem. The count’s latest cook is strictly into nouvelle Italian cuisine. I think I’ve died and gone to heaven!”

  I showed Monette to her room and told her to take a few minutes to freshen up. To which she responded, “Freshen up? From what?”

  “I don’t know. Go do something ladylike,” I instructed her.

  We all met in the cavernous dining room, ate a delicious lunch, and finished off two bottles of a wonderful German wine.

  After lunch, I took Monette and Michael on a tour. Since the only rooms I knew well were the bedroom, bathroom, and the kitchen, most of what I saw was a complete surprise to me.

  And surprises there were. There was a small movie theater in the basement, an indoor pool, a cocktail bar with a trompe l’oeil mural designed to make you feel you were at a Parisian café, a mini bowling alley, and a shooting range complete with guns housed in locked cases.

  We nosed around, not quite sure whether we were snooping beyond the bounds of propriety, but we felt that if we came upon anything too risque or private, we could back out and pretend we hadn’t seen anything. Monette and I got in the spirit of things.

  “What’s behind this door?” Monette asked, trying the knob to a particularly scary-looking door with heavy locks. “I suppose this is where you keep the servants locked up.” The door was locked.

  “Probably a dungeon,” Michael finally spoke up.

  Since
Michael couldn’t remember whom he had slept with the previous day, history was not one of his strong suits. “Michael, this house was destroyed in the war. It isn’t from the 1600s.”

  “No, no, prude Robert. A sex room! A playroom! You know, there are people who get bored with vanilla sex. There’s nothing wrong with adding a little spanking to spice things up!”

  “I wouldn’t talk, Michael. You can brag all you want about your outlandish sex acts, but I know for a fact you have good old-fashioned vanilla sex from time to time.”

  “Yes, Robert, but even my vanilla is chocolate!” Michael responded, licking his lips naughtily. “Don’t act so innocent. You told me yourself you like to pinch your nipples and fantasize about gladiators sometimes,” Michael said, perhaps giving Monette a little too much information. The evil smile on her face said it definitely was the wrong kind of information to put into her hands.

  Monette opened another door and peered in. “Whoops!” she said. “Must be one of the servant’s rooms.”

  “No, it can’t be, Monette. Almost all of the servants work during the day and go home at night. Even the cook leaves by nine.”

  “Well it looks like someone left their belongings here. They must’ve left in a hurry, because there are some clothes and a lot of videotapes.”

  “The count fired the whole staff before he came to America. He says you can’t find good help, especially in Berlin. The servant must have had just enough time to grab a few things, a paycheck, and run.”

  “I know how Siegfreid feels,” Michael added. “I can’t keep a manservant. I fired my last one because I caught him smelling my shorts,” Michael said, as if this happened every day.

  “My God,” I exclaimed. “That’s repulsive!”

  “I know. I thought this guy was weird, but the one before him took the cake. He was having sex with red ants in my apartment.”

  Monette couldn’t let this one go by. “Red ants? Aren’t they kind of small ... and don’t they explode when you have an orgasm?”

  “He’d put a jar of red ants on his crotch and they’d bite him and he’d get off on it.”

  Monette and I stood there completely dumbfounded. I was going to ask where the manservant got red ants in New York City, but I figured that would lead into a discussion of a kinky underground supply system I didn’t want to know existed. Instead, I merely replied, “Michael, someday I’m going to have to hurt you really badly for telling me this. Now, where were we?”

  Monette spoke up. “I think we were poking our noses around the count’s house. Maybe we should poke around town instead,” she said, not without a little begging in her voice.

  “I have a better idea. Why don’t we take a spin in my new car?” I said, as Monette gave me a thumbs-up gesture.

  We drove around the city having the time of our lives. Or at least, Monette and I were enjoying ourselves, drinking in the history that seemed to be around every corner. Michael played the part of the Ugly American, claiming he didn’t see why they called it the Brandenburg Gate when there wasn’t any gate visible and was mystified that Berlin was ever divided into East and West. He did, however, pay plenty of attention to the men of Berlin. He ogled scores of men from the moving car, his head turning around more times than Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist.

  I had no way of knowing it then, but a priest would’ve come in handy later on that evening.

  10

  I’d Kill to Get into this Party

  When we got back to the palace, we found the count smoking a large cigar in the trophy room, which was replete with animal heads no doubt collected from hunts around the world. We decided since there wasn’t enough time before the ball, we would just sit around and listen to jazz, talk, and have cocktails.

  We had a light meal, then went to our rooms to begin dressing for a night that would live in infamy.

  A half hour later, there was a knock at the door. I opened it and was confronted with the most horrific thing I have ever seen since catching a glimpse of Liza Minelli after a week-long lasagna binge.

  Monette was standing at my door, drumming her fingers and sporting a just-wait-till-I-get-you-back-for-this look. She was dressed in a skintight outfit made from purple leather with yellow leather piping around the pockets. The waistcoat, which was cinched at the waist and flared out at the bottom, was complemented by matching tight pants that flared out into two-foot bellbottoms. The piece de résistance was modeled from one of those mushroom-puff hats that decorated such blaxploitation films such as Cleopatra Jones. Of course, Lynette had done her job fully and made a purple leather mask (with yellow flames shooting out from the eyes) in keeping with Ludwig’s request that each guest remain anonymous.

  For two whole minutes, I snorted and stifled laughs, trying not to let Monette on to the fact I had set her up with Lynette’s help back in New York, but the jig was definitely up.

  “Why, Monette!” I shrieked. “This must be the latest from the new designer—Osh—Kosh—B’Gosh!”

  “I deserved this for getting you at your bon voyage party in New York,” she said, her face smiling and admitting defeat. Temporarily. “I promise you, I will get you back for this. Do you think I’ll stand out in this?”

  “I think with your height and those five-inch multicolored matching wedgies, you couldn’t fail. I’d watch out for low doorways, though.”

  “You know I’m going in this outfit, Robert,” Monette said defiantly. “I can dish it out, but I want you to know that I can bend over and take it like a gay man.”

  “It’s good to see you being so mature about being defeated so resoundingly, Monette. Now, could you excuse me? Siegfreid and I have to get dressed in our fabulous outfits. We’ll meet you downstairs.”

  I closed the door and cackled like Bette Davis probably did the day she opened up The New York Times and saw Joan Crawford’s obituary. The only difference between me and the late Miss Davis was that I didn’t have time to open a bottle of champagne.

  A little background on Mad Queen Ludwig. It’s no joke. He really is a direct descendant of Mad King Ludwig, who erected Neuschwanstein, the famous and astutely located castle in Bavaria that still bears his name. I still don’t know why anyone could doubt the rumors about Louis II being gay. Only a gay man would find a spot that perfect to build on.

  Ludwig Buxtehude was raised in the lap of luxury, but instead of remaining reserved and keeping a low profile like most royalty, he began dressing in women’s clothes at a very early age. His parents turned a blind eye to Ludwig’s shenanigans at first, chalking up his behavior to the genetic madness that ensured that more than one cuckoo nested in the family tree. Over time, as his outfits became more and more elaborate, his parents felt that his outlandish behavior could no longer be ignored any more than you could an elephant in a living room.

  His parents tried to get him into the best all-girls school in Germany, which caused some speculation that the insanity in the family wasn’t just confined to Ludwig himself. Anyway, the effort failed and his parents did something even more foolish: they enrolled him in an all-boys academy in Stuttgart. Ludwig went boy-crazy and was expelled, leaving his mother and father with only one choice, to tutor him at home and keep his outrageous behavior out of the limelight. Their decision backfired and, like mold prospering in an airless environment, Ludwig grew out of control and became known far and wide as the biggest flamer in Germany.

  After his parents died and he had shoveled dirt onto the coffin of his last relative, Ludwig put the pedal to the metal and began living a stratospheric lifestyle that tore through a family fortune that took centuries of swindling to amass. But Ludwig didn’t care. Who would he leave it to, anyway? He also began throwing outrageous parties that allowed him to act out his whims and get praise for them at the same time, forming the basis for his famous masquerade ball. The rest is history.

  An hour after I had vanquished Monette, Siegfreid and I descended the stairs, he dressed as Marc Anthony and I as a gladiator. What could I say
? Siegfreid asked me what I wanted to go as, and I told him. My costume, which cost a fortune, was cleverly padded and gave me the appearance of being extremely muscular. The count burst into laughter when he saw Monette for the first time, apologized for laughing, then started up again. He was soon wiping tears from his eyes.

  Michael, a man dressed in a skintight matador costume, looked at mine and said, “Robert, the gladiator look is so last year!”

  “And what makes matadors so in?” I challenged Michael.

  “Great asses are always in, Robert!” Michael said as if he were quoting the pages of GQ. I could see the headline now: Asses In! Ancient Romans Out!

  We gathered ourselves up, went out into the courtyard, and stepped into a vintage convertible Cadillac limousine in shocking red which whisked us to Ludwig’s palace (and it was a palace) outside of Berlin. The driveway was full of the oddest assortment of numerous limousines, carriages, a humvee, and a tiny Mercedes ahead of us that was covered with thousands of tiny square mirrors, making it look like a drivable disco ball.

  As we left the limousine and climbed the stairs, the assortment of people was equally bizarre. Siegfreid said Ludwig’s party originally started out as a mere masked costume ball, with fabulous renditions of seventeenth-century dukes and duchesses as the norm. But as the quiet fame of the ball spread, guests began to outdo each other and the extravagances snowballed out of control. Before you knew it, guests were riding in on zebras and having motorized this and electrical that. Mad Queen Ludwig felt it was time to lay down some rules, not just because of the tremendous legal liability he was incurring, but—the real reason, Siegfreid explained—that there was only one queen at this party and that queen was Ludwig.

  As we passed by the impeccably dressed but deadly looking security guards at the top of the stairs and entered the palace ballroom, people began to look at Monette’s outfit and whisper among themselves until some were outright pointing at Monette. Being no stranger to raising eyebrows, my defeated lesbian sidekick kept her head held high. People didn’t know what to make of her attire. The ice was broken by an extremely stylish man who walked up to her and said with an accent of unfathomable origin, “My dear, wherever did you get zis outfit? It is zee most twisted and decadent apparel I have ever zeen!” he screamed, daring to run his hand over the purple monstrosity. “It’s fabulous!”