Then I knelt and whispered in his ear: “You might be able to get to your feet and waddle around like an asshole. But then my friend keeping watch back here would have to shoot you.”
His eyes, which had bulged with indignation as he craned back at me, turned wary—probably as close to fear as this apparent ex-Marine could feel—and his muttering beneath the duck-tape gag ceased.
“You just stay put, catch a little nap. You’re going to have a scar on your face that the ladies will just love.”
I would have left it at that, but the wariness of those eyes turned a nasty shade of cold, so I had to kick him in the head. It wouldn’t kill him, I didn’t think. But it did guarantee that nap I’d suggested.
I went up half a dozen cement steps onto a stoop, then in the unlocked back door into a good-size white ’30s-modern kitchen—the only light on was over the sink. Despite the party underway, this was a kitchen empty of food or any preparation thereof, with the exception of an impressive array of liquor bottles on a counter—back-up supplies, perhaps, for various wet bars around the facilities.
Though I shut the door as silently as I could, another military-trained bouncer type came in from a hallway and asked, “May I help you, sir?”
“Just getting some air.” I gave him a shaggy grin. “You need to see my invitation, I bet.”
I left him in the otherwise empty pantry.
The downstairs and its many rooms of various sizes was vacant—no furniture, no people, a light on in the hall and on the stairs, but nowhere else. I moved through like a ghost haunting the dark, musty house, which wasn’t rundown but really could stand renovation. Like the high ceilings with their vintage light fixtures, the walls were cracked here and there, with occasional nails and faded patches indicating where pictures had once hung, and the dark woodwork had seen better days. The floors were parquet and I was glad my shoes had rubber soles.
I took this tour uninterrupted—the guy who’d met me in the kitchen must have been working the front door, or perhaps somebody was standing outside, checking invitations. I didn’t see the percentage in going out there. Funny, though, for the first floor of this big, grand, if out-of-date house to be such a hollow deserted shell, while the muffled yet distinct soundtrack of jazz bleeding down from upstairs told a different story...
...pulsing, discordant minor key music, unfamiliar to me, heavy on the sax and strip-club percussion, night music with a jungle beat and savage edge.
Just within the front door was a wide stairway that went up to a landing and took a left. I went up and on the landing almost ran into a plump barefoot near-naked bald man coming down. A nationally prominent Miami financier, he was wearing a diaper and a pink baby bonnet.
He nodded at me, said, “Nature calls,” and went on his way.
This meant two things to me.
First, they served a variety of fetishes at this hullabaloo.
Second, since the baby man was unaccompanied, the downstairs (despite the lack of activity) was not off limits—the guests were free to come down to use the john. Fine. That indicated that—as long as I was perceived as just another guest—I wouldn’t get much if any hassle upstairs....
Indeed I didn’t. More security guys with guns under their dark suit coats were stationed in the hallway, off of which were half a dozen closed doors, behind which God knew what was transpiring. I counted four watchdogs, three that seemed to be maintaining their posts, and one who was strolling, just generally keeping an eye on things.
The latter stopped me, when I was about to head down the hallway to the right.
“Help you, sir?”
As it was, I knew right where I was going, thanks to the floor plan Muddy Harris had sold me. Plus, the muffled jungle jazz seemed to emanate from that direction, louder up here.
“Ballroom,” I said, nodding in the direction I’d been heading.
I assumed the ballroom would be a more general entertainment area than the sealed-off bedrooms represented.
Right then, a guy exited one of the latter in a black leather vest and matching leather shorts and shiny-chained ankles that made him hop. He had a red ball gag in his mouth, like he was biting Bozo’s nose, his hands cuffed behind him. A Latin gal in a redheaded wig and a black leather bikini with sheer black tights and very high heels was walking him along by a chain leash. They headed downstairs. I assumed, once there, she would thoughtfully help him use the head. He was, by the way, a nationally syndicated political columnist.
The watchdog said to me, “Ballroom? Double doors at the end of the hall.”
I’d known that, but said, “Thanks, buddy.”
I pushed through the double doors.
The music was almost deafening now, not a live combo, just jazz piped in via strategically positioned loudspeakers, a sax wailing above machine-gunning bongos while a thumping bass made rough love to itself. The combination of bright light and no light made my eyes go blurry for a while, but trying to focus on the spectacle before me would have been a challenge anyway. Cigar and cigarette smoke drifted like fog, and I had an idea maybe one of those dry-ice fog machines was adding to the weird, hazy atmosphere.
Here, bathed in red light, a bouffant blonde in a black corset and black stockings and garters and high heels was tying a redhead in a sheer green negligee to a tall sawhorse, the redhead’s ankles spread and bound by cord to the rough wooden legs, wrists bound to the wood as well, body encased by an elaborately constricting leather harness with a padlock dangling at the crotch, her eyes wild, screaming silently behind a knotted gag.
What this ballroom had been in its day I had no idea, but right now it resembled nothing so much as a television studio, minus the cameramen. The walls were draped in black, and a lighting grid above sent its various beams crisscrossing through the big room to take aim at four platforms, one in each corner, where bondage tableaus were being staged.
There, drenched in blue lighting, a black-haired doll with Bettie Page bangs in a black bra and black latex toreador pants was tying a curly-headed brunette wearing sheer black bikini underthings to a prone metal tubular contraption that looked like a bizarre chiropractic table, the victim’s eyes crazed above a red ball-gag, waist roped, wrists roped, ankles roped, to keep her legs wide spread.
These living pageants of pain were being performed for men who either sat in comfortable leather chairs arranged as front-row seating or simply stood for a while and moved on to the next living display, like Stations of the Cross. There was no laughter, no yelling, no taunting or encouragement for the women performing, instead an almost church-like hushed awe came off the glazed, sometimes trembling spectators, prisoners of their obsessions, or perhaps wretched souls merely pummeled into silence by the bongo-driven, sax-screaming jazz.
Across the way, in a flickering strobe, two shapely young women in bra and panties and nylons with garters—one with French maid touches and both with the kind of spike heels that could put an eye out—were wrestling, each holding the other down, then wriggling free, and trading places in taking a prisoner.
These stages were perhaps three feet off the parquet dance floor, straddling the room’s corners, the spotlights perfectly positioned, as no one was up there working them. This was a rehearsed show, well-practiced routines choreographed by a latter-day Marquis de Sade.
Opposite, in a green glow, an elaborate wooden rack with pulleys and ropes with straps held a saucer-eyed Asian beauty by the wide-spread wrists, while her face silently screamed with yet another ball-gag held in place by a head-hugging gizmo that might have come from a demented dentist, ankles held by other straps connecting to the elaborate rope set-up, and she wore nothing but black nylons and high heels, otherwise stark naked, while a German-looking pigtailed beauty in a black bra and panties and sheer black stockings and matching heels methodically went around pulling on and tightening the ropes.