Laura Meets Jeffrey (21 page)

“Getting in the ring with Ryan O'Neal became not only the focus of each Saturday but the point to what some of us had been half looking to do for years, that is, get extended a little in the ring. Ryan could be mean as cat piss. Even when he was carrying a man, he would punish him, and when he had dislikes, he liked to take them out on the opponent. In spite of every love affair in his private life, public fodder for more than a decade to the gossip columns, Ryan had his dry spot—the Puritanism of the Irish. He took a secret dislike to the bearded editor of the porny magazine.

“The editor was awkward in the ring, so it was not hard to play tricks on him. He had surprising stamina, however. Until Ryan came along, the pornographer had, in fact, the most notable stamina of any of us. Maybe Ryan equated that ability to sexual prowess and disapproved of its presence in so unworthy a vessel, maybe he just disliked hirsute New York lumpen intelligentsia, but in any case, he all but disemboweled the man, throwing a cruel left hook until the editor collapsed, still conscious, in the middle of the second round, wholly unable to go on. What made it worse was that the pornographer's ladylove, a good-looking girl who worked in a massage parlor, was witnessing it all at ringside.

“I happened to be next in the ring with Ryan, which proved to be my good luck. After every discharge of mean feelings, Ryan would turn angelic. A little ashamed, I expect, of what he had just done to the pornographer, he was not now boxing like a movie star—he certainly did not protect his face. Since the man he had hurt happened to be a sweet guy, extraordinarily optimistic about life (which is probably how he had gotten into pornography in the first place), I liked the editor. When I saw him take this beating, I recognized that I saw him as a friend. If this seems something of a digression, let me say that it helps to carry the auctorial voice around the embarrassment of declaring that I boxed better on that day than I ever did before, or since. I was in a rare mean mood myself, mean enough not to be afraid of Ryan, and—it is very hard to do any kind of good boxing against a superior without some premise to carry you—I was feeling like an avenger. And here was Ryan boxing with his face. It was hard not to hit him straight rights, and he reacted with all the happiness of seeing a beloved senior relative get up from a sickbed. In our first clinch, he whispered,
‘
You punch sharper than anyone here.
'

“‘Go fuck yourself,' I told him.”

I fought Ryan several times after that, but always with more defenses, more respect. I haven't seen him in years but every time I see Ryan in a movie and he's in a fight scene, even if he's the good guy, I always root for the guy hitting him.

29

Sex slavery at Club O

March 1981

One Thursday night in early March 1981, Laura suggests we visit another S&M club that one of her tricks told her about. She says it sounds less hard core and much more heterosexual than the Hellfire Club. I'm game. I'm a bit tired but I never want to disappoint Laura. Also I like to think of Laura and me as more M&S, Master and Slave, than S&M, Sadist and Masochist and this place sounds more M&S.

I want to see what similarly bent couples are up to. I want to watch, probably participate a little, and then take Laura home and no doubt fuck the piss out of her while we replay the adventure. She suggests sarcastically, but with a smile, that if I am too tired, the least I could do, for the sake of our relationship, is watch another man whip her. We both do too many lines of coke and leave.

It is a little after midnight when we arrive at Club O. Laura is wearing her all black “fuck me” ensemble that sometimes greets me as I open our apartment door: very high heels, black seamed stockings held up by garters on her tight lace Teddy with built-in push-up bra, a thong that rides high on her hips barely covering her wispy pubic hair and totally exposing her delicious backside, elbow-length fine lace fingerless gloves (that look great playing with my dick, or I'm sure anybody's dick), and gold slave bands that wrap around her upper arm like a snake. Around her neck she wears a studded black leather slave collar I recently gave her. As we walk out the door she hands me a chain dog leash I never saw on Necort.

I, in homage to the scene, wear black jeans and a black shirt.

It is a chilly autumn night and in the cab Laura hides underneath her warm full-length lavender down coat. She wears her makeup in the severest manner I've ever seen on her and has wild teased hair. She is glamorous, totally divorced from her inner hippie. I can't tell what is going on in her head but she is ready.

We enter a ratty elevator in an unremarkable West-twenties commercial loft building. Laura pleads with me not to look at her saying, “Fluorescent elevator lighting is the last thing you want to be seen in tarted up like a slut on the way to a sex club.”

“Imagine how disgusting people will look on the way down after a few hours of sweat and runny makeup,” I add.

We go up to the eighth floor and the elevator door opens. A huge, fat, leather-and-chain-clad black bouncer as large as any NFL offensive tackle welcomes us and guides us to an unmarked door. Laura reaches into my coat pocket, takes out the leash, puts the leather handle in my hand and snaps the spring-loaded hook to the link on the front of her collar.

Our eyes adjust to dimmer lighting as we check our coats and I pay our $25 per couple fee to a large dyke, only one notch smaller than the offensive tackle, wearing denim and dozens and dozens of keys and key chains. There is an absurd amount of clattering. She smiles at Laura, keys clinking, jangling and rattling with every move. She gives me a stern glare, the same scary scowl I've seen from boxing opponents just before the bell of the first round rings.

Laura walks in front of me, anxious to see what there is to see. She strains at the leash, and I growl comically at her to “heel” which she immediately obeys. We walk past an empty dance floor surrounded by medieval-looking racks and torture equipment, some of it in use. As we enter the bar area the room freezes, all eyes on Laura. At me they squint quizzically, trying to figure out why or how I'm with this exquisite female.

Most of the people in the bar are half-dressed or completely undressed submissive men wearing chains, ropes, nipple clamps, and jockey shorts. Some are nerdy wimps but many are in great physical shape, with well-groomed hair and polished nails. These must be the doctors, judges, and Captains of Industry who I'd heard are the big spenders, the meat and potatoes of the commercial humiliation biz.

Some are arranged in small herds of five or six male slaves, each little group milling around one or two mostly fattish dominant females who bulge out of ridiculous dancing-hippo-in-a-skimpy-tutu costumes, exposing lumpy parts of themselves.

There are a few moderately unattractive and/or bruised submissive women in a variety of cheap lingerie, each too fat or too thin, paired randomly as to weight and size with men who also are too fat or too thin.

The dominant men wear black leather or denim for their role of master, complete with studded belt and wristband. A few dominant men appear to be slaveless. Freelancers out looking for someone to hurt? There also are some straight looking single guys in civilian clothes and a few tourist couples with the unmistakable air of Queens or New Jersey.

With her very high heels, teased hair and mildly muscular, well-proportioned leanness Laura appears about six feet tall. She is, as usual, the hottest looking, the most valuable woman in the room, she is the rare unicorn sighting. I lead her around. We whisper, trading observations, munching nuances like peanuts.

She wonders why all the submissive women look so flabby, even the thin ones; so pale, depressed, unhealthy, and unathletic. She is not like the other female slaves. Laura's slave side is a deviant addition, a cathartic sideshow to her day-in, day-out happy optimism. Her physical prowess, beauty, brightness, and energy put her in a different class from females I see here. For them, this evening is merely an extension of their negative self-image. They don't have another side; this is their only persona.

Laura is one of life's winners even when she is being tied up and whipped. Her demeanor is similar to the better-groomed slave men, strong and successful in the world, who are exploring their submissive “flip side.” Beyond that one thought there is no further analysis. I do not think about what she's working out and neither does she. And I have no idea what I'm working out. I don't even consider that there is anything to work out. During sex she is my slave; in all other facets of our life we are in the ballpark of equality.

But as sure as she is knee deep into this bizarre sex trip, I am in just as deep. We are sharing the essence of existence: no precedence, no plan, no plan “B.” We are a second cousin of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: You can do something or analyze it but not both.

People are magnetically drawn toward us. Two submissive men are already on their knees bowing down in front of Laura. One of them touches her foot and, out of character but adaptive to the moment, she spits on him. He thanks her profusely as I gently kick him out of our path.

Harnessing our power, I lead Laura around on a tour of the premises after warning our entourage that they dare not touch her. I walk out onto the empty dance floor and observe the surrounding walls. Bodies, some male, some female, are tied to racks, chained to the wall, or on their knees sucking various cocks, anuses, pussies, and toes. The slight smell of disinfectant is broken occasionally by stale beer, sweat, urine, the musk of sex play, the pheromones of perverts and a variety of perfumes and aftershaves. A corridor leads off to rooms of different sizes—some small as closets, others as large as an average bedroom, some with their doors closed, some empty, some with doors open and filled with twos and threes and fours in the middle of their pain games.

The audio track is a boring mega-mix of unceasingly repetitive 120-beat-a-minute disco with the same too-loud kick drum that seems to follow me nearly everywhere in 1980. This is combined with the deranged libretto of people talking, whispering, begging, crying, ordering and shouting, layered with a special-effects
L'Opera de Pervo
—whip cracks, slaps, yelps, clanking chains, slamming doors.

Our fans follow our every move—mumbling extras in the walking crowd scene. Out to greet us from one of the smallish rooms steps a rather attractive sturdy blonde middle-aged woman with deep set dark blue-grey eyes of great intelligence and determination. She is wearing an amazingly normal print dress and holding a riding crop in her hand. With false regality but excellent posture she inquires, “And what do we have here?”

“We have my slave girl, Countess Zero, Grand Slut Of the Galaxy,” I ad lib. I see behind her a slight girl hanging on the wall. “And who are you and what name does the girl go by?”

“She's so insignificant that she has no name,” the woman with the riding crop tells me, “I am Mistress Eleanor. And yours?”

“Call me Sir Guy, Mistress Eleanor.” The fans “Oooh” and “Ahh” on cue. This existential theater's Act One has finally begun.

“Why don't you get rid of the riff raff,” she suggests, “and come inside and maybe we can come to an understanding.”

Laura smiles her approval and I tell the crowd to get lost. We walk inside a pantry-size room carpeted with thin wrestling mats. We shut the door behind us and the crowd sighs in disappointment.

Handcuffed to the wall, facing us and completely naked, is a small, skinny, barely legal, badly bleached frizzy blonde with large breasts, which if I am lucky will be as firm as they look. She has dead-looking eyes with bags underneath, mousy brown pubic hair, not a lot, and her thighs are thin and decorated with fresh red crop marks. Even in dim light I can see her body is covered with red welts, teeth impressions, and fading black and blue bruises. The handcuffs are high and her arms stretch above her head. She stands on her tippy toes, like she is having a dance lesson with a Nazi ballet instructor. Her face isn't that pretty but she is fucky looking; hard, used and skanky. Just the kind of slut I fancy as a counterpoint to Laura.

“What games does The Countess play?” asks Eleanor. “Does she crave submitting to a woman?”

“Countess Zero does whatever I desire,” I boast, “and, no, I have never loaned her to a woman. What do you wish to do to her?” I certainly don't want her to be abused in the manner of the girl with no name. I check Laura again who continues to beam an A-OK.

Eleanor, about half a foot shorter than Laura looks up into her eyes as she describes her wish list. “I want to make her cry, to hear her beg for me to stop. Then I want her to eat me until I've come in her mouth.” Laura flinches demurely and lowers her eyes; on purpose I think.

“The Countess won't cry and only ever begs for more. You must be used to inferior, weaker slaves. Besides, The Countess is my woman and I don't want you to scar or damage her. I'll let you hit her with your riding crop five times and only on the ass, and then she will suck your pussy. And I get to fuck the girl with no name.”

“No, please, not with a man!” the girl with no name interrupts.

“Shut up, bitch,” bellows the Mistress, “you'll do what I say with whomever I say. Right?” She demands, “Right? Right?”

Now there's rousing verbal foreplay! I actually find a girl who would rather be poked in the eye with a sharp stick than fuck me. I'm thinking this might be a bad scene; the Mistress hits the girl across the face open handed so hard it scares me. Some play this game more earnestly than others. Laura lets out a gasp and looks at me with real fright in her eyes. I note Eleanor's use of “whomever,” instead of the more common and incorrect “whoever.”

Am I dealing with a perverted lesbian English teacher?

“Yes, Mistress Eleanor, whatever you say.” The girl with no name is really crying, which turns me off. As much as I could have enjoyed fucking her I don't fancy having sex with someone who doesn't want me or isn't being paid to want me. It is the same reason I never have a rape fantasy. I might be fucked up, but I want to be loved and adored.

“Hey, I think that we are on a different plane than you two and it's time for us to leave.” I tighten Laura's leash and make a move to open the door.

“Wait,” Eleanor pleads, “Sylvia,” she says giving the girl a name, “tell Sir Guy that you are sorry and that you'll be happy to service him whatever way he wants. Tell him, honey. I want you to do this for me. I want you to let me play with Countess Zero. Tell him the truth. Tell him how you've been fantasizing about getting fucked by a man. C'mon, honey, tell the truth.”

“I'll fuck the man for you, Mistress Eleanor; I'll do whatever you want.”

This is too fuckin' weird for me in a club full of weird. I'm about to exit when Mistress Eleanor tells me that Sylvia only likes to fuck men when she is forced to do it, and then she really gets into it and that it will be worth my while if I just, “bear with them for a moment.”

She offers that I can fuck and beat Sylvia even if I won't let her use Laura, that I am a man of obvious great power and that she would be honored to have me use her slave girl. I don't know if this is patronizing psychotic drivel, but I'm interested in their bizarre story so I ask Mistress Eleanor to tell me about their relationship.

“We are bisexual but mostly lesbian,” she tells me, “I guess you could say. We've been lovers for three years since Sylvia's seventeenth birthday party. I used to be her mother's best friend (long pause) but not anymore. We're happy living together. We get a kick out of doing things in public, especially at this club. Sylvia is totally devoted to me and likes to take a lot of pain. We both have desires occasionally to fuck a cock.”

Laura whispers in my ear, “I want to watch you fuck the lesbian. And I want this woman to whip me. Permit her ten lashes.”

“You can have ten lashes. Is it a deal?”

Mistress Eleanor jumps in, “A deal, Sir Guy, but one thing at a time. First, I want to see you whip Sylvia and fuck her.”