Lady Slings the Booze Read online

  “And sadists will all actually respect that? Every time?”

  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good bottom? Once you do, you don’t want to risk annoying them. Oh hell, of course it’s different with real sadists, outside in the world. The ones who aren’t playing, I mean. But you go to any S&M club in the world, and tell me if you’ve ever heard anyone as apologetic and sheepish as a top who’s just been given the First Word by a new bottom. Didn’t you ever see some rich person take guff from a servant?”

  “I guess.”

  “Once about five years ago a sicko managed to slip past Lady Sally somehow. Not interested in repeat trade. This happened to Brandi, not to me. The second time he ignored the First Word, Mary called Priscilla. During working hours, she’s never more than sixty seconds away from anywhere on the second floor. They said it was twenty-seven seconds from the call until Pris arrived. He was just ignoring the Second Word. Pris…well, let’s just say she broke something. But that was after she hit the quick-release knots and turned Brandi loose.”

  “What if they hadn’t been quick-release knots?”

  “She’d have been upstairs sooner—before the second one was tied.”

  “What happened to the guy?”

  “The Lady gave him a permanent invitation to the world. Had him tossed out on the sidewalk and barred for life. Nowadays I imagine he spends his nights in search of a woman with a right-angle bend.”

  I winced, and shifted my Lucky to the other side of my mouth as if smoke in my eye had caused the wince.

  “Sort of poetic justice, really. I mean, if penetration is possible at all for him, it must require extreme cooperation.”

  Time to change the subject. “So anyway, what you’re saying is, nothing happens to you here that you don’t enjoy?”

  He nodded. “That’s it. It just happens that I enjoy a slightly more exotic range of sensations than most people.”

  “I guess right there is what I don’t get. I mean, to me, pain hurts. And fear is scary.”

  “Me, too. If I stub my toe on the way into the Dungeon, I swear as loud as anybody—and I’m terrified when I walk through Times Square, say. But pain and fear are slippery things to define, Ken. So is enjoyment. Have you ever been on a roller coaster?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you ‘enjoy’ it?”

  I took a drag, and didn’t answer right away.

  “Ever get pinched during sex, harder than you’d tolerate from a chiropractor, and like it?”

  “Well—”

  “Or have you ever been in danger, been under fire or something, and realized part of you was enjoying it?”

  Oof. He was getting close to where I lived, now. That was half the fun of being a PI: those occasional adrenalin-charged moments on the edge, dancing with Death…living fully and totally, at the edge of the void. I remembered the faint sense of disappointment I’d felt, just for a split second, when I’d realized that it was a water pistol Henry was packing, the brief feeling of having been cheated.

  “I guess,” I said slowly. “I guess I just never thought of combining that with sex.”

  “Neither do most folks. Lady Sally has over forty artists on staff at the moment—and two of us are submissives, and two dominant.”

  “Wait a second—what about that Robin guy?”

  “Oh, Robin’s not an artist! He’s a client. Probably the most devoted customer Lady Sally has.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I’m not exclusively submissive either…because there just isn’t enough demand to keep me busy full-time at it. One thing you’ll find out here is that pretty much nobody is anything exclusively. Even Cynthia and Henry have clients who just want to go into a Studio with them; the flavor is enough for them.”

  “But Cynthia and Henry never go submissive.”

  “Well, back when they were training, sure: you can’t be a really good top if you’ve never been a bottom. But they don’t take that role any more these days, no. I guess it’s like me with my power hangup: one day they’ll relax a little too, maybe, but in the meantime there are people that need them, and vice versa. Their business.”

  I nodded. “I just want to get this straight. You submit to, uh, male and female clients, both? And Brandi too?”

  “Right, and Cyn and Henry switch-hit too. No pun intended. I’d say a little more than half of the male artists are bisexual at least occasionally—and about ninety percent of the women. But Lady Sally has nothing against monosexuals. She says the only real perversions are nymphomania, satyriasis and celibacy, and she even tolerates them in the House.”

  “Don’t you artists worry a lot about AIDS? And other VD?”

  “Sure. But most of what happens here is safe sex. And every client has to leave a blood sample with Doctor Kate, before their first visit and once a month thereafter—once a week if they’re into risky practices. On the rare sad occasions when someone tests positive, we restrict them to safe-sex only…and if it’s AIDS, we send them to Ruth. She’s good at counselling the dying. So far we’ve never had an artist infected with anything worse than crabs.”

  I began to feel somewhat easier in my mind about this whole thing. If you’d have told me an hour before that I’d ever find myself a little sheepish about being straight…“Is it all right if I ask, Tim: how did you get to the place where you found you didn’t mind a little pain?”

  He smiled gently. “I don’t think I know you well enough to tell that story, Ken. Yet I rarely tell it voluntarily. People usually have to make me…”

  Oh. “Oh. Well, maybe another time, then.” I thought to myself that if I had my druthers, I’d ruther ask Brandi the same question. But I had to admit I was intellectually curious. A little, anyway…

  “Right, I’m supposed to be showing you around. But I’ll give you a quick, short answer for now: one day I figured out it is absolutely impossible to rape someone who refuses to withhold consent.”

  I was going to have to think about that one.

  “All right, enough of the second floor,” he went on. “Time for you to see the Parlor.”

  True enough. I’d been in a bordello for something approaching an hour, and with the exception of a flash glimpse of the Cardinal’s Companion (most of her obscured by his robes), all the women I’d seen so far had been fully dressed. Surely things would be different at an orgy. “Sounds good to me. Uh…is there any easy way I can tell the, uh, clients from the artists?”

  He looked surprised, and gave it some thought. “I don’t see how. But it won’t matter. If you see someone you want, just ask politely if they’d like to go upstairs with you. Since no money changes hands, it doesn’t make much difference if you guess wrong.”

  I still had a little capacity for surprise left. “The Lady doesn’t mind if a couple of artists goof off together?”

  “Ken, as far as I can tell, Lady Sally doesn’t mind anything human beings can do that doesn’t involve former food or former people. If two artists started spending a lot of time together during working hours, she might talk to them long enough to make sure they realize they’re falling in love; maybe suggest they consider working a double act. But an isolated incident or two she’d chalk off to employee morale, as long as there weren’t customers being ignored. She’s easy to work for—if you be straight with her.”

  “I’m beginning to get that through my head,” I agreed. I stubbed out my cigarette. “Okay, on to the Parlor.”

  As we went back outside, I saw two people in the hall. The one I saw first, facing me, was why the preacher danced.

  She was blonde, five-six, maybe one-forty. She was wearing slippers. A real blonde, or a thorough fake. Now this was more like what I’d been expecting when I started. I controlled my face and walked forward…

  Within a few steps I had registered her companion: an American Indian, with long straight hair in an embroidered headband, and a profile like you used to see on nickels. He was replacing one of the little red peanut bulbs next to
a door. As I approached, the blonde handed him the new bulb. It was an interesting thing to watch.

  “Greetings, Many Hands,” Tim said, and the Indian nodded gravely. “Hi, Arethusa. I want you guys to meet Ken Taggart. He might be coming to work here.”

  The Indian nodded again…and Arethusa came into my arms and kissed me.

  I don’t know how long it lasted. I remember thinking that she wasn’t completely naked after all: in addition to the slippers, she was wearing a mild, pleasant perfume. I remember thinking that her double-breasted suit beat mine all to hell. And there was a time when I wasn’t thinking anything at all.

  She stepped back finally and smiled. “You’re certainly equipped for it,” she said positively. “Welcome aboard, Ken: I hope you decide to stay. Time we had some fresh…uh…blood around here.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “You make it attractive.” She dimpled nicely.

  “We’re just on our way to the Parlor,” Tim explained.

  “Well, if that doesn’t do it, nothing will,” she agreed. “Maybe I’ll see you later, Ken.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me,” I said. Tim collected a kiss of his own, shorter than mine but just as intense, then turned her loose and led the way onward. She didn’t move aside as I brushed past.

  We turned the corner and headed for the big spiral staircase. “What did you say her name was?” I whispered to Tim. “I didn’t catch it.”

  “Arethusa,” he said, and spelled it for me. “It may be the loveliest name I’ve ever heard for a blonde artist. It was the name of a nymph in classic antiquity. Now it means an orchid, Arethusa Bulbosa—which you have to admit is a pretty accurate description—and the books say that orchid is characterized by a ‘solitary rose-purple flower fringed with yellow.’ Is that great or what?”

  I had to grin. “You’re right. That’s the best—” The penny dropped, and I stopped in my tracks at the top of the staircase. “Hey!”

  “What?” Tim asked innocently.

  I sighed. “All right. God damn it. I get it. What’s the Indian’s real name?”

  Many Hands make light work. Right…

  I guess it was sort of the equivalent of the berry juice thing, but the employees’ version. And again I had passed. He grinned wickedly, and slapped me on the back. “You’ll do just fine here, Ken. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention. Believe it or not, his real name is He Wears Funny Hats. ‘Hats’ for short.”

  “People make puns around here, huh?” I guess even Paradise has to have flaws.

  “If you’re thinking of working here, it’s only fair to warn you,” he admitted. “The Lady has a sign downstairs saying, ‘No phanerogams in the Parlor, please,’ for instance.”

  “That one I don’t get. What kind of gams?”

  “No, no. It’s another scientific term. Means, ‘one with visible reproductive organs.’ And if you ever want to tickle the Lady, tell her she’s ‘spathic.’ It’s a geologist’s term for rocks; it means, ‘having good cleavage.’ As you can see working here isn’t always easy.”

  “Well, you picked a good time to tell me. That was nice perfume Arethusa had on.” I don’t know, the segue made sense to me.

  “That perfume,” he said, grinning archly, “she always has on.”

  “Seriously, I just realized: I’ve smelled perfume a few times so far…and it just came to me, it’s always the same one.”

  “Oh sure,” he said. “We all vote on the house perfume once a week. You have to: you wouldn’t believe the cacophony of smells you’d get out here in the hallway otherwise.”

  I was slowly getting it through my head that there were subtleties to this artist business that I had never considered. I thought all you needed was an adequate supply of clean sheets.

  “Let’s go downstairs,” I said.

  4. Run, Dick, Run…

  Medio de fonte leporum

  Surgit amari liquid quod in ipsid floribus angat.

  —LUCRETIUS, translated by Byron as

  Still from the fount of Joy’s delicious springs

  Some bitter o’er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.

  THAT gag about “phanerogams” had warned me not to expect skin in the Parlor. So there was nothing at all about it that disappointed me.

  Think of the very best party you were ever at. Now imagine one fifty percent better. You would leave that party early to come to the Parlor.

  If you were ever lucky enough to have the opportunity.

  Maybe it wasn’t really Hoagy Carmichael himself playing “Huggin’ and A-Chalkin’” on the piano in the corner. It could have been an old guy who looked just like him. Have you met a lot of guys who look just like Hoagy Carmichael, though? If he’d sung something instead of just playing while others sang, I could have told for sure, but he never did. The knot of people around the piano didn’t seem to treat him like a celebrity. They just sang along, joyfully.

  On that night in history, perhaps I should add, Mr. Carmichael had been dead for three years. According to public record, anyway…

  All right, I guess I should describe the room first. It was merely impressive, mostly.

  To start with, that big iron spiral staircase was so magnificent I wouldn’t be surprised if Bette Davis dropped by once in a while just to descend it. The Parlor it led down to was enormous, one of the biggest rooms I ever saw in New York. I don’t know the words for the kind of paneling and carpet and the decor and that, but it looked like the kind of place where Senators would gather for a quiet one after a hard day. Class all the way. It had a high ceiling and a terrific ventilation system. There were two bars, along the north wall, separated by three doorways, labeled, “Private,” “Bower,” and “Staff.” Each bar looked well stocked and was doing brisk business. I did see the phanerogam sign Tim had mentioned, on the south wall. There were pictures on the walls here and there, but there wasn’t one of them you couldn’t have given your maiden aunt for a present. All around the acres of hardwood floor were rugs and little islands of comfortable upholstered furniture arranged to allow small conversational groups to form. There was a big crackling fireplace in the west wall, big enough to turn an ox on a spit, burning logs the size of depth charges. In either corner of the south wall were a pair of washrooms, marked with the symbols for male and female, and in the center of that wall was a door that must have led to a reception area and coat check just inside the south entrance. The only thing you could call really surprising about the physical layout was a subtle one: for the life of me I could not locate the source of the bright lighting.

  That was the place. The party that was taking place in it started out surprising and got more so.

  At first I took in groups. About ten by the piano, half a dozen by the fireplace, another dozen or so at the bars, maybe another couple of dozen scattered here and there around the room. I did not see anyone who didn’t look happy. It seemed to be an unusually international crowd: I saw members of just about every human race, color or nationality, and heard snatches of conversation in several languages, although English predominated. Nothing too surprising yet; but as I began to resolve individuals out of the crowd, my eyes got bigger and my jaw started to get heavier and heavier. I guess you could say the surprises built to damn near a climax. Here is what I saw, pretty much in the order I saw it in:

  —three U.S. Marines in full uniform minus swords or sidearms, standing at ease and listening with respectful attention to a bag lady. She was leaning on a supermarket cart and pointing to something inside it that seemed to please her a lot.

  —a priest chatting with a statuesque Chinese girl in a slit-thigh gown with startling decoll…decko…hell her tits were showing; as I noticed them (the priest and the brunette, I mean), she said something that cracked him up. They seemed to be playing chess, but they were using cookies of assorted shapes as markers, and seemed to have eaten all the captured pieces.

  —a big guy with three days’ growth of beard, dressed like a biker, arm-wrestling at one o
f the bars with a stockbroker type in grey cashmere; each had a uniformed cop cheering him on, and the stockbroker was winning. I noticed his watch: it looked like the big old vest pocket stem-winder kind, but strapped to his wrist somehow.

  —an Arab, with one of those headdresses and everything, arm in arm with a Hasidic Jew, both laughing like hell and doing an absurd dance for a female midget dressed from neck to toes in black leather.

  —a small group surrounding a man and a woman, sitting as far as they could get from the fireplace and piano. As I watched, the man took a deep drag on a cigar, paused, and blew smoke carefully. The smoke took on the shape of Alice in Wonderland. Authentic, just like in the cartoon, only pale grey. She shimmered there in the air—the terrific ventilation system didn’t seem to be working in that part of the room—seemed to put something in her mouth, and then gradually she shrank. People clapped softly, and the guy inclined his head modestly. The girl sitting next to him took a drag on her own cigar, and blew a Cheshire cat. As it rose up past Alice, it lifted one leg and broadened its smile. It faded until only the smile was left, and then that dissipated too. There was louder applause, particularly from a group of Japanese onlookers, and the guy saluted her; being topped didn’t seem to bother him.

  —some old white-haired guy and his redheaded wife in full formal evening wear, ice-skating around the Parlor in each other’s arms. Very well, too. Well, she was terrific; he did okay but his spine was just a little too stiff. He looked like a retired admiral. I couldn’t get a good look at their skates, but they didn’t leave any tracks in the polished floor; there must have been little recessed wheels or ball bearings along the bottom of those blades or something. People wandered through their dance without disturbing it. As they came by me I saw the old boy was grinning wolfishly, tears leaking from his tired old eyes. I thought I heard him saying something about “the Sprite that the Ice Gods choose,” but neither of them was drinking anything.