“The
man is old school,” Marquis says to me, low, with genuflective
admiration. “What you behold as we speak, my dear, is a
classic caning.” Marquis is a tall, well-built ram of a
man with a tattooed face in a spiked leather skullcap. He drops
his voice to make a point.
“That
gentleman is one of the best.”
We
are watching a balding Scotsman wield a boarding school classic
o’er the knolls of Adriana’s outsized ass. He performs,
stone faced, a bevy of peppery taps. The ‘love of his life,’
a transvest
ite, watches and nods. Adriana’s upper body is
not in evidence. She’s jackknifed over a thick, studded
piece of black equipment, one of several in the room. It is three
a.m.
This
‘chamber’ is the most intime at the Fleurs De Mal,
barring the tomb thing underground. The Fleurs is a private S/M
Dungeon, dark, sinuous, with many rooms. Most are huge, dank and
flashy, but this is Dave’s favorite. Dave is my friend,
and it’s show time.
He
yanks Keiko’s leash towards a ten-foot vinyl X and chains
her, face in, limbs akimbo. Keiko is Dave’s slave. She is
at least 4’9”, Japanese and south of skinny. Her thumbtack
breasts gawk at the bra pads of her bustier. She wears a Mardi
Gras mask with Caucasian eyes, to striking effect.
“Man,
I love this girl,” he says, “She can really take a
beating.”
Dave
is a 66-year-old film producer. Keiko is a nurse. Dave trusts
her, so she’s allowed to let herself out of his basement
cage when its time to go to work.
He
pops a Stan Kenton CD into a boom box and scans his Swiss kidskin
“tool kit.” Three black suede tiers coddle the crème
of torture equipment. One paddle is antique, museum quality, a
hand across time to Dave’s brethren of yore. He selects
it for this ‘scene’ in my honor. The music swells
as Dave whacks Keiko’s bony can like it’s an asteroid
threatening earth. He beats to the beat, with dazzling hand-eye
coordination.
“I
was a jazz drummer,” he notes.
Keiko’s
skin is welting damson. She is beatific. “I love you,”
she croaks in Japanese when he breaks to lick her feet. Polite,
he licks mine too even though they’re far too big for his
tastes.
Earlier,
I backed mescal with my confreres in the Fleur’s cozy kitchen,
stocked graciously with snacks. Snuggly was telling me about the
failings of his HMO. Snuggly’s a wraith of a man in full
Black Bart western regalia, minus the crotch. We bonded in the
underground ‘tomb’ after I watched a Volvo mom raze
his keister with her fist. While we were schmoozing, he excused
himself to make out with a zombie blond whose master was, with
the care of a watchmaker, nailing her breasts to a board.
“I’m gay, but I love women,” Snuggly explained.
“And it’s Valentine’s Day.”
People
I’ve met at the Fleurs have generally been warm and welcoming,
but, of course, this is a snazzy private club. BDSM does have
its psychotics and evil sub-sets, but so does the White House,
not to mention the Catholic Church.
What
unites this international ‘community’ is a loathing
of the tedium, the drabness, the anxiety of modern life. “Life’s
A Bitch, And Then You Die” is common t-shirt wisdom. The
steeplechase of urban survival erodes the soul, choking its fragile
dial-up line to that Big Server in the sky.
Some
are simply born blessed and cursed with the need to merge with
another consciousness. The drive to get there, to connect, can
be haunting, even relentless. The most common sources are religion
and drugs, with sexuality nipping their heels. Here, it hurts
no one — that is, not without their consent.
I
left the Fleurs relaxed, under a waning moon. Refreshed, actually.
No one feels ashamed there, of their body or florid desires —
which are oft unlovely, to say the least. No one cares what you
do for a living. No one hits on you if you don’t beam the
vibe. You can be utterly anonymous. And like AA, what goes on
there, stays there.
One
can find far less interesting things to do of an evening than
watch dozens of people in black leather unleash their id. And
for those of you still taken aback, I’ll leave you to ponder
this epic quote from Tom Cruise in Risky Business: “Sometimes
you’ve just got to say… what the fuck.”
|
