The Juliette Society, Book II

by Sasha Grey

  Someone gently takes my hand.

  Her skin is brown, darker than mine, and I follow her forearm to her bicep to her shoulder, the world dissolving as I see her face.

  Inana.

  She smiles, and color floods my senses in a strange way—as though sound has flavor, and color has scent, and the world is made of a light we can feel if we listen hard enough.

  “I’m all alone. What happened to you?” I ask, squeezing her hand tight because I know how this works; it’s only a matter of time before my logical mind realizes this is a dream and pulls me back into consciousness. I need her answers.

  “I went deeper,” she says with a smile.

  “Should I go deeper?” I ask in a small voice.

  “Are you ready for the answers?”

  “Yes. Tell me.”

  But Jack shifts in his sleep, shifting the bed, and I wake up before she can answer me.

  SEVENTEEN

  PEOPLE-WATCHING HAS ALWAYS FASCINATED me. Now even more so when I’m using it as a distraction from Jack saying he needs a break from us. From me.

  His words feel like a burr stuck inside my throat that I can’t swallow down.

  I deliver a tray of specialty coffee to a woman whose smile seems a little forced, and I can’t help but notice the superficial resemblance to the woman I saw wearing a mask, lying stretched out on the top of a table where people used her body to eat off of. Maybe she’s worried I’ll say something.

  Maybe her smile is forced because she’s a misanthrope or has social anxiety or hates my perfume.

  If it is her, I saw a few people snorting off of her body, too, but that’s none of my business. Something tells me Health and Safety would never make it through the front doors of the hotel. Not that they’d ever come that far. Max would have vigorously crossed that T.

  The man I pass on the twenty-fourth floor looks like the one I saw getting paddled until he screamed. His come had the consistency of raw egg whites and coated his belly.

  A man clears his throat in the elevator and sends a shiver of recognition through me. I know that cough—but from where? Are they the same people, or is it that I’m expecting the VIPs to be everywhere now that I know the club is there?

  I’m looking at all the guests differently, wondering which ones know about what’s underneath their feet. Not all of them are into the same levels of debauchery, but then again, the people who find their way to the VIP section all got there for a reason, a common denominator uniting them all in some strange commonality.

  The one thing linking us together isn’t something I can comfortably ask people about—even if I weren’t part of the hotel. I think I recognize a few people from the club, but I’m not sure. Max stops by the front desk at 1:13 p.m. and waits until a man with a neatly trimmed black beard and outrageously long eyelashes stops by.

  They leave without saying a word to me or each other.

  He’s familiar, and I need to know whether it’s from my own experiences years ago, or something from my diary.

  The rest of the afternoon drips by way too slowly, but ten o’clock comes around, and I smooth my skirt and make my way down to the VIP club.

  Being overdressed makes me stand out, but more in the sense that I might have a particular kink, like I might enjoy getting off on having my blouse torn off—rape fantasies — or maybe I’m here for the men who are into tearing blouses and fulfilling rape fantasies and marking up pristine, starched women as though they’re just another prop. So while I get noticed, I guess I’m not really standing out much after all.

  I search for any familiar face, hoping and dreading I’ll find one.

  Confused?

  You come to places like this to be someone else—yourself—the authentic face behind the pleasant mask you typically show to the world. Seeing a familiar face shatters the illusion and pulls you from the escape.

  Have you ever run into your gynecologist while out and about in public? You can shake her hand and chat, but at the back of your mind you’re wondering if she’s thinking about your vagina, remembering how it looked the last time you saw her.

  You wonder how long ago she washed her hands before she touched yours.

  Fresh hell.

  Anonymity is incredibly freeing.

  Have you noticed how far people will go at masquerades when they think no one knows who they are? It’s not the masquerade, specifically, but costumes and disguises that give the security to go further. It’s an inhibition-killer without liquor.

  Who you are when no one’s looking is who they say you truly are.

  Who are you when you think you can get away with anything?

  What would you do?

  What would you try?

  Who could you become if there were no consequences for your actions?

  That’s where it gets sketchy when it comes to religion and moral absolutes. The Ten Commandments didn’t cover everything, so does that mean those things are okay to do? Do you avoid running out and raping, murdering, and stealing only because your religion tells you it’s wrong? Or is it because inside, you know when something feels off?

  You hear people talk about morals and values as though there are strict guidelines beyond the “thou shalt not”s and the justice system, but there are gray areas everywhere.

  Being an asshole isn’t illegal.

  You can toe the line between abuse and free speech, offend everyone and their neighbor, but the lines of propriety and rights are more flexible than people think. It goes the other way, too — self-defense versus opportunistic motherfuckers trying to get back somehow for a perceived slight against them.

  Politicians can’t seem to shut up about traditional values, desperately trying to convince John O. Voter that they’re just like him— because who doesn’t want to see himself inside that Oval Office? You want someone who you think holds your values, because you assume they’d do all the things you want them to, legalize all the things you want them to, ban all the things you think they should. It’s comforting to think that your worldview won’t be challenged by someone whose opinions differ radically from your own—especially when that person is in any position of authority.

  It’s an ego-jerk. Same reason why people get so emotionally invested in their sports teams.

  But again, value is all about perception. Everything is worthless except for the value we place upon it. Why are natural diamonds more expensive than man-made synthetic gems that are truly flawless? They’re just lying around in the ground. Where’s the value in that?

  What’s so special about it? The chase? Finding them?

  We’ve been taught they’re worth more.

  That’s all.

  The most valuable thing about diamonds is the lives lost in the mining process, but it’s not like the companies care.

  Corporations are machines run by machine-like people.

  Diamonds are worth more to the corporations than the human lives of the people mining them.

  Value is set arbitrarily based on what people in positions of power want you to buy.

  Think about it.

  When something is discounted, even if it’s your favorite product that you’ve been searching for for ages, what’s your knee-jerk reaction?

  It’s a scam. There must be something wrong with it. It’s broken/ faulty/expired, or a reproduction made in China at half the price and filled with lead.

  Authenticity is another concept sold to us, and we buy it.

  In a place like this, nothing is for sale—but everything and anything is up for grabs.

  No money exchanges hands. Instead, it’s a power exchange. Now it becomes a different type of indulgence that few can afford.

  Remember brand exclusivity?

  How does Max keep this place up and running?

  Are the patrons attracted to the VIP club itself? How do they find out about it? I can’t imagine it’s mentioned in any in-room brochure.

  Is it a side attraction of the hotel, and not the focus at all? Per
haps I’m looking at it in reverse only because it seems like the hotel was built around the club, when the opposite is true.

  That feels incorrect.

  If I told you how much it costs to stay here for a night, you wouldn’t believe me. If I told you that the majority of our guests stay for no less than seven days, your eyes would bug out at the amount of zeroes on the price.

  Perceived value.

  What does Maximilian Gold value? More importantly, what does he get out of all this? Men like him don’t get off on money. The ones who do operate in the open, going as flashy as they can with their possessions. Car, clothes, watches, girlfriend’s fake tits. Those men are the ones who make a show of it because they want everyone to know what they’ve got.

  They’re like the people who win those huge lotteries and become the nouveau riche—and buy the biggest houses and a different car for each day of the week. They end up broke but have a lot of flashy toys, and resemble the Beverly Hillbillies.

  Have you ever noticed that billionaires, people with true fuckyou money, have a uniform?

  True wealth outside a suit.

  It’s khakis and a polo shirt with a pocket in the front that’s always got a pen in it.

  They’ve got scrawny legs and boat shoes — something with tassels. Good teeth and bad hair. They don’t care about style or showing off—they don’t want their assets known. They care about things other than getting their pricks sucked. If that’s all Maximilian Gold wanted, he’d have had me on my knees by now. I’ve been propositioned harder at the newspaper than I have been here.

  I think Max Gold disdains the physicality of sex but has created an environment to facilitate it in all its forms. His fetish is voyeurism, observing fetishes, but he’s not a very sexual person. He looks but doesn’t act, even if he seems to like what he sees. He enjoys the power of creating the environment. He’s not the kid with the ant farm, he’s the manufacturer of the ant farm who likes seeing the kid play with it.

  He’s not asexual, but he seems like a singularity.

  If he was looking for a show, Inana was the best one he could have hoped to find.

  They were connected when she was alive. I need to know if they were connected beyond that. Because if she was more to him than an employee, what would he do if he discovered she wanted to leave? His tastes are very narrow, and the woman I suspect was his favorite was taken or took herself out of the picture.

  That means there was an opening in more than one area.

  Jack’s words bounce around inside my broken heart—despite my pleading in the morning, he remained stony and cold. We’re on a break and I don’t understand why.

  Gold likes a performance.

  And if he wants a show, I’ll give him one.

  I’m drawn to the VIP club like there’s a string hooked from my clit to the pulsing behind that door. I want to press up against it and get myself off on the vibrations, but it’s uncouth for the VIP concierge to be found humping a doorknob in a hotel hallway. And anyway, when I press my palm against it, I know the pulsing isn’t as strong as the idea of it.

  The vibrations aren’t enough.

  Anonymity. Bundy knows me, but there are enough nooks and crannies in the VIP club to get lost in. Besides, Bundy knows I’d never touch him, and he’s sleazy enough to know when to cut his losses and move on to other ground.

  Ground that will spread its soiled legs for him.

  I’m not worried about him.

  Down a hallway, not quite in the corner of a room, I walk through a scene where a man shoots women with paintball guns and they dodge and duck and shriek like a flock of birds. Jack went to play paintball once; I stayed home because it wasn’t really my thing, but seeing it now is different.

  Then again, it’s not like Jack would have been shooting at a group of women in white lingerie—the better to see the paint splatters with. Some of the women wear huge smiles; others seem like they’re trying very hard not to get hit, hiding behind the rest like they’re on a group date gone horribly, horribly wrong, while still others stride for the front of the pack, trying to get closer. They all want to be here, but some enjoy the process as well as the results.

  One of the girls licks at a blue splatter on her forearm. “Blue raspberry,” she says to the girl next to her.

  Edible paintballs.

  Taste the rainbow?

  Simulated violence makes no sense to me. I can’t find it sexy— maybe because the only type of guy who is into it is like my ex, Macho Will, someone who owns too many guns, and there’s something about that I find innately shady. It’s like they’re protesting too much, or compensating for something.

  Wink wink.

  These kinds of guys are fun or silly to fuck, but annoying in the real world. Who wants to stroll around town with a caveman on her arm?

  I like the idea of safely playing with these paintball guns, especially because it’s edible paint, which implies that someone’s going to lick it off and bring it back to sensual instead of brutal. The women all seem into it.

  Half of them form a line near a wall, angling their asses up for easier shots. Most of them wear their hair in high ponytails that swing back and forth as they prance around waiting to be shot.

  What are female bromes called? Is that even a thing?

  The rest, not lined up, surge toward me at once. I duck out of the way, trying to stay clear of the scene, skirting the edge of the group, but a snapping pain on the back of my thigh makes me suck in my breath through my teeth. My dark skirt hides the evidence, so at least I won’t have to change clothes, but I still glare in the direction of the man with the gun before schooling my features into something more professional.

  “I’m not a part of this scene,” I say, trying to keep my tone pleasant, since he’s still a guest of the hotel.

  He’s about thirty-five, blonde hair combed back from his face and ending in a boyish flip, the ends curling around his neck. Muscular but not meaty. Physically, he reminds me of a baseball player, or maybe a soccer player. He grins and holds up the gun. “Do you want to be?”

  I glance at the other women, covered with blotches of paint, and am flattered because each of them radiate with beauty, putting my young model friend to shame, but I say, “No, thanks.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I decline again and keep moving, but there’s something so intensely erotic about him shooting the women interested in being his companions for the night that I get a little bounce in my step. What would that be like?

  I realize it’s not the jostling for a position, wanting to be shot that interests me, but the idea of gunplay, the fantasy of risk, without putting myself in harm’s way.

  I want to know how that feels, so I walk away from the temptation of it. It’s packed here tonight—the place sticky and thick with bodies, the air tangy with sweat and sex and lemon slices tucked onto the edges of glasses. There are no drink minimums or maximums. People do whatever they want, however they want, and if anyone has a problem with it…let’s just say that management isn’t sympathetic to your complaints.

  “Hey!” A hand shoots out of an alcove, latching onto my arm, pulling me into the darkness before I have time to be scared.

  It’s my golden goddess supermodel friend. “Hi.”

  She squeezes me into a tight hug, wrapping herself around me in a way that shouldn’t be possible based on how tiny she is, but models tend to defy the laws of physics. “Thank you for helping me,” she says.

  “Don’t mention it.” I pat her back, and she sighs.

  Definitely on something, probably Ecstasy, based on the size of her pupils—dilated until only a slim ring of iris colors the edges with icy blue. “Will you join me for a minute?”

  I shouldn’t, but her breath smells sweet from her drink in a way that reminds me of the paintball gun, and I find myself nodding and sliding into the booth next to her. “Where’s your boyfriend?”

  “He’s around,” she says with a dismissive wave. “Try t
his. I invented it myself. Tell me what you think.”

  I take a sip, and then another deeper one because it’s sour like a cherry and sweet like honey. “It’s very good. What do you call it?”

  She pushes her lips out in a pout and takes a deep sip, considering. “I don’t know yet. What’s your name?”

  “Catherine.”

  “That’s too old-fashioned for you. You need something more exotic and fresh. Catherine is old.”

  “Catherines can be sexy. Catherine Deneuve. Catherine Zeta-Jones. Hepburn.” I bite my lip, trying to think of another, but that’s about it—I’ve exhausted my list of sexy Catherines.

  “Yes, but you are different from them. Everyone should have a name that matches her face.”

  I like her accent and the way it lilts, making her sound sophisticated because she’s different, even though she’s so young. So young and so very stoned. “And what would you rename me?”

  “Claudia.”

  Chills cover my body, for that can’t be a coincidence. Claudia—in search of her friend Anna in L’Avventura. Anna, who, like Schröding-er’s cat, both left and didn’t leave the island; who both lived and died. She is and she isn’t.

  She wasn’t and she was.

  “Why Claudia?” I ask, stealing another sip of her drink, now because I need it instead of just wanting to taste it.

  She smiles, playfully flicking my hand. “Your eyes remind me of hers.”

  “Monica Vitti’s?” I ask.

  She frowns. “Claudia Schiffer’s. Who is Monica Vitti?”

  “Just an actress. I must have misunderstood you. Please excuse me.”

  I slide from the booth, shaken, needing something. My skin’s hot, not quite feverish, but approaching it like a car merging onto the freeway with reckless disregard.

  I’ve heard L’Avventura referred to as moody existential ennui. Cool detachment. And that’s sort of how I feel, only instead of it being fine, I’m trying to dig in with my claws to stay tethered to something I can believe in. It’s not about being detached. It’s about realizing that in life, there are very few things worth fighting for and believing in. It’s about sorting the wheat from the chaff and focusing your attention on the things that actually matter.