Exit to Eden

by Anne Rice

  The trainer glanced at it, and moved to the first of the punished slaves on my right.

  “Jessica,” he said quickly. “Disobedient, fearful, cowering, trying to scramble away from those who examined her!” he said with a dry echo of scorn. I heard the whimpering again. “Five days in the kitchen, scouring pots and pans on her knees, the plaything of the kitchen staff, should give her some appreciation of her true purpose.” He snapped his fingers, and there was a flurry of movement, the loud moaning of the slave.

  In an instant I saw her, upside down, being held high, her hair streaming, as white leather cuffs were buckled around her ankles and by the lacing between them she was hung from the hook.

  That cannot happen to me, being hung upside down like that! But guess what, it’s about to happen. And you don’t have to do anything this time. Just stand still and wait. Across her back very quickly was written the word kitchen in a rather ornate hand.

  The next slave was already being condemned: “Eric, for obstinancy, reluctance to obey his handler’s simplest commands. I should think five days in the stables grooming the horses and being the horse of the grooms should do it,” said the trainer, and then the spectacle in the corner of my eye of the powerful male slave being lifted just as easily as the woman, and hung by his shackled ankles from the rack.

  My heartbeat was registering the predicament perfectly. Yes sir, they are going to hang you upside down like that within a couple of seconds, and then what? Five days beyond the pale! Oh, no, time to call home. Circuits overloading. Faulty equipment. Fuse about to blow.

  “Eleanor, willful, independent, very proud, positively surly to the guests.” And a blond already gagged with black leather was quickly carried by her ankles past me. “Five days in the laundry, a good education in washing and ironing,” said the trainer as the appropriate word was quickly scribbled across her pretty back.

  My head was teeming. There was one more slave next to me. Kitchen, stables, aaahh. No, this isn’t going to happen. Rewrite the script.

  I saw that woman trainer again to my left. Perfume. Click of those delicate little heels.

  “Gregory,” the red-haired trainer announced, “very young, very foolish, and very reckless, a crime more of clumsiness and nervousness I think than any other. . .”

  The slave moaned supplicatingly, without the slightest restraint.

  “Five days service with the maids should do it, cure some of that nervousness, a good workout with mops and brooms.”

  I stood alone now, watching the bronzed Gregory, his hair a close cap of black curls, quickly hung upside down from the bar.

  Obediently he kept his hands in place as did some of the others, the disobedient Eleanor writhing frantically despite or because of the repeated blows of the belt.

  “Elliott,” said the trainer, as he stood beside me. I felt his hand quite suddenly under my chin. “Proud, willful, a little too much of an individual for the tastes of his mistresses and masters, I should say.”

  It was unendurable. I thought I heard the son of a bitch laugh.

  But from behind me I heard the woman’s voice.

  “Richard, I want this one,” she said under her breath.

  All systems on emergency power. The circuitry is burning through the insulation. There’s about to be a major fire.

  She came in closer, sweet floral perfume, dark shape in the corner of my eye, sharp angles of her little hips, pointed breasts.

  “I know you do,” the red-haired bastard answered, kind of low, “but the punishment. . .”

  “Give him to me,” she said. Voice like a velvet glove on my neck. “I just made an exception in the office because I knew it was best. And you know I can best handle this.”

  The hairs were rising all over me. The perfume was Chanel, and it came in little waves, like with her pulse.

  “Lisa, that exception was your prerogative . . . But I am the Director of Postulants and this is a routine case . . .”

  Lisa. I felt I was writhing, though I hadn’t moved. The man’s hand touched my chin again, lifting it.

  “Elliott,” he resumed.

  “I have first pick, Richard,” she said, voice a little crisper. “And I’d like to make it now.” She pressed closer, her lace blouse almost touching my arm. I was about to combust. I could see her tight little black leather skirt, her long slender hands. Magnificent hands like the hands of saints in church.

  “Of course, you do,” said the trainer. “And you may pick him now, naturally, but he still must be punished before the training can begin.”

  He held my chin still, studying my face. I felt the thumb against my cheek. But my mind had gone white.

  “Elliott, look at me,” he said.

  Steady, Elliott. Look at the nice man. Deep-set gray eyes, full of vigor, easy humor.

  “Let’s hear what kind of voice our proud young postulant has,” he said, barely moving his lips as though thinking as he spoke. He was close enough to kiss. “Keep your eyes on me and tell me very sincerely that you are sorry for the disgrace you brought on yourself.”

  Elliott Slater is lost.

  “Well?”

  “I’m sorry, Master,” I heard myself say softly. Not bad for somebody who had died five minutes ago. But it was like reinhabiting the situation, to speak, and he must have known that, the bastard, it was awful to look right at him and say it, to keep seeing her dark shadow, smelling that perfume.

  Flicker in his eyes, quiver of the eyelids.

  “I’ll handle him, Richard—” she said just a little bit sharply.

  I shut my eyes for a second. Do I want her to win this argument? What do I want to happen, and what does it matter what I want!

  “We’ll compromise,” he said, his hand still firm as he held my face. He was studying me like I was a scientific specimen. “We’ll say only three days hard work cleaning the lavatories and then to Lisa, the Perfectionist, as she desires.”

  “Richard!” she whispered. I could feel her anger like it was heat.

  And this was my individual trainer, this shadowy lady, this was the future, and three days in the lavatories to think about it if I could still think.

  “You’re a very fortunate young man, Elliott,” Richard, the trainer, continued. I was visibly trembling. Why try to hide it anymore? “The Perfectionist has first pick of all the slaves; and those she chooses are the finest artists of The Club. But in the future, you might hope and pray for more punishment in the lavatories if she finds fault.”

  She had stepped in front of me, but still I didn’t dare to take my eyes off his. Yet I could see she was delicate all over, and her dark wavy hair was more a mantle than a veil. Big dark eyes boring into me.

  And there was something else about her, something palpable that I couldn’t define. I don’t believe people have auras, that they give off vibrations. Yet there seemed to emanate from her some primitive force. I could feel her. I’d been feeling her all along. Like a sound was coming from her that was too low for the brain to consciously hear.

  As the trainer gave the order in a louder voice, “Three days cleaning the lavatories,” she reached out and took my head in both hands. I felt something so unfamiliar at her touch that I would have looked at her even if it hadn’t been exactly what she was forcing me to do. It was like an electrical connection.

  She was lovely all right, her face exquisitely boned and shadowed, her red mouth just a little petulant and her eyes staring straight at me with the faintest touch of innocence in them, seeming not to see me looking back at her at all.

  My mind was blank again. I couldn’t be tortured by her, belong to her! Have that fragile a creature hold me powerless. But my cock had gone from fourth gear into overdrive. And surely she saw that. She wouldn’t miss anything, not her. She let me go.

  I saw the goons in white leather coming for me and I couldn’t think even enough to panic. They lifted me, swung me up heels over head.

  Sheer astonishment, beyond panic—they’d done it,
damn it—seeing nothing, and then the wide, smooth leather cuffs closing on my ankles and my weight being let down on the hook.

  The grease pen cut into my back—I lost track of the letters, which seemed a failure somehow—and I found myself desperately trying to stop the swaying of my body as the blood rushed to my head.

  Then I did panic. I went completely screwy. But it didn’t make any difference because I was completely helpless hanging there and nobody could tell. The rack creaked, started rolling, and we went with it. It was as simple and excruciating as that.

  The trainer’s voice rang out, explaining that the punished postulants would work and sleep under the most uncomfortable of conditions, that their punishment would be relentless and wearying and not for the pleasure of anyone, and that in the next few days they would be visited by the class for a further understanding of disobedience and its results.

  We were moved steadily towards the open door. My whole body felt swollen. The Club was swallowing us like a giant mouth. But inverted as we were, we might have been moving into another dimension. I tried not to look back at the upside-down vision of the room.

  “Now,” came the voice, “the trainers may choose their slaves.”

  LISA

  Chapter 8

  Anything You Desire, Master

  Of course they had to send him below stairs, didn’t they? Who had made all the rules about firm punishment in the beginning? And it was routine, even if nobody pulled that little scene before, Richard was right about that.

  Nine o’clock when I finally shut the bedroom door.

  Twilight through the curtains, and the inevitable night breeze that always cools our island. Why couldn’t it cool the fire burning in me?

  The bath slaves were two of my favorites, Lorna and Michael, both blond and small and perfectly adorable, and already lighting the lamps.

  They drew the water without asking how I liked it, set out my nightclothes, turned down the bed. I got sleepy finally as they worked gently with the shampoo and the soap. With a light touch, Michael rubbed in the oil afterwards, dried my hair, and brushed it.

  “We missed you, Lisa,” he whispered, kissing me on the shoulder.

  He lingered after Lorna had gone, doing a dozen little unnecessary things. Superb body, thick organ. Why not? But not tonight.

  “That’s all, Mike,” I said.

  He came silently across the room to kiss me again on the cheek. I slipped my arm around him just for a second and leaned on his shoulder.

  “You work too hard, boss lady,” he said. Mouth ready to kiss.

  I closed my eyes and the plane went round and round in circles. My sister looking across the table at the Saint Pierre said, “Why don’t you ever confide in us, tell us about your work?”

  “Ah!” I opened my eyes, shuddered. I’d almost drifted away. “Gotta go to sleep now,” I said.

  “Two can sleep better than one.”

  “Michael, you’re a treasure. But it’s no good tonight.”

  I lay still and silent under the soft thick white bedspread. I stared at the thin tissue of cotton lace that made the canopy of the bed.

  Okay. They had to send him down there. All right.

  Couldn’t stop picturing him as he’d been in the receiving hall. Ten times as good looking as his pictures, no, a hundred times. And blue eyes, yes, real first-class blue eyes, and the body U.S.D.A. Prime for certain. But it was the unshakable dignity, the way that he just stood there and took all of it, like Alcibiades in chains.

  Cornball, Lisa, try to sleep.

  Okay, he deserved it, three days in the lavatories. But did I deserve it, three days until he came up?

  I hadn’t had five minutes alone with Richard since then to tell him what I thought of him, or five minutes without thinking of Elliott Slater cleaning the floors on his hands and knees.

  Right after it was all over, I’d locked myself in my office and wrapped up correspondence that had been lying around since last year. Purchase orders, medical forms, bills, new equipment designs, approved, filed, sent out, whatever . . . Promised to talk to the pony trainer tomorrow. Then the usual dinner with the new members, answering questions, leading little tours around the grounds. Mr. Jerry McAllister was very happy. Everybody was very happy. Maybe even Elliott Slater was happy. Who knows?

  In fact, First Night was going splendidly as it always did, and nobody would give a damn if I just disappeared.

  And now what?

  Staring at the canopy above me, as if that little moment of drifting off just now in Mike’s arms had never occurred. Memories again. Bits and pieces of the past floating around me, faces about to take shape, voices about to speak.

  Listening to the breeze through the open doors, the rustle of the leaves.

  Don’t think about him. It isn’t like they sold him off to a foreign land.

  And don’t think about the memories either. But how can you stop them? When you go over the past like this, it’s as if you think you can change it, put it in order, understand it maybe for the first time. The memories had been there all day, actually, prowling in the psychic shadows, like an enemy army ready to close in.

  I saw the highway leading south from San Francisco, then the dense wood of Monterey cypress, the high peaked-roofed houses behind their moss-stained brick walls, and the narrow gravel road, private road unwinding ahead as the gates shut behind us. I was sitting beside Jean Paul so primly on the dark blue seat of the limousine, my hands folded in my lap. I even tried once to pull down my skirt to cover my knees. How absurd.

  Jean Paul was speaking in a calm voice.

  “Now you will find the first few days the most difficult. There will come a point when you realize that you cannot escape, and you will panic. But your consolation will be this: there is nothing you can do about it.” He paused, regarding me carefully. “How do you feel now?”

  “Afraid,” I whispered, “and excited.” But the words dried up in my throat. I wanted to say, no matter what I feel I would not turn back for anything. I could see the wooden gates and the gatehouse above. The limousine was gliding towards a deep brick garage with a peaked roof, the same Tudor architecture as the mansion beyond the trees that had just been in front of us.

  Darkness was closing around the car as we entered the garage, and in a sudden moment of terror I reached out and touched Jean Paul’s hand. “You will always know how it goes, won’t you?”

  “Of course. Now, think. Is there anything else you would like to say or know? Because I’m to strip you now. You’re only admitted to the estate naked. And I must take your clothes away with me. You must never try to speak to the master or to the grooms. They’ll only punish you for it.”

  “You will come to get me . . .”

  “Of course, in three months, exactly as agreed.”

  (Have to be in class at Berkeley in three months, have to.)

  “Remember all I’ve taught you, the phases that you will pass through: when you are terribly afraid, remind yourself of how exciting it is. Be honest with yourself in that regard—and remember that you cannot do anything. You are relieved of responsibility to try and save yourself.”

  (Save yourself. Save your soul. My father looking at the books on the bed, the new novels, the paperback philosophy. “Lisa, you have never had any taste, any judgment, anything but a penchant for the worst trash you could find in a bookstore, but for the first time, I fear for your immortal soul.”)

  I could feel my nipples burning against my blouse, the thin panel of my panties soaking wet against my thighs. Jean Paul leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, brushing my hair back over my shoulders. My hair had been even longer then than it was now, and very thick it seemed, very heavy.

  I felt Jean Paul’s hands reaching for my wrists, taking them behind my back, and the cut of the scissors through the cloth of my blouse as the fabric fell away in a jagged patch on the dark blue carpet of the car.

  When I was naked, he pulled me out of the limousine.

>   “Bow your head,” he said, “and be still.”

  The cement floor was cool under my feet, and the light from the open door dazzled me. He kissed me again. And as I heard the motor starting up with a roar in the closed garage, I realized he was going away.

  But a young uniformed attendant in gray had come forward, and taken my wrists, pushing me towards the door. I felt my hair around my naked arms like a merciful covering. My nipples throbbed, and I wondered if this stranger, this coconspirator in the secret sexual world, could see the dampness between my legs.

  “We use the covered walkway in winter,” he said. The voice of an older man. Educated. Neutral. “You will walk most of the way. When you near the house, you will fall on your knees, and remain on your knees. Always in the house you are on your knees.”

  We went down the walkway now. I felt his gloved hands tight on my wrists, the light bright yet watery through the thick frosted glass of the barren windows. I could see nothing but bare wall up ahead. Greenery pressed against the glass. I thought with a sudden panic, the limousine has already reached the highway and I wasn’t gagged. I might have screamed to be let go.

  But then he would have gagged me. I was sure of it. I’d been told.

  “Don’t be deceived by the kindness of the servants towards you,” the man said close to my ear. “If they catch you in anything other than the kneeling position, if they receive the slightest impertinence from you they will without fail report it to your master. And the reason is very simple for this: if they can find some fault with you, the master will give you over to them to be punished by them. They wait for that. They enjoy it. Especially a fresh young girl with such tender skin. A little novice. So again, don’t be deceived by their attentions.”

  We had rounded the turn and the floor was now carpeted. For my knees of course. Down the long corridor ahead I saw a doorway. My heart was racing.

  “You must show absolute subservience to everyone in the house. Never make the mistake of failing to do so. Now down on your hands and knees.”