Exit to Eden

by Anne Rice

  “You’re a smart aleck, aren’t you?” she said in a low, almost loving voice. “You’ve got a real smart mouth. And you’re not under my command or under your own.”

  I almost said, Yes, I am, really, I am. I’ll kiss your feet if you let me go, but I didn’t say anything at all.

  She kissed me again, bringing the tiny hairs up all over my body because it was so maddeningly light. Just a taste of her mouth. Whiff of her perfume again. “We’re going to learn a few lessons,” she said, “in how a slave talks and answers at The Club.”

  “I’m a real fast learner,” I said. I turned my head away from her. What the hell was I trying to do? It was bad enough. But I couldn’t stand it, the sight of her, the tight vest and the plunging neck of the blouse.

  “I hope so.” She laughed softly. “I’m going to whip the hell out of you if you’re not.” And her lips touched me again, feeding on my neck. “What is this? All flustered already? You come against the bed while I’m whipping you and what do you think I’ll do to you? Take a guess.”

  I didn’t dare say anything.

  “Now, while I’m punishing you,” she said just as gently, smoothing the hair back from my forehead, “you’re going to answer me properly and deferentially every time I address you, and you will control your powerful proud impulses, no matter what the provocation, you understand?”

  “Yes, Madam,” I said. I turned over and strained forward and kissed her before she could get away. She pulled in again, softening all over, and dropping down on her knees, kissed me, that same scorching current running through it, and the kiss almost touched off the bomb.

  “Lisa,” I whispered, I didn’t even know why.

  And she stayed still, very close, looking at me. And there was some instantaneous sense of why this was so horrific, that always before they’d been wearing masks in my imagination, the women and the men who whipped me, or subjugated me. It didn’t matter who the hell they were, really, as long as they said the right things, were good. But she wasn’t wearing a mask. The fantasy wasn’t cloaking her. “I’m scared to death of you,” I whispered. I could hear the amazement in my own voice. I was speaking so low I wondered if she could hear me. “I mean I . . . this is difficult, it’s . . .”

  There was some little change in her face. Some slight snap in her expression. God, she was beautiful. It was like in this moment her face opened up, like it became the inside of her instead of what she wanted it to be to the outside world.

  “Good,” she said, making her mouth into a kiss that didn’t touch me. She drew back slowly. “Are you ready to be whipped?”

  I made a little sigh and nodded.

  “You have to do better than that.”

  “Yes, Madam.”

  She shook her head. She was studying me. I licked my lips a little, looking at her mouth. She was frowning slightly, her eyelashes a dark fringe as she looked down and then back at me. “I like the way you say Lisa,” she said, thoughtfully, as if she was considering. “Let’s change it to Yes, Lisa.’”

  “Yes, Lisa.” I was trembling. It has always been that way with Martin. Yes, Martin. No, Martin.

  “Good boy,” she said.

  She disappeared to the foot of the bed. And when she started, she swung the strap as hard as one of the male handlers. And there was an efficiency to the way she whipped, making every lash count.

  She went to work. It was like an examination, the way that she spread the blows, and the pain built slowly, luxuriously, just the way the pleasure had when she had screwed me with the dildo, and I could feel myself breaking down, a slow exhilaration building under the pain, all the defenses weakening that would have been solid against her, had she gone at it more brutally, swiftly, with more noise.

  Then the thrashing started in earnest. I tensed my muscles, rising off the sheet. I couldn’t keep quiet. I tried holding out as I always do, unwilling to let go, but it was no good. My body was cooking all over and I couldn’t stand it any longer, the dazzling sting of the strap seeking out all the little places it had neglected, the excitement surging even as I tried to hold it back, the strap teasing the big welts again. There came that priceless moment—a moment that doesn’t always come—when I knew I had no control anymore, and I felt everything, everything, at the same time.

  “You know you belong to me,” she said.

  “Yes, Lisa,” I answered naturally, spontaneously.

  “And you are here to please me.”

  “Yes, Lisa.”

  “And there will be no more impertinence.”

  “No, Lisa.”

  “And there will be no repeat of the impertinence I heard from you this afternoon.”

  “No, Lisa.”

  Finally I was moaning outright, and couldn’t pretend I wasn’t. I kept my teeth shut even when I answered her. I thought of her sex again, her legs spread and that hot little sheath clamped to me. I wanted to see her. I had things to say to her that they hadn’t made words for. But I didn’t dare say anything except the proper answers, listening through the rain of blows to each question. I was ready for anything she would demand.

  Finally she stopped.

  My skin was sizzling, every welt and mark steaming as she undid the cuffs with her maddening, delicate, and quick little fingers and told me to get up.

  I climbed off the bed drunkenly and I fell down on my knees in front of her, exhausted as if I’d been running for miles. My muscles hurt from the clenching and unclenching all through the whipping, and I wanted to take her in my arms so badly that I pressed my head to the floor. I was weakened with this feeling for her, drugged.

  I bent and kissed the smooth leather of her little boots. I curled my hand around her left ankle, and rubbed my face against her. I didn’t care anymore about anything in the world, really, except her. There were all these gradations of her. Having her, fearing her, being whipped by her, just holding on to her.

  “No,” she said, and I drew my hand back, kissing her feet some more. The soreness and the desire came in flashes.

  “It was a good whipping, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yes, Lisa,” I nodded, letting out a little laugh in spite of myself. If you only knew—“Very good”—that I want to devour you. That I. . . what?

  “Have you had better?” she asked. She nudged my cheek with the belt so that I looked up.

  For a moment I couldn’t see her clearly. She was all soft at the edges. Then her face burned through. She was a little damp from the exertion, her rouged lips shimmering ever so slightly, her eyes innocent and full of a vague curiosity. It was like Martin’s expression, actually, that constant marveling, probing, discovering.

  “I asked you a question. Have you had better?” she said politely, but a little impatiently. “I would like to know.”

  “Longer and louder,” I murmured. I knew I was smiling at her, almost ironically. “And harder, but not better, Lisa,” I said.

  She bent down and kissed me and I thought I would finally spend, couldn’t control it, the wet feeling of her mouth, that way of kissing that was unlike any kissing I’d ever had.

  I started to get up. I would have picked her up, crushed her to me. But she drew away quickly, and left me sort of shivering on my knees, feeling the warm prickling sensation in my limbs again and that strange numbness in my mouth.

  “I could have skinned you alive,” she said. “But I only wanted you a little heated. You’re going to do things for me tonight.”

  I looked up at her again, afraid she would tell me to look down. “Would you . . . ?” I whispered. “Might your . . . might your slave make one little request?”

  She regarded me almost coldly for a moment. “All right.”

  “Let me kiss you again, Lisa, just once.”

  She stared at me. But then she bent to grant it and I reached up and took hold of her and it was like her heat roaring into me, that brutal and that lyric at the same time. I was just this animal that wanted her, nothing else.

  “Le
t go, Elliott,” she said, and she sounded strict and disapproving, but her fingers were clinging to me, and she released me as if she was the one who’d been told to do it, not me.

  I bowed my head.

  “It’s time for some real lessons in obedience and manners,” she said, but her voice was a little frayed, disconcerted. Nice sound! “Stand up.”

  “Yes, Lisa.”

  “Put your hands behind your back, clasped at the waist.”

  I obeyed, and old rhythms started—something bad going to happen, well, maybe I should really be going now—the low, shuddering alarm. But you belong to her, I thought. Don’t think of anything else. Oh, yes, you really belong to her. Some fragment of a thought was running through my mind, something about us looking for our ultimate agony, and mine was desiring her, dying for her while she punished me, not just the punishing, but the focus, the desire. Yet that was not quite it.

  She moved around me in a little circle that made every nerve in my body come alert. She looked splendid walking in the high-heeled boots, her calves so tense under the smooth kid, the little suede skirt riding beautifully over her little bottom and hips.

  She pinched my face lightly. “You blush beautifully,” she said very sincerely. “And the marks look good on you. They don’t disfigure you. You look now like you should look.”

  I felt that vague ripple of feeling that the French call a frisson. I looked her in the eye. But I didn’t dare ask to kiss her again. She’d say no.

  “Look down, blue eyes,” she said but she wasn’t disapproving. “Now, I won’t gag you, your mouth’s too pretty. But one lapse, I mean one little flare of the old Elliott I met this afternoon, and I’ll bit you and harness you, you understand? And I’ll be angry with you. Does that mean anything?”

  “Yes, Madam!” I threw her another glance, bittersweet.

  She laughed the same way she had the other times, in a low riff, and she kissed me on the cheek again, and I looked at her again, with a flicker of something more subtle than a smile. It was like flirting with her in the sliest fashion. Kiss me again, please. She didn’t.

  “Now, you will walk ahead of me,” she said, “and slightly to the right. And again, you smart off once and you’ll be gagged and on your hands and knees. You understand?”

  “Yes, Madam.”

  ELLIOTT

  Chapter 14

  The Sports Arcade

  It was damned unnerving to be out of the cocoon of her bedroom and borne again into The Club. And the flickering hurricane lamps and the din of the evening crowd in the garden struck a deep, primal chord of fear.

  The number of guests suddenly scattered around us seemed even greater than what I’d seen the first day, and I kept my eyes down, feeling a low-grade buzz all through me at being walked this way, slowly and deliberately, past so many inevitable glances.

  I followed the path, Lisa’s arm prodding me at the turn, her hand out to point if there was a fork.

  We passed the buffet tables and the swimming pools, and made our way along a little path out of the main garden and towards a low, glass-domed building. The lower walls were covered with vines, and the lighted dome glowed like a great bubble. I could hear the muted sounds of shouting and laughter.

  “This is the arcade, Elliott,” she said. “Do you know what that means?”

  “No, Lisa,” I said in an amazingly calm voice. But it sounds awful. I was sweating already. The welts and stripes from the strap were itching.

  “You’re a sportsman, aren’t you?” she asked. She pushed me a little faster along the path, and a young handler with longish red hair and a pleasant enough smile reached out to open the doors of the strange building, letting out the noise in a deafening blast.

  “Good evening, Lisa,” he said loudly. “Packed in there tonight, and they’ll be glad to see this one.”

  The light seemed dimmer once we stepped in, but it might have been only the denseness of the crowd, and the smoke. The smell of tobacco mingled strongly with the malty smell of beer.

  Only a sprinkling of women as far as I could tell, though the place was immense, a giant covered garden of sorts, with a long bar running along the curved walls. Trainers pushed past us with naked male slaves, some bound, others walking as I was, some obviously worn out and covered with sweat and dust.

  A dozen different languages easily were being spoken around us. I could feel the eyes passing over me, lingeringly, and I heard French and German distinctly, snatches of Arabic, and Greek. Well-heeled men all, naturally, expensive sportswear, all the little accoutrements of money and power.

  But the appalling part were the shouts coming from up ahead, the familiar deep-throated noises of men cheering on some competition, then guffawing and cursing when it went wrong. I wanted to leave now.

  Lisa pushed through the wall of men and I saw a tree-lined avenue of clean, soft white sand before me that led some hundred yards or more ahead before the crowd swallowed it up. There were large airy fountains to the far left and the right, scattered park benches, nude female slaves, all of them extremely pretty, quietly and busily raking the sand, emptying the standing ashtrays and gathering up discarded glasses and beer cans.

  The avenue itself was a mall, it seemed, lined on both sides with scattered, neatly whitewashed buildings, each strung with ropes of tiny lights. There were fenced areas in between the buildings, and groups of men leaned on the wooden railings, blocking the view of whatever went on inside. Guests moved in and out of the buildings. And hundreds strolled on the white sand, shirts open to the waist, drinks in hand, only glancing now and then in the open doorways.

  I took a step backwards without realizing it, half pretending I had to get out of the way of two men in swim trunks filing past me, and felt Lisa’s fingers biting into my arm. My mouth opened with some half-thought-out plea, like, “I’m not ready for this,” but nothing came out.

  The crowd thickened around us. I felt claustrophobic as pant legs and boots and coats brushed me. But Lisa had her hand on my arm, and was pushing me towards the first of the long white booths.

  It was shadowy inside, and for a moment I couldn’t make out what was there. Mirrored walls and ceiling, glossy hardwood floor, and thin white lines of decorative neon etching the ceiling, the stage. Then I saw it was a typical amusement park game. You paid for several black rubber rings and you tossed them up, trying to hang all of them on one projectile to make a perfect score. Only the projectiles here were the bowed heads of the male slaves kneeling on a conveyor belt that moved them very rapidly across the stage.

  To the guests it was a coarse, hilarious pastime, getting a number of rings around the neck of the victim before he vanished into the wings. And for all the simplicity of it, it had a real scariness to it: the submission of the kneeling victims, the way their well-oiled bodies had become mere objects as they passed before the crowd.

  I stared at the little stage, the bowed heads, the rings hanging from bent necks. I didn’t want to be left here. I couldn’t. There had to be some way of making it clear. And without considering it really, I backed up until I was suddenly behind Lisa and I kissed her on the top of the head.

  “Outside,” she said. “And don’t waste your pleas. If I wanted you up there I’d put you up there. I don’t.”

  She pushed me towards the door.

  The lights of the avenue flickered against my closed eyelids for a second, then I was moving again, being pushed steadily towards another booth on the right.

  This was a much larger booth, with the same glossy high-tech decor, with a bar and brass rail along the wall, about thirty feet deep. It wasn’t rings this time, it was brightly colored plastic balls, about the size of tennis balls, pitched towards the moving bull’s-eye targets that were painted in thick gleaming colors on the backsides of the male victims, who, with their hands tied over their heads, tried desperately to dodge by constant movement what they couldn’t see. The balls stuck to the target when they hit. And the slaves shimmied to shake them loos
e. So deliciously humiliating and not the slightest real pain involved. I didn’t have to see the faces of the slaves to realize they were preening as they twisted and turned. Every lovely muscle was fully alive.

  I felt the sweat streaming down my face. I gave a little negative shake of my head. Impossible, simply impossible. Checking out. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Lisa watching, and I made my face blank.

  The next two booths were similar games, the slaves being made to run on oval tracks above to escape the balls and the rings, and in the fifth booth, the slaves were hung upside down from carousels and did not have to twist or turn themselves.

  I wondered if that was what they did with them when they were tired from the other games, put them on that carousel where they hung helpless? Scrumptious sufferers. And this was regular service in The Club, wasn’t it, this place, not punishment like being sent below stairs.

  Any memory of a sane world in which these things didn’t happen seemed untrustworthy at best. We’d stepped into a Hieronymus Bosch painting, full of lurid silver and red, and my only chance of getting out again was the lady who’d brought me in.

  But did I want to get out? Of course not. Or let’s just say, not this very minute. I’d never thought of stuff like this in all my sexual fantasizing. I was scared to death and secretly entranced. But it was like the old “Purple Cow” poem by Gellett Burgess: “I’d rather see than be involved.”

  I moved numbly, through the glare of the lights. My senses were flooded. Even the noise seemed to penetrate me, the sweetish smell of the smoke to drug me slightly, the hands that now and then touched or examined me stoking the mixture of dread and desire that I couldn’t hide.

  Naked women slaves appeared and disappeared like flickering pink flames in the shifting male crowd, as they offered cocktails, champagne, white wine.

  “Aren’t we geniuses of exotic sex?” Lisa whispered suddenly. It was startling to hear her speak. But the expression on her face was even more surprising. She was taking in the crowd in the same dazed way that I was taking it in, as if we’d been drifting for hours together at a county fair.