The Florencia Lozano Homepage - Fan Fiction
Chapter 26
Tea stretched out in back of the long, black limousine she’d rented for the evening, her body sinking into the buttery leather interior, feeling like a warm bath. She checked out the black, spiked heels that strapped around her ankles with heavy silver buckles, the black fish-net stockings held up by garters just visible below a tiny, pink satin skirt that rode way below her bellybutton and the black, leather corset held together by a pink, satin ribbon laced loosely between her breasts…a pretty, pink lattice revealing almost everything. Pulling out a compact she checked her sultry make-up: black-crimson lipstick, charcoal-lined eyes and her wild, over-worked hair. She smiled remembering the look on her doorman’s face when she came downstairs from the penthouse, dragging a white mink coat behind her like a whip, yielding her sexual power over him easily. He was slaughtered, and speechless.
“The things I do for you, Todd Manning…” she said, watching the streetlights speeding by and listening to jazz on the stereo…a slow alto sax screaming out its distress from the speaker, a soundtrack echoing her deepest fears.
It was after 11:00 PM when the car pulled up in front of The Black Key Club, the parking lot filled to capacity. Pulling her long, white fur over her clothing she took a long, deep breath and waited for the driver to open the door, preparing for her grand entrance.
As she stepped out of the limo everyone turned to look at this striking woman. Tea noticed groups of women standing in long lines, waiting to get into the warehouse, but she just walked right past them to the front of the line when spotting the tall, tattooed man with the goat horns, the one she’d met earlier in the day, standing in front of the door.
“Hello…remember me,” said Tea, her coat flying open in the breeze coming off the river.
He looked over, his dark eyes flashing like black pool balls, resting on the peak of garter above her stockings for a moment before looking into her face, smiling with recognition and nodding his horned head in approval. Tea pulled a one-hundred-dollar-bill from her purse and handed it to him as he unfastened the black, velvet rope between them and let her in ahead of everyone. The other patrons groaned out there displeasure in varying expletives as Tea stepped through the door.
Walking slowly, tentatively, she made her way down a long, dark corridor with lights strung along the black walls. There was music emanating from somewhere, getting louder and harder as she continued down the hall…techno music with a thunderous, primitive drum beat.
Finally she entered a large room…a room lighted by a red, neon glare.
There were women everywhere…or, what looked like women since many were quite obviously dressed as men, wearing expensive suits and ties with slicked back hair. And there were lots of other women in varying degrees of dress…and undress. The walls of the place were of a gray, corrugated metal with a bar, tables and chairs, and a huge dance floor packed with moving, writhing bodies as colored lights flashed above them. A thick, smoky cloud hovered about the entire place and a strong, spicy scent clung to the air, a mixture of tobacco and something more exotic, marijuana or hashish. There was dry ice coming from somewhere and red, puffy smoke billowed along the floor in a thick, scarlet fog. The dancers seemed to float upon it like lost souls burning in hell.
“Check your coat?” shouted someone in her ear.
Tea turned and noticed a doorway with a young, blond woman in a red leather bikini, high heels and black lipstick…a rack of coats hanging behind her. Tea removed her coat and handed it to her before heading to the bar. Taking a stool she looked around, her senses confused by the red mist in the air, her ears ringing, her eyes adjusting to the colorful, pulsating strobe lighting…looking for a girl with shocking pink hair. She didn’t see her.
A heavy woman sitting beside her in a nazi uniform smiled at her, her gold tooth glinting in the light as Tea turned away from her quickly, trying to catch the bartender’s eye.
“What can I get for you?” asked the bartender, a handsome young man in a black t-shirt and crew-cut, and a soft, womanly voice.
“Bourbon…neat. Make it a double,” shouted Tea.
“Hey beautiful lady, want to dance?”
Tea turned around. An extremely tall woman in a blue mesh dress and thigh-high boots with two, long red braids, stood behind her, smiling down at her from on high. Tea grabbed the drink the bartender had set in front of her and took a long, hard swallow.
“Why not?” she said, laughing to herself, needing to blend in.
The woman grabbed Tea’s arm with her large, strong hand and pulled her out onto the dance floor, walking her into the middle of the crowd. When she found a satisfactory spot the woman turned and began to dance to the pounding music, a Marilyn Manson tune that Tea vaguely remembered Todd listening to in his car, something satanic and seductive. Tea closed her eyes and began moving and blending with the crowd…
The music roared in her ears, the mechanical drum beat rhythmic and hypnotic as she found herself enjoying the wild, primitive abandon of dancing with a total stranger…something that brought back her single days: nights spent club-hopping with friends in New York till dawn, drinking too much, regretful one-nighters with virtual strangers that left her feeling empty and used…the sins of her youth. Tea laughed at herself, her body moving easily and gracefully with the woman in the blue dress and braids, a Scandinavian goddess who pounded her fists into the air like a victorious Viking warrior.
As one song played into another, Tea began to tire and she thanked the woman for the dance. Though the woman tried to hold on to her, Tea pulled away and began walking through the crowd, stumbling toward the edge of the dance floor where she was finally able to breath. Looking up, she noticed a young woman with hot-pink hair above her, her hair blending with the tinted smoke.
There was a stairway that led to an upper level and she leaned over the railing, smoking a cigarette and watching the crowd with a bored, far away expression. She wore a frilly, short floral dress, like a little girl’s dress, a black leather collar, and steel pointed cowboy boots. A strange innocence emanated from her among this jaded crowd…a child lost in the forest.
Tea trembled, her legs shaking as she walked back to her seat, and grabbing the rest of her drink she swallowed it quickly and ordered another. When she turned around she noticed the young woman was no longer on the stairs but walking slowly toward the bar in this hellish haze, greeting a few women along the way before taking a seat a few stools away from her. Tea took a deep breath, grabbed her drink and walked over.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
Cherry turned around. Her eyes resting on Tea’s face then trailing down the length of her body…slowly and deliberately.
“Sure, baby.”
The girl called out for a beer. Tea was surprised at how young she looked at close range…nineteen or twenty at most. Her face cherubic, her skin marble-white, a few pimples visible on her chin, and her eyes were of a startling, neon blue. She had seen those eyes before, the eyes of the woman that had been with Todd that night on the waterfront. It was the same face accept for the hair which had been dark that night. Tea gasped and leaned against the bar, holding her breath, afraid she might be recognized.
Cherry took a long swallow from a bottled beer and smiled at Tea, showing no outward sign of knowing her.
“I’m Cherry,” she shouted, above the music.
“I’m…uh…Marissa.”
“You’re beautiful, baby. I haven’t seen you here before…I would’ve remembered. First time?”
Tea nodded as Cherry’s eyes bored into her, penetrating and precise like blue lasers. Her voice was childish, but with a hard edge, accented with a punky, street lilt. She took another drink from her bottle, swallowing the rest of its contents in one long gulp. Then she ordered another.
“So…what are you here for, Marissa?”
Tea looked around at the crowd. The music had softened a little and some couples had drifted to the sides of the dance floor, some leaned against the black walls talking and kissing. A few drifted up the stairway that seemed to float in the red mist and disappeared into the black doorway at the top.
“I’m not sure…but…this is definitely not my thing.”
Cherry laughed.
“Come on, let’s go up stairs…it’s quieter,” she whispered in Tea’s ear as she grabbed her beer and slipped her tiny hand into hers.
Cherry pulled Tea up the stairway and through the metal door at the top. As soon as the heavy door closed behind them, the loud rock music faded and the sound of classical music came floating through the air, up a corridor with many doors.
Tea jumped, hearing a loud bang…and a woman screaming.
“What was that?”
“That’s nothing…just someone enjoying themselves,” said Cherry as she pulled her down to the end of the corridor till it opened into another room.
This room was smaller and darker, more luxurious and filled with a deep, blue light that cast a sad, moody haze over the lounge. A few dozen well-dressed women sat around in leather chairs, sipping drinks from elegant crystal glasses. Cherry pulled her to a corner table as Tea looked around in astonishment. All the women here were a bit older than the crowd downstairs…and well dressed. The walls of the place were decorated with S&M memorabilia: whips, chains, dildos, masks and strange gadgets and implements that Tea did not recognize, but looked sharp, constricting and painful.
Tea noticed a woman on the floor, on her hands and knees, wearing a black rubber jumpsuit and a black, latex mask that covered her entire face, revealing only her mouth and eyes. Around her neck was a heavy, metal collar with a long silver chain attached to it. A woman sitting on a nearby barstool, wearing a beautiful, red Chanel suit with a fur collar held the chain tightly in her gloved hand, her eyes closed as she listened to Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” filtering through the speaker above her. Now and then she’d yank on the chain and the woman on the floor would cower even lower and kiss the point of her spiky, red shoe.
“She’s a slave,” said Cherry, watching Tea’s curious eyes. “That’s Regina…her mistress. She runs this place. Is this what you’re looking for Marissa?”
Tea looked back at Cherry and noticed a sign on the wall above her head that read:
“One must do violence to the objects of one’s desire; when it surrenders, the pleasure is greater”…the Marquis De Sade.
Tea felt sick reading these words, recalling the damage Todd’s own sexual abuse at the hand of his father had caused him, an abuse that fostered a rage that lead to rape, and almost destroyed his soul. She had never completely understood the relationship between Blair and Todd, but these words resonated with her. Todd and Blair had always been so competitive in their abuse toward one another, assaying their own fears by hurting and lying as a means of controlling the other. Perhaps, on some level, this was what was meant by those words, that, somehow, breaking and subverting a sexual partner guaranteed an obedient object that could be used and manipulated for their own selfish pleasure…a wretched substitute for love.
It’s not that Tea was a prude when it came to sexual preference, quite the opposite. She’d always felt what consulting adults do behind closed doors was their business, as she daily proved with Todd, but, when it crossed the line and was turned into a game of control and submission, where a healthy, natural aggression was perverted into an act of violence, it disturbed her greatly…because ultimately, there was always a victim. Todd had been a victim and clearly, so was Cherry. Todd’s life had taught her much about love and sex and violence…and she respected that lesson.
“No! No…this isn’t for me. Cherry…why don’t we get out of here?”
Cherry stared at her, sensing Tea’s anxiety.
“You gotta place?”
“Yes…a penthouse,” said Tea, standing up.
“Sure, I guess, I’m free tonight. But…it’ll cost you extra.”
“Money is no object,” said Tea.
Let’s go, baby,” said Cherry, swallowing the rest of her beer and getting up.
Tea moved quickly down the blue-lighted corridor, she wanted to run from this place. Her throat felt tight, as if she were choking and her head was aching with the thunderous beat of the music as she hurried down the stairs, picking up her coat and heading for the door, Cherry following closely behind. The tattooed doorman winked at Cherry and licked his lips at Tea in a gesture that made her wince as he opened the door and let them out.
Tea pulled her coat around her and took a long, slow breath, the frigid breeze coming off the water awakening and releasing her senses from the oppressive, confusing delirium of this place, a sad and lonely place that perverted pleasure into pain, and sex into love. She signaled to her driver who stood near-by talking to some women and he quickly brought the car around. Cherry’s eyes widened at the site of the long, sleek car as the driver opened the door for them and they escaped into it’s silky interior.
2003 Copyright by Trog
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