Exit to Eden (3 page)

As for El Salvador—the book that didn't get done, the book I was leaving undone—well, it was too late now.

All I cared about on that score was shaking this eerie sense that I
ought
to be dead, just because some asshole had almost seen to it, this feeling it was some kind of special miracle that I was living and breathing and walking around.

******

It was strange the last evening. I was sick and tired of waiting. Ever since I'd signed the contract, it had been nothing but waiting, turning down the assignments from
Time
I'd ordinarily jump at, drawing away from everybody I knew. And then the final call.

The same genial, well-bred voice. An American "gentleman," or an American behaving like a British gentleman without the British inflection, something of that sort.

I closed up the house in Berkeley and went to Max's at the Opera Plaza and had a drink. Nice to look around at the crowd against all that brass and plate glass and neon light. Some of the most beautifully finished women in San Francisco pass through Opera Plaza. You see them in the Italian restaurant, Modesto Lanzone, or in Max's. Gorgeously painted ladies with professionally done hair and couturier clothes. Always wonderful to look at.

And then there's the big bookstore, true to its name, "A Clean Well Lighted Place," where I could pick up half a dozen Simenon mysteries for the voyage, and some Ross MacDonald and LeCarré, same high-grade escapist stuff I'd read in the hotel room at three o'clock in the morning when the bombs were dropping on Damascus.

Almost called home to say good-bye again, but then didn't, and then I took a cab to the waterfront address.

Nothing but a deserted warehouse, until the cab had pulled away, and then a well-dressed man appeared, one of those nondescript guys you see everywhere in the financial district of a city at noontime, gray suit, warm handshake.

"You must be Elliott Slater." He led me out onto the pier.

A handsome yacht was anchored there, dead quiet like a white ghost ship, with its string of lights reflected in the black water, and I went up the gangplank alone.

Another man appeared, this one a lot more interesting, young or at least my age, with nicely unkempt blond hair, and very tanned skin. His white shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, and he gave an extraordinary display of beautiful teeth when he smiled.

He showed me to my cabin, and took the suitcases off my hands.

"You won't see these again for two years," he said in a very friendly manner. "Is there anything perhaps you want, Elliott, just for the trip? Everything in your cabin will be put in these afterwards, your wallet, passport, that watch of yours, anything you leave."

I was a little startled. We were standing very close together in the passage and I realized this meant he knew what I was, where they were taking me. He wasn't somebody who merely worked on the yacht.

"Don't worry about anything," he said. He was standing right under the light, and it showed a few freckles on his nose, the sun streaks in his hair. He slipped something small out of his pocket and I saw it was a gold chain with a name plate. "Give me your right wrist," he said.

It raised the hairs on the back of my neck, the touch of his fingers as he put the bracelet on me and snapped the clasp.

"Your meals will be pushed through that slot. You won't see anyone, or talk to anyone during the voyage. But the doctor will come for a final check. The door won't be locked until then."

He opened the cabin door. Soft amber light inside. Dark-grained wood under a sheen of plastic lacquer. His words had set up a din in my head. The door won't be locked until then. And the little bracelet felt annoying, like a cobweb clinging to me. I read my first name on the plate and something like a code of numbers and letters beneath it. I felt hairs rise again on my neck.

The cabin was okay. Rich, brown leather armchairs, mirrors all over the place, large bunk with too many cushions, built-in video monitor with a library of films on laser disc under it, lots of books. Sherlock Holmes of all things, and the erotic classics,
Story of O, Justine, The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Beauty's Punishment, Romance of the Rod
.

There was a coffee grinder-maker, beans in a glass canister, a refrigerator full of French mineral water and American soda, a tape player, and unopened decks of exquisitely decorated cards. I picked up one of the paperback Sherlock Holmes.

Then the door opened without a knock. And I jumped.

It was the doctor, obviously, in a starched white coat. With an easy, amiable expression, he set down the inevitable black bag. I wouldn't have guessed he was a doctor without the coat and the bag. He looked like a weedy adolescent, even a little pimply still and washed out, and his short brown hair was as messy as short hair can get. Maybe he was a resident just off twenty-four-hour duty. And with a polite but preoccupied look, he had out the stethoscope immediately, asking me to take off my shirt. Then he removed a manila file from the bag and opened it on the bed.

"Mr. Elliott Slater," he said, scratching the back of his head, and looking at me for definite verification. He was already thumping on my chest. "Twenty-nine. In good health? No major problems of any kind? Regular doctor?" He turned to consult the file again, and glance over the signed report of physical examination. "All this has been checked out," he hummed half under his breath. "But we like to ask you face to face just the same."

I nodded.

"You work out, don't you? You don't smoke. That's good."

Of course my private physician hadn't known what the examination was for when he filled out the report. "Fit to participate in a long-term strenuous athletic program," was jotted on the blank portion at the bottom in his near indecipherable hand.

"Everything seems in order, Mr. Slater," said the doctor, putting the file back in his bag. "Eat well, sleep well, enjoy the voyage. You won't be able to see much out of the windows; they're covered with a film which will make the scenery something of a blur. And we have one recommendation, that you refrain from any private sexual stimulation during the trip." He was looking me directly in the eye. "You know what I mean…"

I was startled, but I tried not to show it. So he understood everything, too. I didn't answer.

"When you arrive at The Club, you should be in a state of sexual tension," he said as he moved to the door. He might as well have been telling me to take an aspirin and call next week. "You'll perform much better if you are. I'm going to lock the door now, Mr. Slater. It will open automatically if there is any emergency on the vessel and there is more than adequate lifesaving equipment, but for no other reason will it be opened. Is there perhaps any last question you want to ask?"

"Hmmmm. Last question!" I couldn't resist laughing under my breath. But I couldn't think of anything. My heart was clipping along a little too fast. I looked at him for a moment. Then I said: "No, thank you, Doctor. I think everything's been covered. That's tough about not jerking off, but I never did want hair to grow in the palms of my hands."

He laughed so suddenly that he looked like somebody else. "
Enjoy
yourself, Mr. Slater," he said trying to get his smile under control. The door shut behind him, and I heard the lock turn.

For a long moment I sat on the bunk staring at the door. I could already feel a stirring between my legs. But I decided I would try to play the game. It would be like being twelve years old again and feeling guilty just on general principles. And besides, I knew he was right. Better to land at The Club with all systems revved and ready for action rather than on an empty tank.

And for all I knew they were watching me through the mirrors. I was theirs now. It's a wonder it didn't say "Slave" on the bracelet. I'd signed all the papers myself.

I took one of the books off the shelf… one that wasn't erotic, and making myself comfortable on all the pillows, started to read. James M. Cain. Terrific stuff, but I'd already read it. I reached for the Sherlock Holmes. It was a wonderful facsimile of the original
Strand Magazine
printing of the stories, complete with little ink drawings. I hadn't seen anything like it in years. Very nice, being with Holmes again, remembering just enough to make it interesting, not enough to ruin it. What they call good clean fun. After a while, I put the book down and consulted the shelves again hoping they'd have Sir Richard Burton, or Stanley's book about finding Livingstone. But they didn't. And I had Burton in my suitcase where I'd packed it and forgotten about it days ago. First feeling of being a prisoner. Trying the door to see it was locked. What the hell? Get some sleep.

******

At times, playing the game was hard.

******

I showered a lot, soaked in the bathtub, did push-ups, read all the James M. Cain again,
The Postman Always Rings Twice
and
Double Indemnity
and
Serenade
, and watched all the films on disc.

There was one film that really got to me. It was brand new, still in the brown paper mailing envelope, and I opened it last. It was a little thing about the gypsies in New York called
Angelo, My Love
. I wished there'd been a couple of sequels, all about the same gypsies, the same little kid Angelo.

But it seemed strange, a film like that in this collection of Bogart
film noir
classics and hard glossy
Flashdance
trash. I took the packaging out of the waste basket. The disc had been sent out express mail from a Dallas video store of all places only a couple of days before we left. Odd. Like maybe somebody saw it and loved it and ordered it impulsively for the cabins on the yacht. I wondered if anybody else on board was watching it. Not a sound ever penetrated the room.

******

I slept a great deal. In fact, I would say I slept most of the time. I wondered if there weren't drugs in the food, which was slipped through the door. But I don't think so, because I felt so good when I woke up.

******

Now and then I woke up in the middle of the night and realized what I'd done.

I was headed to The Club, this strange place, for two years, and no matter how I begged or pleaded, for two years I wouldn't be allowed to split. However, that was the least of it. It was what was going to happen there. And I remembered my master, my trainer, my secret sexual mentor, Martin Halifax, saying over and over, right up to the end, that two years was too long.

"Go for six months, Elliott, a year even. You can't really imagine what The Club is. You've never been incarcerated anywhere longer than a few weeks. And these are small places, Elliott. The Club is enormous. We're talking about two years."

I didn't want to argue with him anymore. I had said a thousand times I wanted to be lost in it, no more fortnight trips and exotic weekends. I wanted to drown in it, get so deep into it that I couldn't keep track of time, believe in a day when the time would be up.

"Come on, Martin, you've sent in all the papers," I'd said.

"And they've examined me, accepted me. If I wasn't ready, they wouldn't take me, right?"

"You're ready for it," he had said wistfully. "You can handle what happens there.
But is it what you really want
?"

"I want to go off the proverbial deep end, Martin. That's what I've been saying all along."

******

I had practically memorized the rules and regulations. I'd be paid one hundred grand for my services. And for two years I'd be their property to do with as they pleased. I wondered what they charged their "guests," the ones who would use us, if they paid us that much.

******

And now I was on board the yacht, and already there was no turning back. I could hear the sea, though I couldn't see it or really smell it, and rolling over I went back to sleep.

The truth was, I couldn't wait to get there. I wanted to be there now. I got up in the night and felt the door again to make certain it was locked, and that made the desire in me uncontrollable so that it erupted in a half tangle of painful and delicious dreams.

I was kind of regretful afterwards, but there was only one mistake—coming like that, like a Catholic boy in a wet dream.

******

A lot of the time I thought about Martin, about the way it had started, "the secret life" as he called it and I called it to myself.

There had been so many mentions of "The House," before I had finally made somebody spell it all out. And it had been so hard to call that number, yet so easy to wind up outside the immense Victorian at nine on a summer night. The traffic was almost gusting past me uphill as I turned to make the short walk under the tall, straight Eucalyptus trees to the wrought iron gate. ("Come to the basement door.")

Forget the hackneyed whores in black corsets and spike heels ("Have you been a bad boy? Do you need a whipping?") or the dangerous little baby-faced hustlers with the tough-guy voices. This was going to be the Deluxe Escorted Tour of Sado-Masochism to the max.

And the civilized conversation first.

Small lamps in the big, sprawling, darkly paneled room, no brighter than candles as they illuminated the paintings, the tapestry on one wall. Oriental screens, deep red and gold paisley window shades. Dark, lacquered french doors with mirrors for glass along the far wall, and a big comfortable leather wing chair, my foot on the ottoman, and the shadowy figure of the man behind the desk.