Scar Flowers (21 page)

“I grow fond of them, but I don’t
have sex with them. I’m like anyone else: I choose my lovers. They don’t pay me.” Her voice lost some of its lower register, and her words came out clipped.

“Do your clients choose you? Or do you pursue them?” He told himself he was asking as an interviewer, a documentarian, but a note of satisfaction rose in him,
the anticipation of seeing her rattled.

“What are you playing at, Mr. Mercer? Do you want a public answer for your camera, or a private answer that applies just to you?”

“I want to know how this works. All I have to go by so far is my experience.” Simon had expected a sense of victory, but something sank in his chest instead as she stared at him.

“If you expect me to apologize twice for the same thing, you’ll be disappointed. In
paid sessions I follow a comprehensive set of rules to help ensure that everything that happens is consen-sual. I may go beyond negotiated boundaries in personal, non-client scenes if I know my partner well and feel they’re ready for it. But my partners—and my clients—also have their safewords or nonverbal signals they can use if they’re gagged or unable to speak. They can stop the scene at any time.”

“Just like they can break a trance if you push them too far? After you’ve
secretly hypnotized them?”

“
You love to insist on my extraordinary powers.” She smiled. “I’m only able to entrance the willing. Those who are susceptible by reason of sexual attraction, a deep-seated desire to be led or to throw off inhibition.”

Simon cleared his throat.
“All right, so I’m not a client. If I were, would I pay you now?”

“Afterward.”

“But today is free of charge, because I’m not your client or your lover?”

“For you, everything is gratis. Professional courtesy from a
sadist to a voyeur.” A purr of sarcasm tinged her words.

Outside, a train whistled. The light struggling through the blinds into Leah’s office had turned amber, shimmering with motes of dust.

“Is that everything?” he finally asked. “Would the session start now?”

“Soon. First you
’d have to confess.”

“My sins, you mean.”

“It’s a game most clients play—they don’t tell me why they’ve really come. They’re too ashamed or ignorant, and they expect me to figure it out. So I indulge them, ask them to confess their desires. Sometimes I get my clues that way, but usually not.”

“How else, then?”

“From what they say, how they respond during sessions. A hundred little tests.” A note of impatience sparkled in her tone.

“But that doesn’t explain how it works.”

“Words never will. And if you insist on pretending you’ve never experienced it yourself, you’ll never understand. That’s enough questions.” Leah stood. “There will be someone joining us. Use the mask on the table if you want to stay anonymous.”

She yanked the curtain closed, rings squealing on the rod, to shut out the light.

Simon sat a moment longer in the
silence. When he came out into the foyer, the velvet curtain was open. Beyond the iron gate was a wide, shallow space with thick blocks of glass as the eastern window, twilight-dim—he could not see either end of the room without pressing close to the wrought iron. A mural covered the rear wall, in the style of Hieronymus Bosch: a tangle of naked flesh and foliage, nightmare creatures that danced through glisten-ing vines and heavy flowers. A column of light fell from a skylight in the middle of the twilit room, reflected in the gilt-framed full-length mirrors. An
x
-shaped wooden cross lurked in the corner, to one side of a carved throne and flanked by iron stands studded with candles. Racks of whips and other implements hung on one wall, but the other items in the room were muffled by velvet drapes.

He put the mask on. No, he did not want to be recognized. Not after having childhood friends and ex-girlfriends tattle about him to journalists.

The room rang with echoes from Leah’s high-heeled boots as she entered from somewhere to his left. He assumed that it was Leah; the woman in the room beyond the gate carried herself with a straight spine from which her limbs flowed loosely. She wore a polished black cat suit that clung to her body in a glossy slick, its silver zipper running from throat to crotch. A hood of the same material covered her hair and neck, leaving her face bare, while her hair fell in a long ponytail from the crown of her head. Black gloves sheathed her hands. Though every curve of her body was visible, the polished surface of her costume and the artifice of the high heels and hood gave the effect of armor mixed with nudity. A thick ring of keys hung from a loop at her hip, jingling with each step. He fumbled for his camera, to ensure that it was still running.

Leah sat on the high-backed throne. A girl entered from an unseen door. Barefoot, she wore a white cotton shift, through which he could see the dark nipples of her pointed breasts. Her head was shaved and a simple black half mask covered her face. A high leather collar with a silver ring in front covered her from chin to collarbone and gave her head a defiant tilt, like an imperious noblewoman. Tiny silver locks dangled from leather gauntlets on her wrists.

“Faith, this is Simon. He’s here to watch. He wants to learn from you.”

Through the eyeholes in her mask, the girl’s pale-lashed eyes looked black.

“Do you agree to let him watch you?” asked Leah.

The girl raised her head a fraction. Her bottom lip was a sulky pink, as if she’d been biting it.

“Speak up, Faith. Do you want him to watch you?” Leah’s lips gleamed red.

Color crept into the girl’s cheeks, but her eyes remained unreadable.
She nodded yes as best she could in her stiff collar.

“
Normally, I require spoken responses from my personal submissives—and always from my paying clients,” she told Simon, “but Faith and I have an understanding. Faith, what do you want him to see? Show him.”

The girl called Faith drew in a breath. Her lips trembled and her eyes shone; the black leather cuffs and collar looked cruel against her rosy skin. She bent, almost a curtsey, and rolled up the hem of her shift: high-arched, delicate feet with a dark green circlet of ivy tattooed around one ankle; bountiful calves and thighs; heart-shaped hips. Her sex was shaved as smooth and bare as her skull.

The kind of girl you either ignored or fought wars over.

“Do you want to show him more?”

Faith pulled the shift off over her head and turned slowly. Faint scratches like tiger stripes marked her ribs and the sides of her breasts. Shadows of yellow bruises clutched like fingers at the curve of her buttocks and the backs of her thighs. In contrast to her voluptuous lower body, Faith’s arms and torso were delicate, almost thin. A row of raised white scars lined each of her shoulder blades. Her ribs pulsed as she breathed. She was the only soft thing in the room, a morsel on a banquet table set with knives.

“Do you want him to touch you?” asked Leah, her voice soft. “Go on.”

Who was Leah speaking for—Faith or herself? Her eyes burned with something familiar; the need and sorrow of Julia’s ghost when she crouched over him in the trailer.

The girl approached Simon and leaned against the wrought iron, her face turned, so that her breasts and hands were on his side of the bars.

“He might not believe you, Faith. Is this something that you want to do?”

The girl nodded and closed her eyes. Her fingers hung loose, and a curve of the black metal gate pressed into her cheek.

Simon touched the side of her face. Faith made a sound deep in her throat.

“She likes strangers.” Leah’s voice curled into Simon’s ear like a wisp of smoke.

Cold iron separated him from the women in the other room. He laid the back of his hand just above Faith’s right breast. Her heart labored there, below the skin. The girl’s skin was silken and plump. She smelled like soap and anticipation, sexual and warm.

“What are they from? Where’d you get these marks?”

She looked at him beatifically, then turned to her mistress as though asking for help.

“Faith, do you want to tell him?” asked Leah. The girl shook her head
.

“Are you proud of your marks?” This time Faith nodded.

“Come here.”

She stared at him a moment before obeying
, her gaze solemn.

A chain hung from the ceiling in the center of the room. Leah
touched her back with gloved fingers and said something in her ear. Faith raised her arms over her head and looped the silver rings on her gauntlets over the hook at the end of the chain, which Leah shortened by turning a crank set in the wall until the girl stood on tiptoe.

Leah tied a blindfold over Faith’s mask and ran her fingers over the cloth, as if to check the fit. She walked the perimeter of the space and brushed her fingers over each rack of equipment: whips, canes, paddles, and
implements that Simon did not recog-nize. Buckled leather straps with odd-shaped plastic plugs attached, tiny metal frames with dangling chains and locks, a curved metal instrument as narrow as a knife blade.

Faith turned her face in the direction of Leah’s footfalls, making minute adjustments for each step. From the first rack, Leah selected a whip with a dozen braided tails. She swung it against the
x
-shaped cross with a whoosh of air and a crack of impact.

Across the room, Faith jumped
, and the chain jingled. A pulse beat in Simon’s throat, and he reached out, only to encounter the gate.

Leah set the whip back. At the next rack, she took up a riding crop,
which cut the air with a sharper sound. Faith pushed backward with her heels and hung limp from the end of the chain, her lips parted.

Leah walked slowly toward her, reached out to stroke the leather flap at the end of
the crop against the girl’s face. Faith arched her back and flexed her fingers.

“Shh
. . . That’s a good girl.” Leah pressed her cheek against Faith’s.

She returned the crop to its place, then picked up a large silver briefcase and flicked the latches open.
A large plastic handle and a dozen attachments of glass and metal nestled inside, each in its own padded cubbyhole.

As Faith’s breathing quickened, Leah moved more languid
-ly—to choose a mushroom-shaped glass bulb to insert in the handle, then plug the device in.

“This is
a violet wand,” said Leah. “Faith’s never experienced one before.” She set the wand down beside the case. By the time she produced five silver metal talons to fit over the fingertips of one hand, the girl was whimpering, her cheeks pink.

“She blushes when she’s attracted to someone who’s watching her.” Leah ran her metal-tipped hand down Faith’s back, over her buttocks and thighs. The girl jumped and yelped, then calmed once she realized there was no pain or shock. Yet. “Some people, when they are sexually aroused, can interpret pain as extreme sensation. They find it erotic and consciousness-altering, even become addicted to it. The endorphins.
But it’s still pain.”

She turned to Faith and said, “Should I let you go?”

A minute ticked by. The girl shook her head.

Leah smiled and kissed Faith’s temple. With a hooked pole, she drew black
curtains over the wall of glass bricks and the skylight to throw the room into darkness.

Blackness settled over Simon’s eyes. A buzzing like a fluorescent light crossed with a swarm of cicadas permeated the room. A pale purple
glow coalesced in Leah’s hand. It was the glass mushroom at the end of the wand, casting weird light so that only the strongest planes of the girl’s face and body stood out against the dark. Leah’s cat suit shone faintly, surmounted by the arch of bare skin exposed by her hood, her red lips shining black in the lavender haze. Faith’s hands sought each other and she turned her head blindly, trying to locate the source of the noise. She recoiled as Leah stepped toward her, but the chain prevented her from moving much before she lost leverage and swung back to center, feet scrabbling on the smooth floor. She made a sound that could have been
no-no-no
as she tried to pull herself to safety.

Leah’s eyes caught the light. She lifted her silver talons
, and a cascade of sparks flew from her fingertips to Faith’s skin. The girl jerked and gasped. Simon gripped the wrought-iron gate; was she injured or just afraid? He did not know how dangerous such a device might be.

Faith arched and trembled as Leah traced a slow pattern down her stomach and thighs,
the metal talons crackling. The girl’s eyebrows knotted, and her hands clenched above their gauntlets. Leah’s own body must be conducting some of the electricity; the hand without talons gripped the luminous tip of the wand.

Leah turned, blocking the light. Then she set the wand down and murmured something to Faith, who stifled a sob. The girl lifted her head as her mistress selected the next attachment: a small
, spiked metal wheel. A corona of violet rays arced from the spokes, eerily like a hairy-legged spider seeking its prey. Ozone scorched the air, and the device’s hum struck Simon in the stom-ach. A blue aura surrounded Faith, pierced with snaking bolts. Body arched, she stood on tiptoe with her head thrown back and her mouth open as if she were about to sing. She cried out, a wavering, pleading sound like an infant’s, body rigid, her eyes two luminous points in the blackness. Tears glinted on her cheeks. Leah was visible only in negative, blue streaks reflected on the shiny surface of her clothes, her black-clad limbs coiling in the dark.