Chapter 10
Sunday morning started well enough, with a big, naked breakfast-that is, the breakfast was big and we were all naked. And believe me, we all needed plenty of grub, what with all the calories we'd burned up Friday night and Saturday and Sunday night.
After breakfast we all had a compulsary rest period of one hour, on account of it isn't good to exert yourself on a full stomach, I guess, and while we were resting the butler-who still had all his clothes on and who still looked real sedate, kind of like Arthur Treacher-came around and gave us each a sealed envelope which we weren't supposed to open until Jane blew a whistle.
Meanwhile, I'd gotten to talk to the teen-age boy that John, Jane's husband, had brought in right after I'd arrived. I told him my name was Sharon-I didn't tell him my last name, for security reasons-and he said his name was Clarence, only people usually called him Cal. I told him how I'd happened to come to the party, and he told me his story.
"I was standing outside this movie house near Times Square," he said. "They was playin' this movie, Girls Who Bare All For Dollars, along with a co-feature, The Shame Dame Meets the Lust Lass, and I was just about to go in when this man comes up and says his name is John Smith and do I like girls. You know the creep-think his name's really John Smith?"
"No," I said. "He's the second John Smith I've met in New York, and he's a phony, I'll bet."
"Me too. Well, right off I figure he's some kind of nut, but he starts peeling off ten-dollar bills and telling me how a bunch of high-class dames would flip over me sex-wise, and how would I like to play stud for fun and profit? So I said deal me in, and here I am. Wow! A hundred fifty smackers-and all the sex I can handle. Pretty good for a junior high school drop-out, huh?"
I said yes, but I walked away as soon as I could. I mean, high school drop-outs like me naturally look down on junior high school drop-outs.
And then Jane blew her whistle, and everybody opened their envelopes while Jane yelled, "All right gang, the party's under way again. Sing out your numbers and find your partners for the opening bash!"
Everybody, including me, looked at the numbers they'd drawn and yelled out same. Me, I'd drawn 44. Somehow the number seemed familiar. I found out why when I saw the tall girl with taffy hair sauntering toward me.
"Well, Sharon," she said, smiling, "guess you and I are paired for a frantic few minutes, eh?"
"There must be a mistake," I said. "I mean, we're both girls."
"No mistake," chuckled Forty-four-who's real name was Suzy, I remembered. "This is Hollywood roulette. You sex with the partner you draw: male, female, animal or vegetable. What's the trouble, never tried DC, just AC?"
I swallowed hard. "That's right. Maybe we can swap numbers with two guys, huh?"
"Against the rules," said Suzy.
"I want to change the rules," I said. "Nothing personal, of course."
"That's allowed," said Suzy, smiling in a funny way. "If you're willing to pay the penalty. The penalty is simple. All members are gathered, each lights a cigarette, draws on it, then stubs it out on your flesh. There are sixty present right now-and a glowing cigarette coal reaches a temperature of twelve hundred degrees. Still want to change the game?"
Well! "No," I mumbled. "I'll play. But how?"
"I'll show you," said Suzy, sticking out her tongue and licking her lips.
And she did. It wasn't much fun. Not for me at least. Suzy seemed to have a ball. She kept telling me where to touch her or stroke her or kiss her and where to use my tongue. Me, I didn't like the whole thing. She had a nice enough body, but it was a female body, and I just don't go for girls. Suzy, though, told me she was double-gaited, which I guess must be society talk for swinging both ways.
After that was over, I played around awhile with some of the men, and then a gong sounded and we all went to the big room, to find rows of pillows on the floor. It was time for movies.
I must say they were real elegant movies, too with sound and all in color and up-to-date and all. I'd always figured such movies were all out of focus and in black and white and real crude.
These were crude all right, but only in what the actors did. The first was all about the adventures of a hotel maid, and a real pretty girl played the title role. She went to work for a big hotel chain, first in New York, and the first bed she tried to make, there was a guy in it, and he chased her around the room and then caught her and tore off her uniform and ravished her.
So she asked for a transfer, and after the hotel manager had made her sex him up in different ways, she got one. To a hotel in Istanbul, where she got ravished by a bunch of Turks. It went on like that, through Paris and Hong Kong and Rio and other towns, with the maid getting sexed up in various clever ways in every hotel the chain owned.
It was real sexy, with lots of close-ups of the maid making men happy in the different ways, with everything shown, and I mean everything.
It ended with the maid back in New York, where they were holding a convention for the World's biggest man, and boy were some of those men big! The last scene-the climax, you might say-was of the maid all naked crouched on a circular table while about a dozen of these big men stood naked in a close circle around her and pointed their thumbs at her. The scene was shot from overhead, and the table began to revolve, while the maid stuck her tongue out at all the men around her, and her tongue kept flicking over their thumbs as she turned faster and faster until, one by one, each man showed his appreciation in an outpouring of emotion.
After that came a movie about a girl who liked girls (which I found real dull), and then one about a girl who trained wild stallions but finally switched to dolphins on account of they were more intelligent. And then one about a girl who kept a whole zoo, for Pete's sake-and what she didn't do to make her animals happy!
After that came a short movie about female impersonators, which I also found dull, and then one supposed to be funny as well as sexy, but was more sexy than funny.
Then-after some previews of coming attractions-the lights went up. Jane stood in front of the screen and waved for silence.
"All right, gang," she called. "That's all for our regular showing. Now, as you know, we show a few more films-horror films, as we call them. All who don't wish to view our horror films-and everybody who hasn't paid the extra two-hundred-dollar fee please leave now."
I looked around. Most-but not all-of the girls got up and began to stroll out, laughing and talking and fooling with the guys they were with. Some of the men left, too, but about thirty people stayed, a lot of them giggling real nervously.
I stayed, on account of I wasn't going to leave until someone threw me out. What could be coming next?
A little man who looked like a ferret was what. He was fully dressed and carrying a big can of film. Also a pistol strapped to his right leg. He looked around the room carefully, then nodded to himself and walked toward the projector, where he began to fuss with the film can.
Jane sat down beside me, and the audience began to talk and whisper excitedly.
"Can I stay?" I asked. "Even though I haven't paid two hundred dollars?"
"Why not?" said Jane, laughing in a real brittle fashion. "If you dig horror, that is. For myself, I find these films despicable and depraved."
"Why do you stay, then?" I whispered.
"Because I'm hooked on horror," she sighed. "Worse luck. See that little man at the projector-the one who looks like a weasel? Well, he works for the syndicate that distributes these horror films. That can he's carrying has a kind of bomb in it. If he scents trouble, he pulles a string-and foofl-the films burn to a crisp inside the can. It's printed on old-fashioned, highly inflammable celluloid. And while the film's running, he keeps a cigarette lighter in his hand. If the cops should break in-flam!-the whole film would burn up fast."
"Golly," I said. "That film must be hot."
And then the film started. And it was hot. Also horrible.
There was no real action. I mean, the camera hardly moved for the whole movie. But in another sense, there was too much action! It opened with a young and voluptuous-looking Chinese girl walking into a bare room. She walked toward the camera, bowed, and then began to take off her dress, then her panties and bra.
"Probably filmed in Macao," Jane whispered. "You can buy a young, voluptuous Chinese refugee girl outright for a thousand dollars there, I understand. No questions asked--as long as you sink her remains deep in the bay."
"Golly," I said.
Meanwhile, on the screen, the young but very voluptuous Chinese girl had taken off all her clothes and was turning slowly in front of the camera, showing off her figure and smiling.
"Poor doll," murmured Jane. "She doesn't suspect what she's in for, obviously. Probably thinks she's just making a sexy movie."
"Isn't she?" I asked. But Jane didn't answer. On the screen the voluptuous young Chinese girl continued to preen herself in front of the camera, in glowing color. She stroked her full thighs, her ripe breasts, her wide hips, her not-quite-flat belly, and smiled provocatively.
Then a door opened behind her and four burly Chinese men entered. Each was naked except for a black belt around his waist and a wide black mask over his face. The girl heard them, turned, squealed in horror-the movie had sound, too-and backed away.
Not fast enough. They grabbed her, laughing nastily, and threw her to the floor, where they tied her wrists and ankles. Then they hoisted her up and tied her, stretched and writhing, between two hooks set in the wall. The girl was obviously trying to scream, but a gag in her mouth prevented her from doing anything but moan through her nose. When they had he tied tight, horizontally at camera height, like a pig on a roasting spit, the four burly Chinese bowed to the camera and left.
Two shapely Chinese girls stalked into camera range next. Each was really built, and each was also wearing a black belt and a black mask. Also black high-heeled boots. They too bowed toward the camera, then toward each other, and then toward the helpless naked girl.
Jane put a hand on my knee. "Don't get too upset, she murmured. "Remember, that girl is long dead now-you're only watching film."
And so I was. But what film! The girls with masks finished bowing and smiling at the camera, and then each picked up what looked tike a meat skewer. I looked again. They were meat skewers! All of a sudden I felt sick. I suppose I should have looked away, but she was jdead. I wouldn't help her by looking away. And I might miss something educational.
The masked girls sauntered with swaying hips over to their helpless victim, brandished their meat skewers ... And then thrust them into their voluptuous victim's naked flesh. One skewer got thrust into the victim's buttock, the other into her left breast.
The naked girl twisted-as much as she could in agony, and the girls with masks thrust two more skewers into her flesh. Then she writhed even more, and made horrible agonized sounds through her nose.
"You must remember," Jane hissed into my ear, "that human life is cheap in the Orient. A film like this-at a minimum of five thousand dollars a showing-will bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars. Whereas Chinese refugee girls bring only a thousand, and then only for the most voluptuous specimens."
"You mean," I gasped, as the writhing victim on the screen got two more meat skewers thrust through her breasts, "that this film is benefiting the Chinese Communist Government?"
"Good gracious no!" said Jane. "This is strictly a capitalist enterprise. The Communists are very square about torture for the fun of it. None of the money from this film will ever reach left-wing circles."
"Thank goodness," I gasped. Though at the same time I began to wonder if free enterprise might not be stretched too far, the need for the curbing of the population boom in Asia notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, on the screen, the camera had begun to trundle slowly in for a close-up of the voluptuous chick's face. It was contorted in agony, naturally. And while the camera focused on it, it kept contorting more and more-obviously, more skewers were being stuck in.
Then the camera moved, wobbling a bit, until it was focused on the girl's breasts. Four or five skewers were already thrust right through them. While the camera held the close-up, half-a-dozen more were pushed slowly into them. The Chinese girl's breasts, huge on the screen-and pretty big anyway-jerked and shook as the metal skewers sank into them.
Then the camera moved, jerkily, down her body, and gracefully thrust more meat skewers into the victim's plump belly, her shapely buttocks, her ripe thighs.
Then the camera pulled unsteadily back, until the girl's entire body was visible again, in full color on the wide screen. She looked like a giant pin-cushion.
Then another Chinese girl-a real young one, also wearing a black mask-pushed an iron brazier into camera view. Thrust into the glowing coals were a couple dozen more skewers-all white-hot. The new girl bowed and backed off-camera, while the two torturers, slipped on gloves-asbestos, no doubt-and then each reached for a white-hot skewer.
The helpless and horizontal victim writhed in horrified anticipation, her eyes wide with terror. And rightly so. Because a moment later the white-hot skewers were thrust slowly and sadistically into her breasts, right through the fully erect nipples. It was awful, believe me! It was all I could do not to shut my eyes as the white-hot daggers of metal hissed and steamer! as they sank into her breasts.
After that, more and more white-hot skewers got stuck into her breasts, and thighs, and buttocks, and belly. Each hissing as it sank.
Finally the film neared its end. One of the masked girls took a long, white-hot knife from the coals. While I watched, horrified but fascinated, she held the blade over where the naked chick would have been wearing a G-string if she'd been wearing one-and then slid it deep into her belly.
The audience gasped. The knife hissed. The gagged victim screamed through her nose, and the knife was thrust through her belly to the breastbone.
And still she writhed, not yet dead. The second torturer now appeared holding a white-hot rapier, and slowly sank it through the victim's left breast, all the way, until suddenly the tortured girl jerked and twisted and then went limp, as the hot blade slid through her ribs into her heart.
The masked Chinese girls grinned and bowed toward the camera, and the film ended.
The audience let out its breath in a long gasp. Me included.
"How," I gasped to Jane, "could such a film ever be made?"
"For money," chuckled Jane. "But don't worry, child. The girl you saw on the screen has been dead for weeks or months."
"But," I said, "if people are spending big money to see films like that now, won't more films like that be made in the future?"
Jane lit a cigarette, puffed on it heavily. "Perhaps. But I don't know they're being made. Anyhow, what's that to me? I simply contract for films already made. A few months from now I'll be contracting for films being made right now, may be, but by then they'll be several months old-and the girls long dead. You can't hold me to blame for a crime committed thousands of miles away and far in the past, can you?"
"Of course not," I said, feeling real ashamed. "You're only trying to make an honest dollar."
"True, very true," murmured Jane.
Meanwhile, another film had started. This one was made in Mexico, I surmised. It took place in a deserted bull ring. Only instead of a bull, a voluptuous naked Mexican girl with wide hips and incredibly full breasts ran into the ring. Her hands were tied behind her back and she was gagged and blindfolded, so she didn't run too fast.
Once in the ring, she was surrounded by half a dozen handsome young men wearing bullfighter costumes and black masks. Instead of a sword, each was holding a short black whip.
"Ah," sighed Jane. "The romance of old Spain! Men pitting their skill against a dumb beast destined to die for men's pleasure."
"But," I whispered back, "that isn't a bull. It's a naked girl. And she doesn't look as if she wanted to die."
"Neither does a bull," snapped Jane. "What's the difference? Both are helpless animals, aren't they?"
"No," I said. "A bull can fight back. And maybe even kill a matador."
"The bull-or the cow, in this case-is going to die anyhow," said Jane. "Why are you so blood thirsty as to want the matador to take a mortal risk too?"
"You're right," I said. "I was being bloodthirsty. But isn't it different-killing a dumb beast-from killing a naked girl?"
"If she wasn't dumb," chuckled Jane, "do you think she'd have gotten herself into such a fix in the first place? Rest assured that that chick is some nameless prostitute who volunteered to perform for big money. She was just too dumb to realize how she'd have to perform."
I nodded. Jane was no doubt right.
On the screen in full color, the big-breasted, wide-hipped naked girl had stumbled forward a few steps. Music blared.
"Ah, the pageantry, the romance of Death in the Afternoon!" murmured Jane. "What is the death of one bull compared to the delight of thousands-or the death of one cow compared to the sensual entertainment of others, more sophisticated thousands?"
I was about to say that even dumb human beings were more important than animals, but I didn't. Maybe Jane was right and I was wrong. But I didn't think so, privately.
Meanwhile, English subtitles had flashed on the screen. The brave cow, the subtitles said, prepares to meet her fate-at a fete. She has been told that if she drops to the ground within ten minutes, she will be dispatched with a sword. Hence the determination with which she keeps her feet will determine her courage as-a brave cow!
A flourish of trumpets sounded, and then one of the matadors drew back his whip and flicked the tip toward the naked, blindfolded, gagged and hand-tied girl.
The tip of the whip struck her belly, and bright red blood showed in a welt below her navel. The audience around me cheered. The girl on the screen doubled half over, only to straighten up again fast as a whip cracked against her rump, sending blood and a small chunk of flesh flying.
The girl began to run slowly across the ring, while whip after whip licked out and drew blood and sometimes bits of flesh from her naked body. Blindfolded as she was, she didn't realize she was ringed by six matadors, so each time she was struck by a whip she turned away-only to be sadistically flicked by a whip from another direction.
"What science, what art!" gasped Jane. "Note with what consummate skill the matadors strike at her buttocks, her belly, the tips of her breasts."
"You're right," I said, trying to forget the ghastliness of what I was watching and concentrate on its skill and artistry. "Those matadors sure know how to handle a whip with artistry and skill."
Which they did. Around and around in frenzied circles the naked girl ran, and the six matadors around her flicked their whips with deadly accuracy. Inside of five minutes she was flayed horribly-but artistically.
And still she ran, and kept her feet.
Five minutes later-ten minutes after the sport had begun-she was staggering and swaying in an effort to stay on her feet. At the bottom of the screen, the minutes she'd endured were flashed on one by one. As minute eleven was flashed on, I turned to Jane and whispered, "I thought they told her that she'd be dispatched with a sword if she couldn't keep on her feet for ten minutes?"
"Right," chuckled Jan. "But what they obviously didn't tell her was that she'd be finished off no matter how long she stayed on her feet. Be reasonable, Sharon. Could they let her go at all-with safety?"
"I guess not," I said, after thinking about it. "But it still seems kind of mean, leading her on like that."
"Nonsense," said Jane. "It merely gives her a chance to prove her courage as a brave cow-to show how long she can keep her feet in the face of horrible torment. Ah, the romance of old Spain and Spanish blood-sports!"
Well, maybe she had a point. Or maybe not. At any rate, the voluptuous Mexican girl managed to stay on her feet for another five minutes-sixteen minutes in all. Then she sagged at the knees, tried to rise, and fell on her back.
The matadors raised their hands in triumph, then clustered in a circle and began to flip coins. The winner emerged from the huddle smiling under his mask and brandishing a pointed stick-a banderilla, I guess they call it.
He stalked over to the fallen girl, brandished his stick proudly, then plunged it into the helpless girl's belly. She writhed more wildly.
Another matador handed him a second pointed stick and, after a flourish of trumpets and a bow toward the camera, he buried that in the girl's right breast. She writhed some more, naturally.
Finally the matador accepted a third pointed stick-this one all bedecked with ribbons-and after various artistic flourishes, rammed it through her left breast into her heart. That stopped her flopping around-permanently.
All six matadors turned and faced the camera, bowed, and, with an artistic blare of trumpets, the movie ended.
The people around me cheered enthusiastically.
"They like this kind of stuff, huh?" I said.
"Sadism," murmured Jane, "is buried within us all. Some people attend stock car races, hoping secretly to witness a fatal crash. Other people dig bullfights-or prize-fights. We of the sophisticated suburban sexclub set prefer our sadism straight."
While she was saying this, the third horror movie flashed onto the screen. I don't know where it was set; it could have been made anywhere, I guess. The action was real simple. It opened with a young, fullbodied blonde teen-age girl tied to a long metal stake stretched over a blazing charcoal fire-the movie was in full color, naturally. It began with the girl writhing in horrible agony as the flames licked at her naked flesh, and ended ten minutes later when, charcoal broiled, she stopped writhing.
"Amazing," said Jane when the movie halted. "I'd have sworn she'd last only five minutes. Just goes to show how tough teen-age girls are these days."
"Ulp, yes," I said. "Did you really enjoy that movie?"
Jane smiled. A cruel though sophisticated smile. "You eat meat, don't you?"
"Why, sure."
"Well, all right. Let's say you started eating meat as a tiny child, and that you continue eating it until you die, presumably in your late seventies or early eighties. Ever total up how many sheep and pigs and cows died, painfully, to provide you with a lifetime supply of meat? Thousands, believe me. I happen to be a vegetarian. When I die, thousands of animals will owe their long lives to me. Surely, in exchange, I can ask the deaths of a few dozen teen-age boys and girls. I just get my kicks in a different way."
"But that's different!" I protested. "And besides, if you watch two or three teen-age girls get put to death every week, that adds up to thousands of girls in a lifetime."
"True," said Jane. "II I were watching the movies all alone. But the movies I watch are watched by thousands of equally modern-minded people. So, spread among the total audience, my share of the guilt is very small. If ten thousand people watch-and drool over-a movie depicting one teen-age girl being executed in a slow and amusing fashion, then my guilt is for only one-ten-thousandth of a human life. Right? If I watched ten thousand movies of a like nature, I would be guilty of taking only one human life, correct?"
I stared at her. What a horrible attitude to take. Obviously, Jane was a bit twisted upstairs.
And obviously, I should get far away from her fast.
Alas, my sound resolve came too late. As I was to discover all too soon, in horrible fashion.