Nirvana Bites (13 page)

There was an eerie silence. I shivered and pulled my jacket tighter. It wasn't only the night chill giving me goose pimples. I could do without this. It had taken me several hours in a tomb to gather sufficient bottle to be here, for fuck's sake.

When I first emerged on to the S&M scene in my late teens, it had seemed the obvious place to be. S&M relationships are very different from straight ones, but not just in the obvious way those who are into ‘vanilla' think. Those who like their ice cream – and their sex – bland often make incorrect assumptions. They see some butch, leather-clad macho type leading a half-naked, handcuffed ‘slave' by a chain and are instinctively outraged on behalf of the supposed victim. But the truth is, nothing is what it seems in this world. The power exerted by the ‘sub' equals and sometimes surpasses that of the ‘dom'.

The other thing about S&M relationships is that they are built on a foundation of absolute trust. You don't believe me? Take this scenario, for example. You have been tied up and are being beaten with a whip, a belt or a cane. You could scream, plead, writhe, cry, beg for mercy. To no avail. Yet you could utter one little word – your pre-arranged ‘safe' word – and everything stops. Immediately. You don't call that trust? In the world I grew up in, there was little to trust. And no safe word.

And that, in a nutshell, was my problem. I knew exactly why I was involved in the Scene. I knew precisely what I was acting out – deep and murky horror from a non-existent childhood. Stuff so bad, some block it out for years. I thought I'd found a magic formula: act out the memories while retaining control and they'll diminish. Or at least you'll get a handle on them through expressing them.

But it didn't work for me. After a while, it was more like reliving the horror over and over. The emotional pain became so intense, it swelled to monumental proportions and blocked out the remotest possibility of sexual pleasure. I came to realise this was not a good thing. It was true torture. I dropped out and dropped into the straight(er) world of Nirvana. And found that vanilla can be quite nice after all. And you can always mix in some spices.

That's why it had taken so much to get this far tonight. I stood there breathing in the hard urban air and wondered how I was feeling. I wondered about my real reasons for being there – whether it really was a legitimate search for clues about Stan. And if so, why hadn't I told any of the others I was going? Or did I have some deeper, darker need to be there? I wondered about circles and the tricks life can play on you. I wondered where the fuck the club was.

I'd just got to the point of thinking I must have got the address wrong when the night silence was ripped open. A roar of intense magnitude ricocheted off the garages and the faceless walls of the tower blocks. My heart stopped. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. I shrank against the unscalable garage wall. I was so stupid to come alone. What was I thinking of? I looked around for something to use as a weapon. The roar grew louder and a vast black and silver motorbike turned into the cul-de-sac. It pulled up under the only streetlamp. In the orange glow, the two riders stepped off and removed their helmets. I gagged with relief and lurched towards them.

Vic and Sal – founder members of Dykes on Bikes – seemed nearly as pleased to see me, which was flattering. We hugged, and I felt the familiar sensation of leather on leather. They asked me where I'd been for the past few years. I waffled something non committal. They must have sensed my discomfort, but were kind enough not to push for details. Arm in arm, we crossed the road.

To the right of a deserted warehouse was an unmarked black door. Vic pushed and it swung open. We entered a small square hallway, lit by a single naked bulb which swung with the sudden rush of air through the open door, bouncing shadows off the peeling paintwork. One wall was taken up by the metal grille of a freight lift. Sal pulled aside the double grille, we stepped inside and she crashed the gates shut again. We descended to a screeching of ancient cables into a basement. But not just any old basement.

The noise hit first. Seattle grunge at ear-splitting volume. As we descended further into the bowels of the earth, it was the smells – sweat, beer and musk. Then my dark-accustomed eyes were blinded as a strobe light streaked across my vision. The lift juddered to a stomach-lurching halt. We pulled back the grilles and stepped out. Vic yelled in my ear that she and Sal had some serious business to attend to. She wanted to know if I'd be OK. I nodded reassurance and before I knew it she and Sal were swallowed up into the crowd. I peered around.

The place was packed with a heavy, pulsating throng of hardcore players. Leather, rubber and polymers predominated. Tattoos and piercings seemed almost compulsory. The merciless strobe swept the room, freezing faces into contorted grimaces of pain and pleasure. Pain and pleasure. Painpleasurepainpleasurepain-pleasure. Like an old black and white horror movie played to a thrash soundtrack.
Nosferatu
was alive and well and swinging in Brixton. I tried to push my way through the press of swaying, sweating flesh towards the bar.

It seems ridiculous to say it now, but I felt conspicuous, as though my inner damage was visible and people only had to look at me to know I hadn't yet found a mechanism for dealing with it. In this place where everyone else vied for attention, I wanted to shrink, to conceal my wounds from public gaze and analysis. But I felt they were on display for all to see. More visible than any piercing or tattoo. A great red beating heart in the midst of a monochrome maelstrom.

I was having difficulty breathing. I wondered if I had laced my corset too tight. And no, the constriction was not pleasurable. None of this was pleasurable. The heat, the crowd the music. The general vibe. Even when I was on the Scene, the Triple X wouldn't have been my scene, if you get my drift. I was still trying to push my way through to the bar, but someone seemed to have sucked out all the air. Marilyn Manson was screaming from the speakers. The strobe continued its searchlight sweep over the faces. Too much negative energy. Can't breathe. Can't breathe. Can't…

I was lying on the floor. A cold, damp stone floor. The noise had dulled to a heavy bass throb. I was staring at the ceiling. A dim bulb swayed gently, its constant light a healing balm to my strobe-stricken brain. I rolled my head sideways. Stacks of drinks crates and crisp boxes. I rolled it back the other way. Black stilettos and fishnet stockings. The owner was unusual in these circles in that she had not shaved her legs. A lush crop of hairs pushed through the holes in the fishnet like prairie grass. A face loomed down into my vision. It was pale and sallow with the texture of an uncooked crumpet. The eyes were hidden behind green cats'-eyes contact lenses.

‘How are you feeling, Jen?'

As the face became mobile with speech, studs, spikes and rings shifted and moved, threatening to submerge themselves into ancient acne pits. Pat is not a beautiful woman. But at that moment she looked to me like a Renaissance Madonna. That's what relief can do for you.

I wanted to say something both reassuring and incisive. Something that would establish my role and reassert my dignity. But the only word that crawled across my cracked lips was ‘Shit.'

Pat explained how she'd seen me ‘zone out' – unconscious, but held upright by the tightly-packed bodies. Luckily for me, two of those bodies had belonged to herself and Pete. For the first time, I became aware of the figure standing behind her. Pete was clad in black PVC – though not very much of it. A chain ran from a metal cage-like chastity belt encasing his cock to a studded leather band round Pat's wrist. They were the perfect couple. He was skinny, bald and silent. She was plump, hairy and garrulous.

I'd met Pete many times, but couldn't recall ever hearing him speak. For all I knew, he might have had a speech impediment, or an exotic accent, but I doubt it. More likely he'd had his teeth fused together and was fed intravenously. He was that kinda guy. P ‘n' P were nothing if not generous, though. They were serial swingers and Pat was quite happy to lend Pete to anyone who wanted to play with the archetypal self-effacing submissive who was her long-term partner. So long as she could watch.

It goes without saying, this was categorically not on my agenda tonight. Number one on my agenda was breathing. Number two was to control my swimming brain sufficiently to sit up. Number three was to thank any available deities for delivering me into the hands of these particular unlikely saviours, who had been high on my list of people I'd hoped to bump into.

Pat unhooked the chain from her wrist and clipped it to a similar band round Pete's arm.

‘Pete,' she demanded, ‘go and get Jen a bottle of water.'

‘Brandy,' I croaked, and watched as Pete trotted off to do our bidding.

‘So what gives, Jen?' Pat asked in her mellifluous tones.

I'm always amazed by Pat's voice. Somehow it just seems like it shouldn't be coming from inside Pat, if you know what I mean. It is rich and throaty, the audio equivalent of scented honey dripping over exotic fruit. Pat earned a decent living doing voice-overs for TV ads.

Pete worked too, but he didn't have Pat's credentials or flexibility. For him, the ideal job would demand he wear PVC (though leather would do at a pinch) and be silent, and would involve motorbikes. He did a short stint as the world's heaviest pizza delivery boy, but was sacked after customers complained he put them off their thin-crust. The final nail in the coffin was actually a spoke in a Coke. Somehow one of his piercings had become detached and ended up in a cardboard cup of Diet Coke. He's a motorbike courier now, which suits him fine.

‘You disappeared way back when,' Pat purred. ‘No one knew where you'd gone. And the next time we see you, you look like you're one step from death. In the wrong direction. Have you been ill?'

I had to be careful to get this right. I groaned a bit, to buy some time. Luckily, the circumstances provided ample justification for a slow response. I needed every millisecond. For a moment, my mind ambled off to wonder how Pete was getting on at the bar. Would he mouth the word ‘brandy'? Air-write it? Point? I gave myself a sharp mental slap. I couldn't afford distractions.

In the end, I decided the best approach was to appeal to Pat and Pete's sense of drama, while applying the golden rule of lying – stick as close to the truth as possible. Pete returned with a double brandy; Pat reclamped his cock chain to her wrist; and together they helped me to a sitting position, propped against a box of cheese-and-onion. It wasn't great, but it was an improvement.

I held out a hand for the brandy and was annoyed to see it doing an advanced Parkinson's tremor. Pat held the glass to my lips and I sipped slowly, feeling the alcohol warmth seep through my battered organs and out to the furthest reaches of my deadened limbs. After a couple of sips, I rested my head back against the box and took a deep breath.

‘I'm a private dick,' I rasped. ‘I'm on a job.'

Pat and Pete frowned, setting a mass of metal on a rock-and-roll writhe over the lunar landscapes of their features. I realised their minds were so firmly set in their own world, they might not have the faintest idea what I was on about.

‘A detective,' I explained. ‘Private, of course. Not a cop. I need to find Stapled Stan. I can't give you any details – client confidentiality and all that – but I have reason to believe that he's in terrible danger.'

‘Stapled Stan,' cooed Pat. ‘Oh, we like Stapled Stan, don't we, Pete?'

A tiny smile creased the corners of Pete's lips. He leaned towards Pat. A studded tongue, of a length that would have impressed a sizeable lizard, shot from his mouth into her ear. So much for the fused-teeth theory.

Pat giggled and pushed him away with an admonishing cluck. ‘A detective? Since when? Ooh, how exciting. But tell me, how does the living-dead routine fit in, Jen?' she asked.

‘Someone must have slipped me a mickey earlier tonight,' I wheezed. I felt like Humphrey Bogart in
The Big Sleep
, though Pat was no Lauren Bacall. It occurred to me they might be thinking I was acting out a role and were just going along for the ride. I like to think they really believed me though. Anyway, it sounded better than the truth. Not enough sleep. Not enough food. Too many drugs. Too much alcohol. Too much raw emotion. ‘It's a very dangerous assignment,' I continued. My head was clearing and I was getting into my stride now. ‘I have to swear you both to secrecy.' Shouldn't be too much of a problem for Pete.

Pat nodded with great solemnity.

‘The trouble is,' I went on, ‘I don't know Stan's real identity.'

This was to be my way in. I wanted to know how much they knew, and whether any of it was stuff I didn't already know. Her initial response didn't leave much room for optimism. It looked like I might have put myself through this whole ordeal for nothing.

‘Oh shit, Jen. I don't think we can help you. We've never seen Stan without his mask. In fact, now I come to think about it, we haven't seen him around for quite a while. You don't think…?' Pat's eyes grew wide, the cats'-eyes contacts glinting in the light from the swinging bulb. I could tell she was imagining Stan as the victim of some Gothic horror – fantasy fodder for later, no doubt. I wasn't about to tell her she hadn't seen Stan around because he'd been safely ensconced at my pad for what felt like the last few millennia.

‘Do you have any idea how I could trace him?' I urged. ‘Any detail, no matter how insignificant it may seem to you, could be just the lead I've been looking for.'

The brandy was doing its job. I was feeling more in control. Now, so long as P ‘n' P had never seen
Crimewatch
, I should be OK.

Pat thought for a while, her brow furrowed in concentration. ‘The last couple of times we saw him, he was acting sort of weird,' she said with unconscious irony. ‘He was with a blonde woman. Very straight-looking. Though we all know how deceptive that can be. We invited them back to play, but he refused. He was very subdued. That would be about a month ago. At the Palace.'