The Juliette Society (28 page)

‘Can you imagine what went on there?’ he says. ‘What kind of activities this inspired?’

And he gives Pan a friendly little pat on the ass.

House parties? I say.

‘Correct,’ he says. And I’m glad I’ve finally got something right. But somehow I was expecting him to elaborate a little more. He’s playing with me again.

‘This isn’t the real one, unfortunately, but it’s a very good copy – all the details are present and correct,’ he says, running his index finger slowly and methodically along Pan’s erect penis, as if checking for dust. ‘And it serves its purpose.’

Which is, I say.

‘Don’t be coy,’ he says.

I’m not, I say.

‘This is what it’s all about,’ he says.

‘This?’

‘Here. Now.’

‘What is this place?’ I ask him.

‘This,’ he says, ‘is the garden of earthly delights. The marriage of heaven and hell.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘The Juliette Society,’ he says.

As soon as I hear the name, I’m back in the place I first heard it. Back in that bathroom with Anna. And I thought it was just a silly name for an elite swingers club. Apparently not.

‘I’ve heard about it,’ I say. ‘But what is it?’

‘The Juliette Society are a people united by one idea, a shared philosophy, all dedicated to the pursuit of sublime pleasures. We have common interests, shared goals and unlimited means.’

‘Sounds like a club for filthy rich people who like to get their rocks off,’ I tell him.

‘It’s not a club,’ he says. ‘It’s a tradition. A bloodline through history that began with the pre-Christian mystery religions and cults that worshipped pagan deities. The Roman authorities saw the cults as a threat to power and order. So they stamped down on them, broke them up and rounded up their devotees.’

The mystery religions are sounding a bit like the Fuck Factory of the Ancient World, but I’m not sure he quite means it that way.

‘What they didn’t know was that a lot of public figures and executives in the Roman Empire were also members of these cults,’ he says. ‘They were hunted down, imprisoned and put to death. But the cult survived and went underground, hiding itself in plain view. Since that time, it’s been known by many names.’

And he reels off a list of names that sound like the titles of cheesy horror B-movies.

The Cult of Isis.

The Secret Order of Libertines.

The Hellfire Club.

‘The name it’s known by now is The Juliette Society,’ he says. ‘But they all derive from the mystery religions.’

‘What was the mystery?’ I ask, intrigued.

‘The mystery wasn’t a thing to be uncovered,’ he says. ‘It was a place to be invoked, a place like this. A final destination, not a stop on the road.’

He’s talking in riddles, but I’m completely entranced.

‘And how do you get to this place?’ I say.

‘There are three stages of initiation.’

‘Which are?’

‘Disorientation of the senses.’

I’ve been there.

‘Intoxication of the body.’

Done that.

‘Orgiastic sex.’

Seen that. All present and correct. And here I am.

It wasn’t a chance happening, or a random series of events that brought me.

I was led here.

‘Now, you know how you got here,’ he says, like he knew what I was thinking. And there’s that smile again. I just can’t read him.

‘Whatever the Juliette Society is, I don’t want any part of it,’ I tell him, ‘I just want to find my friend.’

‘You’re already a part of it,’ he says.

‘I don’t belong here!’ I tell him wildly.

‘If you got here, you belong here,’ he replies, looking directly into my eyes.

‘But why?’ I ask.

‘Because the others didn’t.’

‘What others?’ I say.

‘The ones who didn’t make it,’ he says. ‘You see, the ones who give up halfway, or quit, the ones who baulk at the initiation, they were sacrificed.’

Sacrificed, I think. Did I hear that right? And I shiver inside, trying not to look as weirded out as I feel.

‘Is this one of those situations where after you’ve told me, you’re going to have to kill me?’

And I’m only half-joking.

He laughs, but I don’t think it’s because he got the joke, and he doesn’t say no.

‘We are more alike than we are different, you know,’ he says. ‘More alike than you’d want to admit. Hard as it is for you to fathom. We are not as others.’

I know what this is now. This is that scene in
Last Tango in Paris
, the only one that anyone really knows or cares about.

The one that begins when Maria Schneider walks into Marlon Brando’s apartment, calling out to announce her arrival. Not getting any response, she thinks no one’s home. But Brando’s sitting there on the floor, eating bread and cheese, saying nothing, not letting on, just waiting for her to arrive.

He already knows what’s going to happen. He’s already decided where this is going. What’s he going to do. She’s oblivious. And she makes herself oblivious because, in some ways, she wants it to happen too.

He’s been waiting here for me too, because he knew that I’d arrive. And I turned up right on cue.

Ready for my scene.

‘Are you afraid?’ he says, moving towards me.

‘No,’ I say, realizing it’s true.

And I’m really not. But even if I was, I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of knowing.

All I’m thinking is, what’s his game? And where is Anna?

‘Should I be afraid?’ I ask.

He pulls me towards him and I don’t resist because I understand that this is where it’s all been leading.

I wanted to come here. I made it happen.

I came by necessity. I had no choice.

I had a talent. And I was spotted.

He pushes me down onto the dais on my back. He already knows what he wants and he’s going to take it. I look up and see the statue. I see a goat and a horny devil on top of her. Myself and him in unholy union. But he doesn’t reach for my beard, he reaches for my throat.

By the time I realize what he’s doing his hands are already upon me and everything’s moving so fast that it’s moving in slow motion.

His hands are clasped around my throat.

I try to scream but it comes out as dead air. I struggle but he knows that he’s stronger than me. I’m pinned to the platform with the full weight of his body bearing down.

I can feel his hands slowly tighten around my windpipe.

And I flash on what happened to all those girls. I flash on what could have happened to Anna. And it all seems obvious now. It all seems so clear.

I should have paid closer attention. I should have listened to my head and not my body. I should have seen this coming.

Nobody wants to die. Not here, not like this.

I don’t want to die. Not here, not like those girls.

But it’s too late for second thoughts.

He’s squeezing the life out of me.

And I summon every ounce of strength and every last drop of air in my lungs to rasp:

Screw you.

He leans down until he’s in my ear and I hear him whisper, ‘Can you feel me?’

His hands tighten.

Then everything goes black.

The next thing I know I’m lying on my back, looking up at a vast, uninterrupted expanse of blue sky that stretches from one horizon to the next. No sun, no moon, no clouds. And even though the color is flat and featureless and completely uniform, it seems like it’s arched over me, as if I’m looking at the curvature of the earth. I feel a slight breeze brush against my body but, at this point, I can’t tell if I’m submerged underwater or floating through the sky.

Ghostly white gulls glide above my head like sentinels. And if it weren’t for the tips of their wings, that look as if they’d been stained with India ink, I’d think they were just floaters drifting in front of my eyes from staring too long into the infinite blue. They soar across my field of vision, some bigger than others on colliding paths at different altitudes, even though it looks as if they’re all inhabiting the same plane. I see a flock of starlings dart back and forth across the sky like a shoal of fish, turning on a dime to catch the current.

I raise my head to look around. I’m lying naked in the middle of a large stone platform raised no more than a foot from the ground. There is a ruby red silk robe with elaborate gold embroidery spread out underneath me like a sheet. And my arms are half in and half out of each arm of the robe. And stretching out from the platform in every direction, as far as the eye can see, are rows of empty bleachers.

I start to feel dizzy so I rest my head again look up at the sky and I feel like I’m flying, like I’m soaring through the atmosphere with the birds. I feel something catch in my throat, something like a feather. It tickles my throat and blocks it at the same time. I can’t breathe and I start to panic. I choke myself to try and dislodge it. Nothing comes out of my mouth, but whatever was there has gone now and I gasp for air, as if it’s the first breath I’ve ever taken. As if I’ve died and been reborn. With that gasp comes a searing pain that shoots across my throat, down into my chest and through my lungs, as if I’m breathing in fire.

And I think I hear Jack whisper, ‘You’ve arrived.’

I open my eyes to greet him.

I wait for my eyes to focus and realize it’s not Jack, but Bob who’s looming over me, his face clouded by shadow. It was Bob – Bob was the man in the mask. And I don’t know why but I’m not at all surprised.

I see him draw back his arm. And I feel a sharp sting on my cheek as he slaps me. My head shoots to the side as if it’s spring-loaded.

He grabs my chin, turns it towards him and slaps my face again. Harder this time.

‘Wake up,’ he shouts. ‘Not time to die.’

I look at him and I only see his face for a split-second before everything becomes blurry as the tears well up in my eyes.

He reaches for my wrists, not so he can stop me from striking him again, but to pull them down. Towards his neck.

He says, ‘Let’s switch. Choke me.’

His hands are on mine. My hands are on his neck.

He says, ‘Harder’.

And I squeeze.

He says it again.

‘Harder.’

My hard is evidently not hard enough.

He says it again and he’s shouting it now, over and over and over. Like a sports coach trying to make his athletes burn. And I’m incensed.

‘Harder.’

I’m acting without thinking.

‘Harder.’

I squeeze tighter.

‘Harder.’

His hands loosen their grip on mine and fall by his side. I keep applying the pressure.

‘Harder.’

It feels as if I’m turning a screw that’s already tight to the wall. But I want to give it one more twist, just to make sure, and it takes all my strength just to turn the screwdriver.

I see his face blush and redden.

I tighten my grip.

His lips are moving and no sound is coming out.

I’m bearing down on him with all my weight now, with strength I never knew I had, and his face is beet red. His eyes wide, the pupils dilated. His body absolutely still and rigid.

Then I catch sight of his mouth and it’s curled at the corners into this little smile that’s positively evil. Like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me. Or maybe it’s because he’s in excruciating pain. I can’t tell, because it’s almost impossible to differentiate between a grimace and a smile.

And I really hope it’s the former, because I get it now. I understand what this whole thing’s about. This sick little gathering. The power to hold life and death in their grasp. And this is how they get their kicks.

This is Bob’s kick.

Taking the ultimate risk.

I can feel his pulse weaken under my fingertips. I can see him slipping away. I can end this all now. He wouldn’t fight back. I can squeeze the life out of him. Right here, right now. I can take his life, the way he took it from those girls, how he took it from Anna. Because that’s what I figure has happened. I can even the score. I can stop this from happening again. No more victims.

And although he might enjoy it, the sick fuck, it wouldn’t be for long. By then it would be too late for second thoughts.

This is what he wants. He knows he can’t lose.

If I kill him, he dies safe in the knowledge that my life is over too.

If I kill him, it would be far too easy.

I can see the life ebb out of him. So I pull my hands away.

He doesn’t move. The color drains from his face.

The bastard’s dead. I know it. He’s fucking dead.

I scream his name – ‘Bob!’ – over and over. I slap his face. Pound on his chest.

I’m starting to panic. There’s no way I’m taking the rap for this.

I do it all again. Harder.

I’m about to give up when I see a flicker behind his eyeballs.

So I slap him. Once on each cheek.

He gasps for life, drawing air into his lungs. It’s accompanied by a hideous rasping sound.

I’m staring at him in desperation, dumbfounded. I want him to live. I need him to live. Not for his sake.

For mine.

It takes three or four goes and it looks as if he’s going to make it. He’s coming back from the brink now. He’s going to pull through.

I can see his lips moving but I can’t make out what he’s saying. His voice is barely a whisper. I move my head down level with his.

I hear him say:

‘Gena… which tie… which tie shall I wear.’

The twisted fuck. Still obsessed with appearances. If only Gena knew.

And I wonder if she does and just lets it lie. Is she just deluded and blind? Does she close her eyes to the indiscretions? Or doesn’t she see the signs? I can’t help but think Gena suspects and that’s the story of her corkscrew smile.

Bob’s coming round now, but I’m not about to sit here, cradle him in my arms, stroke his head and nurse him back to health. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to stick around to watch. I have to leave before he remembers where he is, who I am and what just happened.

This party’s already got way too old for me. I’ve seen enough and I know exactly when it’s time to go. So I walk out while he’s still lying there on that slab, still gurgling, half-conscious and incoherent.