Prose: A Special Club
Before fame, before Amal, when writing was still an uncertain future, Giles was invited to a special club by Harriet, his then girlfriend.
For Giles, Harri was eccentric, honest and sensitive. Early on Harri had taken down his literary boasts with a
Well, whoop-de-do! Stung, but when he’d cooled, Giles had judged it just and admired the directness. The sex was lively and passionate, but Harri’s dramatics left Giles in a supporting role or looking on from the stalls. She had a baggy jumper and skirt habit, too much like a student or charity shop worker. She kept sticking in innuendoes. Giles was hungry to explore sex and language, but if you could never express without thinking thoughts of fucking the panoply of language would be relegated to a cheap and predictable pole dance.
Harriet had talked about outfits: Get it wrong darling and you’ll be left out in the cold watching my bum wiggle inside. Unconvinced, she dragged him to a shop on the Holloway Road. Giles told himself the industrial devices were not for practical use.
He had not put his many questions to Harriet. It was like the cinema - experience unsullied by expectation. More truthfully he wanted to appear worldly and unflappable. It was embarrassing being a virgin, particularly when it came to sex. At 24 he felt he had mastered the art. He knew what it was to fuck and make women come. The clitoris was a firm friend. But questions persisted. Would it be a Carry On film set - every spectacle a gauche, Anglo attempt at sensuality? Carry on Caning with Sid James spanking Barbara Windsor sporting a black dustbin bag, turning camera-wards, pursing red lips, oooohing after each stroke? Would the entire club immediately hail him as Newby! and force him to crawl naked, licking the boots of the regulars? Would they be intelligent? Stupid wasn’t sexy. Or was it? A dumb girl was easy fun but her shelf life was short. Would there be too many weirdos? The club’s name evoked images of a vast dark basement with rows of metal racks each bearing a bound masochist, flogged continuously, all shrieking and groaning in a Boschian cacophony. Giles feared being cornered by deviants lacking in basic social skills: the depressives, the addicts, the bi-polar navigators - who belonged there because they belonged nowhere else.
In honesty, Giles hoped for sex, unrestrained by censure or qualms, the courage to participate, to be welcomed, accepted and to have a decent conversation or two.
Harri was to pick him up in the street. When a cab pulled over, her transformation was so complete, Giles knew it wasn’t her and turned away, red-faced from ogling the vamped hottie inside. Then the back door flung open. Get in! Giles saw it was Harri - beaming and beckoning, wiggling her head at his stupidity. He climbed in and thanked his choice of partner. She slid backwards to the corner of the bench seat, lowered her chin and crossed and uncrossed her legs at him, drawing attention to her fuck-me heels and fishnets. She flashed open her long coat - hot-pants and corset. Her strawberry blonde hair was piled high and pinned, showing the dog-collar against her pale neck. She batted her heavy lashes - let’s not say fake or false - say new, for the night, which had only just begun.
At the pre-club bar Giles stood self-conscious in his leather trousers and latex t-shirt. Harriet’s friends fell in, bubbling. Giles buzzed. What was coming? They crammed into two cabs.
The front of house women flicked Giles’s coat open, rating his gear. Frowns. Harri and friends smirked schmoozing the inspectors, greasing Giles’s entrance ...
… inside, paceslow deeper in-monochrome redglow-music thump-really loud inside, must be-dark corridor-long-floor gone-bodies only-wooooosh eachside-muscles, freaks, sexwhich?-takeover, pushpass, eyes held ... gone, she won’t look - - - she winks, ah, gone --- change here. here? - bending, fumbling, toes-pointing - brought-it-all - banter-tits don’t-care, arse-lover-me, ok, here-leather linestitching-rubber-squeeze into it, will never go, never, almost ... did it! - gauzey dreamdoll, facepaint - light strips pink, whitetightflesh, look? can I? I want to - deepbrown flesh solid, goldsheen,sweatytoogood - eyes throughme - Harri white behind, don’t lose her, more red ahead - woh --- redddddd ocean underground, motherlode, thesource - its all here - in-my-face women dazzling, three - skin bare, hair-legsstockings,amazonstance - fighting fit-for-it - swish elegantsy, goddesses -staring at me, me - six eyes, lips-shine, same down there I wager-parting, oh, teeth bright, they like, I like, throat struggling, choking, drowning - dulce et-but me this time-no death-unless oldself - pleasedmeetyou - thatme? - go down,down sir,bend giles,lower knightly-thing,down,face hide,full bow - breathe - do more - sweep hand, sweep, downdown stay --- rise, slowrise, up-and-up, eyes theylike, they like, they liiiiike, I like ...
As Giles was introduced to more of Harri’s friends an unexpected hello came from the darkness below. Recovering his balance, he was aware of a hand being offered by a gangly being kneeling at his side. The thing’s entire body was coated in lurid green rubber, including its head and face, excepting holes for eyes, mouth and nostrils. Ken taught Economic History at Birkbeck College. His expertise began with the early Industrial Revolution and ended with the repeal of the Corn Laws. God knows what he was begging for.
Giles and Ken discussed the Peterloo Massacre, trying to screw it into contemporary relevance. Initially, Giles wanted to ask Why? but he felt that that might scotch their rapport. Later, in his extended self de-brief, Giles breathed the word power into Ken’s plausible reply.
At increasingly selective parties Giles honed his dominant role-play. He applied himself to understanding the genesis of others’ thrills. Experienced partners required greater imagination. You think you know what you like - and you do. So I will listen, take what you have said and use it. It is art, living impressionism. He whispered in the ears of women prostrate on the bench - their ankles and wrists fastened with straps. He implanted the imagery of submission in their fertile minds. He set the wayward straight with clear directives. Over the power worshippers, he asserted the authority they adored. He socialised schoolgirls to their institution - yes sir, no sir, thank you sir.
One year in, in a private dungeon, Giles witnessed a beautiful 20 year old woman receiving a ritualised, well-executed caning from a portly man of 60.
Giles thought out loud:
- How long does this last?
Standing next to him, a fellow voyeur answered:
- Until you’ve had enough.
- When will that be?
