Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

So, here he was, wandering streets encrusted with neon lights—red, blue, pink, opal—each sign like pouting lips begging him to enter the establishments they advertised. There were bars, night clubs, nude theaters, dancing palaces, houses of erotic fantasy… his mind had stopped on that one, fixed on it. Houses of erotic fantasy! This was a new one on him. At first he had decided he would not go inside one, but simply think about it further in a bar. But sidestreets and backstreets and a long narrow alley had led him to one of these houses of fantasy which unlike the others seemed to be trying to hide itself, down below the street. The sign bidding him to enter was level with his knees and the steps under the sign led down to a basement.

Should he go inside? Did he have time before the aircraft was repaired? Sure, he had the whole night. Perhaps all of next day too! He was lost anyway. It would be necessary to call a cab to get back to the hotel. There was no way he could find it himself. Especially not in the dark.

He descended.

“How much?” he asked the man standing at the open door. “How much for an erotic fantasy?”

“What one?” came back the reply. “Ordinary, Special or Extra-special?”

“Will traveler’s checks do? American dollars?”

The man smiled. “Of course.”

“Then I want the best.”

“Extra-special—four hundred dollar.”

“Four hundred?” cried Walt.

The man laid a slim-fingered hand on Walt’s sleeve and moved conspiratorially closer, as if about to reveal a sacred trust.

“Listen, mister—you never have something like this again. Four hundred very cheap for this. She very beautiful woman. What happen if you say no? You go home. You sit in chair by fire and make regrets. You tell yourself you would pay one thousand dollar for chance like this again.”

He let these words sink in, then he added, “Maybe you just want Ordinary or Special—but not so good. I tell you mister, you not want your autumn years to be filled with sadness. Extra-special is best of best.”

Walt knew his own true nature. He knew his own weaknesses. In the past he had bought toys for more than four hundred. That mountain bicycle for a start. That had cost him five-fifty and he hardly ever used it. The chance of an experience like this did not come twice in a lifetime. He really had no choice.

“I’ll take the Extra-special.”

The man was effusive.

“You make good choice. This wonderful adventure. Very fantasy. Very erotic.” The man did a little shimmy with his hips and smiled one of those enigmatic smiles that only Orientals can seem to produce. “I guarantee you never have nothing like this before in your life. You not forget this night for a thousand years.”

“I should live so long,” replied Walt, dryly.

Walt had never been with an oriental woman. In truth he had not had sex for quite a time, not since his marriage to Jody had broken up a year ago. This would be quite a new experience for him. He believed he liked diminutive females. They appeared to be more submissive. That might not have been true, but it seemed so. Jody had not just been a muscular five-feet-eight. She had also been a work-out freak. When her arms gripped him around the back of his neck, and legs locked behind him, her heels driving him into her, he had felt as if he were in some kind of medieval vice, a fucking-machine built to pummel men’s genitals to pulp. He had felt manacled. No need for handcuffs or leather straps: Jody had been a human bondage device all by herself!

He was led through narrow winding passageways, the walls lined with red and gold flock wallpaper, to a wooden door. The man turned and smiled as he produced a large iron key. The door was opened and Walt pressed gently inside.

“Woman come in a moment. She pretty. You like her.”

“I’d better,” said Walt, staring around him.

There was a musky perfume coming from somewhere. He discovered holes in the sides of the bed and guessed they were vents. The aroma was powerful and intoxicating, with some kind of an aphrodisiac quality. He felt himself being aroused. Walt had heard of certain foods and drinks doing that, but not a fragrance.

The room was weird by his standards.

He inspected the bed, which was large with black satin sheets.

Each side had a huge round red pillow with a hole for its center.

The headboard was carved with a painted rainforest scene. There was a red monkey motif following the oval shape of the bedhead: mischievous-looking creatures with round quizzical mouths, linking tails. Snakes slid in and out of stylized undergrowth. There were tigers in there somewhere, half in and half out of shadow. Magnolia trees stood leafless and bare, with dark-red cupola-shaped buds on the tips of their branches. Succulent pitcher plants, with deep mysterious recesses, grew from mossy banks. Vines entangled and wound their way throughout the whole scene, binding all the individual beasts and plants together. Incongruously, right in the center of the headboard there was a long railway train entering a deep tunnel.