Exit to Eden by Anne Rice
Lisa, who had sat down in the rocker with her knees drawn up, wiping her nose with a linen handkerchief, looked up and said softly, “It’s okay, Elliott. Believe me. It’s okay. Go into the bar and have a drink. It’s okay.”
“Well, let’s get some things straight before I do,” I said. “I don’t know what’s happening, but nobody is going to force anybody . . .”
“Elliott, we don’t do that kind of thing,” Scott said. “We don’t force people to do anything at all. Now, you know who we are.” He looked just a little injured and painfully sincere. His black eyes were easily expressive, and his mouth moved into a similar easy and somewhat sad smile. “But there is something here at stake that is very important to us. We have to talk to Lisa about this.”
“It’s okay, Elliott,” she said, “really it is. I’ll call you in the bar. I want you to go. Would you do that because I ask?”
It was the longest forty-five minutes I ever spent. I really had to remind myself every thirty seconds that I didn’t want to get drunk. Otherwise I would have been gulping the damn Scotch. Everything that had happened was going off like firecrackers in my brain. Through the open door I could see a slice of French Quarter street, a long rose-wreath wrought iron railing on a gallery over the narrow sidewalk, couples walking arm in arm past the gaslights of a restaurant door. I kept looking at this as though it meant something, the dark green of the shuttered doors, the flickering light.
Finally Scott came gliding in. The human panther, with a sleek head of curly black hair, eyes quickly scanning the place.
“Let’s have our talk now, Elliott,” he said. Hand on the back of the neck again, hot silky fingers. Everybody at The Club has hot silky fingers, I thought.
Richard was waiting in the room, and he explained that Lisa was in the kitchen and it was our turn to talk now. Those stiletto heels of hers, the rhinestone straps glittering, were lying on the rug. Like the slipper on the floor of her bedroom that first time. Ice pick right through the head.
I sat down in the armchair. Scott was in a little straight-back chair by the secretaire. Richard, with his hands in his pockets, leaned against the post of the bed.
“Elliott, I want to ask you a few questions,” Richard said. Face pleasant, manner a lot like Martin’s, deep-set eyes cheerful, smile a little tight.
Scott seemed lost in his own thoughts.
“Were you happy at The Club before you left? I mean were things popping, were they working out?”
“I don’t really want to talk like this without Lisa,” I said.
He shook his head, just a touch of impatience.
“We can’t solve this, Elliott, unless you come straight with us. We have to know what’s going on. Now, from all our reports, and we’re awfully good judges in these situations, you were doing beautifully at The Club. We were both getting our money’s worth.” Narrow eyes. Pause that said, Let’s hear you contradict that.
“Now when a slave gets to The Club, Elliott, I mean before anything happens, if a slave gets as far as The Club grounds, Elliott, that slave is pretty deep into S&M. I mean he knows a lot about his sexuality and what he wants. I mean you don’t wind up full time at The Club because you had a weird weekend in the Castro District of San Francisco with a kinky friend.”
I nodded.
“I mean you have an individual that is not only interested in acting out his fantasies, but one who is committed to living them in a very intense way for a long period of time.”
Again I nodded. Where was Lisa? Was she in the other room? I did not hear a sound. I shifted uneasily in the chair. I asked very politely, “Would you get to the point?”
“I am getting to it,” he said. “What I am trying to say is the experience of The Club usually means a great deal to the slave or he or she would not be there. I mean we are not some run-of-the-mill whorehouse in . . .”
“Believe me,” I said, “we are in total concurrence on this. There is no need to go on.”
“All right. Now what I am going to tell you is going to sound harsh, but you have to understand why I’m saying it and I want you to keep quiet until I speak my piece. If you do not leave and come back with us now on the plane of your free will—and I assure you no one is going to lay a hand on you to try to force you to do that—you will be blackballed utterly and entirely and forever from The Club. You will never see The Club again, as a slave there, or a member, or an employee on any level, at all.”
Pause. Slow breath. Voice a shade calmer, slower as he went on.
“You will be blackballed from every place like The Club with whom we have connections around the world. You will be blackballed from the houses of the trainers who sell to us as well. That includes Martin Halifax. He will never let you in the front door because if he does, we won’t deal with him ever again, and Martin will not risk that.
“Now, what that means, Elliott, is that for the rest of your life you will remember this remarkably intense experience that you had. But you will never be allowed to have it again. As The Club gets bigger, as it branches out, as more clubs open, you will read about them but you will never be allowed in. I ask you to think about that.”
I didn’t nod or say anything.
Again he said: “I ask you to think about that. I ask you to think about your sexual history, your background, how you came to us. I ask you to think about all the preparation you went through for the moment that you docked at our gates. I want you to think about what you were expecting, what you had a right to expect before Lisa took you out. You don’t have to answer me at this moment. But just think about what I have said.”
“I think there is something here that you don’t understand,” I said. “And if you’d let me talk to Lisa—”
“You’re going to have to forget about Lisa for a moment, Elliott,” Richard said. “This is between us. We are giving you a choice . . .”
“But that’s what I don’t understand.” I stood up. “Are you trying to tell me that Lisa is out of The Club, that Lisa’s been fired from The Club!” I knew I sounded angry, belligerent. I tried not to. I tried to calm down.
“No, Lisa has not been fired,” he said. “Lisa is in a category unto herself. And if there are any allowances to be made, they will be made for Lisa.”
“Well, then, what’s this about?” I was getting even more angry and quite suddenly I was getting angry with her. What had she told them? I was trying to protect her and I didn’t even know what she had told them.
“It was my understanding,” I said, “that she explained to you the circumstances under which I left. You’re talking to me like I broke out or something. And you won’t let me talk to her to find out what she told you. I don’t understand what’s going down . . .”
“She can’t help you now, Elliott,” Scott spoke up.
“What do you mean, help me?”
“Elliott,” Scott said in a matter-of-fact way, rising and taking a couple of steps in front of me, “Lisa has cracked.”
The word set up an immediate jarring vibration in my head.
“At The Club,” Scott said, “we have our own meaning for the word cracked.”
He glanced at Richard. Richard was watching him.
“It doesn’t mean that somebody has gone crazy,” Scott continued, “lost their marbles, anything like that. It means that somebody cannot function in our environment anymore. And to be absolutely candid, it rarely happens to staff members. When it happens, it happens to slaves. I’m not talking about ordinary resistance, anxiousness, cold feet. We know those symptoms when we see them in all their variety, but now and then a slave really cracks. He just stands up and says in his own way, ‘Guess what, fellas, I can’t do this anymore,’ and we know how to recognize it when it happens for just what it is. And it is useless to . . .”
Richard suddenly put up his hand. He made a little gesture at Scott that was perfectly eloquent of “There is no point to telling him all this.”
“I understand,” I said. “This was bo
“Exactly,” Scott answered. “And this is very definitely related to what concerns us here. When you come to The Club you are told there is no escape, no release, no chickening out. That is part of the contract you sign to give us your services in a very special arena of human behavior. But it is also part of our guarantee to you: that you will not be allowed to have second thoughts, that you will not be allowed to get out. Now the reasons for this are obvious, Elliott. If you do not know that your incarceration is absolute, then you cannot relax and enjoy what is going on. You are going to start thinking: ‘What I’m doing really feels great, but I feel stupid doing this! What if my Aunt Margaret saw me in these harnesses and chains? Golly, this is great but I better get out of here. I haven’t got the nerve for this.’ Guilt would do that to you, Elliott, self-consciousness, the natural ambivalences to which we’re all prone. But when you’re incarcerated and there is no alternative, then you can really experience the interplay of dominance and subservience that is The Club. And it is absolutely imperative that no escape be possible, or contemplated or dreamed of. Which is why you must come back to The Club.”
He paused, glancing at Richard.
“Elliott, every trainer and handler on the island knows about you and Lisa,” Richard said. His voice was a little tireder than Scott’s. “They knew Lisa had busted you out before we knew it. And I have little doubt that a good many of the slaves know it too. Now, we cannot allow this to happen, Elliott, and I think we have explained enough. We cannot have people bolting, breaking contracts, blowing to smithereens the most fundamental and important agreements of The Club. The Club works like a Swiss watch, Elliott, it is that regular, that complicated, that precise.”
I looked at both of them. I understood what they were saying about all of this. There wasn’t any argument, no need for questions. I had understood before I ever got on the yacht.
“But you’re saying,” I asked, glancing slowly from one face to the other, “that Lisa is not going back to The Club.”
“She refuses to go back,” Scott said.
I stared at him for a long moment.
“I have to talk to her,” I said. I started for the kitchen door.
Scott approached very cautiously, and put his hand out for me to wait.
“I want you to think about all this. I want you to take your time,” he said.
“Gotcha,” I said, and I tried to guide him to the side.
“Wait.”
We looked at each other for a couple of seconds.
“It’s no fun being excluded by any group of people, Elliott,” he said. “But think about who we are, and who you are. I am not lying when I tell you you will never know anywhere else what you knew with us. And don’t think that we can’t make the exclusion stick.”
“Some things might be worth that,” I said.
Richard moved between me and the kitchen door.
“Elliott, this had to be arbitrary. The fabric has been ripped, dangerously ripped, and it’s got to be restored.”
“Would you get out of the way?”
“There’s one thing more,” Scott said, motioning for Richard to back off. “And this is pretty important. We should get it straight now.”
He slipped his left arm behind my back, and he was exerting that same gentle pressure as before. His black eyes were fairly calm, and when he continued, his voice was low again, caressing, very much the way it had been in the trainers’ class.
“Nobody’s going to get rough with you, Elliott,” he said. There was nothing mocking or ironic in his tone. “Nobody’s going to force you to reindoctrinate and we’ll do it as slowly as the situation requires. You can rest for a week, live like one of the guests on the island, full privileges, as long as it’s on the q.t. After that we proceed at your pace.”
He was very close to me and he moved just a little closer until our bodies were touching, that hand steady still against my back.
“If you want my opinion, when you finally see the landing strip on the island, you’ll feel considerable relief. And then something else, something really nice is going to happen in your head. But if you don’t feel that, we’ll go very slow. We’re experts at this, Elliott. It’s going to be good, I promise you. I’m going to see to that.”
I could feel the electricity coming from him, the energy that underlay his manner, the sharp sincerity of the look on his face. I think some acknowledgment passed between us then, something much darker and simpler than a smile, a slow silent concurrence, without irony or humor, that the statement had its charms. I felt power coming from him, and confidence in that power, and there was a powerful, seductive intimacy to the manner in which he spoke again.
“You’re worth it to us, Elliott, whatever time and effort it takes. This isn’t bullshit. I am talking business now, plain and simple, and you know what our business is.”
“The important thing,” Richard said, “is that you come back on the plane with us now.”
“Got you loud and clear,” I said. “Now, please, get out of the way.”
But the kitchen door opened before either of them could move, and Lisa was standing there, in the light from the bedroom against a darkened room, with her hand on the knob. One strap of her dress had fallen down over her shoulder. Her hair was tangled and lifeless as though the whole shape of it depended somehow on the condition of her soul. She was barefoot and she looked broken and ragged in the beautiful little black dress. Her face was red and streaked from crying and her mascara was smudged, but she wasn’t crying now.
“I want you to go back with them, Elliott,” she said. “They are right in everything they’re saying and the important thing is for you to go back now.”
I looked at her for a long moment and then I turned and glanced at the two men. I felt like I was swallowing a rock.
“Go outside,” I said.
There was a moment of hesitation, then Scott gestured for Richard to follow him and they went outside into the yard.
Angrily, quickly, I pulled the drapes over the windows, and when I turned around, she was still standing in the door.
I stood staring at her across the room, my back to the door as though as long as I stood there, they couldn’t get back in.
For a moment I was too upset—call it anger, call it hurt, call it confusion—to speak. Then I said, “You are telling me you want me to go back?”
She looked amazingly calm now, as though my anger was calming her. But her teeth bit into her lower lip a little just for an instant as if she was going to cry.
“Talk to me, Lisa!” I said. “Are you telling me you want me to go back!” My voice was incredibly loud.
She didn’t move, but she seemed somehow to get smaller, to be clinging, without even moving as she stood at the door. She started forward, blinking a little, as if the volume of my voice had hurt her.
I tried to get calmer. “Is that what you are saying?” I couldn’t help shouting. “That you want me to go back?”
“Yes,” she said, her mouth twisting. “I think it is absolutely mandatory that you go back.” She looked up and her eyes got steady now. “I broke a contract with you, Elliott,” she said, her voice getting lower as if she was swallowing. “I fucked up something very important to you. Now I want you to go back to The Club and let Scott and Richard have a chance to mend the damage that I have done.”
“I don’t believe you!” I whispered. “Important, hell!” I moved towards her, but I didn’t trust myself to touch her. “Now, that is not everything that you want, not everything that you feel! Don’t do this to me, Lisa! Don’t do this!” I was really shouting again.
“It is exactly what I want and what I feel,” she said. Her lips were trembling. She was about to break.
“Don’t cry again,” I said. “Don’t dare! Don’t cry, Lisa,” I said. These weren’t words, they were sputtering noises. I was moving back and forth a
“Lisa, how many times have I told you how I feel about you? I’ve copped to everything inside me from the start. I love you, Lisa, are you listening to me! I have never said that to any woman or man in my life before. Now, you look at me and you talk to me! And don’t tell me that you want me to go back to the goddamned Club! Fuck the goddamned Club!”
It was like looking at someone who was frozen, somebody playing that kid’s game of statues where you have to stand absolutely still. A waifish, black-eyed, barefoot woman just staring at me, her wet eyes smeared with black mascara, mouth frozen with lips apart.
“What did this mean to you, Lisa?” I was clenching my teeth so hard I was hurting myself. And I could hear my voice breaking up. I could hear myself imploring. “Lisa, come straight with me. Come straight! If you can tell me that you just cracked, that you just fucking cracked and I was just part of it, if you can say that, that I was just an escape route, then say it out loud to me now!”
I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t speak anymore, and that awful feeling came back to me right out of the long night of drunkenness of telling her that she was going to hurt me, that she was going to do it, and the awful realization that it was happening now.
“Oh, Jesus Christ, oh, God,” I was cursing, muttering. I was walking in a circle, and then I went for her, catching her as she backed into the dark kitchen, and holding her by the arms. “Tell me you don’t love me, Lisa!” I was roaring at her. “If you can’t say you do, then say you don’t. Say you don’t. Say you don’t. Say you don’t. Tell me that!”
I pulled her towards me, and with all her strength, it seemed, she tried to pull back. She had her eyes shut, and her hair was in her eyes and she was gasping, choking, as if I had my fingers around her throat. I didn’t. I was just holding her arms.