A big thank you to Bella Mariposa for reading an early draft of this story, and for correcting much of my poor punctuation, all of which amuses her to no end. For example, I think homophones should be banned from the English language, but this only makes Bella laugh harder about my carelessness.
A warning to casual readers, as with much of my writing, this story touches on a number of different sexual subjects, double penetration and rimming being the most prominent outside the 'usual' adult, sexual practices.
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I have been surrounded by ritual my whole life.
The ritual of baptism, the rituals of religious confirmation and confession, sometimes in direct conflict with the rituals of school and peer-group play, the ritual of courtship and of marriage, and, sweetest of all, the ritual of motherhood; I was steeped in it all, marinated, through and through, like tough meat tenderized by their ever present, safe, languid patterns. So many rituals, molding me into conformity, seducing me to accept a life less traveled.
What happens now that the rituals no longer hold true? What happens when the rituals of youth dissolve into the past, when pious ceremonies jade and fade from hypocrisy, when even the rites of motherhood no longer apply, now that the little birds have flown? What ritual is left me than that of dutiful wife, whose only remaining function is to accept the role of glorified concubine, making
him
comfortable with his quiet, yet solemn, marital neglect?
For the longest time, now, my soul has been restless for a new ritual; one that could ease the mind-numbing dullness of that one rite still left to me.
About the same time I developed this pensive restlessness of spirit, I heard of a myth, a story really, and a very sordid one at that. It was currently swirling within my circle of friends, always piquing my interest as well as my disbelief.
The story is always the same, and always begins the same way—a friend of a friend of a friend's cousin's sister had this deliciously sordid encounter, etcetera. You get the idea.
Somewhere, the story goes, there are rooms in which certain things happen that no one can talk about, within a house no one knows the address for. The specific events that occur within the house vary based on the storyteller, so I won't bother with details, but it always involved dirty, dirty sex—the kind of sex that changes lives.
It was the type of story none in my circle took seriously, but secretly, we all
seriously
wished it were true.
Like I said, it always piqued my interest, but also made me laugh. It was such a cliché. No one knows where the house is, because no one telling the story has ever seen and experienced it first-hand, but, of course, everyone has some naughty detail on what goes on there.
Isn't that how every 'calamitous' fable and tall tale begins? There were no survivors? There are no witnesses? No one knows anything directly, yet there
is
a secret society that meets in secret in a secret house no one really knows exists.
Really, how could such myths start and grow if this were true?
One day, just by chance, I happened onto one of those mythical 'survivors.' I guessed this by what she said and how she said it—very detailed and sordid accounts of events in a house, delivered in hushed tones—and all the particulars she spoke matched what I'd heard from that mythical story.
She was a twenty-something, mousey, pink and lavender haired Emo—studs to the hilt, from shoes to earlobes and everywhere in between, I suspect. She sat at an adjacent table from me in my favorite coffee shop, and was describing the wicked events that happened to her on Thursday night last within a large house. A house she was obligated to deny existed if ever asked, I might add, and telling it all to a dour-looking Emo of similar age and attire.
The Mouse was being so secretive, so cleaver in sequestering her mouth behind a cupped hand, as if to keep those few strangers sitting around her from hearing what she said or reading her lips. Nevertheless, her purposeful, hushed tones and soft murmurings of Thursday's events were easy enough for me to hear. I just cocked an ear in her direction, and all she said came to me as clean and clear as polished crystal. Youth thinks it's so clever, but it's just full of itself.
As I listened, all her schoolgirl giggles and heartthrob mews began grating on me, but when she cut through the nonsense, what she described made my soul sanguine and pussy drip like a leaking faucet.
Finally, the Dour one took her leave of the Mouse, who then sat back, satisfied, as if she'd been worked over well by someone who knew how. Cracking open a volume of Sartre, her brow furled to the words printed as if her concerns alone could cure what ails the human condition. She read, deeply, and set about finishing her caramel macchiato.
The Mouse was surprised and shocked when a fortyish, dishy brunette, smelling of Chanel 19 and wearing Neiman Marcus pumps abruptly sat, uninvited at her table. Quickly losing the shock, but none of the surprise, she continually rebuffed said brunette—wife and mother of two—and her needy request. It took another caramel macchiato and twenty dollars to wring the address of the house from her mousey grip. Before leaving, she asked my thoughts concerning post-modern existentialism.
Of all the questions she could have asked me, she asks that.
"God, shoot me now! How's that for existential thought?"
And so, the fable of a house no one knows about grows. I'm sure there will be no survivors.
********
I arrived a little before ten on Thursday night—ladies' night it's called. It's a little before the time when things get going in the house with no address.
It looked like a typical, two-story farmhouse, many large rooms with tall ceilings, and probably a damp basement. It was a little ways outside the city. Not too far outside to be called strictly rural, yet far enough that there was some distance between houses.
There were no exterior lights. No outside illumination, save for a bright, gibbous moon, so the house looked empty as I pulled in the drive. The large number of cars parked haphazardly on the front lawn belied an empty house, though. Then I saw dull yellow and bright red lights—first and second floors, respectively—haphazardly spilled out and around drawn, tattered shades. Another indication someone was at home.
Filled with defiant panache to the very end, I just walked right through the front door without knocking. I figured either the myth was real and a new ritual is born, or I'm chased back out of the house by angry mongrels, piqued by my uninvited, home invasion.
Roll the dice, bitch. Lucky seven or snake eyes.
No hounds, lucky seven, it would be a new ritual, then.
The front door opens into a large foyer dimly lit by an overhead chandelier. Small patches of ornate tapestry and paintings, giving the room a Victorian flavor, cover parts of pale yellow, plastered walls. A larger patch of tapestry lies across wood flooring. In the far, back left corner of the foyer, a semi-enclosed staircase ascends to the second floor—where the red lights had shone. The front left of the foyer opened into a parlor, which was being used as a waiting room. There were plush chairs, sofas and settees all about the parlor, seating about fifteen young women of about college age, or a little older—ladies in wait and keepers of the other cars outside, I suspect. I didn't care what was to the right of me. My only real concern was with those stairs—my passage to a new and wondrous ritual.
A woman sat on a barstool behind a makeshift counter across from where I stood. She was bleached blonde, older than the gaggle waiting in the parlor, but not as old as me. She dyed her hair, I suspect, to differentiate herself from the darker hairstyles common with many of the Goths and Emos in the parlor, and not to cover any gray. I say this because her face was still youthful and free of wrinkles—no need for Oxytokin yet, the bitch. She had a small mouth, and pursed her lips whenever she looked down at something in her lap, appearing as though she had just bitten into something bitter and was looking for a place to spit it out.
She had me pegged the moment I entered the house. "We don't get many trophy wives here."
Is that what I was, a trophy? I guess so, bagged by a lucky shot from a dullard of a hunter when I was too young, too stupid, too arrogant, and too full of myself to know any better—hubris cubed.
"I understand there's an open invitation tonight," I said, letting her 'trophy' crack pass.
"If you know the address, you're invited. What type of 'entertainer' interests you?"
I had to think for a minute. The question was all too businesslike. Falling into a businesslike rapport to match her mood, I answered, "All I can get, and large enough so that I'll still feel them long after they've gone. How much, for how long?"
She smiled at both my panache and my naiveté. "They're all large here, more or less. We'll see about the number, we're coming up short tonight. How long depends on your entertainer. And it's no charge since it's ladies' night. You'll just have to wait your turn like the others." She said that last part while pointing into the parlor.
Wait my turn? That just wouldn't do. I wanted the 'entertainers' fresh and untainted, full of new day vigor and vibrancy, hard as wood girded with steel, and smooth and dry as plaster. Sloppy seconds just isn't my style.
Sizing over the crowd in the parlor, I saw nothing but penniless college girls living off daddy's dime and artsy working types schlepping food and drink for minimum between theater gigs. Moreover, it was ladies' night, a free night for those in the know. If it wasn't free, most of them couldn't afford being here. They couldn't afford the hard, swelling treats provided free by some deep-pockets benefactor. Mostly, though, they couldn't afford giving ample baksheesh to the 'lever holdings' to ensure their journey upstairs went smoothly and in their favor.
I saw my play.
I had a hundred dollar bill at the ready, perks of being a 'trophy'—plenty of folding cash on hand; compensation for the weekly, five-minute fuck followed by the hours of endless snoring.
Sliding it across the counter, I asked, "How far up the line will this push me?"
She smiled, not a pleasant one either, given her naturally pursed lips. She quickly palmed the bill before anyone else could see.
"All the way." She answered my question as a double entendre, and I might add, without giving it much thought. She could have said halfway and gotten another hundred for her chicanery.
Checking a list she had in her lap, she asked, pen at the ready, "Name?"
I didn't answer right off.
She stared at me with that not so pleasant smile, now making it look more like a leer. It was her attempt at closeness—God help us all. I guess the hundred not only bought me the coveted 'pole position'—my own attempt at double entendre—it bought her friendship, as well.
