Chapter 2: The Republic of Desire
The Republic of Desire was located behind a small, nondescript door hidden in a side-street not fifty yards from my favourite coffee shop. It was so obscure and unobtrusive that I missed it the first time, and I had to backtrack before I found it. I pushed it open and found myself in a little alleyway – hardly more than a crack between two buildings – with an uneven pavement and rough walls. Ten yards or so along, set in the wall on the right, was a heavy iron security gate. It was immovable. I stood around uncertainly, looking for the doorbell. There was none. Though I did not see any cameras, I had a distinct sense of being observed. After a moment there was a dim buzzing, and the gate clicked softly. Now it swung open easily, if ponderously. Inside, I was standing at the top of a short flight of stairs. The stairs were dark, but there was a faint glow emanating from another door down below. I thought I could just barely hear the muffled drone of music. I hesitated a moment, and took the next step down the road that would utterly change my life.
Below I was in a small, dimly lit space. It was simply but carefully furnished. The floor was wooden and highly polished. Two couches stood at right angles to each other. There were some artefacts on the wall: what looked like a Congolese cloth sewn with minute cowry shells- expensive, I thought, if it was genuine - and some Dogon woodwork. Sparse, simple good taste. A lounge? A waiting room? Except that at one end of the room, behind in a glass-fronted booth, sat a stunningly beautiful and statuesque woman. Waiting room receptionists could be as beautiful, but none of them, I was sure, came to work in a complex leather halter which cupped and all but exposed the breasts. Behind her in the shadows stood another, completely bare-breasted girl, whose long - nailed left hand was draped over the leather clad woman's bare right shoulder
"Membership number," the first woman said in a cool melodious voice.
"I - er - am not a member. Can I join?" I stuttered, feeling foolish.
"Sorry, sweetie," she smiled, friendly and regretful, "Membership is by recommendation only. And if you're not a member, entrance is by invitation only. Except if - do you have a comp in your hand?" She had spotted the by now rather crumpled bit of red paper.
I handed it to her - indeed, it seemed to be a kind of ticket, I now realised. She looked at it, noticing, I saw, the writing on the back.
"You can come in, love. This is your raffle ticket. Keep it with you. I will collect it from you later." She handed the paper back to me, and now I noticed the number 459 printed twice on the end, separated by a line of perforations. "But because you are not a member you have to pay a small entrance fee." She mentioned a figure which could certainly not be described as "small" and which was way beyond the cover charge of most ordinary clubs. I hauled out my wallet and began counting out bills. "Thank you. This here is Selma. She will now take you downstairs. Enjoy yourself, love." Selma disappeared into the back, and within a moment, with a buzzing sound, the door next to the booth opened. She was waiting inside, and stood aside to let me in, shutting the door behind me. It was almost completely dark, the darkness lit only by occasional candle flames.
"This way," said her voice in the gloom. I followed the half-naked girl down a flight of steep stairs. The muffled music grew more distinct. We stopped outside a large heavy door that seemed to be thickly padded. She turned to face me. She was not a young girl, I realised. Though her trim figure had given me the impression she was barely out of her teens, she must have been about twenty-eight or thirty.
"Before you enter, one thing," said Selma. "This is the Republic of Desire. Will you be true to yours?"
"Mine?" I asked stupidly.
"Your desire! Do you have desire?" she asked me fiercely. I stared at her blankly, not quite certain how to respond. "I mean this," she said, and reached forward to grab my half-tumescent member through the fabric of my pants. "Do you have desire!?" Her body was suddenly pressed up close against me, her hand massaging my cock, her mouth against mine. Her tongue was warm and insistent in my mouth. The skin of the small of her back was soft under my hand. My erection stiffened. "There!. Desire! Do you feel it? Will you be true to it?" She stared into my eyes for a long moment. I was overwhelmed with the urge to take her then and there. But she was already standing back, and she was not who I was there for.
"That's why I am here" I heard myself say. There was a roaring in my ears, and my heart was pounding like a trip hammer. She nodded approvingly. And opened the door.
* * *
I found myself in a large, warm, dimly lit cave of a room, with a bar at one end next to a jutting stage surrounded by low tables. I peered around trying to get my bearings. The place seemed full of people - men and women. A good few of them seemed to be dressed in the same uniform as the woman upstairs, a complex leather harness. Some had their bodies covered; others wore it in such a way that their buttocks and genitals were bare, and their breasts supported but not covered. A few wore even less. A naked blonde woman with a leather collar around her neck was gyrating in what seemed to be a cage at the one end of the stage, and the petite young girl behind the bar seemed to be even without the leather collar. At a table near the bar, a stern-faced man sat on a bar stool with a girl's arm around him, her top covered but, as far as I could see, no clothes below the waist. He seemed to be idly fondling her labia. Her eyes were blissfully closed. This was clearly unlike any other place I had been at before.
Established in a seat near the bar, I made myself more comfortable and surveyed the place. I got a drink from the bar girl, who on closer inspection seemed to have a ring or stud through her clitoris, and wondered where Lucy was. She was nowhere to be seen.
On stage, the girl in the cage was no longer alone. She'd been joined by another one - I swear it was Star from Happy Joe's - with long brown limbs and long curly hair, who let her out of the cage. She danced around Star, slowly peeling off the black girl's clothes. They moved slowly, languorously, like seaweed swaying underwater. The music was deep, smooth, thunderous: a rolling, inevitable bass line weaving through long, cool, polished, shimmering keyboards. It sounded like something by Massive Attack, but deeper, rougher, darker. For some reason, I thought Star looked a bit nervous, even shy - which was most unlike her. I had watched her many times before, and she'd never seen unsure of herself before. Not, admittedly, that I had seen her being undressed by a tall blonde woman who was, I now saw, kissing her passionately on the lips. I forgot my drink as I watched the kisses being returned. The music deepened, swelled, became more urgent. Star sank gracefully down on one of the elegant black wooden chairs that was perched near the edge of the stage, and the blonde woman slowly knelt down before her. She started kissing Star's breasts. Star sighed and very slowly let her head drop backwards, exposing her long, slender neck and letting her frizzy curls cascade down behind her back. Soon the woman was lapping between her thighs, and Star's breathing was beginning to deepen.
"Enjoying the show?" Somebody was leaning against me, shouting into my ear. It was the leather-haltered girl from upstairs, an upturned hat in her hand, surveying me with amusement.
"It - it's unusual." I said.
She leaned into me again. I could feel the heat of her breath in my ear. "All the girls with leather collars belong to the club. They – we - are available, for a small fee. But only to members."
