FICTION: CBLB, Bondage

Madonna with whip, by Helmut Newton

The following story, which will be serialized once a week on this blog, is FICTION. Though set within actual cultural set points of time and place, as one would find in historical fiction, no one character is based on anyone living or dead, but imaginary.

This is satire. I hope it’s a fun ride, which is my sole intention as the author.

This work is registered with the Writers’ Guild of America and is additionally protected.  Law will prosecute any use of the following work without explicit permission by the author. Publishers/film concerns, see contact info listed at the end of this chapter.

**If you would like to read “Cowboys and Lesbians” from chapter one for the full effect, please go back to this link, then follow the installments marked FICTION on each page till you get here: CHAPTERONE

Bondage

Even as it is happening, he must think of it as a dream. She moves so quickly around the loft that one observation blends into the next for him, like an avalanche. Strangely, upon watching her, he fills up with gratitude that he’s not required to participate. He only has to pretend to hear her, to look alert. She needs him to listen because she is breaking apart at every seam.

“You know he’s not going to rescue you in mid-fuck.” Kat shouts to him as his  phone rings in her  right hand. She promptly shuts down the small device and he understands this had been Reggie calling. “Shit.” He voices in his head. Did Reggie even know where this woman worked, lived? Reggie could barely keep track of any place outside of the hotels he frequented. His best intentions would lead him back to the studio where they shot the cable show, and Zoro knew even that depended on him finding a scroll of paper with the address that he had likely shoved into the back of his jeans.

“Let’s pretend this is some kind of photo shoot, and you’re the victim. I’m Helmut Newton, but a female version. And I am interpreting male bondage.” At least that’s what Zoro thinks she says, as his eyes dart toward her constant movements. Smoking with the right hand; flipping through a MAC computer with her left; allowing ashes to fall into  the ivory keyboard; it is  all so dirty. The Clash “Should I stay or should I go now?” assaults his ears, a cruel joke. “Punk rock died before you left Ohio, lady.” He hears himself say inside. Nothing good could ever come from Ohio, or from any part of middle America. The lyrics make her cackle, as she comes around the side of the desk. She plops down where she left the whiskey in the middle of the floor and takes another chug through her dark warped lips, now smeared. The smoke reaches his nostrils and he snorts because he can’t cough and the sweat now cooled, greases his inner thighs and slides down his neck to the small of his back. So, he shivers.

“You know, Zoro” She says staring at the half-drunken booze bottle. “Reggie always searches for that romantic angel. Inside, he’s forever heartbroken because he can’t marry the angel to the whore. But at least he pays these girls with fame. But, you, you….” She pauses. “My problem with you… There is no knight in shining armor.  You lie to them and they give you fame. Very unmanly for a Persian man, wouldn’t you say?

Shit, shit… ten, nine, eight, seven, six.” She speaks to herself now and he can’t find an escape from her sentencing: Very unmanly for a Persian man… “Why couldn’t I say this on the air? Why!” Her voice escalates. She lights another Marlboro, goes around to the computer. She chooses Janis Joplin. “Take another little piece of my heart now baby….”

Passing him with evaporated ashes, she shuts the windows. Slams them into the ledges behind him. Each time, the vibration sinks into Zoro’s tail bone. His eyes burn. He thinks about his father, the engineer, the man who ensured him a safe passage from Iran, paid for in favors to people who, if proven untrustworthy, would have killed him. He gazes at the sturdy leather boots, the ridiculous prizes on the walls.

**CLICK “MORE” LINE BELOW TO CONTINUE READING…….

“Very unmanly, hmmmn? She asks again back in her cross-legged whiskey posture,  but she doesn’t even notice him now as she speaks. She thumbs through a French fashion magazine. He glances to see mannequins pouting, in dresses with spiked heels.The girls on parade in the devil’s shoes at this moment, stand taller than him, even split open from the pages of a periodical on the floor.

“Ahura Mazda, remind me that I come from a pure place, a simple place. Ahura Mazda, Ahura Mazda.” He figures if he repeats the mantra over and over in his mind, he can block out the verdict.

But he cannot shut out his own brain. “You allow your mother to coddle you. You did not finish school. You use. You abuse. You seduce. You steal other people’s artistry. You take credit. You pretend not to know that Reggie lines girls up and takes them one by one. He brings friends. Gang bang, they call it. Then you take them privately, later, the ones who need to believe again. Not innocent, you deserve to die, not by crossing a border out of the Middle East, but in a fashion showroom, shot through the heart by a one woman publicity machine, by someone barely human who lives by pretense, who has forgotten nature.”

“Ahura Mazda. Ahura Mazda. Ahura Mazda….”

“I give girls a lot of advice against men like you.” She cackles, now bending over closer to examine an ad in the magazine. “I tell them to only sleep with men who own the means of production or the media. Stick with the ugly ones hungry for more power. Forget the handsome ones. And, never screw a poser.”

“Ahura Mazda. Ahura Mazda. Ahura Mazda.” If he could only increase the volume between his ears.

She looks up. She stands up, marches a few paces forward. She examines him like a laser. “I’ve launched rock bands, fashion designers,  worked my magic. Do you know how many bands I’ve travelled with, how many wayward souls I have counseled along the way? It’s your arrogance that disturbs me. Funny, how you think you can get away with it, being famous for nothing.” She leans in close enough  so that he can detect the rank medicinal scotch on her breath. He hears her once again. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six….”

“Ahura Mazda. Ahura Mazda. Ahura Mazda.”

By the time she reaches “two,” he feels his head plunge forward like  a bowling ball driving his chin into his Adam’s apple.

“Ahura Mmmm…”

(Darkness)

**This will be the last installment of  Cowboys and Lesbians for the summer.  I will be working on the novel privately.  Any publishing or film concerns interested in this work or my other fiction, please email me at susanlitchick@aol.com.  This is a business address exclusively for fiction inquiries. Do not submit personal email. THANKS !

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