The Reliable Narrator [For The Love Of Chéri Epilogue]

Part 9 : She Was Obviously Turned On By Degradation

Business-class on a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 737 bound from Cannes, France to Nashville, United States.

I was more than halfway through my fifteen-hour flight to America, and I decided to update my journal and record some events that I had no time to write about earlier, so I am writing now from the first-class seat of the aircraft.

This was to be a fleeting visit to close the plan that had been in action on the other side of the ocean.

Looking out at the blackness outside and over the Atlantic ocean, my mind wanders from my current issues to largely irrelevant ones. I pondered if there were giant squid somewhere in the fathoms below, or a pod of whales or maybe sharks hovering dominant in their own dark world. I even contemplated my largely irrational fear of alligators, but felt safer in the knowledge that they are largely freshwater and would not be in the saltwater of the ocean.

There is so much about life and the world that I do not know, nor will I ever know them. I was born an ordinary Spanish man, but then I was thrown into an extraordinary world. A world of excess, a world of hedonism and ultimate power and not dissimilar to the world underneath the plane now. A shadowy world where you float freely until you feel the threat, and notice the shark circling and where It is truly eat or be eaten.

I believe I only survived because I was always behind the biggest shark. The man who was the reason I joined that world. The man who stopped me from jumping off the bridge that day, many years ago.

He told me to take his hand, and my life would change - he certainly made good on that promise. He said if I joined him, he would solve all my problems and that I would never hunger again, even though my particular hunger at the time was for prescription drugs.

He knew that. He knew everything, and he convinced me to try and move back to safety. When I tried to climb back down towards him, he reached out for me and I stumbled down into his surprisingly strong grip and he pulled me against him. When I wrapped my arm around his waist I was surprised that he was so slim under all his elaborate clothing.

This was the same man who, years later, I would bump into in the bowels of the compound that he designed in a darkness that nearly matched the outside of my plane window. He could have killed me, but he didn't. That's twice he has given me back my life.

But now, he's home in that amazing mansion with his wife. Mercy has sure done well for herself. I remember vividly meeting her as a fifteen-year-old girl on holiday, dressed head to foot in dayglo cybergoth clothes in the White Star back home in Spain. She depended on me putting in a good word for her and she got into so much trouble at the Bordello when she joined.

But, on the night before she turned sixteen, Marcel was finally going to allow her to work as a prostitute after midnight, and he planned out a big event to introduce her... and she was an instant hit.

He heavily advertised the date she would turn of legal age and shamelessly took bids for the first lineup of customers when the clock struck twelve.

So a few hours before midnight and to a packed event room of just the 'right' type of client, Marcel placed a large spiked dog collar around her neck and walked down the stage and into the event room, pulling her along on her hands and knees behind him with a thick chain leash. She only wore her large-holed fishnets, neon suspenders, a bra and full underwear. Her thick blue and green braids were all loose and covering her face as if she were wild, restrained and unkempt.

This was her carefully planned debut.

I remembered how much she loved it all as she was obviously turned on by degradation and loved being degraded and belittled in front of the packed room while he went full throttle on a tirade about her presumed vulnerability and naivety as he slowly circled her, slapping various parts of her, kicking her lightly or yanking on her braids to pull her head up to face the baying crowd.