Fresh Girls & Other Stories by Evelyn Lau Read Free Book Online Page A

club is black-painted, underground. Sabina hears the rattle of the chains before she reaches the end of the narrow corridor. The clunk of boot heels on the floor, the creak of tight leather pants. Justine walks slightly ahead, her body sharp and as purposeful as an arrow. When Justine’s jacket swings open, Sabina sees her friend’s familiar breasts exposed, the squarish nipples sticking out like antennae from her chest.
    The bartender is naked, but his piercings give him the appearance of being dressed, thin crescents of gold and silver jutting from different points in his body. Justine orders soda, Sabina a vodka on ice. Together they make aquick tour of the club, squeezing between knots of people wearing smooth black leather or bare skin, many glittering with studs and rings. Several men have hoods fitted over their heads, resting like mantles on their shoulders. An Oriental woman stands against the wall, a latex sheath outlining her curves, plucking with a red fingernail at the juncture where stocking and garter belt meet. A blonde wearing a cocktail dress and a loop of gold and diamonds around her neck is being strapped stomach-down to a table, ropes and cuffs materializing to curl around her waist, wrists, ankles. A slave hangs his head by the doorway, a spattering of tiny bulbs blinking around his crotch, his girlfriend pressing the button in a small box tucked into the rear of his underwear.
    Over by the piano, Sabina notices a man watching her steadily, with his hands clasped in front of him. He lowers his eyes when she returns the gaze but does not move otherwise, as though chained to the spot. She decides to ignore him for now, moving to the lounge area where there are paintings on the wall she can’t quite make out in the dark, but they seem to be landscapes: men in bulky sweaters walking dogs near cliffs, waves crashing against rocks and spraying the sky. She chooses a plush, high-backed chair, and Justine clambers onto the arm, resting one foot on the seat and dangling the other leg. Stroking Sabina’s hair with one hand, shepoints out the key players with her cigarette in the other — the internationally known male dom, the female pain freak who was runner-up in several tattoo contests, the transsexual centerfold model. In the dark the model’s eyes are a wet washed-out blue, wide and heavily lashed above the cheekbones where the skin is stretched tight enough to break.
    Sabina sets her drink on a wooden table beside her. The glass is sweating from the melting ice and the heat of the bodies in the room. The club is full, each person taking up extra space with the accoutrements they wear, the collars protruding with nails and screws, the paddles and whips hanging from belts looped around their hips. Across from her, two girls barely out of their teens are huddled together on a corner of a couch. One is wearing a headband that tugs all her hair off her forehead, making her appear even younger and more vulnerable. They say nothing to each other, but watch with the nervous, insatiable gaze of voyeurs. No one in the club approaches them.
    The whipping has been going on for some time. A man is stretched out unrestrained on a table, gripping a piece of leather between his hands. He is naked except for underwear and a leather collar and bracelet. Another man, wearing a fluffy shoulder-length wig and lipstick,his body tightly laced in garter belt and a merry widow, is circling him expertly, flicking at his legs and the slope of his back with whips of various sizes. After half an hour of warm-up he is dancing around his lover, his arm rising and falling with tireless strength, blows hailing upon the man’s body. As the flogging crescendoes, Justine scrambles closer to Sabina until she is almost sitting on her lap, the soda forgotten in her hand. Sabina curls her arm under her friend’s jacket and presses her breast comfortingly. The man on the table has already taken more pain than anyone she has seen, but it is a