The Delilah Complex by MJ Rose Read Free Book Online Page B

feathers—took drinks and then walked off together, arm in arm. While the waiter was wearing a tuxedo coat, white shirt, cummerbund and bow tie on top, I now saw that he was naked from the waist down and sported a semierection.
    All the waiters were pantless. The camera focused on one in his thirties, trim, medium height, dark-haired, with a strong but ordinary face. A woman wearing a silver mask, with sapphires outlining the holes for her eyes, took a glass of champagne from him and then reached down and cupped his testicles, giving them a little squeeze.
    I reached for my wine without looking away.
    What was I watching?
    In a hushed tone, almost as if she had been anticipating my question, a woman’s voice started the narration and a title appeared over the scene:
     
          The Scarlet Society’s 40th Annual Gala
          February 10, 2002
    “Since 1962, the Scarlet Society has had a yearly gala to raise money. Both active and inactive members from all chapters are invited to attend, as are all of the men that the society has invited to play with us over the years.
    “For some of us, who have moved away or for some other reason stopped attending the regular soirées, this isa chance for us to see old friends and slip into our dreams for one more night.
    “At the 2002 gala, more than 130 members and 150 male guests were in attendance. We raised close to two million dollars, which will go far in helping us keep the society an active and vital organization. All of this money was given anonymously.
    “This tape is a small thank-you for your contribution and a memento of the evening we shared. As we all know, it’s not often that a camera is allowed into a society event, but since we were all so well disguised, the board thought it would be a wonderful record of our night of utter delight.”
    The narration faded, the music returned to its previous level and I realized what I’d missed up until then: the voice-over had said there were 150 men present, but other than the dozen half-naked waiters, I hadn’t seen any men mingling with the female guests.
    After thirty seconds more of the same footage, the camera zeroed in on a group of women and followed them through an open passage into a large ballroom.
    I took ballroom dancing lessons when I was twelve. Krista, my father’s second wife, insisted. Even though she was an iconoclastic sculptor who showed at a SoHo gallery, she thought the lessons were a rite of passage.
    “If you don’t learn, what will you do when some fabulous guy asks you to dance and a waltz is playing?”
    Since I trusted and liked her—partly because she was smart enough not to try to replace my mother—I agreed to the once-a-week classes at the posh Pierre hotel on Fifth Avenue, just across from Central Park.
    The girls were required to wear dresses and the boys to wear jackets and ties. The beginning of each session wasthe same: we stood on one side of the room and the boys stood on the other and we waited for them to walk across the parquet floor and ask us to dance. We learned more than the fox trot that year—the lesson of male power and female submission was reinforced for all of us every Thursday at five-thirty.
    At the Scarlet Society’s gala, the same paradigm was now playing out on the video: women were on one side, and men were on the other. But it was the women who were the aggressors here, gliding across the floor and choosing their partners from among the men in evening dress—none of whom stayed dressed for long.
    The camera stopped on a tall blond woman. With her mask on, it was impossible to tell her age, but she was dressed in a stunning, low-cut lavender gown that was slit up the front to show off her long legs. She walked away from the group, champagne glass in one hand, smiling to herself and moving seductively to the music. When she arrived at the swarm of men, she stopped and looked them over.
    Walking back and forth, sipping her champagne, assessing,