"Afterwards medical attention will be provided. Anything broken will be expertly reset. For a while you'll have to wear a cast; you can tell your friends you were in a skiing accident. Out of the dozen or so Herms scarfs you'll receive, you'll be able to make a handsome sling… ."
During the recuperation period, there was an onslaught of gifts: not only scarfs, a different one sent each day, but also a matching set of Vuitton luggage, a little fur hat and muff, various and sundry earrings and pins, and finally a gold Cartier watch.
But neither the extraordinary fee nor the generous gifts could wipe out the memory of the horror. The girl told Kim that even if she were desperate and broke she would never go through such a scene again.
So how bad had it been? The pain was real enoughnot severe, as promised, although the girl had definitely wanted to scream. No, it wasn't the pain she was afraid of, it was the terror-the sense of helplessness, of powerlessness, of being at the mercy of this person she couldn't see. Because he wasn't just some kinky guy who got off hurting girls; most of the guys who did that were rather sweet, once the session was done. The Masked Man was different. In this business one became highly sensitive to people, and the signals coming off him were very, very bad.
What signals? Kim asked her. After all, since he was masked, you never saw his features. Oh, but she did, the girl said, she caught little glimpses through the mask, a hint of the thin tight set of the lips and the sharp predatory eyes. And then there was the feel of him, his touch, his smell, the little sounds he made, the way he moved, like a mechanic fixing the motor of your car, whistling slightly under his breath as he worked, half humming this cheery little tune…
There was-how to put it?-no consideration, no human connection, no sense that you were a human being. And he wasn't human either. There was something hor@ible about him that was impossible to describe. His touch was cold. He radiated malevolence. When he touched you it was like being touched by a snake.
Kim picked up a crab, sucked'out the meat, wiped her mouth. All the time she was speaking she had stared past me at the room. Now her eyes met mine.
"Sonya was special," she said.
"I loved Shadow, but Sonya was someone I adored. Everyone in our group felt the same way. All of us in Mrs. Z's 'ensemble.' "She was a real beauty, you have to understands true live Nordic goddess. She was from Sweden, came to New York as an all pair, then decided to stay on. Precisioncut blond hair, cold blue eyes, she had this great little accent. She was nice too. She loved to joke and make us laugh. And onstage she was terrific, especially as a dominant. Cruel countess, pitiless equestrienne-Sonya loved those kinds of roles.
"And that was what the Masked Man liked to see: one girl being cruel to another. Mrs. Z spun all sorts of scenarios, including one in which Sonya played this empress who puffed on long gold-tipped cigarettes while her female rivals, and I played one, were tortured slowly before her eyes.
"Then one night Mrs. Z prepared a surprise. That was her method-to suddenly reverse the roles. She'd turn us regular submissives into dominants and make the dominants submit. It made for good theater, shock value, but there was something else working too, something we mentioned sometimes among ourselves. That Mrs. Z liked doing it. That she got off on it. That she liked to bring down the mighty and the proud. And that coincided with the Masked Man's fantasy, this thing he had about seeing haughty girls brought to their knees and made to beg "Look, for all I know, it wasn't a surprise. they could have discussed it on the phone. Maybe the Masked Man said, 'I'd like to see Sonya crushed." And Mrs. Z replied, 'Oh, yes, that can be arranged…
"Which brings up my relationship with Mrs. Z. When I first came to New York, and I heard about her, I wanted desperately to join her class. She was a cult figure. She took very few students. It was extremely difficult to get in.
"I was on the waiting list, and when an opening came up I auditioned for it and she accepted me. The first year was great. Two full afternoons a week. I worked my ass off as a waitress to pay the fees, because I felt it was a privilege to study with her-a possible route to becoming a star.
"She had this idea about releasing the actor through uninhibited sexual play. There was a lot of that in class, and talk too of 'triggers,' nude work, stripped down psychodrama, the sacred ceremonial role of the actor as he who bares his naked self.
"She experimented with us. The sex stuff seemed to fascinate her, and we loved it-we knew it was daring and felt it put us on the cutting edge. Then one day she seemed to change, as if what we were doing released something dark inside, As if, in a single day, this fairly classy woman became, well… evil.
"Because, you see, a woman like her would never do what she did unless she enjoyed it."
"You're saying she got corrupted?"
"I think the corruption was already there."
"So suddenly the legendary acting coach became a sex-show impresario?"
"Yeah. And the shows were fascinating, Geoffrey. Very well done. Mrs.
Z couldn't do them any other way. I loved being in them, There was this extraordinary feeling afterwards. Exhilaration and release."
She smiled, picked up her glass, slowly drank off her wine. For a moment there was a sparkle of Just in her eyes. Then it faded as she thought of something else.
"The first time the Masked Man asked for a private session with Sonya, Mrs. Z got very huffy, as if such a thing was too outrageous even to consider. Now I think it was a setup, that she knew from the start that Darling would make that request, and that her refusal, her huffiness, and the negotiations that followed were just a charade for Sonya's benefit.
"You know what happened-Sonya was paid ten thousand dollars. Cash!
Incredible! Then the two of them went down to Mrs. Z's apartment on the floor below."
"What did Sonya agree to do?"
"The same as the call girl I told you about, Be tied up, drugged, then have a few bones broken. And because Sonya knew the threats were real, she expected to beg and cry and offer to do all sorts of awful things if only the Masked Man would relent."
"Sexual things?"
"More like degrading things, the more degrading the better. He wanted to see the Ice Maiden crawl. And she did-I'm sure of it. She spoke to me briefly be fore she went down.
" 'I'm going to do everything he asks,' she said, 'because I don't want to get messed up.' " 'But you will get messed up. You know that. That's what all that money's for,' I said.
"She said she knew that, but still she thought she could avoid the worst of it if she conducted herself in a certain way. She had this idea that if she debased herself enough, she could satisfy him without having to be hurt. Poor Sonya! She thought she could wear him out. She didn't understand. She was going to have to pay for all the times she'd played the queen. The fact that he was accustomed to seeing her as dominant made her all the more valuable as a slave.
"While it was going on, Shadow and I waited upstairs to take her home.
Mrs. Z just sat there playing solitaire. We never found out exactly what happened. God knows, Darling wasn't touched by her submissiveness.
In fact, too much of it may have pushed him out of control. The way it ended up, he broke her neck."
Kim wept as she told me this; tears streamed down her face. And I felt the same hollow sickening feeling in my stomach. I pushed my food away.
"Which brings me finally," she said, "to that Saturday night when everything fell apart. I told you how Rakoubian approached me, what we agreed to do. After he got his pictures, I went to Mrs. Z. I was nervous, but I was a good enough actress to cover up.
"I laid it out for her: the Masked Man was Arnold Darling. I had proof, including a picture that showed him taking off his mask.