I turn the cover. The first picture shows a handsome woman, imperious in manner, dressed in tight-fitting black leather bustier, sitting on a richly carved wooden chair flexing a riding crop. From the way she presents herself, one would think she was seated on a throne. The shooting angle's low, as if the photo were taken from the level of her knees. She's stout, her features are strong, and her expression's filled with disdain.
"That's Ma," Chip says.
I flip through the pages, transparent envelopes, each containing an 8x10 proof sheet of a woman in a dominant pose. There are quite a few of Chip's mom, clearly Max Rakoubian's favorite subject, but there are also other women wearing boots or shoes with exaggerated high heels. Some look silly, others stilted as if the required poses make them uncomfortable. But there are several in which the subjects appear to relish their roles.
About two-thirds of the way through, I find the sequence on Barbara Fulraine. One proof sheet is identical to my photo, but there are others, not so perfect, including several in which Barbara appears greatly amused.
No flexed riding crops in these pictures. Rather Barbara grins at Max's lens in the manner of an actress breaking up after failing to deliver an absurdly serious line.
This is a different Barbara from the woman I've been imagining, far different from the Barbara I read about in Dad's paper. This is Barbara enjoying herself, Barbara having fun.
"I'm trying to imagine their photo session, Chip – what it was like."
Chip smiles. "I'm sure Dad was pleased. His pictures of Mrs. Fulraine were the most elegantly photographed in the series."
I know what he means, but of course it's not the elegance of Max's artistry that interests me, it's the spirit of his sitter, the enigma of her many moods.
Millfield. A particularly nondescript suburb west of the city, doesn't seem like a place a dominatrix would choose for her retirement. When Chip turns down a curving street called Tidy Lane, rounds a circle at its end, and stops in front of an ordinary ranch house with a basketball hoop attached to the garage, I wonder if he's putting me on. I'm not sure what I've been expecting – urban warehouse district loft, dark apartment in seedy neighborhood – but surely not an ordinary split-level on a middle-class suburban cul-de-sac.
From the front hall, Chip calls upstairs: "Me, Ma! I'm home."
"You brought the young man?" a deep, cigarettes-and-whiskey voice calls back down.
"He's with me, Ma."
A woman in a wheelchair appears in dim light at the top of the stairs, swings herself into a staircase chair elevator, flicks a switch, and the device begins a slow descent.
As she floats down into view, I recognize the woman depicted throughout Max's Fesse album. She looks a good twenty years older now, makeup thick, lipstick heavily applied, hair tied a too-vibrant red. But what's most striking about her is the ruination of her face: a fallen eyebrow on the right, a drooping lower eyelid on the left, creating a disconcerting lopsidedness that, along with deep furrows in her brow, tells me I'm facing a person suffering from severe arthritic pain.
"So this is the young man interested in Max?" she says, looking me up and down."
"His name's David, Ma."
She squints at me. "Hello, David."
"Hello, Ma'am."
She smiles. "Polite too! I like that in a young man! Wheel me into the parlor, Chip, fetch us drinks, then go about your chores."
Chip winks at me, lifts her into a second wheelchair, then wheels her, me trailing, into a front room that amazes me even more than the conventional exterior of the house.
The little room has been done up with great style in ever-so-fancy reproduction Louis Seize – tapestry upholstered gilded chairs and couch, mirrors in gilded frames, faux Aubsson carpet, even a gilded reproduction bombee commode. Such nouveau riche elegance would be laughable, especially in a little tract house like this, but Ma'am so clearly revels in the theatricality of the room that she brings it off as a kind of ironic statement about her former profession.
"So you want to know about Max?" she asks, after Chip, serving us cocktails, retreats into the kitchen to perform his duties. "He was a gent, fine companion, good father. I take it Chip's filled you in on my lifestyle?"
I nod.
"There wasn't anything Max wouldn't do for me, nothing I wouldn't ask him to if I had a mind. He'd clean my garage on hands and knees if I wanted him to. But I don't take advantage of people's kinks, never have. His devotion was enough."
As she continues in this vein, extolling Max for his support and loyal service, I study her face and also the room, committing both to memory. I want later to draw this woman in all her spectacular peculiarity, and though I would love to begin such a drawing now, I'm afraid to broach the idea lest she start posing for me the way she did for Max. For it's not the dominatrix in her that interests me, it's the wounded look of one who once inflicted pain and upon whom now pain has circled back.
"‘Bust-in guy!’ What a hoot!" As the mirth bubbles out of her, I begin to understand her attractiveness. There's a vibrancy in her gestures, an aliveness that shows itself even now that she's crippled and old.
"Max Rakoubian never busted in anywhere. He was much too shy and meek. Which isn't to say he didn't take naughty pictures to hold over people's heads. But he would never bust in, especially not on lovers. He got his candids the old-fashioned way – by drilling holes in walls. H head a bunch of little spy cameras and he build equipment so he could operate them by remote. That's how he got the pictures he took for Walt Maritz. And for all the work he did for Walt and Waldo Channing, he never received more than his day rate. They're the ones who cleaned up on it. Max just did it for the challenge."
I'm having trouble believing what she's just said. "Waldo Channing hired Max to sneak pictures?"
Ma'am laughs. "Waldo and Walt had a neat racket going. Two peas in a pod. Not many knew about that business. They were so different, Waldo so high and mighty, Walt so sleazy and low. They could barely stand one another, but, as they say, ‘beezeness eze beezeness.’ Max was just the go-between. Such was his lot. Some folks are destined to get rich, others just to work and sweat and plow the fields…"
There's something odd about the way she speaks, a strange combination of fancy language and down-and-dirty whore talk. Listening to her, my impressions of several of the players begins rapidly to change: Waldo, whom I've hitherto regarded as a snob gossip columnist, is now revealed to be a blackmailer in league with scummy Walter Maritz; and Max Rakoubian, whom I've been thinking of as guy who kicked in doors, is now revealed as a photographer-sneak poking little spy-camera lenses through tiny holes drilled into bedroom walls.
"Max never cared much for Walt, but he did odd jobs for him. As for Waldo, Max was in awe of the guy. Waldo would throw him a bone from time to time, recommend Max to cover a society wedding or introduce him to one of his rich women friends who needed a portrait done. It was Waldo, by the way, who introduced him to the one you're interested in – everyone's favorite murder victim, Barbara Fulraine.
"Max, sad to say, was taken in by the bitch. Chip tells me you have his portrait of her, the one of her flaunting her titties. Pretty, I admit, but nothing to get that excited about. Still, according to Max, she was a natural dominant. I'm sure he jerked off over her picture. Men are such fools! Except my sons, I brought them up to respect women. Still they're boys, so heaven knows what they do behind my back…"
She's tiring now. Perhaps all this passionate discourse has worn her out.
"Chip says you're interested in those old murders. Wish I could help you, but I can't. Max knew a secret about them, something he wouldn't tell me no matter how many times I asked. I could have tortured it out of him, but I never did stuff like that. It was just a game, you see, our mistress-slave routines. If there was something Max didn't want to share, fine, it stayed outside our game. I always respected boundaries. Without them SM's just assault. Max and I had fun. That's what I miss now, all the fun we used to have…"