Refracted Crystal: Diamonds and Desire (7 page)

“Most people don’t bother staying here. It’s just where you can find someone or enjoy a show,” he shouted back, his eyes flicking across the room to the left.

Following his gaze, Kris lifted her hand to her mouth and was shocked—more by surprise at something unexpected—and then began to giggle.

There was a stage away from the dance floor, on which a white woman was being double penetrated by two black men. That was certainly more like it, Kris thought for a moment, but at the same time it was so stereotyped and so obvious that she felt it missed the point. It was all just too crude, too unerotic.

In addition, paying more attention to the women on the dance floor and sitting talking to men (and the occasional other women who were presumably clients), Kris noted that they were united by two key factors: every single one of the women here to serve the needs of Victor’s clientele was astonishingly beautiful, all of them slender and tall with slightly preposterous bosoms, though of various ethnic backgrounds; and all of them looked extremely bored, though whether this was an affectation that was meant to be cool and stylish or a genuine expression of their states of mind Kris was unsure.

A few of them were watching the stage show, and now Kris could just make out some grunting and wailing when the music paused for a moment, but most of them were locked up in their own private universes. She did consider for a moment that the somewhat dazed expressions might be the effect of drugs. Above the pumping soundtrack, she heard a high-pitched laugh and turned to see a woman seated between two men: they had pulled down the top of her dress and were taking it in turns to suckle on her very pneumatic and clearly artificially inflated breasts.

“The first circle of hell,” Daniel said loudly, bending to speak into her ear. “Come on, let’s go and find somewhere more quiet.”

He pushed between some of the women on the dance floor, ignoring their automatic groping hands as he went by and leading Kris by the wrist. She was more amused than anything as she in turn was felt up, fully aware that this was not anything personal in the slightest. This was the market, and she was meat.

On the other side of the dance floor was another door which Daniel now opened. As Kris followed him through and the door behind her closed, she was surprised at just how effectively the noise was silenced beyond and at how sedate this new room was. Here a number of people, nearly all of them men, were drinking and talking: a couple of astonishingly beautiful women, similar to those from the dismal discotheque next door, were sitting in chairs but, to Kris’s surprise, they were completely ignored. Indeed, nearly every man paid equally scant attention to the waitresses who were dressed in little more than stockings and high heels, with red patches covering the nipples of their fulsome breasts and pudenda. In any other circumstance, Kris would have been utterly jealous of their bodies, but once again she was struck at just how unerotic this appeared. The men in the room, most of them nondescript but for their elegantly groomed suits, were apparently discussing business. One or two of them appeared to be naked from the waist down, pale, scrawny legs stretched out in front of them. About half a dozen more doors led off the room.

She was just about to mention this to Daniel, who was grim faced, when both of them were disturbed by a shout from the other side of the room.

“Daniel Stone! What the fuck are you doing here?”

The speaker was one of the younger men present and Kris suspected that he was almost the same age as her. He had stood and was coming across to them, of above average height though considerably shorter than Daniel, and of a fairly substantial build. His hair was neat and sandy coloured, and his face would have been attractive but something about the leering way he held his mouth disturbed Kris slightly.

“Hello, Francis,” Daniel said somewhat stiffly.

“Jesus, man, is that all I get? Come here! Give me a hug you stupid old fucker!”

Without waiting for a response, he threw his arms around Daniel and pulled him closer. Daniel did not reciprocate, but the youth did not seem to mind particularly. When he finally let go, he looked across at Kris, and he raised an eyebrow. Some of the men sitting down were watching them with expressions of curiosity: the girls sitting by the wall looked as bored as those outside.

“So, is this your property?” he asked. “Got something special lined up for us with her?” He frowned as he spoke. “Fuck, your tastes have changed old man. No problem, though. We’ve got this gorgeous Ukrainian bitch next door. She’s a bit tied up at the moment, but sure she’ll be willing to join in once those fucking Arabs have finished with her.”

“She’s not... property,” Daniel said quietly. A tic had begun to flex the scars in his cheek.

“Oh.” Francis looked genuinely surprised at this and, for the first time, looked at Kris properly.

“This,” said Daniel, gesturing to the young man, “is Francis Roth. This is my fiancé, Kris Avelar, soon to be Kris Stone.”

For a second, Francis Roth’s face was a picture of confusion then, as he realised what he had just been told, he burst out laughing, slapping his thigh and looking between Daniel and Kris incredulously. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really sorry. That was really rude of me but... Wow! You’re getting married. Fuck!”

He giggled for a moment, and Kris wanted to reach across and slap his slightly chubby cheeks, to wipe that obscene smile from his fat face. When he calmed down at last, Francis continued: “No hard feelings, eh? But you wanted to come here?” He now directly addressed Kris and one of his eyebrows was raised solicitously. “Well, I guess you must have a few secrets up your sleeve.”

He smirked and looked at Daniel. “Well, I’m sure we can find something for both of you.” He pointed around him. “That Ukrainian I was telling you about is in there. About five or six guys giving her what for at the moment. Sweetest bit of cunt I’ve seen in a long time and a fucking ass to die for: still tight, though god alone knows for how long. Couple of lezbos in there, bit of a show and they don’t mind men joining in, though I think they’d prefer her to you. I don’t recommend that one: last time I looked it was some sick fuckers getting all scatological—don’t get that myself.”

“Bloody Europeans,” one of the seated men remarked.

“And those two?” Kris asked, gesturing to the two others he had not pointed out.

“Well, that one’s currently empty,” he said, then with a wink added: “Perhaps you’d like to get something started.”

Kris instinctively pulled away from him. “And the other one?” she asked.

For the first time, Francis looked furtively at Daniel. His hand unconsciously came up to his nose and rubbed at it. “Nothing important there,” he said at last.

Kris was about to speak again, but Daniel’s hand squeezed hers, communicating his desire for her to remain silent. “It was a mistake coming here,” he said with a weary finality.

“Don’t be like that,” said Francis with mock joviality, but Kris noticed a degree of nervousness in his voice.

“I agree,” Kris said quietly. “Let’s go.”

Francis’s eyes narrowed at this. “Is this because of pop? Has he pissed you off? Come on, Daniel. no hard feelings, eh? You know everyone’s equal here.”

“Unless your property,” said Kris, feeling her venom rise within her. Francis looked at her confused for a second, and she suddenly realised he had not expected her to speak. When he finally understood what she had said, he began to move towards her but one of Daniel’s hands, large and heavy, interposed between them.

“As I said,” Daniel remarked. “She’s not property. Give your regards to your father, Francis. Kris, come on. We need to go.”

“Property,” Kris scowled. “Property! I was going to say that was nineteenth-century thinking, but hell—it’s medieval!”

The flight taking them to San Francisco was a private jet that Daniel had chartered. As such, there were only the two of them on board along with two pilots and a flight attendant, a young man in his early twenties who looked the archetypal role model for such a position and was polite and attentive. When Kris had asked Daniel why he had not gone with a woman, Daniel’s crotchety reply had been: “I think we’ve seen enough vacuous, beautiful women for a while, don’t you?” They were two hours into their flight, not yet halfway across the States, and Daniel had been somewhat distracted all the time they had been travelling.

Now, however, he looked straight at her. His face was tired and his scars looked paler than usual against his skin, with slight dark shadows beneath his eyes. “I agree,” he said. “I stopped attending a long time ago, if you remember.”

While unable to deny the truth of that, Kris was still not satisfied. “But, I mean... did you... did you really consider the others
property
?”

When he looked at her there was pain in those strange, hazel eyes of his and he did not reply immediately but instead looked out of the window at the clouds that were passing beneath them. Then his shoulders heaved as a profound sigh escaped his lips as he turned his head back around, not to look at her but to stare straight ahead.

“I shouldn’t avoid this,” he said at last. “I told you that while I may sometimes evade the truth, I haven’t lied to you. So as for this... well, I guess I should face up to myself.”

Something about the tone of his voice dissipated Kris’s anger and, though he didn’t speak for a few minutes, his brow creasing slightly as he thought, she did not interrupt him. This was important. She was pushing him, she knew, but just as he had once pushed her to a new freedom that she had not believed within her, she felt inside that it was essential for him to be aware of the thoughts inside him now.

“I guess the truth is that I did, think of women as property. Damn it,
everything
was property for a time. After... after Karen died, I measured everything in terms of profit and loss. Nothing was safe from those calculations.” He paused again for a few moments, but still Kris did not intervene.

“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” His face looked mournful as he looked towards the window again. Unable as he was to return his gaze towards her, nonetheless Kris did not force him: she did not need to look into his eyes to know if he was telling the truth. She was quite aware that Daniel had once belonged to that class of men that could sell their own souls with a smile and a twinkle in their eyes. The shame that he obviously felt at this moment was more telling than any show of honesty.

“And I lost my soul,” he said, almost too quietly for her to hear. “Drugs, sex, money. I thought it was... important. But perhaps that’s too hard to explain.”

Kris could not contain herself at this but scoffed loudly: “Oh, love,” she remarked, a little more sarcastically than she intended. “So, you took some cocaine—believe me, you can’t teach me anything about drugs.” She suddenly realised that the bitterness in her voice was born of self-reproach rather than anger at him and she tempered her voice, placing a hand on his as it lay on his lap. “And I do think it’s rather sweet,” she continued, much more softly now, “how you keep on thinking that I was a virgin before I met you.”

This made Daniel laugh and he finally turned his head to meet her gaze, his eyes flashing now with a demonic humour. “No,” he said. “I’ve never made
that
mistake. But you’re not... you’re not an automaton, if you know what I mean. You are most definitely
real
in your passions.”

Despite herself, Kris momentarily felt her face flush at this. Those women in Victor’s—all so beautiful, all so fake. Yet there was still something that disturbed her. 

“The room that...
he
told us not to go into.” She couldn’t bear to name Francis Roth. “What was going on in there?”

Daniel sighed again, and a tic started in his face. “I don’t
know
, but I would guess they were...” he paused. There was something he couldn’t bring himself to say, but his euphemism was much worse. “I would guess that a new girl was being broken in. Occasionally it’s a boy.”

Kris felt her heart twist and burn with cold fire for a second. “You mean rape, don’t you.”

He nodded, his face turned once more to the window.

The cold fire in her heart became a burning flame in her face, and she let go of his hand. “We should do something.”

He gave a humourless laugh at this. “What? Go to the police, you mean? Report them to the authorities? You didn’t recognise anyone in that room last night, but I can tell you that half of the men there could form the gross domestic product of a significant number of countries between them.”

“So,” Kris replied acidly. “You’re telling me because you’re rich you can do whatever you want?”

Now Daniel turned his face to look directly at her, and his eyes were calm and sad once more. Despite her anger he did not rise to match her aggression. Instead, he wanted to make her understand.

“No,” he told her, very quietly. “You have to be rich
and
smart. The women you saw there, sometimes young men they hire... none of them go unwillingly. Whatever happens to them, they are paid well—very well. My guess is that none of them would be willing to stand up before a court of law.”

“But why didn’t
you
do anything?” Kris felt that her mouth was opening now of its own accord. She realised that she was standing on the edge of an abyss, that before her stretched out the void and that everything could change now, this instant. She had to stop, and yet she could not prevent herself running towards that abyss.