Surveillance

by Robert Scott Leyse

Right on schedule: the spike topped iron gate has slid to the left and clanged against one of the ivy smothered granite pillars, allowing your chauffeur driven Rolls to enter the street. I arrived but fifteen minutes ago, and inconspicuously parked on the corner of an adjacent block -- a location which allowed me a sufficient view of your driveway through the gnarled branches of this interposing oak. Naturally, I am going to follow you, keep track of your every movement during every second of at least the next twenty-four hours. And, my, but how I do adore your personalized license plates -- Lydia is such a beautiful name.

Within another fifteen minutes we are well inside the city limits -- so uplifting it is to take this shortcut through several neglected neighborhoods, pass the empty shells of stripped cars and fire gutted buildings, sidewalk after sidewalk glittering with broken glass. And the scenery does have a tendency to change rather abruptly, with very little warning, doesn't it? Thus we are now surrounded by such well-maintained turn of the century mansions, impressive barbed wired walls and high-powered spotlights, the occasional security guard on patrol. But, no, we do not remain here. We pass on.

A few settings later your car pulls to the curb. And the street is somehow without character, what one might deem suspiciously unpretentious and plain. It could be located anywhere. Just an inconspicuous row of necessity stores -- clothing, hardware, drug, five and dime, grocery. But, then, appearances are not to be trusted, are they? Who would suspect, Lydia dear, why you have really come here, who could ever know why you have just descended that set of cellar destined steps?

Oh no, there is no need to follow you down them. There is, you see, no other exit and, after all, I know your habits so well. Yes, I know that your wrists and ankles will wear thick leather bracelets, that they will be clasped to gold plated hooks in the floor and ceiling, that you now and then need to feel that whip and turn inside out and scream. Is it that those riches of yours now and then make everything seem too easy, give you the unpleasant impression of all too effortlessly skimming over the surface of life? Do you need a point of contact with reality? Do you need to compensate for your comfort by feeling pain and humiliation, desperation and dread?

I also know the exact hour at which you will reappear, know that you will be utterly relaxed and self-possessed, almost religiously serene. Yes, it is so pleasant to feel balanced -- nothing like being restored to one's foundations, brought back down to earth. And Lydia: I even know where you will instruct your driver to take you next.

And, sure enough, now that night is falling and the neon is beginning to stand out, glow a vivid emerald and red, you are standing on the busy sidewalk of Broadway, brushing back your long undulating ebony hair. And what a smooth and beautiful satiny face you have, how commandingly you glance about. Yes, indeed, a very impressive femme fatale exterior, all of the "I dare you!" mannerisms down pat. In other words, just the type of invitation I find impossible to ignore.

You begin to walk and I am never far from you, once or twice even step on the furling shadow of your sable coat. And like you are of that shadow you seem to be semiconscious of me, vaguely aware of the brooding young man who now and then pauses to look about in all directions, several times crosses to the other side of the street only to cross right back. Seems to be searching for something, doesn't he? Seems a trifle overwrought and excitable, impatient of everything in sight.

And what a coincidence that you have just chosen my favorite nightclub, one with flickering obsidian tabletops, crimson lighting, and an excellent stage show. You take a seat at the table close to the front right corner of the stage, order your usual brandy Manhattan, and light a Gold. On the stage some supple and slender semi-famous woman is wrapping the microphone cord about herself while straddling the stand, shoving it back and forth. Her orange hair blazes in the electric beam of the spotlight and her thighs flash like lightning through the slits in her long black dress.

But I do not notice her for long, do I Lydia? For I find that your performance inspires twice as many fantasies, far more compelling desires. I simply love the way you wind your necklace about your fingers, the way its rosy beads gleam like savagely clear eyes, seem to laugh. And I can feel the coiled energy within you -- I grow so warm at its touch, tingle inside. And yes, rest assured that you will soon feel me in a similar manner, that your skin will seethe in response to the ice crystal whirl of my nerves.

And how disturbingly attractive you are! Yes, I want to meet you in a back alley, press you hard against a cold wet mossy wall. I want to tear your silky dress into ribbons, scatter it about. I want you maddened, to feel your fingernails scratching my face. I want to see your sweat slicked body thrashing, your face drowning in itself. I want your mouth all over me, to see nothing but and drown in the bright red of your lips. I want to get to the bottom of your detachment, shatter the studied dignity, cut you with glass. And already I can hear you panting and squealing, feel the contractions inside you filling me with a whirl of electric bursts. We are writhing at the base of the wall and my hands are numb with pain from repeatedly striking the pavement. I feel nothing but the river we have become -- almost like a death wish carried out, the world splitting open, permitting us to pass to the other side.

And yes, I am now sitting at your table, have suddenly appeared from out of the dark red light of the club. You cannot suspect for how long I have watched you, do not know how certain I am. True, on the surface I am playful and joking, all laughs and little kid charm. But then, you are a perceptive woman, aren't you Lydia? You cannot help but detect the anger and pain and dread which lies below.

And it is with my suffering that I snare you, with my inner turmoil that I fascinate and subdue. All of your probes drown in my depths and that is why you are so anxious to please. People you are able to categorize you feel superior to but pain is bottomless and that is why you will never know me. People with personalities turn you off but already you suspect that I do not have one. Yes Lydia, I know you well.

And if it is true I do not have a personality then who am I? Simply a collection of masks, well acted roles. And I am highly versatile -- get to the bottom of one role and I'll switch to another, play it so completely that before long you will believe I could not possibly have been anything else, that the previous one was but a creation of your imagination. And that appeals to you, doesn't it Lydia? How you do love a good game of psychological hide and seek.

And already my hand is stroking your thighs and toying with the tops of your stockings, already I am nipping your ear while whispering that we should leave. And you readily agree, don't you Lydia? Indeed, how could you not?

And how pleasingly blinding is the swirl of the neon and the slash of the headlights, how nice to be in the midst of a crisply darting breeze. And your eyes also dart, don't they Lydia? You are a trifle uneasy, wondering about our destination. But why bother? You know as well as I that you cannot help but come, that the strongest part of you is the one which lead you to leave the club in the first place -- the same one which attracts you to the whip.

We stroll down a garbage littered alley, up a set of dusty narrow steps, and through a rusty-hinged door. Yet the room itself is quite sumptuous, decorated in the highest style. Yes, in the same way that the outer shell of an oyster hides a pearl this beat up building hides such a room. Simply never can trust exteriors, never can know.

All of the walls are mirrors and a dusky indigo light flows from several glowing disks on the ceiling, thickens the air. You slip off your coat and toss it towards the base of the window, stand there in a shimmering crimson dress. And how expertly you remove it -- such smoothly deft gestures, a controlled frenzy of manner which twists my nerves from their pathways, fills me with such a seething opium like warmth. And yes, I would like to assist you: nothing like the sensation of peeling off your silk stockings, pulling down those lace panties. And how rhythmically the curtains undulate behind you, how moist and soft and caressing they look. Why don't you tear them from the rods and use them as veils, perform a little dance? No need to worry about privacy -- the windows are painted black. That's right, mesmerize and drug me with a show of rhythmic writhings, inundate me with gratitude and adoration, make me need to lose my tongue in your throat.

Such luscious wet ruby lips! They taste like mashed pomegranates and brandy, are so responsive and warm. And those sighs and squeals and excitedly slurred whisperings of yours! They send ice crystals up and down my spine, have my vision blurred. Such confusion! A pair of tremulous hands are combing back the gleaming waves of your hair -- do they belong to you or me? And I am looking straight into a pair of deliriously silvered eyes -- mine in the mirror or yours upon your face? And what has happened to the sense of touch? Why is it that I seem to be sinking in warm mercury, floating like a feather in dense misty air?

And why Lydia does such panic seize me? Why is it that one moment I want to slam your head into one of the mirrors, that the next I want to be so worshipful and indulgent and kind? Why do I at one and the same time want to cut you with a knife and lick you tenderly, crush your skull and give you every comfort on earth? Why do I both love and loathe? Is it because you mirror me so perfectly, because every time I look into your eyes I see myself staring back? Is it because part of me wants to leap from a building, be guillotined?

And one of us is screaming. Who is it? Is it I who stuffs the sable sleeve in your mouth or you who stuffs it in mine?

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Surveillance
© 2001 by Robert Scott Leyse