CHAPTER ONE

 

"As you know, we all love to be hurt and to hurt others. That is the purpose of this club. Am I understood?"

There was a murmur among the assembled attendants of the Hilarity Club.

Emil smiled. He was tall, dark and satanic looking, which suited his role as the moderator of the festivities, and occasionally the force which stopped out and out mayhem.

"Now, we all know the rules. The members who come here have paid a fee and have carte blanche to do what they please - but, there are limits. No deaths, no mutilations. We will have nothing to do with such, er, excesses.

"Beyond that, you are familiar with our equipment, and the range of services which we offer. Very well, you may go to your stations. Most of the time you will not be called into service. Just watch and be available for anyone who needs you.

"Those of you who are new, if you have any questions, come to me, or to one of your fellow workers."

Emil looked at his watch.

"The doors open in exactly half an hour. Let us go."

He stepped down from his stand at the head of the assembly room and headed for his offices. There were one-way mirrors surrounding the walls of his office. He could look down on all the various rooms, observe the proceedings, and take his photographs, from which he earned a superb subsidiary income.

The house was his and the club was his idea.

It had all happened the day he had beaten the shit out of his wife for cheating on him. The beating wasn't enough. He had made use of a few kitchen appliances and some of the materials in her sewing kit.

Not only had he become aroused enormously, but his wife had come wildly, screaming like a banshee.

After that memorable evening, he and his wife had engaged frequently in their bizarre, newly-discovered form of love-making.

One night, his wife had company and they went to the cellar, where the four of them had indulged in their wild pursuits.

"Perhaps we should start a club for people who like these pursuits," he had said. Three pairs of eyes had lit up luridly at the suggestion.

It hadn't taken the club long to catch on. Word of mouth, which was, of course, the only advertising he could afford, given the particular nature of the club, spread like a wild fire in a dry forest and now he had more customers than he needed, or could handle.

He pulled the drapes which hid the floor to ceiling one-way mirrors, set up his camera and waited - waited for the night of pain ahead for those who entered the club.

 

***

 

"You certainly are in a hurry for someone who didn't want to go out."

"Stop nagging, huh? I've had enough of your whining and complaining."

"All right, Mort. You've had enough. Well, I've had enough too!"

Ellie tilted the rear-view mirror toward her rather lovely face. Her make-up was perfect and every hair was in place.

Mort reached up abruptly and yanked the mirror back into place, slamming on the brakes as he did so, just short of ramming into the car in front of him.

"This is a car, you know, an automobile! It's not a fucking powder room!" Mort snarled. His moustache positively bristled.

"All right, Tiger," Ellie said, settling back in the car. "Do you like my new dress?"

"How much is that going to set me back?"

Ellie clucked her tongue.

"Mort, you're the perfect husband, you know? You do every lousy thing that husbands are supposed to do. You don't take me out for weeks on end, but you go to the horses with your buddies and sit in the living room, eating tons of potato chips and ham and cheese sandwiches, watching the fucking ball game. And you never notice what I'm wearing, but you sure as hell notice when I've burned the roast.

"And when I do buy something - anything, curtains, a new tie for you, or a dress for myself, you always ask me how much it costs."

"Yeah, well the honeymoon is over for me, too. I can't stand your hair in rollers, or that lousy cream you put on your face every night. You got thirty extra pounds on you that I am not legally married to and you nag, nag, nag!"

Ellie sighed. She looked out the window and sulked.

It had taken her two solid weeks of working on Mort every single night to get him to take her out this particular Saturday night. She wanted to go out with the Evanses - go to a super night club somewhere and dance and get a little high, but when he finally came home with tickets, it was for a private club somewhere in midtown Manhattan and the Evanses were not invited.

Ellie hadn't liked that idea at all. She didn't think she could take several hours of her husband alone. The honeymoon was long over for her, too.

He had got slightly paunchy. And he was right. She had put on thirty pounds since their wedding day five years ago.

She kept saying she was going to lose the weight and she never did.

"What's the place like?" she finally said, realizing that it was going to be one hell of a night if she stayed mad at him.

He laughed, his grin crinkling the corner of his eyes. She liked the way he grinned. He didn't do too much of it these days, except with his buddies. And even then he didn't grin. He guffawed.

She knew as she worked in the kitchen, occasionally tippling if the afternoon got to be too much of a bore, that they were telling smutty jokes.

She had asked him to get another television set, but he said one was enough. The problem was, he hogged it avidly, especially on those weekends when he invited the male pack over to watch sports. Ellie hated sports.

And she hated feeling that her house was not her own. On those weekends when the boys came over, the house was certainly not her own. She ran herself ragged filling orders for beer or highballs and making sandwiches and refilling the bowls with crackers, cheese, potato chips and cheese whats-its.

If he cut down the snacks, he'd lose his paunch and she'd save enough house money to buy a bargain dress every now and then without his knowing it.

"You'll see," he said, as he turned a corner into a rather fashionable street. Ellie was impressed with the houses.

"Is it here?" she asked, as he found a parking space and backed into it.

"Yes."

She fussed with the frilly dress she was wearing - not her style, but new and cheap enough so that it wouldn't really dent the budget. Mort was saving for a new car.

"Do I look all right? I mean, I'm not under-dressed or anything, am I? I didn't know you were taking me to such a ritzy place."

Again Mort grinned at her, his arm slung over the back seat as he manoeuvred the car into the spot.

That was one thing about Mort. He could turn on a dime and park where a normal driver couldn't fit a Volkswagen! And they sure as shit didn't drive a bug. Mort liked big flashy cars.

"No, babe. If anything, you're over-dressed," he said, cryptically.

Ellie was puzzled. They got out of the car and walked up the steps of a very fancy Federalist-type house, done in white stone, with shutters on the windows. All the windows were darkened and Ellie wondered if Mort had the right address, but he seemed to know what he was doing.

He rang the bell and a peephole shutter popped open.

"Good evening," A cavernous voice said. Ellie shuddered. It was just like a Dracula picture, that voice!

"Mort and Ellie Hughes."

The door swung open. Mort stepped aside to let Ellie in first. She gulped, wondering why she should be nervous, aside from the matter of her clothes, and the heavy mahogany door slammed shut.

They were in a large vestibule. Ellie didn't like the look of it and she turned to Mort to tell him she didn't like the place, but he had grabbed her by her elbow and was walking ahead of the butler who had let them in.

They approached another door and the butler opened it for them. Ellie stepped into an elegant, old-fashioned room - the kind she didn't like because the furniture was too heavy and the drapes and rugs were too dark and oppressive.

She turned to Mort again, to protest. It looked like a tomb and Ellie definitely didn't like it.

But again Mort had her by the elbow, following the butler.

"Through here, sir, and to your left. Have a good evening."

"Oh, I intend to!" Mort guffawed.

They walked through the door and down a small flight of stairs.

"Mort, this place is like a dungeon!"

Mort kept her elbow and steered her to the left, down a huge, cavernous corridor of stone. Their footsteps echoed.

Suddenly, Ellie heard an ear-splitting shriek. She stopped as Mort yanked on her arm.

"Mort, where are you taking me?"

"Come on! I don't have all night."

He dragged her along the corridor until they came to a door. It opened and Mort dragged his wife through it.

"Welcome to the Hilarity Club!" the young woman said.

Ellie let out a little shriek. The girl was stark naked, except for black boots, a black mask which covered her hair like a cap, hiding it, and the upper part of her face. She had a black belt around her very delectable naked middle.

Ellie was rooted to the spot, her jaw dropped. She was too shocked to even respond physically for the moment. Her breathing was normal. She perceived what was happening, knew she was shocked, knew she was momentarily paralysed, but there was no emotional response to her knowledge.

"I'll show you to your room," the girl said. Her hips swivelled gorgeously as she led them to a room off a large central room.

It was peculiar, that central room. At one end of it was a mammoth fireplace. There was a long mahogany refectory table in the middle, some chairs and an iron brazier in one corner, which was smoking slightly.

There were no windows and around the stone walls were various rather frightening pieces of equipment, which reminded Ellie of pictures she had seen in her history books on the Middle Ages.

She didn't find her voice until they were in the room. Again it was equipped with a fireplace, with a fire blazing in it. It was summertime and the room was oppressively hot.

In the middle of the room was a table. Around the room were shelves with various frightening-looking things on them. Ellie's round eyes took in the room and then she turned to the naked woman but before she could speak, the woman asked:

"You know the rules, sir?"

"Yeah, no scars, no excessive bloodshed and don't kill her!"

Now Ellie started to feel the pain. She gripped Mort's arm, not knowing why, since he had brought her here, but he was the only familiar thing in this strange place.

"Also, don't forget!" the naked girl admonished him, smiling, "turn-about is fair play."

"No fear of that," Mort grinned.

"What does that mean?" Ellie shrieked, finally finding her voice.

The naked woman turned to Ellie. "It means that you can do unto your husband what your husband does unto you, of course. The Golden Rule."

"But what's he going to do to me?" she screamed, her voice high, grating, strident with the fear which was beginning to build in her.

The girl shrugged.

"I haven't the slightest idea, Madame. It's his choice."

She turned, having made that frightening remark, and left the room, closing it behind her.

Ellie turned to her husband, who was starting to take off his jacket. In the corner she saw a large old-fashioned cupboard. Mort walked over to it, casually, and opened the doors. There were hangers in it. He started to remove his clothes.

"Take off your clothes, Ellie," he said.