Last Snow - Eric van Lustbader [37]
Along the left wall was an array of whips and crops of all kinds, made of different materials. Below it, an assortment of manacles linked by chains. In front of this display was a Western saddle, complete with stirrups and cinch, thrown over a custom-made sawhorse. In the center of the right wall was a floor-to-ceiling mirror, on either side three tiers of dummy heads on each of which was a full-head mask of either leather or black latex. Below each one, lined up like little red soldiers, were what she knew were gag balls. The one small window had been blacked out and was covered with thick metal grillwork straight out of The Count of Monte Cristo.
This regimental exhibit was unsettling enough, but it was the object in the center of the room that riveted her attention: a massive wooden armchair bolted to the floorboards. On each arm and on each of the front legs was a leather restraint with metal buckle. The sight of the chair, so similar to the one Morgan Herr had tied her into for the better part of a week, gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Do the tools of my trade interest you?” Milla Tamirova leaned against the open doorway. She had lit a cigarette while Alli was in the bathroom, and now she exhaled a cloud of pale smoke toward the high ceiling.
Alli couldn’t take her eyes off the chair, which both repelled and fascinated her. The atmosphere seemed saturated with sweat and sexual musk. “I want you to tell me about this.”
“The mechanics of bondage are simplicity itself.”
“Forget the mechanics.” Alli circled the chair as if in a death spiral. “I want to know about the psychology of it.”
Milla Tamirova, smoking slowly, studied her for some time. “It’s not about sex, you know.”
“It’s about power, right?”
“No,” the older woman said, “it’s about control, gathering it to you and letting it go.”
Alli turned to look at her. “Control.” She said this as if it were a word that Milla Tamirova had invented, one that was as potentially fascinating as it was inscrutable.
Tamirova nodded. “That’s right.”
“Give me an example.”
Milla Tamirova seemed to flow, rather than walk, into the dungeon. “Take this chair, for instance. The client is strapped in. He begs to be released, I ignore him. He says he’ll do whatever I want and I say, ‘Anything? Anything at all?’ and he nods his head, eager, avid, greedy, even, for the punishment I will mete out.”
A loathsome shiver crawled down Alli’s spine. She felt as if she were witnessing the beginning of an accident, a car crash, perhaps, the two vehicles heading toward each other at high speed.
“Why?” she said in a whisper. “Why do they do it?”
“Why does anyone do anything? Because it feels good.” Milla Tamirova exhaled noisily, like a horse or a dragon. “But that isn’t what you’re asking, is it?”
“No.”
“Mmm.” The older woman circled the chair, or perhaps it was Alli she was circling, as if drawn by a desire to see all sides. “These men are very powerful. They spend their days at the top of a pyramid of power, barking out orders to those groveling around them. Strange to say, they find this state of affairs enervating—all these people asking them what to do, waiting to be given orders, drains them of energy. They come to me to be rejuvenated. To them, being in a position where they not only don’t have to give orders, but are forced to obey them is sweet release.”
She stopped, curled her fingers around the back of the chair. “You understand, don’t you, that this is all theater. There’s nothing real about it, except as it exists in their minds.”
“You hold no malice toward them.”
“Quite the opposite, I . . .” Milla Tamirova broke off and, relinquishing her position, walked to where Alli still stood in front of the chair. “What happened to you, child?”
Without taking her eyes from the chair, Alli clamped her lips together.
The older woman