End of Women

End of Women

1

Social Exclusive

Hammer and thongs, fire and brimstone. In summary, Gene Wilkes was the most charmless brute the State Commission ever employed. Even more notable was the careless manner in which he had been elevated to Police Commissioner within the first three months of his tenure. By anyone’s standards, that was tactless. Only the most dim-witted of his subordinates could fail to see nepotism at work.

Still, you had to hand it to the guy, he knew how to throw a party.

I was in my sixth year of membership in the Society, and that meant a lifetime trip on the gravy train. You need two things to get in; a penis, and the kind of fortune most human beings don’t even know exists in private hands. I made mine the hard way, building and selling oil tankers. I bet against myself just before the gulf spill and made billions overnight. My first party invitation came a week later.

Now its all second-nature, but that first visit made me question my sanity. The only reason I agreed to come was, well, you don’t say no to the richest and most powerful men in the world. I had my ideals, but I also planned to have a son one day. One party with these guys would ensure he didn’t just inherit my billions and buy a pacific island to coke himself to death in luxury. These guys had a mission.

At the time, I had no idea what that mission was.

First night I arrived at 3PM, so I guess it wasn’t really night at all. The house belonged to Wilkes, way up in the Appalachians where you dont expect to see anything but rocks, trees and camper vans. His was the entire valley, surrounded by a fortification of mountain ranges. I never asked how much of it he actually owned. Maybe it didn’t matter. Where he built, he owned.

Nobody came to the car. I expected – well, I didn’t know what to expect, but people on the decking, swapping stories, topping off colourful drinks, that sort of thing maybe? None of it. Nobody outside. I had that pissed off, embarrassed feeling that I’d come to the wrong place. No party atmos? Strike one.

Saying fuck it, I walked right up to the door and rang the bell. I didn’t hear anything inside. That was strike two.

I have no idea how long I waited but the door opened. Strike three was coming, I knew it.

‘Welcome Mr Greenwich. Please find your personal effects in the Lancaster Room.’

Two sentences making up for two strikes. I was relieved.

‘Um... thanks.’

Wilkes’ butler bowed toward me and removed his hat in deepest respect. When he straightened up he ran the hat along its rim up to his elbow, then popped it up in the air to land neatly back on his head, like an old vaudevillian show-finisher. I clapped awkwardly.

He led me through the entrance hall, and for the first time that evening I did see what I expected. Hunting lodge decor, log and branch framing and furniture that might still be growing. It smelled like sequoia and embers.

Wilkes had his head in a book in the corner, trussed up in a velvet suit and dashing enough to put his butler to shame. In my toned-down Armani I must have seemed like a square, but I was glad to be the most masculine man in the room. I’ll admit, it was all starting to feel a bit silly.

‘Rufus!’ He jumped up and dropped Handling Water back on the nightstand. ‘Good to see you here. I must admit to some envy, the first night is an experience you never quite recapture.’

I had nothing to say to that, as I had no idea what he was talking about. I smiled and nodded politely.

‘Do have a drink!’

Almost an hour went by as I waited in the bar room. There was no real party; aside from myself there were only five guests, and I had no need to ask any names. Edward Falk, champion of the finance market, rich enough to buy out everyone else at the table; Ulysees Buck, weapons dealer from the south; John Merry, owner of the multi-national media enterprise Global News; Lucius King, political strategist and free-for-hire advisor to the supposed powers that be, and last of all Irnish Valadi, inheritant to the Valadi fortune, India’s wealthiest man. In one room, the men who make, maintain and change the world as they see fit. I was quiet when I came in because I was sure I would leave any minute. Now I was star-struck into silence.

Wilkes kept me company, introduced me to everyone. I had investments that make world-beating businesses signed and dated without opening my mouth. I had commitments to honour, bursaries and even political protection. It was too much to be real, and I knew I was being set up.

‘Tell me, Rufus,’ Wilkes had said when the chatter died away momentarily, ‘do you remember these?’

My stomach dropped out when he showed me crude drawings I made as a child. Women being whipped, violated, tortured and killed.

‘How... how did you...’

‘It doesn’t matter. How do they make you feel?’

This was it. They had something on me, and so they had me, fit for the kill. I was their bitch now, with their money. It all made sense. I squared my jaw.

‘What do you want?’ I asked him. Wilkes filled the air with booming laughter.

‘Only to show you your dreams, my friend.’

The entire consort of the table got to their feet and led me out of the room, down into an underground chamber. As each turn grew tighter in my insane evening I became less certain of anything, most of all my personal safety, and descending into a dark, albeit enormous, basement, that mortal fear did not subside in the least.

‘Welcome,’ said Wilkes, ‘to every man’s dream.’

Light flooded the room. My eyes slowly adjusted, and blood rushed from my lungs to a more southern region.

Rows and rows of cages, each containing a live, naked female were placed like supermarket shelves across one side of the endless chamber. Opposite them was a well-appointed torture dungeon, complete with every sharp, tight, burning and piercing implement of misery imaginable.

‘What the fuck...’

The others laughed, no doubt remembering their first encounter with it. Wilkes could not hold them back any longer, and they ran to the cages to pick out their favourite girls.

I held back, stunned, and Wilkes beside me.

‘This... this is what the Bluenorth Society does?’

He clapped a hand on my shoulder.

‘Take a look at that first drawing again.’

I did. The woman I drew at sixteen had her enormous tits trapped in a metal vice. I had taken the time to sketch her out in fine detail. Despite the subject matter, it really was one of my better drawings.

As I raised my head again, Wilkes had a woman in tow. He dragged her on her hands and knees by a leash around her neck. Instantly I knew he had picked out a woman that so perfectly resembled the one in the sketch that it would drive me wild with need.

‘You have fun, my friend’ he said, handing the leash to me.

And oh my, but I did have fun.

You might be forgiven for thinking, in all that time, I was just a naive kid happy to get off with some guys having good old-fashioned jollies at the expense of a few innocent girls. In reality, I knew two things; one, my life and the direction I was taking had changed forever, and two, there is no such thing as an innocent girl.