The European Enigma (LSD, #9)

36. The San Marino SM-club

The San Marino SM-club

"Three more? With the five you brought yesterday, the two of Tuesday, and the three of Monday, that makes thirteen already, and the week hasn't finished yet."

"I know thirteen is a number for bad luck. I'll do my best to bring you one or two more before you close tonight."

The woman with the purple hair shook her head: "I wasn't talking about bad luck, Miss. I was referring to the capacity we have here. We're a small country, one of the smallest in the world, and we're a small club too. We can handle two or three; if we try hard, we might work on five; if we push things to the limit, we're talking about seven, eight maximum. What are we going to do with thirteen men? And I'm not even thinking about the one or two extra you plan to bring before closing time. We just don't have the capacity. Find another place for them."

Katja looked up, admired the beautiful painted ceiling, counted to ten, slowly, controlled her breath, relax, you can handle this, you've done so many things that were more delicate, more difficult, more dangerous... dealing with deadlines, destroying democracies, dating Donald Duck, drinking decaf... twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three...

"We have a deal, Miss. «Slow motion, fast results», you said. I bring them, and you make them talk. Or did you mean to pull a fast one?"

"If a hotel has five beds, and fifteen people want to sleep there?"

"Love makes a small bed wide, Miss. I don't see the problem. We never asked you to tell them bedtime stories. We never spoke about how many hours of sleep they'll get. All we want is for them to tell you how they did it. You promised us you had all the equipment to make them sing. So, please, pump up the volume and give me the recordings."

The woman with the purple hair took a deep breath: "I have to hire more people. It will take time. This is a small country and not many women like doing this work. Can't you give us a hand yourself?"

Katja's spontaneous laughter was a clear reply to the ridiculous request, but nevertheless, she added: "Do you expect me, working for the government, to break the rules? Why do you think we asked you to do the job? We're better trained than you are, and our organization has ages, millennia of experience, but we have rules, Miss, rules that we've invented ourselves, rules we have to follow ourselves. You don't have that problem; San Marino is not part of the European Union and did not sign the treaty of Geneva or the agreement to respect human rights. That's why we asked you to handle our business for us. You said it would be no problem. You do that kind of service all the time. So, please, stop making a problem out of everything, and start doing what you're good at."

The woman with the purple hair shook her head: "You don't listen. Okay. I'll show you. But first, put on this mask... and change your summer dress for our uniform, to protect your delicate skin... and to avoid they might recognise you... Don't worry, it will fit; rubber is elastic... Yes, the boots too."

"Do you think I'm scary enough to make them talk?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter what you wear, just as long as you are there. Come on, girl, grab a guy, hit him well and make him cry. Remember to move slowly. It's called the Slow Motion club for a reason."

The woman with the purple hair showed Katja the way, through the curtain of thick, crimson velvet, down the stairs, into the cellar. She took the sturdy iron key from the hook on the wall and opened the heavy oak door. Katja followed, tearing the three naked, cuffed and blindfolded men behind her, so the woman with the purple hair could close the door.

«No problem. Room enough.», Katja thought.

The woman with the purple hair grabbed the first man by the neck and forced him to his knees: "Kiss the floor, heels over head. Now: who's your master?"

"You are, ma'am."

"What are you going to do to please me?"

"Everything you want, ma'am."

"Are you going to tell me how you did it?"

"I don't know what you mean, ma'am."

The woman with the purple hair took a whip from a hook on the wall and Clash!-ed the kneeled man on his buttocks: "NOT the right answer. One more chance: how did you do it?"

"You wouldn't understand, ma'am."

One more Clash!

A red X marked the spot.

"You can try to make it simple for me, or I can try to make it harder for you."

"Yes, harder, please. Hit me with your rhythm stick. Hit me. Hit me."

The other men, cuffed to the wall of the dark, damp cellar, cried: "No, hit me first." - "I've been here longer than him." - "I was here first." - "It's my turn..."

The woman with the purple hair put the high heel of her pointed boot on the torso of the man on the ground and kicked him towards the wall: "I'm sick of you."

Katja helped the woman with the purple hair to put the ball and chain on each foot of the three new arrivals, and followed her upstairs. She took off the black leather mask and sat down in a chair, not knowing what to do now: "We really need that information, you know. Each of these guys makes more money than Rimini in summer, but they pay fewer taxes than an average student at University. We have to find out how they do it, or we won't be able to avoid our own bankruptcy. But those silly interrogation rules forbid a convincing conversation. We hoped you could help us out, with your spanking new way of interrogations."

The woman with the purple hair gave a smile of understanding: "We really try to help you, but these bankers, they are just too big for my boots. All this hanky-spanky and happy slapping turns them on. And the worst part is: they seem to like the fact that the others can look and listen. It's like a pissing contest who can take more blows, who can suffer more pain. They're not playing hard-to-get-hard."

Katja played with the short, leather whip, slashing it slowly against the side of her leather boots: "And if you isolate them? If you 'interview' them one by one?"

The woman with the purple hair flashed a weary smile: "And what do I do with the other twelve? Put them naked outside the front door? The police would come and I would lose my licence. This country has never signed the agreements to protect presumed terrorists against torture and physical pain, Miss, but we do have rules against indecent behaviour. I only have one cellar, and my regular SM clients are getting grumpy. They say I mistreat them... and I charge them extra for it because they seem to like it."

"You can put the other twelve in a closet."

"Yeah, but that closet is already full of skeletons, souvenirs from what the CIA brought us during the Gulf War, and what do I do with those? Do you have any experience with waterboarding? They say it gives good results, and it doesn't leave any traces of inflicted violence on the victims."

Katja shook her head: "These financial managers are allergic to water; they get red spots everywhere. We've tried 12-year-old-whisky-boarding and champagne-boarding, but the costs were high and the results were close to nothing. We had higher expectations of your approach, with top-down control and bottom-up interrogation, buttt..."

"They all seem to be so cock-sure about themselves. We put Mr Cool on heat. Perhaps we should ice him. Have you tried putting them on the rocks?"

"The whisky?"

"No, the men. I mean... We've played the men and we should play the ball... You take a naked man, you put him on the rocks, place him on an ice cube in the freezer... What will happen?"

"He won't get excited, that's for sure."

"Exactly. When he goes in, he's SUCH a man, but after a cool-down of half an hour, he's only this small. He'll go off at half-cock."

Katja visualised the situation and a nasty smile took possession of her usually friendly face: "It's worth a try. Is there a butcher here with a big freezer?"

The woman with the purple hair smiled: "A butcher? This is San Marino, baby. This is the place where Italian ice cream was invented. We have Luigi, and Luigi has 35 different flavours, as cold as the feet of a Finnish farmer."

Katja was convinced. She stood up, kicked the high black leather boots into a corner, and peeled her wetsuit off: "I like it. Give me one second to whip into my summer dress. We're going to catch a cold..."