It's a day Rock never expected to see; his first birthday in Roanapur. He's in the Yellow Flag, whooping it up; making a noise and a nuisance of himself, as only a salaryman can. All kinds of people he doesn't even know seem to be buying him drinks. He's having a grand time of it; which is where it all goes wrong — he's managed to forget the type of town he's in and that, if a stranger buys you a drink, the first thing you do is give it a chemical analysis.
Sure enough someone has managed to give him a Mickey Finn and he's only blearily aware as he's bundled out of the bar and into the boot of a car. He's come back to full consciousness by the time the car has come to halt but it doesn't help against the burly, black-clad, masked and gloved figures that grab him and hustle him out of a garage and along a dark corridor until they fling him bodily through a door at the far end and he falls flat on his face in front of all of his friends.
He finds himself inside of one of Rowan's theatres with just about everybody he is on good terms with in Roanapur there. A « Happy Birthday Rock » banner is draped above the stage. Along one wall is a buffet with popcorn, nibbles and drinks of every kind. Right in front of him loom Dutch and Benny; they're looming 'cos he is still on his knees — till Dutch hauls him up and rumbles out.
« Revy's Idea » — Benny adds « Yeah it's absolutely nothing to do with us »
Following the inevitable well wishes and loading up with buffet, everyone mills around till they have a seat in the auditorium. Dutch is off to one side, so his bulk doesn't block out the view for everyone else. As principal guest Rock gets given the seat at front middle, with Benny on one side and Rowan on the other. It gives Rowan the ideal spot to run the deal past Rock.
« You lucky man Rock; your friends have laid out a show just for you. Rowan has been kind enough to let them have all his best dancers. They're the one's who started out with Revy; they can do everything and take anything … and they will. Enjoy it. »
Rock isn't at all sure he will; he is already squirming … at the hideous thought of having to face any kind of a brainchild from Rowan and Revy but theres no help for it, The show has begun.
A crowd of gorgeous girls burst onto the stage: from the wings, the pit, even the flys and all of them are dressed as decent, sober bussinessfolk in shiny black pumps, formal black skirts, white blouses and cream ties. They scatter across the stage in a whirlwind, millrace of movement: spinning, tumbling, contorting, kicking. It is a rambunctious chaos yet, for all that, they never once clash or crash and even split into brief pas-de-deux or fly into each others arms. The most amazing element of all is that, for all the kicking, leaping and gymnastical contortions, somehow their skirts never fly out or up enough for the audience to be sure of what kind of underpants the girls have on; if they even have any.
The next surprise is one that really gives Rock a start and has him looking around for somebody for him to swing a fist at. Another dancer has appeared; in the selfsame kit as the others but with some slight and significant differences: hair the hue and cut of Rock's and a thin black tie — Blacky is the very mirror of him. In but a moment Blacky has become the heart and the hub of the dance: with all of the other dancers hustling and harrying her; hurrying her from one side of the stage to the next or breaking into short dancelettes with her.
It has become a wild and frenzied dance; looking like it will spill and spiral out of control — at least it does until a new girl glides onto stage. Her charcoal catsuit covers her from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head; most likely it's latex but perhaps it's painted on — as every detail of her hard dancer's body is apparent underneath it. Rock will swear that he can't just trace the shapes of her nipples but can even make out the aureola, as for between her legs, he blushes at how every detail of that shaved sweet-spot stands out under the suit.
Charcoal also wields a whip that she isn't shy or slow to slash across the backs of the other dancers as she sheepdogs them into some semblance of order. The whip cracks and cuts across and then into the shirts of the salarymaids and shreds them to ribbons till every one of them is topless and ribboned in red streaks from where the whip has razored into tender flesh. In the close space and from his close seat Rock can smell the spice of sweat and the tang of iron; he has no doubt of the reality of the sufferings and exertions of the exhibitionists.
He should be ashamed to be spectator to such a show but, in truth, he's actually excited and wondering where the show will go next. It's really a question where the whip will go next: which is onto the seven dancers' ever so sensitive breasts; it comes down hard, fast, often and expertly. Charcoal deliberately and accurately assaults every single exposed nipple out on stage. The dancers are corralled, crushed and crowded into a shambling, stumbling huddle.
All of a sudden Rock is struck by just what he is seeing and gasps out in astonishment; with some embellishment it's an exact replay of the rush hour crush at a Tokyo commuter station. Revy! The only person who could possibly know these details is the girl who came to Tokyo with him. He'll bet anything that the devilgirl is watching from the wings or wherever and lapping up his every reaction; well just let her wait till it's her birthday!
Meanwhile the commuter crush is quickly converting itself into an orgy. The half dressed dancers, held in that tight knot, are taking every opportunity to explore each other with hands and tongues and lips. Hands disappear under skirts; lips and tongues find necks or faces or mouths. Charcoal isn't having any of this; she coils her whip around her neck then pulls out a cattleprod from a slit set above about the only place a girl in such a skintight suit can hide anything.
There's a general gasp from everyone in the room as the glistening rod appears; that's even before it's applied to the backside of the nearest groping girl. Charcoal circles around the writhing cluster of dancers: flipping up skirts, striking in with the prod and striking up sparks; wherever she feels the need to quell a girl. Unfailingly, as soon as her back is turned, the girls get right back to going at it. Rock's world is reeling; he doesn't know if he likes it best when a couple get into a clinch and go at it hard and hot or when some svelte beauty is spasming from the shocks.
It isn't so very long before the shocks begin to become more brutal and sustained; as Charcoal carves up the crush and spreads the dancers back out around the stage. Then she keeps them moving along, marshalling them about the stage, making use of her baton to gesture and goad; till she has them actually on manoeuvres. It's an eyebrow raising rendition of a Toyko Traffic Cop managing the crowds; only this is much more of a military dance spectacle complete with music. Charcoal keeps charge by use of electric charges; heartily abusing the breasts, bellies and other parts of her charges with several seconds of shock to nipples or neck or elsewhere. In random moments: Charcoal will pick a dancerly target; work one girl over and never switch away — not until her chosen victim is gasping or flinching or showing suffering in some way.
Then, somehow, all of the dancers are fled away, except for two that go down on all fours, and for Blacky; who gets bent over the backs of the other two — by Charcoal who has hold of the scruff of her shirt. Charcoal is leant over Blacky: menacing and shaking her, while brandishing the baton. Blacky gasps and flops theatrically and then more realistically; as she starts to take long blasts from the cattle prod to her breasts and her belly and then to below there — after her skirt is ripped away to show her to be unclad, bare and very vulnerable. Rock gulps and prays, to any god that will listen, that Balalaika has some sort of a sense of fun. He's just recognised this as a parody of back when Balalaika had him bent over the hood of a car in Tokyo and he was begging for his life. Now he knows Rowan has nothing to do with this show; he'd never be so bold nor so crazy as to fly into the Russian Wolf's jaws.
Abruptly Blacky is plucked from the backs; pushed to midfront stage and then down onto her knees, with her back to the pit. Charcoal stands, straddle legged and full frontal, over her and facing the audience. The still sparking sceptre is passed to the nearly naked Blacky; who lingeringly inveigles the live rod back from whence it came. Even from under the skinsuit everyone can see Charcoal's shivers and suffering along with the stiffness of her nipples; as she takes this tasering, until only the end of the hilt hangs out and the power is killed — before the final inch is inserted. Rock is certain sure that every member of the audience must be feeling the same ache as he does, imagining what in hell that must have felt like.
Undercover of the frontstage action the couple of girls who'd played the car have crept off the stage. All that's onstage at this moment is Charcoal and Blacky. The naked girl is still on her knees, as Charcoal unwinds the whip from where it still hangs round her neck and then drops down; to kneel and cradle Blacky in her lap. The whip goes around Blacky's neck and tightens till she gasps and begins to struggle for breath; as she does so Charcoal invades the fork between the bared girl's legs with her fingers and soon Blacky hardly seems to be aware of the noose around her neck or of much at all — except the explosions between her legs, at her shaven sex.
Meantime the other dancers have drifted back on stage and draped themselves over the floor in similar twosomes to Charcoal and Blacky. Hands slither under skirts and onto breasts while mouths meet mouths and the stage is suddenly a Shangri-La of girl on girl action; but so, there is something of a serious note to it. All the active partners seem to be eying up the others around the stage, as if they are in a competition; which Rock shockingly gets that they are — the rest of the audience gets it to and soon they are all on tenterhooks to see which girl will spasm first. Blacky it is who arcs over, convulses and orgasms first; at the very front of the stage and virtually in Rock's face, even if an ash blonde pair are only seconds behind.
Charcoal coils to her feet then raises the still colt-legged Blacky up; after which the pair of them make the rounds of the stage and lift up all of the other twined twinnages littering the floor — but that isn't all that they do. At each pairing Blacky or Charcoal tear off the severe black skirts of the girls; to reveal rhinestone thongs underneath. Even on their feet the couples keep the same positions they had before: goosed girl in front and goose girl behind but now they begin to writhe and twist around each other, like sinuous serpents, as music starts up.
Blacky has come forward to midfront stage and begun to sing into a standing mike, while in the background there convulses a twisting tornado of torrid flesh. After what has just come before the dancers are exquisitely keyed up and juiced up; they are all but melting into each other in a fiery frenzy that seems ready to make the stage combust.
The audience certainly is on fire, for these girls who're making out to be idorus. Amongst them all, Blacky truly can sing while the others are only simulacra. Not that it's anything of a matter, as the song isn't at all in the nature of "Happy Birthday Mr President" but rather Gretel's song. It's a pure Revy touch; small wonder Benny and Dutch disclaimed all responsibility for this bittersweet joy that is being served up.
There's still more though, the razor in the kandiflos. No act is ever complete without an element of pain and now here it is — Charcoal, as an impresario, with a pack of cigars in one hand and a zeppelin of an ignited cigar held in her other hand; the tip glowing threateningly crimson as she pads around scrutinising and singeing the girls. Burnmarks blossom out: on breasts, over bellies, in belly-buttons, under armpits or under breasts and even between the legs, onto clit or slit or thigh. The girl really is a pro Rock realises; as he sees how she never stops long enough to create a scar but only a scream — Rowan is lucky to have her. No wonder his productions are so popular; Rock is flattered and impressed: he's been given the best of the girls in the best of the shows, as a present!
It's not just Charcoal either; Rock's vision is filled with a Roanapur idoru singing a song that's sealed into his heart: Blacky wearing, well, just a Black Tie. They're not forgetting the birthday boy neither: here's Charcoal prowling across the stage, to entwine herself around Blacky, who doesn't so much as skip a beat in the song; not even while she's being burnt over all of her bare body. In the background some form of a perverted dance is still being performed but here, directly in front of Rock and right in his face, a whole other kind of a show is just beginning.
By now Blacky has segued into another song to keep the show sliding along. Charcoal has slid around in front of Blacky, without once losing body-to-body contact, and is foremost to the audience in general and to Rock in especial. In all of this the cigar has somehow slid into the hand of Blacky. She puffs it bright between bars of the song and soon there is no more singing only singeing, along with groans and gasps; as it becomes Charcoal's turn to feel the bite of being branded.
From the melting, scalding, pliable, plastic suit Blacky can produce any number of effects that mere skin can't manage. Holding the cigar just next to the nipple she lets the near heat evaporate the latex away till the pink point emerges, like Excalibur from the lake, and inevitably the cigar is crushed against the tender bud; the same is repeated on the second breast — each time Charcoal arches her back at the searing shock.
Blacky has barely yet begun to burn Charcoal; now she drives the roasting tip of the cigar directly down onto one breast and then the other; boring holes in the latex and speckling innumerable scorch marks over the sensitive surfaces. Behind them the dancers have done a switch and now the front of each pair is the one who hasn't climaxed yet but certainly soon will with the way they're being worked upon. The couples are now coiled so closely around each other it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
Charcoal and Blacky are entwined like ivy around a tree and are exchanging caresses and kisses, like ardent lovers, but never without that razor in the kandiflos. Blacky touches the seething-red end of the cigar to the suit, just below Charcoal's left breast, then draws a diagonal line down to the right hip; to leave a track of searing, molten latex in its wake — and does the same time over time till all of Charcoal's torso is scored over. Every possible inch of pain has been dragged out of Charcoal; as Blacky has been at pains to curl each line as far around Charcoal's sides as she can do. For the coup-de-grâce: Blacky burns through and onto Charcoal's clit; making her groan at the pain of it.
Charcoal skews her sore body around, so that the two girls are grinding burnt crotch against burn crotch and scorched breast against scorched breast. Blacky starts a fresh cigar and traces a molten trench, slantwise, along Charcoal's back then across her spine and down to her flank; in a diagonal line of fire — and continues remorselessly on: to plough pain across all the expanse of Charcoal's back. The more that there is of the charred clawmarks and of the anguish that claws at Charcoal then the more frenzied and fierce do Charcoal and Blacky become in their couplings. Rock is in agony; he would never have believed he could stay so hard and hungering for so long without touching or doing — only seeing and scenting and hearing.
The music is becoming fast and driving; rising till it reaches a crescendo. On that note the twosome thrust rigid arms at each other's chests and burst apart — to the two wings of the stage. The whip has gone with Blacky. Simultaneously all of the idoru have snapped off their thongs and snapped out the snake-thin whips that were hidden beneath. The dancers are serpentine, sensual, sleek, shiny and shaved; in just the same way as Blacky. Now every girl on stage, except skinsuited Charcoal, is as naked as a newborn; but for their ties: cream for the team and black for the Rock-alike.
At the commencement of the entertainment Charcoal was distinctive and dominant; now she is distinctive and deviant — as the only clad body on stage. A wild, complex, pagan style of music has begun to play; as it swells across the stage all seven dancers begin to stalk after Charcoal — who darts away. The hunt is on: with them all whirling, flying and leaping over the entire space of the stage; even catching Charcoal and spinning her around or tossing her through the air. All the while the whips are at work: catching the prey by arm or leg or neck; stinging across sides, breasts and belly — sharply switching Charcoal in some different direction or spinning her like a top.
It is exuberant, exciting, exotic, erotic and … deeply disturbing. The whips slash, slice, shred and shear through the skinsuit as well as the skin and flesh beneath. Because it has been so burnt and broken before, it is soon reduced to rags and ribbons — with not a remnant remaining on Charcoal; from waist to neck. Only her head, legs, shoulders and arms keep any covering; all of the rest of her is entirely out on display: exposed; vulnerable; an easy target for the whips that press her closer and closer; penning her in; pinning her down, as the music climbs to a crescendo. At the very moment the music peaks so do all seven whips surrounding Charcoal smash down onto her tortured torso, as if they were but one whip.
Then the girls sweep in on Charcoal: swamping her and screening her from view of the audience for some moments. When the dancers draw back, Charcoal has been stripped from the waist down and all of her tender parts are in view; more than in view … exhibited. Four of the dancers have hold of Charcoal's arms; dragging them painfully both backwards and outwards, so that her chest is thrust forward. Two more lie on the floor to secure her lower limbs and spread Charcoal's legs far wider than can be good for her. With Charcoal held, splayed, displayed and open Blacky isn't slow to start in with the whip: slinging it, in stinging snaps, up between Charcoal's legs and hard onto her most private parts; her most sensitive and tender parts.
This goes on for some while; played out to some more measured but still mutative music that eventually gives the cue for the girls at the legs to roll and curl themselves onto their feet and add their whips into the mix — by each one of them targeting one of Charcoal's breasts. It isn't the least random though; as the three of them are working in harmony with each other and with the music and striking in sychronicity and symphony — it is a single, veritable ballet of brutality and bloodletting. When the music comes to its height the girls strike a new low; with all three whips zipping and zapping against Charcoal's clit in unison — before the three whipstars fall to their knees facing the crowd. Betimes the afflicted girl is too far gone even to scream but let's out all of her agony in a long, low, catlike hiss. She throws her head backwards and arches her body forward: Charcoal is the epitome of every helpless, hapless, harrowed Helen of Troy — the eternal Damsel in Distress!
It is the end; the flushed and fevered audience surges to its feet to applaud in the true Roanapur style: handclapping, footstamping, bulletblasting exuberance. Rock rises too and applauds too but he's on autopilot — stunned and transfixed by scenes that he'd never so much as dreamed. When the audience has exhausted its adulation and while they all are settling back into their seats the three whipstars vanish offstage. The captive Charcoal and her captors remain onstage, as a tableau-vivant; as Rowan takes command of the stage.
« Whoa, wow, man; a party piece to blow us all off. Rowan wants to hear what the party boy has to say about it all; come on up Rock. »
Rowan leans down; gives Rock a hand and hauls him onto stage direct from the pit and pushes the perplexed Oriental in front of the standing mike. From there Rock stumbles his way through the perpetual platitudes that are pushed out on such occasions. He is very soon upstaged however as the two young whipgirls come out from the wing on his left.
They're linked, as one, by an ebony box that they carry as if they were lifting a barweight between them; they step in perfect tandem and Blacky comes up behind — all of them marching in time to metronomic music in a simple but a startlingly impressive ritual. They come to the side of Rock: the twosome of whipstars move smoothly apart, without ever disturbing the box, and make space for Blacky to limbo beneath it — to fall on her knees facing Rock. The twinned whipstars place the box on Blacky's upturned palms and she in turn proffers the box to Rock — as if she is a samurai offering up her sword to her Daiyimo.
Up close Rock can see the sheen of the ebony and the glint of the gold that caps the boxends, as well as the red lacquered message embossed into it: « Rock — Age One » . He opens the lid slowly and reverently, wondering what treasure can possibly trump the box itself. It is the shockrod; the very one that was used in the show, Rock has no doubt it is that very one — they haven't so much as troubled to clean it.
« Uh, thanks guys; I … umm … I've never had anything like this. Thanks »
« Rowan thinks we should thank the girl who made Rock's day. »
Rowan is looking outward and expectantly to the doors behind the seats; the ones that open onto the main aisle. Rock glues his eyes to that spot too; wondering what kind of a shit-eating grin Revy will be wearing when she walks down the aisle. Instead he's surprised to feel a pair of bare breasts pushing into his back and find two charcoal clad arms wrapping around his waist; as Revy leans her head on his shoulder and speaks.
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