Paradise

Part One

When I discovered Wolfsheim had gone to Berlin, I flew out there to find him.  I tracked him down easily enough and then stalked him for ten days, hardly letting him out of my sight. It was obvious to me that he was planning something big and I had to stop him before it was too late.

He left his hotel late one night and I followed him to a club called ‘Paradise’ tucked away in an old industrial zone, west of the city.

I waited all night for him to come out. Three days later I was still sitting in my car on the street outside.  There was no other entrance to the club.  What the hell was he doing in there?   I made some calls and found out that this club was some kind of masked ball and sex club rolled into one. There was only one solution – I had to go in and see for myself.  

Later that night I found myself walking down the narrow passageway, tucked away among old factories and then moments later arriving at a black steel metal door.  I pressed the buzzer and waited. When the door clicked open I stepped in.

A huge black bouncer with a mouthful of gold teeth frisked me and then nudged me towards a kiosk in the wall.  A young man with a torn grey tee-shirt handed me my ticket, said I would pay when I left and added that it probably wouldn’t be for several days.  

I felt uneasy, holding the steel banister, stepping gingerly down the black steel spiral staircase.  I spiraled downwards for a very long time, deep into the earth, and when I reached the bottom I heard the muffled sound of strange ambient music from behind a door. I pulled it open, and stepped into a brightly lit changing room, lined with rails of shiny black numbered rubber suits. A pretty Russian girl called Nina, dressed naked inside a full-length spacesuit of transparent pvc, smiled through her clear shiny facemask and came over. She told me to get undressed and powdered, showed me a locker for my clothes, and fetched me a rubber bodysuit and mask. I stood by the locker, frozen with confusion until Nina explained everything. I pushed my clothes into the tiny locker, slipped leg by leg, arm by arm inside the soft warm latex suit. Nina stood behind to assist me. She located the zip between my legs and pulled it up my back length to my neck, then handed me a rubber mask and together we squeezed it over my head, pulling, tugging till the tiny mouth and eyeholes matched my own.

I was pleased to be in a mask. If Wolfsheim saw me there would be big trouble.  Then it hit me.  If Wolfsheim was also masked, how the hell would I find him?

The warm black rubber fitted perfectly around my skin. Nina smiled once again and held the door ajar for me. Through the tiny eyeholes I stared at her and as I passed she took my wrist. She said 'Touch me - if you want.' She lifted my hand; let me caress her plastic covered breasts and cheek. Wow!  

Then she said 'Before you enter, please remember just the rule: no undressing. We avoid flesh on flesh here as much as possible.’

I nodded and walked on in.  Being inside a tightly fitting rubber suit was a new sensation for me. I was surprised how nice it felt.

Paradise was a huge cavernous hall, its tall brick walls and arched ceilings all in deep, deep red.  Bright laser beams of coloured light flash everywhere and there were people dancing, eating, drinking, and in the shadows: making love and everyone in full black shiny rubber from head to toe, their naked forms smoothed out like they’d been showered in melted chocolate.

Everyone except the waiters who were like Nina, naked inside transparent spacesuits.

I wandered around, looking for Wolfsheim, but no one in the club bared any flesh and every face was masked.  I saw a figure standing by the bar and couldn’t even tell whether it was male of female.  It wore thigh length rubber heeled boots and had breasts, but the torso seemed masculine. And the face, well it wasn’t even a human face. It had a snout and looked like the head of a dog.  I had never seen anything like that before in my life. Whatever it was, it was beautiful.

An hour later I had given up on Wolsheim. It didn’t matter any more where he was or what he was up to. I guessed he was here somewhere. Maybe that was him I saw at the bar. I didn’t care. I was drunk. I was lying on a rubbery couch in a dark cave leading off from the hall, in the arms of a perfect stranger, my head resting gently on her soft rubbery breasts.

It took me a while to work it out but when I did, I realised that this was a very nice club indeed, and I was grateful to Wolfsheim for leading me to it.

I decided I would stay for a while.  It seemed to me that Paradise was a very rare and special place. Everyone was equal and everyone was sexy.  We all had the same seductive shine to our skin.  No blemishes no scars, no signs of age of race, no make-up, no prettiness or ugliness, just all manner of vaguely human shapes. Here, behind the masks a strange truth is told. Here there is nothing to disguise or hide, prejudice, shame or judgement.  Here, I realized, sex and kindness were both free and safe, and no one cared a damn who you were and what you did.  Here, there was tolerance and respect, and so long as we all stayed in here, we were all free, and that felt very sexy indeed. 

Daniel Guy.