Exit to Eden Read Online Free PDF Page A

gate. ("Come to the basement door.")
    Forget the hackneyed whores in black corsets and spike heels ("Have you been a bad boy? Do you need a whipping?") or the dangerous little baby-faced hustlers with the tough-guy voices. This was going to be the Deluxe Escorted Tour of Sado-Masochism to the max.
    And the civilized conversation first.
    Small lamps in the big, sprawling, darkly paneled room, no brighter than candles as they illuminated the paintings, the tapestry on one wall. Oriental screens, deep red and gold paisley window shades. Dark, lacquered french doors with mirrors for glass along the far wall, and a big comfortable leather wing chair, my foot on the ottoman, and the shadowy figure of the man behind the desk.
    Martin, soon to be my lover, my mentor, my therapist, my unstinting partner in the inner sanctum. Tall, black haired, youthful voice, gray at the temples, the fiftyish college professor at home in the brown V-neck sweater with the open shirt collar, small, but brilliantly inquisitive eyes. Eyes that seem forever to be examining something wondrous. Gleam of an old-fashioned gold watch against the dark hair on his arm.
    "Do you mind the smell of a pipe?"
    "Love it."
    Balkan Sobranie tobacco, very nice.
    I was nervous, sitting quietly in the chair, my eyes scanning the walls, the old landscapes under the crazed lacquer, the small enameled figurines on the mahogany chest. Otherworldly here. Mass of purple flowers in a pewter vase against the marble clock. The carpet that smooth plum-colored velvet kind you only see these days on the marble staircases in the very old hotels. Sounds from the house above. The creak of boards, the dull resonance of a music.
    "Now, I want you to talk to me, Elliott," he had said with an easy authority, as if none of this was rehearsed, had ever happened before. "I want you to relax and recount for me the sort of fantasies you've enjoyed over the years. You don't have to be graphic. We know how to be graphic. We're geniuses at it."
    He sat back, his eyes moving over the ceiling, touch of gray in the eyebrows, the pipe smoke rising thickly for an instant, then vanishing.
    "And if it's difficult for you, describing the fantasies to me, you can always write them down if you like. I could leave you alone for a while with paper and pencil, the typewriter if you prefer
    "But I thought you made things happen, that it was an environment, so to speak, a world…"
    "It is, Elliott, don't worry about that. We'll take control. Complete control. Once you go through that door. We have a thousand ideas, a thousand proven ways of doing things. But it's important that we talk first, about you, about your imagination. It's a good way to begin. Do you want a cigarette, Elliott?"
    How unnerving it had been to realize I had to begin it, start the wheels turning. I had seen myself surrendering when I came to the door. "Yes, I'm guilty. Punish me." How unnerving to discover myself saying, "I want to go through that door now."
    "Soon enough," he had answered, with a little smile. Eyes softening, getting larger, more mellow as they studied me. It was the easiness of a man who had known you all your life. A man like that could never hurt anyone. Face of the family doctor, the college professor who understood and respected your mania for the subject matter, the perfect father…
    "You know, I'm not the type you would expect for this," I had said uneasily. God, he was a good-looking man. Had some constitutional elegance a young man never has, no matter how beautiful he is.
    "As a student I was something of a nuisance," I said. "In my family, I'm considered testy. I don't take orders well. I'm almost a cliche when it comes to macho tastes. I'm not bragging about it, you understand." I had shifted in the chair a little uneasy. "I think it's ludicrous, risking your life at 150 miles an hour around the Laguna Seca track, skiing down the most treacherous slopes you can find anywhere, pushing a goddamned ten-pound