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Everyone who lives in Paris knows that the night-club Vaisseau is a front for something, but nobody’s quite sure what. You sometimes hear about police raids, raids that fail to find more than the party drugs you’d expect to be readily available at any self-respecting boîte.
The rumours change depending on what’s cool: meth, heroin, cocaine, sex or counterfeit handbags. It’s been around forever: the name changes, the décor is pulled out and replaced with the latest fashion, the newest beautiful blonde manager with heavy makeup and fake hair talks about taking the club in a new direction to appeal to the young people of today—but it’s always the same. The same place that thousands of people from all over the world have danced, drank, snorted and fucked their way away from whatever they went there to forget.
My interest was strictly professional. I’d had a source tell me they’d heard about a second location, a VIP bar, off-site. That it was where the illegal stuff—sex, drugs, fake iphones, it depended on who you asked—was happening.
I’m an investigative reporter. I had a budget to work with, and I wanted to be the one to blow this open. So I became a fixture at Vaisseau, eventually had my name permanently on the guest list, the staff started to greet me with a shot (offert, natch). In the course of events, I’d danced a lot, drank a lot, and gone home with quite a few people. I live in Sèvres, so I prefer not to commute if I can avoid it.
When it happened, I was relaxing on my VIP table, scrolling mindlessly through instagram, waiting for someone to send me a drink, preparing myself for another long night of nothing.
One of the staff members brought me a glass of water. Ice. Lime wedges. Ordinary; free. Was this a new pick up strategy circulating the shadier blogs? Send the object of your affections water to stand out from the crowd? I wasn’t impressed.
“Enjoy your drink.” Came the voice, soft as silk, as a napkin was placed on my table followed by the drink. I knew the staff member—Sacha—and when I was addressed as ‘vous’ instead of ‘tu’, I knew something was off. That wasn’t normal.
I picked up the water.
Laying there between my glass and the napkin was a small, engraved aluminium token.
SANGUIN
Token #432
42 Rue de la Forêt, 75010
22h00-23h00 most evenings
I laughed—Sanguin, that was clever!
The first club, called Vaisseau—vessel, like the space ship on its logo—and the new club, Sanguin: hot-headed. Both good club names in their own right, but taken together they make the word ‘blood vessel’. Obviously the head of this mafia, or whatever it is, shared my sense of humour.
Clearly a front, though—only open an hour? Most evenings?
I toasted myself with my water.
I’m damn good at my job.
***
Sanguin didn’t look anything like I would have expected a front business to look. Didn’t resemble a nightclub: a plain façade on an unremarkable haussmannian building, a large name emblazoned on the top - UNPO KO - that had nothing to do with its real name, written on a small, engraved plaque by the door.
Not that the door was a door: it was a curtain, which I pulled aside and walked through.
I’m never on time for things: I was there at half past ten. I like to make an entrance, to choose who to approach, rather than make small-talk with the host and wonder if anyone found me interesting.
I was greeted by a featureless white wall, affixed with laminated pieces of paper—tastefully designed, but still merely laminated pieces of paper. They had scary messages on them, about the need for privacy for the patrons, and that sharing your token would result in a permanent band from all their properties.
There was also a window, with a tough-looking bald man standing there. I handed him my token. He smiled, greeted me by name, and asked for my phones. I handed them over, and he pressed a buzzer. Part of the wall popped open. He nodded for me to go in.
It was not what I expected at all: more of a waiting room than a nightclub. A clean, soft black carpet. Deep red and maroon striped wallpaper. Comfortable, velvety dark blue lounges. Tables dotted around, plates of canapés having undergone varying levels of exploitation adorning them. It all looked expensive, like I was in an airport lounge rather than a nightclub.
People were sitting on the couches, chatting, drinking steaming cups of coffee. To my left was a long bar table, with stools that nobody sat at, and a large drum of water with lime wedges in it next to an automatic espresso machine.
I had a close look at the people: they didn’t look how I expected addicts to look—that is to say, not like a mixture of people of different ages and of all walks of life. We all looked similar: young, slim, curly brown hair. The shades of our skin ran the gamut, from a woman who was so pale I wondered if she was carved out of ice to a man with brown hair that cascaded in ringlets down to his coal-black forearms. So at least this drug lord—or counterfeit fashion magnate—wasn’t racist. That was something.
I noticed what was playing on the two big TVs on opposite walls: to my left, an old film, black and white, bad special effects, showing a man biting a woman’s neck. To my right, what had to be the work of some artisanal fetish pornographer: a nude man having his thigh cut with a scalpel, as he bled into a shallow dish.
Ah, so ‘Sanguin’ didn’t mean ‘hot-headed” after all: it meant ‘blood’. Perhaps that’s all this place was, a weird fetish club that for some reason they thought I might—
“Welcome.” The voice came from below: a woman, who would have been five feet tall if she was standing straight, was bowing before me. She had red hair pinned into a smart bun. She stood up straight: she barely reached my shoulder.
“Good evening,” I replied.
“How are you finding everything?”
“I just got here but… it’s not what I expected.”
She smiled. “It can be strange at first, but that’s why we ask all new club members to get the tour.”
I nodded. “So, this is a fetish thing?”
Her face didn’t change, but her eyes sparkled, which seemed to deepen the smile on her still face. “In a manner of speaking,” she said guardedly. “Now, you’re not a smoker, are you?”
“No, I quit a few years ago.”
“And how is your vision? Do you use glasses? Contact lenses?”
“No.”
“Excellent. Now, you have seen the welcome room; you are more than welcome to help yourself to water or coffee. If you prefer cold drinks, let me know and I will have them stocked for you when you’re scheduled.”
“When I’m scheduled?”
“This is an exclusive club, as I’m sure you’ll understand shortly. There’s a waiting period between visits.”
I nodded as if I understood. I followed her down the hallway.
“We have two bathrooms and a shower,” she said, gesturing to the three doors as we passed them. “And the rest is downstairs.”
“It’s small,” I remarked.
“Yes. Hence the waiting period.”
I wondered what was so good at this club that couldn’t be provided somewhere that didn’t require its guests to visit on a schedule. It was probably just a way to make it sound more exclusive than it was.
We curved down the staircase, to a labyrinth of dark tunnels. I could hear screams of pleasure coming from nearby: was this a sauna? Would there be men down here, trying to touch me? It didn’t seem like the ones I’ve been to.
The redheaded woman smiled. “I suppose you could say that this is where the magic happens.”
“So, what exactly is the magic?” I made no effort to hide my boredom or impatience.
She gestured for me to follow her down one of the small corridors, which had a window at the end of it. The man’s screams of pleasure were clearly audible, as was the way he writhed on the other side of the glass. He was naked, lying on a bed next to a fully clothed woman (though she was wearing black latex, which I wasn’t sure exactly counted as ‘fully clothed’).
His cock was engorged, pulsating, as she held her face in his thigh. I didn’t mind the view: I’d probably have gone to bed with either of them on any other night.
He was screaming, deep grunts of pleasure, the rest of his body seeming to move of its own accord as she held his thigh perfectly still.
I watched, transfixed. I’d never seen such pure joy on a man’s face, and I have had the pleasure of knowing many in my time.
The cry stopped. The woman took her face away from the thigh, and covered a small bloody part with gauze and then a bandage. The man lay there, dazed and engorged, for a good long moment. He started furiously touching himself as soon as she stood up.
She left the room, but he stayed there, his face a pale imitation of what it had been before, even as he sent milky-white globules all over the black hairs of his belly.
“So, knife play? Blood play?” I asked, finally, looking to my tour guide. She smiled.
“So to speak.”
“And why did you think I’d be interested in this?” It seemed like an elaborate cover-up, the way criminals have secret partitions on their hard drives so that way they can have the police decrypt the less incriminating one while remaining ignorant even to the presence of the one with the real secrets. It had to be a front; Paris has no shortage of fetish clubs that are open about the fact.
“We thought one of our VIPs would be interested in you.”
“Huh?”
She smiled. “Let’s find you a room.” I followed her, taking one last look at the beautiful man wiping himself down with a towel.
***
My room was much more normal: it had a table, a chair. A plate of muffins with a heavy glass cloche cover and a jug of water—again with the limes. I lifted up the cloche and grabbed a muffin without bothering to ask. It was clear something shady was going on, and I was wondering if I had a way to talk myself out of it.
A small handsome man with dark eyes came up to me, and smiled. “You don’t need to worry,” he cooed, his voice smooth like a thin coat of oil on the surface of a lake. “I’ll be gentle for your first time.” His smile turned into a grin, showing me his teeth. He was appraising me, I felt. Not sure what for—shit, this couldn’t be human trafficking, could it? It fit…
The woman with red hair stayed next to me. They both watched me eat. I slowed down, chewing each mouthful deliberately. Despite myself, I was enjoying the attention, and the power that came with the knowledge that they were waiting for me.
Finally, the muffin was finished. The man looked at me, and I felt his eyes lock onto mine.
“No matter what happens, stay still.”
I considered moving, getting out of there. I wasn’t comfortable that this definitely wasn’t a front for human trafficking. But I didn’t move. It didn’t seem like the right thing to do at the time.
He looked at his companion. “Do you think I should do the neck on this one?”
“Why are you asking me? You always do the neck.”
As his head shook with laughter, his canine teeth seemed to pulse out of his mouth. About a centimetre longer than they should have been. Fetish prosthetics, no doubt.
Then those teeth sank into my neck, and I felt fireworks.
This was definitely a front: but not for sex, not for drugs.
For something better.