Double

Again — if that was the case — why? Because they provided a link between her and this place? Because something was wrong here and she didn’t want that connection made?

Hastily I went through three more bedrooms. Two contained water beds, another a conventional king-size. All had various personal effects stored in them, but not enough to indicate anyone lived here permanently. I hurried down the hall to the last door, stepped in, and recoiled at a sudden movement nearby. Then I realized what I’d seen was myself.

The room — round like the others, but much larger — was all mirrors. They covered the walls and the ceiling. The floor space was taken up by the most enormous round bed I’d ever seen, covered by an equally enormous fur spread.

I stared around and caught my wondering expression reflected over and over, everywhere I looked. And as the knowledge of what this room — indeed this whole house — was used for finally dawned on me, my expression became rueful.

Les Club. Not bad French — a pun. L-e-s was pronounced “lay.” Lay Club.

God, you’re innocent not to have figured it out before this, I told myself. You must have teddy bears in your brain.

I hurried back to the entry and tried the next archway. Inside was a projection room, equipped once again with modular furniture and throw pillows. A screen was pulled down across from a projection booth, and I went in there and examined the titles on the cans of film.

Skinkicks... The Licentious Landlord... Saturnalia... Carousal on the Carousel... Master of the Whip... Bottoms Up... Three’s a Sandwich...

I didn’t have to look at the films themselves to know what they were about.

I rushed out of the projection room, crossed the entry, and went through the last archway. There was a door just inside it, heavy and carved, hung on huge iron hinges, with a big key in an old-fashioned lock. I grasped the knob and pulled it open.

The inside was bathed in a blood-like gloom. I looked up and saw the source of the red glow: spots set into the ceiling. They were probably on a rheostat that had been turned down but not completely out. I felt around the door for the switch and pushed it up.

And found myself looking at a medieval dungeon.

“Jesus,” I said aloud.

It was like nothing I’d ever seen before in my life. An honest-to-God dungeon, with dark stone walls and chains hanging off them, and a rack of whips. Hooks stuck out from the walls at intervals, and on them were ropes and cat-o’-nine-tails and hoods like those worn during the Spanish Inquisition. There were handcuffs and masks and blindfolds and paddles...

Paddles. I remembered the sorority paddle in Elaine’s closet, the one that had surprised me because I hadn’t known she’d gone to college. And the handcuffs and leather thongs in her dresser drawer.

“Jesus,” I said again. Sado-masochism. Or perhaps the new, sanitized version — Domination and Submission — that they were now writing feature articles and pseudo-psychological books about. D and S had turned into a big business recently. In San Francisco, there was a place that gave workshops in it; publications dealing with the joys of what its adherents called “imaginative sex” had sprung up all over. But call it S and M, or D and S — what did it matter? It was all the same, differing only in degree.

I stepped back, leaning against the wall next to the door, and my hand brushed its surface. The stone wall was vinyl. Vinyl wallpaper.

It would have been funny if what I was looking at hadn’t been so disgusting. Disgusting and pathetic and sad.

I stood there, my eyes adjusting to the bloody light. Then I noticed that the room, unlike the others in the house, was not round but L-shaped. Mentally shuddering at what strange apparatus I might find there, I went over and peered around the corner into the other part of the ell.

It was smaller and more dimly lit. I could see more hooks with S and M paraphernalia. And elaborate three-foot-high sconces, also fitted with red bulbs. And on the far wall, a cross, made of sturdy pieces of wood nailed together.

Tied to the cross with heavy ropes was a figure. A long slender female figure whose head lolled to one side, its features obscured by a fall of light hair...

I drew in a shuddering breath and moved forward. The cross was set low on the wall, and her head was only a couple of feet above mine. I reached up, brushed the hair back. And stared into the contorted, blood-suffused face of Karyn Sugarman.

There were vicious bruises on her broken neck. Blood had flowed from her nostrils but was now dry. Her eyes stared blankly at some point in eternity.

There was a ringing in my ears, and my vision blurred. I stepped back, letting her hair cover her mottled features again. My stomach lurched and I fought for control.

Got to get out of here, I thought. Get to a phone, call the police. Get help...