Naked Came the Manatee

"I'll come, Dash," Britt said. "But this better not be some sicko come-on."

As the limo cruised through the South Beach evening, Britt thought how much she hated it; drecko sandbar turned vulgar freak show, excreter of endless hype, festering petri dish of sexual disease and perversion, a sure sign of the apocalypse. "What do you think," Britt said snarkily, "they're going to serve the head as a main course?"

Dash ignored her. "Isn't South Beach the coolest?" Dash said, as the limo pulled onto Ocean, a honky-tonk on XTC, and stopped at Maison Marzipan.

"Isn't Muschino the coolest?" Dash said, as they walked into the fake Italian palazzo owned by the real Italian. Britt remembered when it had been a low-rent apartment building filled with friends of hers, struggling writers and artists.

"His clothes are the coolest," Britt said sarcastically, thinking they only looked good on call boys.

A butler, naked except for white gloves and a Muschino scarf wrapped around his waist, led them through rooms that looked like a vulgar Hollywood version of Pompeii. They passed through a walkway filled with fake Greek urns, into the dining room filled with fake Chinese silks. Everyone stopped talking, looked up. Paulo air-kissed Dash on both cheeks, ignored Britt. "You're here just in time for dessert," Paulo said, sitting Dash next to him, motioning at Britt with a flick of his hand. She was seated at the other end in table Siberia, between a sexless, no-talent writer and that lesbian fox Antonia Cesare. Next to Antonia was Madonna, who was in a liplock with that vapid bitters heir Chris Angostura.

Paulo was talking to Claudia Schiffer. "I don't understand," he said, waving his wineglass dismissively. "What it is you date? A magician? What he do? Pull rabbits out of hat?"

"So what was for dinner?" Britt asked, picking up the engraved menu. " 'Boiled loggerhead turtle eggs,' " she read aloud. " 'Florida panther steaks with bearnaise. Manatee mousse.' "

"It was a Florida theme dinner in honor of Marion McAlister Williams," Madonna said. "She just died, or something."

A gong rang and Paulo stood up. "Now for dessert, the most endangered species of all, the South Beach virgin." A flawless naked black girl, covered in melted white chocolate and surrounded by fresh fruit, was rolled out on a silver tray at one end of the table, while at the same time a flawless naked white boy covered in dark chocolate and surrounded with fruit was pushed out at the other end. Dash picked up a peeled banana from next to the girl, giggled, and asked, "Where should I dip it?"

The white-chocolate confection opened her mouth, the icing cracking as she said, "If you want head, go to Hell."

Thousands of people holding VIP invitations to the grand opening of a new nightclub named Hell were frenzied; screaming, begging, crying, rushing the velvet ropes. Hundreds of oversteroided bouncers held them back. Dash and Britt got out of the limo to the cry of "Dash! Dash!" Cameras flashed. The crowd parted, like the Red Sea for Moses. The velvet ropes lowered and they walked up the red carpet into Hell.

Britt felt the darkness devour, the heat hit, the beat throb. Fog filled the room. Red and blue spotlights spun and twisted as green lasers pierced and wiggled the darkness, then turned into wheels and spun. Dash led her through the sea of flesh, torsos and trunks, heads and tails, which rose in tiers from the dance floor. Everyone was in a different stage of undress, showing off tattoos and body piercing. Some were completely naked. Every variety and possible combination of sex was taking place. A woman wearing an Astroturf dress grabbed on to a speaker as she was mounted from behind by a man covered from head to toe in leather.

Britt felt faint, like she was swimming. Then she looked down and saw sharks, big ones, gliding in a floodlit subterranean aquarium under the glass dance floor beneath her feet. Just then a woman pushed up to them, held open her coat, a walking drugstore, and asked if they wanted speed, XTC, LSD, GHB, smack, crystal mesh, poppers, barbs, coke, rock, Chat, 'shrooms, peyote, opium.

"You got any sugarless gum?" Britt asked.

Outside the ropes the crowd was getting more and more unruly, as Juan Carlos Reyes arrived with two dozen members of the First of April anti-Castro paramilitary group, tipped off by an anonymous phone call that an extremely high official of the Cuban government was going to be at the opening.

Inside, the main stage of Hell was flooded with light. Shelley Novak led a chorus line of drag queens. In her hands she held a silver platter, sauteed in blood, topped with an extremely lifelike head of Fidel Castro.

"There's my damn prop!" Dash said, pointing to the head, pulling Britt in his direction. As they lurched forward in the throng, machines started pumping foam all over the club as the revelers cried out in unison.