The Scarlet Letter Scandal (14 page)

Eva: So I guess the whole Plaza Hotel knows about us?

Charles: Apparently so, though it’s been quite some time. Would you like to have dinner?

Eva: Let’s not do something so formal. How about a drink at the bar?

Charles: Just let me know what time is convenient, after dinner hours of course. I am happy you are here.

Eva: Thanks, me too. See you this evening.

Eva had been happy to see her lover again when he’d visited the island, though he’d seemed out of place there and something had clearly changed between them. There was a time she thought she might be in love with him, and he with her. But the reality that he would never leave New York and that she would never live there full time had settled in over the months they’d been apart. He had sent her homemade chocolates, bouquets of flowers, and many messages, all of which she’d been thankful for. She wasn’t sure how she would feel seeing him again this evening.

She looked down at her laptop and watched the email messages load. For now she would do something she was good at, something that felt like putting on an old pair of slippers: she would work.

K
ellie flipped the switch on the foyer wall that turned on the landscaping spotlights Chaz had installed for her. The large rocks at the end of her driveway were now lit, indicating to club members that the party was set to begin.

Kellie walked downstairs to the secret underground club and admired her handiwork. Thin gold and black metallic streamers hung from ceilings, along with some glitter balls (what a mess they’d been to make) that caught the lights of the disco ball. Large black- and gold-feathered masks were adhered to different places around the bar and lounge area and on mirrors. Tonight’s “Masquerade Mash-Up” was underway. Instead of a traditional Halloween costume party, she’d decided this year to class up the joint with a more formal, classy vibe. Guests who had RSVP’d were told to wear simple masquerade masks and long capes, with anything (or nothing) underneath, and were encouraged to be creative.

She knew many of the club members were fans of the movie
Eyes Wide Shut
, which was now set to play on the big-screen TV. The notorious Stanley Kubrick film was of course legendary for its use of costuming and anonymity in a sinister sexual setting, and served as inspiration not only for one of their themed rooms but also for the party, maybe without quite as much of a cult feel. The main idea was that no one would know who anyone else was. Women took painstaking measures to wear wigs or headpieces that disguised the color of their hair, and she suspected a few of them might even change their hair color for the night for extra anonymity.

Brandon walked down the steps wearing black pants, a long black velvet cape with a red satin lining, and a huge feathered hat that included an attached mask covering his eyes. He wore no shirt, which showed off his amazing abs.

“You look hot, stranger,” Kellie said.

“So do you, stranger,” Brandon replied, and Kellie would know that smile anywhere. She wore a red leather bustier, garter belt, and black fishnet stockings, with a black silk cape over it all. Her hair was piled on top of her head, red streaks throughout it, and her feather headpiece and matching mask were magnificent: the beadwork of the New Orleans women who had created them was intricate and had been costly. Black and red feathers plumed off the top of one side of the headpiece, and black, red, and silver crystals lined her eyes. Thigh-high black leather boots with red spike heels completed the outfit. As the hosts of the party, Brandon and Kellie knew they’d be the most recognizable, but the rule tonight was that everyone pretended to know no one, even them.

There would be around thirty or so people at the party; most in their thirties to early forties, most with children. The unwinding of normally accepted social sexual norms in their neighborhood had happened over time, like a tightly knit ball of yarn when released from its tension. First, there were flirtations at countless barbeques. Someone mentioned porn in a passing comment and favorite websites were mentioned. One couple told of their exploits at a sex club in the city they’d moved from.
Anything goes
, they’d said. There were activities centered around families—pool parties where the women’s swimsuits got more risqué over time, fireworks shows where kids went to bed in tents and couples groped one another in garden sheds and the backs of minivans parked outside.

One night, a Stony Mill resident who owned a small farm suggested an outdoor movie night. On the outside of the barn, a sheet would be hung for the kids to watch
Finding Nemo,
while on the inside of the same barn, tightly locked against children’s entry (and a sitter hired to watch the kids), a porn flick ran on the opposite wall, the barn interior’s hayloft reaching a silent and clothed but highly erotic level of energy. The men hadn’t tried to hide their raging boners from the other men’s wives that night. Occasionally, a woman would accidentally-on-purpose brush her thin dress against another woman’s husband’s erection, the lust in her eyes visible to him in the movie’s flickering shadows. Hands brushed across the hardened body parts of others, or touched their own tingling places clandestinely to relieve the building ache, and things in the carefully constructed suburban existence began to come undone.

In the light of the increasing disappearance of inhibition, Kellie saw the opportunity to change the focus of her business from “personal trainer” to full-on swingers’ club. A late-summer party had featured a “panty cam” across the entrance between the garage and the house. While the kids played in the fenced neighborhood playground out back, only the grown-ups knew that as they walked across the threshold, a camera would capture a picture with a view up a woman’s skirt or dress. The women could choose not to wear panties, and the men huddled in an upstairs room, watching a laptop, drinking beer, and guessing which genitals belonged to which wife. In that same home’s garage, a stripper pole had been installed. When kids were tucked away in bed, the braver wives would emerge wearing minimal lingerie, spike heels, wigs. Touching the spouse of another had become accepted in this environment, so a man could deposit a $20 bill between the legs of his neighbor’s wife while she was grinding on the pole to Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me.”

So, layer by layer, the sexual limitations fell away as Stony Mill began to test the limits of marriage and fidelity. After all, was it cheating if your own spouse was in the room and sexually aroused? Hardly. They never would have referred to themselves as swingers. The word seemed outdated; reserved for ’60s and ’70s men and women in bellbottoms and big hair and big plastic glasses rocking out to Janis Joplin or Bob Dylan, smoking pot, and making out with everyone because “free love” was where it was at, man. Groovy. They preferred simply calling it “the lifestyle.” They’d forgotten what other kind there could be.

Modern suburban swingers seemed to experiment sexually out of boredom. No one on the soccer field or at the PTA meeting would be able to recognize a single one of them in those settings, either. They didn’t dress more provocatively, speak outrageously, or flirt openly with strangers. They looked like everyone else: black yoga pants, baseball hats, Under Armour gear. But in close quarters, as weekends approached and plans got made to “hang out,” the couples had gotten to know each other better, drunk more, and spoken more openly of sex. This gathering tonight was the pinnacle of their suburban sexual revolution.

“I guess everything’s set for the party,” said Kellie.

“Will you stop worrying about it?” Brandon responded. He came up behind her and grabbed her breasts, hard. “This house is already spotless. No one is going to know who anyone is anyway, and if you run around clearing dishes and wiping tables, everyone will know who you are when you’re supposed to be a stranger to all.”

“You’re right,” said Kellie. “I like the idea of being a stranger.”

She began walking up the stairs to do a final check of the entertaining area, Brandon in tow grabbing her ass. She paused on the final step before opening the door to the main area of the house and leaned over, grinding her ass against her fiancé’s growing erection. They were both primed for the evening.

Kellie went into the kitchen and adjusted a flower arrangement on the granite countertop. She was thankful they’d hired a Guatemalan woman Chaz recommended to serve as a maid upstairs, where the food (and no unseemly activity) would be for tonight. The fee was higher tonight in order to pay for a caterer and servers so no one would have to think about food and cleaning up. These staffers would remain upstairs, a space partygoers were rarely allowed. With the larger crowd coming, Kellie had figured separating food and drink from the energized activities downstairs would create a better flow.

There were no electric lights used on the main floor. While the downstairs lair was lit with LED dance floor lighting, these rooms contained only candlelight. Candelabras and candlesticks bought at yard sales over time created a glow and an atmosphere that would enhance the costumes and the mystery.

Complete anonymity and silence were the goals of the party. Thirteen couples had RSVP’d, though of course there were the people who didn’t RSVP but would still show up, and the people who RSVP’d but would not show up, not to mention the unusual fact that single men were allowed tonight when they were not normally; all of which helped the fact that no one would recognize anyone (or admit recognizing anyone) at the masquerade ball that evening.

Such careful measures had been taken. Rules had been sent out with the Evite months before. No wedding rings. Face, hair, and hands must be masked or disguised. Couples may not dress in front of one another prior to the party or arrive together. Do not arrive in your personal vehicle. No speaking. Though these complications were necessary if the party was to be a success, the concept of the party was simple.
Anything goes.
All sexual and societal barriers were removed. Anyone could do anything with anyone they wanted.

Different Stony Mill residents, unbeknownst to their hosts, had different expectations for the party. One man wanted so badly to fuck the woman that had lived across the street from him for eight years; he was sure he could find her no matter what she wore. She had paraded naked in front of her living room bay window during the day for years. He knew she worked at home. He would watch her from his first floor home office window often. She did yoga, ate lunch, pecked on her laptop, talked on the phone, worked out on the treadmill—all naked. He swore she was smiling directly at him when she took a moment to stand by the window, though he stayed in the shadows of his office curtains, masturbating while she carelessly ran a finger over one of her nipples.

One woman had been fantasizing for years about running her hands over the bare breasts of another woman in the subdivision. Their sons played soccer together, and it was all she could do during games not to watch her neighbor’s perfect, implanted breasts and perky nipples through the thin fabric of her T-shirts. She had never been with a woman, but her crush on the other soccer mom was relentless. She knew she’d recognize those tits at the party tonight and she would love to get her tongue on them.

One neighbor was hell bent on a threesome between another man and his wife. He knew there was a chance he wouldn’t recognize his wife that night, but he was going to do his damn best to watch another guy and a woman together, and to participate. As a kid, his older teen brother had forever been fucking a girl in his bedroom. He’d taken little care to close the bedroom door, so his younger brother as a very young teen had often watched. The experiences had been hardwired into his own sexual arousal, the feeling of wanting to join in deep in his psyche. Threesomes between two men and a woman were annoyingly difficult to find in the porn industry, and he wanted an experience all his own.

But many of the partygoers just had a “whatever” attitude about what might happen that evening. Just happy to get the night off from being married, they looked forward to the mystery “hall pass” to be able to grab the ass of another man and thrust him harder into her or to suck hard on the erect nipples of someone else’s wife. The unknown, the thrill of the
different
. That’s what they craved: an adrenaline rush. The masquerade concept had seemed brilliant—there was something very powerful about the idea of not knowing who you were fucking.

As they watched
Eyes Wide Shut
in their home theater the night before in preparation for the party, one couple had been completely turned on in anticipation of the night ahead. The husband had masturbated and his wife fingered herself as they watched and he’d thrown her over the leather seat in their home theater before the movie was half over. The arousal came from the knowledge that on the upcoming planned evening, what had only happened in the movies was going to happen to them.