AFTER THE PARTY
By Nancy Ava Miller, M.Ed.
PREFACE
During Autumn, 1988, two significant events occurred in my life— My father died and, a week later, my then-husband, Doc, asked for a divorce. The divorce forced me, for the first time in a decade, to ponder earning a living. For two years prior, I'd spent my time (70 hours per week, to be exact) creating and leading PEP, People Exchanging Power, nationwide support groups for men and women interested in dominant-submissive erotica. PEP-Albuquerque. PEP-DC. PEP-Tucson. PEP-Phoenix. Later would come Philadelphia, Atlanta, Baltimore, Denver, and St. Louis, plus a host of PEP clubs founded by others. But when Dad died, in fact, I was hosting a PEP party in Washington. But, I never took a salary from the groups. Perhaps that altruism sprang from my hippie days when I roamed barefoot with long hair and long skirts; a leather peace sign and love beads dangled from my neck, and I believed then (as I still do now) in the dictum: Make love, not war. However, with Dad dead and Doc out of the picture, I needed to get real and figure out a way to make money.
I reckoned I could go back into teaching. After all, I boasted a Master's degree in education. Or, perhaps I could write again, like when I pounded out three articles per week for The Aegis in Hartford County, Maryland. I recalled the headlines of those articles: "WHERE ARE THE BEST SALAD BARS IN HARTFORD COUNTY?," "SUSQUEHANNA RIVER BRIDGE HAS ITS OWN POLICE FORCE," "MONDAY NIGHTS ARE NEVER DULL AT HUNTER'S SALE BARN," "HOW SUCCESSFUL ARE OUR OPEN-SPACE SCHOOLS?" Then I thought about those public schools I used to teach in and write about; I thought about the spit-balls, the grade books, and—now lately—the guns and drugs. I thought about typing feature stories till 5:00 a.m. for 100 bucks a pop. I recollected how once—after I moved near Albuquerque but was still working for The Aegis— I wrote till dawn and peeked out the window of my abode to see a thousand hot air balloons floating overhead—red and yellow and blue and green and silent against the ever brilliant New Mexico sky: I rubbed my eyes and felt I'd entered Never-Never Land or the Twilight Zone.
PEP, too, resembles a Twilight Land, of sorts—a Fantasy Island where bearded men don miniskirts and mascara, and women show off shaved cunts or clamps upon their nipples. And in 1988 PEP was a fantasy world I didn't want to give up; I didn't want to give up helping people explore their sexual yearnings. Also, I didn't want to give up my own sexual odyssey, so intricately linked to my work with PEP. I thought: There must be a way to continue the support groups and earn money, too.
Then I got this idea...
AFTER THE PARTY
The party-goers departed one-by-one or in groups of two or three—men in leather jackets and motorcycle boots, men (if truth be known) with rawhide clinging snugly to their dicks, or with silver ornaments like earrings suspended through hard nipples. Men wearing panties, perhaps, or ladies' hose beneath their Wrangler's. And the women: Tattooed or in spike heels or with shaved heads, no makeup, and a walk like a soldier stomping through jungle. Sure, some of the gals were pierced, too—not the ears necessarily, but nose, labia, clitoris. After all, this was a pretty kinky collection of people—an S&M support group, to be exact. And when the revelers were gone, exiting amidst a flutter of kisses, hugs and hand waving, a quiet engulfed the once festive room.
Without the people, the place grew drafty right away. It was early Spring, but a trace of Winter lingered—a crispness, a frost in the breeze, a damp rustle in the bushes, in the trees.
The party was over, but three of us remained in the living room, now hushed and littered with paper cups and popcorn. We plopped on chairs and faced each other, unspeaking. I sat in the rocker, but didn't rock. In addition to me, there was Peggy, who owned the apartment, and Jeff, the kid from El Paso.
Finally, I said, "Listen, I have an idea. Let me know what you think."
Peggy and the kid from El Paso bent in low and close as I prepared to speak again. I shifted position and the rocker creaked. On the wall, a plastic version of a grandfather clock echoed hollow tick-tocks over and over again. Wind jiggled a windowpane on the west side of the condo. The room seemed suddenly too bright, but I didn't feel right about clicking off any of Peggy's lamps. Besides, I was too tired to get up. Leading S&M support groups—as I do— is hard work. It's fun work, but draining nevertheless. That's what I'd been doing this night; leading a group, an S&M party, actually. And all the people! Men and women attending in hopes of finding...what? Love? Sex? A release from horniness or guilt? Or perhaps they craved reassurance that one can be sane and good despite strange urges—urges, for instance, to be hand-cuffed or spanked or rammed up the ass with a dildo the size of King Kong's schlong.
For years I'd led these groups, never imagining that I might "go professional"—that is, become a pay-for-play dominatrix. But lately, I'd gotten this idea.
"I'm thinking," I said to Peggy and Jeff, "I might like to become a professional Mistress, but in a unique capacity. I'd like to specialize in enemas—just giving guys enemas, basically. Of course, I might throw in a little bondage, too, or a spanking here and there, or some nipple clamps, but mainly, I'd like to focus on enemas. What do you two think? Would it work? Do you think I could do it?"
The room was silent except for the gentle shimmy of window glass and the tocking of the clock. Peggy and the kid surveyed me, serious expressions on their lips, in their eyes. The kid was military, tall and lean, with angular features and crewcut hair clipped short as mine. In addition, he wrote poetry which he sent me from time to time, postmarked El Paso. When my father died, I sent him a poem, too. It read:
THE BOY IN THE ELEVATOR
At Holy Cross Hospital
when my father died,
I walked those gleaming
nighttime corridors
towards a line-up of elevator doors.
My motorcycle boots clomped hard
on solid floors resembling marble—
smooth and cold.
A boy stood waiting for a ride up.
He could have been James Dean 16-years old—
Hair the color of plywood
eyes shadowed by the intensity of adolescence
his lips made plump by some rush of blood,
it seemed.
He wore jogging shoes and jeans
and ignored his mom and dad near-by
beneath the mezzanine.
One night at Holy Cross Hospital—
in my high black boots with buckles
(boots that shined almost as bright
as those cheerless corridors);
with my crewcut hair
so people mistook me for a man or for a dyke;
And a row of piercings along one ear—
At Holy Cross Hospital in November about the time
my father died,
I did not appear somber
except—if one gazed closely—
around the mouth (which trembled)
and eyes, for recently I'd cried.
The boy watched me approach,
both of us bathed in icy fluorescence.
And when the elevator doors gasped open.
We shuffled inside—
father, mother, son and me—
but no one smiled for that brief ride.
On the 2nd floor,
when our car struggled to a stop,
the man and wife departed,
turning with surprise—
for as the door hissed shut
the boy and I remained behind.
He scanned me from a foot away—
the chains upon my belt loop,
a leather strap around my wrist.
I touched a kerchief to my eye
and the boy asked, "Are you crying?"
"Just mascara," I replied.
The elevator cable groaned.
Forever I regret that lie.
I should have whispered
"My father is dying,"
and trapped that blond boy in my arms
for some eternal elevator ride.
I should have shown him I was crying,
pressed our wet cheeks side by side,
breathing sweat from off his neck.
I could have made him kneel there,
his face pushed tight against my thigh,
and told that boy he was mine
on the night my father died,
In Holy Cross
Intensive Care.
When Jeff, the kid from El Paso, received the poem, he wrote back that his father, too, was dead.
I leaned up in the chair and rocked cautiously. "Well," I prodded Peggy and the young soldier, "what do you think of my idea—about the enemas, I mean?"
Finally the kid spoke, his blue eyes direct, probing, honest. "Nancy," he said, "I'd give anything to get an enema from you. Anything!"
We stared at each other while Peggy stared at us. I thought of the boy in the elevator that damp Autumn in Washington, D.C., when my Dad lay strapped to a hospital bed in ICU. I thought of my own son, Aaron, brain-damaged since birth with no chance of recovery. I thought of turning points, of beginnings and ends, of birth and death, of falling in and out of love, of marriage and divorce and gains and losses. I thought of Doc, my once-husband who, the week my father died, mailed me a letter asking for divorce. I thought about the kid from El Paso; I thought about tying him naked to the bed, forcing an enema nozzle deep inside him, gazing in those blue eyes as I filled him with hot water...
Those eyes rested on me now. I stood up and gathered my papers together.
"Please...?" the boy asked.
"Let me think about it," I replied.
Then I whisked out the door, out the condo towards the brisk New Mexico night.
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