once we stepped in, but it might have been only the denseness of the crowd, and the smoke. The smell of tobacco mingled strongly with the malty smell of beer. Only a sprinkling of women as far as I could tell, though the place was immense, a giant covered garden of sorts, with a long bar running along the curved walls. Trainers pushed past us with naked male slaves, some bound, others walking as I was, some obviously worn out and covered with sweat and dust. A dozen different languages easily were being spoken around us. I could feel the eyes passing over me, lingeringly and I heard French and German distinctly, snatches of Arabic, and Greek. Well-heeled men all, naturally, expensive sportswear, all the little accoutrements of money and power. But the appalling part were the shouts coming from up ahead, the familiar deep-throated noises of men cheering on some competition, then guffawing and cursing when it went wrong. I wanted to leave now. Lisa pushed through the wall of men and I saw a tree-lined avenue of clean, soft white sand before me that led some hundred yards or more ahead before the crowd swallowed it up. There were large airy fountains to the far left and the right, scattered park benches, nude female slaves, all of them extremely pretty, quietly and busily raking the sand, emptying the standing ashtrays and gathering up discarded glasses and beer cans.
The avenue itself was a mall, it seemed, lined on both sides with scattered, neatly whitewashed buildings, each strung with ropes of tiny lights. There were fenced areas in between the buildings and groups of men leaned on the wooden railings, blocking the view of whatever went on inside. Guests moved in and out of the buildings. And hundreds strolled on the white sand, shirts open to the waist, drinks in hand, only glancing now and then in the open doorways. I took a step backwards without realizing it, half pretending I had to get out of the way of two men in swim trunks filing past me, and felt Lisa's fingers biting into my arm. My mouth opened with some half thought out plea, like, 'I'm not ready for this,' but nothing came out. The crowd thickened around us. I felt claustrophobic as pant legs and boots and coats brushed me. But Lisa had her hand on my arm, and was pushing me towards the first of the long white booths. It was shadowy inside, and for a moment I couldn't make out what was there. Mirrored walls and ceiling, glossy hardwood floor, and thin white lines of decorative neon etching the ceiling, the stage. Then I saw it was a typical amusement park game. You paid for several black rubber rings and you tossed them up, trying to hang all of them on one projectile to make a perfect score, Only the projectiles here were the bowed heads of the male slaves kneeling on a conveyor belt that moved them very rapidly across the stage. To the guests it was a coarse, hilarious pastime, getting a number of rings around the neck of the victim before he vanished into the wings. And for all the simplicity of it, it had a real scariness to it: the submission of the kneeling victims, the way their well-oiled bodies had become mere objects as they passed before the crowd. I stared at the little stage, the bowed heads, the rings hanging from bent necks. I didn't want to be left here. I couldn't. There had to be some way of making it clear.
And without considering it really, I backed up until I was suddenly behind Lisa and I kissed her on the top of the head. 'Outside,' she said. 'And don't waste your pleas. If I wanted you up there I'd put you up there. I don't.' She pushed me toward the door. The lights of the avenue flickered against my closed eyelids for a second, then I was moving again, being pushed steadily towards another booth on the right. This was a much larger booth, with the same glossy hightech decor, with a bar and brass rail along the wall, about thirty feet deep. It wasn't rings this time, it was brightly coloured plastic balls, about the size of tennis balls, pitched towards the moving bull's-eye targets that were painted in thick gleaming colours on the backsides of the male victims, who, with their hands tied over their heads, tried desperately