Exit to Eden by Anne Rice Page A

almost curly, falling a little down on the forehead, well shaped around the ears and the neck. And his eyes gray or blue maybe, behind the pale smoke tint of a large pair of glasses, the kind shaded only lightly at the top so that the glass is clear over the cheeks. And that smile. He wore a black turtleneck for the picture, arms folded instead of at his sides. An amazingly relaxed picture.
    I flipped to the back of the file to see him naked. I sat back staring at the photograph, sipping the gin.
    "Look at these," I said. Diana raised her head and I showed her the two pictures. "A beauty," I whispered, tapping the picture of Slater. I motioned for more of the ice and the gin.
    "Yes, Lisa," she said, putting as much injured feeling into the words as permissible, and filling my glass as if the gesture had tremendous significance. I kissed her again.
    In the naked picture, he stood with arms at his sides but there was the same faint amusement, though he'd tried to conceal it a little. Maybe somebody told him not to smile. And a startling sense of presence emanated from the picture. He wasn't shielded behind an attitude, a fantasy image of himself. Flawless body, a real California body, with fine gymnasium muscles and powerful calves. Not overdeveloped, and a real beach tan.
    Elliott Slater. Berkeley, California. Age twenty-nine. Trained in San Francisco by Martin Halifax.
    Well, that was interesting. My hometown. And Martin Halifax was only the best in the world, and a friend to me like no one else had ever been. A little crazy maybe, but then aren't we all?
    I had worked in Martin Halifax's Victorian house in San Francisco when I was twenty. Only fifteen dimly lighted and elegantly furnished rooms and yet it seemed a universe, as vast and mysterious as The Club. It was Martin Halifax who had perfected the solarium for slaves, with the little treadmill and the exercycle that slaves were made to pedal as they were punished. Leave it to a Californian, even one as pale as Martin, to think of something healthy like that.
    But Martin Halifax and The House had existed when there was no Club, and in a way he was as responsible for The Club as I was, or the man who had financed it. It was Martin's choice not to come in with us. He could never leave San Francisco or The House.
    I flipped to the handwritten report by Martin. Martin loved to write.
    "This slave is a man of unusual sophistication, financially independent, possibly wealthy, and in spite of a variety of interests, obsessed with becoming a slave."
    A variety of interests. Ph.D. in English literature from the University of California at Berkeley. My old alma mater. For a Ph.D. he should get the Purple Heart. IQ not as high as Kitty Kantwell, but nevertheless extremely high. Occupation, freelance photographer covering rock, celebrities, frequent war assignments for Time-Life. Author of two books of photographs,
Beirut: Twenty-Four Hours
and
San Francisco Tenderloin Down and Out
. Owns a Castro District art gallery, a Berkeley bookstore. (Which bookstore? I knew all of them. Didn't say which one.) A fanatic for dangerous situations and dangerous one-man sports.
    Now that was unusual, like the face.
    I glanced at my watch. The slaves wouldn't be coming to the hall for another forty-five minutes and I already had my two, I was sure. Either Kitty Kantwell or Elliott Slater, and all I had to do was look at Elliott Slater to know that I'd go mad if I didn't have first pick.
    But I did have first pick.
    So why the anxiety on the upsurge? The sudden feeling that something terribly important might somehow be out of reach? Damn it, I was off the plane. Vacation was over. I was home.
    I shoved the other files aside and began to read on Slater.
    "Slave presented himself for training on August seventh of last year." (Nine months ago. Absolutely phenomenal that he was here. But then Martin knew what he was doing.) "Determined to submit to the most intensified programs we offer, while resisting