Walter Conley
The Pressure Seekers
I.
Once a week, on Thursday nights, Kit goes up to the Park Hotel. The man at the desk knows him from somewhere; at least, that’s the impression he gives. He’s covered with so much ink that it’s hard to envision him otherwise. Anyway, Kit is bad with faces and has no idea who he is. He never stares, just nods, this man, then hangs back over his magazine.
They’re upstairs already—always in room 338. One of them holds the doorknob and watches through the peephole. The first time Kit tried to enter, he felt a strong hand stopping him. Since then, the door has swung open every time, before he can even knock.
They found him at a club called the El. He was drunk but still aware, broke and up for anything. The leader—the only one who spoke—introduced herself as Catherine. She and the others were dressed in flowing, hand-stitched clothing: leather and canvas and braids of rope, overlapped in dizzying patterns. Each also wore black leather gloves, a size too tight, with mismatched fingers sewn on. Catherine clasped her hands before her as she spoke, like a schoolmarm. The others wrung their hands, gloves squeaking, and hid behind her like children.
“I have a proposition for you,” she said.
“I’ll do it,” Kit told her.
“It’s not what you think.”
He laughed. “I’ll definitely do it, then.”
She gave him the address at the Park Hotel and said she was eager to know him.
II.
He found them lined up against the wall opposite the door—all save Catherine, who stood in the middle of the room. She gestured toward the bed, which had been stripped of bedclothes and covered with a hard, clothbound mat of some sort.
“Welcome,” she said. “Jeensy will take your things.”
A short, pudgy man stepped forward from the group. He stood before Kit with his eyes downcast and stubby arms extended.
Kit disrobed unceremoniously. He didn’t think this group was after a strip. When he was naked—as excited and curious as he was scared—Catherine pointed at the mat.
“Please,” she said. “On your back.”
He lay on the mat. The stuffing was stiff and the cover rough. It was absolutely uncomfortable. He stared at the ceiling and laughed to himself, wondering if he was about to die.
They circled the bed without speaking. Catherine stopped at his left, even with his head. She leaned forward, hands outstretched, then jabbed her fingertips into his chest. At her cue, the others followed suit and soon Kit had a dozen hands all holding and grasping and poking and prodding and kneading his skin across his bones. They pushed all over, up and down. Some put their weight behind their fingers and pressed. Kit squirmed, but steeled himself, because it seemed to be what they wanted. After about ten minutes of this, they quit, backed away and, leaving only Catherine, vanished into another room. She lay his clothing on the mat beside him and then she, too, disappeared.
There was an envelope resting on his clothes. He waited until he was outside, a couple streets away, before he took it from his pocket and opened it. Inside was a thousand dollars in hundred dollar bills.
III.
He went back the following Thursday, on his own, to find them once more waiting. Every Thursday since, he’s been there to be touched. This, anyway, is what Kit claims—how he explains the hundreds of little round bruises I see when I happen upon him dressing.
“For real?” I ask.
“For realer than real,” he says.
“Does it hurt?”
“Like you can’t imagine.”
“Do you think…” I start and he cuts me off.
“No,” he says. “I’m sorry. But you’re just too soft to steal my love.”