immigrant who had risen to become baron of a vast publishing empire, and, in turn, had taken on the mantle of philanthropist, fund-raiser, and intimate of U.S. presidents from Dwight Eisenhower to Bill Clinton. Like most of the others here, he depended on the masses for his wealth and influence but, out of choice and careful orchestration, was all but unknown to them.
Immediately, a razor-sharp image appeared. It was a close-up of a soccer ball. Suddenly a foot flew into the frame and kicked it. As it did, the video camera zoomed back to reveal the manicured lawns at Anlegeplatz and Elton Lybarger’s nephews, Eric and Edward, playfully kicking the soccer ball between them. Then the camera moved to the side to see Elton Lybarger standing with Joanna, watching them. Abruptly, one of the boys kicked the ball in Lybarger’s direction and Lybarger gave it a healthy kick back toward his nephews. Then he looked at Joanna and smiled proudly. And Joanna smiled back, with the same sense of accomplishment.
Then the video cut and Lybarger was seen in his elegant library. Seated before a blazing fire, dressed casually in sweater and slacks, he was talking in detail to someone out of camera range about the axis Paris and Bonn had forged in making the new European Economic Community. Learned and articulate, the clear point he was making was that Britain’s assumed role of “detached moral superiority” only served to keep Britain a malcontent in the equation. And that continuing to play that character would serve neither Britain nor the Economic Community well. His opinion was that there
Then Lybarger’s image faded and was replaced by something else. Perpendicular and slightly arched, it covered nearly the entire eight feet of the screen’s height. For a moment nothing happened, then the thing turned, hesitated, moved determinedly forward. In that instant everyone recognized what it was. A fully engorged, erect penis.
Abruptly the angle shifted to the silhouette of another man standing in the darkness, watching. Then the angle shifted once more and what the audience saw was Joanna, unclothed and spread-eagled on a large poster bed, her hands and feet tied to the bedposts with lush strands of velvet. Her full breasts clung melon-like to either side of her chest, her legs were comfortably apart, and the dark V where they met undulated gently with the unconscious rhythm of her hips. Her lips were moist. Her eyes, open and glassy, were thrown back, perhaps in anticipation of some ecstasy to come. A portrait of pleasure and consent, she indicated nothing to suggest that any of this was against her will.
And then the man and penis were upon her and she took him wholly and willingly. A complex variety of camera angles recorded the authenticity of the act. The penis strokes were long and forceful, effective, yet unrushed, and Joanna reacted only with increasing pleasure.
A camera angle showed the other man as he stood back. It was Von Holden and he was completely nude. Arms folded over his chest, he watched indifferently.
Then the camera cut back to the bed, and a running time code, clocking the elapsed time from penal insertion to orgasm, appeared in the upper righthand corner of the screen.
At 4:12:04 Joanna visually experienced her first orgasm.
At 6:00:03, an electroencephalographic chart, tracking her brain waves, appeared in the upper middle of the screen. Between 6:15:43 and 6:55:03, she experienced seven separate excessive brain wave oscillations. At 6:57:23 an electroencephalographic chart appeared at the upper left of the screen, representing her male partner’s brain waves. From then until 7:02:07, they were normal. In that time, Joanna had three more episodes of extreme brain wave activity. At 7:15:22, the male’s brain activity increased threefold. As it did, the camera moved in on Joanna’s face. Her eyes were thrown back in her head until only the whites showed and her mouth was open in a silent scream.
At 7:19:19, the male experienced total orgasm.
At 7:22:20, Von Holden stepped into camera range and escorted the male from the room. As they left, two cameras simultaneously focused on the man who had participated in the sex act with Joanna. Documenting without doubt that the man who had been in the bed was the same man who was now leaving the room. There was no question at all who it was, and that he had fully and thoroughly completed the act.
Elton Lybarger.
“But we’re not going to be showing a video, are we, Herr Dabritz,” Erwin Scholl said sharply. Abruptly his gaze shifted to Salettl.
“Will he be capable of our performance, Doctor?”
“I would like more time, But he is remarkable, as we have seen.” In any other room in the world Salettl’s remark would have drawn laughter, but not here. These were not humorous people. They had witnessed a clinical study upon which a decision was to be based. Nothing else.
“Doctor, I asked you if he will be ready to do what is required. Yes or no?” Scholl’s rapier-like stare cut Salettl in two.
“Yes, he will be ready.”
“No cane! No one to assist his walk!” Scholl goaded him.
“No. No cane. No one to assist his walk.”
“I have no reservations.” With that, Von Holden opened the door and he walked out.
72
AVOIDING THE elevator, Scholl walked down the four flights of gallery stairs with Von Holden at his side. At the street, Von Holden opened the door and they stepped into crisp night air.
A uniformed driver opened the door to a dark Mercedes. Scholl got in first and then Von Holden.
“Go down Savignyplatz,” Scholl said as they moved off.
“Drive slowly,” he said as the Mercedes turned onto a tree-lined square and drove at a crawl along a block of crowded restaurants and bars. Scholl leaned forward staring out, watching the people on the street, how they walked and talked to each other, studying their faces, their gestures. The intensity with which he was doing it made it seem as if it were all new, as if he were seeing it for the first time.
“Turn onto Kantstrasse.” The driver swung onto a block of garish nightclubs and loud cafes.
“Pull over, please,” Scholl said finally. Even though he was being polite, his manner was short and clipped, as if everything was a military order.
A half block down, the driver found a spot on the corner, pulled in and stopped. Sitting back, Scholl folded his hands under his chin and watched the squeeze of young Berliners trafficking relentlessly through the neon colors of their clamorous Pop Art world. From behind the tinted windows, he seemed a voyeur intent upon the pleasures of the world he was watching, but keeping his own distance from it.
Von Holden wondered what he was doing. He’d known something was troubling him the moment he’d picked him up at Tegel Airport and taken him to the gallery. He thought he knew what it was, but Scholl had said nothing and Von Holden thought that whatever it might have been had passed.
But there was no reading Scholl. He was an enigma hidden behind a mask of uncompromising arrogance. It was a temperament he seemed helpless or unwilling to do anything about because it had made him what he was. It was not unusual for him to work his staff eighteen hours a day for weeks and. then either criticize them for not
