Yesterday I got a ticket for parking my car at an address that does not exist. The citation was on my windshield when I returned from my stroll around a Long Beach neighborhood. The parking meter at this spot had expired 5 minutes earlier and the vigilant meter maid had already nailed me. I looked at the ticket and then tucked it back underneath the windshield wiper so I could use the space for the rest of the day without having to fill the meter again. In that area they will usually only cite you one time in a day so you may as well just leave your vehicle and your ticket in the same place where you received the ticket. When I started walking away from my car I saw the meter maid watching me. Something about her expression indicated that she would probably come back and give me a ticket every hour if I left without feeding more coins into the machine. I sighed, snatched the ticket off the windshield, and then got into the driver’s seat to go park someplace else. As I drove I inspected the citation more closely to see how much the fine was and then I noticed that the address given for my parking infraction was “65 Lime Avenue.” Tingles ran up my spine and a familiar sensation began to consume me. Here we go again, I thought. My car had not been parked on Lime Avenue.

Lime Street has intrigued ever since I used to live in Long Beach. I don’t know why. Certain places just call to me so I go to them and try to figure out what I need to do there. Generally they are buildings in Long Beach, downtown Los Angeles, and Detroit. For some reason a long expanse of Lime Avenue, not just one building, has some type of magnetic pull on me. The Green Leaf Hotel at 63 Lime Avenue sits within that mysterious realm. I want to check in there but I never do. About two months ago I approached the place at night and a tall, dark man did a quick reconnaissance of the immediate vicinity and then stepped into my path when he realized no one else was watching. At first I thought he was going to try and steal the laptop which I was carrying in a case slung over my shoulder, but he didn’t. He and I exchanged greetings and he looked directly into my eyes to try and communicate his intentions. His expression conveyed his confidence that he had exactly what I wanted and all I had to do was ask. I smiled and sidestepped around him only to encounter another larger, darker man lounging in the shadows against the wall of the Green Leaf. Evidently the two of them were working together and their presence dissuaded me from entering the hotel. Drug dealers usually don’t make me nervous. They just want to sell drugs and they aren’t going to bring unwanted attention onto themselves by mugging or molesting random passersby. Still, that night something compelled me to keep on walking into the darkness. Lime Avenue often has that effect on me.

Now I had an immediate reason to go back there. The City of Long Beach could not expect me to pay a fine for parking at an expired meter on a street where there were no meters. At least I would be able to contest the citation. I set the parking ticket down somewhere in my car and started driving to see if 65 Lime Avenue even existed. It did not. I knew it wouldn’t even before I got there. In reality I had been parked at 65 Linden Avenue, two blocks away, and the meter maid had just made a mistake when writing the name of the street. It was a simple error but the prickles on the back of my neck made me feel like the hand of fate was beckoning me back to Lime Avenue yet again. I parked on that familiar block and headed over to the Green Leaf Hotel. I could not check in there today because I already had a reservation for the night at the Hotel Stillwell in downtown L.A. The following day I had a bondage shoot in the San Fernando Valley and it was easier to just stay downtown and avoid the morning commute. As I walked down the alley next to the Green Leaf I wondered when I would finally go inside the place.

The next day at my shoot the photographer put me on my stomach and shackled my wrists and ankles. I felt tense and unrested and kept thinking about Lime Avenue. Who or what was there that both called to me and repelled me? Why did I always feel like that street was going to suck me underneath it and not let me out? The photographer was barking directions at me and was annoyed that I had such a distressed expression on my face. It was not the “look” he was going for. He wanted me to play the role of a horny woman who was tied up and waiting for her lover. Finally he announced that he was going to put a blindfold over half my face. I had to bite my lip to prevent myself from asking that he give me some earplugs too.

As soon as he put the blindfold on me the world seemed to start spinning. It happened fast. The two drug dealers from the Green Leaf popped into my head. One stood behind the other and the one I’d spoken to that night was staring right into my face, right into my soul. He was both intimidating and devilishly self-assured. He knew he had something I wanted. “I have something for you. I have something for you. I have something for you.” he kept promising me. The words seemed to be coming out of his eyeballs and the sound was hideously distorted. Various syllables would get lengthened and others truncated and the volume of his speaking would increase and diminish with no predictability or rhythm. I wanted to scream and he kept sending me those words as he leered at me. His lips were not moving, but somehow the repeated phrase kept emanating from him. The words were echoing endlessly in my head and then rebounding from deep within my heart. I knew it was his voice. “I have something for you. I have something for you. I have something for you.” He stayed right in my face and refused to go away. Gradually I became aware of a woman screaming. Her cries of anguish could not drown out the man’s endless mantra. He was completely impervious and I knew with terrifying certainty that he was offering me something far more dangerous than any drug. I’d stymied him that one night by not checking into the Green Leaf and now he had come to get me. “I have something for you. I have something for you. I have something for you.” he kept insisting over the tortured wails of the woman.

All of a sudden the blindfold was ripped from my face. The photographer stood there staring at me, visibly shaken. The two men from the Green Leaf were gone. The voices were gone. Belatedly I realized that I had been the woman who was screaming. The gallery below would have had many more photos if I hadn’t somehow gotten enveloped in that inexplicable daydream..


You can see the full "Stranded" gallery inside The Bondage Room of my Playhouse now.


- XXOO Tanya





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