The building is surrounded by garbage and a tall, sturdy, weathered chain link fence.
It sits far from the street, and most of the lower-floor windows are boarded up. Not an inviting place. The fence has long warded off casual trespassers, and those more determined had not stayed long. There was nothing left to steal in the building, and little incentive for vandals remained. The doors had been chained or wedged shut many years ago.
A foreboding structure, ignored by the neighbors who'd seen it so often, never changing, silent...
From the outside.
The same impression is given just inside the doors, either the front lobby or the exits on the north and south wings. Quiet, deserted hardwood, grey with undisturbed dust. High ceilings, wide halls. Space in which a lot of people worked, long ago.
From the back door, though... something contradicts the abandonded atmosphere.
The sound of a voice.
Faint, intermittent, almost swallowed up somewhere in the old building... but clearly someone is here. Not close, maybe upstairs - must be loud, to carry this far in such a large place. Inconsistent with the dreamy timelessness. Curious...
Surely not an owner, or a tenant. There are no signs of renovations occurring here. Perhaps an interloper, then, making noise like this which carries all the way downstairs That would be unwise - if anyone ever came near. But they don't.
Nothing seems amiss from the outside, nothing at all.
Heading up the wide oak stairs, the voice steadily becomes louder.
It's continuous. Not like conversation, for there's only one participant. A man. Not talking... or singing. No words to make out... But definitely someone here, which is odd enough. The doors are all secure - undisturbed for at least a decade, perhaps. If he didn't use the doors or windows, how did he get in? And why? What could be the appeal of this brick shell?
At the top of the stairs -
Echoing... laughter.
Unceasing, energetic barking... lusty, uninhibited, earnest. A remarkable degree of amusement, without pauses, reverberating down the wooden hallway. Most unnatural, in this setting.
Not only that, it's unbroken noise - no pauses that would be necessary in order to listen to the next joke, or let a pun sink in. The guy whoops, and brays, and bellows... ceaselessly. This kind of indiscretion would be investigated immediately, anywhere else.
Moving down the hallway, passing open doors, empty rooms... the volume growing.
Mindless roars, bouncing off the high plaster, exaggerated by the wide expanse of wood.
Here.
He's... loud.
In the center of the room, reclining on a pile of sandbags and padding, the man hoots and squirms. Naked, spread-eagled -
Limbs held out by thick straps.
A dozen tools hang a few feet over him, attached to coiled steel cables. Boxes surround the makeshift bed. The only light comes from a window near the distant ceiling, wire mesh barely visible through the thick layer of grime.
He chortles insanely.
There's movement, near him. On him -
Feathers. Long quail, or maybe hawk.. Soft edges tracing and sawing against the soles of his feet. Others dusting between his toes.
The feathers are held...
...by gloves.
Black leather, hardly visible in the gloom. Empty. Nothing in the hand-openings, no wires - but they look solidly filled, bulging as if with muscle.
Skillful. Agile. Effortlessly making him delirious.
Other gloves drag feathers up and down his ribs.
A fourth pair gently provokes his belly and pecs.
Loaded with a pale cream, a glove coasts to his left thigh... and another gently presses a towel into his right armpit, mopping up sweat.
In a circle below him, another ten or twelve hand-shapes hang in midair, motionless. Close by. Ready.
The boxes hold a diverse array of supplies, from water and energy bars to salves and creams. There are more feathers, and dusters, and brushes. There are larger gloves and mitts, white satin, somewhat discolored but smooth and glossy.
And there's another box. Medicines. Cough syrups, tonics, pills, herbal extracts and pastes.
He stutters out a word occasionally - "No", or sometimes "Hell" - which dissolves into the more passionate need to laugh. Less often, he wriggles on the foam rubber.
Racked with the need to respond... Ferocious roars, ringing from the bare walls, on and on...
The room, the hallway - filled with the sound of laughter.
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