Chapter 8

THE NIGHT THAT CARL AND MILLICENT were to be irritated into The Corybants, they were picked up on a downtown street-corner at 9:30 P.M. sharp by an attractive, thirty-ish, close-mouthed couple who introduced themselves merely as Irv and Joanna. As they left Porterfield the conversation was general, guarded. When Millicent made the mistake of inquiring as to what form their initiation would take, Joanna smiled stiffly, said, "You've got nothing to be afraid of, Millie. Why don't you just wait and find out?"

Having driven by the Donleavy mansion several times since spending that endless, revelatory night at the motel with Tait and Esmee, they were not overly awed by the glowing, cliff-hanging edifice. Granted, it did look ominous, its many windows glowing dimly in the distance, resembling (Carl thought) a fully-booked hotel for recluses. The car braked at the specially-reinforced entrance (miles of twelve-foot-high Cyclone fence stretching into the distance), where Irv produced a metallic, identification card, pushed it into a time-clock sort of contraption which clicked and snarled in recognition, shortly activated the rolling gate. Moments later they drove through.

There were three more gates along the way, and each time the same procedure was repeated. Eventually, after a two mile ride, they came to the base of the modernistic, stone and concrete structure, and Irv pulled his car into a specially numbered space on the vast, asphalted parking lot. Looking around, Carl and Millicent made swift tally of cars, were disappointed that there were only 25 or so. When they inquired after same, Irv tersely said:

"Nobody ever makes all the get-togethers. This is mostly a new crowd tonight. Tait never has them mingle with his hard-core people. You have to have an aptitude for that kind of stuff."

"As for me," Joanna added, "I'd just as soon not acquire that aptitude. Sex, plain and simple, new partners, that's enough for me."

Then they were out of the car, their heels clattering on the pavement, the November chill (along with inner apprehensions) making the Randoms shudder uncontrollably. They came to the base of an elevator shaft, the only observable entrance into the Donleavy's weird residence. Again Irv put his metal card into a control box. Again there was buzzing snarl. A half minute later an elevator rumbled down. As they went up, Irv said, "This baby locks at the top. There's no way for anyone without a key-card to get up there. A ladder, I suppose. Or a helicopter. But other than that ... "

"Here's where we turn our back on the whole, stinking, hypocritical world," Joanna snapped bitterly.

"Home sweet home," Irv said. "You're gonna love this place. If ever there was a real Shangri-La

The appointments, once they were inside, were plush to the n-th degree. Soft lighting, paneled walls, modernistic art, thick, springy carpeting everywhere, Carl and Millicent were immediately made more at ease. "This way," Irv directed. "Put your coats in here. Later you'll be assigned a dressing cubicle of your own, a combination lock and all. Lots of our people undress here, proceed to the community room already naked, but Joanna and I haven't got to that point yet." He smiled, his manner more relaxed suddenly. "But if you'd like to undress..."

Carl grinned, indicated their guide's attire. "We will go in like you and Joanna. When in Rome, you know..."

It took the Randoms a few minutes to get used to the saffron light in the vast, circular room to which their guides next led them, to focus on its unique furnishings. Or lack of furnishings.

The room was, in a word, an amphitheater. Perhaps thirty feet in diameter, it consisted of wide, softly carpeted landings, five in all, descending to the center of the room, where, at its lowest depth, stood a small podium, carpet-covered as well. Which podium, Carl was sure, was used for select demonstrations of sexual prowess, orgiastic shows of a pornographic nature. Which podium, if his guess was correct, he and Millicent would very shortly occupy.

Otherwise, save for myriad, multi-colored pillows scattered everywhere on the various risers, there was no further furniture at all. An endless row of gold-plated clothes hooks were imbedded in the outer walls of the circular, also-carpeted barrier, some occupied with outer garments, some with outer and under-garments. "God," Millicent sighed, clutching Carl's arm for support, "is this spooky!"

It took a while to become accustomed to the murky, orange-yellow light, supplied by hidden fixtures in a shielded fascia in the room's ceiling-the phenomenon actually making them feel queasy, imbuing them with fantastic sense of unreality and disorientation. The forty-odd people who were assembled in that erotic forum-some fully dressed, other half-dressed, with still others stark naked-were granted minimal privacy by the lights. The giggling, listlessly-moving figures took on an eerie, one-dimensional flatness where they sprawled singly, in duos, or in clutter. Nearby, Carl spied a statuesque, ebony-haired beauty of perhaps 25, a female dressed in black brassiere, black panties of outrageous cut, from beneath which snaked a lacy garter belt that held taut black, net hosiery, emphasized her spicy slippers. The girl glanced up at him, smiled, then unconcernedly returned to her male escort, immediately commenced fellating him anew. Across from her a naked man and woman were lying side by side, in tete beche position, casually eating one another. Another couple was in the act of coitus, the girl sitting on one of the steps, the man kneeling on a lower one, tunneling his meat to her yawning cunt like a runaway freight.

"Oooh," Joanna sighed, "that gets to me fast. 'C'mon, darling, let's go find Wade and Marsha."

Made quite helpless by the way his wife dug eager fingers into his cock, Irv turned back a last time. "Just sit down anywhere, relax. Watch or introduce yourselves, or anything you want. Tait'll get to you very shortly." Then he was letting Joanna pull him toward a couple halfway across the room. The male member of which immediately raised the comely brunette's skirt, administered greeting by chewing her box right through her underthings.

Carl shuddered involuntarily, held Millicent's hand very tightly. "Looks like we came to the right place."

She trembled also. "Sure does," she said wanly.

And while there was constant commotion nearby, while couples kept going and coming, disappearing to some secret area beyond the amphitheater, it was as if the Randoms were contaminated, declared off limits, for no one else came near them, nobody stopped to say hello, to pass idle chatter, or to welcome them to the club.

But then, at precisely 10:30, there was a sudden influx of people into the room; the galleries were quickly filled. An expectant hush filled the forum, and the club members ceased their erotic diversions, sat up attentively. It was here that Esmee and Tait appeared from out of nowhere, he wearing a black posing strap, floppy black boots on his feet, Esmee dressed in only black bikini panties, high-heeled slippers of a fetishist cut, her nipples deliberately carmined with body makeup of some sort. "Are you two ready?" Tait beamed, his expression like that of an ordinary host welcoming guests to an ordinary party.

"I suppose," Carl said ruefully. "Whatever that means."

"We discussed it the other night," Esmee smiled reassuringly. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Whatever the group decides, that's what you'll have to do. Agreed?"

"I guess," Carl said, assailed by a monumental case of cold feet. Millicent's face was stricken; she trembled like a leaf.

"You can start getting undressed," Tait smiled. "I'll go down, introduce you. You know the rules. You'll have to submit to photography. The movie film will never be developed. Unless you give us a cause. You understand that we must protect ourselves."

"We understand."

"And you're quite willing? You won't embarrass us at the last minute?"

Carl blocked his shoulders. "We'll see it through, no matter what. Don't fuss on our account."

"Fine." Then Tait began threading his way to the podium. Again, as if by magic, a panel in the ceiling opened, and a small spotlight emerged, clicked to life, flooded the center of the room with an eye-smarting glare.

Tremblingly, doggedly, Carl and Millicent dragged away their clothes, wishing, at the same time, that they'd listened to Irv, left their clothes in his cubicle.

Through a ghastly mental fog Carl and Millicent heard Donleavy's voice fade in and out as he introduced the new members by name. A polite spattering of applause echoed in the room. Then finally: "Millicent. If you'll come down?"

Carl's brain felt numb, feverish. He could hardly believe this was happening to him, to Millicent, his wife. He watched her walk down the stairs stark naked; he mentally lauded the poise she forced into her stance as Tait handed her up onto the platform, asked her to turn so everyone could see her. Again there was polite applause.

Once more Carl suffered a mental lapse. He saw Donleavy talking; he saw the audience replying, but the words didn't register. Then he saw the naked photographer, his motion picture camera hand-held, as he approached the lower ring, began setting angles on Millicent. Now his skin crawled as a stocky, hairy-chested male, possessed of a particularly-thin, elongated penis, arrived at the podium. Through a stunned haze he watched the man position Millicent on her hands and knees on the plush carpeting; he watched as he lubricated her ass from the dripping grease gun of his prick, eventually slid it deep into her anus. Minor outrage filled him as he saw Millicent jerk in pain.

But as quickly her expression became one of pagan arousal, and as her torturer jagged in and out of her, Carl was invested with a hard-on to end all hard-ons.

Around and around the photographer went, taking shots of the bestially coupled pair from all angles, asking Millicent to look up from time to time so he could photograph her face. A great seething hiss broke from the onlookers as Millicent's violator bucked suddenly, froze, his anguished expression betraying the fact that he'd climaxed deep inside of her. More shameful was the writhing of Millicent's buttocks, the delighted expression on her face, as she churned herself, helped the stranger as best she could.

Then it was Carl's turn. And emulating his brave wife, he proceeded down toward the stage, his erection flopping and dripping as he went, his face tensed in resolution. This time he heard his peers pass sentence. "Blow job," the words rumbled. "Get one of the guys down there."

Thus it was dictated, and a crucifying humiliation Carl had never dreamed he'd ever tolerate was ruthlessly visited upon him. Kneeling before the effete-appearing, blonde male, thankful that his equipment wasn't any longer than it was, he fought for self-control; he fought to mask his vast repugnance, as the simpering male actually clasped his head in his hands, held it stationary while he aimed his sap-slimed, faintly-odorous cock toward his lips.

A few seconds later the vile fact was accomplished. And for the first time in his life, Carl had a prick in his mouth. A hot, pistoning, gagging prick. A prick that he longed to spit out, return insult by beating its arrogant owner to a bloody pulp. But he did no such thing. Instead he clouded his mind as best he could, let his tormentor position his mouth, adjust his jaws to best accommodation. There was cause for gratitude, all in all. This in the fact that the man was a fast starter; the indignity was of short duration.

But the greatest test was still to come: For now the fat dong bucked and throbbed; Carl felt that hot, creamy gush in his mouth. His humiliation was total. Not even the subliminal existence of the ballet-circling photographer mattered now. Weirdly, his subjugation seemed a matter of honor now, and he swallowed the thick load as gracefully as he could, tolerated the squrmy prick in his mouth as long as his epicene Torquemada chose to let it remain. The excited, pleasurable buzzings of the crowd drifted in and out of his bedazzled senses.

Finally, it was over, and the man withdrawing from Carl's mouth, he looked down at him lovingly, sent praise for a job well done, manfully seen through. Impulsively he leaned, kissed Carl on the lips, snaked his tongue swiftly into his mouth, almost as if seeking leftover taste of his own sap. Carl's stomach tumbled. And some men actually dig this? This is sex to them? Men like Tait Donleavy for instance? They can swing both ways? God, dear God! He tore his mouth away, pushed the man brusquely away. He ignored the small flurry of applause that greeted him as he stood up, glowered against the bright light.

Tait and Esmee themselves saw to the guided tour of the swap mansion for the Randoms. "Don't get upset about that cocksucking thing," Tait consoled Carl as they came out of the community room, started down various radical hallways which branched out from that central point. "It won't happen again. Unless you choose to do it, of course. There are those among us who are bi-sexual; we see no harm in doing it with women and men. It's sort of a tradition here now. Our first members were forced to go down on a man as part of their initiation. It seemed the most forbidden, abominable of acts. Over the years it's become a 'If I had to go through with it, everybody else who joins will get it too' sort of thing. You might even want to let some of the men do you. You'll find viewpoints broaden remarkably here."

He and Esmee proudly showed him the luxuriously appointed, carpeted, extremely functional bedrooms, one assigned to each other, each boudoir coming with connected bathroom and shower. "This button here automatically locks the door, turns on the 'occupied' light on the outside," Esmee. "Notice the light control panel here. You can have brilliant light." She turned the control to eye-smarting brightness. "Or the dimmest possible lgiht." The room fell into ghostly pallor. She pushed another switch. "Or colors." The room was instantly bathed with saffron, then blue, then green, then red. "You can create your own mood, really."

The Donleavys explained that normally one mate was busy in the amphitheater, while the other occupied the boudoir; these arrangements were left up to the couples themselves. But in case of mixup there were auxiliary bedrooms for the general use of whomever needed them. They showed these to the Randoms also.

Then began the weirdest, most unbelievable segment of the tour. As, pressing a special spot on an obviously solid, paneled wall, a sliding panel whooshed back, and they stood before a narrow door which led into a further labyrinth of corridors. Now the Randoms were shown the other rooms, the hush-hush rooms Mark Lamb had hinted at. Rooms which Tait and Esmee proudly, slatheringly displayed again and again espousing their own lavish sponsorship of the swap movement, giving Carl and Millicent to understand that their $200 initiation fee was token contribution of the puniest sort.

There was one room set up with comfortable chairs and divans, a large motion picture screen at one end, where pornographic movies from a vast library would be shown at any hour of the night or day. Even as they looked in, a film was running; two couples were watching a scene where in a woman was being licked by a Doberman pinscher. They watched entrancedly as the trained dog began to hump her, the close-up shots of a canine prick going in and out of a female cunt, sickeningly explicit. The audience barely watched. Aroused as they were, they participated, handling each other, one man noisily, happily gobbling his partner's snatch on a low-slung chaise. Instantly Carl's depleted cock sprung up, even as Esmee reached back, dandled him shamelessly.

As they left the depraved Little Theater, Carl noted that an artistic film reel, a curving skein of film trailing from it, was painted on its door.

The next room they approached had a silhouetted female boot, high and laced, the toes and heels exaggeratedly pointed, upon it. This was a room for those enmeshed in fetishism. Proudly the Donleavys showed them the closets of female and male fetishist garb of every color and description, all the sizes clearly marked on the endless banks of drawers and wardrobe doors. Leather and rubber, silk and satin, fur and lace, all were there. One entire closet was devoted to female shoes of all varieties, the heels and toes of every conceivable cut, the stiletto-fashion most prominent. Here were boots and posing straps for the men, lingerie in every color of the rainbow for the women. Several beds and curiously constructed couches lined the walls. One whole wall was taken up with mirrors so the deviates could better admire themselves.

The next room featured a set of manacles, a curving whip on its door. Here, Millicent and Carl, shuddering helplessly, repugnance chilling them, saw racks of whips and quirts; they saw ropes and belts and chains of every sort hanging on one wall. They saw great planks with cuffs and leg irons affixed to them where victims might be tied. There were wooden couches with similar manacles; there was a St. Andrew's cross, a conventional cross, both bearing leather straps for arms and ankles; there was even a set of stocks from Puritan times, wherein a victim's head and arms were fitted to hold him helpless for God knows what punishments and indignities. "Please," Millicent breathed shortly, "Let's get out of here. But fast."

The next room was no better. A squat, black chamber-pot on its door, the Donleavys described it as catering to those addicted to urolagnia. Which Carl and Millicent didn't understand at all. At least not until they entered and got unmistakable whiff of urine and feces, saw the multiple drains in the tiled floor, the clinical couches and tubs, the long, hanging hoses on every wall. "You'd be surprised," Tait seethed, "how many of our advanced members avail themselves of these facilities. The urge within the human animal to be humiliated, to have his partner piss or shit upon him is uncommonly strong. Some night there's a line of people waiting to use this room."

The Randoms were taken to a reading room. Where, once more, there were the ubiquitous couches and beds which bibliophiles could use during or after perusing the fantastic collection of pornographic literature, the bins of scatological photographs. Leading him by his swollen jock, Esmee showed Carl a particular favorite of hers, a volume which depicted an adult male fornicating with, being fellated by, sodomizing a large variety of female children.

Another room was stocked with dildos and autoerotic machines of every weird description. Tait demonstrated a dildo which, when affixed and ad-iusted to the male penis, allowed its wearer to screw his woman in the anus at the same time he pillaged her pussy.

Still another cubicle was filled with what appeared to be athletic equipment. Jumping horses and ladders and trapezes, electrically-powered winches, plastic-webbed flat-beds which could be raised and lowered and canted to every possible angle. "This is for those members who wish to experiment with diverse positions," Esmee announced. "It's amazing how adaptable the human body is when it wants to be jazzed in a new and exciting way."

There were other rooms, also, the Donleavys hinted. But this would do for tonight. There would be time for further exploration later. "We're sure you're anxious to meet the other members," Tait beamed. "I'm sorry that your questionnaires haven't programmed as yet. The club owns a small computer. To avoid personality and psycho-sexual conflicts we schedule all our initial matings through it. Later, as you get to know all the members better you're on your own. Surprisingly enough, many of our members become dependent upon Morgana, as we facetiously call the machine; they rely upon her exclusively. A sort of a grab bag thing which they find adds immeasurable spice to things."

"In lieu of a computer choice," Esmee said, "we've arbitrarily taken it upon ourselves to choose a couple of partners for you. We think you'll enioy them very much. They'll introduce you into the Corybants in an extremely satisfying way, launch you in style, so to speak. Come, we'll go find them right now. Tait, you take Millicent; I'll take Carl. You two can get together later, have such fun telling each other about your new adventures."

Now Carl was being led to one of the bedrooms by the tall, black-haired virago he'd observed sucking her lover's cock upon first entering the amphitheater. A very aggressive, take charge wanton named Rina, she adjusted the lights to a dull red glow, an innovation that gave her lush body an even more bewitching cast, made her hair, her eyes, the wedge of her cunt, the tips of her monstrous tits that much darker, added nerve tangling eroticism to their interlude.

Laying Carl on the bed, Rina immediately fell upon his prick, took infinite pains and delight in manipulating it with her fingers, pumping and caressing it tirelessly until it gleamed with patina of his oil. With tormenting soft fingers, she massaged his glans, puddled in his juice, spiraled around the screaming knob until he thought he would die. When his juice became tacky, she pumped forth more, adjured him to contract his muscles, force additional lubricant forth. Again she massaged him until he was sure he'd spit at any moment. Until finally he could bear it no more, and the ultimate adoration must be conferred.

"Please, Rina," he gasped. "Your mouth now. Your lips. Oh suck it! Please, please...! Suck my cock."

"That's what I wanted to hear," she gloated. "I just love to work my man up like this. I just love to have 'em beg me. Here doll. How's this?"

Even then she didn't suck or lick like other women did. Instead she used the entire flat of her tongue, made it incredibly flat and squashy, a slab of slimy liver, which, when it swabbed among his own continuing overflow, conferred a sensation that Carl could only describe as hot, liquid velvet. An arrow of ecstasy drove down his cock, into his balls, careened toward his puckered ass-hole. Where the barb emerged, hooked into that sensitive purse, seemingly fought to pull it inside out, drag it out of the very eye of his prick. And just when it seemed she'd succeed, when he was positive he'd explode in her face, Rina changed tactics. The next moment he was completely harbored in her talented mouth, his nozzle half snaked down her gullet. And if he thought he'd known sensations, if he thought he'd had his cock suctioned before-

Every other woman in the world, even Millicent, was a rank amateur compared to Rina.

When he began to whimper and thrash, she laughingly withdrew her mouth. "Uh-uh, baby. Not this time. I've got better places for that sweet stuff." Whereupon she fell back, drew him onto her Junoesque body, piloted his digger into her surprisingly tight hole with her own fingers. It seemed she wrapped her long, silky legs around his waist twice, like a boa constrictor, before she was crooningly satisfied; it seemed she did all the work herself, and he was only a tiny dung ball caught in the eye of a passion hurricane.

"Hump, baby," she husked. "Share a banana with Lady Diana. Good, good. Go, you big-donged bastard!"

Even after he exploded, an end-of-the-world eruption that should have painted Marble Mountain with jazz, she still wouldn't release him; she stole two more orgasms for herself, half in the process.

Afterwards she started the finger and tongue massage again. Only this time with a difference. The sensations as extreme as before, she tortured him until his grunts announced impending ejaculation. Whereupon she flicked him off with her thumb, received his whole discharge upon her great, beautiful breasts. Even as he dazedly bemoaned the waste, she exhibited still another aberrated taste. "Feed me, lover," she intoned. "With your fingers."

Then and there he swiped up his watery cream from her pneumatic tits, fed it to her mouth with his own fingers. Rina greedily slurped and sucked, didn't desist until there was only residue enough left to be massaged into her tits. She sucked his prick clean, then wordlessly deserted him.

A thin, petite blonde who introduced herself as Ora entered next. A cock-happy mink, she gloried in constant orgasms, and under him, over him, around him, she endlessly extolled his drained condition, his staying power. When he finally shot this time, he felt like his spine had been removed, like he was a wet, used condom!

Millicent had drawn a handsome, hairy Neanderthal named Prentice. A man possessed of the largest prick she'd ever seen in her life, a prick that awed her, frightened her, filled her with a terrifying sense of inadequacy. Supposing she should disgrace herself? Supposing she wouldn't be able to sheathe that mighty club? Supposing that he could only drive that post only halfway up her? Wouldn't that be the ultimate mortification?

If she'd found the glory anonymous fornication thrilling before, her pleasure was multiplied a thousandfold with Prentice. For without a word, he arranged her on all fours on the bed, indicated that he wanted her dog-fashion. Again Millicent was filled with that magnificently-filthy feeling of being subservient, worthless, a lowly receptacle, the merest mare for her dominating stallion. And where the position generally robbed her of orgasm, with Prentice it was different. His machine so splendid, so fat, so long, it stretched even her ample cunt painfully, drew down her clit, frictioned it murderously with each in and out.

Within two minutes she began to spasm. She seemingly came a dozen times before Prentice unloaded, his salvo seemingly flinging her forward onto the bed, seemingly blasting through, bathing her very heart with scalding sperm. She screamed violently in the soundproofed room, owned that she'd never been so deliriously screwed in her whole life.

After forcing the entire of his flaccid stud into her mouth, gruntingly indicating that she suck him clean, Prentice (still without a word) abruptly left^ the room.

Enter a strange, older man named Jerome. Who was perfectly happy to merely suck her slit, lick the crack of her buttocks, use his tongue in sanitary-worker fashion, relieve her of the sticky gift Prentice had deposited in her piggy bank. Completely demolished, faint from the reaming just administered, she was more than content to relax, to let the little pervert have his own way with her.

But then, when she started coming again, like a string of firecrackers, she wondered if she'd done the right thing after all.

The couple they'd come with, Irv and Joanna, came to collect the Randoms shortly before 3:00 a.m. As they came into the chill, deathly-still parking lot, Millicent hung heavenly on Carl's arm. Once she looked back at the softly glowing structure carved into the mountain, and a strain of celestial music seemingly welled up in her brain at that moment.

It was so. They had found Shangri-La after all!

Deathly weary, stunned by the discoveries made tonight, they didn't exchange a half dozen words with their new friends all the way back to Porter-field.