Chapter 20

"Whew!" gasped Clara, flinging herself across the bed, "I'm bushed! Why, what with the swimming and the tennis, I must have had more exercise than I usually get in a month. But it was fun, wasn't it?" Without waiting for his reply she went on: "And isn't Bess a doll? Not minding about my being so late, then spending so much time with us and inviting us to play doubles with her and her fianc'. He's sweet, isn't he? She told me about him yesterday. She just met him, you know. Here. And wasn't it lovely of her to invite us to that private party tonight? She said she was sure that I'd enjoy myself. And...."

Garnett chuckled. "Slow down, baby. I know you had a great time. But if you he around in that wet bathing suit much longer, you'll probably catch pneumonia."

"It's not very wet," objected Clara. "It dried out a lot on the tennis court."

"That may be, but it's still damp. Besides, you want to take a shower, don't you? Why don't you take it now. Then, when you're finished and dry and comfortable, we can talk about my plan for tomorrow night. In fact, I think I'll take a shower, too."

"Here?" Clara's eyebrows arched sharply.

"Sure, why not? I've got a pair of trousers and a sport shirt in my stachel." He motioned toward a small canvas bag he had brought with him.

"All right. Do you want to go first, or shall I?"

"Why don't we just go together."

"Take a shower together?" gasped Clara, apparently aghast at the idea.

"Well, a bath would be more fun, but for the time being a shower will suffice ... "

"No, Conrad. I most certainly do not intend to take a shower with you. Not now, and not at any other time."

"Why not? You certainly can't say it's a 'dirty thing to do. And it's very economical-saves your hostess water."

"No. I don't want to. I don't need a reason or an excuse. I just don't want to."

"Come on, Clara," said Gamett, dropping his bantering tone. "Stop playing the prude. I've seen you without your clothes on and you've seen me without most of mine. We've brought each other to the heights of sexual ecstasy. If you think I've forgotten that, you're wrong. And you can't convince me that you've forgotten, because I know you haven't. So don't start pretending you're as pure and virginal as you were when you first came into my office. You aren't, and deep down inside you're glad that you aren't. Now when are you going to grow up and start acting like a woman instead of a silly little girl?"

She didn't reply.

He went on: "All right, Clara, you have a choice. You can do things your way, or mine. If you want to act like an adult, you can follow me into the shower room. But if you insist on acting like a child, we'll play childish games. I'm going to go in and turn on the shower. If you're not there once I adjust the water to the right temperature, I'll come back and carry you in-and strip the bathing suit off you, too."

He turned and walked into the bathroom, not even glancing at the girl who stood stock-still in the middle of the room. She remained there, as if rooted to the spot, until the hissing sound of running water assailed her ears. Then she slowly walked toward the bathroom.

"You might take your bathing suit off," suggested Garnet as she entered the room and headed wordlessly towards the shower stall.

"I might. But I won't. It needs to be rinsed out anyway."

"Okay," grinned The Devil's Advocate. "Shall I strip you?"

"Don't bother!" She pulled her suit down roughly and stepped under the rushing water. Garnett had already shed his trunks and now followed Clara into the shower.

"The nicest part about taking a shower with someone else is that you don't have to stand on your head trying to reach the inaccessible places on yourself," he told her as he worked a cake of soap in his hands until he raised a fine froth. Then he pulled Clara out from under the spray, saying: I don't want the soap to wash away before I'm half finished."

"But I don't need you to soap me," protested Clara as he took one of her arms and began to suds it. "I don't have any inaccessible places, truly I don't."

"And that's the truth," he laughed.

"Oh!" Clara gasped. "But I didn't mean ... darn it, you always twist everything around!"

Garnett merely laughed again and devoted himself to the task of rubbing up foaming bubbles of soap so large that they fell in great white blobs from her arms and shoulders. Clara reached for the soap bar, but he held it away from her. "You'll like it better as I go along," he told her. "Just hold still, now." He covered her breasts with his hands and rubbed the cake of soap on her nipples.

"My breasts don't need that much attention," declared Clara. "They're not at all dirty."

"Well, I don't suppose that I'd want to give a bath to a girl who really needed one," said Garnett. He slid his hands down to her belly and rotated the soap against the taut flesh. He moved the soap in increasing circles outward, and soon he was soaping her delta and between her thighs, lathering the hairy triangle as though he were shampooing it. He then slipped his fingers between her thighs and rubbed soap gently into her slit. "And I certainly wouldn't want to wash you here if I thought it was really necessary," he added.

He dropped to one knee and began rubbing Clara's calves and knees and ankles and feet Then he dropped the soap and hugged her knees, rubbing his cheek against her soapy belly and the sudsy hair between her legs.

"Please get up," said Clara.

But he stayed where he was. He picked up the soap again and rubbed the backs of her legs, then slid the cake between her buttocks and slowly over the small fleshy globes themselves. He moved his hands up to soap the small of her back, then down again, and reached through her legs to soap her delicate treasure. His fingers tickled and rubbed back and forth for several minutes. Then, at last, he stood and began to soap her shoulder blades. When he had finished that self-set task, he drew back and said: "Don't wash it off yet, I want you to lather me first."

He handed her the soap, but Clara shook her head.

I'll lather your back," she said. "That's the only place that's hard to reach. You're perfectly capable of doing the rest yourself."

"You'll lather all of me," Garnett replied in a voice that brooked no argument. "And you'll do just as thorough job on me as I did on you."

He placed the hand with the bar of soap in it on his chest and set it in motion, working a small patch of lather into a large one in the mat of hair on his chest. Then he released the hand, and she continued to soap his chest, surprising him by rubbing quite firmly and with considerable gusto. She lathered his armpits vigorously and then slipped her hands down his sides to his hips. He quivered slightly, and she brought her hands back up and then ran them down his sides again, this time using her fingernails very, very lightly. He twitched once more and looked down at her with considerable surprise, but remained silent as she began soaping his belly with firm, circular strokes. She soaped and soaped until Garnett smiled and asked: "Are you going to soap my belly all afternoon?"

"Oh!" Clara started. "I must have been day dream-tog."

Garnett touched her wrist and moved her hand down over his soft virility. "Try down here if you want to kill time," he suggested.

Clara closed her fingers gently around his manhood and began sudsing it by running her hand up and down on it. Not surprisingly, it soon began to grow under her touch until it had attained the size to which she was more accustomed. "Ooooh," she squealed, "how funny ... to watch it grow like that." She rubbed the soap into the curly hair of his pubis until she had created a white cloud of suds from which black, curling tufts protruded. Then she buried the bulbs of his manly plant in lather, and, as she rubbed them between her palms, the stalk swelled even more proudly than before.

Suddenly she stopped, as if she had just realized what she was doing. She moved her hands away and with clinical impersonality rubbed them on Garnett's thighs.

"Kneel down," said the attorney. "You haven't finished yet."

She knelt obediently and began lathering his knees and rubbing the soap slowly down to his feet. He pulled her gently to him by her hair, gripping it through the bathing cap she still wore, and pressed his now fully-stiffened member into the groove between her breasts. She lifted her face to his, her eyes wide and innocent. "Is this part of taking a shower?" she asked.

"Of course it is," he said. "One of the nicest parts."

Clara lifted her breasts together with both hands, pressing them around his rigid organ. He twisted his hips up and down while she bag-piped her soft globes together and apart, the soap from them leaving his organ. He let her continue for awhile; then he shoved her very gently away from him and turned around. She covered die backs of his thighs with soap, then ran her slippery hands over his buttocks. Between his slightly-spread legs, parts of his manhood peeped pinkly; strands of lather-dripping hair clung to the innermost parts of his thighs.

Clara finished sudsing his buttocks and started to get to her feet. "Wait," said Garnett, "haven't you missed one place?" He turned around to face her again, and she put her hands between his legs, sliding one whole arm through and soaping the inside of his thighs, and, after awhile, his anus and its hair.

"Strange," she said, half aloud, "I don't feel ashamed at all."

She continued to rub him there until he pulled her to her feet. Then he asked her to soap his back while facing him. She put her arms around him and began to rub the soap on the hard, broad expanse of flesh. Their bellies slipped soapily together, and Garnett rubbed his stomach slowly back and forth across hers. His love instrument brushed against her thighs, bouncing each time he moved, and her nipples rose to erection as they rubbed against his chest.

"Don't you like to take showers a deux?" he asked. "Isn't it fun?" He slid one knee between hers and moved his thigh back and forth against that most delicate and sensitive part of her. She leaned closer to him, saying faintly: "We're doing more than taking a shower. I really shouldn't let you do this, you know."

Wordlessly, he moved his swollen shaft to her belly and rubbed it against her navel. Then he pushed the cake of soap into her hand again and placed her hands on his organ. She lathered it, then let the soap fall to the tiles, taking hold of the shaft with both hands, pushing her curled fingers up and down and tangling them in his hair until there was a great ball of lather at his crotch, half-hiding her hands from Garnett's sight.

Suddenly he scooped up several gobs of foam from his own groin and slipped his fingers into Clara's welted slit, covering her Mount of Venus with huge white babbles. "Does it sting?" he asked while he pressed the raised lips of her love vessel apart and squeezed the lather between them.

"No ... oh, yes ... just a tiny bit," replied Clara. "It feels slippery and tickly, mostly." She pressed her thighs tightly together on his hand.

Garnett faced her squarely, bending his knees just slightly. He took his shaft in his hand and rubbed the plum-shaped tip on the girl's soapy pubic hair. Then he pushed the organ lower and between her thighs. Clara yelped as its hard tip slid back and forth over the lips of her sex. It pressed so hard against her that it seemed determined to enter her. But, just as it slipped up to the entrance, Garnett drew it away. He rubbed the whole shaft quickly up and down between her legs for a minute, then stepped back. He led Clara, who seemed rather weak, under the stinging hot shower, and the soap slid instantly from most of their bodies. Suddenly, Clara laughed.

"What's so funny?" asked Garnett.

"You are," she replied. "You said that taking a shower together would be more economical. And then we let the water run for close to half an hour without using more than a few drops.

Garnett laughed, too. "Do you always listen so closely to what I say?"

"Uh huh."

"Okay, I'll just tell Blanca to send me the water bill for the month. Then we won't have to feel guilty about using up the water supply and costing the lady money." He turned the hot water tap almost off. The water which now poured over them was scarcely warmer than tepid. "Tell me," he asked suddenly, "doesn't running water make you feel like urinating?"

"I-I-" Clara stammered with obvious embarrassment.

"Seriously," Gamett prodded, "doesn't it?"

"I-I guess it does," she nodded. "I never could understand why."

Garnett smiled professorially. "Oh, atavism, I suppose-or what physicists would call sympathetic detonation. It's the same sort of thing that happens when you see somebody else yawning and you start to yawn, too." He paused. Then, grinning broadly, he said: "Well, if you have to pee, go ahead."

Clara seemed incredulous. "You mean here-with you?"

"Yes, here with me-right here under the shower."

His grin broadened. "Just a little pee, and the shower will wash it away."

"But why?"

"Oh, just for fun. Just to be dirty and bad."

"It's not my idea of fun. Besides, I just couldn't wee-wee with somebody ... a man ... watching."

But the water from the shower continued to fall tepidly on her leg, and, despite her protests, she soon began to urinate. The golden stream which flowed from between her legs shone brilliantly, crossing the clear, colorless stream which flowed from the shower.

Smiling, Garnett put one knee between hers and forced her to urinate on him. At the same time, he directed his flow across her thighs.

Suddenly Clara pulled away, as though she had just noticed what was happening to her. But The Devil's Advocate kept his arm around her, and she could not go far enough away to prevent his water from falling on her flesh. "Don't stop," he said. "Doesn't it make you feel like a little animal, emptying yourself this way with me?"

"Just like an animal," she murmured tormentedly.

The golden streams trickled out, then went dry. Garnett's watering can hung down rubberishly, like a deflated balloon. He reached out and turned on the hot water faucet full blast for a moment, then turned it off completely.

Clara seemed terribly weak at the knees. He led her out of the shower alcove and began to dry her off with a big, wooly Turkish towel. He toweled himself, too, and, when the first towel was wet, he picked up another, with which he wiped his and her sexual parts on it at the same time. Then he dried her breasts and reached down to lift up her legs and dry them, too. On the way down, however, his hands got sidetracked and ended up between her thighs, where they fingered for quite some time. Then he remembered about the legs and wiped them cursorily. This done, he rose, and they took turns wiping each other's back. Finally, he toweled her hair dry and fluffed it out with his fingers. 'You can comb it out later," he said. "Right now, why don't you run along into the bedroom and he down. I'll be in in a moment."

But Clara didn't move. She just stood, as motionless as a statue. She seemed to have lost her power of self-volition.

"Go on, Clara," he repeated, "lie down."

She walked out of the bathroom like a person hypnotized, as the water in the bathroom sink began to run. It ran intermittently for the next few minutes, then it stopped, and Garnett came out of the bathroom, still nude, a shaving kit in his hand. He knelt and put the kit into his satchel, then crossed the room to the bed where Clara lay, face down. Gently, he turned her over and lifted her onto the pillows, stripping away the spread and blanket so that she was lying naked on the cool, white sheet.

She opened her eyes. "Were you shaving?"

He nodded affirmatively.

She stretched out her hand and stroked his cheek. "Very soft," she smiled.

He lay down beside her and rubbed his cheek against her breast. "This is why I shaved," he said, his voice imbued with its customary sardonic tone. "I don't want to irritate your tender skin." He lay for a moment with his head against her breast, his hand lightly caressing her belly and her thighs. Then he rose and repositioned himself on his knees in a spot just near her shoulders. He knelt there for a while, studying her, letting his gaze travel dispassionately up and down her body. His eyes, cold as steel, traveled over every inch of her, over every curve and every plane, over every subtle swelling and every soft recession, over all the fine and private places. Then, with the same cold deliberation, he straddled her breasts. His organ had begun to stiffen of its own accord, but it was nowhere near the full blown thing of beauty it had been in the shower.

Unbidden, Clara ran her fingers along the instrument, causing it to start swelling and hardening. She closed her eyes, then opened them again. And she put her mouth a little closer to the long and sturdy shaft. Soon, and as if of its own volition, her tongue snaked out of her mouth and flicked across the utmost tip of the blue-veined shaft. Then the tip of her tongue encountered the hot, hair-flecked base of the member and began to work its way back up towards the tip. Up and down, back and forth her tongue traveled, running its own rhythmic shuttle service from tip to base and from base to tip. Then the tongue stopped. The mouth hovered around the plum-red tip. The lips puckered against it in a delicate kiss, then parted to admit the whole organ into the moist warmth of the mouth.

Clara began to suck the monstrous machine passionately. She worked her mouth and her lips up and down on it, and it swelled with pride at being so uninhibitedly caressed. It swelled until it would no longer fit whole into her mouth. Then she stopped. Putting her hands against Garnett's belly, she pushed him away. "I-I can't do it," she stuttered. "I'm too, too ashamed."

"Then why did you start?" he asked quietly, watching her as she covered her face with her hands. "I didn't ask you to, you know."

"I know you didn't. I just felt that you wanted me to."

"And you want to do the things I want done."

"Yes." Clara whispered in an almost inaudible voice. 'Yes."

"Always?"

"Yes."

"Even things you've never done before? Things that make you so ashamed you want to die? Will you do those things if I tell you I want you to do them?"

He had been speaking in a low monotone, and the effect of his almost-chanted questions seemed to be hypnotic. Clara, as if in a trance, answered: "Yes, Conrad, I will."

"Good," He snapped, thrusting his shaft back into her mouth savagely.

Clara resumed sucking it again, and, within seconds, Garnett's hips were pumping in rhythm with the movements of her tongue. After awhile, she began to roll her head around on his member as he thrust in and out, tonguing the tip every time he stroked out, sucldng fiercely every time he plunged in. He threw his head back, and his motions grew more frenzied. "Play with me," he whispered, his voice constricted with passion. "Play ... with ... me."

Clara placed her hand under the shaft which she was so avidly sucking and began squeezing and fondling the two fleshy sacs which nestled at its base.

"And ... put your finger ... into my...." He did not finish, for he felt Clara's finger already obeying his command, moving toward and then entering his rear passageway. As it entered, her nail scraped the fining of die canal, but the pain it caused soon melted into the wild, spiraling ecstasy that engulfed him as she rammed her mouth onto his shaft and then scraped it fleshly back again, only to ravish it once more, while at the same time she jammed her finger in and out, in and out. Garnett gasped, and his whole body began jerking spasmodically. He. almost fell forward with the force of the spasm which shook him, but he grabbed Clara's shoulders and dug his fingers into them, clinging insanely to the whiteness of her and moaning without making any conscious effort to do so. The moan crescendoed upward and twisted abruptly into a long, almost inhuman, scream as Clara's mouth filled.

He waited until he knew that he was empty, then rolled heavily to her side and lay there, immobilized.

When Clara awoke, it was night and Garnett was asleep at her side, breathing the slow, deep breaths of one whose slumber is wholly untroubled. She began running her finger along his sides, gently, softly stirring him awake. He moaned, then struggled upward, out of the black abyss in which he had been floating. "Wha ... what time izzit?" he asked, his voice fuzzy with sleep.

"I don't know," she replied. "Late, I think."

He fumbled around on the dressing table until he found a match, which he struck and held up in front of his wrist watch. "Nine o'clock. Time for us to get up and find ourselves some dinner." The first match had flickered out, and he struck another, lighting two cigarettes from it before he shook it out. "But first," he said, taking an ashtray and balancing it on the flat, hard surface of his naked belly, "I want to explain my plan for tomorrow night." He paused for a moment, dragging on his cigarette and watching the tip flare redly in the blackness. Then he asked: "Have you ever heard of a "Black Mass?"

"A 'Black Mass'? " echoed Clara. "Why no, I don't think so. What is it?"

"A Black Mass is an inversion of the traditional Catholic Mass. Instead of honoring some diety, it is held in honor of the Devil."

"What?" gasped Clara.

"Yes, in honor of the Devil, who is known to his devotees as his Satanic Majesty. Every part of the Mass is inverted so that each sacrament becomes a desecration, each holy rite a sacrilege. The celebrants burn black candles, they turn the cross upside down and spit upon it, they defecate on the host, they parody the

Ave Maria so that it becomes practically a catalogue of obscenities, they recite the Pater Noster backwards, and so on, ad nauseum."

In the darkness, Clara drew in her breath sharply. "People must believe in God very sincerely to go to so much trouble to spite him," she said.

"Oh, yes," responded Garnett, "they believe in him sincerely, all right. You see, the Black Mass was originated by a group of Catholics who were united by one of the strongest common bonds there is, the bond of fear. They believed in God, sure enough, but they couldn't quite manage to keep his commandments. So they decided that, since they were unquestionably going to hell, they might as well start scoring points with the Devil while they were still here on earth. Thus the development of the Black Mass."

"I can't believe it," Clara murmured. "I've never heard of anything so base in my entire life."

"You'd better believe it," said Garnett grimly, "because you're going to see one-participate in one, that is-tomorrow night!"

"What?" Clara's voice was practically a shriek.

"That's right. There's going to be a Black Mass here, tomorrow night, and you-we-are going to take part in it. Now listen, Clara, I know you're not going to like this; you're going to want to refuse. But remember two things: first, remember the fear and the revulsion and the agony that your sister's absence has caused you; second, remember that your presence at and participation in the Black Mass may be our only means of rescuing her. Why? I can't explain why. You'll just have to take my word for it. And also, remember your promise to me this afternoon. Remember that you said that you would do whatever I asked you to do, because I want you to do it."

"But," interrupted Clara, "Conrad...."

"Wait," he said, "I'm not finished. I want you to promise to me now, before I explain what you have to, that you will do it-with no arguments, no questions asked; that no matter how repulsive it may seem to you, you will consent, because I want you to."

There was dead silence, then the softest of whispers: "I promise, Conrad."

"Good. I knew you would. Now listen. There's one part of the Black Mass that I didn't tell you about. As you probably know, the Catholic Mass is celebrated on an altar. Well, so is the Black Mass: on a human altar. And at each Solemn High Black Mass a virgin is used as an altar-which is one reason why Black Masses are held so rarely these days; there are very few qualified altars on which to celebrate them. Anyway, once a virgin has been brought in to the Black Priest's service, holy wine, stolen from a church, is poured into her navel or sometimes into her vagina, and then drunk from there, by the priest."

"Oh no," whispered Clara, "Oh no."

Garnett went on as though he hadn't heard her. "And then, the altar itself is desecrated; the virgin is deflowered."

"Not that!" gasped Clara. "Anything but that!"

"Yes. That. You and I are actually very lucky, I think, to be invited to participate in the mass in such an important capacity. For the first time, I find myself really thankful that you're a virgin. That's why I was approached, you see. It's a chance in a million, Clara, a chance to unmask the Scorpion, to see how he operates, and"-he paused dramatically-"to find your sister."

"My sister? Rita? I don't understand."

"You don't have to understand. Just take my word for it."

"All right, Conrad. But tell me one thing: who, who ... who'll ... do it to me."

"You mean who will deflower you?"

"Yes."

"I will."

"You?! But ... but ... Conrad? Do you believe in this Black Mass? Are you one of those people who worship the Devil? Is that why you're going to do it?"

"My dear, silly child, when will you learn that I believe that nothing is sacred, that I worship no one but myself?" He stopped for a moment, then went on: "But aren't you pleased? That's the real reason why I'm going to do it. I thought you'd want me to."

"Yes, Conrad, you were right," she said softly. "I want you to."

"Good," Garnett said, turning on the bedside lamp. "Good. Now, let's get up and get dressed. I don't know about you, but I'm starving. I'll give you all the details of the Black Mass tomorrow. Tonight, let's forget about everything but enjoying ourselves. In fact, after dinner, would you like to go to that party Bess invited us to?"

"Oh, yes, very much."

"Good. Then get up and put on your prettiest dress. I'll go back to my room and change into evening clothes, and I'll meet you downstairs in half an hour. All right, sweetie?"

"All right, Conrad. Anything you say."