Chapter Twenty-One
A slim intense Javanese youth was seated at the piano, his long, slender fingers creating a symphony in movement which was more pleasing to the eye than were the dissonances he was now creating pleasing to the ear. Clara stood, leaning on the broad top of the baby grand, waiting for Garnett, who had gone to change into evening clothes. A florid, bulbous-nosed man of about fifty seated himself on the piano bench beside the young Javanese, after first bowing ceremoniously to Clara. The youth at the piano smiled and nodded happily, apparently not in the least disturbed by his uninvited bench-mate. The newcomer must have taken this cordial reception as in invitation to join in the music-making, for he soon began picking merrily at the keys in the treble registers. The youth opened his mouth and began to laugh hilariously, the sound mingling with the raucous keyboard noises. To the uncritical ear, the additional tinkling of the intruder's contribution to the score did little to alter the quality of the piece.
Suddenly, a voice murmured in Clara's ear: "Poor Kimm!. He'll never learn that he has to take his work seriously before he can expect the critics to. And he has such enormous musical genius!"
Clara turned with a start. Alice Burton, to whom the voice belonged, was standing just behind her. "I'm so sorry," said the older woman, "I didn't mean to startle you. I thought you saw me before, when I was standing in the doorway."
"No," said Clara, "I didn't. I was so absorbed trying to discern the melody in this piece that I haven't been noticing much of anything." She laughed brittlely.
"Melody?" cackled Alice in reply. "Why, there's no melody in this music. That's what makes it so marvelous. Kimmi's music talks to us through dissonance and discordance, not melody. He believes that the quote-civilized-end quote-world is in a state of disintegration, and he says this through his compositions."
"Oh," observed Clara, looking thoroughly bewildered, "I see."
"Conrad asked me to look for you," continued Alice. "I met him just now in the anteroom, dressed to kill. He was carrying two heaping plates of roast chicken and potato salad. He said to tell you that he'll meet you out on the terrace."
Clara picked up her evening bag from the top of the piano, saying rather stiffly: "Thank you for telling me. It was very good of you."
She began to walk away, but Alice laid a hand on her arm. "You're still upset about what happened in the theatre last evening, aren't you?"
Clara shook her head. "No-that is, I don't think so."
"Then why are you so cool towards me today? Aren't we friends any more."
"I don't know," replied the girl with apparent honesty. "I don't know if I'm sophisticated enough to remain friends with you anymore."
"Alice laughed heartily. "Bless you child, bless you. But don't underestimate yourself. And don't go fishing for compliments, either. We both know that you're as clever as you appear naive. And that's saying a lot."
Clara smiled shyly, then extended her hand. "Then I guess we're still friends."
Alice took the proffered hand and pressed it firmly between her own. "I'm so glad," she said softly. "I'm very fond of you, you know." She paused a moment, giving Clara a look which spoke volumes about the exact nature of her fondness. "But I'm keeping you from Conrad and your dinner-which seems to be a habit of mine. Run along now. Shall we see each other again soon? We still have a great many things to learn about each other."
"Yes," answered Clara in a very low tone, "a great many things. Why don't you come to my room tomorrow morning, around noon, and bring your bathing suit? Perhaps we can go to the pool together."
"Why, Clara, that sounds like a marvelous suggestion! I'll see you tomorrow, then." Alice relinquished Clara's hand, which she had been holding all this time, and kissed the girl softly on each cheek. "Till tomorrow," she smiled.
The next day, promptly at noon, Alice Burton knocked on Clara's door. There was no response, and, after waiting a moment or two, she knocked again. When she still received no answer, she tried the knob. The door was unlocked, and she opened it slowly and entered the room, which was shrouded in darkness. She stood in the open doorway for a moment, allowing the light to filter in from the hallway so that she could see more clearly. Then she slowly crossed the room to the bed. As she approached, she could make out Clara's figure, huddled into a ball under the bedclothes. She reached out and gently pulled down the blankets over the girl's head and shoulders. "Clara," she said softly, "are you awake?"
There was no direct response, but the slender figure began to shudder spasmodically, and choked sobs burst from the girl's throat.
"Clara, Clara, what is it, darling? Whatever has happened?" asked Alice, reaching out to embrace the girl.
But as soon as Alice's fingertips touched Clara's shoulder, the girl recoiled and rolled away, saying in a broken voice: "Oh, go away. Go away and leave me alone. I'm no good. I'm miserable and filthy and I don't want to talk to anybody. Please go away."
Alice rose. "I shall go away, Clara, but only for a moment or so. And when I return, I want to see you acting more sensibly. You know, whatever happened, I shan't think any the less of you for it, and neither will anybody else who is truly fond of you. And I think you'll feel much better if you tell me all about it. So dry your eyes, love, and get ready to tell me exactly what happened." She bent over, kissed the top of Clara's head and went out.
True to her word, she returned a moment or two later. Clara was still huddled in the middle of the bed exactly as she had been. Her sobs, however, had ceased, and her body no longer shook.
Alice said nothing, but crossed to the windows and pulled back the thick drapes just enough so that the bright, harsh glare of sun was kept out while sufficient light filtered in to allow the occupants of the room to see without turning on a lamp. Then she flung the windows open wide, admitting a gust of clean, fragrant, country air. "There," she said cheerily, "that's better. You just can't mope well in an airy, lightened room. So you might as well sit up, Clara, and stop pretending that you can't. You must admit that half the fun of feeling miserable was swept out of the window with the musty, stuffy smell."
A muffled sob from the bed was her only answer.
"Really, Clara," pressed Alice, "you're being very silly. I wish you'd stop." She crossed from the window into the little bathroom and turned on the tap of the sink. In a little while she returned to Clara's bedside, wearing a towel across her shoulder like a white, terry-cloth serape. She set down an old-fashioned washbasin, containing a bar of soap and a face sponge floating in luke-warm, scented water. "All right," she said, as though in response to a statement of Clara's, "if that's the way you want it.. . "
"Want what?" sniffed the motionless figure huddled in the bed.
"If you want to act like an invalid, I'm going to treat you like one."
Again there was no response. Alice reached over and rolled Clara to the far edge of the bed. She pulled the bedcovers all the way down, ignoring Clara's protests, and began to smooth out the bottom sheet and re-tuck it, saying as she did so: "I always knew that the practical nursing course I took during the Depression would come in handy." She then proceeded to remake the entire bed, rolling Clara back to the side she had first made, in order to smooth out and tuck in the sheet on the second side. When she had smoothed out every crease and every wrinkle, she gently removed Clara's head from the pillows. This action evoked further protest from the girl, but Alice merely replied: "If you want the pillows back you'll have to sit up." She thereupon plumped the pillows out briskly and propped them up against the headboard, adding several satin cushions from a long bench which graced one wall of the chamber. "It's time to sit up now anyway," she added. Clara did not respond, but neither did she protest when Alice reached out and drew her curled-up body towards the head of the bed. "Now sit up, Clara," said Alice. "It's bad enough to have to treat you like an invalid, but it's ridiculous to have to treat you like a child."
"Then go away," said Clara, sounding exactly like a peeved six-year-old.
'You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd like me to leave-so you could get up and close the windows and the curtains and go back to bed and wallow in your misery in the darkness. Well, I'm sorry, my pet, but you shan't get the chance. The sadist in me refuses to allow the masochist in you to enjoy itself. Now sit up, before I drag you up."
Surprisingly, Clara obeyed, revealing for the first time that morning her pale, tear-streaked face. "Well, good morning," said Alice. "How nice to see you again."
"Please," begged Clara in a tiny, strained voice, "no sarcasm. I couldn't bear it."
"All right, I'll make a deal with you. No sarcasm from me, no tears and no self-pity from you. Okay?'
"Okay."
Alice glanced at Clara wryly, but said nothing. Instead she began to sponge the girl's face. "You can do your hands yourself," she said, handing Clara the freshly lathered sponge. Then she crossed to the vanity table and came back with an apothecary jar of talcum, a big powder puff, a hairbrush and comb, a bot-tie of eau de cologne and a vial of hp-rouge. She placed these items on the night table, removing the washbasin to make room for them. Then she handed Clara the towel and carried the basin back into the bathroom. On her way back to the bed, she stopped for a moment to rummage in the closet and returned carrying a golden, quilted bed-jacket.
Within minutes she had Clara powdered, scented, brushed and combed. She applied a dab of lip-rouge to the girl's mouth, saying: "You need just a drop of color." Then she deftly helped her into the bed-jacket. She was just in the act of pulling up the counterpane over the girl's knees and lap when there was a knock at the door.
"Just a minute," called Alice, smoothing out the covers. Then she rose to admit a small boy of about ten, who was standing in front of the door holding a covered breakfast tray. "Thank you so much, darling," said Alice, taking the tray from him and dropping a kiss on his head.
"Anytime, Mrs. Burton," said the child politely. He went out, closing the door behind him.
Alice brought the tray to the bed. "Nothing imagine," she said, removing the napkin. "Just orange juice, coddled eggs, toast and hot chocolate."
For the first time that morning, Clara smiled. "Thank you," she said. She looked somewhat sheepish. "This is my second breakfast-in-bed in a row," she confessed. 'I'll be getting used to it soon."
"Oh?" asked Alice. "Who else is bringing you breakfast in bed these days? Conrad?"
"Yes," admitted Clara, downing her orange juice. She smiled. "That juice feels good. The taste in my mouth was just awful."
"Did you drink too much last night?"
"No," answered Clara, busily attacking her eggs and acting as though she wished she hadn't said anything about the bad taste.
"What caused the bad taste, then?"
"Oh, nothing ... well, maybe ... I smoked a lot, I guess ... that's all."
"What else did you do last night, Clara? Besides smoking a lot?" asked Alice, not fooled.
"Nothing. Nothing much, that is."
"Then why are you so upset this morning?"
"Because ... because ... I would just as soon not talk about it, Alice. I'm all right, now, really I am. You can see that, can't you? And I'm very grateful to you for being so nice and understanding and coaxing me out of my sulks. All it was was a case of nerves. I'm not used to so much partying, you know. And I think that I mentioned I have a sister whom I'm a little worried about. So, between the two things...." Her voice trailed off, and she put a piece of toast into her mouth in the ensuing silence.
"I don't believe you, Clara," said Alice bluntly. "I don't believe you one little bit. Something happened last night-something far worse than anything that has happened to you so far. And until you can talk about it-until you can tell someone the whole story-then it'll continue to haunt you, to stalk you daily and to confront you nightly. I know what I'm talking about, Clara, believe me. Only by talking about it can you lay bare the specter of this ghastly thing. And then it'll be gone, lingering only in the outer reaches of your memory, the way a nightmare lingers."
'It was true," said Clara, her voice little more than a whisper, "that the bad taste came from smoking. I didn't say what it was that I smoked." She paused to sip her hot chocolate.
"And what was it that you smoked?" prompted Alice.
"Opium."
Alice's eyebrows lifted, but in no other way did she betray surprise or shock. "Tell me about it," she said gently. "And start at the beginning. "Do you remember everything?"
"Oh yes!" cried Clara. "That's what's so awful. I remember every single thing perfectly. It's like having a motion picture machine in my brain-and the movie keeps playing over and over again."
"Very well," said Alice, "start with the first reel. Only this time, add sound to your silent movie. As the events flash through your brain, begin describing them. Just tell me what you see yourself saying and thinking and doing. Forget my-presence and just start talking. Once you begin, it'll be easy, you'll see."
"Well," said Clara, taking another sip of chocolate, yesterday afternoon, Bess Lynd invited us-Conrad and me-to a private party. So, after dinner, we went upstairs to where Bess had said the party would be." She popped the last morsel of toast into her mouth and daintily wiped her fingers on the napkin. "We entered a dimly lit vestibule," she continued, "with a small door at one side. Conrad closed the outer door and escorted me through the small one, which led into a room lighted by blue lamps. That is, the color of the lights inside the lamps were blue. There was a funny smell in the air, like nothing I'd ever smelled before. I asked Conrad what it was, but he told me to be quiet. Then he took me by the wrist and led me to a corner where several cushions were heaped on the floor. He motioned me down on the cushions, and he sat down beside me.
"At first, I could see nothing but the lamps with the blue lights, but by the time we had sat down, my eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I could see that we were in a very large room with huge pier-glass mirrors where I would have expected to see windows. There were no windows there at all. In fact, there was very little in the room in the way of furnishings except for four or five couches and lots and lots of pillows. The corners of the room were made into alcoves by diagonal arches, and I could now see that we had entered through one of these alcoves which had been closed up to make a tiny room. There were about a dozen people sitting around, conversing in very low voices, and some of them held short thick pipes with tiny bowls which they frequently lighted and puffed with loud, sucking noises.
"Conrad told me to keep my voice very low. Then he reached into his pocket and took out a small silver box. I asked him what was in it and he said: 'Opium.' Of course, I was terribly shocked at that, for I had heard about the terrible things that people do when they smoke opium, and I knew that you could become addicted to it. 'Are we going to smoke it?' I asked. 'Is that what these other people are smoking?'
" 'We are, and it is,' he answered.
" 'But it's dope,' I said.
'"Of course it's dope,' he whispered, 'and you can become addicted to it if you're not careful. Do you want to leave?'
"
"No,' I whispered, I'll stay.' I don't quite know why I said that, why I didn't just get up and leave. But I didn't. And then it was too late. Conrad handed me one of the small pipes, lighted it and took another out of his pocket for himself. For some reason, it didn't occur to me to be surprised that he had the pipes and the opium with him. Perhaps the half bottle of white wine we had had with dinner made me a little more light-headed than I realized. At any rate, when Conrad told me to drag on the pipe as deeply as I could, I did so. Of course, I almost choked. But I didn't want to attract any attention, so I stifled my coughs as best I could. The stuff tasted awful, and the coughing made my eyes water. I was hardly enjoying myself, but Conrad insisted on my trying it again. I did so, and found it easier. I puffed on the pipe for several minutes. Nothing happened and finally it burned out.
"I handed the pipe back to Conrad. 'Nothing happened,' I said. He refilled and relighted it and gave it back to me, saying: 'Just wait, you'll know when it starts.'
"I began puffing again, more deeply this time, and suddenly I handed the pipe back. 'I don't want anymore,' I said, speaking much more loudly than I had mean to. But no one seemed to notice, although everyone was speaking in whispers. A peculiar feeling came over me, and I would have been frightened if Conrad had not been sitting there so placidly beside me, puffing contentedly away. He looked like an Indian, sitting there so impassively, smoking his peace pipe. But the feeling that had come over me wasn't a peaceful feeling, and I leaned to one side trying to get away from it. I clutched Conrad's arm, thinking that I should have refused to smoke the second pipe, just as I should have refused to do every single thing he ever told me to do, starting from taking off my clothes and reading from my sister's diary! I also told myself that what I needed was a new backbone, and that I'd go out and buy one as soon as I got back to the city. I wondered if you could get one at a corset shop. like whalebone, you see."
"Buy a new backbone?" asked Alice, her eyebrows arched quizzically.
"I'm only telling you what I thought while I was under the influence of the opium," replied Clara. "Anyway, after that, I began to feel a little dizzy, as though I were going around in half-circles. Then I wondered how I could go around in only half-circles. What was happening to the other halves? I felt like Alice-in-Wonderland, and I glanced around for the white rabbit, but I couldn't see him.
"Suddenly Conrad said: 'Listen!' His voice was soft and oval-shaped. I thought that it was funny that I'd never before noticed what a lovely, oval-shaped voice he had. And such pretty colors, too: maroon in the middle, with a brown rim.
" 'Do you hear the music downstairs?' he asked, and the oval rolled over and over, leaving the words behind like tracks from a wheel. I sat up very straight and tried to listen, but the floor seemed to be slanting, so I bent all the way over to one side to stay up straight. I suppose if anyone had been watching me they would have thought I looked rather peculiar, but, of course, everyone was too absorbed in his own pipe dream to even notice me.
"I looked around at the other people, who were all too busy to notice me. There seemed to be twice as many as there had been before. And they all appeared to be twins. It seemed funny to see so many twins at one time.
"They now seemed to be talking louder than they had been before, and all of a sudden I thought I could hear everything they were saying. But they all seemed to be saying such silly things that I began to laugh at how silly they were. My laugh seemed to go up and down like carillon bells, and I thought that one bell was off pitch. I laughed back up to it and laughed that note over a couple of times. It still seemed off. I gave it up and laughed back down the scale again. At the bottom I seemed to hear Kimmi's piano again. And I was sure that I could hear every note. I even seemed to be able to hear farther down the scale that he was playing. Also, I imagined I could hear the piano's foot pedal softly working up and down.
"My face felt very dry, and I passed my hand across it. It was as though there were several large cracks in it. The gesture seemed to take ages, and I had a feeling that I had flung my arm halfway across the room. 'I ought to throw my other arm after it to pick it up,' I thought, and that seemed so ridiculous that I began giggling again. This time the giggle came out as loud braying laughter, and I thought: 'I'm making a jackass of myself.' The picture of myself with long ears and a tad was so funny that I laughed once more, this time so loudly that I wondered why the walls didn't come tumbling down like the ones at Jericho.
"Suddenly, I realized that I was terribly thirsty. I whispered as much to Conrad, who now appeared to be straight up and down in the middle, like a barber-pole, while I seemed to be going around him in a circle on a merry-go-round. I reached out for what looked like a brass ring, but it turned into Conrad's hand. Tm thirsty,' I said again, thinking that I should keep my voice down to a shout. My throat felt as if it were filling up with sand. 'Somebody,' I thought, 'has mistaken me for a sandbox.'
"Conrad handed me a glass, which he seemed to have picked out of the air. I swallowed some of the contents, and, as the liquid ran down my throat, it seemed that I could hear it rambling its way down, rumbling so loud that it sounded like a miniature Niagara Falls.
"I looked at the glass to see how large it was. I felt as though I were drinking quarts and quarts, and that I was spending ten or twenty days in the process. But when I had finished, Conrad was still sitting in the same place, and I thought that it was very nice of him to wait so long for me. 'He must need a shave by now,' I thought. 'Funny, how men have things growing out of their faces that they have to cut off with razors.'
"Suddenly I asked: "Why did you give me lemonade? Did I want lemonade?'
" 'No,' said Conrad, 'you didn't want lemonade, and I didn't give you any. That was wine. How do you feel?'
" 'I don't know,' I said, "I never felt this way before.' Suddenly the walls snapped up straighter and I felt much saner. And my eyesight seemed to have improved enormously. I looked across the room and saw a girl sitting across from me. "My goodness, she has one million, eight hundred seventy-one thousand and three hairs on her head,' I thought. 'And I can see everyone of them.' It seemed as if I had been able to count them all in one millionth of a second, and this made me feel very intelligent.
"I looked at the girl again and saw that she was sprawling across some pillows, just as I was, with a man seated beside her on the floor. However, although there was no one else sitting beside me but Conrad, there was a man sitting in a chair on the other side of the girl. I could see that her hand was in the lap of the man in the chair and that she was moving her hand slowly up and down. At the same time, I watched the man on the floor slowly running his hand up and down her thigh, raising her dress just one and one-three-thousandths of an inch-no more and no less, I was sure-each time his hand went up, but never lowering it at all when his hand came back down.
" 'Watch them' I whispered to Conrad, and then I was ashamed for having said such a thing. I began to blush and I could feel the corpuscles of my blood rushing through my veins. I thought to myself that if I had the time I might count the corpuscles. I began and got to about nine thousand when I started imagining that I was being consumed by a raging flame. It felt so painful that I opened my mouth to scream, as, as soon as I did, the too-intense heat turned into a glow which I could feel seeping out of my skin and into the air around me.
"I turned my attention back to the girl across the room, and it seemed as though I could feel just which muscles worked to move my eyeballs, and I was sure that I could direct each muscle individually. But I forgot all about that when I saw the girl opening the pants of the man on the chair, while the other man stroked her hips, which by now were bare. I was suddenly filled with tremendous excitement. I could feel it running from some place in the back of my brain down my loins. From there it radiated out to all my limbs and gradually filled up my whole body. I could feel the excitement as though it were a real thing rather than a feeling, and I could especially feel it between my legs. I was getting so wet down there that I was afraid I was going to float away. I buried my fists in the pillow beside me to anchor myself down, as watched the girl take the man's ... the man's...."
Here Clara faltered for the first time since she had begun her narrative, and Alice Burton softly supplied: "Cock?"
Clara then went on as though she had never stopped: "cock ... of the man in the chair, and watched her stroking the man's ... thing. She put her fingers tightly around it and moved her hand up and down. Suddenly I thought: 'Why, her hand is beating out Morse Code.' I tried to read the message she was sending, but it seemed to be in a Scandinavian language. Then the girl turned her hips, letting the man on the floor pull her dress all the way up her waist. She wasn't wearing anything under the dress, and her buttocks were very white in the blue light. The man squeezed and patted one. The other seemed to be winking and glowing at me, and I thought: 'Oh, it's the full moon! That means I'll be unwell next week. And blood will pour out."
"Now go on, dear," Alice prodded, "tell me the rest of your story."
Dutifully, Clara went on: "Suddenly, I seemed to snap out of my daze. I was horrified and I looked around the room, wondering which person wouldn't mind too much if I allowed the horror to seep out of my body and into his. Everyone seemed to be watching the two men and the girl, and I realized that every person in that room was participating in some way in what the trio was doing. It seemed as if we were all playing a much greater part in what was happening than we ordinarily would have. It seemed as if each of our thoughts was radiating towards the men and the girl, and each thought seemed to add to their excitement so that it was no longer the excitement of three people, but of twelve or thirteen people.
" 'Take my dress all the way off,' said the girl, and her voice rang in my ear, like the bells in a fire station, "I want them ah to see me completely naked.' Then she leaned back to let one of the men lift the dress over her head. She brought her hands down from her shoulders slowly, rubbing them over her breasts and belly and thighs. Then she pressed them one over the other between her legs, rubbing her fingers in her pubic hair and spreading and closing her knees slowly, again and again, shoving herself to everyone in the room. And, it seemed, especially to me. I suppose I should have been dreadfully embarrassed for her, the way I was embarrassed for the redhead in the theater, but I wasn't. I could feel the excitement between my legs more intensely and wetly than ever, and it even seemed as though I could feel every hair down there, as if each one had a separate identity.
"I became unbearably aware of my ... my sex. The lips were squeezed together, and suddenly the sensation seemed too uncomfortable to stand. I spread my knees wide enough apart to separate the flesh down there, and, as I did, I noticed that the lips seemed to be swelling, although I couldn't ever remember their having done so before, and that, as they swelled, their odor became more and more powerful, so I could smell it quite clearly.
"Then the girl across the room turned toward the man on the chair and faced him, kneeling. She shook her head, and her hair fell over her shoulders like rain. It was so much like rain that I was sure I could hear the gentle hiss that it made. She began to rub and handle the man's pr ... thing, and she pressed herself in between his knees and leaned close to him. He stroked her shoulders and slipped his hands under her armpits, bringing her even closer to him.
"Suddenly, the girl pulled his thing toward her, as if it were a handle, and then she bent her head toward it and sucked it into her mouth. As soon as she did that, I felt as though I were going to choke. I looked sideways at Conrad, and for the first time I realized that his was the only face in the room that I could not read. He seemed to know that I was looking at him, although his face was turned away from me, for he handed me the glass he was holding. I drank it, noticing that it smelled like ether, and I thought: 'I must be unconscious, and they are going to take out my appendix.' I realized that I had already had my appendix removed, and then I thought: 'Oh, well, this time they can take it out of the left side, I don't care.'
"I was still drinking. The liquid tasted like wine mixed with iced coffee. It was a very interesting taste, and I wondered if Conrad had mixed it specially for me, or if it was one of those new instant drinks, and if it was, whether it was called wiffee,' or 'cowine.' I looked back across the room. The girl was still sucking the man's thing. I was horrified, because she was jerking her head from side to side as she sucked, and I was sure she was going to rip the thing from the man's body. She began to fling her own body about wildly, clinging to the man's knees as though she were afraid that she would go flying across the room if she didn't have something to hold on to. Then, still holding on to him, she lay down, with his thing still in her mouth, and her arms and legs sticking out in all directions. She looked like a huge broken insect as she lay there, and, for a moment, she seemed to turn into a gigantic dragonfly, which somehow or other had died from an overdose of human fluid. Finally she turned back into a girl again, a girl swallowing heavily as she pushed herself away from the man to whom she anchored herself.
"She now rolled to the center of the floor, and the man who had undressed her began taking off his own clothes. When he was completely naked except for one sock, which he didn't seem to notice, he walked toward her and she got up on her knees again to clasp him around the hips and kiss his ... little ... sex-thing. She ducked her head between his legs, and those soft things down there bobbed up and down like bells and kept banging into her face as she rubbed her cheek against them. She looked very funny as she knelt there, licking the man with those things dangling down on her forehead, and I began to laugh. I laughed three notes up, and then the fourth note turned into a little gong, which I knew came from having gasped very suddenly, and I imagined that it was I out there, in the middle of the room, and that all those people were looking at me. I made myself gasp again, then I reached through the gasp and pulled myself back into my own body. Then I reached for Conrad's hand. He turned to me inquiringly, and I whispered: 'I was looking for something familiar.' He nodded, and I felt very relieved that he understood. His face seemed very drawn, and his eyebrows turned up at the outer corners, like a Chinaman's.
" 'Don't try to hold anything back' he whispered, in a metallic voice. 'Even if you lose yourself, you can always find the way again.'
'"Yes,' I replied, 'especially if I leave markers to show me how I came.'
"I turned back toward the girl and watched her hugging a pillow to her belly as she bent over double on her knees, her breasts brushing the floor. Her bottom rose, round and soft, like two moons. 'Of course!' I told myself. 'Have you already forgotten about the full moon?'
"I looked at the moon again, but all I could see was the nude man, who now was also on his knees. I noticed that he had a tiny moustache and a very big ... thing. I wondered how a man could have such a tiny moustache and such a big thing, and then I remembered that American Indians never grow moustaches or beards. I was very curious as to whether they all had little things. It seemed like an interesting research project.
"I turned my attention thirty-eight degrees to the left, back to the man atod girl. He had placed his hands on the small of her back and was inching his way forward. 'No,' I corrected myself precisely, 'nine-tenths-of-an-inching his way forward,' and she was reaching in back of her and clutching his sex thing. She began wiggling her behind and brushing her breasts against the rug.
"I felt as if the room were airless and I were going to choke. I took several deep breaths. Then I felt my fingers sink deep into the coarse pile of the rug. Its roughness made me shudder. I crossed my hands over my breasts and rubbed the nipples, which seemed to ache from the roughness of the rug.
"I rubbed the nipples gently, rubbing myself off the rug and back to my own body. 'It must be very lonely for my body when I'm not wearing it,' I thought, 'and it's very rude of me to desert it for someone else's body.'
"When I felt myself, in my own skin, sitting next to Conrad, I decided that it would be safe to watch the man and the girl again. They were now so close that there seemed to be no space between them. The man's thing was rubbing between the girl's legs, and she jerked her head to one side and arched her back sharply. She clutched the pillow tightly to her belly and wriggled her bottom ecstatically.
"'Not there,' she whispered suddenly. "Not there. Not inside me there. You know where I like it.. . '
"She spread her legs in a way which appeared to open her buttocks even more than they already were, and she took the man's thing in her hand again, rubbing it up and down for a split-exactly in half-second, and then moved it up toward the deep crease between her buttocks. She pressed it hard into the division, and a soft moan came from her lips.
" 'There,' she whispered, 'There!'
"Suddenly, I heard the sound of Kimmi's piano being played downstairs. It seemed that I had heard it before, but I couldn't remember when. Each note seemed to travel upward, clear and unmuffled, and I found that I could hear better if I leaned back against the wall, so that the vibrations could enter through the base of my skull. It felt, I thought, as though the tones were being tapped out by an iron mallet in my head. As I listened, I decided that I now understood exactly what the pianist was trying to say. The music no longer sounded garbled and disjointed, it unfolded before me, I thought, like an oriental blossom, revealing intricate patterns and forms, delicate blendings of subtle rhythmic designs.
"I was very pleased with myself for understanding the music so well, and even more pleased that I could describe it in such poetic language. I liked being able to analyze music with musical words, and I went on to think that the melody was now developing poignantly into several swirling threads, laid one on top of the other to form a lacy filigree of sound. Now, I knew, Kirnmi was speaking of the Far East. I could hear the clashing of war cymbals of a young and barbarous land. I thought that people who could make music such as this couldn't possibly be uncivilized like it said in the schoolbooks I had read. Perhaps, I thought the men who write the school books haven't been to the countries they were writing about. I decided that I should leave soon on a sojourn to the Far East and write new school books about the new, civilized Orient.
"I glanced at Conrad, wishing that he'd help me move into the shelter of his arms. Then my glance froze into a stare. His eyebrows seemed to stretch way up into his hairline, and his face was expressionless. He had become, I seemed to realize with a jolt, a Chinaman. He looked deep into my eyes, and I suddenly that that I now had no place left to hide. I imagined that he could look into my mind and that everything I was thinking was as apparent to him as if he were reading my thoughts in a book. He covered my hand with his, and my hand trembled. I let myself be drawn to him, and his arms went around my waist. And now I was glad that he had read my mind, for it seemed to take too much of an effort to speak out loud.
"He ran his fingers down the groove between my buttocks, creasing the fabric of my dress into the fold, and he said in Chinese: 'It could just as well be you, couldn't it?'
"
"What does ... how do you mean?" I stammered. I was rather confused, because I hadn't realized that Conrad spoke Chinese or that I could understand it. My senses seemed to be reeling as he ran his fingers up and down my bottom. 'What could just as well be me?" I asked again.
" 'I don't have to tell you,' he murmured. "You understand.'
"And I did understand. I looked at the girl, and Conrad began to raise my own skirt along my thigh. The girl was so excited that it was frightening to watch her. I wanted to close my eyes and shut her out, but my eyes wouldn't close. The girl tickled her nipples wildly against the rug. Then she ground them into the rough mesh savagely, burying the pink tips into the pile. The girl moaned.
"Suddenly I gasped in horror, for the girl, it now appeared, was trying to impale herself, rear first, on a dagger. 'Oh God,' I thought, 'what a ghastly way to die.' I made a desperate effort and finally managed to close my eyes. When I opened them again, I could see that the girl was still very much alive, and that what she was trying so frantically to force into herself was not a dagger at all but the man's big, swollen shaft.
"While I was watching what was going on in the center of the room, Conrad pulled my dress all the way up to my hips. Now he whispered into my ear: I want you to take your panties off for me.'
"
"Not now,' I replied. 'In my room. Later. Or we can go now, if you want to.'
" 'No,' said Conrad. 'Not in your room and not later. Here! Now!'
"I knew that I should be ashamed, and therefore I kept protesting. 'Wait.' I whispered. 'Wait until no one is looking.'
"I reached under my dress in the back and lifted my hips. Very cautiously, or so I thought, I drew my panties down over my bottom. Inch by inch I got them down to my knees. Now they seemed to travel much faster. I told myself that was because I had shaved my legs and therefore the silk could slide over them faster than if they were unshaven. I gave the panties a shove, and they went whizzing down my legs as though they were on a ski slope. They landed on the floor with a plop, which, I was sure, echoed around the entire room, but no one seemed to notice. Quickly, I grabbed them and shoved them under one of the cushions.
"Without my panties on, and with my dress hiked up to the waist, I felt entirely nude. I shivered with embarrassment, "Please,' I begged Conrad, 'tell me what you're going to do to me.'
"Watch," he replied, nodding toward the naked couple.
"The man was now bending closer to the girl, and his hands were caressing her bottom. His fingers slipped down the back of her thighs to her knees, then up between her thighs and into her anus. He twisted his finger around inside her while he continued to press his thing against her backside. His organ seemed to go even more tightly into the crack between her cheeks, and the girl wiggled and wriggled around on the floor. Then it seemed as though I could feel that big thing tickling me back there.
"'Oh no.' I whispered urgently to Conrad, tugging at his coat as though I were begging him to interfere. 'Oh, no! He mustn't do that!'
"'To you or to her?' asked Conrad. He ran his fingers along the small of my back and lightly began stroking my behind. To me ... to her ... oh, dear! I don't know which of us is which.'
"Conrad said nothing. He merely continued to stroke my bottom, hugging the cheeks gently to him and raising my hips slightly. Then he slipped his hand underneath me and touched the under-part of my thighs and buttocks.
"'It's too real,' I pleaded. 'It's exactly as though it were happening to me.'
"'It is happening to you ... if you let it,' said Conrad. I noticed that he was speaking English again, and his face no longer had an Oriental cast to it. You see,' he went on, 'how easy it is to sin without sinning?' His finger slid between my legs and inside me. He rubbed my pubic hair and ticked my privates. He pressed the lips together to spread the wetness all around, then parted them by running his middle finger through them. He kept on like that, rubbing and tickling that little twig thing down there, which feels so good when you rub it. Then, suddenly, he rammed his finger all the way into me.
"I covered my mouth to keep from screaming, for just at that moment, the naked man unexpectedly drove his thing into the girl's front sex-place. She screamed, and I was sure the cry had come from my own throat. The man began doing it to the girl, holding her by the waist and lifting her hips while his thing went in and out of her. At the same time, Conrad's finger was going in and out of me, but it seemed as though it was not a finger that was invading me but something much larger. It stretched and furiously pumped in and out, and it seemed as though even the soft hairs on the backs of Conrad's fingers had turned into long curling bristles, pressing between my thighs and rubbing inside of me.
"
"You're doing it to me.' I whispered. "You shouldn't be doing it. You know that. You know you weren't going to do it until ... until later.'
"He didn't say anything, and I, to my own surprise, suddenly flung my arms around him and kissed him on the mouth, licking his lips with my tongue, forcing my hips against him, wiggling my bottom from side to side. I drew my mouth away from him and whispered: 'Don't let anybody see you doing it to me.'
"The naked girl across from us now slipped through the man's arms, out of his grasp. Then, turning, she grasped his thing and threw herself headlong on the floor in front of him. She took the sex organ into her mouth and sucked it. 'Oh,' I whispered. 'She's sucking him! And he was doing it to her. She's sucking him after his thing was inside her. I wonder how it tastes. Your own self, I mean!' I said with a giggle.
"Then I heard the girl whispering loudly: "You know where I want it. Give to me where I want it so bad. Shove it up, baby, shove it up where I want it so much.'
"Somehow, the girl's words frightened me, and I buried my face against Conrad's sleeve. He took his hand slowly from between my legs, and my voice cried out softly in protest. He lifted my face to his, and I saw that he was holding out his finger. It was glistening wet, and the odor of my sex clung to it. He brought it closer to my face, and the smell filled my whole throat as well as my nostrils. It smelled funny, I thought, and I decided I didn't like it. I wondered if men really liked it.
" 'Close your eyes,' said Conrad, 'and do exactly as I say.'
"I closed my eyes, and he said: "Put out your tongue.'
"I slipped the tip of my tongue out through my lips and held my breath, and I could smell the finger hovering near. Then I felt the wet fingertip touch my tongue and rub over it. The sweetish taste surprised me. I decided that it had a nicer taste than smell, and I wondered if that were true of all women. I opened my eyes, but Conrad gently closed them again with his other hand. Then he rubbed his finger back and forth across my tongue several times. It felt exactly as though a large, hard sex organ was being drawn over my tongue. Suddenly, Conrad pressed the tip of his finger against, then between, my lips. It was sticky with that stuff from between my legs, and it slipped right into my mouth. I was so surprised by that that I closed my mouth on it.
"Conrad laughed-and said: 'It isn't to eat, you know. It's to suck, like a lollypop-or a man's organ.' He moved his finger gently around in my mouth and whispered: 'Suck it, Clara.'
"I obediently began to do what he had ordered. I told my mind to take a vacation, that I didn't want to think about what I was doing, or why. I just wanted to sit there and suck on my lovely lollypop. You'll never be able to watch a child sucking a lollypop again,' said one half of my mind-the half which hadn't gone on vacation. Suddenly I began giggling, and I pulled my mouth away from Conrad's finger to tell him that I couldn't help laughing. 'It's so funny.' I giggled upscale, 'to suck a man's thing and find that it tastes like a woman!'
"I'll let you suck one that doesn't taste like a woman,' offered Conrad, but I was very happy with the one I had and refused to give it up. After awhile, however, I tired of it, and turned toward the nude couple, just as the man was once again kneeling behind the girl. Once more I watched him place his thing between her buttocks. The girl lowered her head, shaking her hair wildly about as the hard organ began to press at the entrance. It made me slightly sick to see her so overwhelmed by passion. 'It's like watching somebody picking his own scabs,' I thought.
"As I watched the girl strain towards the man's thing, Conrad slipped his hand under my bottom and began to tickle and touch the entrance hole. His finger began to duplicate each and every thrust of the naked man's thing on the other girl's behind. Then he began probing with the tip, pushing in harder and harder. 'Strain yourself against my finger,' he said, 'and it wdl be easier. Don't tighten up and pull away.'
"It'll hurt me,' I whimpered, staring at the big organ which the man was pressing into the girl's behind. Don't do it to me that way again! It hurt me the one time you did it.'
"By now I was convinced that it was Conrad's thing that was probing and poking between my buttocks, and Conrad himself did nothing to disillusion me. 'Is she acting as though it hurts her?' he asked, referring to the girl.
"I was too frightened to think clearly. 'It's too big, and hurry-I mean, hairy!' I stammered. 'Oh. It's just too big.
"'t's because it's big and hairy that she-likes it,' Conrad said, pushing his finger in a little deeper. 'It won't hurt as much as you think it will. Just tell yourself that you're willing, and open yourself to me, and press.'
"I rocked my body nervously and tried to relax, while he pressed harder than ever into me. His finger-or whatever-was entering me, and I was very scared. But the girl on the floor was so excited by now that some of her excitement seemed to flow out of her and into me. She was trying as hard as she could to force the man into her, but he was not yet ready to drive it all the way in. He seemed to be getting great satisfaction out of teasing her and not giving her what she wanted.
" 'If it won't hurt,' I said slowly to Conrad, "I guess you can go ahead.'
"This was probably a silly thing to say, since it was obvious that my consent had nothing whatsoever to do with his plans, but I think I must have wanted to believe that I controlled my own fate. 'But first,' I said, going on with my little game, 'you must promise me that you'll stop if it hurts.'
" 'It won't hurt,' said Conrad. "I won't stop, but it won't hurt.'
"Suddenly, the girl on the floor uttered a quick gasp and her eyes rolled up like the eyes of a dead fish. The man had pushed forward and he was finally entering her. He went deeper, and the girl clutched at the rug, clawing like a cat, while she arched her back and pressed against her partner to force his whole thing into her. I felt as though I'd been stabbed. Conrad had shoved in and was now boring upward. I felt as if my whole body were being reamed and probed by the column of flesh in my bottom. It hurt unbearably, and I began to sob. I was sure that it was Conrad's organ that was intruding into my body, and I screamed for him to stop, but the words came out all wrong. 'My voice,' I thought, 'has betrayed me. I want to tell him to stop,' I explained to my mind, and then I heard my treacherous voice repeating: 'It hurts ... nice. It's so big, so big ... and hairy!'
"Conrad, of course, took that for encouragement and began moving in and out, twisting around so that the surrounding flesh moved up and down with every stroke. I was sure that I was out there on the floor, that I was the girl who was wriggling and twisting as I was rammed in the rear, arching and grinding my hips in that disgustingly obscene display. I watched myself cry out, clutch at my breasts, pull at my nipples, roll my head wildly. Then, while I-or was it she?-was being ravished in this manner, the second man left his chair and, without removing his clothes, sat on the floor facing her-or was it me?-his legs out in front of him, spread wide, his fly open.
"The girl-I could tell now that it was she-plunged her hands into his pubic hair through his open fly and hauled his sex out into the open. His organ was already very hard, and she put her mouth on it and began to suck it I clutched Conrad's hand, nervously separating his fingers and squeezing them together. Suddenly I pulled his hand to my mouth and began to suck on his fingers and thumb, one after the other. In my mind, each finger seemed to be the organ of a man, and each one was a different color. 'And six different flavors,' I thought. I would have giggled, but I was too busy sampling the different men.
"As I sucked on the purple one-black raspberry, it was-my eyes fluttered open and flickered over the girl on the rug. She had sucked the head of the second man's thing into her mouth and had thrown her arms around his waist, supporting herself on his thighs. He slipped his hands under her breasts and began to press them and fondle them and pinch her nipples while he fed her more and more of his thing until it was entirely in her mouth. Then he started jerking his hips back and forth.
"The girl suddenly clutched at the man's knees, then at his thing, and I saw that her mouth was filling up with that liquid stuff, and that she was swallowing it. Almost immediately the other man started jerking as though he had convulsions. The girl also seemed to be going into convulsions, and the first man's hands fell to his sides. At the same time, Conrad slipped his thumb inside my ... my privates, and I was shaken by spasms greater than any I had ever felt before. When I opened my eyes again, Conrad had taken both his thumb and finger out of me. 'Come on,' he said, 'get up.'
" Why?' I asked 'where are we going?'
" 'To look for Bess Lynd,' he replied. We were supposed to meet her here, remember?'
" 'No,' I said. "That is, yes. I mean, I remember now, but I didn't before you said anything.'
" Well,' he said patiently, 'now that you remember again, why don't you stand up and we'll go and look for her.'
"Because,' I said, 'it's so nice here. I don't want to go anywhere, Conrad. Can't you go and look for her by yourself? Then, when you find her, bring her back.
'"All right,' said Conrad, 'if that's what you want. Here.'
"He handed me the little silver box, saying, 'I'll leave you this box of dreams. Smoke your way into heaven if you want to, but, if anything happens and you seem to be heading in the other direction-not that I imagine anything will-and especially if you get frightened, try a change of atmosphere and go back to your room. Nowhere else, though-do you understand? Either stay in the rooms with the blue lights or go straight down the hall to the left, turn left again to the end of the hallway and you'll see your door. Okay?"
" 'Okay, Conrad,' I said brightly.
"And he disappeared into the blue lights. So now you see," said Clara, acknowledging Alice's presence for the first time in over twenty minutes, "how terrible it was."
"Well," said Alice, "to tell you the truth, no, I don't see. Granted that you had a new and rather frightening experience, but I don't think it was a really dreadful one."
"But all those things that I thought ... you don't know how awful they seem now. Or how scary and spooky it is to think you can feel your blood running through your veins, or to believe you've been changed into someone else."
"But I do know, Clara. I don't smoke opium any more, but I tried it several times when I was younger. While it is a very strange experience, it's hardly one to get suicidal over."
"But," said Clara, "I haven't told you everything."
"Oh? said Alice inquiringly.
"No," said Clara. "That was only the beginning."