Chapter 13
Tina no longer went to church. It was not that she no longer believed, on the contrary, she believed very strongly it was merely that the Church seemed just another institution. There was nothing which made it unique; it paid taxes like other institutions, the priests and ministers married and divorced at will, the church services were simple and without elaborate ceremony.
Most people welcomed this change. But Tina was one of a small, dissatisfied minority who dreamed of the mysterious and the magical, who longed for some sense of the sublime beyond art and the exotic planets which everyone could travel to. She was interested in the inner depths the strange qualities of the mind and whether or not there was a divine source.
Tina had heard that there were small underground groups celebrating a new form of religion. There was little information about them but she knew that they existed. Her efforts at contacting them had been unsuccessful. The groups were not subject to any repression by the government, on the contrary, everybody was able and encouraged to exercise their absolute freedom. It was just that the groups kept secret in order to preserve the secrecy of their doctrine.
One afternoon, Tina went into one of the moving Cinemas, giant movie houses which floated about twenty feet off the ground using the hydrofoil method. After the movie, she entered a small outdoor cafe which hung from the side of one of the massive skyscrapers. It was a blazing hot day and the coolness of the coffee house refreshed her.
An electronic "bird" flew to her table and waited for her order. She scribbled it on a piece of paper, stuffed it in its beak, and pressed the return button. The "bird" flew away and returned five minutes later with a cooling drink and a dish of ice cream.
She saw a man walk into the coffee house and stand at the entrance, looking around. Suddenly, he noticed her and began to walk toward her table. She tried to think if she knew him but she couldn't remember ever having seen him before.
He sat down boldly at her table.
"Do you mind?"
"Do I have a choice? You are already seated," she laughed.
"I suppose you don't."
They sat in silence. The man's eyes roamed over her body in an extremely frank, sexual manner. But there was something about his gaze which made it impossible to take affront at his stares.
"I know who you are," he said suddenly. She stiffened.
"Your name is Tina."
"There are many women named Tina," she replied, sipping her drink.
"Perhaps," he replied, "but there is only one woman named Tina who hungers for a divine purpose in life."
She felt her blood run cold. He knew too much.
"Do I shock you?"
"How did you know?"
"We have our ways. Are you ready to follow me?"
Where? For what?"
Tina felt her head spinning. She felt a sense of desperation at being so close to her goal and yet so far away.
The man took out a pencil and then a piece of crumpled paper. He smoothed out the paper on top of the table and then wrote an address on it. Folding it, he pressed it into her palm, saying:
"Tomorrow night, at nine sharp. Be there."
With that he was gone. She called out to him but he moved through the door without turning back. Opening the paper she saw it was an address in the old quarter, a section of the city which had been preserved intact, excavated, and floated about a mile up.
She pocketed the address and went home. For the next day and one half she was totally unnerved, excited at the coming event. Nothing else could interest her, nothing else could intrude on her dreams.
She arrived at the address a half hour early and moved away from the door to wait for the stipulated time. Finally, nine o'clock arrived and she rang the bell. At first there was no answer but then she heard some steps behind the door and a woman about her own age opened it.
"Yes?" she said pleasantly.
"I'm Tina. I was told to come."
The woman looked critically at the piece of paper which Tina had handed her and which contained the address the stranger had written.
"Very well come in."
Tina walked through the door. It was dark inside, terribly dark.
"Follow me," the woman said.
They began to climb a steep flight of stairs which seemed to be constructed in the fashion of a double helix. The climb made her dizzy and she had to hold on to the thin banisters for support. They reached a door and the woman knocked. It opened and Tina was led into a room where about twenty-five people, both men and women, were sitting on the floor. The room was absolutely empty of furniture or furnishings. The people were naked.
"Take your clothes off," the woman said. Tina obeyed and was about to drop her clothes on the floor when the stranger materialized and reached out his hand, smiling:
"IT! take those."
She gave him the clothes and then she squatted on the floor like the others, painfully aware of her nakedness.
The stranger returned and began to speak to an older man who stood at the end of the room, the only one standing. The stranger was speaking quickly and pointing to her. The older man, obviously the leader of the group, kept looking at her and nodding. Then the stranger resumed his seat.
The leader turned to her: "We welcome you here. All of us know what you have gone through. All of us realize what it is to search for a divine source and to find nothing. We have discovered that source and we are offering you a chance to worship with us. Do you want to worship, Tina?"
"Yes, yes, more than anything." There was a mumble of approval among the people present and they all smiled at her. She was beginning to lose her sense of shame at being naked.
"Only the initiated can know the ways of our worship. Tina, are you ready to be initiated? Are you ready to participate in a secret pact with the divine source?"
"Yes."
"Then come here."
She stood up, suddenly very self-conscious again and began to walk toward him. She could see and feel the gazes of the other, watching her as she walked.
"Stand there," the leader commanded.
He walked to her and began to circle her, watching her body.
"Do you believe in the possibility of salvation?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Do you believe that every man and woman has a divine purpose on earth."
"Yes."
"Do you believe in the beauty of the flesh."
"Yes."
"Do you believe that the flesh can be worshipped and must be worshipped as the path to the divine?"
His question perplexed her but she was caught up in the rhythm of their questions and answers and she finally answered "yes."
He was standing directly in front of her, his eyes glaring into her eyes. She had never experienced such a powerful and total stare before. She felt that his eyes could fragment her, tear her apart at will.
He reached out both his hands and grasped a naked breast in each one. She shivered and closed her eyes. His hands began to squeeze her naked mounds, slowly and gently, drawing out her inner lusts. There was no sound in the room except for the tense breathing of the participants and the spectators.
The fingers reached her nipples and they became like pincers, driving the points into an absolute frenzy until they stood erect and quivering on the white backdrop of her breasts. His fingers were those of a magician, and every time he touched the nipples more she felt that her legs had turned to jelly and that she'd collapse.
His fingertips were still on her nipples when he said:
"Repeat after me."
She nodded her head to show that she understood.
"I believe in the almighty flesh."
She repeated after him, making sure that she pronounced the words distinctly.
"I believe in salvation."
"I believe in salvation."
It continued, phrase after phrase, each one more emotional and more melodramatic, until she felt like she was losing consciousness. Her nipples screamed for release from his magic fingers but he kept her there.
Suddenly, she heard something behind her. Turning, she saw a man standing very close.
"Face front," the leader said, and he continued his recitation.
She had just repeated the words, "I believe in the magical power of this group," when suddenly she felt something against her flesh and a second later an erect male penis slid between her buttocks.
It rested there, without moving, and her face stretched into a mask of fear. Her nipples were still excited but she held up her arms to the leader. He ignored her look and kept reciting, forcing her to continue. The moment she said the next word, the penis was rammed into her, between the quivering buns, so hard that she was thrust forward.
The man behind her began to pump, sending that live column deep with her, so deep that when she tried to recite the words died on her lips.
Suddenly the man withdrew and Tina felt as if a gust of wind was vacating her body. She felt relieved, until, a moment later, another organ impaled her, this one more forcefully.
They came, one after another, using their columns as spears, to violate her buttocks, to send their greedy flesh into her, to torment her, to crack her apart but still she stood repeating the words of the leader. Her nipples were screaming for release. She tried to push herself forward, to escape from the rear impalement and to sink her nipples into the coolness of the leader's mouth.
Her body was covered with sweat and every square inch of her was palpitating from the cruel thrusts it was more than lust it was total passion, ripping, plunging, heating her body as if to ready it for the furnace of salvation.
Suddenly it stopped, the columns left her. The leader released her nipples and waited until she had gained some of her composure.
He stepped back and motioned to the other women. They formed a line in front of her, scores of naked bodies that seemed to be strainng toward the divine.
"They are your stepping-stones, Tina, your path to where you want to go. Kneel before them, be thankful that they are taking you into the fold."
She got to her knees. The first woman approached and thrust her steaming nest into her face. She couldn't move, the heat of the circling body seemed to suffocate her.
"Thank her, thank her," the voice of the leader droned.
The woman's body seemed to open for her, to spread itself to receive the gift. Her tongue played with the woman's vaginal lips, making erotic circles at the gates of love. Then, incensed by the closeness and the possibility of the divine, she sunk her tongue into the waiting flower. The woman moaned and pressed her thighs against the side of Tina's head.
She lost control, her tongue was like a snake, going deeper, digging into the flesh and the steamy moistness of the trembling organ. Then, without warning, the woman moved away and left gasping on the floor.
But another woman took her place, another sweet nest to be pierced. Her tongue had reached the frenzy of the damned and plunged, again and again, deep into whatever was in front of it. She felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing except the glories of the women, her compatriots, and she paid them for their interest with magnificent thrusts.
Suddenly, strong arms pulled her up, powerful arms carried her to the far wall and held her there. Her eyes couldn't see, blinded by sweat and lust, and they couldn't see when she felt the shock of an organ ram into her waiting nest. She cried out once, more in joy than fright, and then gave her body up to the divine rhythm of the leader who pinned her against the wall and took his pleasure.
She lost consciousness and when she awoke, the stranger was kneeling beside her.
"How do you feel?"
Tina smiled softly, feeling purged, feeling freer than she had ever felt in her life.
"There will be much more, I promise you, now that you are initiated."
She struggled to her feet and joined the others, her mind reeling from the events but possessed of a strange optimism that she would prevail and survive perhaps even against the gates of Hell.