Chapter 8
Sue Parker was very nervous as she showered and dressed the following Monday evening. She kept dropping things, and her hands were slippery with perspiration. She didn't know how one was expected to dress for a "group therapy session." She kept thinking about it as that, although she knew that the type of "therapy" practiced by Connie Beach and her "clients" had never been sanctioned by any psychiatrist.
She settled on a simple ruffled blouse with buttons down the front, and a pleated skirt. They would be easy to take off and put on, as the occasion arose. She ruled out a garter belt and stockings. But she did wear panties and a brassiere. How obvious could one get? Especially a newcomer, like herself.
To her consternation, Wes picked this night to come home early. "Where are you off to?" he inquired with some surprise.
"To a bridge game," she lied.
"Good, have fun."
"I'll do my best," she said almost fiercely. "Your supper is in the oven."
She hurried out of the house as if she were extremely anxious to get away. Wes thought she acted as if she were guilty about something. A wild thought flitted across his mind. Had the thing he refused to let himself think about finally happened? Had Sue taken a lover? Nonsense! With finality, he put it out of his mind. Sue loved bridge, that was all there was to it I
She found the place without any trouble, a small, white bungalow, set well back off the road in a grove of trees, with no other houses on either side of it for several blocks. She parked the car in a clearing behind the house and went to the side door, as she had been instructed to do.
Connie Beach, dressed in sweater and pirate pants, greeted her in the vestibule. "You're one of the first to arrive, Sue." Her smile was satanic. "I knewlyou'd he here."
Sue flushed. "I didn't."
"Come into the make-up room." She indicated a door off one side of the vestibule.
"Make-up room?"
Connie laughed. "You'll see."
The first thing that hit Sue's eyes when they entered was a table whose entire surface was covered with rubber Halloween masks, the thin kind that fit over the whole head and have an eerily realistic appearance about them. These particular masks had been stamped with the likenesses of popular Hollywood actors and actresses.
"We wear these?" Sue asked.
"Yes, they serve a double purpose. Not only do they conceal the true identity of the wearer, but they add a special flavor to our therapy sessions." She picked up one mask that was a caricature of Gina Lollobrigida. "How many fellows dream of sleeping with Gina? Well, here they can make the dream come true."
Sue was intrigued, as well as relieved that no one could recognize her. Her big concern had been that, by chance, another of Connie's clients, or "patients," as the dark girl preferred to call them, would be some remote acquaintance of hers or of Wes's. It didn't matter now.
She giggled, getting into the spirit of the thing. "I don't think I'm the Gina type, do you, Connie?"
Connie pursed her lips and studied the table.
"We don't care about facial resemblances. What we like is to pick a mask that will go along with the figure. Let's see, I think you'll pass very nicely as Ava Gardner."
Sue was flattered as she slipped the mask over her head. "I don't have her figure, of course."
"You have a lovely figure," Connie smirked. "And I should know."
Sue was thankful that the mask hid her blush. "I'm ready," she said in a small voice. As they left the room, she asked Connie, "Why don't you wear a mask?"
"Because I'm the ringmaster. Only the clowns and the performers are made-up. Lorraine is wearing a mask, though. See if you can pick her out."
The mask was surprisingly light and comfortable, and it moved with the facial muscles so that it did not impede breathing, seeing, nor opening the mouth. Sue glimpsed her reflection in a mirror and started. She could almost believe that she was the famous, glamorous star. A sense of power and exhilaration charged her body, and she walked with a springy, confident step.
There were a dozen men and women milling about in the large living room. They all wore the rubber masks. Sue made a game out of identifying the celebrities they represented. There were Robert Taylor, Clark Gable, Rock Hudson. Sophia Loren, Betty Grable. Jayne Mansfield she knew who the girl playing Jayne was! It had to be Lorraine Olson.
She could spot those luscious boobs and buttocks immediately. There were other familiar faces stamped on the masks. Sue felt as if she were at a Hollywood-opening party. Connie led her over to a table against the wall that served as a bar.
"Help yourself, honey. I have to get back to the door."
Tingling with anticipation, she poured herself a stiff belt of Scotch and downed it in one gulp. She was refilling the glass when she felt the hand on her buttocks. Sue gasped and leaped a foot in the air. She whirled around angrily to confront the John Wayne mask. It wore the silly grin that all of the masks wore, the same grin her own mask wore. The tirade she had intended to loose on her annoyer died in her throat. It would have been the same as shouting at a department store dummy. No one in this room tonight was real.
The man spoke to her as he put an arm about her shoulders. "Come on, bring your drink out into the sun parlor. There's a good show going on out there."
She followed him through a doorway into a smaller room where a group of spectators were clustered around a chaise lounge, laughing and applauding from time to time. They went around behind the lounge where there was a gap in the circle. Sue's eyes bulged at her first glimpse of the tableau.
Three naked bodies, two women and one man. The smaller of the females had plump white breasts with purplish nipples that pointed out to the sides. The second woman, tall with a sleek-muscled body, was deeply tanned, with the exception of stark white bands around her breasts and buttocks where her bikini had left its brand. Her boobs were hard and very pointed. As she moved against the first woman, her sharp nipples actually stabbed at the other's soft breasts.
"But why is the big one wearing a man's mask?" Sue asked her new-found partner.
He laughed. "Why not? She wants to be a great male lover. Tonight she has that wish."
The third member of the "acrobatic team" on the lounge was a brawny beach boy with huge biceps, knotted calves and small buttocks that were solid muscle. "Wow!" Sue exclaimed under her breath. Fittingly, he wore the mask of a former Hollywood Tarzan.
To the applause of the crowd, he joined the wild activity on the lounge. The bizarre trio commenced to bounce and gyrate and canter at a pace that brought loud cheers and whistles of admiration from the spectators.
"They're splendid, aren't they?" her escort asked.
Sue did not answer right away. Her first sight of the revelers on the couch had made her slightly nauseous. She had been repelled. But then a gradual metamorphosis had taken place. Curiosity had replaced disgust. Interest had replaced curiosity. Fascination had replaced interest. And, finally, intense excitement had pervaded her whole body. Her breasts tingled, and her bra felt much too tight. She did not object as her partner began to caress her buttocks through her skirt. She wished they were naked.
"Shall we move on to another act?" he asked.
"Yes. And another drink, please."
The alcohol was inflaming the thoughts and uneasy passions stirred up by the performance on the chaise lounge. "Don't they mind being watched?" she asked him.
"Why should they?" He laughed. "The crowd is watching actors, not the real people inside the masks. The fact is, that when you wear one of these for a while, you really do lose your own identity. It's just as though those people on the couch were standing with the other spectators, watching the anonymous bodies on the chaise perform their lecherous orgies. The best part is that they can enjoy the orgy at the same time. Haven't you ever had the repressed desire to do some shockingly lecherous or socially unacceptable act? We all have, at times, so don't bother to deny it. What we really would like is, by some magic, to be transformed into another identity, under whose guise we could perform and thoroughly enjoy our reprehensible behavior. Then, when all was done, we would revert to our own dear, righteous selves, and there would be no qualms of conscience,"
Sue was enlightened, suddenly. "In a sense, that's what Dr. Jekyll did, isn't it?"
"Ah, yes. So, you see, these masks are comparable to the potion which turned dear, sweet Jekyll into evil, lecherous Hyde."
She giggled, feeling his hand gradually lifting her skirt in back until he could dip beneath the hem. Goose flesh dotted her bare legs as his hand worked.
"You shouldn't," she said weakly. "People will look at us.".
"Good," he laughed.
Back in the parlor, another girl was on top of a table doing a strip tease. She was down to her stockings, garter belt, panties and brassiere. She had a trim figure with firm, conical breasts that spilled over the top of her undersized bikini bra. Her heart-shaped buttocks in the bright red chiffon panties looked like a big valentine. She had long, lovely, pinup legs that flashed and gleamed with her gyrations in the light of the overhead lamp.
"Take 'em off!" the crowd shouted.
She obliged by flinging off the bra, and her boobs exploded out of their confinement with a gusto that drew a long "ah" from the onlookers. Directly in front of Sue, a man pulled down the shoulder straps of the girl beside him and popped one of her breasts into view, as he would pop a grape out of its skin. He began to caress her avidly while he watched the strip tease on the table.
Sue had the sensation that a small furnace had been lit. Her escort was still busily stoking the fire.
The girl on he table wriggled her red panties down to her ankles and then kicked them high into the air.
One couple in the crowd retreated to a couch in one corner of the room. The woman ripped at her companion's clothes in a frenzy, and then cooed at the resplendent sight of him. Hoisting her dress around her hips, she lunged at him.
"Champagne!" the stripper shouted hoarsely as she undulated in sensual rhythm on the table top, naked except for her garter belt and stockings. With every motion her buttocks rose like balloons. Somebody handed her a bottle of pink champagne, and she tipped the bottle to her lips. She giggled when she had finished drinking.
"I'm thirsty all over." With that, she began to pour the sparkling wine down the cleft between her breasts. Liquid trickled in a silvery stream down her body. Two of the men in the crowd rushed to the table and grabbed her. Each lifted her with one hand under a knee and one supporting her buttocks. They paraded her about the room like a conquering heroine.
A short man went panting over to her. "Give me a drink." He placed his lips against her and drank thirstily and lustily. That was no less a pleasure for her. Her body shook, and her legs twitched, and her back arched so that her breasts pointed almost straight into the air. with their rosy summits blooming from the ecstasy that wracked her frame.
The blood was flowing fiercely through Sue's body now, primed by the touch of the man who was with her. Unashamedly, she turned to him.
"Can we go somewhere private?"
He took her hand. "What's wrong with the couch over there?" He pointed to the couple who were in the corner. The woman was galloping down the home stretch, while several onlookers applauded
"They'll be done in a while."
"I don't want to be in front of all these people. At least not this first time."
He scratched his head. "I don't know . . . Wait a minute, I'll ask our lovely therapist." He signaled Connie, who was conversing with a couple who resembled a famous husband and wife dancing team.
She came over, smiling. "Anything wrong? Are you enjoying yourselves?"
"This is an education," Sue admitted, ashamed to admit, however, just how exciting she did find the evening.
"My girl here is a little reluctant to perform in public tonight," the man explained. "Any suggestions?"
"Why, of course." Connie's laugh was sly. "Take her into the bedroom That's just the place for her initiation."
He led her through a doorway down a small hall and into a small bedroom. He shut the door. "This suit you, dear?"
"I guess so." In spite of her wish not to appear too eager, she fairly flung off her blouse and skirt.
Her fingers trembled so badly, she could not unfasten her brassiere.
He laughed and did that for her. "Exciting, isn't this, going to bed with a stranger?"
She giggled and began to roll her panties down. He watched her, intrigued by the way the elastic bit at the glowing flesh of her plump globes. As she stooped to untangle the panties from her ankles, he moved behind her and pushed. She yelped in surprise and fell forward across the bed. He pounced at her like a hungry wolf and rolled her over onto her back. Her stinging nipples reached up to him. He kissed one greedily, the unbearable ache seeming to make her breast swell to twice its normal size. One hand worked urgently, stoking, ever stoking, the blast furnace. She had a perverse wish that Wes could see her now, see what she was doing with this man. Without the mask, too! She would laugh in his face! His spineless, emasculated face! She was a woman, and she was with a man, at last. What a man!
She pulled away from him and they wrestled around on the big double bed, bodies glistening with sweat, in sinuous contortions. His mouth was still nibbling, sending insane messages of delight radiating in all directions through her flesh. Her hands clutched at him and drew him to her lips. Her hands coddled and caressed him, too. Everywhere.
Sue Parker had taken thirty-one years to realize what real passion was!
The wild gavotte increased in intensity until the bed springs were singing in discordant accompaniment. The final chords rattled her bones like the clash of cymbals. When that was over, she lay sprawled on the quilt, an empty shell.
When they staggered out of the room afterward, Connie was waiting for them. "How did that go?"
Sue's voice was weak. "Quite well, thank you."
Connie laughed. "You must be exhausted."
Sue tensed. "Exhausted? Why should I be?"
"Well, that was a pretty strenuous session, I thought."
Sue's knees trembled, and panic tightened her throat. "You thought! How do you --? No. you couldn't -" The words died dully.
The dark girl launched again. "Yes, I looked We all did. Come here." She led Sue over to the wall that adjoined the bedroom. A large picture hung in the center of the wall, She took it down To Sue's horror and embarrassment there was a small window set in the wall, through which she could see clearly into the bedroom and monitor all that went on on the rumpled bed
"I don't understand," she choked.
"Simple," Connie explained. "One-way mirror. On the other side, it's an ordinary mirror From this side it's a clear window. A lot of the new patients are shy, like you, so we put them at ease this way.'
A male eavesdropper commented "You were just great, honey. I, personally, get a bigger kick out of watching the kids when they think they're alone.
There's a spontaneity about them that the old hands lack, somehow."
As Connie and the man discussed, spiritedly, the merits of private love versus public love, Sue shut her eyes and let the last shred of her morality and self-respect slip away. There was a certain peace in knowing you were depraved and wanton.