Chapter 2
The fantasy begins once more the moment the screen door slams shut.
Hilario walks back into the trailer completely naked. His enormous cock is rock-hard now. He holds its stiff length in both hands, and it projects from a hairy belly like the trunk of a tree.
Striding to the table, massive thighs black with silky hair, he grasps Evan's head roughly, pulls him towards the dripping, red head of the cock, and, as Evan jerks back, fingers on his jaw open his lips. The cockhead is bright red with inflamed blood; beads of milky ooze drip from it. Evan stares at swollen veins, foreskin pulled taut by erect cockshaft and gathered in a tight pucker around a pulpy ridge; he smells its tainted odor.
Hands holding him and fingers meshed in his hair are not rough but caressing, fondle the back of his neck, push him slowly over the hard flesh of the cock and his lips enclosed it. Hilario mutters, "Take it slow, man, I'm gonna squirt a load into you you're gonna love, got enough jizz in my balls to drown you," and gradually the cock sinks deep.
Unlike the other fantasy about the Spanish-American, sex is less brutal, almost loving, as the hands stroke Evan's hair, caress him fondly. Hilario stands, heavy, naked thighs quivering, bare feet planted wide apart and hips jutting forward, stares at Evan's saliva-wet lips as they suck the cock's spongy head, slide to pubic hair in his groin. Smiling, he groans, "That's it, Anglo, suck me, make me feel good!" Bending his knees slightly, he holds the immense cock away from Evan's lips as it slides from his mouth, its foreskin slimy with saliva; then, gripping the cock furiously in his fist, he mutters, "You like this dick, Anglo? Not bad for a lousy Spanish-American, eh." Evan stares up at liquid black eyes, nods his head, eagerly returns his mouth to that huge erotic hunk of flesh.
Its taste is raunchy, virile, as he licks a quivering shaft with his tongue, contracts throat muscles to stroke it, as Hilario begins to moan in low, grunting sounds. The cock plunges in and out of his lips more rapidly, removed to its inflamed head, then shoved back in as Evan tries to swallow it, feels it expanding in his throat, and, with a violent shove, come spurts from it.
He sat, dreaming at the table, in the heat from the trailer window. Sunlight had dried bread of a peanut-butter sandwich he'd made and it now tasted as rotten as lukewarm beer. Not exactly a dream, although stupidly impossible to believe, his thoughts revolved around the fuzz, who'd arrived two hours after he telephone and Hilario had stamped out the door; the excuses these men made, finally admitting there was nothing they could do as long as the court trial was in process. And, when he'd accused them of what Hilario said (their relationship with the Maes family) both had laughed at him and made remarks about the "crazy Anglo writer"!
When the two left, his anger altered to frustration with his predicament. You mean to tell me this sort of thing can happen in the twentieth century? He'd made the sandwich, plugged the tin top of a beer can, sat angrily at the table; he actually loathed peanut butter, and the Goddamn beer tasted like piss!
Well get your head straight. If I call off the trial, then split... Split? But where? His eyes moved to the silently accusing typewriter on the table by his arm. Go back to that Disney shit-emporium? Never, but the chances of his ever writing the Great American Novel in this wilderness were slim. Well, maybe less slim than in the suffocating middle-America atmosphere of that Goddamn studio!
At UCLA, he'd been a good student but had slid through the four years on the encouragement of professors who thought him attractive and talented; other activities, other than his studies, were more important and required his participation. He joined many campus political organizations, including the Black Activist Group after there'd been demonstrations in the college dean's office and burning of campus-police files. He thought by joining the Blacks he'd remove the onus of being part of the Establishment, which he was not, but his mother and fattier were.
Lambert now was an executive with an aerospace company in the valley, a vast complex of new buildings spread over once green hills, now bulldozed and level, now barren as the Mojave desert. The Blacks had demonstrated here, also, were quickly repulsed with tear-gas fired by company guards with huge boxer dogs and billy-clubs. At meetings held by the Activists, some took particular pleasure in reminding Evan of his "capitalist, whitey ties", but he soon proved to them his loyalty to the cause.
Ethan Lambert got himself atomized white in an experimental supersonic plane designed to wipe out resistance by slant-eyed Asians; Rodgtron Industries erected a bronze plaque to their vice-president's memory and the widow was handsomely compensated for his "sacrifice" in the form of three million dollars cash. And, for a short while, Evan's life took an upward turn. He'd never cared much for his father, considering him to be an embarrassing member of the "Industrial-military complex". He continued to live with his mother, even after he left the hallowed halls of Disney, planned to give some of the money he'd get from his father's estate to the Black group, talked a lot about the amount became a kind of hero. But before he could do this, his mother died, leaving the money and the house and property overlooking the Pacific to the university. The land Ethan Lambert had bought in New Mexico and the magnificent sum of five thousand dollars became Evan's.
Big deal, he thought as he stared at the dried-up earth and pinon trees covered with dust. Most of the money had gone for payments on the Ford and trailer, the cast for Tazel, and there was damn little left. A horsefly buzzed at the window screen and, furiously, he crushed it in his fingers. Goddamn!
He got up, slammed back the small trig door, removed another can of beer, reseated himself at the table; gazed absently out the window again, sniffing the heat. Still if it weren't for the night job at that freaky motel, I'd be down to my last penny... and now, if I lose, the court case, charges, lawyer fees -- oh, Christ! He knew if there'd been any other place for him to go after his mother's death, he would have gone there. This Godforsaken country try has shot me down. Yet he knew, also, there was no point blaming his "creative slump" on the land. He'd just lucked-out!
He decides to take a train from Los Angeles rather than a plane; cheaper and he can "see the country". And it is interesting although the Pullman is dirty, food in the diner abominable, but he likes the New Mexican town where he disembarks, takes a taxi to a second town, its old hotel similar to some he's seen in travelogues of the Southwest residents dressed in cowboy clothes, fewer tourists than expected. A central plaza with tall cottonwoods, a war memorial, is surrounded by picturesque buildings, shops at street level, offices above. In one, he finds the real-estate agent who tells him how to find Ethan Lambert's land.
"Something you should know," says the agent eyeing Evan's city clothes and neatly polished shoes. "You got any idea what an access road is, son?" Evan shakes his head. "Well, I'll tell you. Y'see, the Maes family -- very powerful around these parts -- have owned the property each side of yours for couple hundred years. Now, that access road. We -- your papa and me -- checked if it was listed as a county road and it was. What I mean to say is, you shouldn't have no trouble from the Maes far as I can figure." The man stares at Evan through blurred bifocals. "You mind your business, don't mess around with them, is all I advise."
After paying the down payment on the Ford and trailer, he drives from the highway and, along the access road, is stopped by several burly types with grinning mouths, rifles at the ready. When he tells them who he is, they bow scoffingly, permit him to pass. This first introduction to the Maeses does not encourage a further exchange of friendship. He sees the youngest son a few times puttering around in that horrible mess of mangled cars in the yard, the daughter, Antonia (learns their names gradually), who seems less hostile, the two other sons and, occasionally, the mother, Rosabel, with a herd of goats, a cow or two. He learns to ignore these strange people, occupies himself with his land and his horse.
He gets the job of night clerk in the motel, sits at the trailer table during the day pounding on typewriter keys in the heat buzzing of flies a constant irritation. His mind seems a blank, a vacuum, although he does manage to bang out page after page of meaningless nonsense. He knows that it is, and, trying to relax, to admit he's "dried up" creatively, learns to enjoy cool mornings, clear skies free of smog, vistas of flat plains and snow-covered mountains. But, when loneliness and frustration bug him to distraction, he slams from the trailer to ride Tazel for hours over the dry earth until exhausted.
His eyes moved from staring at the beer can in his hand to a window over the table and a sky so blue it hurt his eyes. Sweat coursed down his cheeks, dampening long sideburns, dripped from his chin. Whatever happens with the trial, I'll not go back! He kicked at the screen door, stepped outside, crossed to the corral. The barn was slightly cooler, but heady with odors of manure and straw blistering in the heat. As he stroked Tazel's sleek white neck, he murmured in the horse's ear, refilled the feed box and poured water in the trough, ambled back to the trailer, underarms of his white shirt soaked with sweat. Since he'd requested a two-week absence from the motel because of the trial (begrudgingly given by the manager, a Spanish-American) there was no sense rushing about the rest of the day. How about a nap?
He stripped off his soggy shirt, tossed it into a plastic hamper in the bath, peed, then slid damp Jockeys over muscular thighs to ankles, stepped from them, left the shorts on the bathroom floor. What slight breeze there was, coming in the trailer windows, felt wonderful on his perspiring crotch. Absently fingering his cock, it grew large in his hand; he ran his palms over a moist under-belly, his balls. Jesus Christ, that youngest Maes kid is a doll! (Jimby's black eyes stare across the court room at him -- Jaime Bernardo, he reminds himself -- what a doll!) As he caressed the now rigid cock, he wondered why the heat of the day always made him feel so horny? (Jimby's smile, those full red lips and white teeth, gleam like search lights.) He's only nineteen! but the kid had, he was certain, stared at him with a certain look. That certain look... and the boy stands in the shower with him as water gushes over a lithe, lean body and pale tan skin. Placing a wet mouth to Evan's cheek, he whispers, "Suck me off," and a tongue penetrates Evan's ear. Shivering, he stares at that beautiful body and small cock arching from a smooth belly. Though small, its head is large, pulpy, drips with water like a spout. Kneeling, he takes the young prick in his lips.
The boy moans, bare feet slipping in the water and tile floor of the stall, and, bending his knees, shoves hips forward. The cock slides deeper in Evan's throat, who, as he wraps arms around shuddering hips, tensed cheeks of a rounded ass, thinks, Don't orgasm right away, make it last forever! I will make you love me. Gasping, he squats on his haunches in the drenching water, shoves wet hair from his eyes, stares up through the downpour at Jimby.
He returns his lips to that small, arching cock. Warm water lubricating it and the inside of his mouth, he sucks, hears the boy's moans, feels the large cockhead slip on his tongue, grips shuddering hips in closer to his face, buries his lips in soapy pubes. The smell, the taste, of that youthful dick, fresh with water, is ecstatic and wonderful. Sinking to his knees, he shoves his head under parted legs, swallows a hairless sac, feeling small balls squirm. Jimby moans again, "Suck me, suck me." Lapping at a crinkled pucker, water drowning his tongue, he is choked, and gasping once more, jerks his head from between those quivering thighs, leans back to stare up at that beautiful body.
Black liquid eyes staring at him come closer as the boy bends to him, touches lips to his, pries them apart with a tongue glued to his mouth, licking and stroking, sucking, until Evan thinks he'll go mad. He grabs narrow hips roughly, rams them into his face, gulps the small dick ferociously. The boy's hips ram forward again. As he almost falls to the watery tile floor, Jimby begins to shout.
His own rigid cock in a hand, his other hand gripped around wriggling balls as he stood under the water imagining sex with Jimby, he felt his cock pulsate in his palm, stroked it faster. Yeah, you're horny all right in the heat of the day... just thinking of him has you ready to shoot.
He manipulated the shaft in the way he knew would bring on a quick orgasm; his knees trembled, his belly contracted, then he heard a roaring noise outside the trailer.
A pickup truck drove from the access road, swerved into his land with a swirl of dust, and two men in tan chinos got out from it, strode to the trailer door so quickly he didn't have time to grab something to cover himself or his still-erect cock. The screen door slammed. One man (he now recognized them as the Highway Department graders who'd testified in such a shitty way that morning at the trial) stood there grinning at him, a ruff of curly, black hair framing a square, rather brutal face and piggy eyes like a Mexican bandit. The other, with a less ferocious visage, had several teeth missing when he, too, grinned, and was shorter with squat bow-legs.
"Excuse us." Albert Chaparro said with an overdone pretense of formality. "Sena and me want a talk with you, Lambert." The piggy eyes moved from Evan's face to concentrate on his rigid cockflesh hanging between legs, now beginning to droop. "I see you were expecting us," and he bellowed with laughter. The other, Sena, nudged Chaparro, giggling.
No sense demanding why they'd busted in, so, ignoring their leers, he offered them beer from the frig. "Uh... what's on your mind?" he asked casually, annoyed by the way both pairs of eyes kept staring at his dick.
"Ain't what's on our minds, Mister Lambert, but what's on yours. Don't get high-hat with us guys, okay?" He nudged the other one, snickering, "Got a whale of a whang on 'im, right Naz?" Sena gulped beer, placed the can on the table, clamped hands between his legs. "Maybe he'd like a look at what I got?" he said, leering. And Evan caught on to what these two had in mind.
Sena unzipped his chino fly, dug inside the baggy tan material. "Shit I gotta charge in here'll blow the top of his fucking head off." Chaparro said to Evan, "Turn around, Anglo!"
"I think, gentlemen, you'd better get the fuck out of here," he said as he was jerked around, heavy hands on his shoulder bending him forward. "Nice buns," someone said. "Damn good plugging."
While he fought with them, wondered if this, like the beginning of this awful day, was actually happening to him, the men seemed to play with him effortlessly, fended off his wildly flailing arms, and, as they struggled, a hand would grip his cock hard, pull it viciously, blood throbbing in its taut head. He'd butt a fat belly, hear loud grunts and laughter. "Scrappy Anglo, ain't he?" a voice panted and another muttered, "Gonna teach you a lesson not to mess around with Spanish-Americans."
Pinned to the trailer floor, heavy hands held his squirming legs, fingers tore at his pubic hair, and bare knees, pants material lowered and stretched across his chest, sank on each side of his head; a hot cock was pressed to his nose. "Suck!" a voice commanded as a fist clouted his face. His lips pried open, the cock was rammed in his throat. "Arruuumph!" a voice shouted as hips shoved downward. Trying to kick with his legs, heavy weights held them down and hands pinioned his shoulders to the floor. Balls in a wet, hairy sac ground to his chin, and the man's frantic increased with loud, panting grunts.
In his throat a thick, mucous substance and fingers clutching his neck forced swallow the gism. His eyes, behind clouds of sparkled red spirals and serpentines seemed to be sinking deeper inside rose-patterned vinyl, but, what was astonishing was that this experience (the fact he'd actually been raped) was not unpleasant, he felt his own cock, rock-hard, and drooling, ooze on his thigh with his excitement.
Another pair of bare knees and lowered pants straddled his face and a second smelly cock rammed to his lips. This time, he opened them mechanically, licked the jerking member with his tongue. A second voice grunted, "Arruuumph!" as hips shoved down hard. As he wondered if all Spanish-Americans made that funny noise when somebody's mouth sucked them, the voice yelled, "Shit!" and come poured into him. "Jesus!" the voice moaned, and a fat belly pressed to his nose with the body falling forward over him.
He was dimly conscious of movement about the trailer as he lay with eyes closed. What does one do now? Get up and shake hands? Say, man, that was a damn good rape you done there? A shoe kicked his thigh. A voice muttered, "Don't fool around with the Maes family, you get me, Anglo? If you do, next time we won't just fuck your mouth, we'll kill you! Forget the fuzz, too, and we don't want no more bullshit from you!" Both men laughed. He heard the screen door bang shut.
When he opened his eyes, a ray of slanted sunlight poured through the window. This Godawful day is ending! But he lay there for a while on the cool vinyl, stared up at the trailer ceiling, felt the moist head of his cock on his naked thigh. You liked it! Christ Almighty, what kind of weirdo are you turning yourself into? and he was astonished once more with his reaction and how pleasantly his tensions had been released. Okay, get up, fix a lousy TV dinner, drink myself into a stupor. Get stoned? Where's the peyote, for chrissakes? but none of these seemed to interest him; it was more satisfying to just lie there. Should I tell the fucking Maeses what their buddies did to me? Hell no!
Let's see now, what if. Hilario and Valentine came in here at this very moment. The thought of further punishment caused his cock to jerk, harden on his bare thigh, and, sitting up, it flopped down between his legs, the head touching the vinyl floor. He stroked it. Its head slimy in his fingers. I'll split! And fuck them all! Who gives a shit about the Goddamn land, anyway?
Suddenly, he remembered how he'd left Los Angeles, the many farewell parties, the Black Activists toasting him almost as their hero (he was supposed to spread the gospel to the brothers -- meaning the Chicanos), and the money he'd spent on the Ford, trailer, the horse. The Goddamn fucking job at the motel! You can't go back, dummy! He crawled to his knees, sprang the frig door, took out a can of beer; the opener was on the counter above him just out of reach and, laughing now, he underhanded the can into the sink, staggered to his feet unsteadily. Shuffling bare feet on the cool vinyl, he ambled to a cupboard, jerked down a bottle of Harper, tore off the sealed cap. The pungent taste of Scotch was great on his tongue, washed away the not-unpleasant taste of gism in his mouth; raising the battle to his lips again, he swallowed deeply.
By the time half the bottle was gone, the sun had dropped behind small pointed buttes in the west and the sky was tinted ruby and orange; he was feeling less sorry for himself. He bumped around the kitchen section of the trailer, humming under his breath, stared blearily out the windows at the corral. "Poor fucking little horsie," He said out loud, then began to laugh. Fumbling with pants zipper and buttons of a shirt, he was dressed, finally, slid his bare feet into moccasins. As he stumbled down the trailer steps and heard Tazel neigh and paw the barn floor, called out, "Cool it, baby, I'll be back, lover!" staggered to the road. Now, black outlines of pinon trees against a gray-mauve horizon looked slightly ominous; there was a moon hanging in the sky like a giant white balloon. He ambled in the direction of lights in the Maes' houses.
The night is very black on the Santa Monica beach, a faint sliding swish of surf an his left. Lights, from houses; gleam ahead of him, signs beckoning him on; overhead, the heavens whirl their own signs, allegories, hieroglyphs; the air is warm, caressing.
He's been to a party given by his parents' friends, has left with disgust his father's generation and hypocrisies turning him oft wanders, sand cool on his bare feet, the feel of a breeze on his naked torso. Then, deciding to rid himself of his shorts, he falls to the sand, tries to snake them down over his hips. From the beach house a hundred yards away, he hears music of a hi-fi, laughter. The shorts are restricting leg movement; he kicks them off. Ahhh! the wonderful feeling of freedom. I'll getaway from those pigs, Goddamnit! One day!
He stares up at the dark sky as a stream of fire arches across space, vanishes into the Pacific. Make a wish? For what? A lover? Money? Independence? Travel? He sits up, hunches over his knees, his cock, oddly hard, touching the sand under him. He strokes it, the heavy-hanging balls, mechanically. He's never had any kind of permanent relationship with another man at nineteen, aside from casual encounters at the university, with some of his professors who make love to him, most of these experiences brief and unimportant. Assuming his constant masturbation is normal for a young man his age, he does wonder, at times, what this "love" is all about. Is there more to it than that dizzying sensation as he jacks off into a handkerchief or ejaculates into a sucking mouth?
As he continues to stroke his cock absently under raised knees, he wonders if "love" -- whatever it may be -- is necessary. Isn't making it sufficient pleasure without the confusion of emotional involvement? The stimulation of a sucking mouth or the sensations of a cock fucking him, aren't these things all there is to love?
Of the several men he's made it with, profs at school, a fellow student or two, all have been the dominant aggressors. This fact rather gives him a feeling of pride. Let the other guy put out, make the advances and, if not, to hell with him! he thinks, Except Billie! The name causes his cock to enlarge further, jerk in his palm. Yeah, that was something else. He does not have to shut his eyes for the images to return.
Billie was in the freshman class at UCLA, a young Jewish boy with appealing dark eyes fringed with lashes like a girl's, a full red mouth, long lean body smooth as silk. They meet in the gym during swim class and, without thinking one way, or another about it, Evan stares at that lithe naked body. Later, alone in the showers, they touch each other's hardening dicks. With Billie, it is Evan who makes the first pass, and he still remembers the feel of soapy fingers on his cock.
They go to an apartment on Fraternity Row, have beer, talk of student activities in a butch, masculine way, but both know what they are here for. Clothes removed, Evan stares at narrow hips and waist long tapering legs, softly rounded cheeks of an ass. As they wrap arms around each other, he feels his cock drip fluid onto a belly pressed to him.
Perhaps, because Billie seems mote like a woman than a man, Evan finds himself making it as he imagines lovers might; strokes that smooth skin, plays with erect nipples, fingers a moist opening in the young man's tight-cheeked ass. And he recalls lying on Billie, their naked bodies sweaty, merely rubbing against each other until both orgasm.
He thinks, Why does that remain in my memory? Nothing great or sexy happened, just two guys dry-fucking! Yet he knows, somewhere in hidden parts of his brain, this experience with the Jewish boy has changed him in a manner he cannot define. Is it because, afterwards, he admits to himself he loves -- well, is attracted to men only, has made the gay scene?
From the corner of his eye, he sees two people walk arm-in-arm along the rim of surf, swivels his face to stare at them, wondering if they can see him in shadows of the beach, naked. His hands drop the stiff flesh between his legs as he stares at what appears to be a white cloud floating above the two figures. Then, delighted, he realizes it is white balloons. He waits, watches the bobbing white blobs, is not too surprised when the figures shift course, walk over the sand to him. An amused voice says, "Well, looka what we got here! A sure-nuff water-baby!" he knows the voice is Negro, the second voice, when it laughs, is female; although embarrassed by his nakedness, he says with complete cool, "How are you?" then sees Black Is Beautiful printed on the white balloons, laughs.
The man and woman sit in the sand beside him, and a nice, rumbling voice asks, "You live around here? What's your name, boy?" He tells them Evan Lambert, asks their names. The woman offers him a cigarette from her purse and, as he lights it, she says, "Pot honey, you'll like it." They sit silently smoking, pass the roach between them, stare out over the surging surf. "You afraid of Blacks, Evan Lambert?" the man's soft voice asks.
Rising, the woman leans, pats Evan's head gently, "You two dudes have a groovy time," she murmurs, ambles to the surf, walks slowly along the beach. A warm hand on his naked thigh moves under his raised knees, and fingers enclose his cock; the voice at his shoulder murmurs, "I've seen you around the university, knew who you were, boy. I dig you, Evan Lambert."
Glancing up the beach to the woman's swaying figure, the luminous white balloons bobbing over her head, he lies back in the sand, raises arms to clasp them around broad, muscular shoulders. A wet mouth touches his cock; a furry tongue licks it. He fumbles with the man's crotch and zipper, opens the pants, and his fingers grip hat skin; its odor is animal and exciting. Shoving the pants further over heavy dark thighs, that black body is now fully exposed to his gaze: the mammoth pole of shining skin, black pubes like fine wire, the cockhead slick and wet in his fingers. The voice murmurs, "Put your legs on my shoulders, boy."
Sand scratchy and grainy on his bare back, he lifts his legs to shoulders bending over him. The saliva-wet cock touches his asshole, at first gently, then firmly. "Ain't gonna hurt you, boy," the rumbling voice says. "You jes' relax, now. Harvey won't hurt you."
With slow but penetrating shoves, soon his body is suffused with a growing warmth and, legs straining now, his pelvis moves with the body over him. He plunges his tongue in a hot mouth as lips, full and soft, open, seeming to swallow him. He moans, "I love you, I love you!" His sperm rises in a flooding surge so quickly, creams the belly and his belly, he can only gasp, over and over, body quivering, as the black face above him stares down. "Evan. Lambert, Evan Lambert," the rumbling voice moans, slightly harsher now, and the cock is rammed further violently. With this deeper penetration, he orgasms again, legs churning, body heaving and jerking, and gushes of warm come fill him. Arms holding him fiercely lift him off the sand, impale him on that giant cock and, almost weeping, he kisses the soft, full-fleshed mouth, feeling as if he'd turned to water now, dissolved into a quivering mass of sandy jelly.
Evan joins the Black Activists the next week, and his friend, Harvey Summers, and he are lovers for three years, until the Negro is jailed in the university demonstrations; after his release, Harvey vanishes from his life. He is alone again. But, after his father's death, when he goes to New Mexico, he is certain he can make friends with Chicanos. Maybe, they will even be lovers.
His feet stumbled over the access road, gritty clay filling moccasins, lights ahead of him in the Maes' houses seeming to recede. He stopped to catch his breath, leaned against the rough surface of a fence post and sharp barbed wire tore his shirt. Above, the sky looked phosphorescent, the Milky Way a liquid white excreta as if a monster orgasm creamed the stars. By their glow, he saw the jagged points of wire, the pale green of chemisa bushes, ripped the shirt free, staggered on. Pungently sweet odors in his nose reminded him of seaweed cast along California beaches. Harvey, oh, Christ, Harvey! We were wrong. There is no brotherhood of men! You lied, you lied, you black bastard!
As he neared split-rails and wire surrounding the first house, two large German Shepherds bounded from the dark, snarling and growling. The door to the house opened; a woman's voice called something in Spanish and the dogs slunk away, whimpering. The woman walked toward him, opened the gate. "How are you, Mister Lambert?" Antonia Maes' voice said.
He followed her, stumbling over deep mud furrows, to the portal, blinking at the bright light as she motioned with a hand for him to enter. The room was spacious and very warm. Plastic-bubble lamps were suspended from a beamed ceiling (like white balloons!) anti, still unable to see clearly, he squinted his eyes. The Maeses were all there, seated in chairs like waxworks figures or corpses in lifelike positions. They stared at him silently.