Chapter 7
DISCOTHEQUE ORGIES
"Hey there-orgy girl, I got a date for us." Sir Peters had called me on the telephone again. I was pleased to hear his voice. "What happened to you down at Lovelace Hall? I lost you the moment I arrived. Did Jimsey take good care of you, Diana?"
"Fine, Pete, fine. I had a really wild time." I spoke carefully so as not to upset Sir Peters. He was a dear friend, and he was having so much sexual trouble with his peter; that prostate gland of his was getting worse and worse. "How's your trouble, Pete? Are you going to get it seen to, you naughty boy?"
"I'm dead scared of it, Diana. In fact, I am scared those darned blighters will castrate me, and then, hell, what would be my life without the joys of gals and copulation? I ask you, Diana. You know what a good loving soul I am."
"Did you say you have another date for us?" I changed the subject. Poor Sir Peters was worried enough about it all.
"Yes, going to be a musicians party at Rouse Hall. I was always told never to take my harp to a party, but I think they want some harpies there, so we might as well go." He chuckled at his sharp humor.
"I don't like that, Pete," I said sternly. "I am not a harpy. I think perhaps you ought to take someone else."
"Oh, my dear Diana, gal, we're too old friends for you to take umbrage at a silly little play with words, surely, my dear? I mean, I thought 'take my harpy to a musicians party' was a pretty good effort. Why so touchy, me dear? Worried, or something?"
"No, yes, well, we shall go. I think some good music might do me some good. I have been feeling like a nun lately," I murmured.
"Have you? By jove, that's dangerous. I say old girl, maybe you let that dreadful Lady Jackie Melphs influence you." He chuckled dryly.
"You are in a nasty mood, Pete. I don't think I shall go with you." I was firmly determined.
"Then I shall have to take my dear Yolanda."
"I shall go with you." I changed my mind instantly.
"Good, be Friday again, at six, and we have to get along to Rouse Hall, it's in Lincolnshire some place, vast barn. I do hope I have got it right, and that there is a real musical orgy. I'd hate to drive all that way and have to listen to music! That would be a terrible fate, indeed!"
We both laughed, and I knew that our trip was going to be another great success. In a way, I loved old Sir Peters. He was a gentleman, and a lover, and a gentle man. I was but one of his many, many true and ardent mistresses. And I was glad to be one of them. Men like Sir Peters are so rare. I had been fortunate to meet him when I did. And since my return to England after the failure of my marriage, he and his orgy parties had really been the spice of my life.
I replaced the telephone and sat down with a bemused smile on my face. A musical orgy! I would have to buy a new dress for it all. Not that I might wear it for long, but it is always good for a girl to start off with the right idea. Even if it all turns out to be unnecessary clothing, later.
So it was to Rouse Hall we would go, come Friday evening.
It was a great big Hall, with a fine approach. The place was lit by torches, for some reason. In the drizzling rain-it rained the whole time we were there-the torches hissed and sputtered. Inside the Hall it was all candle light. I never did meet the host. The musicians were too busy making the whole thing a swinging party.
I loved the place, with its many crenelles and its cornices. It was a super fairyland, inhabited by gnomes and pixies. The gnomes played the clarinet, and the pixies pranced about with violins, trumpets, flutes, and drums. The nest for all of these strange creatures was at the back of the Hall. On the rear lawn, as if they knew it was going to rain solidly the whole time, was erected a large red and cream stripped marquise tent. It was an enormous tent, and was split into several rooms, in each of which was being played different music. The same went for the main rooms in the Hall itself. Gradually, as the weekend warmed up from the slow beginning on Saturday, the place became wilder and wilder. In fact, it was one gigantic, pulsating discotheque in the end. But the orgy girls had arrived, and there was sex and music being performed all over the place.
Yet, my own mood did not change. I was in a slow spiral of depression. I needed someone. Sir Peters was ill, and stayed in a bed on the second floor, surrounded by quiet admirers, sipping brandy to hide his pain. I was mooching about, and the rain came, while the music thundered on and on. It was a strange, beleaguered world. I was not certain that I cared for it. I was not certain of anything now. I was not even sure I cared for myself. And is that what happens in the end? Is it this that creeps up and destroys an orgy girl?
I did not know.
But I was afraid. For it was the first time I had ever come to doubt myself. I knew I had got over my illnesses. I had got over wanting to be loved and loved. I was Diana again, firmly and clearly. I knew how to satisfy any man. I knew Sir Peters loved me. I knew I had a dozen other admirers. But I was not certain of one thing. I sensed that perhaps my orgy girl's days were over. And that was a surprise. What else was there for me to do?
I was leaning against a column, listening to a group singing in the style of the Beatles when Bruce came into my life. I did not even bother to turn my head. It could have been a real he-man, it could have been another wonderfully bronzed jungle-taming giant, but I knew it was not. Bruce was a quiet creep. And he was just what I needed that moment. I was resting back, sipping my champagne, and wondering how much Sir Peters really would miss this wild and glorious life of orgy after orgy, when the voice spoke to me.
"I, er, I say, excuse me, but what are those two doing over there? I mean-is it what I think they are doing?" His voice was pleasant, reticent, a creep, in all truth. But who is not a creep some time or other. I felt in need of one to argue and fight with.
"They are fucking, as usual," I said with a sour grimace.
"Excuse me, what did you say?" His voice was up a note.
"I said they were fucking." I announced it loudly enough. "Do you wish me to spell it? It's spelled with one 'k'-it goes f-u-c-."
"I know, er, I was just, well, surprised. A beautiful girl like you, saying-they are fucking, too, aren't they? Do they do it often, here?"
"They fuck everywhere. That's my friend Yolanda, and she fucks seven times a week. Like to try her?"
"Oh, no. I am sorry. Yes, well, tell me Miss...." He did not seem to want to wander away and leave me in peace.
"Diana, my name. I fuck, too." I turned and looked at him.
He was nice. I could have bitten my tongue off. In some ways he seemed a quieter version, younger too, of Sir Peters. I was so surprised I just stared at him.
"Hello, Diana, I am Bruce." He smiled at me. Large brown eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. They were kind eyes, calm eyes that were involved and concerned and hurt me like two large brown spears in my heart. It was as if something within me said "Oh no!" And I was defenseless against him. This mild square even offered his hand, so we shook hands on our mutual introduction.
"I am Bruce," he stated again.
"Yes, I am Diana and I, er," I flushed a furious great red.
"It is a wild party, Diana. I suppose, well, one gets used to this sort of thing."
I nodded. I was furious. My tongue had suddenly stopped on me. I could not speak, and I wished myself any place-just to be away from this, this person who had appeared and lanced my ego with one look. This was the way Bruce and I got acquainted.
The modern psychedelic world is for the young. At twenty six, I felt that I was already growing out of that stage. But the music was of my generation. Those swirling colors, the Beardsley drawings, the beads, the Ankh, the miniskirt-there has been no other style for me, not for an orgy girl. I might be more formal for the parties at the great houses, but the music and the dances are always the same. In a way, it is a very unstable world. Many of the young men I have slept with were wanderers, seekers; they even went to Indian Temples, or all the way to India itself to find the message, and returned as easily as they came, wiser in ways, but not with any real rock of truth.
Perhaps in some way it was these influences that made me become an orgy girl in the first place. I had never had a stable home-Mum and Dad were always off to Hong Kong, or Australia, or India. Their lives came first, and their children's upbringing came second. If I met my mother, which I rarely did, she was a polite, tea sipping stranger. Trudy, I never saw. I left her to copulate with her brute, Thomas, in her beloved horse stables. So what else was there but the image of the modern world to embrace. All the beads and the trimmings. All the pop-art and the latest hit tunes. The bright colors, the swinging life, these had been all I had.
In my marriage it had been just as bad. Opening tins of plum pudding in the wilds of the South Seas sounds very romantic. It sounds a free, wild life with no cares. In fact, it is empty, being alone and looking at vast spaces of nothing. If one is cut that way, good and fine. But I am a city girl, and I like having a city to love in. I like constant hot water from my taps, and a telephone that connects to friends and not to kangaroos.
At this point I knew I had come to a very real cross-roads. I was honest, not only with myself, but with Bruce. I could not seem to be what I was not. I did not wish any relationship to be based on something false. In some ways, I felt that had been the cause of the breakdown of my first marriage. Though, finding out later I was Sam's third wife has assuaged the hurt a great deal. If two other girls had hit disaster with this man, possibly it would take an extraordinary person to succeed with him. I knew I was still very beautiful-not in the first young flush, of course-but in a mature, firm way now. I could make a man fall in love with me. I knew how.
Men are very simple really. I have always personally preferred male company to female. I knew men better, but I shall never understand them, except on a few points. One of the things I had found out was basically sexual. If I slept with a man consistently over a period of a few weeks, he fell deeply and hopelessly in love with me. I think it's because I am good in bed. Psychologists say it is something to do with the voice, and something to do with the body scent. I have read a great deal about the basis of attraction between male and female. They do sound amazingly basic, too!
But I did not want to go the route, this way, by deep hard fucking, with Bruce. I found him a bore. He was such a square I could do nothing but sit and watch him.
I was astounded.
On our first meeting, within a few minutes, I had fallen for this dumb, brown-eyed square.
Why? Is a good question. I asked it of myself a hundred times.
The discotheque orgy went wild on Sunday night. I had mooned about with Bruce for two days. We had kissed, and I had managed to undo his tie. I was now comparing him with all the men I had ever known. That in itself seemed like subjecting myself to some kind of self-analysis. Not a few of those men had really been nothing more than hot cocks. I had to admit that to myself. They were sexy bastards who just wished to bed a girl and fuck and fuck. I had enjoyed all of that, without a thought in my head.
"I am an electronics engineer, and I have my own factory," Bruce told me as we entered the tent. It was raining outside, and the torches were hissing and going out all the time. "It's very strange to see young people act the way they do today."
"You are old fashioned?" I asked as we got a drink and stood still for a moment to get used to the thundering music.
"What was that?" Bruce grinned and shouted. "You are very beautiful, Diana."
"Thank you," I shouted back.
We moved through the crowd and got to the floor, which was laid over the grass. The orgy girls were warming up. Two of them were naked and dancing with their legs flying. Later they would leap on their mates and the couples would singly fall onto the floor and writhe in a copulation set to the music beat. Bruce looked flushed and sipped his drink. I was wondering just how long it would take to work him up.
"I am an orgy girl," I shouted at him.
"A what?" Bruce asked.
"An orgy girl. I am one of them."
"Oh, are you really?" Bruce stared at me, puzzled. Then he added, "Do you wish to dance, Diana?"
I nodded. We put our drinks down and joined the tight throng that was slowly getting pounded into neurotic pieces by the blasting music. Bruce danced badly, of course. He seemed to try and not be with it. I realized he would dance badly, but he was worse than I thought he would be. I seemed to have landed a wet fish. But I was so tied up with him, I could even accept his hopelessly poor flopping about with me, not demand better, not even give a damn what anyone else thought. If that is not love, then music must mean less to me than I thought.
Yet, gradually, in some strange way, we fitted. Bruce seemed to relax and he was with me. I felt comfortable with him around, and Bruce said afterwards he had never had such a wild time in all of his life. I was something strange for him, as he was for me. At the time, I was puzzled just what exactly was going on between us. I only knew Bruce had this weird fascination for me, and I for him. In fact, we matched, but in the first days of our meeting I never, never would have believed it at all.
Bruce almost fell over a couple humping on the floor. The boy was dripping sweat over the girl's shoulders as she clung to him, her skirt up, and his cock right into her as her legs locked and held about his waist. Bruce stared down at them and tried to jump out of their way. He almost fell over the next couple, fucking on the floor in a darker area. Then he stared at me, shook his head, and took my hand. Bruce led the way out, and for a moment we stood under the awning, with the rain streaming down before our faces.
"They've got bad tweeters, and the bass is all out of balance," Bruce announced seriously.
"Have they?" I gave a cry of laughter. "Is that all?"
"I must say, this party is a bit much. I hate to, er, well, step on an intimate scene like that.
Let's go and listen to that chamber music. I think there is some food on the buffet in the hall." He took my hand and we dashed through the rain back into Rouse Hall and yet another orgy.
One on a bed is sleep; two on a bed is loving; four on a bed is swapping; six on a large bed is an orgy. The six on the large bed were so busy fucking, Bruce and I just stood and stared at them.
On the red Chamber Music Quartette Dais, the Luton Ensemble had left its violins, cello, and piano. On the bed they were making another kind of music.
"Bach seems out, and cock seems in," I told Bruce as I sipped from my glass and looked at his face to watch his reaction.
"It seems to me that music would be more in good taste." Bruce flushed, took my hand, and led me out of the Chamber Music Room.
"I think the orgy girls are making this whole place get too wild. I know them, and they like to make a place a shambles and then go back to town and say what a sexy party it all was," I explained to Bruce. "I have done the same thing myself."
Bruce paused. We had come down to the hall, and were helping ourselves to slices of prime beef, salad, and coffee. He stared at me, adjusted his glasses, and then spoke quietly. The piped music was down low, so normal conversation could go on. His voice was dry, not with contempt, but with analysis.
"You try and shock me all the time. Perhaps you are as you state you are. I don't mind. Diana, we met yesterday, and I think you don't understand me. I am an engineer, and we engineers are not people of wonderful imaginations. We use mathematics to find out what we wish to know. The world is all here, and we just search and putter about until something odd gives us an insight into a new item. I have never bothered much with modern ways, modern girls, this, er, orgy kind of thing. If you had not been here, I would have left an hour after I arrived."
"You are smug," I told him straight.
"Certainly. I am rich, smug, and happy." Bruce led the way to a side table. It seemed startlingly strange to sit here and think of all the wild sessions going on all around us, in those other rooms, in the tent out there beyond the pouring rain.
"I don't care if you are rich. Anyway, I wanted to find someone to sleep with." I announced it coldly.
"There you are, out to shock me again." Bruce frowned and ate his beef sandwich. He chewed in silence a while. I sipped my coffee, lit a cigarette, and felt a world better.
"No. I am not out to shock you. I shall sleep with you, if you want me to. Otherwise I shall go and find someone else. I don't like sleeping by myself," I ended simply enough.
Bruce paused and stared at me. It was a moment or two before he replied. "You mean it."
"Yes, I do mean it." I tapped my cigarette ash down.
"Oh, I misunderstood the whole thing. You are very beautiful. I was thinking, well, I am not very good with words, Diana. But I couldn't bear the thought of you, er, sleeping with anyone. I mean, I feel we have something. Maybe it is only something that I feel. It is this place, perhaps."
"If you have a bed somewhere else, there is nothing holding me here." I looked at him coolly, but I had a great butterfly inside of me.
"You wish to go?" Bruce nodded and went on eating slowly.
I had wandered with the wild, free crowd for so long; this was all in direct contrast to them. I watched as Bruce finished eating and smiled.
"Shall we go, now?" Bruce asked so quietly it was almost a sad whisper.
"Where to, Bruce?" I felt I now was winning the trick.
"I have a cottage on the river, about thirty miles from here. We can be there in twenty minutes, if you still wish to leave?" He lit a small cigar and relaxed. His patience was infuriating, but I refused to allow him to upset me now.
"Very well. I have to leave a note for Sir Peters, and collect my things. Ten minutes is all I need," I told him as we stood up.
"I shall have my car out front waiting for you." He suddenly leaned across and kissed me on the cheek. "You sure, Diana?"
"Why not?" I smiled and went off to get ready.
But, it was different. I was not so sure now. I thought, perhaps I should leave him waiting in his car outside Rouse Hall. He would wait an hour, and then either give up, drive off, or come back in here and drag me out. I giggled at that idea, but I also felt certain that that was what he would do. No, he might come back in and completely ignore me. Then what? I would be upset and as lonely as hell, all over again.
I told Sir Peters. He lay in bed, no girls, just a bottle of champagne. He worried me, and I asked him if I should stay and see that he was alright.
"Nonsense, nonsense, my dear! Go with him and have a damned good time. This rain is ruining everything. I am going into the hospital next week, so give me a tinkle and come and see me, what?" Sir Peters smiled as I kissed him on the cheek. "He's a very lucky feller, this new chappie of yours, Diana. Tell him so from me."
"I love you, Petesy," I whispered and flushed red.
"Too old for you, my dear. Got no cock left. Have to have the knife as this pain is killing me. Gad, we should have got together at least twenty five years ago." Pete hugged my hand and then released it with a smile. "Take care of him."
I fled down the great staircase and went out onto the front porch. The rain was like silver lines of water falling down onto the steps. Behind me, Rouse Hall was a thundering discotheque orgy and all the girls were half-killing the men. Nothing but sex and sex and the psychedelic world of half insanity. I shuddered and stood there, half lost myself.
A black, new Aston Martin rolled up and stopped. Bruce came out in a hurry and opened the door for me to get in. Then we were off into the dark wet world of the rain in the night.
"It was rather a bright party." Bruce chuckled as he changed gears and we were zooming along at an incredible speed. "I think orgies are better read about than participated in. One can close a book on them and say, 'how damnably degenerate'. But when it is going on in one's own generation, what can one do." He glanced quickly at me for a second. "You are terrifyingly beautiful, Diana. My mystery woman. Hell, you scare me half to pieces."
I turned my head and looked at Bruce. I was no longer unsure. I had arrived. Quite what at, or where, I still did not know. But I had arrived at a point. I only wanted him to love me a tiny fraction as much as I loved him. And, now, I was the one terrified by the whole thing.
The car was a super beast. It leaped into the night like a black devil, a panther or a night-hidden tiger. Yet, Bruce was such a fine driver, I never had the slightest worry about him, or the car, even in this weather.
"Be there in a few minutes. This is my retreat, my special sanctum where I come to think. In a way, you are coming into my world, Diana, and I think we already know why."
The headlights were on a small white cottage. I felt, in some other life, I had been to this place before. From that moment, everything was as inevitable as some card play already agreed upon.