Lucia Framer lay under the sheets watching the New York skyline from her window. She could see the somber buildings of the financial district, jutting like phallic creatures against the soft, feminine sky.
At twenty-eight, Lucia still had that blush of youth. Her breasts were erect under the white sheets and her long brown hair rested on the pulsing veins of her neck. She squirmed under the sheets. The crispness of the material felt good against her naked body.
Bill was in the bathroom, washing up. They had just returned from their weekly Group Therapy session with Dr. Legna and three other couples. In spite of the intensity of the evening, Lucia felt refreshed and not in the least bit tired. She tried not to think of all that had transpired in the session, the sudden accusations, the hatreds that rose and fell, the sexual torments that many of the couples tried to express verbally.
Her husband came out of the bathroom. She smiled at him. It was an invitation. Bill was naked except for a towel draped casually around his waist. He sat on the side of the bed and slipped his hand beneath the sheet, resting it on Lucia's thigh. She squirmed. It was a delicious feeling.
"What did you think of the session tonight?"
"It was very productive," she replied.
Bill smiled and his hand grasped her thigh with more urgency.
"Do you like that Negro couple, Pam and Arthur Brookins?"
Lucia sat up quickly for a moment and bit him playfully on the neck, before replying.
"You like that black girl very much, don't you Bill? I saw you undressing her tonight with your eyes. I watched you lick your lips when she started to walk around the room."
Bill laughed at her accusation. He did not deny it. Instead, he moved closer to her, kissing her face again and again until their lips met and his tongue gently parted her mouth and sought the heat and moisture in it.
His hand left her thigh and moved, up her body, the fingers vibrating with passion. They cupped her straining breast and then began to stroke it. Each time his fingers circumnavigated that mound of flesh het whole body shuddered. Her tongue went out to meet his and they danced together within the confines of her mouth.
Then his lips parted from her and moved down her body. He kissed her once, long and passionately, in the space between her points, and then he kissed her nipple. She cried out:
"Yes Bill, yes. I want you. I want you more than I want anything on earth. I want your maleness in me. I want you to splinter me, to rip me apart, to blast the fears and guilt from my body."
His tongue wet the nipple, flicking back and forth against the now erect point, sending the most delicious shivers up and down her body.
She moved her body, straining to get the maximum joy from those lips which nibbled on her point. Even in her passion, she could see his chest heaving with exertion as he sucked and played with her nipple.
His mouth moved on to the softness and whiteness of her belly. She spread her legs to wait the questing mouth. She called to him again and again, encouraging him, telling him that he was all she desired.
Bill's hands were under her buttocks, raising her ever so gently. His mouth reached the gates of her womanhood, the dark and mysterious fount of everything she represented, and the source of the guilt and fears which threatened to destroy her. His lips touched the lips of her womanhood. She cried out and for an instant, tried to shake free, bringing her legs together and crashing her thighs about his head.
Slowly and powerfully, Bill spread her legs again, and his mouth returned to the task.
like a furtive snake, he speared her. The tongue's point penetrated and she uttered a long, low moan, which sounded almost animal-like in the now darkened room. She peered once again at the skyline and the buildings seemed to be tumbling into the chasm of her passion. He flicked his tongue from side to side, bringing forth the most frenzied response from her body, which was now thrashing in the bed like a ship gone berserk. Her fingers moved to his back and neck and in her passionate turmoil, she dug her nails into his back, feeling joyous when the tiny pinpoints of blood appeared.
Now he used his tongue like a weapon, going deeper and deeper into the mysterious flower, wetting the petals and stem of her womanhood.
She called to him in her frenzy:
"Now, Bill, now, come to me. I want it now. Please, I beg you."
He removed his tongue. She leaned up and grasped his now erect maleness in her fevered hands. Her fingers massaged the vibrating globes and ran lovingly over the flesh with the pulsating membranes and muscles.
She lay back and waited. A second later it happened. With one savage lunge, he entered her. His maleness passed through the gates of her love with a swiftness and ferocity that crushed the breath from her body. She closed her eyes and tears rolled down her cheeks.
His body was like a machine, driving that flesh again and again to the deepest recesses of her body. She rose to meet his thrusts. She could not get enough of that beautiful organ. She could not get enough of those total thrusts which sent her whole body, again and again, into dissolving spasms.
It grew within her, larger and larger, more ferocious with each thrust. She could feel its fiery tip questing, ever questing, looking for that ultimate space, wanting to go deep into her very being.
Then, suddenly, as quickly as she had been roused to passion, she collapsed into lethargy, lying there like some disinterested vegetable. Bill hissed savagely in her ear.
"What is the matter with you. You bitch!"
A second later, his seed poured from him, entering her inert, disinterested body. Bill moved off her and stalked about the room. He picked up a small ash tray and flung it across the room. It shattered against the far wall, sending its pieces onto the rug. She watched the slivers of glass as they floated to the floor and they seemed to have more reality than his body or even her own.
He walked once again to the bed and stood looking down at her. The tears had begun to flow and they stained her face. There was no compassion in his eyes as he said:
"Five years of marriage, Lucia, and no change. Three years of intensive psychoanalysis and two years of group therapy and you have not improved one iota. How long do you expect me to continue? How long do you expect me to be married to a woman who cannot complete the sex act?"
His fists were clenched and the veins stood out on his neck. She had never seen him this mad. She had never seen him in the throes of such a fury.
"I'm sorry, BAT'
"Is that all you can say? Your sorrow doesn't help me. Not one iota. Not one blessed iota. Look, let's be reasonable. Let's be logical. Do you expect me to spend the rest of my life with a woman who acts the way you do?"
"I love you Bill."
"My dog loves me but I don't sleep with him. What's the use of talking?"
He turned around and walked to the closet. He dressed quickly and opened the door.
"Where are you going?"
'To prowl," he replied, wickedly, his hands jammed deep into his pockets.
When the door closed she buried her head in the pillow. Hours passed and still she lay there. Then, she stood up and walked to the night table where a bottle of scotch rested. She poured herself a stiff drink and consumed it quickly. The whiskey made her warm and she regained control of herself. Where was Bill? Why hadn't he come back? Was this the end? What could she do?
Finally, Bill returned. He had obviously been drinking heavily and he went to sleep without saying one word to her. She sat on the chair, a few feet away from the bed and watched him sleep. She knew that their marriage had reached the crucial point. She could no longer expect to hold him. Bill had been extremely patient with her. Even though his law practice was quite lucrative, her psychoanalysis and group therapy sessions had cost him thousands upon thousands of dollars and there was nothing to show for it. Lucia was still unable to function in a normal sexual manner.
She walked into the living room and quietly dialed Dr. Legna on the phone. It rang for a long time. When he answered, she realized that she had woken him up.
"I'm sorry Doctor, but I had to speak to you. You have to do something. I can't continue like this. Nothing is happening in the group. Nothing at all."
He told her to calm down and take a sleeping pill. She screamed at him:
"I don't want a sleeping pill. I want to be able to enjoy my husband sexually, and completely. The group session is doing nothing for me. I am going to stop."
Slowly and carefully, he explained that it was too early for her to stop, that things would get much better as the group became more frank and more revealing. He talked for a long time, explaining how the most important thing in such a group was the dedication of the members to be patient. He talked about how the group would eventually help her to function in a normal manner.
Gradually, she began to calm down and she accepted his description. She apologized profusely for waking him up and she gently let the receiver down.
Lucia got into bed beside her husband. He was fast asleep but she shook him until he raised one eyelid.
"What do you want?"
"I love you, Bill."
He turned away from her and pulled the sheets around him.
"Bill, listen. I just spoke to Dr. Legna on the phone.
He said we must be patient. He said everything will be worked out in the group."
Bill turned around, opened both eyes and looked at her.
"Honey, did it ever occur to you that you may be a lesbian, or like animals or children? Because one thing is certain, no matter what Dr. Legna says, and that is that you just don't like men. Understand?"
She grew pale. He had never spoken to her like that before. He had never said such words in her presence. She felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as if her world was dissolving.
"Oh Bill, you're wrong. I swear you're wrong."
Almost hysterically she thrust her hands between his legs, grasping his maleness, trying to show him that she wanted him and desired him, but some strange force kept her from completing that desire.
She stroked his inert cylinder, trying to elicit its hardness, trying to burn her own mental passion into his flesh.
He looked at her, cynically, hatefully. "What are you doing, you little fool? Get your hands away."
"No," she cried.
Her hands grasped his organ with all the fury of a woman at the end of her psychic tether. Her nails dug into the tender skin of his maleness, and tried to inflame its tip, that tip which had only a few hours ago so passionately penetrated her.
"You are hurting me, Lucia, let me go!"
But she could not let him go. She could not release her grip. It was as if his organ was life itself, and if she let go, only the dark sea of oblivion was waiting for her.
Finally, Bill, in rage and shock, brought his hand across his body and slapped her furiously on the face. The sound resounded through the room like a cannon shot.
Lucia released his flesh. She did not weep or remonstrate. She slid off the bed and onto the floor, in a state of mortified shock. Her eyes traveled once again to the skyline and all she could think was how lucky those buildings were; they neither could think nor feel.
CHAPTER TWO
Pamela and Arthur Brookins did not go home directly from the group therapy session that evening. They went to a movie and then had a late-night snack at a restaurant which caters to the theatrical trade.
The tall, statuesque, black woman was greeted by many of her fellow actors and actresses in the restaurant. But, in fact, every eye turned to watch her walk to the table. Her body seemed to have a life of its own as every step she took displayed it beneath its flimsy covering.
Arthur did not mind the attention his wife received.
He had grown accustomed to it. He knew that everyone saw something else in Pamela, usually their own dreams of the perfect woman. Some saw the incredible animal-like quality, the sensuousness of a Jungle queen. Others saw her sophistication, her poise, her absolute control over her own movements.
They had both fought their way out of the black ghetto. Most of Arthur's childhood had been spent in and out of reform school for robberies and assaults. Finally, one day he realized that time was running out. He buckled down and was able to go to college on a football scholarship. After school he obtained a sales position with a new computer concern and rapidly worked himself up to the better and better territories. His income was now in the $20,000 a year range.
Good-looking, heavily muscled, Arthur was very attractive to women But his sexuality was a precarious thing, his psyche had suffered many scars on his climb out of poverty.
Pamela, too, bore the scars of a childhood that almost destroyed her. Looking back, she would often laugh at the things she had experienced, saying that it made her a better actress because it provided her with a very wide range of emotions.
She was on the way up in her profession. Her last role had been a juicy one in a off-Broadway show and though the show closed after only two months, her performance had received raves from all the drama critics.
Their marriage was a strange one. They loved each other deeply, but since the beginning, the moments when they experienced a complete and satisfying sexual act were few and far between.
Each of them had their sexual hang-ups. Arthur was not easy to arouse sexually, but once aroused, he tended to enjoy certain actions which she called "perverse," which in turn, would make him sexually unattractive to her.
Pamela had been raised by a very devout grandmother who had lived all her life in the rural South before coming North. The young actress realized that this religious fundamentalism which her grandmother had drummed into her was probably the cause of her Puritanism.
Arthur, too, understood the probable causes of his being difficult to arouse. He knew it was connected with the tremendous spending of energy that had been required to claw his way to the top and to stay there.
This was the reason why they had joined Dr. Legna's group therapy sessions. They finally believed in working out their problems together. So far, they had found the group to be little help in their sexual life, but they were still optimistic, and they enjoyed the company of the other members, especially the young white couple, Lucia and Bill Framer.
As they sat in that restaurant, listening to the theatrical gossip which swirled about them, each of their thoughts were on the group. Silently, to themselves, they went over the actions and conversations of themselves and the other members, trying for a clue or an insight.
After eating, they sat for a while, sipping brandy, and then they took a cab to the luxury building where they were the only black couple there.
Upon entering the apartment, Arthur sprawled on the bed, fully clothed, his athletic body relaxing completely. Pamela began to undress, humming to herself in front of the mirror.
"Are you tired, Arthur?"
"Very tired."
"Well, I don't blame you after all the screaming you did at the session this evening."
"What screaming?" replied Arthur, feigning shock at her words.
"Well, you accused one woman of racism, and one man of implying that you were a homosexual."
"I told the truth. That's what I'm supposed to do at the sessions. Remember what Dr. Legna said? Be spontaneous. So, I was spontaneous. I said what came into my head."
"All right dear," she said, "as long as you aren't completely spontaneous."
Pamela walked over to the bed and began to undress him. He kept talking as she was doing this, telling her his feelings about certain members of the group.
'Take BUI Framer. Now, he's a nice cat and I really dig him. But look, he never had to struggle. He doesn't know the first thing about fighting your way out of the jungle."
"So?" Said Pamela, pulling off his socks. "So nothing. I'm just talking."
"Then stop talking for a while and relax. It's been a long night."
She stopped, grinned at him in a pixie ish manner and said cryptically:
"And it may get longer."
Arthur was completely undressed. Pamela stepped back and looked at his black body. The sinewy, muscular form gleamed against the white sheets.
"You have a beautiful body, Arthur."
"So I've heard."
She bent down beside him and slowly began to massage the fatigue out of his bones. Her hands were skilled and practiced. She kneaded his powerful shoulders and loosened the back muscles.
Slowly, Arthur began to get excited. She could tell by the subtle change in his breathing. It began to get labored as if something had caught in his throat.
As Pamela sat there, she wondered at the strange facts of her life which could turn an incredibly passionate woman like herself into a puritan spinister, worse than the old maid white schoolteachers she used to have, the moment Arthur deviated from normal sex. But she soothed herself by thinking that when Arthur sent his giant maleness into her, she could not get enough, she could go all night, hour after hour, sucking out the very life from him, untO she lay triumphant next to his shuddering body.
Yes, Pamela knew, that when it came to "normal" sex, there were few women who could equal her in her passion. There were few women, even black women, who were so proud of their African heritage that they made it a point to incorporate all the sensuousness of the jungle into their bodies.
She looked down and could see his maleness stirring.
It was alive. It was vibrating from the effect of her hands upon his back. There was a beauty in it, she observed, the beauty of natural flesh, unallayed by the civilization which Arthur had embraced. When he lay there like that, naked, his powerful organ awakening, she thought of him on the football field, running through and over would-be tacklers. A brute of a man with the speed of Mercury.
Bending over, she brushed his lips with hers. Slowly, his body was beginning to respond. Soon, his inner sexuality would overwhelm him.
Her own body was beginning to shiver with anticipation.
"Kiss it," he said.
Reluctantly, she moved toward his moaning organ, the sum of his life and passion now wrapped in that throbbing cylinder. It was done. It was tasted.
"Again," he said.
But her lips were against his ear, whispering fervently to him that she wanted more than that, that she wanted to be impaled by his maleness, that she wanted to spend the night opening and closing her thighs around his maleness, sucking the very seed from his stomach.
"Kiss it," he said, oblivious to her desires, his voice menacing.
She moved off the bed, away from him, her lithe body like a splendid forest deer, moving from a source of pain.
"Why, Pamela?" He called after her in anguish, his whole body tense with the anticipated pleasures which did not materialize.
She did not answer him. She stood by the mirror, looking at her beautiful body, at the small but succulent breasts, at the light nipples which capped them like delicate fruits.
She wet her lips with her tongue and watched in the mirror, his organ, puking like some distant star, pulsing with desire for her lips.
Arthur stood up. He came toward her.
"Stay away, Arthur, please, tonight is just not the night."
"Every night is the night, when I want it to be. You know how difficult it is to arouse me, but once aroused I don't like to be left waiting, with this."
He pointed to his maleness, as if it had a life of its own, as if it controlled both of their destinies.
A look of fright came to her eyes. She glanced at the bathroom door. It was only a few feet away. If she could reach the door and lock herself in, she would be O.K. until his passion and anger subsided.
She started to run. The moment she took her first step, she knew it would be futile. He was too much of an athlete. He still had that cat-like quickness and the ability to anticipate another person's moves.
As her hand closed around the door knob, she felt his powerful arms wrap around her. His hands brutally snatched at her breasts, as if they subconsciously wanted to pluck them off as trophies. She could not scream because the force of his capture had knocked the wind out of her.
He began to sway with her, like a child sways with a doll. Then she realized what was happening. Slowly, very slowly, his maleness began to penetrate between her buttocks.
She fought, but each time she moved her body, she perched more on the weapon, each time she moved, that organ went deeper into her.
She fought, but it was useless, a moment later his body exploded into a fury of movement. Pain and lust in equal amounts subdued her. She screamed and moaned but could not fight the powerful maleness which had driven home, deep within her. His mouth and teeth were fastened on her neck, like she was some prey which he had trapped.
He pumped into her with all the might of his powerful body. She was dissolved. Then, when she was almost collapsing in his arms, she felt the hot seed pour into her, and he picked her up and threw her, emotionally and physically exhausted, on the soft bed.
Neither of them spoke for a long while. Arthur stood by the window. She could see his body shaking from the exertion and the knowledge of the tauma it had caused her.
She could not hate him. She could not hate the difference between them, that strange sexual quirk which made one desirous of strange actions and the other with a need for total and perpetual penetration, the whole night long.
"Arthur," she said softly, "come here."
He walked slowly to her. He sat down and a moment later he buried his head in her arms, asking forgiveness, asking once again for understanding.
She patted his head as a mother comforts a baby. They feU asleep like that, in each other's arms, their dreams confused and tempestuous.
Later, Pamela woke up and she went into the kitchen for a glass of cold milk. She sat at the kitchen table, drinking the white liquid. Something had to be done, she knew, and it had to be done quickly. She and Arthur were too much in love with each other to let this one chasm destroy their life. She needed him, she needed his ambition and his strength. And he needed her body and her sensitivity. Her hands clasped the glass tightly. She looked down and saw the dramatic contrast of her black hand over the white liquid. Perhaps, she said to herself, a sexual contrast is needed.
CHAPTER THREE
A week later the two couples met for coffee after a group session. Because of the intimate nature of group therapy sessions, each of them knew the problems the others faced. Lucia was sitting across from Pamela and she spoke to her. Her voice was low and anguished:
"Week in and week out, the same thing. Nothing happens. Nothing alleviates my symptoms."
Arthur broke in, twirling the coffee cup in his strong black fingers.
"Look, the man says these things take years. And he's supposed to know what he's talking about."
"Don't you see," Lucia replied vehemently, "Bill and I cannot wait years. We need results. Our marriage is dissolving. A whole life, built on love and laboriously constructed, is falling apart. That group can't help us. Dr. Legna can't help us."
"What do you propose?" Pamela asked softly.
There was a long pregnant silence. Each one at the small table felt that something important was about to be said. Each one was nervous, expectant.
"I have been thinking of something," said Lucia, "for a long time. I never even told Bill. It's very daring and very dangerous. But it could work. I believe it will work."
Again there was a silence. Bill looked at Pamela, discreetly. Whenever he was in the black woman's presence, he felt an overpowering lust rising in himself, a lust that almost could not be controlled.
"Spit it out, Lucia. What are you trying to say?" asked Arthur, finally disgusted with her evasions.
"Fine. I will spell it out, exactly. I propose that we form our own group. Just us four. And that we meet twice a week in a rented hotel room. But there will be one crucial difference between our group and the one we came from this evening. Dr. Legna's group is verbal. We are supposed to work out difficulties by speaking spontaneously, by telling all of our feelings, by reacting to the others, verbally."
She paused for a moment to catch her breath since she was now speaking quickly and excitedly. The other three waited, nervous, tense, aware that a significant statement was about to be made. Lucia continued, in a low voice.
"Our group will act out our problems. Since our problems are primarily sexual, we will react physically and spontaneously toward each other."
Pamela smiled grimly and then asked:
"Do you know what this means?"
"Of course," replied Lucia quickly, "it means that we will have sexual relations of all sorts with each other. But it will not be for passion's sake. It will be an attempt to save our marriages through the bodies of close friends. It will be a unique chance to break through our sexual barriers through the sympathetic bodies of close friends who are not our husbands or wives. Each of us will be able to use the other to help us live. For example, you have heard my main problem stated in the group. I become disinterested just before climax. Well, Arthur, I will use you to help me. I will experiment with you and you will experiment with me. Our bodies will merge, and grow familiar with each other."
It was a daring statement. They all looked at each other, realizing the implications of such a group.
Bill pushed back his coffee cup and said in a loud, skeptical voice:
"It's a wild scheme, Lucia, but it probably won't help anyone. What you're proposing is that we rent a room and the four of us have sexual relations. It will probably be nice but I don't see anything therapeutic about it."
"No, Bill," said Lucia, "we don't just go to a hotel room and have sexual relations. I have been thinking about this and reading of other, newer types of therapy. The first session of our group, if it comes about, will be devoted to touching. That's right, just touching the others' bodies and describing the sensations. By touching, of course, we include kissing. Then, gradually, as the sessions proceed, we become more and more radical in our therapy."
No one replied to her description of the first meeting. Each of them were ready to grasp any straw that would save their marriage. Each of them knew that the traditional group approach was not working for them. Lucia decided to press the matter. She took out a piece of paper and tore it into parts. She handed one part to each of the other three at the table and kept one for herself.
"Let's make a decision now. Each of us will write down Yes or No on the paper. We will start our own group only if there is a unanimous vote of Yes."
Each of them made their choice and wrote it down on the paper. The results were unanimous-Yes.
The next morning they rented a hotel room for two nights a week and informed Dr. Legna that they were dropping out of the group. He intuited that they were about to embark on a strange venture and he warned all four against experimenting with any radical forms of therapy. His warning made them nervous. But they had already made their decision. They were desperate people and they were anxious to preserve their marriages and their sanity.
The two couples assembled for the first session in the hotel room. All of them visibly nervous. All of them were uncomfortable in the presence of people whom they knew would be their sexual partners shortly.
Because it was Lucia's idea, they made her the group leader for the first session. She accepted, saying:
"In the future, everyone must act as the session leader. Well rotate. Eventually, when we are rid of our nervousness and embarrassment, there will be no need of anyone to lead us. All of our actions will develop spontaneously."
Lucia pulled up four chairs in a circle.
"Remember, this first session is a touch session. It will involve only two of us, my husband and Pamela. I will talk both of you through it. And please, let us try to keep down any silly notions of jealousy. We are here to help ourselves, to save ourselves. We must give our bodies freely and easily."
Bill and Pamela stood up, Lucia and Arthur remained seated. Lucia, who was leading the session spoke: "Unbutton her blouse, Bin."
She could see her husband tense as his fingers moved tentatively toward the breasts of the beautiful black woman.
Arthur had a terrible expression of rage and frustration on his face. Lucia cautioned him.
"Relax, Arthur, this is therapy. No one is seducing your wife in front of you. Your manhood isn't being threatened."
Slowly, with shaking fingers, Bill unbuttoned her blouse. Soon, he held one naked black breast in each hand. He spoke, without thinking, without worrying what he was saying. He spoke to the breasts.
"You are beautiful. I have never seen your equal. I don't know how to love you.
He bent over and planted a long, lingering kiss on each of her nipples. It was a passionate kiss but it was also filled with tenderness.
Pamela shut her eyes. Lucia bent over, excited, and asked her:
"Why are you shutting your eyes?"
"He's a white man. He's still a white man. Does he think I'm going to be his black whore? Never!"
She was about to push him away, but she collected herself, realizing her outburst was the result of a long historical knowledge and not any personal experience.
"Lift her dress, Bill, and pull down her undergarments," Lucia ordered.
He peeled the garments from her body as if she was a ripe fruit. His hands moved over her buttocks, reveling in the silky blackness of her flesh. He fell to his knees, as if in worship of her body.
His face moved closer and closer to that dark triangle nestled between her thighs. Neither of them spoke. Pamela watched him in apparent horror.
Bill spoke:
'This is a body that will appreciate me. This is a body that will accept me, not like Lucia, not like you, Lucia, with your twisted sex, your sudden freezing. Oh God, why didn't I marry someone like you, Pamela? Why was I stuck with a frigid bitch who lies there at the final moment as if she was a rag?"
Lucia winced under the honest truth. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes but she held them back. The session was too important to be dissolved by the feelings of the participants unless they contributed to the therapy.
Bill's hands were on her black flanks. There was something about his touch which seemed to make Pamela sway, from side to side, slowly and sensuously, as if she was a snake that could be charmed with movement.
He bent closer to that patch of mystery, closer and closer, his neck muscles tensing with the anticipation of contact.
"Do what you must, Bill," ordered Lucia, "hold nothing back."
His lips lost themselves in the black triangle. They watched, fascinated, as he greedily pressed against her delicate flower, making tiny little sounds, as his tongue sought out that mysterious opening.
Pamela cried out. The white snake had entered. Beads of sweat appeared on her thighs and Bill's fingers bit into those black buttocks, so finely shaped and so boldly outlined against the white of his hands.
She cried out:
"Get him away. Get that filthy animal away. He is destroying me. He is sending his poison into me. Please, Arthur, help me."
Pamela's deep seated fear and hatred of all "perverse" sexual acts was coming to the fore. A look of the most intense disgust crossed her face, as if Bill's squirming tongue was the most loathsome beast on the earth. As his tongue moved deeper into the mysteries of her womanhood, licking and sucking the passion from its structure, she cried out again:
"Get him away. The chariot will capture me and carry me to hell. My grandmother was right. She was right. I will burn a thousand years, a thousand years with the most hideous tortures of my private parts. Get him away!"
They listened in amazement as this sophisticated young actress plumbed the depths of her subconscious. Arthur could not believe his ears when he heard his wife repeating an old folk superstition from the South.
But her words did not influence Bill who was lost in the aroma of her thighs. He could not be stopped. His tongue and mouth needed her, they needed more and more, they needed to go deeper than humanly possible. They could not rest in that cauldron of black womanhood.
She screamed again. She called out for her husband's help.
Arthur could no longer sit there. He could no longer let the woman he loved be put through such agony. A second later he exploded in fury and grabbed Bill, hurtling him halfway across the room. He followed the body, ready to smash Bill, to crush the life from him.
Quickly Lucia was between them. They stopped. All that could be heard in the room was the heavy breathing. Finally they calmed down.
'There's nothing to worry about," said Lucia in a matter-of-fact tone, "we had to expect reactions like these during the first few sessions. We wouldn't be normal if they didn't happen. As the sessions progress, well be able to control ourselves much better."
Her calm words had the proper effect. Everyone began to laugh and joke and then they got down to the serious business of analyzing what had happened. As they were all talking excitedly, Lucia noticed the bulge in her husband's pants. He was still excited from his encounter with Pamela. She called to him and took him by the hand as they walked into the bathroom. She shut the door and quickly opened his pants. She grasped his erect, throbbing maleness in her fingers, and began to slide his flesh back and forth. Quicker and quicker her hand moved, heating the already lusting organ, until, a few seconds later, the hot seed poured into her hand, and his body slumped against her in silent gratitude.
The first session ended, the couples left, their faces flushed with the results of the first encounter and then-hopes high for future sessions where the therapy would be much more radical.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lucia waited patiently for Bill to come home from the office on the following day. After the first session they had both been too exhausted to discuss the events. Now, Lucia wanted to talk to him, she wanted to probe his reactions toward the new group and toward that tremendous explosion of passion which had been so evident in him.
The first session had exceeded her wildest dreams. Pamela had obviously begun to solve her deep-seated antagonisms toward any type of non-normal sexual activity.
Her disclosures, made in the heat of the moment and under the penetrating tongue of Bill, were of the utmost importance.
He seemed distracted when he entered the apartment. She made him a drink and they sat near the window, silent, their thoughts disconnected.
"Do you find it painful to discuss what happened the other evening?"
He raised one eyebrow at her question.
"No," he replied, "but we very rarely discussed Dr. Legna's group. Why should we discuss our own?"
She stood and turned on him with a savagery which surprised even herself.
"Because in Dr. Legna's group, your sexual passions were not displayed in such style. Nor was your obvious passion for Pamela."
He looked at her for a long time and then his face broke into a soft smile.
"Remember, Lucia, it was you who led the group. It was you who selected Pamela as my partner."
There was no further discussion between them that evening. She read and he watched television. Lucia could not identify exactly what was wrong but she felt a sudden and almost complete chasm between them had suddenly opened. This perplexed and frightened her for the function of the new group was supposed to have a diametrically opposite effect.
She was still reading when Bill came in and kissed her good night, mumbling something about how sleepy he was. She watched him walk into the bedroom, the sudden prongs of desire gripping her body, the sudden hopefulness that she would function properly in the sexual arena at that moment. But she stayed in her chair until he closed the door behind him.
Sitting there, her book closed on her lap, the sudden mental picture of Arthur appeared. She could see his well-made face and burnished black complexion. She remembered how swiftly and beautifully his body had moved, even in anger, when he leaped at Bfll during the session. Even beneath his street clothes, she could imagine the heavily muscled frame. She tried to understand why the image had appeared. She tried to understand why she had suddenly conjured up that animal-like body, almost perfect in its sensual and aesthetic form.
It was growing late. She put the book away and joined her husband in the bedroom. She could tell by his breathing that he was almost asleep. She undressed and was about to put her night gown on when she had a sudden desire to look at herself in the mirror. She stood in front of her own naked image, glancing at the heavy breasts, no longer youthful, but still succulent and passionate.
Then, she went swiftly to the bed and woke Bill, violently. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, unable to understand what had happened.
"Is anything the matter?"
"Yes," she replied, viciously, "you are the matter. Do you think I'm stupid? Do you think I don't know that you've fallen wildly and hopelessly in love with Pamela? Do you think I don't know that all day you probably thought of the sweetness of her thighs and breasts and how you'd like once again to dart your greedy little tongue into her flower?"
"Go to sleep, Lucia, you're making a fool of yourself. If you're the jealous type, you shouldn't start group therapy sessions like that."
"Oh, you mistake me. This is not the type of thing one gets jealous over. What you do to Pamela in the session interests me only clinically. But I'm talking about love, a love that's growing and burning in you."
Bill, to show his disgust with the general trend of the conversation, refused to say anymore. He rolled over in bed and kept his back to her. Lucia sat down on the edge of the bed. She was sorry she had spoken so swiftly and cruelly.
"Forgive me, Bill."
He did not answer. She could see him drifting off to sleep once again, the curve of his body beginning to take on the rhythmic motion of a delicate ship. She shut her eyes and once again she could see his head gleefully thrusting between Pamela's black thighs.
She wanted Bill then. She wanted him with a passion greater than ever she had experienced. She wanted to feel his maleness ripping into her. Lucia was sure, she believed that, this time, she would not become inert and disinterested during that crucial moment as the zenith of their sexual love approached.
Her hand moved tentatively toward Bill. Finally it rested on his thigh. The pajama cloth seemed a mockery to her love for him.
"Bill, I need you. Wake up."
Her husband did not move.
Bill, listen to me. I know you can hear me. Do you remember the other night? The session? I watched you with fascination. Never have you been so passionate. Perhaps, if you had approached me with such intensity my sexual problems would dissolve. Bill, I want your tongue between my thighs. I want to feel that delicious moment as it circles against the lips of my womanhood, and then in one beautiful moment, that moment of delicious entry, I feel your love for me. Bill, you must wake up. I cannot control myself. I cannot help what I feel toward you now."
She bent close to him but all she could hear was the heavy, regular breathing of a man who had drifted into sleep. She was frantic with desire. Her eyes seemed to burn through the fabric to where his maleness nestled, quiet and calm.
"Bill, why do you deny me the joy which is rightfully mine? I am your wife. Now, I need you. My body is here, waiting, waiting to be plucked like a ripe fruit."
She could no longer wait. Her hands went to his pajama string. They undid the string. It was an erotic sensation for Lucia just to feel the string's knot fall apart. It was as if some great discovery awaited her.
Lucia pulled down his pajama bottoms, slowly and ritualistically. A second later the lower part of his body was naked. She had seen him naked thousands of times but this seemed like a new, a completely new experience.
She shivered. There it was. It lay there, an inert piece of flesh which eternally tormented her. Bending closer and closer she peered at the thin blue veins and the strange shape of his maleness, sleeping along with his body, guarded by his disinterest. Her hands touched the thighs which surrounded it. Bill was still muscular though, of late, layers of fat had begun to form. Her fingers dug into the fat and felt the sturdy muscle beneath. Her imagination soared, she imagined herself beneath those strong thighs, being driven into some sweet-smelling grass.
Lucia could no longer restrain herself. One hand grasped his globes. Thin beads of sweat appeared on her forehead as her fingers massaged the twin globes so lovingly joined in his sack. At that moment, the transformation occurred. She was no longer the sophisticated leader of the group therapy session which espoused revolutionary approaches. She was a woman with only one goal, sexual fulfillment. Lucia forgot her sexual problems, she forgot the tension between her and her husband, she forgot everything except the coming effort to arouse that inert flesh and then force it to find a violent home in her body, in the mysterious heat of her womanhood.
She touched the instrument itself. She felt a slight throb in her hands. It was coming to life. She rubbed it, trying to transfer the passion of her fingers into the flesh of her husband. It grew, slowly, but it grew.
"Bill, do you feel me? Do you feel my hands caressing your love organ, that most beautiful part of you? Bill, now is the time to show me."
She did not know what she was saying. All she knew was that she had to speak, to tell someone what she was feeling.
Then it appeared, before her, in front of her eyes; the maleness in the full bloom of its passion. It stood erect and threatening. It stood there, magnificent in its angry stance, the blue veins throbbing, the flesh tight, the globes firm and supportive.
He still slept. Perhaps, she thought, he was dreaming of Pamela. The sudden thought infuriated her. She had to purge her anger.
Bending over, her mouth open, her tongue moving from side to side in her pretty mouth, anticipating, she moved toward it. Her mouth was wet and hot. She had to do it. She had to wrap herself in some way around that exploding maleness. The contact loomed. Shocks raced through her body. The taste flooded each part of her with a quivering ecstasy. Her mouth incarnated all of her frustrated passion, her mouth and tongue were like two whips, driving Bill into an erotic world which only his dreams could approximate. Her breathing was heavy as it filled her oval lips, swallowed and swallowing, being overwhelmed and fighting back, each inch of the recipient of the most passioned thrusts a loving wife could muster.
Suddenly, Lucia felt herself being thrown across the bed with a tremendous force. Astonished, she looked up, her mouth opened and still questing for that organ which had resided there in beauty and love.
Bill was sitting up. His face was a mask of fury.
"Keep away from me," he spat out, in a voice she had never heard before.
"But Bill," she tried to speak.
"I want to sleep, keep away from me. Can you understand that?"
She did not answer him. She thought she could overcome his dislike, his fatigue, his shock. Once again, she threw herself at him. This time her large breasts were the weapon. Before he could move away, her naked breasts were against his face, running over it with her warm and quivering bosom. Her nipples sought his lips and ultimately his mouth. Her nipples were singing with the joy of meeting him.
Lucia pushed against his face. She wanted her breasts to inject the heat and juice of passion into him. Her nipples were against his eyes, quivering, delightful points, seeking to mold his vision.
But once again he pushed her violently from him, her body moving through space and slamming against a bed post. The tears streamed down her face.
. "Why, Bill? Why?" Her question was filled with her despair.
"I didn't mean to push you so hard. I'm sorry Lucia, but I just want to sleep."
Now her words became hard and less frantic:
"You wouldn't want to sleep if I was that black woman, Pamela, would you? No, then you wouldn't. Then you would be grabbing at every part of my body, trying to spread my legs, eagerly seeking my lips. Am I right, my darling husband?"
He sighed, tired of the scenes her passions often provoked.
"Lucia, remembered what you said at the session the other night, that we must stop being jealous of each other. What happened in the group was therapy. That's all. Stop acting like a bitchy, jealous wife. It really doesn't suit you.
Now, either you let me sleep or I'll go to a hotel for the evening, and I mean it."
His words sobered her. She had, she realized, been acting like a little girl. After all, it was she who had originated the group and who had led the first session. It was as if she was willing to dare anything to cure her sexual problems.
Without another word, she left the bedroom and walked into the living room. She poured herself a drink and watched the lights of the city. Her anger dissolved but her passion remained. It had been raised to such a crescendo that it lay upon her body like a cloud, heating every pore. Her hands brushed against her nipples as if apologizing to them for Bill's behavior. She poured the drink out and began to pace about the room, trying to dispel her excitement. But no matter how much she paced, the vision of that organ, fiery and trembling, nestled between Bill's leg, would not leave her.
In her sexual anguish, she picked up the bottle of whiskey as if to smash it against the wall. But as she held it, as she felt its cold, streamlined hardness in her hand, she did not throw it.
She ran her fingers over the top, up and down the neck of the bottle. It was a tinted bottle, almost black but still with traces of green. Most of the whiskey had already been drained from it. Lucia started to walk more slowly about the room, the bottle pressed in her naked breasts. She rolled the bottle against her nipples, strangely effected by the coolness of the glass against those straining points.
"I'D bet you look like Arthur."
She had uttered those words unconsciously. She had not meant to speak them, they had just surfaced suddenly as if she had lost control of those processes which are buried deep in her psyche and over which she had no control.
But the moment the words were uttered, she realized that she was speaking about the black man's maleness. She held the bottle up, looking at it's beautiful form and its elegant shape.
Then, ashamed, she placed the bottle on the table but she could not rid her mind of Arthur. Again, she saw him move with that grace and strength across the room to grab her husband. Again, she remembered how he spoke. Her eyes were now almost bloodshot with lust as she watched the bottle, sitting on the table, a surrogate maleness, mocking her futile attempts at arousing her husband.
"I cannot fight you," she cried out softly to the bottle.
"You are my reality, now."
She reached it and grasped it in her hot, sweating hands. She spread her legs and let the bottle play about the lips of her vagina. The guilt overwhelmed her but it was overcome with the need she felt, by the tremendous surge of lust which raced through her body.
The bottle seemed to develop a life of its own. It made its way past the entrance, and then in one beautiful moment the bottle entered her. A long, low gasp escaped her mouth and her twitching thighs closed around the icy, glass neck.
Lucia began to move the bottle in and out of her womanhood, in increasingly wild and swift thrusts.
It no longer was a bottle. It was the hard, real maleness of Arthur Brookins. It was the black reality of his beautiful body, ramming into her, heating the walls of her womanhood, going up, up, ever upwards into the heat of mystery.
Even in her passion, her lack of confidence displayed itself. A tremor of fear crossed her mind: Would even this perverted action end in the sudden tightening, the sudden disinterest which had always characterized her sexual life during genital contact. Her eyes closed, her naked body shimmering in lust, the night lights of New York made erotic designs upon her body. Then her fear ceased. She felt that a breakthrough was coming. She felt that this one perverted action would send her on her way to sexual wholeness.
"I want you, Arthur, I want you more than my husband. You will not fail me."
She saw his body again and this time her psyche greedily undressed him. The bottle spun in her flower, driving her body into the realm of absolute lust, the threshold was past. She would not freeze. She laughed amid her tears.
A few seconds later, the bottle elicited that strange rumbling in her stomach. All the juices of her body were beginning to respond to her self-penetration. Now, the vision of Arthur Brookins completely took hold of her. She could almost experience the power-packed thrust of his thighs. She could almost experience his lips against hers and his mysterious black body pouring out its seed into her most willing flower.
It happened. For the first time in many years, her body dissolved in the beauty of orgasm. The bottle left her and rolled harmlessly on the floor, its strange tinkling sound filling the room. She fell to her knees, her body a mass of tiny, pinpoint shivers as the completeness of the explosion flooded her body.
Then, all was quiet. She went to the bathroom and wet her face with cold water. Placing a gown about her, she went back to the bedroom. Bill was awake. He lay with his arms behind his head, deep in thought. He knew nothing of the strange events which had just transpired.
"I want to apologize, Lucia, there was no excuse for my actions."
She looked at him in astonishment and then placed a hand on his shoulder, in tenderness and assurance.
"Forget it, Bill. Everybody has a bad night once in a while.? '
"Well," he said, "tomorrow night the group meets again. This time it will be your turn-and Arthur's."
She did not reply for a long while. Then she turned to him, and said:
"I think these sessions are going to be even more productive than I originally thought."
This was what she said, but her thoughts were of a different kind. Her thoughts were on Arthur Brookins and what would transpire between them the next session, and what secrets would be divulged. She shivered once, deliciously, expecting much, and then she turned over and went to sleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
The two couples assembled once again in the privacy of the dingy hotel room. Their nervousness had diminished in comparison to the first time the group had met, but there was still an electric quality in the air. Lucia took charge, as usual.
"Last time, I was the group leader. Tonight, I think the honor should go to someone else."
No one spoke. The three possibilities looked at each other, nervously. Then Lucia decided to choose the leader herself.
"I think it ought to be Pamela. After all, she needs a rest after the last session."
Everybody laughed. Then tension was broken. Pamela accepted the offer without speaking, merely bending her head to one side. Bill watched her, and caught his breath in desire as he glimpsed that beautiful black profile.
There was another long silence while Pamela collected her thoughts. Then she spoke:
'Tonight, we are going to probe into the sexual lives of my husband and Lucia."
She said it in such a pompous manner that everyone laughed. But their laughter was short lived for every one realized what soon would happen-the naked erotic urges of those two individuals would be exploded into an actual encounter.
"Stand up."
Both Arthur and Lucia obeyed her. He was clearly uncomfortable and he refused even to look at Lucia.
"What are you thinking about, Arthur?"
He looked at his wife who was leading the group, mumbled a bit and then spoke clearly:
"I feel damn uncomfortable."
"Is that all?" Pamela asked, baiting her husband, trying to draw him out.
He didn't answer, but for the first time that evening, his eyes went to the white woman, and they roved up and down her body, as if trying to fix in his mind the curve of her breast and the gentle slope of her thigh.
Pamela then turned to Lucia and asked her what she felt.
"I feel excited, terribly excited. I must be honest with all of you even though it will hurt Bill, but for the past day and one half, since our first session, I have been drawn to Arthur, sexually."
There was no interruption but she just stopped as if she had made some terrible breach of etiquette. As she was standing there, she remembered the bottle and the terrible way she had used it to penetrate her, the terrible substitution the bottle had played as its stand-in for the black maleness of the man in front of her. But, in spite of her honesty, she could not bring herself to describe that scene. She could not, in truth, face her husband after such a disclosure.
The whole situation of having her husband described in such a manner was quite strange to Pamela but she realized her obligation to the group and continued her questioning:
"Well, what specifically about Arthur draws you to him?"
"The way he moves," answered Lucia, trying to phrase the answer so that it would not be an implied criticism of Arthur.
"Yes," said Pamela, "he moves nicely. Arthur used to be an athlete. Though he is developing a paunch now."
Then Pamela motioned to Bill that he should move to one side of the room, to give Arthur and Lucia room for the events which were about to ensue. Bill moved against the wall, his eyes darting from the black woman back to his wife, his eyes were furtive and questioning.
Pamela moved back, near him, and said:
"Begin touching each other. As you are touching, say what you are thinking. Don't feel constrained. Don't feel rushed. There is plenty of time. If nothing happens, then you can do nothing about it. Above all, don't rush the sexual part."
Lucia and Arthur took a step toward each other. Arthur raised one hand and rested it on Lucia's shoulder. She shivered. Then she spoke:
"I want his touch. I feel as if his hand should touch me. I feel as if his hand belongs where it is. I feel as if he owns me."
Arthur looked at her. His hand clenched on her shoulder. She felt the power in his fingers and the passionate potential in every part of his body.
But Arthur said nothing. He could not, at that time, enunciate the strange thoughts which were whirling through his mind. He could not bring his verbal intelligence to interpret an act of physical possession.
He placed his other hand on her shoulder and then brought them both down until they were grasping Lucia's large, heaving breasts. He began to breathe heavily and Lucia threw back her head and cried out:
"His hands feel the way I thought they would feel. His hands feel the way I predicted the other night when I saw him race across the room and grab my husband because of what Bill was doing to his wife. But I want more. I want to feel his hands on my bare flesh."
Pamela watched the pair in fascination. She had never seen her husband move so quickly into a passionate state. The other observer, Bill, kept thinking about his wife's problem, but somehow, he felt that with this black man there would be no sudden withdrawal from the passion of the moment. He bit his lip until he felt the blood run.
Arthur had heard what Lucia desired. Quickly and with obvious lust, his hands dancing to the time of his will, he began to unbutton Lucia's blouse. As his fingers opened the fabric, Lucia closed her eyes. Just that mere act of opening, and the promise those fingers held were enough to send him hurtling into an erotic sphere, hurtling out of the mundane space of that hotel room, and living every second in a heightened manner.
Her breasts were bare. Arthur stepped back to gaze at the quivering white mounds which perched so beautifully and so fully on her body.
She felt his gaze burning into them, as if in some manner he had transferred his lust into his eyes.
Lucia spoke again, this time in a very loud voice that reverberated across the room:
"I want him to touch my bare breasts. I want to feel his tongue on the nipples and his hands squeezing the very life out of them."
For the first time, Arthur spoke.
'They are beautiful."
But then he was silent. Pamela, in her capacity as leader of the group, spoke to him from across the room, in a low voice.
"Why are they beautiful?"
There was silence. He did not answer his wife's question. Finally, she spoke again, asking him the question, this time with an insistence which demanded an answer.
"I do not know," he replied, "but I am drawn to them. I want to hold them. I think there is some kind of warmth in them."
"Is it because they are white breasts and you are a black man?"
His wife's question obviously hurt him very much because he shot back the answer:
"White is innocence-those breasts are innocent, they are not used like yours, Pamela, to titillate an audience in your capacity as an actress."
The conversation was cut short when, suddenly, Lucia thrust out her arms in a mute gesture of desire. She just stood there, her arms calling for him, her hands shaking and silently demanding action.
Arthur moved toward the naked breasts. As he came closer, Lucia thought she would collapse with expectation. Closer and closer the lithe black figure moved, until he was only an inch away. Bending over, he pressed his lips against one of the nipples. She moaned.
They left that nipple and moved to the other one. The lips opened and the nipple entered. His tongue flicked out and swiftly manipulated the now quivering point.
"Oh God," cried Lucia, "I love what he is doing to me, I love it."
Arthur then placed his hands on her breasts and cupped them and stroked them.
"Hurt them," cried Lucia.
In response to her request, his powerful fingers grasped them with all the power he could command. She muffled her screams. Her face grew flushed and her body strained against his, encouraging him.
Then Arthur's teeth moved over the breasts, biting into the naked flesh. Making little welts in the white mounds. Each time his teeth sunk in, she uttered an animal moan, and finally, she threw her hands around his neck, and there was a startling contrast between the white of her fingers and the firm black neck which they grasped.
Arthur started to undress her. Pamela called out from the other side of the room:
"Lucia, do you want him to undress you?"
"I want it," Lucia replied, "I want it more than anything else in the world."
As each piece of clothing was peeled away and each piece of flesh was exposed, Arthur would kiss the flesh as if giving it his seal of approval. Soon she was naked.
Bill, watching from the side of the room, was astonished by the beauty of his wife's body. He had forgotten how voluptuous it could be during the height of passion.
"Do you want to see Arthur naked?"
Lucia did not reply to Pamela's question. Instead she walked close to Arthur and began to undress him. The moment took on the structure of a religious ceremony. Each piece of clothing she removed she folded and placed on a chair. Arthur said nothing, standing rock still as the woman proceeded.
A few moments later, they were both naked. There seemed to be no shame or embarrassment between them. Only the two other members of the group, the two onlookers, felt those slight, annoying pangs of shame at seeing their spouses' nakedness in front of another person.
Lucia moved in front of Arthur and said:
"I can see his organ now. Look how it begins to quiver. Look how it responds to me. I am more sure of my sexual power now-I am almost frightened of it."
She placed her hands on his naked chest, feeling the rippling muscles, kneading the hard but lusting sinews.
His maleness was now erect, it hung between his legs like a sword of wrath. They kissed. Their tongues went deep into each other's mouth, somehow communicating the depth of their need for each other.
The group, the sudden forcing of two people together, the talking-out of their impulses, had established that need an explosive erotic urge tied to the fact that both were friends and yet both were strangers.
They did not wait any more. Arthur picked up the woman in his arms and carried her to the small rug which lay by the sofa. Depositing her there, his hands, swiftly, stroked her thighs.
She kept calling to him, moaning that she needed him now. Her legs were stretched wide apart, and her buttocks quivered against the rug, waiting, always waiting for that sudden, tremendous thrust which would tear her apart.
"Arthur," she screamed, "forget them, there is only you and me. Forget them. Look at me. I want you, now."
His body moved over her, like a black shadow.
A second later it happened. In one gigantic thrust, his maleness passed the gates of her womanhood, and went deep, deep into her.
The spectators watched as the two bodies joined.
Black and White, male and female, they came together in one sudden fusion of erotic desire.
Lucia had never felt anything to equal the beauty of that penetration. Her flower sucked up the powerful organ and helped it to move deeply into her. She kept murmuring to Arthur, encouraging, giving him confidence. But Arthur did not need confidence. He wanted to destroy this woman but at the same time he needed her.
Again and again he brought his body against her, using his maleness like some primeval spear, ripping the dishonesty from her warm, moist flower, driving home the goodness and the love he had for everyone.
Their cries filled the room. Both of their bodies glistened with sweat. Their flesh came together and moved apart, an erotic rhythm of utmost speed and intensity.
His black hands moved beneath her buttocks, to cradle them as a receptable for the torrents of passion seed that were welling up in his body. Lucia sunk her teeth into his neck and the two bodies began to roll around the room, their flesh scraping against the bare wood floors, the splinters of wood torturing their bodies as the penetration grew deeper and deeper. Lucia felt as if his maleness was filling her with some wondrous quality, as if it could go so deep, and so magnificently, that it would purge her body, forever. Her flower drank that quivering organ in, it expanded and contracted like some willing fabric, woven by delicate silkworms.
Arthur's body began to tense. He was in his final passion. Lucia did not freeze or grow inert as she had done so frequently with her husband.
On the contrary, her body increased in lust and receptivity. She felt those strange movements in her bowels and veins, movements that she had not felt in a long time. They were growing together. His maleness was feeding her passion. Her flower was drawing out the juices of love.
They exploded together. In one great heave, Arthur sent his seed flowing into her body. And her body received it, but, one second after, Lucia was shook by the mighty currents of her own orgasm, exploding her consciousness, savagely sending her body into paroxysms of release.
It was over. On the floor were two naked bodies, one black and one white. They shivered as if they had both competed in some Olympian event. They could not move. They could not speak.
Pamela tried to speak but the passion of what she had seen robbed her of words. Instead, she walked to the two and placed a blanket on their bodies.
Bill suggested that they go downstairs and buy some containers of coffee. Pamela agreed and they both left. When they returned with the coffee and donuts, Arthur and Lucia were just finishing dressing. There was obviously a sense of shame between them, a sense of uneasiness.
"Well," said Pamela, "these sessions are becoming more and more erotic."
Everyone grinned uneasily. Arthur, especially, seemed confused and unable to focus on anything. Lucia was quiet and reflective.
"I think," Pamela continued, "we ought to describe and understand what went on this evening."
"Fine. Let me say this," Lucia replied. "You know that I have problems in my sexual life with Bui. Tonight, I had no problem. Why this is so, I just don't know. Of course, I'm attracted to Arthur, but I'm also attracted to my husband. I have to try and understand what happened so that I could function so wonderfully."
Pamela looked around, waiting for one of the men to speak. But no one seemed to know why Lucia had been able to function.
Lucia then began to talk about what had transpired, verbalizing, once again, every one of the feelings she had towards others just prior to the sexual contact.
The two couples spoke until late in the night. Nothing was resolved, but mere was a good deal of intellectual and emotional encounter.
Only Bill did not take part in the discussion to any appreciable degree. He seemed to be interested in only one thing, in Pamela. At first, Lucia's activities in front of him had disturbed him, but as the couple became more and more intimate and more passionate, he felt himself becoming abstracted. His eyes moved to Pamela and he was interested primarily in her response to Lucia and Arthur.
Finally, the two couples left the hotel room after making final plans for the time of the next group session. They left disturbed and confused with the events which had occurred, but even more committed to the strength and therapeutic qualities of the group.
On the way home, a strange conversation took place between Arthur and Pamela.
"You are very quiet, Arthur."
He looked at her for a long moment, and then his hand slid to her face, tracing a line on her profile.
"I felt, Pamela, as if during that sexual act, hundreds of past events, events I had forgotten, were surfacing through the pores. But even in my passion, I felt those events would destroy me, and possibly both of us."
She began to weep, and then, she buried her head in his shoulder, seeking the sanctuary of his protective body.
CHAPTER SIX
The next day Bill arrived in the office early. He wanted to work. He wanted to force those disturbing thoughts out of his mind. The vision of his wife reaching a satisfying, total orgasm in front of his eyes, with another man, was like a knife driving itself into the heart of his masculinity. Combined with his, was the almost overwhelming passion he continued to have for Pamela.
There was a lot of work to do, but as the legal papers piled up on his desk, he found himself unable to touch them. It was as if they came from another world, a world that had nothing to do with his problems and desires.
Sitting there, he picked up a paperweight. It was heavy, smooth, and black. He began to stroke it, and in doing so, the body of the black girl came into his mind. He remembered that first session and the delicate yet vibrant quality of her thighs. He remembered the erotic texture of her skin. He remembered every part of that sexual encounter with a thoroughness bordering on obsession.
Bill realized it was futile to work. He told his secretary that he was taking the day off and he hurried out of the office. It was a lovely day. The sun was bright and there was a cool, dry breeze coming from the North. He walked, aimlessly, trying to sort out the conflicting images which possessed his mind.
His car was parked in a garage near the office and he retrieved it and slowly motored around the city until he came to Central Park. Leaving it at a meter, he walked into the park and watched the young people stroll.
Then, standing beneath a flowering dogwood tree, the idea came to him. It came so fast and so furiously that he felt as if he was hit by a solid object rather than a mental construction. He had to see Pamela today. It was as simple as that, but the reality of his need was much more complex. He must see Pamela today. He could no longer sit and wait for those moments in the group sessions when he could have her. Bill was not interested in therapy, he was interested in her body and he wanted to have it in the privacy which such meetings required.
He tried to fight it. He tried to keep control of himself but all these attempts were futile. He walked swiftly back to the car and went to the apartment house where the Brookins lived. BUI knew that Arthur was working and that Pamela was probably home before she made the round of casting agents and producers.
He parked the car, and "went to a nearby drug store where he phone her. She was surprised to hear from him.
"Bill," she said over the phone, disapprovingly, "you know that members of a group are not allowed or supposed to contact other group members outside of the session. Now, we have to follow those general rules, or the whole thing is useless."
While she was reprimanding him, his mind churned for an excuse to give her. Finally, he replied:
"Look, I just called you because I'm lonely and tired and I want someone to talk to. How about this? You come down and I'll buy you a cup of coffee. Then, I'll drive you wherever you want to go and that'll be it. No one has to know. How about it?"
There was a long pause on the other end of the wire. Bill was sweating profusely as he waited for an answer. His stomach was convulsed in cramps.
"O.K., Bill, I'll come down." Then the receiver clicked.
He waited impatiently in front of the building. Finally, he saw her willowy body come out of the lobby onto the street. He walked quickly to her and took her arm.
They had coffee together in a small restaurant. Bill was ill-at-ease and he found making conversation with Pamela very difficult. She realized it:
"Look, Bill. This was a mistake. Let's leave and you can drive me where I have to go."
He paid the bill and they went to the car. She gave him an address.
As they were driving, he said:
"Pamela, you must realize by now how I feel about you. Believe me, this isn't a child's passion. It is the most total and most powerful force I have ever felt. I cannot help thinking about you, I cannot help desiring you."
She didn't answer at first. He could sense her face turned away from him, looking out at the passing city. She touched his shoulder, gently, and spoke:
"Bill, you must get hold of yourself. I can understand your infatuation. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I am black and you are white. I would be dishonest if I said that I wasn't drawn to you for the same reason. But, and this is the all-important but, what happened the other night at the group session was just an attempt at therapy. There was nothing else to it. If you take that sexual event as reality, the whole structure of the group is in danger. Can't you understand that?
"Bill, you have to understand that. All of us are deeply committed to the group. It is our last chance to work out our problems. There are four people's lives involved here and I won't let you destroy them because of a fleeting sexual obsession."
He turned on her quickly and savagely. His words cut into her:
"Fleeting? You fool! Do you call it fleeting when I cannot work or sleep or function? Do you call it fleeting when for the past few days I have been willing to give up everything for you, wife, profession, a whole mode of life? Do you call it fleeting when just the mention of your name can start me sweating? What do I care about the group? I don't know what will come of it or why we started it. All I know is that I want you."
There was a long silence. Bill gripped the wheel so tightly, that his skin grew white and the veins and arteries of his neck bulged out.
'The answer," said Pamela, "is no."
Suddenly, she realized that they were on the highway.
"Where are you going?" She demanded.
Bill did not answer her. He concentrated on driving, his face set in a grim mask.
"Are you insane? I have to be at the address I gave you. This is an important appointment."
Still, Bill was silent. There was nothing she could do. They were moving too fast for her to jump out and it would be silly for her to start screaming.
They rode for about an hour in the strained silence of the car. The longer they rode the more Bill was aware of her body, the more he luxuriated in having her beside him. Pamela knew they were on Long Island and were riding alongside the ocean.
Bill turned off the main road at a fork. Now they were on a sandy dirt road. It led to the beach. He stopped the car and sat there.
"Do you like the ocean?"
She did not answer.
"Here is one of the most beautiful set of dunes left in this area. Come with me."
Bill opened his door and got out. He walked to the other side of the car and opened her door.
"You might as well get out," he said, "even if you don't like me you'll like the view."
She had no choice. She got out of the car and followed him as they walked toward the ocean. The gulls were on the beach, flying in circles, often swooping into the shallow water to pluck some unsuspecting prey from the water.
Bill sat on a piece of driftwood. She stood, stiffly, watching the gulls.
"Isn't this better than going to your appointment in the city?"
'That appointment may have meant an acting job. It could have been a good role."
He began to talk about how the theatre was bogus and how she should give it up. But Pamela was no longer listening. The ocean and beach had sent a sudden chill through her body, as if she had become one of the small fish which the gulls pluck, shimmering and struggling, from the water.
She felt his hands on her ankle. She tried to move her ankle away from his grasp, but he was too strong and determined.
"Why don't you sit down, beside me?"
"I prefer to stand, thank you."
Bill pulled her down beside him, roughly, and she felt a tremor of fear race through her body. His hand was moving up her leg. It reached the knee and he stroked it.
"What do you want of me?" She asked with a great deal of weariness in her voice.
A second later she received her answer and he pulled her savagely to him and crushed his lips against hers. She fought him, her hands went to his eyes to try and gouge them out. But his grip was passionate and she felt his tongue flick against her lips trying to force her mouth open. Finally, her mouth could not withstand the pressure and her lips parted. She heard him gasp as the opening presented itself, and, a second later, his tongue was in her mouth, frantically trying to transfer his passion.
Finally, with one burst of strength, she broke away from him and rolled a few feet on the sand. He looked at her, his eyes blazing:
"You cannot escape. Why do you fight? Why do you reject a love that is so pure in the intensity of its passion?"
He moved to her again. In spite of her fear, in spite of her desire to be rid of him, she found herself unable to move.
Bill touched her breast. Even beneath the fabric it seemed to call to him. He began to open her blouse. He knew that she would not resist. There was something in her eyes that accepted rape, that accepted the inevitability of the moment.
Working quickly, he laid bare the breast. It was like the receptable of some cosmic, black mystery. It seemed to call to him. He placed his face against the flesh. It was hot and sweet.
He took the nipple in his mouth and played with it, like a puppy plays with a bone. Then he gently sucked on the nipple and he heard Pamela moan. The sound of her throaty voice sent a shiver through his body. "No, Bill, not here."
Her voice was pleading but it lacked the iron in it to stop him.
Both breasts were now bare. Those twin hills of lust reverberated beneath every movement of his lips and tongue. Under his attack, her body squirmed from side to side as if the passion he was exuding was too much to bear.
He had to see her black body against the white sand, to see the grains of sand pour themselves into the mold of her straining flesh. Bill was almost sobbing with desire, his chest heaved, and his palms were wet with sweat.
Frantically now, he removed her clothes. The fear was still in her eyes along with that strange sense of inevitability. Then she was naked. He ran his hands up and down her body, marveling at that treasury of flesh. He stroked her thighs and let his fingers play along her well-formed buttocks.
She raised one hand against his chest in a pathetic supplication, but, he swept the protesting hand away. His lips were on her stomach. He could feel the fear and excitement within her. He pressed his mouth deep into her stomach, feeling also the beautiful play of muscles and the small tremors which were palpitating there.
Her thighs were calling to him. That exotic triangle, nestled so beautifully between her legs was like a magnet for his mouth. His lips moving passionately down, always down, and then, in one beautiful second, his mouth met the gates of her womanhood. His mouth dissolved against the entrance to her flower, gasping in the beauty of the meeting. She cried out, a soft cry, like a wounded animal. He ignored her.
He was between her legs now and his tongue darted out from between his lips and penetrated the holy of holies. like a ravenous reptile, released from some primeval prison, it sought the wetness and the juices of her inner body. She gasped as the snake-like tongue penetrated her. Bill moved his instrument from side to side, bringing her swiftly to a point of almost incredible lust. Her thighs wrapped around his neck and he was lost in the darkness of the moment. The gulls swooped down over the pair as their silent joining continued. Bill felt his head pounding and his body vibrating as his tongue moved deeper and with greater ferocity. He could not get enough of her flower. He could not penetrate deep enough to taste the incredible sweetness of her womanhood.
He felt his maleness struggling against the jail of his trousers. He could not deny it much longer. Moving away from her thighs, he half-kneeled for a moment to release that powerful organ from its imprisonment.
It darted out, bold and ferocious, searching ever searching, for the gift it was by nature taught to enter.
Bill looked at her. Pamela's eyes were focused on his dancing maleness. Her face was covered with a mask of horror, but beneath that mask he could discern the well of passion which he knew was in her.
He moved his body closer to her. Her lips parted. He could see the pinkness of her tongue as it moved from side to side inside her mouth.
"Don't be frightened," he called to her.
She closed her eyes. His organ was half an inch away. The fiery tip moved toward her lips.
Pamela knew what was coming. She wanted, in her conscious mind, to deny that organ. But her lips grew wider and wider. She was under the impetus of a powerful subconscious force which she could not control.
A moment later, that throbbing maleness was at her, seeking the juices which it felt was rightfully its own. She could not deny it. His lips parted for the last time and the meeting of inflamed flesh and swift-moving tongue was consummated. His maleness tormented her lips. She accepted the pain and the degradation. She cared for nothing now but the chance to lubricate it, the chance to let that exploding organ reside between her lips.
Her mouth sent Bill's whole body into a whirlpool of new sensations. His organ pulsed with the drama of its capture.
But then, even this would not satisfy him. He called to her to let it go, he asked her for its freedom. Reluctantly, her lips parted, her tongue accepted loneliness. She knew why he had made that request. She spread her legs and waited for the penetration, knowing that his raging maleness had first tasted the delicacy of her lips.
It came with brutal suddenness. They both moaned as his erect flesh sunk into her flower. Bill was caught up in the frenzy of the penetration. Again and again he rammed his organ into her, going deeper and deeper, driving her into the sand. The joining of their bodies merged with the pounding surf.
Pamela was overcome with the entry, each time his body surged, driving his maleness more brutally into the depths of her womanhood, she brought her buttocks up to meet him, to join that delicious dance of lust.
It grew and grew within her body. She could feel every twist with a heightened sensibility. Their joining became more and more frenzied. Their bodies were reaching the precipice, the delicate balance of total commitment to the flesh.
An instant later, the seed poured from his organ in a great spurt of condensed lust, pouring into her and through her.
Her body reacted totally, and her buttocks squirmed in the sand as she reached the throes of her orgasm. Tiny cries came from her throat as the orgasm rippled on.
Then there was silence. The gulls screeched and the turf pounded the shore.
"Why, Bill, why?"
He could not answer her. He lay on his back watching the swift-moving clouds.
She dressed quickly. They went back to the car and began the ride to the city. Bill felt happier than he had ever been in his life. He had reached the summit of sexual fulfillment. His body seemed calm and tranquil His mind was clear.
"Can you say now," he asked her, "that it was not enjoyable?"
Pamela turned on him, bitterly:
"You fool, of course it was enjoyable. But. that is beside the point."
'That is the only point," he retorted.
'There are other people involved. There is my husband and your wife. And more than that, there is the integrity of the group."
Bill did not answer. He cursed the group beneath his breath. All he was interested in was when he could see her again, and when he could feel her body beneath his, straining to meet the thrust of his thighs.
They reached her apartment house. She stepped out of the car. He called to her through the window:
"When can we meet again?"
She looked at him in amazement and then she spoke softly but firmly:
"Never again, Bill, outside the group. You fool. Don't you realize that in spite of my lust for you, what you did this afternoon was rape?"
Turning on her heels, she walked swiftly inside. Her words slowly sank into his consciousness. Rape, he muttered to himself, and the word was so strange that he refused even to consider it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
But those brief moments of passion on the beach were to have dreadful repercussions. Those innocent, yet brutal erotic acts were to almost split the group forever, to twist and dissolve the thin loyalties which allowed the group to function.
It happened during the next session. In the hours between that meeting and the events of the beach, Bill was going through a re-evaluation of his own motives. The charge of Pamela, that his actions had been "rape", echoed and re-echoed in his ears. If she had been right, he reasoned, then his claim to humanity was bogus, for he had let his moral judgment become dissolved by a flight of passion. It was more than an intellectual crisis. For, in spite of his ready cynicism, Bill believed strongly in the Law and in the primacy of that code which makes civilization possible. If he had "raped" Pamela, then his life, his devotion to Law had been bogus.
Lucia could tell that he was going through some profound crisis but every attempt she made to help or to uncover the cause was met by a brutal response.
As the group gathered in the hotel room to act out their sexual problems, Bill was in a state of heightened excitement. The moment he saw Pamela, he began to shake. He could only look at her for a moment and then he averted his eyes. He began to pace up and down the room and the three other participants began to watch him closely.
"Bill," said Lucia, "it's time to sit down."
But her husband didn't answer. He continued his walking and the pain and anguish was building to a fever pitch.
Pamela sat down on a chair, saying:
"We can't do anything until he calms down."
She was enjoying Bill's predicament, immensely, though she had almost forgotten about the events on the beach, chalking it up to the white man's infatuation. Besides, she had found it enjoyable. Bill was, in her impression, an attractive man, making up in intensity for what he lacked in classical good looks.
Suddenly Bill stopped walking. His eyes roved over each member of the group. They burned with guilt. At that moment, he realized his betrayal. He realized that he had gone willingly into the group to be helped and to help others, and then, in one moment of lust, he had not acted in good faith. He had refused to suspend his gratification for one moment. He had refused to think of the well-being of the group. He had broken one of the most iron-clad rules of any group therapy session; no outside contact. "I have something to tell the group." There was dead silence when he said those words. All of them had never heard him speak in such a manner. Even Lucia was surprised at the manner he used.
"Go ahead," said Arthur, unaware of the contents of his coming confession.
Pamela stood up, desperately trying to stop him, trying to show him her anxiety that what he was about to do would be incredibly foolish.
"Speak up," said Arthur again, growing bored with Bill's slowness and reluctance.
Lucia wanted over to her husband and touched him on the arm, urging him silently to speak. She was excited by his behavior. For the first time he seemed entering into the spirit of the group, for the first time he seemed one of them.
Bill shook her arm off violently and Lucia moved away from rum. Then he spoke:
"Arthur, what I have to say will interest you. Only a few hours ago, or was it days, I have lost track of the time, your wife and I were together."
Arthur turned to Pamela, perplexed, not knowing how to respond to his words. Bill continued:
"No, don't look at her. She did nothing. I went to her apartment and lured her out under false pretences. Then I drove her, without her knowing, to a beach. There, I raped her."
The room was deathly silent. The veins in Bill's neck were quivering. The confession had drained him of every emotion. He did not care what happened next.
Pamela began to weep. Lucia just stood there, watching her husband, astonished, unable to respond.
A second later, Arthur leaped across the room, and swung his fist. The sound of knuckles against flesh filled the room with its sickening sound. A spurt of red blood, poured from Bill's face.
Then, Arthur became a madman. He landed blow after blow on Bill's body and face. The beaten man did nothing and said nothing. He seemed to welcome the blows as part of his expiation. The rug was now inundated with his blood. He fell to the floor but Arthur was not satisfied. He grasped Bill by the throat, entwining his fingers tightly into the flesh, breathing heavily as he tried to choke the life out of his wife's attacker.
Finally, both women realized that if they did not stop Arthur, he would kill Bill. They rushed to the enraged man and try to pry his fingers loose from Bill's throat. But they couldn't do it. He was too powerful for both of them.
In desperation, Pamela moved in front of her husband, and throwing her arms around his neck, pressed her lips to his, biting his lips with her teeth until the blood flowed. In pain and rage, trying to rid himself of those cannibal-like teeth, he released his grip on Bill in order to send his woman hurtling across the room where she crumpled against the couch.
Suddenly, he realized that he had hurt her. He ran to Pamela and picked her up, weeping that he didn't realize his own strength. His wife was only dazed.
Lucia was bending beside Bill, trying to see whether he was hurt badly. But except for the bruises on his face and the welts on his neck, he was not badly hurt. She went to the bathroom and wet a washcloth which she used to wipe his wounds. Then, very slowly, she helped him up into a chair.
They all looked at each other, suddenly exhausted by that tremendous outpouring of hate. Arthur was breathing heavily, his eyes still glistening with hate.
"I will kill him, I promise you that."
"Will you kill me also," queried Pamela, "for don't you realize that I encouraged him to some extent?"
He looked at his wife, the dumb hurt welling up in him, his hands outstretched, agonizingly, asking for clarification.
But Pamela was silent. She would say no more. Her eyes were half-closed and she shook her head from side to side, trying to understand how the group had so suddenly and so terribly exploded into a blood ritual of revenge and recrimination.
Lucia held the damp rag, soaked in Bill's blood. She looked at it as if she could not comprehend it, as if the past events had taken place somewhere else and with different characters. Finally, she spoke:
"What has happened to us? We have become animals. Is this what our brave new venture has led us to? I say, if this is the reflection, the deep truth of our getting together, we ought to disband the group and never come together again."
She was speaking passionately and she had to stop to catch her breath before she could continue:
"But we must come together. We have created something beautiful. Yes, very beautiful. And now it is going down the drain with stupid little jealousies. What happened between Bill and Pamela had to happen. They were drawn to each other. I'm not saying my husband was right. Rape is never right. But it shows that the group is working. It shows that everything is beginning to come out in the wash. We have to get together again. We have to."
Lucia was frantic with fear that she was witnessing the end of the group and she was fighting with all her might to bring it together, to stop the disintegrating process. She was struggling for an idea. She was struggling for a way the four of them could come together, again, to continue their work.
She looked at Arthur, whose body was still shaking with rage. The solution came to her. It was the only solution she could think of. The one thing which had ripped the group apart must bring it together; an immersion in the flesh, an immersion in the bodies of the group, an immersion which would dispel some of the rage each felt towards each other.
Slowly, very slowly, she began to remove her clothes, speaking as she performed, like some strip-tease artist in front of a howling mob:
The other three watched her, as if she was a cobra, dancing to the music of the piper. She was naked. Bill, lying on the chair, his legs dangling over one side, his head still whirring, looked at the naked body of his wife in a surreal tight, he could see her succulent breasts moving ponderously in the dim light of the room.
But Lucia's actions were a mistake. She had miscalculated the nature of the latent violence which had surfaced. She had not understood the depths of their subconscious hatred of each other and their need to do violence to one another.
Her disrobing opened the floodgates of violence, only this time that energy was translated into erotic actions.
She saw Arthur moving toward her. Pamela tried to stop him but he shook off her arm like it was some insignificant insect.
She opened her arms to Arthur. He grabbed her with such force that she cried out.
She began to pull at his clothes. She needed to feel the purity of his black body, to sense the muscles and power coiled like a spring within him. One by one his garments left his body until he, too, was naked.
But Arthur still had the rage he felt toward Bill in his heart. Somehow, he transferred that rage to Lucia. She became the focal point of all his hatred, her white, yielding body became the receptacle for his torment.
He bent over her and sunk his teeth into her white breast. She screamed with pain but as the teeth sunk in, she felt a release that she had never experienced before. She offered her other breast, her mouth open, her eyes laughing, and he took the other one, drawing blood from its white voluptuous tormenting the nipple with his brutality.
Lucia was now completely caught up in the erotic violence. She swiftly moved to the floor and grasped his globes in her teeth, paying him back brutally for his treatment. Arthur screamed, a long, low animal scream, directed toward the heavens. Then Lucia released his bruised globes and ran, laughing, hysterical, about the room, her white body twisting like some desert dervish.
Arthur was behind her. He reached out and threw her against the wall. She glared at him, her body mocking his body, her mouth open and her tongue moving from side to side.
"Come to me, come to me," she kept calling in her delirium, "I want that thing between your legs. How it quivers! How it yearns for me."
She gyrated her hips in invitation, and with a roar, Arthur charged her.
She watched with a wild delight as his awesome maleness preceded him, jutting in front, its tip like some primeval lance ready to do combat. She did not accept it, passively, instead she leaped toward him and wrapping her legs around his waist, actively impaled herself on that organ.
Deep it sunk into her womanhood, deep and violently, like a storm that overcomes a tranquil sea. The sound of her cry reverberated through the room.
Once impaled, he pushed her back against the wall until her buttocks met the wall with a thud. Then Arthur began to grind her into the wall, using all his strength and fury. She closed her eyes and a spittle of saliva came from her lips. Never in her life had she felt such a total immersion in the joys of maleness. That thrusting, powerful organ within her was literally tearing her apart, extracting every iota of passion, charging her body with the strange juices of lust.
"More, more," she screamed and Arthur complied by redoubling his efforts.
The two bodies, one black and one white, were fused into one roaring flame. Lucia felt every fibre of her body coming apart. Each deep thrust of that maleness sent a shiver into her, from her head to her feet, driving, always driving her succulent buttocks into the hard wall. She was beyond reason. She wanted to be driven to her death by that surging black maleness. She wanted it to pluck truth and beauty and ecstasy out of her body. Arthur was now sweating from the strain. His thrusts became slower but deeper and more passionate.
The room became pregnant with the coming orgasms. Even the onlookers felt it, even Pamela and Bill, shocked by what they were seeing, felt that something titanic was in the offing.
It came. They exploded together. Arthur filled her body with the semen of love, a stream of hot seed that totally shredded her eroticized body.
"Forgive me," Lucia screamed.
No one knew to whom those words were directed or why they were uttered. But as the seed flower through the channels of her flower, her own body exploded in the fullness of her sensuality. And together, they drifted to the floor, like two used lumps of clay, only their heavy breathing indicating that they were still alive.
Their lust was contagious. The moment that Pamela saw them fall together, a strange desire for sexual violence surfaced. She looked toward Bill, still dazed by his beating and by the events he had seen.
He was the rapist. Pamela could not forget that. He was the one who had taken her to that beach and forced her to submit. She ran her tongue over her lips like some bird of prey about to swoop on an unsuspecting rodent.
Slowly, as if in a trance, her eyes riveted on Bill, she removed her clothes. She walked toward him. Reaching the tired man, she summoned all her strength and threw him to the floor.
He looked up at her, in fear.
"Why are you afraid?" She asked gleefully.
But she did not give him time to answer. She sat on his chest. Then, very slowly, she began to move, that dark triangle of womanhood approaching his face.
Bill watched it approaching. He could see the naked hatred and violence in Pamela's eyes. He felt his whole body rising to meet the challenge.
She cursed him as she moved closer. Her mouth formed the contempt she felt for him. But Bill no longer was watching her mouth. His eyes were riveted on those other lips, the lips of mysterious womanhood which came and came. He, with great effort, lifted himself a few inches off the ground and thrust his mouth and teeth between her thighs, biting the triangle, feeling her whole body shake as his teeth tasted the tender flesh of her flower.
His tongue went in. But it was no longer a tongue; it was a weapon. Each stroke sent her body into a fresh quiver. To counter his violence she pushed that triangle harder against his face, hoping to suffocate him in the dark hair of her flower. They fought like that together. Her thighs pushing, ever pushing against that hated face, and he, fighting back with all the fury his tongue could muster. But Bill was winning. She found it more and more difficult to control her own thighs. The power of his tongue was extracting her will. It was dissolving that will in the tremendous pleasure it sent through her body.
Finally, she escaped him. Bill, stood, and watched her body move away. His head cleared. He ran after her and without a word, impaled her from the rear, thrusting his organ between her buttocks.
In that one split instant, Bill became a brute. The thin veneer of civilization vanished from his psyche and moral sense. He no longer realized that this was the woman he had loved; that this was the woman he wanted to excite and spend time with. The moment his maleness, inflamed and greedy, sunk between her buttocks, all he could think of was the penetration. He was no longer thinking of his own gratification, or if he was, that gratification had to be violent. His hands in front of her, squeezing her breasts, he cursed her again and again as his organ ripped into her.
Pamela lost consciousness in that attack, her vision blurring and the room spinning, and she fell. But Bill caught her and held her erect until his maleness could spew that seed of lust into her body.
It was over. A silence came on them all. They looked around as if not recognizing the room. But, in truth, it was because they could not recognize themselves. They could not believe that they had sunk into such a depth of erotic hatred. They could not believe that they had perverted the glories of their body to such an extent.
Lucia was the first one to stand. Walking as if in a fog, she began to dress. When she had finished dressing, Pamela stood and dressed. Soon, all of them were busy, but still they could not bear to say a word to each other.
Bill's face had begun to bleed again from one of his cuts and he went to wash it in the bathroom.
When he came out, Pamela, shyly, walked over and took his hand.
"I'm sorry, Bill," she said, and that simple apology seemed to break the ice.
"Me too," said Arthur apologizing to no one in particular and to every one.
Lucia took Bill's arm and started to the door. As she was opening it, she spoke:
"We shouldn't think about what happened now. We all need a good night's sleep. Let's work it out together during the next session."
Pamela started to speak, but halted. Then she got the words out:
"What has happened to us?"
There was no answer as the couples parted. But the question was burned into their psyches.
CHAPTER EIGHT
That night, Pamela dreamed she had turned into a wolf-like beast who roamed a vast plain searching out the carrion of white men. In the dream she was caught in a hunter's trap and Arthur was the hunter. When he came to inspect the trap she kept calling out to him that she was his wife, but her language was wolf-language and he could not understand. He raised his rifle, about to bring it crashing down on her skull, and then she awoke, screaming, her body wet with perspiration, her limbs trembling.
Arthur tried to comfort her but was rebuffed. She spent the rest of the night walking about the room, trying to still the fears that were welling up in her.
When the next session rolled around, each of them knew that if their violence was not contained, the group would have to be disbanded. Pamela could not stand the idea of terminating the sessions. She had invested a tremendous amount of emotional commitment and she had received, for the first time in her life, insights into the origins of her behavior and her sexual problems. She felt duty-bound to make a supreme effort in maintaining the group.
They were all very quiet that session. The thought of what had taken place the previous time weighed heavily on them. There was little communication between them and they sat around in the hotel room, grimly, unable to verbalize the strange lassitude which was upon them.
Pamela told them the dream she had. She told it in explicit detail and they listened with mounting interest. Pamela concluded by saying:
"I have interpreted that dream in relation to the group. My turning into a wolf was symbolic of what happened the other evening, the sudden surfacing of violent erotic behavior. The trap I was caught in was the death of the group. The fact that I could not appeal to my own husband, who played the part of the hunter, means that a new language has to be developed between us, in order to survive."
They were all intrigued by her analysis but they were also confused as to what Pamela meant by developing a new language.
"I can't really follow you," said Lucia, her face pale from lack of sleep.
"Well," replied Pamela, "I'm not a psychologist or a professor. I'm not talking about a new language like German or French instead of English. I mean some way we can respond to each other that reveals more of ourselves while at the same time, moving away from the violence which is destroying us."
"That sounds very nice," said Bill, cynically, "but how does one do it in practice?"
He had been entranced in Pamela's presentation, and he wished he had been there when she dreamed that, in her bed, to comfort her, to wipe the tears from her eyes.
"Give her a chance," said Arthur. He had still not forgiven Bill and the hostility was still hovering at the surface, ready to explode.
"You must have some idea," said Lucia.
Pamela was hesitant. It was obvious to the other members of the group that something was in her mind which she was scared to disclose. They urged her to speak up. Finally, she succumbed to their requests. She folded her hands behind her back, like a child who was speaking before a class for the first time, and outlined her plan to save the group:
"I remember as a child my grandmother telling me stories she had heard from her grandmother about Africa. One story she told me stuck in my mind. It concerned a tribe on the west coast of Africa.
"There had been a murder in the village. A young woman was dead. The murderer fled the village and could not be found even after extensive searching. Because the crime involved the important families in the village, there was a lot of ill-feeling. The village seemed ready to explode. The normal, everyday actions of the village people were suffused with tension.
"Finally the headman in the village, to forestall the eventual explosion, decreed a work stoppage. On a certain day, no one would hunt, no one would grind flower, no one would wash clothes.
"When the day arrived, all the people gathered in a circle and began to touch one another, and to say beautiful things about one another. In this way, the bad feeling was dispelled."
They all looked at her in amazement. Finally, Bill blurted out:
"What does this have to do with us?"
Pamela smiled coyly, her hands went behind her neck, she said in a low voice:
"I think we should have a love-feast, similar to the feast in the village, only translating that love into sexual terms."
Bill and Arthur laughted out loud. But Lucia did not laugh. She was too intent on saving the group and every suggestion, no matter how outlandish, had to be considered.
"Are you suggesting a primitive, communal love feast?" She asked Pamela. "Yes."
It was a strange suggestion. Lucia did not know whether after all the events which had passed, such a thing was possible. But it could be a way out. It could be an answer to draw the group together so that the task of therapy could proceed.
"I'm for it," she said emphatically.
There was a long silence. Bill shrugged and threw up his hands as if unable to fight anymore and the strange suggestions of the feminine members of the group.
"Can you led it, Pamela?" Lucia asked.
"I can try."
Pamela thought quickly. She somehow had to develop a mood for the feast, a way, before it happened, Bill and Arthur could shed their skepticism. There was a radio in the hotel room. She flicked the lights off and turned on the radio, jiggling the station indicator until she had reached some slow, heavily erotic jazz musk.
"Just listen for a while," she told the other people, "and try to loosen yourselves, try to think how it would be if this whole room was suffused with love, if all our antagonisms could somehow drift away in the music."
They listened intently and slowly, the musk seeped into their bodies. It was calming yet exciting. It gave them the promise of flesh, but in an utterly transformed matter.
"Now, take off the clothes. Everybody must become naked."
They all began to undress in time to the musk. It was a strange sight, for the darkened room showed only the vaguest outlines of bodies, and each body seemed to be enacting its own ritual, tied closely into the movement and texture of the sound from the radio.
Then, they were all naked.
"Let us form a circle, without touching, thinking only of the beauty there is in standing next to one another and sensing from a distance the outline of the human form."
They followed her instructions to the letter. The group formed a circle.
Pamela felt that she had reached a point where every instruction she gave to the group in her capacity as leader of the communal feast would be correct. A sudden sense of confidence in their shared undertaking filled her.
"I am lifting my breast. It is dark and you cannot see it, you cannot see the beautiful nipple which is perched at the end like some flower, newly bloomed. Please close your eyes and think about what I am doing. I am lifting my breast for all of you. I am lifting my breast for your love. Do you feel it?"
There was no answer from the others, only their heavy breathing.
"Do you feel it?" She repeated.
This time there was a chorus of muffled voices-all of them testifying to their apprehension.
"I feel love coming from all of you but one. Which of you is acting, which of you will not love this breast?"
There was no answer to Pamela's question.
"The one who does not love must come forward. He must take this breast and let it warm him. It is you, Arthur."
Arthur straightened up. His naked body shook with the impact of his wife's accusation. "Come to me, Arthur."
He made the first tentative step out of the circle toward his wife. She held her breast up, every inch of flesh yearning toward him.
He was beside her. He bent over and with the tenderness that had been always foreign to him, he parted his lips and let them grasp the straining nipple.
The moment he did this, there was a long low murmur from the other members of the group. The love feast was progressing. The combination of music and naked bodies and darkness, and now that joining of lips and breast had sent them into a different sphere of sensibility.
Pamela stroked her husband's head as his lips played with her nipple, warming it and infusing it with his love.
"Yes," she said to him, "you are beginning to enter the world. Don't stop Arthur, remember everything that love used to mean to you, remember and act upon it."
Arthur's eyes were now blinded with tears and they rolled down his cheeks, wetting his lips and causing the nipple to suck in the juice of triumph. Then Pamela spoke again:
"Bill, come to me. Let us forget everything that happened on the beach. Let us forget what happened in the last session. Let us forget everything but one thing-and this is my other breast which Arthur will share with you."
A tremor raced through Bill's body. He could not escape this black woman. He could not escape that breast which called to him in love and lust, yes, lust, but of a different kind than he had ever experienced.
He moved toward Pamela. Lucia stretched out her hand and touched his shoulder. It was a touch of encouragement. It was a touch that showed BUI she wanted him by the other breast, she wanted him to partake fully in the feast.
Quickly he grabbed the other nipple in his mouth and both men joined themselves to the woman in the most profound manner possible.
Pamela was weeping silently. Her body shook as these two sets of lips poured out an awakening tenderness, a tenderness that was made more potent by the sensuality of her breasts.
Lucia watched the scene. It was beginning to effect her dramatically. It was a new experience. All of her knowledge and sophistication was falling apart before these three people who were using a different language, a language that could realize love rather than describe love.
She watched Pamela kiss them and finally disengage her breasts. Gently she pushed them back until they had formed a circle again.
The music continued and now all the bodies were swaying under the domination of the feast. In the darkness, the organs of Bill and Arthur could be seen, erect, quivering, muscular intrusions in the solitude of the room.
Pamela walked toward Bill. She kneeled down before him and in a moment of supreme tenderness, in a moment dedicated to the preservation of the group, brushed her lips against the surging maleness before her.
A long, low moan escaped the collective consciousness of the group. They seemed to lean toward the black woman as she performed her haunting ritual.
Pamela was almost in a trance. She could feel the flesh of the other man as a musician feels when the instrument he is playing totally encaptures him.
Her lips were wide, wider and more receptive than she had ever remembered them. She felt the maleness entering the gates as if it carried at the tip a spear of love, a message to her tongue for peace and harmony and the blessedness of sensual things.
As Bill's maleness was surrounded by Pamela's oral embrace, he could scarcely stand with the ecstasy of that penetration. For the first time in his life, he felt the sexual power of tenderness, he felt the incredible joys as those lips played its primitive love song on his maleness, on the brute flesh which hung and struggled so menacingly between his legs.
He felt as if he was sending his organ into the wet, moist center of some oriental holy place, where it would be worshipped and given the care which it ardently desired.
Pamela planted one more, long lingering kiss on that flesh, implanting the form of lips on the powerful organ. Then she moved to Arthur.
Here, her lips joined with the maleness of her husband. It was a shared communion, a communion based on a common life and common experience.
Pamela could not get enough of that surging thing which threatened to choke her but which contained the fruits of their love. She heard Arthur moan and she felt his powerful fingers digging into her back.
But then she let go and called to Lucia:
"Lucia, he waits for you. Come here. Show him the joys of your mouth."
Lucia hesitated. It was not that she didn't want to go to Arthur. It was merely that she was afraid her mouth could not express the love and tenderness she felt for all of them. But the sight in the darkness of that black organ, quivering, waiting to receive the joys that was rightfully owed to it, she overcame her objections, and swiftly, with a cry of passion on her lips, she sped to Arthur.
He saw her come and he tensed for a moment. Arthur did not want the incredibly loving lips of his wife to be replaced by the raw lust of Lucia.
But the moment her lips replaced the others, he knew he had been mistaken.
"Yes, Lucia. Love him!"
Pamela's words were not a command, they were a statement of fact. And Lucia did love him that moment.
She opened wide to receive that flesh, she let it slide into the portals of her speech, into the consciousness of every woman's tongue. As it did in, she could think of nothing except the sheer beauty of the moment.
It was there. Yes, every vein and muscle in that quivering maleness was in contact with her oral soul. Her whole body seemed to move toward her mouth, as if the point of contact now contained some hidden wisdom.
She could not get enough of him. She could stay there forever, without leaving, resting happily, sensually, and lovingly, with his maleness clutched there, her lips like love vises, her body the receiving line of his masculinity.
Bill watched. He could see, even in the darkness, what was happening. He could see his wife wrap her love around that organ, that terribly excited, thrusting flesh, which seemed to devour Lucia just as she devoured Arthur.
But the love feast had its effect. There was no jealousy or cynicism in his heart. He knew she was doing what she must. He knew that she was following an age-old compulsion. He called out to her that she was beautiful and that Arthur was beautiful.
When he said those words, Pamela walked over to him and began to lick his body, like a loving dog that had not seen its master in years. Bill, in turn, stroked her thighs and rested his hand between her legs, thrilling to the vibrating movement of her womanhood.
Then the two women began a weird oral dance. They moved from one man to the other, from one organ to the other, bringing them to a fever pitch with their tongues and lips.
Each round, they went, the organs grew until the room was dominated by their presence. Peak after peak of intense excitement was reached, until the organs were at the precipice of ejaculation.
At that moment, the two women lay on the floor beneath the men. Bill and Arthur stood over them. Their organs were trembling at the moment of truth. An instant later the hot seed flowed. It fell on the women's bodies, drenching them, making them quiver with the receipt of the juice, wet drops of love-liquid, inundating them in a love shower.
The men fell to their knees and in a beautiful moment of compassion and love, they proceeded to rub their liquid into the bodies of the women.
Lucia moaned as Arthur's powerful fingers massaged the fruits of her love into her body, into every crevice and secret place, into every square inch of flesh.
Bill did the same to Pamela, his hands roving over her body, distributing the precious liquid over the curve of her buttocks and the nape of her neck.
The women moaned as they continued. Each further application reached deep into their unconscious, back to the primeval beginning of liquid. The women became toys to play with, in a loving manner, toys that redeemed then-faith in love. Thus, it continued until the liquid had vanished into the pores of their flesh.
At that moment, the group became one. At that precise moment, they no longer were separated by the fires of hate and sexual jealousy. They were a unit, working together to bring each other peace and the love which can heal.
Pamela spoke to them, echoing all their feelings. "Can it continue? Can we hope that it will always be like this?"
These two questions were in mind of everyone. But there was no answer. There could be no answer. Only the future would tell. They slept together that night, in the hotel room, naked and without malice, the music pouring its passion into their bodies. It was a night they would remember all the rest of their lives. It was a night which defined them as a group.
In the future, all the activities of the group would be measured against the time when they were able to realize a selfless love.
Once and only once during that night, they heard
Lucia cry. But no one went to comfort her for all knew that it was the joy of the moment which had elicited those tears. Sorrow had been overcome.
CHAPTER NINE
After the invigorating experience of the love feast, the group performed excellently for a number of weeks. Each session saw more profound revelations surfacing during the sexual encounters. Each session saw more and more freedom to explore the sexual intricacies of each other's body.
But gradually, the warm glow of the love feast and the memories which that event carried, grew dim. The primitive jealousies of the group began to surface again, though this time in a more subtle and sophisticated manner.
One of the most remarkable aspects of this development was that it was Lucia who was affected most. Lucia, who previously had been the one woman untouched by jealousy and petty squabbling. Her gradual transformation into the classic "jealous wife" came about, paradoxically, because she was beginning to be able to function in a normal sexual manner. And with this new-found sexual health came the desire for increased sexual activity with her husband. But Bill was no longer interested in her. He was tender, more tender than he had ever been, but he no longer made any sexual advances to his wife.
The reason was quite clear to Lucia. Bill was still infatuated with Pamela. And every sexual contact between them in the group intensified that feeling.
Lucia tried to fight the cancer of jealousy. She tried to look at it philosophically, as a necessary development in the group's efficiency. But, at night, lying in bed, her body aching to receive her husband's surging maleness, all her philosophical rationales were futile.
She was trapped. To speak to Bill about it would be futile. Often, imprisoned by her situation, she would think of leaving the group, of splintering the. therapy. But then she would become calm and realize that such a thing would only be vindictive and hurt, perhaps terribly, three other lives.
The more and more she thought about her situation, the more and more she came to put the blame for her husband's infatuation on Pamela. Every sentence the black woman uttered, every move she made with her body, was interpreted by Lucia as an attempt to further enmesh her husband.
Finally, Lucia decided to speak to Pamela, alone, and to air her own feelings. It was a difficult decision to make for Lucia, more than any of them, knew that the breakup of a group often begins when outside contacts become necessary. The incident with Bill and Pamela at the beach was a different story for her husband was laboring under a passion that he could not control. But she was interested in reasoning with Pamela, and this was dangerous.
She called Pamela on the phone and asked to be able to visit her some afternoon. Pamela asked the reason for the visit but Lucia was evasive, merely saying that it was important to both of them and to the continuity of the group. An appointment was made for the end of the week, early in the afternoon, when both of their husbands would be at work.
The days passed slowly for Lucia. A thousand times during that week she thought of calling Pamela and calling the whole thing off, but she did not. It would have to ironed out, she reasoned, no matter how painful it becomes.
The morning of the appointment was a veritable hell for Lucia. She paced her apartment trying to formulate the words she would tell Pamela. But she could not work out a script that would accurately portray her charges. Finally, the time approached and she left the house and took a cab to Pamela's apartment.
Pamela greeted her with a smile. They both went into the living room where a cup of hot coffee was on the table.
"For me?" Lucia asked, surprised,
"For you."
Lucia drank the coffee quickly. The hot liquid soothed her. She looked at the tastefully furnished apartment and complimented Pamela. The latter was wearing a thin night gown and Lucia could see, in all honesty, why her husband had been so infatuated. Though she had seen Pamela stark naked a number of times in the group sessions, her beauty was never more apparent than in that sheer garment.
There was a long silence. Each of the women were ill at ease. Finally, Pamela broke the ice, anxious to get to the point of Lucia's visit.
"Why did you come, Lucia?"
At that moment, Lucia lost her nerve. She realized what a mistake it had been.
"I don't really know," she replied.
"I know," said Pamela, "it's Bill."
Lucia played with the coffee cup and then looked up, staring into Pamela's eyes, her expression a mask of accusation.
"Of course it's Bill."
"Well, you don't have to play games with me, Lucia, I'm a grown woman. Say what's on your mind."
Lucia stood up and walked to the window, her hands on her hips, her mind working furiously for the right words. She spoke softly, but with great passion:
"For the past few weeks, Pamela, there has been no sexual contact between Bill and I. He will not initiate my type of erotic behavior. You probably find that strange, since the group seems to be going so well. But, it's true. And, quite frankly', you are the reason for it."
Pamela held up her hands in a protesting gesture, replying:
"Don't blame anyone for your marital problems."
"You know as well as I, even better, that Bill is hopelessly infatuated by you. You know that you occupy his every waking moment, and that every one of his sexual fantasies has you as the object."
"I know that."
For the first time, Lucia raised her voice: "You encourage that infatuation, Pamela." That's a lie," Pamela answered, angrily. "You encourage it every time you meet him. You encourage it in the seductive way you speak to him, in the way you walk past him during the session, in your obvious attempt to have more and more contact with him, even contact which goes beyond the therapeutic."
Pamela seemed to wince as Lucia leveled charge after charge. Her harrangue went on for a long time. It was the first time Lucia had ever lost control of herself, and the words poured out in a stream of fury and self-pity. Finally she stopped, and looked at Pamela, hard, as if she had awaken from a sleep.
"I'm sorry," she said, "I've been acting like a fool, please forgive me."
Lucia walked back to the couch and sat down, her head in her hands.
When she looked up again, Pamela was sobbing, her body shaking with the force of her tears.
Lucia turned pale. She never realized or intended her visit to cause discomfort. She had visualized an intelligent conversation, a rational one, and now both of them had reached extreme emotional states.
"Please, Pamela, I didn't mean to go off the handle like that."
But the black woman was no longer able to hear. Lucia's charges had touched some inner wellspring of regret or guilt and the sobs racked her body.
Lucia moved to where she was sitting and placing an arm around her, attempted to comfort the woman. Pamela's sobs ran through her arm and through her body. Soon, she, too, was crying. A strange, inexplicable bond was drawing them together.
Gradually the tears stopped. Both women sat there, numb from their weeping. Lucia kept her arm wrapped around Pamela.
Suddenly, Lucia felt a chill. It was not the chill of a cold wind, rather it was the chill of a body going through a new and profound experience. But sitting there, she could not identify the experience, she could not pinpoint it.
She looked at Pamela. The woman's face was incredibly dark and mysterious and beautiful. It was, she realized, the most beautiful face she had ever seen. Pamela's lips was slightly apart, wet and pouting.
Lucia felt drawn to them. Something in them called for her, called for her touch. Her mind was reeling and her body was experiencing both hot and cold sensations. She moved closer, like a moth approaching the flame which is in reality its doom.
Three inches away, two inches, an inch, and then in one startling moment, she pressed her lips to Pamela's lips and drank deeply of that moist pool. They were joined for no more than twenty seconds and then Lucia, realizing what she had done, pulled herself violently from the other woman and raced across the room, her body shaking and her face a mask of terror.
She kept her back to Pamela, unable to face the other woman. Finally she turned, and said: "I could not help it."
Pamela did not answer. Her head was bowed and her eyes were averted. Lucia spoke apin:
"I could not control myself. Please forgive me. Please forgive me. I must leave."
Pamela raised her beautiful head and said:
"Do not leave."
It was a simple sentence, spoken simply, but it was apparent with feeling.
"Did you feel what I felt, Pamela."
"I did."
"What shall we do?"
Pamela could not answer. Instead, she held out her arms in a supplicating gesture.
"Go into the bedroom, Pamela."
The woman hesitated. She stood and looked toward the bedroom door but did not move.
"You must go, Pamela, and I will join you in a little while."
like some exotic sensuous statue, Pamela slowly walked into the bedroom and shut the door behind her, leaving it a little ajar.
Lucia watched every motion of her hips and back as she made that short walk. The woman's body seemed to be composed of liquid diamonds and each movement she made let the tremors of exquisite delicacy and sexuality run rampant. Lucia caught her breath as she saw the outline of the nipples against the thin fabric, straining to be loose, straining to realize themselves in the mouth and hands of the other. She saw the gentle curve of the buttocks, so gentle it seemed like a soft wind running through her lower back. Lucia saw the thighs, those blessed thighs, and her mouth symbolically watered at the thought of the mysterious triangle hidden there, nestling like a piece of sweet candy in the ice box of her body.
Finally, Lucia walked into the bedroom. Pamela had pulled the blinds shut but she could see that naked form, lying seductively and anxiously, calling to her. Swiftly, Lucia undressed, leaving her garments by the bed in a pile, a mute testament to the sudden and total onrush of passion.
Gently, she lay her face on Pamela's breast, breathing deeply, inhaling that erotic sweat which seemed to pour from Pamela's body.
"Open your lips, Pamela."
She complied, and Lucia let her own nipple slide between those exquisite membranes. As Pamela kissed her points and wet them with her tongue, Lucia closed her eyes. Surely, this was a threshold of lust she had never felt before.
Pamela's hands gently caressed her buttocks, tracing their outline, softly, sending quivers into her bottom.
But Lucia wanted more. She wanted to somehow absorb the other woman, to suck her into her own body and there, to let floods, of passion inundate her. "Pamela, look!"
She pointed to her womanhood. Then she lay back and spread her legs, saying:
"Pamela, pluck it. Pluck it like you would a piece of fruit from a tree."
Lucia saw the dark body move between her legs and that magnificent profile lose itself in her own flower. Pamela's lips were on the lips of her flower.
She moaned. Pamela then thrust her tongue past the gates of life. Lucia raised her buttocks in a beautiful agony. Now she had never thought it could be like this. No, she had never thought that the tongue of another woman could bring to her so swiftly, the secret joys of her own body.
From side to side, in the dark recesses of Lucia's womanhood, that frantic, questing tongue moved. It turned and sought the ultimate. It made Lucia's whole body dance to the point of its fervor. like some insane reptile, let loose after centuries of imprisonment, it could not be stopped. It would go deeper and deeper, and each time Lucia moaned, it would gain strength and courage.
Finally, Lucia could stand it no longer. The pleasure of Pamela's tongue was too much for her sensibility. She tried to push her away, but Pamela had fastened to her body like a leech.
Pamela dug her nails into Lucia's thighs, to extract more pleasure, and this was the impetus for Lucia's escape from that berserk tongue. She brought her fist down on
Pamela's back and the shock gained her release. She by on one side, sobbing:
"Lucia, I could not help it."
Lucia turned and kissed the black woman tenderly, showing her that it was not from dislike but from too much love for her tongue which caused her to rebel.
Pamela was now in a state of extreme excitement. She needed Lucia now as Lucia had needed her tongue before.
"Penetrate me, Lucia, I beg you."
"With that?" Lucia asked, her fingers now rubbing the soft down of Pamela's opening.
"The candle," she gasped, caught up in a moment of sexual desire which was so powerful she could scarcely talk.
Lucia groped for the candle which stood in its holder by the bed. She removed it and held its length in her hand. Then she held it between her legs as if it was a penis and climbed on Pamela.
The black woman spread wide, anxious, quivering for that thrust which would penetrate her.
Lucia, holding that stiff candle with both hands, like an attached organ, rammed it into her beautiful body. Pamela screamed. But the screams did not inhibit Lucia, they acted in a contrary manner, and she sent it deeper and deeper.
Pamela raised her buttocks to extract the most pleasure from that candle and as it impaled her. The now-cold wick, spearheading the entry, send little shivers of delight to cap the brutality and raw lust of the penetration.
"Don't stop, more, more," cried Pamela, "you are my lover, my eternal lover."
These words loosed the floodgates in Lucia. At that moment she really believed the candle was her own thrusting maleness, quivering violently in the dark, moist recesses of the other woman's body.
Each thrust, each joining gave Lucia a sense of power she had never experienced before. Her eyes narrowed and the lust was joined with brutality.
She began to grind the candle into her, grinding and twisting, sending Pamela into an ecstasy of hysterical proportions.
And when Lucia could feel the juices begin to boil in Pamela, she redoubled her efforts. The screams, the erotic gasps of the black woman flooded the room as she reached her orgasm.
All was quiet then. But Lucia held the candle in awe. She turned it in her fingers. This was her penis. She opened her mouth and let it suck the wax, feeling the delightful wick, letting her lips surround and kiss the once-dead wax.
As she did that, Pamela, in gratitude for what had occurred, slipped her finger into the white flower, and as Lucia continued her oral lovemaking on the candle, brought the white woman to a satisfying and beautiful orgasm.
It was over, They both lay on the bed, exhausted and fulfilled.
"What will be our relationship now? How will we act toward one another?"
Pamela could not answer Lucia's question. There were so many things to consider. Was this one berserk incident which would be forgotten? A momentary lapse into lesbianism? Or was it the beginning of a permanent, fruitful relationship, one that would be vital to both of their lives?
There was no answer. At least, not at that time. Lucia was the first to rise. She dressed slowly, savoring each garment.
Then they walked into the living room. Pamela made another cup of coffee, and they sat, drinking, and luxuriating in the aftermath of passion. The room seemed to glow for both of them.
Suddenly, Pamela frowned.
"What is the matter?" asked Lucia, quickly, exhibiting the utmost concern.
"I was thinking of the group."
Lucia looked into the dark coffee, swirling in the cup, and replied:
"Our fate and the fate of the group is no longer in our hands."
Pamela started to weep, and between sobs she cried out:
"It must be. We must determine our fate. But there are four people in the group, not two. And we are married to them."
Lucia nodded sadly, touched Pamela once on the shoulder, and left.
CHAPTER TEN
Neither Bill nor Arthur noticed the transformation in their wives. Arthur did notice a certain reluctance on his wife's part to attend the session. He was perplexed. This had never happened before. Pamela had been the one who looking forward to the session. Now, she complained of a headache. But Arthur insisted she go.
Lucia was too disciplined to act in such a manner. She left with her husband for the session as if nothing had happened.
It was Arthur's turn to lead the group and he had spent the last few nights trying to develop a script for the meeting. Finally, he had decided on a sexual confrontation between Bill and Pamela, stressing Bill's infatuation with her, and trying to get Bill to talk out his infatuation while the session was in progress.
He outlined his ideas to the group and asked for suggestions or comments.
Pamela answered him, bitterly.
"The leader is supposed to lead, not ask questions."
Arthur was stunned by his wife's sarcasm. He was at a loss for words momentarily, and then regained his composure.
"O.K. Let's get started."
Bill, somewhat sheepishly, began to undress, turning his back to the other three. But Pamela stood her ground, not moving or speaking. Arthur could see the muscles in her neck tensing and untensing. For a brief moment he thought she was sick and he cursed himself for bringing her.
But then she clarified matters:
"I refuse to take part in this exercise."
Her words were sharp and final.
"Then, you want to disband the group," Arthur replied.
"I did not say that. All I said was that I do not wish to participate in this particular exercise."
That's as good as saying the group is finished."
Arthur kept speaking to her, trying to explain the dangers in refusing, telling her that the relations to the group stem from a trust among the members. The moment that trust is shattered the efficiency of the group is destroyed.
Lucia smiled grimly as she heard Arthur trying to explain these matters to Pamela. He could not know the reasons for her refusal, the reasons why she could not bear to have any sexual contact with Bill.
Arthur gave up. Instead, he turned to Lucia:
"You'll take her place."
Lucia stiffened. She had not realized this would happen. She looked once at Pamela who refused to meet her gaze, but she could notice the tears running down the black woman's eyes.
"Why not?" She replied, fatalistically, adding, "but you know that Bill is disinterested in me."
"Make him interested," said Arthur, grinning to her.
There was nothing she could do, she was trapped. She began to remove her clothes. Bill was completely naked. Lucia stared at his body for a moment, at the inert maleness hanging between his legs, at his chest with the matted hair covering it and all she could feel was revulsion. It was a revulsion that seeped into every part of her body and made her feel so nauseous that she could hardly stand.
As she removed her last piece of clothing, she glanced at Pamela again. The black woman was staring at her and Lucia felt the sympathy, she felt the tremendous outpouring of silent love that Pamela was giving her.
Lucia was naked. She squared her shoulders and bit her lip hard, until the blood flowed. She vowed to herself to go through with the program, no matter how distasteful or how degrading. She could not blame Pamela for refusing. The woman was faithful to her new passion.
"Move closer," Arthur ordered.
She did not move, but Bill took a step in her direction, his eyes questioning her.
"Touch your husband," Arthur ordered.
She held out one hand, and slowly, let it fall on Bill's shoulder. The very feel of his flesh made her blood creep.
"Is that the best you can do?" Arthur's voice was rasping and sardonic.
"Yes," she answered, "the very best, you fool, the sum effort of all my desires toward him, one touch on his bare flesh which makes my blood crawl."
"What the hell is going on here?" Bill blurted the words out.
Lucia smiled softly and looked at Pamela, addressing her words to the black woman.
"Did you hear that? Bill wants to know what is going on. I think we should tell him."
"No, Lucia," replied Pamela, "I think we should show him, and Arthur."
Pamela walked toward Lucia. The naked woman just waited. She strained her body, trying by some unknown force, to speed Pamela to her. But the black woman was making sure that every step she took, every movement of thigh and buttocks would bring the truth to the two male onlookers. As they watched her move toward Lucia, neither of them had the slightest idea of what was about to happen, and it was this ignorance, perhaps innocence would be a better word, which made their response so brutal and frightening.
She was a foot away from Lucia and the white woman opened her arms to receive the prize. Pamela stepped between those waiting arms and their lips joined in one passionate kiss.
Neither Bill nor Arthur moved. Their bodies were stiff and unyielding. Their breathing came heavily and the sound echoed through the room. Neither of them could take their eyes from that strange scene being enacted in the front of the room. Bill had his fists clenched at the sides of his naked body.
Then a strange ritual began. It seemed as if each of the women wanted to torment their husbands to the greatest degree possible, so each movement they made was done almost in slow motion.
Pamela propped up Lucia's naked breast so that the quivering nipple was pointed toward Bill. Then, in an exaggerated gesture, she bent over it and sunk her teeth into the succulent white flesh. Lucia moaned and urged her on.
Bill watched the anguished gyrations of the nipple with a combination of horror and fascination.
Then Lucia moved away from those lacerating teeth and began to undress Pamela until the naked, shimmering body stood exposed. She began to stroke it, rubbing her own lust into the ebony frame.
Her hands stroked the black buttocks until the heat from that touch seemed to sear the room. Slowly, ever so slowly, her black thighs moved apart. She stood like a dancer in the center of the room. Arthur watched her hungrily. For a very brief moment he had the feeling that she was there for rum, for him to plunge his fiery maleness into the sweetness of her body. But that hope was quickly dashed. For Lucia smiled cruelly at Arthur, and then her head moved between those black legs, seeking out the sweetness for herself.
Pamela called out to her husband in her ecstasy:
"Do you remember how I could not stand this when it was your tongue that was slipping past the gates of my womanhood? Do you remember how I used to shudder when your lips were pressed against the lips of my opening, poised there to suck the very life from it?"
Arthur could not answer these questions. He didn't even hear. His gaze was fixed on Lucia's tongue as it lay for a moment in the black hair of the triangle and then vanished, deep inside, inside the woman he loved.
Pamela's face told the whole story. Each thrust of the tongue made her whole body quiver. Her eyes grew wide with lust as Lucia's lips did a little dance at the opening of her flower. Wider and wider she spread her legs, encouraging that tongue to do its best, pulling the very flesh of the woman into the most succulent areas.
She began to gyrate her buttocks once the tongue was firmly inside. As she moved those luscious appendages, her eyes mocked her husband as if she was experiencing a pleasure far greater than he could ever provide.
"Look at me," she called to him with the malice of a woman who had reached the pinnacle of lust without a treasured but now unnecessary partner, "there is nothing else I long for. What does your body mean to me now? What does your maleness mean to me now? Nothing. Nothing at all. I have here all I wanted."
At that moment, another deep thrust into her by Lucia's frenzied tongue and Pamela was dissolved in moans, barely able to keep standing.
Lucia's fingers grasped the dark thighs with such force, the two men could see her imprint, even in the dimly lighted room and in spite of her black skin.
Then the two women disengaged for a moment and lay side by side on the floor.
Lucia spread her legs and the black woman kneeled between them, saying:
"Look at us. The group is over. All the stupid sessions are over. We have found it, right here."
When she said here, she pointed to Lucia's vagina, and then, like a scientist, but with a great deal of gravity and emotion, she spread the lips of Lucia's vagina apart.
Bending close, she played with it by manipulating her tongue, at the same time using her fingers to show the onlookers the glory of the moment.
Lucia rubbed the back of Pamela's neck and she spoke to her husband:
"Do you remember how, for the past few weeks, I wanted you? I wanted you so badly that I could not breathe when you were lying in bed besides me. I wanted you so passionately that I had to dig my nails into my flesh to keep from crying out. But you wanted Pamela. Look at her now. You will never get her again. And, you will never get me again. Look at the tenderness of her fingers and mouth. Are you looking? Could you ever offer me something like that? All you could offer a woman was the brief moment of penetration, like an animal, like a dog.
"Well, Pamela and I have grown up. We no longer want dogs, we want human beings."
Bill fought back the tears which flooded his eyes. It had been many years since he last wept. It would be many years again.
Then Pamela got down on all fours and Lucia climbed on top of her, as if she was a male dog, mounting a bitch in heat. It was their bit of mockery and it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
Arthur exploded in rage. The dam burst and his anger broke loose.
He raced toward the two women and with a savage thrust, threw Lucia to one side. Then, he ripped off his studded belt from his pants and brought it down with fury on his wife's bare buttocks. Her screams tore through the room. Again and again he brought that leather down, digging deep into the quivering, fleshy buttocks, stripping them with the fresh blood which flowed from the wounds.
He beat her until his arms lay like leaden cannons by his side. But still his fury was not stilled. He raised his foot and kicked her, sending another series of tremors through her body. She pleaded with him, now, begging him to stop but every time he saw her body twitch, he was reminded of her deeds and words.
Arthur stood over her. He wanted to humiliate her as she had humiliated him. He pointed to his own globes, hying between his legs in repose.
"Lick them," he commanded her in a voice of death.
She struggled to reach them with her brusied body, and finally she was there. She opened her mouth, and tried to reach them, but a second later she lost consciousness and her dark beauty lay impotent on the cheap rug of the hotel room.
It took Bill a little while longer to react. And his reaction was different, because, as he watched the two women go through their erotic ceremonies, he found himself becoming excited.
When he walked to Lucia, his maleness stretched in front of him, menacing and vibrant, each muscle and fibre ready to do battle and more than battle. She was lying at his feet.
"Sit up."
There was something in his voice which made her listen and she had seen the fury which Arthur was venting. Perhaps, she thought, by obeying she could escape a similar wrath.
She sat up, pleading:
"Arthur, be gentle."
The time, however, for gentleness, had long since passed.
A moment later he swung his body from side to side and brought his stiffened maleness against her face with all the strength he could muster. She uttered an animal cry of pain and sunk back to the rug. That contact had excited him even more and he said:
"St up."
She did not stir, knowing what was in store for her. Instead of asking again, he dragged her to one wall and propped her up against it.
Then he proceeded to whip her face and breasts with his organ, bringing that raging flesh time and time again in contact with her body. His mouth was open and the saliva dripped down his lips.
He felt the seed building up. To bring it to the surface he increased the punishment until he was caught up in the insane rhythm.
Finally, his organ shook and his body dissolved in pleasure as the seed mixed with the blood, sweat and bruises of his wife.
Then, a strange silence settled over the room. The only sound that could be heard was the heavy breathing of the two men. Arthur was the first to speak as he looked at the huddled form of his wife.
'There is nothing left for us, here. Nothing at all."
Bill nodded and began to dress. When he was clothed, he walked to the door, opened it, and made a facial gesture to show Arthur that it was time for both of them to leave. They walked out of the room and let the door close of its own weight.
Lucia was the first to gain enough strength to raise her body and see if they were still there. She saw no one and she called to Pamela. There was no answer. She called again and she heard a moan.
She spotted Pamela's body lying to one side and with great effort she crawled to her. Picking up her lover's head, she cradled it in her lap, talking to it as one talks to an infant.
"Hush, hush, everything will be all right in a few minutes. The pain will go away."
Pamela opened her eyes and looked at Lucia, but still she could not speak.
When she had recovered her vitality, Lucia wet a cloth in the bathroom and began to sponge Pamela's body, trying to wipe the blood from the wounds without causing her more pain.
Soon they were able to talk together, and then tried to laugh off their experiences. But there was one aspect they could not laugh off and this was the future of the group.
"It will have to be disbanded," said Pamela, as emphatically as her bruised body would permit.
"Yes," replied Lucia, her mind groping for an alternative to disbanding.
"Where should we stay tonight?" Pamela asked the question because she was still afraid of Arthur's wrath.
"Well," said Lucia, trying not to make matters more difficult than they already were, "I think we ought to go home to our husbands and act as if nothing had happened. In other words, act exactly as if what transpired was part of the group session."
"They're not that dumb."
"Listen, Pamela, if the group is to end and our marriage ends, well, that's the way it has to be. We have each other. But let them make the first move. Let the quilt fall on their shoulders."
Pamela thought for a while and then nodded at her friend's wisdom.
Suddenly, Pamela smiled through all. her pain and touched Lucia lightly on the face, letting her fingers trace the woman's profile.
"Lucia, do you remember when all we had to worry about were a few sexual problems?"
Both women began to laugh. They laughed until then-pain and hurt and disillusionment vanished, and then and only then were they able to dress and return to their respective homes.
They parted at the subway. A furtive holding of hands and they left. Each one looked back once, to get one final glimpse of a sensuous body, a body that now existed only for the other.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was under the shadow of this event that Bill and Arthur met to discuss what they could do to reverse the dramatic course the group had taken.
They met in a restaurant and by that time there had been no group sessions for over two weeks. Their wives continued the illicit and increasingly passionate affair. It was a strange fact that once the group was suspended, Bill and Arthur found that they needed the group more than they had thought. In fact, they discovered that they, more than their wives, were dependent upon it for their peace-of-mind.
The antagonism which had existed between Bill and Arthur since the inception of the group had now completely dissolved. They both realized they needed each other, and that only then combined wisdom and resolve would enable them to overcome this new development.
Bill was talking, quietly, and with his eyes resolutely fastened on his hands, as if they, in some strange manner held the key to his problems.
"In all the years I've known Lucia, something like this has never happened. Sure, she's had her peculiarities, plenty of them, but never something like this. We have to do something and we have to do it quickly."
"What?" Asked Arthur.
"I don't know."
Arthur shuddered. The thought that, right then, as they were sitting there, his wife would be in the passionate embrace of another woman, made his blood run cold.
Bill was remembering Lucia's breast and Pamela's teeth as it sunk into the quivering white mound.
"They don't want to be saved, BUI."
BUI looked up. He knew this. It made their task all the harder.
"Look," he replied, "if the facts as we see them are correct, then there is an authentic passion between them. As funny as it sounds, your wife and my wife are in love with each other. I don't think any amount of talking on our part will get them apart."
"What will?" Arthur's question was voiced in despair.
"To somehow, in some manner, give each of them an alternative passion."
Arthur was beginning to understand what Bill meant, but there was one important fly in the ointment and he stated it:
"One of the reasons for their lapse into lesbianism must be because they found the passion you and I had to offer them, to be unexciting."
It was difficult for both men to accept the fact they had failed their wives sexually, they had always accepted the reverse definition of the situation.
There was a long silence as if each man was trying to quickly cope with the recognition of his failure as a lover.
"So," continued Arthur, "how can we create an alternative passion?"
An idea was forming in Bill's mind. The audacity of it was shattering to him. At first, he forced it out of his consciousness, but as he was sitting there, it returned again and again to plague him.
Arthur noticed that his friend was laboring under some burden.
"What are you thinking?"
"Nothing important."
Arthur reached across the table and grasped Bill's arm firmly, a cry, a silent cry from the heart. His fingers bit into the other man's arm as if trying to show him that nothing should be hidden.
"Everything is important, Bill."
Bill looked at his friend and said:
"You know, in spite of our talk and our participation in the group, both you and I are pretty conventional people."
"I agree, so what?"
"The tragedy is that this situation calls for an unconventional response."
"And you've got one?"
Bill hesitated, and then he nodded his head in accord.
"Well, don't keep it to yourself."
Bill looked at Arthur, wondering whether that mercurial man would be able to accept it.
"Let's go. Spit it out."
"First let me order another cup of coffee."
He did so and then settled back in his chair.
"I think I have the answer. It is daring and unethical but it may work. We face two problems. The first is that any solution must be shocking, it must help to shock them into an awareness of what they are doing and shock them out of their newfound passion. The second is that this shock must be accomplished in an erotic fashion or I'm sure it won't work. And now you see the third problem, they find us unexciting. Which, of course, we already knew.
"What I propose is simple. We combine our sexual efforts and we lavish them on one woman at a time."
There was a long silence.
"What are you getting at?"
"You understand Arthur, you just don't want to understand."
"Say it clear."
"Tomorrow, you and I visit Lucia. We rape her. The next day we rape your wife. It's as simple and daring as that."
Arthur started to laugh, the whole idea was ridiculous.
Think about it, don't laugh."
There was something in Bill's voice that made Arthur stop laughing.
Bill stood up and said:
"I have to get back to the office. You think about it. I'll call you tonight. But, if you, after dose reflection, oppose the idea, then come up with something else, and quickly. We need action, not words."
After Bill left, Arthur thought long and hard about his plan. Only on the surface was it amusing and a little ridiculous. He realized that it was a bold plan with an inner core of reality which made it very plausible. It took into consideration all the strange facts of the situation and operated on behavior. Yes, he liked it.
That evening, they set it up. They would meet about noon, a few blocks from Bill's house. Bill was sure that Lucia would be home and Arthur knew that his wife had a casting appointment so they would not be together.
The die was cast. So much depended on their actions that neither of the men slept that night. Their minds were on the morrow, and what could develop.
They met at noon.
"Do you want a drink?"
Arthur nodded his head. They walked into a small bar and had a scotch on the rocks and a straight bourbon.
Bill drained the glass and laughed, somewhat wryly:
"It isn't often that a man rapes his wife."
They both watched the large clock on the wall. It seemed to be ticking for them, and for their marriage and for the group. Bill paid up and the two men walked from the bar, their bodies thrust forward in that posture of extreme determination.
Bill used his key to gain entry into the house. They moved swiftly and silently. Lucia was in the bedroom, still in the pajamas which she wore for sleeping. An unopened book was beside her. Pamela had just called her and Lucia was still basking in the beautiful sound of her voice. They had made an appointment to meet that very evening, and Lucia was thinking about the delights which were in store for her.
Then she saw Bill and Arthur. "Hello," she said, surprised.
They did not answer. And right then, a shiver went through her body. There was something very strange about the way they stood there. Something strange and a bit threatening.
"Are you both playing Zombies?"
Still there was no answer. But now, they began to move toward the bed. She became indignant.
"If this is some childish attempt to scare me, forget it. I'm past being scared by mysterious strangers."
Bill reached the bed first. He grabbed her with rough hands and ripped the pajamas from her body. She screamed once, a confused hysterical scream as if Bill had suddenly revealed some aspect of himself which was too horrible to contemplate.
The sound of the ripping fabric filled the room with its jagged notes.
Lucia was naked on the bed. Her body was shaking. She was confused and terribly frightened.
They stood on the bed, their shoes made great streaks of dirt on the clean white linen.
Arthur's powerful arms pinned her to the bed. Her nude body was now open for the attack of Bill's mouth.
He kneeled beside her, fully clothed, his eyes gleaming in anticipation of the feast.
Her neck was there, white and throbbing. His lips strayed there and pressed deep into the flesh as if trying to taste the surging blood. She cried and squirmed but his lips were like powerful suction cups nailing her to the bed.
His mouth had its own wisdom and its own dynamic. Inch by inch, over every part of the body, it probed and violated and excited. Never had she felt such heat and such incredible moistness and passion being expended on her body. Her breasts were turned into raging components, unable to stop their quivering. Under his tongue, her points began to vibrate with the ecstasy of the moment, and he turned them into little whores, erect, pointed, singing out their lust and fulfillment by their movement.
His lips plucked her flower. She screamed once more as his face went between her thighs and brutally violated her most precious heritage. She closed her legs around him, trying to squeeze the life from his hated body but the more she squeezed, the more his lips sucked the living joy from her.
Once she saw his face. It was a mask of hatred. She tried to move toward it, to sink her own teeth into that now hated face, but the powerful arms of Arthur threw her swiftly on her back.
She saw Bill open his pants. His maleness leaped out and she shivered. The remembrance of the beating she had received was still fresh in her memory.
"Let her go, Arthur."
Arthur released her. The sudden feeling of freedom gave her the courage to try to leap from the bed. But her attempt at freedom was futile.
For Bill had anticipated just such an action, he had counted on it. As his wife's body moved off the bed, he met her violently with his own body. She was sent reeling back, weeping as her body failed her.
An instant later, he was in her, his powerful maleness sinking deep into her body, thrusting to the ultimate penetration. Her muffled groans drove him on. All the hurt of the past few days was now lodged in the violent tip of his maleness, which, like an explorer was opening new areas for its cruel and vindictive passion.
Down and down, his organ drove her deeper into the bed, sending flashes of blinding light through her, causing the extremes of hatred and lust to surface in her body.
This was rape. She knew it. But the penetration of that organ had splintered her resistance. In spite of herself and her hatred for her husband, her thighs rose and fell in unison with that weapon of flesh. She could not get enough of it, and she could not bear it within her. The roughness of his clothing punished her naked skin and she wept from the pain.
Then Bill was standing up. The force and power of his maleness was so great that she was thrown up with it, like a wild flower is uprooted when a farmer's plow tears up the earth.
As her body reached a straightened position, his powerful organ still ripping at the insides of her body, she felt a powerful thrust from the rear, and she felt, along with that, a hot strange breath in her ear.
Arthur had penetrated her from the rear. His maleness, equally hardened, equally cruel, thrust between her buttocks and sunk itself in her body. Then, once there, it began its erotic dance which sent shiver after shiver through every part of her body.
Thus, she was impaled in front and rear, her body a tender suspension between two powerful organs, each of them bent on only one thing, to totally transform Lucia's body from a lesbian reference back to the sensitivity of male love. Those organs had their own wisdom, and once sunk in the hot, moist openings, they needed no other urging. It was they which led their owners. Her moans filled the room. She felt herself being transported to a savage plane, and while there, each sweet tidbit was being made into an erotic toy. She could not get enough of that dual assault.
Her body was on fire. It burned the organs which penetrated her. The flesh was hot, and liquid, and they all moved together. They found the rhythm of cruelty and love and the three moved into it, like trained instruments.
She felt the organs growing. She felt the seed being built up in their powerful sheaths. She felt her own body moving toward that total, that beautiful end where intelligence is swallowed up in a body explosion.
Lucia screamed. The seed was upon her. It poured into her body, hot and vibrating, unable to contain itself. Her body shuddered as it accepted the seed and swallowed it. A moment later she screamed again. Only this time the scream was not human. No, it was the scream of a she-wolf, reaching her orgasm on some wasted tundra, reaching the animal throes of ecstasy, reaching for the only joy in a joyless life.
They watched her as her body shook in that ultimate moment. And then, without another word, they left.
Lucia lay there, silent as the morning. It was hours before she could move, or even reflect on what had happened. Finally, a telephone call brought her to her senses. She picked it up. It was Pamela.
The voice said that she had been calling for hours.
Lucia did not answer. She just held the phone in her hands, not quite understanding, the strange language. At that moment, the only language she still recalled was an erotic one, and the verbs, the building stones of that language were nine inches and they hurt as they penetrated.
Pamela felt that something terrible had happened to Lucia. She had never heard her mumble like she was now mumbling on the other side of the phone.
"Do you want me to come over?"
"No," said Lucia, "I'm fine."
"What happened?"
"I can't explain," said Lucia, truthfully.
Lucia told Pamela they would not be able to meet as planned. Pamela protested violently. Lucia, in a quiet voice, explained that she was not feeling well. A moment later, Pamela recovered from her disappointment and apologized for being so selfish.
"I love you Lucia. Please remember that."
With that, her voice clicked off. Lucia stood up, unsteadily at first, holding on to objects for support. The strength was flowing back into her body as the shock wore off. She went into the bathroom, turned on the shower and stepped under the water. It was warm and life-giving. When she came out, her body dripping, she felt good once more.
She went into the kitchen and made herself a cup of hot tea. The liquid felt good as it entered her system.
Lucia tried to understand what had happened. Why had they done it? Why had they come into the house like savages and cruelly violated her?
There was no answers, only results. Sitting there, she felt a great calmness come over her body. Yes, it was the calmness of change. There was no doubt that before then-visit the idea of canceling an appointment with Pamela would have been unthinkable. There was no doubt that suddenly, in some manner, Pamela was no longer the body she desired.
The realization shook her. Was she so artificial, that even her lesbian attachment should be brief and fleeting? What about the great passion she had for Pamela? Had it in the end, been unauthentic? She could not bear to think that it was over with Pamela.
But, when she closed her eyes and tried to envision her black body, her nipples and thighs quivering with anticipation, the only vision which came was the one of Bill's maleness, in all its twisting, lusting vibrancy.
Suddenly, she was very tired. She needed time to think it all out. She needed sleep. Walking back into the bedroom, she lay on the bed and a few moments later was fast asleep. She slept soundly and well, and when she awoke, fresh and cool, the light from the afternoon was gradually diminishing.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Bill's body was shaking with excitement when he left his own apartment, with Lucia lying violated on the bed. They both went back to the small bar and they ordered drinks. They moved away from the bar and seated themselves in a rear booth.
Arthur found he could not lift his whiskey glass, his hands were shaking too violently.
It took a long time before they both calmed down. There was no talk between them. They had nothing to say. They memory of the event was still too clear in their heads.
"It was different. It was different than what I had expected. It was more brutal. It was more total and more violent. I don't know if I would have gone through with it if I knew how it would turn out."
The words poured from Bill, incoherent and confused.
"Did it work?" Arthur asked. He was keeping a tight rein on his emotions. He was trying to bury the hysteria that was slowing rising in him. He too, had not expected such brutality or such thoroughness.
"We'll have to wait and see."
"And Pamela?"
Bill looked deeply into his friend's eyes, trying to catch a hint of fright, trying to catch that part of Arthur which was saying to himself,-Not Pamela! Not my wife!
But Arthur was ready to go through with it. He was just recovering and Bill did not press him.
They had a number of drinks, until the memory of their actions took on that warm glow of forgetfulness, until each action in Lucia's bedroom took on the cleansing air of myth and they remembered only the nice parts, the joining and the passion but none of the screams.
When they left the bar, they were both quite drunk, but they steadied themselves and made an appointment to meet the following day, an hour earlier.
"It is my wife's turn," grinned Arthur.
Bill was thinking ahead. His mind was reeling but he could still relish the thought of that naked black woman, her body bending to his violent wishes.
"I'm going to get a hotel room downtown. I think, under the circumstances, it would be better not to sleep home."
Arthur offered to put him up, but Bill refused. He wanted the solitude of a hotel room. He wanted to think many things out.
They parted. When Arthur arrived at his apartment, Pamela was already sleeping. He opened the door and watching her body, rising and falling gently. For just one moment he was afraid of what would happen. For just one moment a cold sweat stood out on his forehead. Then it passed, and he sat down on the side of the bed to undress. A weariness came over hum, and he lay back.
Pamela, however, was not sleeping. She was too worried about Lucia. Her conversation with her over the phone had deeply disturbed her. Something was wrong. Something had happened between them, but what?
She was tensed as she felt Arthur's body beside her, praying that he would not touch her. When she heard him begin that rhythmic breathing, which showed he had fallen asleep, she left the bedroom and began to pace. It was too late to call Lucia, but she had to speak to her. Gradually, the urgency left, and she reclined on the sofa, her fear left her; tomorrow, she felt, everything would be fine again.
When Bill reached the hotel, he found that he needed another drink. The bar in the lobby was still open. There was a B-girl sitting at one end and she smiled a greeting but Bill turned away from her. Sex was the last thing on his mind. Or, to put it another way, he had just gone through a sexual experience that this B-girl could not comprehend. His thoughts were on Lucia. Should he call her? He decided against it. After a few drinks he went to his room. A wave of fatigue overwhelmed him and he sunk into the bed, falling asleep almost instantly.
He had a strange dream that night. In the dream the face of his wife would appear for a second and then vanish. When it returned again it would be wearing a different expression. It was as if Lucia was doing impressions of hate, love, fear, etc., on a stage for his benefit. Then the dream became more complex. Lucia's face alternated with Lucia's vagina, and every time her flower would appear, there would be notes pinned to it. But he could never see what was in the notes, all he knew was that it was something terrible.
Bill awoke, his body in a cold sweat. He looked at his watch, it was three-thirty. For a moment he was glad he had the dream so that the group session could deal with it, but then he remembered that the group was suspended. He went to the bathroom and washed his face with cold water. It took him a while, but finally he went back to sleep and did not dream again.
Bill and Arthur met at the prescribed time. They decided against going to the bar; it was early, so they had coffee in a restaurant.
"Are you sure Pamela's in?"
"I'm sure."
"Are you nervous?"
Arthur looked at him with a sudden dart of hatred. It was a stupid question. He was about to rape his wife and Bill asked that idiotic question. Then he remembered that Bill had gone through what he was going through only the day before. His anger abated. "I'm a little nervous."
Bill looked at his watch and said they had about fifteen minutes.
They sat there, their fingers drumming on the wooden tables. The coffee was bitter to them, their surroundings were meaningless other than as a backdrop for the events which would follow.
"It's time," said Bill, standing up and leaving some change on the table.
Arthur did not move.
"It's time," Bill repeated, and looked at his friend skeptically.
"Let's wait another minute."
Bill waited, still standing, and his form seemed to make Arthur ashamed of his hesitation. He stood and they both left.
When they walked into the apartment Pamela was in the kitchen, in her bathrobe. She called out:
"Is that you Arthur? What are you doing home."
"To see you, Pamela."
She spotted Bill and then her eyes went to her husband, questioning, aware that something strange was in the offing.
"About what?"
Bill interceded here, saying:
"Well, you can say that we're here to see you about your health."
Arthur was getting into the swing of things and he added:
"Yes, my lovely wife, we have discovered that you are suffering from certain deficiencies."
Pamela was frightened. She felt the danger in their voices. She looked around the apartment like a frightened animal, searching for sanctuary. If she could get to the bedroom, she could close the door and lock it. She made a wild dash for the room.
But Arthur had anticipated her move. He reached the door a second before his wife and pulled it shut. She swung her fists at him in desperation.
He grabbed her and ripped the terry cloth bathrobe from her body. She was wearing nothing underneath but a flimsy bra which he removed brutally with one sweep of his hand.
Then he grabbed her from behind, his hands closing over her sweet breasts. She struggled but it was no use. Then she called out:
"You fools. Do you think I am so stupid that I don't know why you are here? But, do what you will to me, it will be senseless. For, I have already made a commitment to one body and one love, and her name is Lucia. What do I care for your gross bodies or your stupid conversations or your petty passions? I have found a love that is eternal, that removes all of my silly little problems and leaves me with a white hot flame."
She stopped struggling for a while, her eyes burning into Bill. Arthur's hands were squeezing those succulent breasts, playing with her quivering nipples. Again she lashed out at them, verbally:
"Destroy, pervert, torture, that is all you can do.
That is all the male specie can accomplish. Get to work, you pigs. Here is my body, do what you want with it, but I warn you, it is untouchable."
Arthur had never heard Pamela speak in such a manner. He was sweating, and he looked at Bill as a lost child looks at a mature stranger.
Bill was no longer listening to Pamela's tirade. His eyes were fastening on that glistening black body, trying to find a focal point, trying to select one delectable area for his approach.
He moved closer to her. The fear in her eyes and the hatred was like an aphrodisiac to him. He craved her hatred now as once he had craved any crumb of affection that she would throw his way.
His hands closed on her thighs, feeling the pulse, feeling the lust which even Pamela could not hide. His mouth watered as he looked at the eternal triangle nestled so demurely in the apex of her thighs. He bent over and kissed it. Pamela's whole body shuttered. Her deep fear of perversions was coming to the force, even more intense than in the past.
"Please," she cried out, "don't!"
But the mouth had moved. It moved to her and parted the thin membranes of the violated woman, it parted them wide. In the breech, his tongue moved, silently and stealthily, slipping in, ignoring her screams, drawn by some irrisistable force within her, drawn by the heat and the moisture of her vaginal bud.
Her will collapsed in a flood of undifferentiated lust. Never had she been filled in such a manner. Never had the totality of her womanhood been brought so quickly and efficiently into question. Yes, right then, in the agony of the moment, she understood what was happening; Bill was destroying her love for Lucia. She knew it and she screamed through the fog of passion which was enveloping her.
His tongue was only the point of truth. But it was his whole body that performed the task of penetration. At first, the tongue moved slowly within her, savoring the movements of her body and savoring the joys of its own penetration. Then, like some iron law of the body, it began to move faster, ever more quickly, until it was a white hot flame in the center of her womanhood. She could no longer stand under the thrusts, and had it not been for Arthur's powerful hands circling her breasts from the rear, she would have fallen.
Arthur could no longer watch. His eyes were closed and his great black head was inclined to one side, as if the mere watching of the action would destroy him.
Bill's mouth was now fastened to her with such an intensity that it would appear to the outsider as a growth on her body; a lecherous fungus that was sucking the very life from her. But, in truth, it was not so, for that tongue was bringing life to Pamela. It was bringing her, at its tip, a joy she had never known. It was dissolving her perversion of lesbianism and substituting a perversion which could bring man and woman into an incredible juxtaposition.
"I beg you, no more."
There was something in the tone of her voice that made Bill stop. He knew he had reached the danger point and he did not wish to go beyond.
Slowly, as an artist puts the finishing touches on a portrait, he withdrew his tongue. The mere removal of that instrument, the feeling of the flesh pulling out of her flower, sent her body into a fresh round of quivering. Her womanhood vibrated as it left, as it kissed that warmth and moisture a fond adieu.
But there was more in store for Pamela. They forced her down on all fours. Bill moved to the front of her and opened his trousers, letting his organ leap out. She watched it in horror. He grabbed her head, and slowly, forced her mouth toward it. She fought with all the strength she had but the fight was futile.
Closer and closer, and then her mouth touched the quivering tip. She could hardly breathe, her chest was pounding like a herd of wild horses.
"Open it, open it."
Bill's request could not be fought. She realized she was conquered. She opened her lips, she opened the gates of her torment. Then, through those gates went the hated white weapon, like some bronze weapon which breaks through all the verbiage of a decadent civilization. She moaned. She had never felt anything like this. She could not stand the shock or the lust which was building up in her.
"Love me."
Bill's statement was a command. Her mouth and lips and tongue obeyed him as if she was a robot who no longer had her own mind.
The surging maleness was met by the wet thrusts of her tongue, by the jealous, hot sucking of her beautiful lips.
Under this onslaught, Bill could no longer reason, he forgot why he had come, he forgot everything except the exquisite pleasure she was providing him with her divine mouth.
But Arthur had not forgotten. He climbed on his wife as she was on all fours. In the heat of the moment, she did not realize she was being raped like a stray bitch. But, then, an instant later, the great surging maleness of her husband bit deep into the softness of her flower.
She screamed and released the organ which she had been playing so lovingly, like an instrument.
She tried to shake that fiery muscle out of her. But Arthur rode her as if his very life depended upon it. Bill moved back and watched. They looked like two beasts in some primeval jungle, trying to solve their terrible hatred through erotic means.
Arthur spewed out all of his hate as he rode her, driving his maleness deeper and deeper into her flower, clawing her sides, punishing her. His words were intelligible only to himself but they were said with such passion and vehemence that no one could doubt their authenticity.
She rolled and clawed and sought to free herself. But the vibrating weapon went deeper and deeper, her body could not withstand it.
Finally, she just squatted on all fours her body shivering, as he thrust in and out, in a sort of insane symphony.
Arthur screamed in triumph as his seed poured out and a fresh shudder in her body sent her close to the floor. Her flower drank the seed. Then, Arthur fell to the floor, beside his wife.
Bill watched them. He could see Pamela move one hand slowly and let it rest on Arthur. It was not a gesture of hate, it was a touch of love and acceptance.
Bill did not wait any longer. He left the apartment quickly. As he left, he turned once more to watch them. They had moved closer, exhausted and bruised. Their hands were joined and their faces were glowing.
"Arthur, we have triumphed now, it is up to us to sustain that triumph in the future."
Walking home, he reflected on the evening, and he felt proud of what they had accomplished. He felt as if he had grown. He felt as if he had realized his manhood.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The plan which Bill and Arthur had so laboriously executed worked beyond their wildest expectations. The lesbian alliance between Lucia and Pamela was split forever. Whatever love had resided in that alliance was now gone. What remained was an affection and a loyalty which was a pleasure to behold.
A few weeks later the group reassembled. That first session after the temporary split was devoted to talking out where the group would go in the future and reflecting on the almost fatal past.
They decided that since most of the personal problems had been worked out, it was time to move on. Pamela was now able to accept with joy any erotic maneuver her husband attempted; while in the past she would have labeled them perversions and become antagonistic to him. Lucia no longer froze at the crucial moment during the sexual act. The men, too, functioned better and with greater passion and confidence.
The group decided to spend the next few months in deepening their erotic interests; in looking for new ways to translate their love into sensual forms.
This involved the controlled use of drugs and aphrodisiacs and the willingness to experiment with strange forms of sexual behavior.
Their attempts in this area were tremendously successful.
At the end of one of these sessions devoted to developing erotic intensity and daring, Lucia suggested something which at first seemed outlandish to other members of the group.
"I think what we have done during the past few sessions is even more important than we realize. We have opened up new areas for group therapy, we have been able, in a short amount of time, to plumb depths of erotica which heretofore had been entirely foreign to us."
She smiled, realizing how academic she sounded.
Bill, always quick to puncture high-flown language, blurted out:
"Okay, Lucia. We all know we're pretty good. So what?"
Lucia walked over to him and kissed him fondly on the cheek, as she would an erring child. Then she replied:
"To put it bluntly, I think the world ought to know what we're doing here."
Arthur started to laugh. He asked her if she was suggesting they put an ad in the daily newspaper. Lucia made a wry face and explained:
"No, not the newspapers. But you have all heard of Dr. Graf, who is one of the leaders of the group therapy movement in this country. I propose that we write him a letter and invite him to witness one of the sessions."
There was a great deal of discussion on this suggestion. Bill and Pamela were opposed initially, but gradually Lucia's enthusiasm wore them down. Arthur didn't care one way or the other.
Finally, the group gave her permission to contact Dr. Graf. The following day she sent the letter. It took three weeks before she received a reply. His letter was very enthusiastic, and asked her for a specific date when he could attend a session. The group was naturally excited, and they decided to devote that particular session to the controlled use of aphrodisiacs.
The night before the session as Lucia lay in bed beside Bill, she said:
"You may laugh at all this, Bill, but I think that Dr. Graf is going to find a whole new dimension in our group. Think of it! All over the country groups are dissolving and forming, and for the most part failing, but now, one interracial group has been able to surmount obstacles which people always thought were insurmountable."
"Why don't you go to sleep?" said Bill.
She laughed and thrust her hands in his pajamas, luxuriating in the heat of his globes, as they hung gently and precariously between his legs.
They slept that way, closer than they had ever been in their lives.
Once during the night Lucia awoke and looked out over the city. She remembered that the last time she had been self-consciously viewing the skyline, she had been immersed in and threatened by a morass of sexual deformities. It was good, she thought to herself, to be able to act rather than to be perpetually acted upon.
Dr. Graf showed up on time. He was a tall, thin man with a pensive expression and a great deal of kindness in his face and manner. Lucia took charge, introducing him to everyone and leading him to a chair in the corner from where he could watch the proceedings.
Lucia explained the purpose of that particular session to him.
"We have discovered a very potent aphrodisiac, made partly from the Chinese herb, Ginseng. Are you familiar with it?"
"Yes," replied Dr. Graf looking at his imformant with a somewhat bemused eye, "but not in this capacity."
"Well, tonight, we are trying to see whether a combination of aphrodisiac and sexual stimulation can induce an orgasm without actual genital contact."
Dr. Graf looked at her in a new light now, as if he finally realized that Lucia was someone to be reckoned with.
"What type of sexual stimulation?" he asked.
"In this case two plants, one a long vine and the other a cactus plant."
The visitor made some notes on a small white pad he was carrying. Then he asked:
"From what I could see, these experiments seem to be very interesting, but what do they have to do with Group therapy? The purpose of that therapy is to effect behavioral changes in neurotic or otherwise disturbed individuals."
Lucia was a bit flustered. She had put so much effort in the attempt to get Dr. Graf to that session, that she was extremely sensitive to any criticism he leveled.
"We are not doing this to amuse ourselves."
Then she apologized for the nasty tone in her voice and continued:
"Dr. Graf, we are using aphrodisiacs and plants precisely because there are certain problems which no normal type of therapy will help. I think you will be correct if you characterize what happens here as a sort of erotic shock therapy, with all the benefits of electro shock treatments and none of the drawbacks."
"A very ingenuous description, one that I must remember, and if it is correct, I'll be the first to admit it and recommend its use."
Lucia turned toward the others and gave them the signal to begin. Dr. Graf bent over, his face intense, watching with interest the scene Which was unfolding before his eyes.
Pamela was in the center of the room. She was stark naked. Her eyes were cast down and she stood there, relaxed, her black body full of confidence, her limbs healthy and pliant.
Arthur and Bill stood to one side of her. They too were naked. Arthur held a vine-like plant in his hand. Bill had a small but ferocious cactus. Both of the men carried small jars which contained the aphrodisiac.
They began to apply the substance to her body. First, it was placed on her lips and gently rubbed in. Then, some of it was rubbed into the small hollow of her neck. They stepped back to wait for the results.
Pamela felt nothing for a while. But soon, a strange throbbing began in her lips. It felt as if she had lost control of her lips and in its place was a foreign power who had taken over for one purpose-to use those lips to satisfy itself. She expressed this feeling out loud.
Lucia leaned close to Dr. Graf and whispered in his ear:
"We have found that under certain aphrodisiacs, para no is becomes evident."
Dr. Graf nodded slowly, watching Pamela, and he noted Lucia's words on the white pad.
Then they applied the substance to her thighs, letting it soak into the soft heated insides, close to the vagina. Arthur bent down and rubbed some over her ankles and at a spot a few inches down from her buttocks. The two men stepped back and watched her. The heat from her body soon made the aphrodisiac work.
"It is an external substance, it works from the outside in," explained Lucia to the visitor.
They all watched as Pamela began to fall under the sway of the drug. First, there was a slight movement of the body. Then, the whole body seemed trying to escape from the drug.
And then, in the third stage, the body accepted the drug, and it opened the floodgates of lust with a passion and fury that made the tears roll down the black woman's face.
"It's a remarkable mixture," said Lucia proudly, speaking of the drug.
"So it seems," said Dr. Graf, his eyes expressing a growing interest in what was unfolding.
Pamela, quivering, beside herself with the quivering body which was possessed but which somehow she felt was not hers, held out her hands.
Each finger was like a claw, begging and demanding a sensual immersion. Arthur and Bill moved toward her.
"Not yet," Lucia called out.
They stopped their advance. Lucia spoke again to Dr.
Graf:
"Look at her hands, look at them. I often think they are the passage way through which our ills arrive and leave."
Dr. Graf did not answer her. He thought her description to be nonsense but it did have a certain poetic quality.
"Now," Lucia called to them.
Arthur moved first. He walked next to the shaking body. The vine was held high. He looked like a black Dionysus about to begin a sacred ritual.
He let the vine lay against her lips. From the depths of Pamela's body came an inarticulate moan. He moved the vine along her lips.
"Watch now," Lucia indicated to Dr. Graf.
The onlooker need no encouragement, he was fascinated by the display.
Pamela's lips closed hungrily on the vine. Then, Arthur began to slide the thin plant back and forth in that fleshy vise. Again that strange moan, and this time her hands clutched her stomach as if the pleasure was too much for her to bear.
Faster and faster the vine moved and more heated became the encounter. Her lips sucked and bit and quivered as it tasted the plant.
Then, with one brutal pull, Arthur removed the vine. She stood there, her lips still vibrating, and she moved toward Arthur, begging him to place that object once again between her lips.
She followed Arthur about the room, like a dog following its meal, but Arthur would not give it to her, and she sank to the floor, a prisoner of the passions which she could not control.
Lucia watched the visitor, he was obviously intrigued by the response. His pencil scribbled furiously on the note paper.
"Bill," Lucia called.
Now, it was his turn. He approached the black body. The cactus in his hand was erect, like some horrible organ that had been dug up from its prehistoric resting place.
Pamela's eyes followed it greedily. Her lips sucked in afar, their drug-induced ecstasy almost insane with anticipation.
Bill let the cactus touch her lips only slightly and then he moved it down to the triangle of love. Her thighs closed around it.
Dr. Graf watched as the plant made contact and then was gyrated at the gates of her body. Pamela wept. She moved her buttocks and thighs in unison with the plant. For just one brief moment, the cactus was plunged in. When it was withdrawn her whole body reacted, shrivelling like a flower whose source of water and light had been removed.
This brief penetration and withdrawal happened again and again, and each time her moans were deeper and her reaction more animal.
Bill was breathing heavily, but he ignored his own lust to utilize that plant to its highest possible effectiveness.
Arthur returned with the vine. Through the dim fog of her lust, Pamela saw him and opened her lips. The vine snaked in. Now, she was impaled at both the oral and the vaginal entrances to her body. Her body had become a part of nature's lust. The plants sang as they moved in and out of her openings. The sweat poured from her body in a cascade of incandescent drops.
Dr. Graf had never seen a woman in such a heightened state of sexual awareness. He had never witnessed such a thought provoking event.
"Leave her!" Lucia ordered.
Arthur removed the vine from her lips. Before he left, however, he pressed his own lips to hers for a lingering moment, letting his tongue taste the passion, showing her the love he had for her.
Bill removed the cactus and threw it to one side of the room. He bent toward that shivering triangle and touched it with his mouth, sucking in the passion which lay so heavily on the surface. For just one split moment he indulged himself and let his tongue enter the holy of holies, to feel at its tip the splendor of her body and her womanhood. Then, he too, moved away.
"Watch carefully, Dr. Graf. Keep your eyes on Pamela."
The visitor needed no urging. He felt, intuitively that the episode was not yet finished.
Pamela stood there, her eyes closed, her body trembling as if it was on the brink of an explosion. Each inch of her flesh seemed to be protesting. Each organ in her body was crying out.
Then it came, slowly at first, a rippling through her frame. Her skin seemed to curl up and she uttered little cries, like a wounded bird.
She fell to her knees and moaned. The explosion occurred. Floods of lust inundated her body and she succumbed to the joys of orgasm.
A few moments later, all was quiet. Pamela rose and slipped a bathrobe on and washed her face in the bathroom. Then she came out to join the others.
"Well?" Lucia asked, smiling.
"A most remarkable performance. I am intrigued and excited by your approach."
Everyone in the group felt proud at Dr. Graf's words.
"Would you like to question Pamela?" He nodded in response to Lucia's question and added:
"It would be very helpful."
Pamela walked over to him. She was still tired from the experience.
"Were you conscious during most of it, or had you been completely overcome by your passion?"
"I was conscious though I seemed to have been split into two parts. One part was interested in preserving myself and the other part kept saying-let yourself go."
Her reply intrigued Dr. Graf even more.
"Now, was this split actually an antagonistic one? By that I mean, did your drug induced self wish to triumph or just to accommodate?"
"To triumph," she replied.
He made a number of notes on his pad before he asked the next question.
"What were you experiencing during the episode, in the sense of recalling past events?"
"A number of incidents came to mind, but they appeared in a different vein, as if I had never understood them before. For example, I saw my old boyfriend. But he appeared as a priest. Now, I know he was not that, but I think, perhaps, the characterization of him as a priest may have a great deal of importance when I think about my relationship to him, which, by the way, was quite tempestuous."
"One more question, Pamela. What did you feel just as you were approaching orgasm?"
"I felt that I had reached a plateau of life that I had always aspired to. This may sound childish, but I felt that way. And another thing. I felt that my lips and my vagina had reached maturity. I felt that I never had to worry about sexual adequacy; that they would take care of me."
She paused before she could continue:
"There are many other things, but I just can't think of them now."
"I understand," said Dr. Graf and he placed his note pad in his brief case. He was smiling. He spoke, to Lucia:
"Well, I want to thank you very kindly for inviting me. I am going to write this up in a report and publish it in a journal. I have the journal in mind but I'll let you know when it appears."
He reached for his coat, put it on, and shook hands with all the members of the group.
As he was about to leave, he turned to them and said:
"I just want you to know that what I have seen here may be very important. I congratulate you on your courage and daring, and you may have played a large part in helping other groups solve their dilemmas."
After he left, Lucia was proud and excited.
"I told you he would be impressed," she kept saying.
They all understood her enthusiasm. Pamela walked over to her and placed an arm on her shoulder. Bill smiled and brought out a small bottle of Scotch which he passed around. They broke un early that night, laughingly attributing it to the important academic convention they must attend. It was, all in all, one of the most satisfying evenings the group had ever experienced.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A few days after Dr. Graf's visit, Lucia and Bill were home alone, watching the late night news on television.
"Have you ever noticed," Bill said, "that while the news in the world gets worse, our relationship gets better."
"I hope that's not an iron law," said Lucia and they both laughed.
Bill reached over and shut off the television set. He looked at Lucia. They smiled at each other, and quickly and easily they moved into each other arms.
"Remember how it used to be?"
Bill nodded and said: "Don't remind me."
His hand slipped under her pajama top and curled around those succulent breasts. He could hear Lucia catch her breath.
She was there, waiting for him, her legs spread wide and the gates of her body hungry for his penetration. It was swift and beautiful and brutal in the sense that both of them could not get enough.
His maleness sunk into her flower, sending her deep into the bed. She moaned and wrapped her hands around his neck, letting her fingers dig into the flesh.
"Yes, yes," she called to him passionately.
It was large within her and her flower reacted to every thrust and to every excited fibre and muscle in its brutal length.
She wanted it to destroy her, to totally ravish her. She brought her buttocks up to meet each thrust, to give as much as she took, to show him that her body relished that surging column of flesh.
They reached that critical point. A few short months ago she would have frozen. And Bill would have been lying on an inert body, a dead sponge.
But this happened no more. like a locomotive they both raced toward their appointed end. The two bodies slammed together, like two sucking wells, their flesh sizzling and her flower moaning with the continued lust of the penetration. His lips were now on her nipples singing their erotic song to them, accepting their quivering tribute.
First his hot seed splattered into her, and a few seconds later her orgasm reduced her body to an exhausted satisfied wreck. They lay there, their bodies entwined, the seed a hot love potion within her body. "Are you happy?"
She began to cry, but composed herself long enough to answer Bill's question.
"I am more happy than I know what to do with. That's not good English is it? Well, you know what I mean, Bill."
Lucia laughed and snuggled up to his still shaking body, warm with the moment which just passed.
They talked for a long time. They spoke about the group and how important it had been.
"You know, Lucia, sooner or later we have to disband it."
His words struck her with such force that she sat up violently.
"Why?"
"Because it eventually will have done its job."
Lucia questioned him sharply:
"Do you think it's done its job?"
"In our case, yes," he replied.
She turned over and tried to sleep. He was right, she knew. Sooner or later the group would have to be disbanded. Every one would have to make their own life, without support, without the crutches of the group. Yet, lying there, in spite of the logic, the idea of leaving the group was unthinkable. She heard Bill snoring softly.
That same night, in Pamela's apartment, a scene of similar intensity was taking place. Arthur was standing near the bedroom wall. His body was naked and in front of him, darting out, was his erect organ, piercing the night with its unbridled lust.
Pamela was moving toward him. Her eyes were focused on that instrument of love.
"Do you want it?" Arthur asked.
"It is mine," she said, as if his question was ludicrous.
It waited there for her. Her lips were wet and hot, her breath came heavily, and still she moved. She felt somehow primeval in the darkened room as if she was stalking some strange beast.
Arthur started to move along the wall, as if he too had caught the spirit of the hunt.
She could see its quivering vitality. Once she could not stand to be confronted with it unless it was in the normal manner. Now she longed to touch it, to play with it, to let it slide into her lips.
They grinned at each other in the darkness, their love was strong and true. She moved swiftly and this time he let her grasp it.
It was strong and vital. It had the shape of lust. She grasped it. She would not let it go. Slowly, he guided his maleness toward the waiting tongue, toward the waiting lips which were quivering so beautifully. Yes, he thought, it must pass through the gates of her words, through ail the verbal nonsense.
She almost lost consciousness as the taste overwhelmed her. She had never experienced such a raw passion before.
In and out that column went, sucking the very moisture, the very life from Pamela's passion. It grew and grew, it seemed to have no end and no destiny. Then she felt it contract. She felt it go into spasm and a second later she was forced back by a stream of hot liquid which tasted like nothing she had ever tasted before, which purified her and filled her with an all-consuming love for every part of him.
He lay on the floor, exhausted, his maleness now a tired appendage which hung between her legs.
"Thank you," he said, his eyes closing and his voice deep.
"It is I who must thank you," she replied.
They returned to the bed. For a long time no word was said as they both watched the strange shadows on the wall. It was so peaceful and quiet. Pamela thought she could lay there forever. They were both black and both beautiful, she thought, and they were both happy.
But there was something they had to say to each other, and Lucia spoke first.
"Arthur, are you awake?"
She knew he was but she wanted to start it in a matter-of-fact manner.
"Awake and listening," he said.
"We can't depend on the group forever."
"No," he said, sadly.
'Tonight proves that I have come a long way from the twisted prude I used to be."
He patted her on the thigh, acknowledging her development silently.
Four days later the group met again. There was a tension in the air but it was not like the tense atmosphere which used to develop from jealousy.
Lucia began the session with an observation:
"It appears to me that a lot of people have a lot of things on their mind."
"Get to the point," her husband reprimanded her, sharply.
"O.K. Should we disband the group, at least for a while?"
In spite of the fact that everyone expected such a question, they were not prepared to hear it formally, and a deathly silence pervaded the atmosphere.
Lucia was shrewd enough to keep the burden off the other people. She spoke first:
"I think it would be best to discontinue the group for a while. We have to see if we can function as well as we are doing without a crutch."
The words were painful for her to speak but she had to say them.
Bill spoke next:
"I agree. What we have done will be useless if it cannot stand on its own two feet."
He tried to keep his eyes averted from Pamela because in spite of his good relationship with Lucia and the new-found sexual joys he was experiencing with her, the infatuation for the black woman was still strong in his psyche. He did not want to glimpse her body again or his resolve would be weakened.
Pamela also agreed that the sessions should be disbanded, and Arthur nodded his head in agreement. There was an awkward silence.
Then Lucia began to weep. She turned to Bill and held her arms out, pathetically, saying:
"Do you expect me to just walk out of here and never see Pamela or Arthur again? Do you expect me to just leave two people who I am closer with than any other two people in the world? I cannot do it, I will not do it."
She began to weep hysterically and Bill had to steady her for fear she would collapse. He looked at Arthur with a dumb, animal-like expression, as if asking him for some solution.
Pamela walked to her friend and gently pushed Bill to one side. She stroked Lucia's neck and spoke to her softly:
"Listen, Lucia, there's no need to think that we won't see each other again. I'll call you, well keep in touch. Besides, the human mind is very fragile and let's face it-all of us are disturbed. Right now, because of the group, we are functioning well. But in the future, who knows what strange aberrations will develop? And when that happens, as it must, we'll call the group together again."
As she was comforting Lucia, the tears began to roll down her own eyes and soon they were in each other's arms, sobbing.
Arthur moved swiftly. He separated them and grabbed his wife in an iron-like grip.
"I'm sick and tired of all this rot. We were in this for ourselves. Each of us was concerned only with his or her self-interest, with his or her health. So, let's not start a three act play filled with sobbing and moaning and false sentiment. Here's the way it is. The group is disbanded. If something happens well call it together again. Meanwhile, you go your way and we go our way."
He pulled his wife out of the hotel room and slammed the door behind them.
At first Bill was shocked by Arthur's words and behavior. But then he realized the wisdom in them. It needed a clean brutal break or none of them would ever have escaped the group. It required a period of non-contact between the members of the group to see whether the progress they had made was valid.
His respect for Arthur grew tremendously at that point. He looked at his wife. She was still weeping and her face was puffed and red.
"It's time to go."
She looked at him as if he was speaking in a foreign language. But finally she understood and went into the bathroom to wash up.
Bill waited patiently for her, his eyes roving over the now familiar room. It had been such an important part of his life for the past few months that he looked upon it as one of his apartments.
He could remember the spot where Pamela had stood that first time and he had tasted the sweetness of her thighs. He remembered the horror when he had seen Lucia reach orgasm, induced by Arthur's powerful, black body. A thousand other memories went through his mind.
Then he looked toward the bathroom Lucia was watching him, with a sad, knowing smile on her lips.
"What were you looking at?" she asked.
He could not lie.
"I was remembering a number of events which took place here."
She took his arm tenderly, holding it against her cheek.
"Were they happy events?"
"Some were," he said, "and some weren't."
They walked out of the hotel room together, leaving the door slightly ajar. Bill dropped the keys off at the desk and informed the clerk that they were discontinuing the use of the room.
"Let's walk home," said Lucia.
He took her arm and they walked into the night. Their minds were cluttered with the cobwebs of the past, but they vowed, silently, to sweep them away, and to reveal the truth of their bodies to each other. Miles away by now, another couple was making the same vow.
