Belonger (An erotic novel): Part One (10 page)

Skirting this shadowy farrago, he followed a
greenish light angling between two great piles of cuff-flared denim
jeans to emerge in a relatively well-ordered territory of clothing
that was close to the outer boundary of actively maintained
apparel. It was still quiet, but he thought he could hear sounds of
distant labor as he strode up a long arc of neat canvas flooring to
a crossroad where one of the major thoroughfares through the
laundry bordered the hinterlands of outmoded garb. He heard a
distant giggle and instantly reestablished his customary,
self-conscious deportment. It would not do to be seen in some
undignified light by his servants. Soon he was among them.

The modern territories of the laundry were
populated by formally dressed slipper women, eyes lowered and hands
busy as etiquette specified. They were found everywhere the Merkin
required them, readying wares for his shops in the City, or finding
costumes and props for his theater, or implementing a change in
fashion for their own bodies—the Merkin regularly altered the style
of their attire to quench his ceaseless obsession with female
flesh.

At present those near him were managing an
immense bundle of freshly cleansed stockings, maneuvering it into a
sink, a flooded depression in the canvas flooring irrigated by the
water ceaselessly aggregating under the Tent. Soap bubbles wandered
everywhere, some broader than his arms could circle, shimmering
transflective orbs whorling with faint chromatic seas. The air was
redolent of various perfumes used in his detergents.

He passed a mannerman, one of a host of
special minions who walked the Tent and City streets, vigilant for
deviations from the Merkin’s standard of fashion. This constantly
shifting code specified formal clothing where his power was
strongest; the Tent, park and clothing boutiques at the City’s
center. It imposed casual garb on citizens for a wide radius around
that, and lingerie to the limit of his influence over the other
judges, near the Gnomon’s Tower and Dowser’s Club. The mannermen
were big, unsmiling fellows that dressed with intimidating skill,
and they could manifest in large numbers at need, making them a
feared power everywhere they ranged.

The Merkin trod past a
watchful doorman guarding a tubular fabric ramp
called a sleeve. This one served as a major conduit
to the second level of the Tent, and he strode
easily among throngs of deferential workers heading up for various
obligations of their service to him. Navigating a wide, bustling
corridor around the Tent’s perimeter, he made his way past another
wary doorman stationed at a richly draperied archway to emerge in
the
theater
.

An informal audience was
already in place, chattering in blithe anticipation of the night’s
entertainment. The Merkin continued down a long axial walkway to
the great round platform at the center where his
Stage
M
anager was attending to details
with
several dox of smartly clad crew. He
straightened at the Merkin’s approach.

“
The scene has been set for
the game of hide-and-seek,” he confirmed.

“
Very good, Martial,” the
Merkin replied, stepping onto the deck. Everything seemed in place.
“Was there any trouble with the auditioners?”

The Manager shrugged. “Just the usual. They
have no problem with the notion of an audience till they’re
onstage. But the change in context with their fellow employees in
the crowd always unbalances them.”

“
Well, let’s hope tonight’s
scenario identifies someone who can make the transition. Then we’ll
have a method for finding more,” the Merkin promised.

Martial sighed dubiously.

They traded observations for a while till
everything was ready. The Merkin made a final inspection of the
arrangements. “Bring the illumination down slightly and tint it
more to crimson,” he decided.

The Manager called up instructions to the
curtained loft above the stage using a terse, functionally derived
argot and a crew member stationed there promptly adjusted the
emanation of various glow gnomes to a more seductive result. This
efficient-seeming communication belied a great challenge.

It was the Merkin’s gift to
be understood by anyone hearing his words—
in any context of interaction
—and his
authority over the society of the Tent was rooted in this singular
faculty. But his servants were limited in expressiveness to their
role in his organization, excluded at some point on a progressively
subtler gradient of communication that only Martial could negotiate
with a nuance and sophistication approaching his own. The Manager
was consequently the one person with whom he regularly interacted,
and even then mostly within the shared context of their
craft.

As a result of this situation, the Merkin had
no cast. He had long ago identified denizens of the Tent who could
follow directions and memorize lines. But the theater was
ultimately a creative domain, not a technical one, and the
employees who auditioned for his play exhibited an incorrigible
staginess, unable to transcend the functional basis of their
participation to act and interact naturally. Their narrow
distinction of ‘self’ and ‘other’ was grindingly unsubtle in
action, hardly sufficient to the aspirations of art.

There were other ways to
cultivate talent however, so in place of reading from the script
itself, the Merkin had undertaken to experiment with stage
games
inspired
by
his play. In the throes of competition bolder personalities
sometimes emerged—a starting point for the casting process, even if
it was something of a game just to devise such
experiments.

“
Let us proceed,” he
directed.

“
Heads onstage! Merkin’s
cloud coming down!” shouted the Manager.

“
Thank you!” the collected
personnel of the stage roared in acknowledgement, stepping clear of
the center.

Up in the loft one of his
crew
turned a winch and a matrix of
counterweighted hemp lines delivered
an
unseen mass to the deck;
a billowing,
couch-like furniture
dressed in grey and
black linen—his narrator’s seat.

It arrived with a muted boom
and t
he Merkin
settled himself cross-legged into its voluminous
embrace, script carefully hammocked in his lap. He
surveyed the crowd a last time, saw that all the closest seats were
occupied.

“
Heads onstage! Merkin’s
cloud going up!” the Manager called.

He was quickly lofted
to a
place among the glow
gnomes
that command
ed
an unobscured view of the deck
without being directly
visible
to
the
audience
.
This
arrangement
was crucial
, as the Merkin was the
narrator for his play. No other role granted such influence over
the stage, for as narrator he controlled the
context
of whatever was happening
below. This empowered him to flexibly manipulate the interpretation
of performances that ranged from competent but predictable to
crowd-rousing chaos.

The stage was presently decorated in the
fashion of a pleasure salon. A sultry vermillion glow rained on an
assemblage of furniture and accessories suitable to such a place.
Ranged about a thick, cherry-colored rug at the center were
low-profile couches that wouldn’t obstruct the view from any
angle—a constant consideration for theater-in-the-round, where the
audience lay in every direction.

Some of the night’s
auditioners
were entering the
scene now, flirtatious
women
edging shyly from vestibules
situated under the upswept bowl of seats radiating from the stage.
There were nearly a dox of them, garbed in gorgeous, ankle-length
dresses of varied colors. Each bore a giant marble in her palm
matching the hue of her ensemble.

The Merkin smoothed the fringe at his chin,
cleared his throat inaudibly and spoke. Throw gnomes stationed
around him amplified his voice to issue grandly down onto the stage
and out to the theater beyond.

“
Some know why

Yet can not speak

Secrets dwell

In every well

But who will hide

And who will seek?”

It was his custom to recite an extemporaneous
poem before every theater exercise to prepare his wit for the quick
maneuvering that was often required. He continued in a more formal
tone.

“
To a revel have a small
party of women come. Mingling in mutual solicitation, they proceed
to trade baubles with one another, hiding them in the feminine
vault. No couples are formed.”

He watched in satisfaction as the auditioners
harkened to his singular voice, effecting his desire with an
obvious relief to be doing something intentional in front of the
crowd.

Whispering sultry provocations, their hands
and lips met in mutual discovery. Marbles winked in the soft
ambience of red gnome glow. A dress was raised on a shy brunette
and the Merkin watched as her panties were delicately fingered open
by an aggressive woman garbed in pink, who slid a matching bauble
down to her cleft, eased it inside with a murmur and a kiss.

The skirt fell back into place, and an
imposing slipper resplendent in green braced a compact woman, put
her arms around the wide-eyed creature and won her intimacy,
filling her vagina with an emerald orb and lovingly rubbing the
lips to seal the possession.

Soon the women were lifting hems and drawing
panties to a convivial rhythm, fulfilling the initiatory conditions
for hide-and-seek. The Merkin watched baubles come and go from
slipper to slipper, winking hues tracing circuits of desire
impossible to comprehend even from his lofty vantage. Before long a
kind of equilibrium was reached and the slippers caroused in
satisfied relation to one another now, each bearing another woman’s
marble, ordered by a hierarchy invisible from without. The Merkin
heard an anticipatory rustle from the audience and judged the
moment right to proceed. The performers would quickly become
stage-frightened if he allowed the context of their participation
to falter. Unlike any other form of employment, acting required a
completely abstract interface to its field of influence.

“
The women take their
places at random on the couches and prepare for the consideration
of men,”
he intoned. They quickly complied,
settling their dresses decorously on the cushions and primping
elegant coiffures.

The Merkin watched as three imposingly suited
men entered the stage on cue and took places on the circular rug in
the center. They exhibited an intent masculinity, boldly surveyed
the women ranged around the salon, eyes lowered and legs demurely
crossed now.

“
The men caucus to
determine the first subject of interest and the order of
solicitation. Each is then granted a turn to seduce her by
discipline or delight till she yields her secret to one of them. No
stimulation to climax occurs.”

There was a low consultation among the men as
they gestured from one woman to another, debating their choices
until two of them established a majority, settling on a voluptuous
lady in yellow, breasts bulging over the frilled pleats of a
glamorously ornate dress. All three men approached her and she met
their ranked formation with an anxious smile.

The Merkin flipped a small glass capsule
filled with sand that he used for stage timing.

“
The first man takes his
turn.”

The minority man stepped forward and
attempted to impose his personality on the situation. “Lift your
dress,” he rasped, behavior channeled by the structure of the game.
The woman bashfully raised her hem to reveal the delicately tapered
bulge of yellow-clad genitalia.

“
Slide your panties up to
expose your vagina.”

“
Yes, sir…” she whispered
and settled back on the divan. Lofting her stockinged legs high,
she slid supple fingers into her lingerie and offered her pubis to
view with a dramatic sweep. The man leaned over to look, menacing
and solicitous at once. Her clitoris blushed in the warm light of
the salon.

He meditatively took it to thumb and
forefinger, held her thus for a moment, communing with her
womanhood. Then his grip tightened.

“
Render your secret to me,”
he rigidly intoned, pulling rhythmically at the flesh. Her breath
caught as she was cagily provoked by this rough treatment of her
most vulnerable site. His free hand initiated a sly, rim-orbiting
seduction of her sphincter.

“
Show it,” he coaxed,
insistently unhurried as he made his mark on her
interest.

The Merkin watched intently until the last of
the sand had trickled through his timer, signaling the end of the
man’s opportunity. He flipped it to initiate a new one.

“
The next man takes his
turn,”
he boomed.

The second of the three inquisitors employed
a quite different philosophy of investigation. His big hand swept
down to spank the woman firmly on her labia.

“
Open!”

She squeaked, instantly captivated by his
glowering regard. Her eyes narrowed in speculation, then flashed
painfully as she was humorlessly cuffed again. The Merkin saw her
pubis blush to a dusky shade of pink, a moist flower peeping
between thighs feebly wandering in the aftermath of his ungentle
smartening of comportment.