Belonger (An erotic novel): Part One (45 page)

A rectangular series of knee-high wall
segments line one side of the shop, intended to represent a private
changing room. However, anyone inside this “room” is fully exposed
to the audience gathered circumferentially about the stage.

NARRATOR:
“A new employee has come to a clothing boutique
for orientation. Already acquainted with the sale of ordinary
attire, she will now practice with erotic rubber fashions. She
circulates among the more experienced employees as they wait for
customers, ready to accommodate them in any reasonable
way.”

A handsome fellow in a dashing leisure suit
enters.

CUSTOMER: “I’d like to see your belts. I’m
looking for something to coax my sulky lover’s bottom, if you take
my meaning.”

An employee steps forward to help. She is a
relatively compact woman, like all the ladies of the boutique save
for the new one being trained—Manassa.

EMPLOYEE: “I do, sir. Right this way.”

She directs her customer to the appropriate
display and he selects a lightweight blue product.

CUSTOMER: “This one, perhaps?”

EMPLOYEE: “I think not, sir; it’s too flimsy
to inflict a satisfying censure on the buttocks.”

With this in mind he raises a few more for
consideration.

EMPLOYEE: “That’s the one you want.”

She indicates a thick rubber strap sure to
deliver a sound impact.

CUSTOMER: “Very good! This will do.”

His status is easily sufficient for the
acquisition and he is soon gone from the shop.

Next, two casually attired people saunter
into the shop, awkwardly holding hands. Another employee steps
forth to help.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Can I be of assistance?”

The man steps away from his companion, a
lovely woman with an air of quiet anxiety. He regards the contents
of the shop with a frown, then addresses the employee in an irked
tone.

CUSTOMER TWO: “Well, the situation is this;
the lady disturbs my sleep on a frequent basis with her ceaseless
masturbation. She means to be discreet I’m sure, but at some point
every night, when she decides after rubbing and teasing herself at
length that she wants to climax after all, I am awakened from dream
to find myself haplessly involved in her fantasy.”

The employee offers a suitably scandalized
look.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “I see.”

She regards the woman with a puzzled
air.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Why do you touch yourself
when fulfillment is impossible without his participation?”

There was no answer.

CUSTOMER TWO: “Tell them!”

CUSTOMER THREE: “I just like the feeling of
my vagina. I like to rub it very slowly and imagine…”

EMPLOYEE TWO: “But no one can orgasm without
the intentional contact of another person…”

The woman looks submissively down.

CUSTOMER THREE: “Yes, I know…”

The employee circles her with a speculative
air, turns back to her client.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Sir, is it your desire to
stymie her masturbation, or to condition her behavior so that such
arrangements are unnecessary altogether?”

CUSTOMER TWO: “I don’t know. I’ve tried
promises and oaths, nocturnal supervision, bondage, restrictive
lingerie, whips and straps… she can’t be stopped!”

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Indeed! Let me think…”

She makes a show of musing on possible
remedies, then raises a finger theatrically.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “I think I have it. Come this
way, please.”

She steps around to the display of rubber
gloves.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Sir, are you familiar with
the ritual of the helping hand?”

CUSTOMER TWO: “Indeed, no…”

The employee selects a pair of long, angry
red gloves, their fingers lined with deep ridges to stymie even the
canniest effort of clitoral stimulation. She summons the man’s
companion and deftly draws them onto her shapely hands.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Sir, your first obligation
will be to ensure that she is properly gloved for sleep.

CUSTOMER TWO: “I see…”

Then, when she awakens the following
morning, you question her.”

The employee faces the woman and speaks
formally.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “How many times did you
attempt climax last night?”

CUSTOMER THREE: “Five.”

Her voice is rich with shame.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Well! Rather frisky-fingered
aren’t you? A nice little love affair with yourself!”

She smirks, turning back to her male
customer.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Next, you correct her
selfishness with the following technique, which thematically
bridges the behavior and its punishment.”

The employee gently pushes the man’s lover
onto a low demonstration table, gets her settled on her back.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Remove your panties and
spread your legs, please.”

The woman does so and they stare at her
naked crotch.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Now, the ritual proceeds as
follows…”

She points sternly at the woman spread
before them.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Which is the hand that helped
your pleasure?”

The woman timidly offers her right one, and
the employee draws the glove from it with sensual but sinister
finesse. She grasps it at the open end like a whip, fingers
extended, then raises it judgmentally.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “For each offense you will be
slapped by your own hand. And after each rebuke you will swear as
follows: ‘I will not masturbate without permission!’. Do you
understand?”

The woman nods and the employee brings the
long, supple rubber glove down on her crotch, provoking a little
shriek.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Say it!”

CUSTOMER THREE: “I will not masturbate
without permission…”

The woman quavers the response, legs fanning
in pain. Her eyes close.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “The hand
that
hurts
is the
hand that
helps
.”

The employee brings the glove down again and
the woman gasps in pain and excitation.

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Say it!”

CUSTOMER THREE: “I will not masturbate
without permission!”

EMPLOYEE TWO: “Now you try.”

She hands the glove to her client. He
clutches it firmly from the open end and brings the hand down
between his lover’s shapely thighs.

CUSTOMER TWO: “Selfish slipper! Say it!”

CUSTOMER THREE: “I will not masturbate
without permission!”

CUSTOMER TWO: “Maybe you’ll keep your hands
off your snooch tonight!”

He delivers a totally unqualified contact.
Her whole body spasms and she wails the humiliating response.

CUSTOMER THREE: “I
will
not
masturbate without permission!”

Her lover smiles, satisfied with her
sincerity.

CUSTOMER TWO: “The hand
that
helps
is the
hand that
hurts
,
dear.”

EMPLOYEE TWO: “You may close your legs and
don your glove again.”

The chastened woman slides unsteadily to her
feet, cheeks blooming from her belittlement. Eyes lowered to the
carpet, she takes the glove from the employee and slides it back
on.

CUSTOMER TWO: “This is a remedy I can
believe in!”

Impressed by this bold regime, he selects
additional gloves for their varying textures, and the couple are
shortly on their way.

Next, a very large, handsome fellow enters
the shop, conservatively suited. The employees cease bantering and
face this new customer, presenting themselves hopefully to
service.

CUSTOMER FOUR: “I’m shopping for my lady. It
is to be a surprise. As she cannot try things on personally, I
would prefer the boutique to provide a model for this purpose. My
lover is a voluptuous woman, I should mention, and as tall as
myself.”

The man surveys the employees of the
boutique, halts on Manassa’s comparatively giant form; she is the
obvious choice next to the other women.

CUSTOMER FOUR: “You. You will suffice.”

Manassa steps forward with alacrity to serve
him.

MANASSA: “No problem! Now what are you
interested in?”

CUSTOMER FOUR: “I would like to get her a
rubber brassiere and a matching set of rubber stockings.”

Manassa turns to regard the wares of the
boutique. She steps to the appropriate displays.

MANASSA: “Certainly, sir. Right over
here!”

The customer joins her and they survey the
available colors and styles. Manassa points to a few pink articles
accented with black.

MANASSA: “How about these?”

CUSTOMER FOUR: “Yes. They will do. Please
model them for me, would you?”

MANASSA: “As you wish, sir.”

She acquires the largest available of each,
then steps over to the mock changing room.

Miming the use of a door, she is soon
“hidden” within knee-height walls. She undresses, then slips the
pink rubber brassiere on and rolls the matching stockings up her
legs.

She emerges from the dressing room and
models the lingerie for her customer with a decorous whirl,
highlighting small rubber tags that protrude from the nipples.

MANASSA: “These tags render a painful thrill
for your pleasure.”

She takes one between thumb and forefinger
and pulls it. The material of the brassiere stretches compliantly,
and when she releases the tag her nipple is snapped painfully.

MANASSA: “Oh, that smarts! Would you care to
try?”

The customer reaches for her breast, finds
the tag and pulls it back. He releases it and the material snaps
down hard. Manassa jumps and her customer smiles.

CUSTOMER FOUR: “Very good! I think I’ll try
a rubber, too. You will also need to model this. In reaction, of
course.”

Manassa lies down on the demonstration bench
and widens her thighs to expose a perfectly hairless vagina. The
customer unzips his fly and rolls the textured rubber onto his
erection.

MANASSA: “At your convenience, sir.”

The customer positions himself at her cleft,
then lets himself in. She gasps as his member strokes deep inside,
fully penetrating.

MANASSA: “That’s nice, sir. Your penis is a
marvel, and the rubber feels wonderful! Please don’t stop!”

The customer enjoys intercourse till the
pleasure brings climax.

MANASSA: “I’m coming, sir!”

She sighs in ecstasy as the client
ejaculates into the rubber. He slows to a gentle stroke.

CUSTOMER FOUR: “Excellent! I’ll take a few
of these with the lingerie.”

The Merkin’s needle slowed and he closed his
eyes for a moment. The dilapidated wilderness of pajamas and
pillowcases where he had secreted himself for the business of
writing was totally silent. Sound barely carried in the
laundry.

His work on Manassa’s scene
had deeply aroused him. He couldn’t stop fantasizing about her
utterly smooth vagina; it had become his teleological lure the
moment he first heard it described. Leaning back, he traced his
ancient adoration for the female body, a love affair negotiated
over and again in the reconception of the brassiere, the panty, the
glove, the sleek stockings he loved to draw on their legs… Now his
obsession had an object—a destiny—and he wouldn’t rest till Manassa
was on his stage, living in
his
world. It was almost more than he could
imagine…

The Merkin smoothed the narrow delta of hair
at his lips, too worked up to be creative now. He needed to spend
time in the one place he could directly access the beauty of the
female physique with his own hands. He needed his flower
garden.

He slapped the soft pink jacket shut on its
valley of canvas pages and stood, remedied his cramped physique
with a brief interval of grunting pandiculation, then set off for
the nearest sleeve that accessed the higher levels of the Tent,
stopping only to select new clothes for later.

His path took him through a lonely
neighborhood of grey and blue slacks of a style he had introduced
long ago, and he sentimentally fingered the sharp leg crease in
passing, wondering as many times before why fashion had no circular
path back to its celebrated modes. The older clothes of the laundry
could never be novel or popular again. Unless everyone forgot
everything all at once somehow…

He trudged up a gentle gradient of canvas
that brought him around to a small sink. This silent pool lay at
the terminus of a sprawling network of flooded wrinkles in the
floor of the Tent, and he followed the tendril of water that
endowed it till a larger tributary wandered into view. Sprinting
toward this lazy stream he vaulted to the other side, where
scratchy red and orange sweaters ornamented were massed into great
heaps under the gloomy gaze of a low-hung gnome.

He wondered how Manassa and her group were
faring in the City. What sexual dynamic prevailed among the four of
them? He doubted they were cleanly divided into couples; two
couples made a fundamentally unstable socio-sexual unit. The reason
for that was technical—mathematical actually—but it explained in
very simple terms why no significant culture of “swinging”
sexuality ever endured, despite the fact that there was usually
great interest in the experiences it could offer.

The Merkin dallied at a piled promontory of
soft pink blouses to spy on a few slippers in the distance, busy
hauling clean laundry out of a canvas sink tenanted by a churning
gyro gnome. Soap bubbles spumed from its whirling arms and legs and
the women were laughing at its chaotic but indispensable utility. A
single bubble wandered as far as his own position, unlikely
survivor of a dangerous journey through the intervening maze of
apparel. The Merkin beheld its tiny, transparent domain—exterior,
whorling boundary of film, and the unknowable world within—then
gently popped the sensually dancing orb, canceling its fragile
secrecy and its secrets too.