Belonger (An erotic novel): Part One (48 page)

The Dowser filled various items of glassware
with the drink mixtures ranged behind him, moving with a precise,
unhurried competence as he placed them on the tray.

“
You will be serving Emma
tonight,” he solemnly informed the server. “She is with Dean.” The
woman smiled and nodded deferentially, lingering on her nipple
clamps.

“
This is for him and his
crew,” she mentioned, hefting her freshly laden tray. Emma nodded
and she stepped away to deliver the drinks. Emma wondered which was
for Dean, realized she had no idea what he preferred.

Apparently she had been granted a trial
opportunity. Emma regarded the immensity of the Club, wondering
what the others would think. The front doors would not open till
sundown, so she would have to wait until then at least to find out.
If she decided to stay.

She gestured to the bucket.
“What exactly
is
this stuff?” she asked, absently surprised by her own
audacity.

“
Stillwater?” An inscrutably
faint grin twitched at the Dowser’s lips. “That is a complicated
question.” He turned to the abyss yawning open to her right,
guarded by no railing or wall, gestured within. “I take it you have
an interest in such things?” She could smell rich moisture wafting
up.

“
Well.. kind of. How can it
change your mood?”

The Dowser regarded her intently. “That can
only be understood from within the experience itself.” He gestured
to the bottles. “What’s your pleasure?”

Emma had no idea what choice might look
sophisticated in front of this man.

“
Uh… you decide. Something I
won’t regret, maybe?”

The Dowser searched her expression for a
moment, then nodded in somber approval of her willingness to depart
the channel of the obvious. He reached for a beautifully bejeweled
flask and measured a dense green substance into a shot glass,
handed it to her with a ritual stolidity.

Emma took it, scenting a pungent syrup,
closed her eyes and swallowed it with a toss, prepared for the
worst. It washed sweetly down her throat, bearing a delightful
aftertaste.

“
What was
that?
” She was astonished
Dean had supplied nothing so delectable.

“
It is called the water of
faraway places,” the Dowser quietly replied. “Pure stillwater, and
the juice of a berry that only grows in that ancient liquid. I take
it you like sweet drinks?”

“
I do now,” Emma decided,
touched by the first intimations of pleasure from the one inside.
The giant man considered her, unable to disguise an interest
beneath his forceful impassivity. Her awareness of the Club
abruptly widened to encompass the employees lingering near, many of
whom were covertly auditing their conversation she
realized.

The Dowser leaned in. “Would you be
interested in helping me with a special drink recipe, Emma?”

“
Uh… what
exactly?”

“
I am attempting to perfect
a concoction that renders the male ejaculation pleasant to
taste.”

She blinked, astonished by the request at
first. But she couldn’t help contemplating the rapt oral pleasure
any man who spewed sugar juice might expect. Dean would love the
idea of experimenting with it, and Emma was certain he would do
anything that personally concerned the Dowser anyway. It was an
inevitably alluring concept, she had to admit, one that might
awaken oral passions in all kinds of women. Especially
dignity-conscious ones like Ione, who could appreciate the
kinkiness of fellatio, but hated its demeaning fulfillment…

“
You really have something
like that?” she skeptically demanded.

The Dowser stared. “I have a formulation that
shows promise. You may try it later on.”

“
Huh.”

He took this for a commitment. “Come see me
when business is finished tonight,” he suggested and turned to
another server waiting deferentially nearby.

The sun went down in a glory of warm hues,
and the Club ushered its fading eminence within. Powerful gnomes
glowed to life overhead, gradually calibrated down the spectrum to
a spectacular orange tone that bloomed off the dance floor, glossed
chrome furniture and limned the cymbals with scintillating
arcs.

The drummers had already warmed up. They
sounded comparably competent, which boded well for Dean, but they
had permanent places at the Club and alliances with beautiful
socialites who had developed big followings. It was obvious Dean
was not well-positioned in comparison; he had only three such women
waiting by his dais, and Emma could admit she was the best looking
of them. Sara was initially decent to her, but after a few cooler
exchanges she decided the other woman resented her presence, and
was starting to suspect that most of the socialites disdained each
other.

“
Bucket’s dry,” one of the
servers reported in a quizzically ceremonial tone, and Emma turned
to the bar with the other employees. A thick rubber siphon hose was
being withdrawn from the pail.

The Dowser raised a massive wooden oar, back
and arm muscles flexed to a sharp delineation under the coppery
radiance of the gnomes. With a cry he swung it against the side of
the bucket. There was no result for a strangely protracted instant,
then a shapeless noise issued that stunned her, stuttered at the
limit of coherence, finally coalesced to a distinct resonance of
the well, surging forth to prowl the City.

The Dowser vaulted into the giant pail with
an effortless dignity. A moment later it departed from sight down
into the well, trailing an immense chain. Emma had been told no one
else was allowed to undertake this journey of acquisition. A
hair-shivering hum from deep inside the hill lingered on.

The doormen took up formal positions, and she
saw the plaza was already teeming with potential revelers hoping to
get in. The bar staff were tidying things up, readying the
glassware. Emma chatted with the servers, shared an occasional
exchange with Dean when he wasn’t fussing with his kit.

A hush fell over the establishment. “Bucket’s
up,” Sara whispered. “Here we go…”

The Dowser nimbly dropped from his perch on
the lip of the pail and the siphon tube was thrown over the side,
feeding a sex of gleaming cock taps ranged around the bar. The
giant man returned his oar to a bracket and took his place at the
counter. He nodded to the Doorman, chief among all the wardens of
the Club, and his subordinates opened the main doors. A celebratory
cry arose outside.

Emma watched the first guests stroll in. By
custom these were the Dowser’s elite clients, whose priority with
him secured the best tables and vantage points in the Club. They
were people of stratospheric status, some of the most powerful
personages in the City, she had been warned. Sara waved to several
that approached, left to consort with them. Emma hesitated.

“
You gotta mingle,” Dean
hissed. “Jill, get her a shot of still,” he ordered one of the
servers, then leaned over to whisper. “You see Mark? Or
anyone?”

Emma shook her head, distracted by a big
client with women on either arm. They waved casually to Dean and
seated themselves as Emma looked on.

“
Hello
there, gorgeous!” said the man, motioning her over, eyes
widening at her approach. “When did Dean recruit
you?
” he
chuckled.

“
Uh… just happened,” she
replied, words compressed by the already considerable noise of the
crowd.

“
Sit with us,” he invited
with a broad smile. Emma grinned uncertainly but did as requested,
was welcomed into their group with comforting informality. The shot
Dean had ordered arrived and she tossed it back without
thinking.

“
Love your clamps,” one of
the women flirted. Emma smiled, warmed by her obvious sincerity.
The man offered a cynical observation about Sara and they all
laughed. His erection gestured this way and that as they
socialized, pointed to Emma with increasing frequency as her mood
loosened.

The Club was soon crowded with noisily
carousing guests. From behind her Emma heard Dean tap the bass drum
once. After a moment she heard another drummer do the same.

“
Show’s starting,” said her
client, leaning back with an anticipatory grin.

A steady thump emerged under the complicated
noise of the crowd, the result of each drummer’s single, sequential
contribution to the beat.

Emma drank a second shot with her new
friends, was lifted almost immediately by its potency. A group of
good-looking men called her over to their table, and she was soon
in active circulation about Dean’s territory of the dance
floor.

Her suspicion that socialites were
competitive with each other was soon confirmed as they openly
fought for influence among the patrons, who for their part seemed
to regard this dissonance as essential to their appeal. People were
crowding through the front doors, emotionlessly filtered by the
Doorman and his crew according to their physical appeal and loyalty
to the Dowser. The tables were already occupied, and the dance
floor was filling up.

“
Come here, beautiful,” a
dashing drinker invited, gesturing to his boner-supplied lap, and
Emma minced over, took a swallow from his drink, something fruity
but competently intoxicating.

“
How’s your game?” she
teased, surveying the Clubgoers around them.

“
Lotta cuties here. I like
her. And her,” he pointed out other guests. “But I like
you
best of all,” he
grinned, reaching for Emma. She let him fondle her for a bit,
smiling to a dox of men nearby to illustrate the pleasure of her
friendship. A socialite circling her territory glared as a personal
client made an obvious pass at Emma.

The glow gnomes had shifted color to shower a
greenish light down, starkly angled to complicate the dance floor
with restless, elongated shadows. A thin fog drifted in, spewed by
blow gnomes slowly twirling overhead. Emma waved to Dean and he
grinned, saluting her with a stick. The drink and the noise and the
novelty of the Club finally conspired to put Emma in an adventurous
mindset. She wished her friends were there to see it all, wondered
when they might arrive.

Everyone was looking to the bar now, and
unable to see, Emma clambered over a busty reveler with grabby
hands to stand on top of her table.

“
Oh
yeah!
” muttered the woman, running
fingers up Emma’s thigh. Her man chuckled in glee.

“
Bucket’s dry!” someone
roared, and the Clubgoers cheered grandly, echoing this
institutional catchphrase.

The Dowser raised the oar again. His
gargantuan body tensed. Unlike other drinking venues, which got
their stillwater secondhand, his Club had an unlimited supply. This
had significant influence on the bibitory ambition of those who
drank with him, and Emma sensed a kind of reckless loyalty in
operation.

He swung and struck, much harder than before.
The colossal pail emitted a deep tone modulated by growling
harmonics that reverberated around the hall to establish a pulsing
alternation. Dean had told her the Dowser’s hill was actually
hollow, generating a sustained resonance from any sound at its
wellhead. The crowd screamed and the drummers resumed their beat on
the kick drums, one after another, matching the meter of this
steadily shifting hum. And after three measures they began to
solo.

As Dean and one of his rivals held down the
prevailing tempo, the third drummer filled the air with a clever
alternation on snare and kick, chopped around the toms with an
arm-waving flourish for another measure, then rounded out with an
elegant sweep down the whole set.

Dean was next to solo. Emma cheered
frantically as he wove an adroit expansion of the existing pattern,
layered a strident backbeat groove on a keenly projecting ride
cymbal, then lifted them all on a series of crash hits. Yielding to
the imagination of the third drummer on the other side of the Club,
he maintained the beat for a six of measures, grinning to a crowd
of admirers staring at him in sudden interest. Emma looked down to
find men and women around the table reaching in to celebrate with a
grope or tickle. Someone handed her another drink.

“
We love you, Dean!” Sara
adoringly crooned from nearby.

Distributed on the bandstands were countless
gnomes amplifying whatever they heard, lips open wide to render
hoarse elaborations on the music layered with chaotic excursions of
harmonized feedback. The drummers battled each other with
increasingly passionate solos, mutually maintaining the rhythm
behind the gnomes output. The Dowser returned with more Stillwater
and it was siphoned from the bucket to cock taps, from there into a
ceaseless flow of glassware by deftly hustling hands.

Emma commanded the epicenter of a widening
field of influence, her beauty and exuberance yielding a steady
supply of patrons from other cliques. She was tipsy but not drunk,
just enough in control. The front doors were still open wide, but
the Doorman was only letting choice citizens into the packed
Club.

“
She’s gonna spin for us!”
someone raucously declared from deep within the camp of a
neighboring socialite. Emma saw the woman ascend to one of the
large party toys, already occupied by five customers celebrating
their good fortune.

She had been told that sexual activity was
only allowed on the machines provided. The socialites were expected
to be above the matter of their own pleasure—they maintained a
superior distance from the clientele by never compromising this
image of discipline. Emma thought this strange at first, but
quickly realized her standing among these people would be vastly
reduced if she were accessible to them in that way. After a few
climaxes she would be depleted of any real desire to mingle and
entertain, anyway.