'He brought his movement to a close with the same posture with which he had begun it, stood silently for a moment, and then with a hideously abrupt wolfish grin sank to the floor, stretched out on his back, cupped one hand over his groin, and spread his legs as far as they would go. There was a space of several seconds in which the entire tableau was frozen, and then pandemonium erupted with the unreal quality of a cut tree beginning to topple. Before he was completely hidden by the bodies which swarmed over him, he caught my eye and sent me a glint of thanks.'
Clive lay down on his side, his elbow supporting his head as Jackie whistled lightly through her lips. 'I guess they were at him for fifteen or twenty minutes,' he went on. 'I don't know how many times he was fucked, or had his mouth ravaged by cocks, or his nipples savagely pinched, or his own cock pummelled and pulled. I sat back and kept watch over his clothing and when the energy centre he had created finally dispersed and he was left alone, lying limply on the ground, I went over to him and helped him up. There was not a trace of the man I had met just an hour earlier; the person who leaned on my shoulder was indistinguishable from the victim of every mass rape and gang bang that has been perpetrated since the world began. I mentally tipped my nonexistent hat to him; he was the most highly evolved connoisseur of pain I had ever met.
'I don't know by what impulse in myself I was led to take him into the small room at the very back of the place instead of just helping him dress right where we were. I told myself he probably needed a bit of privacy, and I'm sure that was true. But subsequent events led me to believe that more than my professional responsibility towards a client was involved. I escorted him into a tiny space that was used as a storage room, running the gauntlet of eyes and hands that plucked at us as we passed, and closed the door behind us. I put his clothes down, and he turned to face me. My heart leapt into my mouth. I had never seen such a look of radiant beauty on anyone except myself. All his circuits were open; he had run the entire spectrum from esoteric practice to sub-besti-ality, and through it all retained and enhanced his sense of self. If I were prone to using the word, I would say that at that moment I loved him.
'He fell to his knees and threw his face at my feet. He lifted the shoe and turned to his back, and began licking the sole of the shoe, taking all the crust and muck and pieces of filth imbedded in the leather onto his tongue. He grabbed my ankle and began pulling down, indicating that he wanted me to step on his face, to crush him into the ground. I was aghast with empathy. I knew exactly what he was feeling and why he was doing what he was doing. You must understand the setting. In almost Dantesque circles it went from the whole mechanical mindless business of western civilisation in the street, to the bar where several hundred men were estimating the value of one another's genitals and anal openings, to the room outside where the dark rhythms of fragmented orgy were pulsing, to our small cave where, amidst the mops and pails and instruments of filth, this educated product of the world's most advanced civilisation was begging to have his face ground into the dirt. And at the centre of all this, like a compassionate solipsist, I found nothing bizarre, nothing abnormal, nothing freakish.
'He moaned once and then began thrashing about on the floor. "Now you have seen," he said, "now you must finish it for me." If we were in a different place, if I had not been afraid of the repercussions, I would have killed him then, quite methodically have beaten him to death with a thick stick. And felt that I was doing the man a service. As it was I yanked him up by the hair and slapped him with all my strength, splitting open the skin on his cheek. He began to sob then, and all his structure collapsed. He was lost in his confusion. I pulled out my cock, bent him over a rusty sink, and fucked him for a very long time, until he was limp. I didn't bother to ejaculate.
'Later we had coffee together and discussed the nature of folly. It turned out he was a professor of Oriental Religion at the University, was married with two children, and a highly respected scholar. He said that he indulged his strange needs several times a year, and except for these excursions lived an exemplary existence. A normal member of the community.'
He looked up from his tale and gazed into Cynthia's eyes, catching her unaware. 'What's your folly, Cynthia?' he asked.
The question spun through her mind with the accumulated force of the story that had just built to its conclusion, and the answer came out before she could think about it. 'His name is Aaron,' she said.
'Do you suck his cock?' Clive asked her.
'Why, yes, of course,' Cynthia said. 'What sort of question is that?'
'Purely informational,' Clive told her. 'Do you enjoy it?' he went on.
'Usually,' Cynthia said.
'Have you ever sucked a cock for money?' he said.
'No one's ever offered me money,' Cynthia replied.
'What if someone did?' Clive pressed on.
The drift of the talk revealed its direction to Cynthia's mind. However, with Clive it was difficult to tell how much of what he said was simply hyperbole, a kind of teasing, the way a little boy will threaten a little girl by waving a stick at her, pretending he may hit her with it. She did not know how much of his story to believe; she had the distinct impression she was being put on. But everything he said had an unmistakable ring of truth to it, as though he were communicating some important message and the alphabet he used was incidental.
'I don't know,' she replied. 'I suppose it would depend on the circumstances.'
'And the price,' Clive added.
'I don't know what you want from me,' Cynthia told him. She looked at Jackie for some clue, but Jackie's face was empty of expression.
'How much money do you make in a week?' Clive asked.
'A hundred and five dollars, after taxes,' Cynthia said.
'I'll give you five hundred dollars if you'll suck my cock,' Clive said.
Again Cynthia turned to Jackie. This time Jackie responded with a small smile. 'That's really top money,' she said.
'You don't think I should take him seriously, do you?'
Clive fished out a thick wad of bills. He peeled off a number of fifties and twenties, and put them on the table in front of him.
'This is absurd,' Cynthia said. 'What are you after?'
'Consider it a whim of a jaded millionaire,' Clive said. 'Or the gesture of someone who likes you and wants to teach you something about life. Or the desperate appeal of a man who has been captivated by your mouth. Or part of some insidious ploy by a group of white slavers. Or picking up a hand of cards and finding that you've drawn the joker. What difference does it make why we do the things we do? The only important question is whether we do them or not.'
Jackie took her arm from around Cynthia's shoulders. Tm going to see whether Maureen needs help in the kitchen,' she said, and stood up.
Cynthia grabbed her hand. 'Wait,' she said, T'm confused.'
'Then don't act until you are clear,' Jackie said. 'I don't know what game Clive is up to either, but I'm not his keeper, nor am I yours. I think you should work it out inside yourself and then come to terms with him. How else can you deal with people except by knowing who you are, deciding whether the other person is acting in good faith or not, and then negotiating the contract between you?' She bent forward and kissed Cynthia on the mouth. 'You'll be all right,' she said. 'It's only a question of yes or no.'
She squeezed Cynthia's hand and walked from the room. 'Please make sure she doesn't put curry in my eggs,' Clive said to her retreating back. He swung around to face Cynthia. 'It really makes me nauseous. Maureen thinks it's an affectation.'
Cynthia slid to the edge of the seat. 'I don't know whether I should stay,' she began. But Clive held up one hand. 'The only danger is in yourself,' he said quickly. 'I'm not going to coerce you.'
'I'm a little afraid of you,' she said. 'All that you've told me about yourself today. I'm not sure I can trust you.'
Clive stood up. With deliberate movements he began to take off his clothes, shrugging off his jacket, and snaking his trousers down his legs. His attitude was one of seeming unconcern, as though he didn't care whether she left or not. He kicked off his sandals, and posed before her, waiting several seconds before he spoke. Tm just a man,' he said. 'You have known men intimately all your life, beginning with your father, and uncles and cousins, maybe a brother; and then teachers and boyfriends and priests and lovers; you've dealt with men in offices and bedrooms and law courts. You've had men inside you. What do you know about man?'
Cynthia listened to his words and looked at his body. She saw that she had been receiving dual impressions from him, his language soft and flowing, his actions firm and sharply etched. She had come, through long experience, to expect a man to be all one way; either passive or aggressive, and was not satisfied with exclusion of either aspect. That was why having Conrad and Aaron in the same space was so fulfilling; each of them typified one side of the apparent dichotomy. But here was a man who had delved into and cultivated all planes of his experience, and seemed complete within himself. Yet she had trouble believing him, and wondered what she was suspicious of. What he offered was straightforward enough. Her eyes stopped their movement when they came to his cock. It was the smallest penis she had ever seen on a man, popping out from his pubic hair like an elongated button. She found herself beginning to smile before she repressed the expression.
'Not very formidable, is it?' said Clive, watching her look at his crotch. Tt expands to a mere four-and-three-quarter inches, medium thick, although prettily sculpted. You can put five hundred dollars in your pocket simply by putting it in your mouth and sucking it until the sperm splashes on your tongue. I insist, by the way, that you swallow it. The entire aesthetic is ruined if you spit it out. That's a species of reneging. You've undoubtedly had many cocks in your mouth many times, and will certainly have a good many more, unless those refugees from Chekhov convert you to monomania. And I doubt whether you shall ever have such intense gratification from the act as the knowledge, as you do it, that it will mean five hundred dollars in your wallet. And think of how many pretty things you can do with that substantial piece of change.'
'Piece of change?' she asked. 'I don't have much more than that in my savings account.'
'Well, you can double your capital in a single gulp.'
Cynthia smiled at him. 'You do have a way of being convincing, don't you?'
'I'm a fanatic,' he said simply. 'I always promulgate my enthusiasms.'
'And now you're selling prostitution as a way of life?'
'No,' he replied. 'I'm advocating the recognition of the fact that prostitution is our way of life. And all we need to do is to get more sophisticated about how much we charge for our services.'
'But what about reciprocity, two people having sex on an equal basis, without one being the servitor of the other?'
'When that happens, it's rare and beautiful. And we all paste such episodes in our memory books. But think back, after that lucky encounter, when you return for a second meeting, haven't all kinds of subtle shifts begun to take place, changes in balance? Hasn't there already started a jockeying for position? And then the second fuck is chaotic. And by the third you have either decided not to see the person again or else the two of you have tacitly worked out a deal.'
She shook her head. 'You're right,' she said, 'God damn it, you're right.'
He walked around the table to stand directly in front of where Cynthia sat. He put his hands on her shoulders. 'It's just another form of folly,' he said. 'Perhaps, given our historical epoch, the most honest way for a woman to earn a living. You know, a whore gets to meet
everybody
sooner or later; because they all come down to see us, the presidents and the popes, the policemen and the panderers. We get to see them in their most unhypocritical of circumstances, that is to say, when their hypocrisy is most obvious, as they come sneaking away from the "other lives" to visit the underworld. And after a while, you get to know what people are, and through that, you get to know who you are. Because you never have to fawn or seek favour, you never have to be anything but honest and direct. You very quickly become bored with all rigmarole. You develop a keen and steady eye. In a word, my sweet, you become enlightened.'
He leaned forward and his belly pressed against Cynthia's forehead. She neither accepted nor repulsed the contact. She could smell his skin, a dry crisp aroma like the insides of new books opened at the beginning of a school year. 'And what would you have to give up?' he said. 'You are quite lovely.' He put his hands on the top of her head. 'I have quite a few wealthy connections. You could be financially independent within three years. Think of that. Never to have to make obeisance to anyone again. The men in your office who act as your bosses, giving you a pittance for forty precious hours, one half of your entire waking week, having you sit like an automaton and bang away at a piece of machinery, making meaningless marks on countless sheets of paper. And then to have them condescend to bestow a smile or kind word upon you. Why, when you learn the value of what lies between your legs and the power of what's enclosed in your skull, you no longer have to be a slave. You can be master. You can remove yourself from the entire tedious process. The same men who now treat you as a cipher will be grovelling at your feet, begging you to shit on them. Do you know that? Once you accept your strength and take responsibility for your freedom, you will never take second place to a man again, even when you are taking his cock deep into your cunt.'