I shouted, "Fuck you, Tocco!" But my words just bounced off the walls.
Sylvia stepped back, and raised the whip again. "God, no, please," I begged. The leather snake whistled through the air and hit again, and then again. And something in me snapped. I didn't care what was expected of me, or what my inner voice said, or what images I was supposed to live up to. I just wanted the whip to stop. "Please," I sobbed, "I'll do anything you say. Please stop!" I began mumbling incoherently. My brain was fogging over and my body was a sheet of pain.
Through the slashes, I heard her say, "Not yet, Michael. You don't understand yet." And hit me, again and again. I didn't know what she wanted and I tried desperately to think of some word or stratagem. But the whip was implacable. "What do you want?" I screamed. And she answered, coolly, slightly out of breath: "You will know when it happens."
"I'll do anything, anything! Please, I don't know anymore. I don't know what to do. I'll do anything. Please!"
And the last thing I remember clearly was wondering whether this was sufficient to please her. What happened next goes past my ability to fit into any category. But it was as though some great beast, that had been so deeply caged inside me that I never even suspected its presence, was suddenly loosed. And I heard great throaty moans coming from my throat. I strained at my bonds and howled shamelessly. I felt urine spilling from my penis and my mouth frothed over with foam. I was surging out of all pores and openings, and suddenly the whip ceased to be an enemy. It was the whip that liberated me. It was the whip that opened me up. The thing that was now myself yelled for me, begging to be beaten. Sylvia was good, Sylvia was God! Each lash was a blessing that liberated me from the invisible bondage that had held me all my life. My hands and arms were tied, but for the first time, my soul was free. I left all fear behind. "Hit me." I sang, and begged for the whip everywhere. I asked to be cut loose so she could slash at my ass. I wanted to be beaten about the mouth and to feel the sting of the lash across my cock and balls.
Suddenly, without knowing how, I found myself cut loose, and I fell forward. Now there was nothing between me and my liberatress. I crawled painfully across the floor to her and found myself slobbering and grovelling at one of her boots. Licking the top of it wasn't enough. I forced myself to go lower, to lick the bottom of the boot, to lick it and swallow all the dirt that had been imbedded in the sole. And no longer was I being forced to. I wanted to. I wanted to be as low and dirty and snivelling and insignificant as I could get. If Sylvia would chain me to her door, I would lick the boots of everyone who came to see her. I would be her slave, utterly and longingly. In a giddy moment, visions of Christ danced above my head and the words "The last shall be made first" circled through me like an old ditty. I seemed to see it all clearly: only the total slave was totally free.
As I lay there, crushing my face into the very floor where she stood, the whip began slashing at my buttocks. I moaned and squirmed and spread my legs so she could hit me deeper. Then she pressed her boot onto my face and began grinding me down, cutting the flesh with the sharp edge of her heel, bruising my mouth, squashing me. At one point she stood with one foot on the back of my head, and forced me, open-mouthed to lick all the ground near where she stood.
Then, a confusion of bodies was upon me. I didn't know who they were, nor did I care. Sylvia reached down and grabbed my hair. She yanked my head up and slapped me a dozen times across the face. Then she brought my face up to her cunt, and a warm salty stream poured into my mouth. "Drink it," she rasped. And I gulped and swallowed, like a man who has been many weeks in the desert. When she finished, she made me lick her cunt clean, and then threw me down. "He's yours," I heard her say. And then I felt myself being pummeled and slapped. Cocks went into my ass, into my mouth. I don't know how many, or for how long it went on. More people came, and soon I was covered with urine and sperm.
And then there was silence. Very slowly I lifted up my head and saw that the room was empty, except for Sylvia, who was now lying on the ground, her legs spread and her cunt slit open, the pink lips mocking at me. From some unknown resource within me, a surge of titanic strength heaved me to my feet. I stumbled over to her ponderously as she lay there, smiling, and fingering her twat. The whip lay idly to one side. Suddenly I was Samson, blind but with my strength regained, and Delilah sat on her pillows, mocking me. What tore through me was rage and anger, but the energy grew so great as to leave all labels behind. I felt as though I could fight lions barehanded.
With that, I flung myself forward, and began striking at the woman who had brought me to this state. I hit her face and breasts and cunt. I slapped her and punched her. I rammed my knee into her crotch. She never let out a sound, but a look of unearthly joy suffused her face. And the more that happened, the more violent I became.
Finally, I flung her back and lifted her legs high in the air, and then spread them apart until I thought I would rip all the tendons in her thighs. Pure naked cunt shouted at me and I pushed her legs back until her knees were at her ears, and then, without hesitation, I plunged my cock straight into her, pulling hair and tissue indiscriminately. She let out a single sound, and then I rammed home. It felt as though I had penetrated clear up to her throat. With superhuman energy I lifted my entire body and again and again slammed into her, literally cracking her open, until I could feel her vibrating like a volcano about to erupt. A mountainous orgasm swelled in me, and I shot it into her with a savage scream, as shudder after shudder of uncontrollable spasm rocked her body and she came in a wild leg-kicking convulsion, with her nails dug deep into my back and her cunt opened so wide it almost stretched around my pubic bone.
We hung like that for a long while, then she fell back. All at once a wave of pain and fatigue washed over me, and I rolled over, already lapsing into unconsciousness. Then a shadow crossed my eyes and I opened them to see Tocco going over to Sylvia. He was helping her up. "Sylvia, my dear girl, how happy I am for you. You achieved it."
A pang of bitterness hit at me and I spoke through broken lips. "Tocco, you bastard, you used me! You did this just to get the energy out of me for her orgasm!"
Tocco came over and leaned down. He looked genuinely solicitous. "Don't be angry, Michael. I told you we would be assisting each other in our researches. Besides, think how much
you
learned this afternoon."
The truth of his words mollified me, but I couldn't resist a final thrust. "Add another item," I said, beginning to go black again, "in the catalogue of ultimate experiences."
Tocco stared at me. "If you fully understood what you said just now, there would be no need for any further work on your part."
I started to reply, but then I passed out.
NINE
WHEN I WOKE up, I heard birds singing. For a moment I thought there might be something wrong with my ears; then I opened my eyes to find myself in a large Victorian-style double bed. It was in a huge room, and one wall was a series of French doors which opened out onto a garden. The sun was shining, and far in the distance I could see mountains. As far as I could tell, I was in paradise.
Except when I tried to sit up, and then a sheet of flaming pain swept over my entire body. Immediately all the memories returned, and I fell back, perspiring. This must be the country place that Susan had mentioned. I wondered whether there would be barbed wire fences, and then I realized that something had changed in me. Tocco would have no fear of freak-outs in the country because the only people who came here were those who had passed certain criteria. For here was where the "real" work was done, and I momentarily shuddered to imagine what could possibly come next.
So far, however, nothing had happened that didn't have its own inner logic, and each event, no matter how grueling, was enlightening. Although I seemed to know no more than I did a week ago, I felt somehow stronger, clearer. My mind was sharp and bright, although I wondered whether my body could take many more scenes like the one with Sylvia.
I began to drift off back to sleep, when the inner door opened and Tocco walked in. This time he wore a simple dressing gown, and carried a tray with orange juice, coffee, and cigarettes. He seemed to be the very soul of good humor.
He sat at the edge of the bed, put the tray on my lap, and smiled. "Michael, I wonder if you realize how much of a fool you are?" I was startled. I hadn't expected invective. "I don't mean to bring your spirits down, but merely to point out that you are yet incapable of distinguishing fact from fantasy." I rolled my eyes back in my head. It was starting already. He saw the gesture and said, "Excuse me, Michael. You're right, I should at least let you have breakfast first." He helped me to sit up, and I took a long, thirsty gulp of freshly squeezed juice. I could feel my blood sugar rising almost immediately, and my outlook brightened. I finished the juice, and it wasn't until I had begun on the coffee and lit a cigarette that he continued.
"You may think it odd that I don't give you more time to recuperate, but you are in an especially receptive state right now. Your mind is clear and your body incapable of producing too much tension. So I want to proceed without delay." He paused a moment, then took a cigarette himself; it was the first time I had seen him smoke. "Of course, you have no difficulty in obvious matters, like crossing the street, where you know that the cars whizzing past, although an illusion in the cosmic sense, can mangle your body on the physical plane. But in sex, where the fine line between so-called reality and so-called illusion is crucial, you are still like an infant on a see-saw, carried away by the exhilaration of the swinging."
"Doctor Tocco," I began patiently. "I don't need to hear all this. That problem is precisely the reason I sought you out."
He nodded. "Indeed. But a definition, especially at this point, is necessary.".
"What happens at this point?" I asked.
"Ah!" he said, and clapped his hands twice. The door opened again and in walked one of the men who had formed the party of eight around Susan that night. It was the one with the gigantic cock. I took a quick inventory of my physical condition and shuddered.
Tocco leaned forward and said, "This will undoubtedly be painful for you, but nothing like what you have already gone through. And the rewards will more than compensate for that. Unless . . . you really don't want to." He seemed genuine in his offer to allow me a cop-out, but almost despite myself, I felt excitement rising in my loins. "All right," I said, "let's go ahead."
The big man, whose name turned out to be Samuel, came over and rolled me on my stomach. The breakfast things were put aside and the sheets pulled down. I was in bandages from neck to coccyx, and only my ass and legs were exposed. Already the sexual stirring had begun to grow strong. I wriggled a bit, and Tocco said, "How easily the supposed female in you comes out, doesn't it, Michael? You feel yourself vulnerable, desirable, luscious." The words dripped with sensuality as he spoke. "All right then, prepare yourself, for we are going to take this trip together."
My legs were spread apart and oil rubbed gently all over my buttocks. Fingers ran up and down the crack between my cheeks and insinuated themselves into the hole. I was tight, and I flinched, but Samuel was experienced, and he retreated, only to move back in again and repeat the process until I was totally relaxed. The finger moved in slowly and more deeply. I raised my ass slightly and he inserted a second finger. The stretch was delicious, and I went through a series of inner changes. One moment I was a badly whipped man letting a stranger shove a finger up his ass, and the next I was a beautiful and irresistible woman, drawing the male power to me through sheer magnetism.
"Tocco," I said, "the fantasies are incredibly divergent."
He leaned toward my ear and whispered very softly, like a Tibetan monk giving final instructions to a novice on his first trip: "Just a touch of yin and yang, Michael. All life is a swing between the opposites. Only for you, the strongest poles are male and female. See if you can relax and enjoy the swing." Then he inserted an inhalator in my nostril and the heady fumes of amyl nitrate filled my lungs. Almost at once my body flushed with sensation. I don't know what the physiology is, but what I felt was blood rushing to the skin area, and every pore, every hair follicle, was alive to touch, to the air, to the ethereal currents in the room, and, most pointedly, to the fingers now thrusting inside me.
I arched my back fully and raised my ass so the fingers would penetrate more deeply. I wanted them to pierce to the heart of me. I reached back and pulled my cheeks open. As from a distance, I could hear my breath come in harsh rasps.
Then Tocco's voice: "You let yourself get swamped by the sensation that time. I am going to explain this as we go along. I don't want you to remember it, it's all being taped anyway. But let the meaning of the words sink in. If you will notice, there was the split between the two images of male and female. Now there is a split between image and sensation, and you got trapped in the sensation only. Here, try this."
He helped a pipe to my mouth, and I clasped it between my teeth and took several deep inhalations. It seemed to be a highly potent distillation of hashish, and as I smoked, Samuel thrust into me all the way up to his knuckles. Within seconds, however, the sensations grew dimmer, and I could actually feel myself swinging back into fantasy. This time I sensed myself as a great ancient god, poised on all fours, immense in size, totally alive for eternity. I was very still, and watching over an ageless desert. And as I flexed my animal forms, Samuel moved down and inserted the tip of his cock into my asshole.