"How can it be eliminated, then?" I asked.
Tocco frowned. "You know better than that, Michael. The point is not to try to do anything about the things which our minds produce, but just to watch them, with all the unconcern that we would have in watching a sunset or a tree. In that state, all fantasies become decorations for the fact, and then you may pick one of the flowers and put it in your hair, that is, make a social game of it. Or study it. Or ignore it. Doing this breaks down the effort to deal with fantasy and allows more energy to flow, and you experience a greater reality content."
I must have looked puzzled, for Tocco quickly interjected, "Don't take the terms 'reality' and 'fantasy' to mean two different-things, for, of course, everything is real, or unreal, or both, or neither. We must confine our attention to the psychological level, where we form our attitudes or our approach to phenomena, and not waste time trying to decide philosophically what it is we are approaching. Speculations on the nature of reality are really too infantile to discuss.
"Relating this to you, we remember that you were concerned that your partner have the 'same fantasy' that you were having. But this is to make a series of false distinctions. First, that there is such a thing as
you
and
another
. In a sense, there is only one of us at all and when we fuck, we fuck ourselves, or, increasingly, fuck ourselves up. The second distinction is between what's going on in your head and what's going on in your body. You have a compulsive file clerk in your mind which takes all phenomena and begins to classify them under such labels as 'thought', 'emotion', 'sensation', and so forth. But there is only one process. Actually, when you are fucking someone, both of you are having the same fantasy, and the same reality, and it is called existence. Any subdivision is pedantic."
I looked at him admiringly. "Tocco, you are a smart sonofabitch."
He shifted his gaze and looked at me shrewdly. "I think the lecture I just gave you is worth at least a blowjob," he said.
I blinked. Another trick? A joke? I looked at him again. His face was serious and open. But his eyes were filled with taunting and mockery. I began to grow angry. I was feeling very comfortable, very intellectual, much like a student in private conference with a good teacher, and this intrusion seemed vulgar and gratuitous. Tocco smiled. "What's the matter, Michael. Getting too enlightened for some cock?"
I rose out of the chair almost without knowing it. I knelt down in front of him and opened the zipper to his pants. I reached in through the opening in the jockey shorts and took his cock out, now flaccid and small. There was no desire in me at all, and I held the tool in my hand as though it were slightly repulsive. And then I got very embarrassed. "Look at me, Michael," Tocco said. I looked up. "See if you can just suck a cock and not make a big deal out of it. See if you can, for once in your confused life, find out what it is, instead of what you think it should be, or connecting it to some silly image of yourself, or thinking that you have to enjoy it or dislike it. Just do it."
And then it felt as though a heavy hand were pushing the back of my head down, forcing my face to his crotch and my open mouth to take in his cock. I held it gingerly on my tongue for a moment and felt it begin to stir. Immediately, all the connections began to fall into place, and I went through all the memories that began with the first touchings I did with children in my neighborhood, to the wildest of scenes in which I was saturated with cock. And as the immense Gothic edifice rose in my head, the simple, plain organ hardened in my mouth, and I found myself gently sucking at it and licking the rim in an easy, loving rhythm.
I realized that this was giving Tocco pleasure, but it was not myself doing something to him. Rather, it was
us
in an act which each of us entered into for our own reasons, and took from it our own treasures. I wrapped my fingers around the base of it and gently tugged it toward me while moving my mouth in op position to my hand, so that I was pulling it off into my mouth, and using my mouth to create a sensation enveloping it from the other direction.
I lapsed into a dreamy reverie, then heard the voice of Tocco cut through the mists. "The cock, Michael, don't forget the cock." Something about the tone of his voice stirred a memory in me. I saw a lost frightened child in a huge train station. He was searching for his parents, but kept getting knocked about in the crowd of rushing thousands. He wanted to scream, but no sound came, and the impulse caught in his throat. Simultaneously, I felt Tocco's cock begin to budge the back of my mouth and enter into my throat.
The memory dissolved into fantasy, and I was in a forest. Up on a ledge a great antlered deer appeared, noble and wise. It was the king of the forest. My knees trembled, and at my ear a large doe nuzzled me. She said, "Don't be afraid. It's safe now." Again Tocco's voice cut through the haze, saying, "Take it all the way in, Michael. You won't choke. Just let your throat get as soft as a cunt."
I pushed forward and took the cock deep into my throat. It seemed to fill my entire being, and I tingled with energy. I moved in large cycles, going all the way down on the cock and holding it there, letting my throat convulse around the tip, and then pulling back as the cock was sucked back the entire length of my mouth, with my tongue tracing a line down the long, soft underpart. I could feel that Tocco was near to coming. He began to move his pelvis and was talking, half to me, half to himself: "Come on, Michael, do it, suck it, get it up."
And with that, the scene changed in my mind. There was a fire in the forest, and I was hurt. The flames crept closer, but I couldn't move. Suddenly the great deer bounded by my side. "Get up," he said. "Get up, Bambi, you must get up."
And at that moment, Tocco cut loose and sent a long series of pulsing jets into my mouth, and as I swallowed, I suddenly saw the ludicrousness of the entire scene, me sucking off a crazy old fat man while Freudian projections of Walt Disney danced in my head; the incongruity welled in me like a geyser until I could contain it no more, and I fell back and laughed and laughed and laughed until my sides hurt. Tocco began guffawing, and then he too broke out into deep booming laughter. We were like that for a long time, rolling back and forth and exploding in mirth which would subside until we looked at one another again, and pointed at each other, and seeing the absurdity, began to roar once more. And after awhile I subsided and lay still. Tocco looked down at me, with eyes of pure beaming love and said, "Michael, you are the funniest cocksucker I have ever met."
There was a discreet knock at the door. We were both startled, and I got off the floor while Tocco zippered up his pants. "Come in!" he shouted.
In came a thin, efficient-looking man with a small portfolio. He laid it on Tocco's desk and said, "The report from the computer," and left.
Tocco moved behind the desk and sat down, while I pulled up a chair next to him. It was much the same position as when I first arrived. He opened the folder and began reading silently for a minute, and then looked up at me. "The largest part of this is introduction, which is mostly a series of pre-programmed phrases and ideas that get reassembled for each person depending on the situation. So I apologize in advance for the hackneyed sound of some of this. I'll only read excerpts, and leave out all the physiological data. You can see that if you like." He looked down again and began reading.
"There is no permanency; all is motion. And we must step conscious into existence. At the heart, there is mystery, and that is part of what we must understand.
"One fucks, one wishes to be fucked; one sucks, one wishes to be sucked; one beats, one wishes to be beaten.
"We are always two. The relationship between the two forms the third. After three, things get complicated.
"Thoughts are endless and limited. It is an activity without profit. Understand the structure of thought. Eat when you are hungry and be aware of your teeth when you chew.
"Labels are to be used, but be careful they do not cover up the contents of the jar.
"Suck a cock on Monday, fuck a cunt on Tuesday, lick an ass on Wednesday, fondle a child on Thursday, dress in women's clothes on Friday, get pissed on on Saturday night. Sunday is God's day; make no plans.
"These are interesting times. There is no way to discriminate between decadence and freedom. Violence prevails.
"Love does not speak. Love is."
Tocco put down the paper and looked at me.
"Sounds like a long-winded fortune cookie," I said.
"There's one more section," he added. He made full dramatic use of the moment, and then said, "Subject is a male lesbian."
I went halfway between a titter and a snort of protest. And then I settled back in my chair. "For some baroque reason, Tocco'," I said, "that makes stunning sense. But don't ask me to explain what it means."
"A definition is given by the computer. It says: A male lesbian is a genital male who allows that part of his psycho-social structure which is female to come alive in action, emotion, and thought.' Does that clarify the concept?"
I thought about it for a while, then began musing out loud, "A man, who, if he were a woman, would be a lesbian. Thus, the female in me desires other women. But when I am with them, I am physically a man. When the man in me is living, then I work perfectly with a woman. But if a woman goes to bed with me expecting male cues, and I throw her female cues, we don't get it together. Unless she is also a lesbian, or at least bi-sexual. So, I try men when I am feeling womanly. But I am now a lesbian making it with a man, which is a drag, unless the man happens to be a homosexual, that is, someone who likes to fuck with men. Then I let him use my body while the woman in me draws forth the woman in him."
I leaped up. "Of course, that explains everything! It's obvious!" And no sooner had I said that than I remembered that those were the words Tocco had spoken to me in the wood that day when all seemed so clear. Now it wasn't that things were any clearer, but that the clarity permeated to a greater depth.
"Freud said," remarked Tocco, "that the sexual act includes four persons. He might have added, 'at least up to the point at which I stopped counting.' What you have here is just a key to open the first major door to your understanding of yourself, including your sexual self. It is as though you were a painter and now, after five years, you have finally mastered the rudiments of making a line. Without this tool you can do nothing; but it is only a tool for the real work which lies ahead."
He seemed so solemn that I had to twit him. "Do I get a diploma, Doctor Tocco?"
He smiled to himself a moment, and then looked at me. His eyes were alive with inner movement that were reflected in the almost imperceptible ripplings of wrinkles under his eyes. "I think you are ready to meet someone whom you may not understand until many years from now. That is, you will think you know her and she will seem to teach you much, but for a long time the depth of her impression on you will work in your mind and heart. Why don't you go take a rest and get something to eat, and later I will show you how to get to Bingo Katy's."
The name arrested me, and I wanted to know more, but Tocco shoved the computer read-out to me and waved me out of the room. I walked out into the garden and spent an hour reading and thinking over what the electronic brain had read into my behavior and experience.
SIXTEEN
THE DAY PASSED quickly as I sat and read. My mind was like a pinball machine, with lights flashing over the board and bells ringing, and every once in a while the whole thing going TILT, and blowing up whatever fancy structure had been building itself in my thoughts. Among other things, I saw the role of the third person clearly for the first time. A person alone mates with a second for completion. But the two then need a third to give them definition. Thus the eternal triangle, whether that meant a mutual friend, or a lover, or a child. It suddenly seemed apparent that the ideal marriage would have to have at least four people, so that subgroups of three could be formed, as well as allowing three different sets of two.
I read and thought all through dinner, which I barely tasted, and the next thing I knew, Tocco was standing by me. "If you are finished eating, Michael," he said, "we can take a walk to Bingo's. It will take us about fifteen minutes."
We went out and into the woods, and followed a small path for a quarter of an hour until I could see a light. It was a tiny house completely off by itself, and it was built in Japanese style. A dim light shone through the rice-paper in the doors and windows, and a cheap radio was playing big-band dance music. "This is as far as I will take you. Just go on in through that large door, and there will probably be some people to show you around." He patted me on the shoulder and then left abruptly.
I stood and watched the scene for a few minutes, and then slowly made my way to the entrance. As I approached I could hear loud voices that sounded as though their owners were drunk. It seemed strange, but I continued until I went through the door and found a small courtyard leading to three wooden steps. At the bottom of the stairs were a dozen or so pair of men's shoes. I walked over, dropped my shoes, went up the stairs, and entered.
Inside was a small white-washed room with tatami matting on the floor. Nine men sat along the walls, smoking and drinking beer. One of them had on a navy uniform, and one was from the army. They looked up at me and waved me a boozy welcome. I returned a feeble smile and sat down with them. Immediately a young Japanese girl appeared, no older than twelve, and asked me in lisping English whether I wanted a beer. It seemed unpolitic to decline, so I ordered the house special and lit a cigarette. The man sitting next to me leaned over. "You in the service?" he asked. I shook my head. "Me neither," he said. There was a long alcoholic silence. "You ever get blowed by Bingo before?" he asked. Again, I shook my head. "Me neither," he said.