The gang-bang became desultory. As one man would come, he would go slump in a corner to drink some beer, and by the time all the others had had a go at her, he would be ready for another round. But by the time of the second orgasm, and after all that beer, erections grew scarce and only three-fourths full. This raised a slow dumb anger in the men, who even at this point were doing manhood trips in terms of how many times they could get their cocks hard, and they forced Bingo into wilder and uglier things in order to get themselves aroused. Someone produced a broomstick and they made her shove it up her ass as far as it would reach. One of them pushed her off the bed and threw her to the floor, where he forced his foot into her mouth, making her lick his toes and painfully squashing her head against the ground.
She seemed in a totally catatonic state, reacting to whatever stimulus was applied, but doing nothing on her own impulse. Her face showed different emotions, but it seemed more like a mask she wore to portray different aspects of a role and had no real connection with what she was feeling, which seemed to be nothing at all. As she was picked up and fucked in the ass, or had a cock shoved into her full mouth and was forced to drink piss or suck the sperm out, as she was taken in the cunt or kicked to the floor, her body twisted in strange and oddly beautiful ways. I was in an almost total haze, because 1 thought this was yet another reproduction of a scene such as many I had been through, and I remembered how rich and full it seemed from the inside. And from the outside, I could see only brutality and stupidity. Yet, in the midst of it all, Bingo retained a calm and glow that continued to make her incredibly appealing, despite how she came to look.
And in a flash, I saw what it was she was doing. She was acting as the sponge, as the target, for all the vileness and bestiality in these men. She was forcing them to come to terms with the impulses inside them. I thought of her as a human sacrifice in the spirit of sexual knowledge, and on the verge of romantically being carried away by the image, I suddenly became unemotionally disgusted with the whole thing. This was the true perversion in its final form, people putting themselves in situations where their bodies and minds and hearts become mere tools for some supposed inner intelligence which is directing them along some path to enlightenment or salvation or truth. It all seemed so much bullshit. And the proof of it was in the simple observation that there was no joy in this meeting; there was the super-serious concentration of those who have lost sight of the totality of existence. I began to get up to go when one of the men came over to me. "What's the matter. Don't you want a blowjob?" I shook my head. "Maybe you're too good," he said in a belligerent tone. He shouted over to the others. "Hey, this guy thinks he's too good to get a blowjob from Bingo." He grabbed my arm and I pushed him away. I turned to leave when a terrific clout across the back of one ear brought me to my knees. My head spun for a few seconds, and when I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by fists and thighs. I tried to rise very quietly, then all hell broke loose. A hail of fists and feet began crashing about my head and shoulders. I covered up and rolled into a ball, but the punishment continued. I was kicked in the ribs and in the face; someone placed one careful punch into my solar plexus which had me gasping for air, and then I felt a boot grinding my cheek down, forcing my mouth into the floor. All the left-over violence which hadn't gone into Katy now spilled on me, and for what seemed an eternity I lay there, absorbing the blows and kicks until everything grew black, and I passed out.
I came to with the sensation of cold compresses on my forehead. Bingo was leaning over me with a worried look on her face. I was sore all over, and still fainting. "You come to bed," she said, and helped me crawl over and onto the bed, where, as she removed my clothing, I once again sank into unconsciousness.
And when I woke up again it was morning. I was totally stiff over my entire body and each movement caused me to suck in my breath with pain. I turned my head and saw Bingo lying there, looking at me with soft, serious eyes. Through all my discomfort, I felt another rush of tenderness for her as I had last night, and I reached up slowly to touch her cheek. She did not move away, but there was still that odd unresponsiveness which made it impossible to tell what she was thinking or feeling.
"You leave now?" she said. I was taken aback. "I suppose I can move, but it would be nice just to stay here for a day or two," I responded. She shook her head. "I have to clean house, go to store, and pretty soon men begin to come."
I looked at her incredulously. "You do this every day?" I asked. She nodded her head up and down. "Last night was bad time. Most times I just suck. No trouble."
She looked at me with an appraising glance. "You want blowjob?" she asked.
All of a sudden the charade was too much. "Come off it," I said. "Sure I want a blowjob and you can go down on my cock anytime you want. But why don't we cut out the bullshit about what you have to do here? I don't know what kind of deal you have with Tocco, but after last night I realize I have to bow to your superior ability to stay cool in the face of shitty scenes. So why don't you drop the phony accent and tell me what you're doing here?"
She looked at me with a totally blank expression, as though she hadn't understood a word I said. "I no got time for crazy talk," she said. "You want me suck you?" I looked at the bruised young body, the full breasts now sagging to one side as she lay propped on her elbow, her hips flaring out into the curves of her hairless thighs, and her tiny cunt bulging out from the joint in her legs. Her mouth had a life of its own, suggesting pleasures no other mouth could offer. I got past caring then, about whether she was putting me on or not, and I pushed her back onto the bed. She looked up at me. "No rough stuff," she said. "Just shut up and open your mouth," I told her. She closed her eyes and dropped her lips apart. I peered into the open cavern and saw her pink tongue sliding from side to side in anticipation, only to dart out to lick over her trembling lips. Her mouth was stretched as wide as it could go.
I came forward and knelt by her shoulders, and then, sitting on her chest, slowly began to pull on my cock, getting it hard. I felt it expand in my hands and the first rush of warmth raced up and down my thighs. Her breasts made cushions for buttocks and I ground my hips around to roll my ass on her chest. She brought her hands up and ran her fingers over her lips, cupping them at the sides of her mouth. I stayed where I was and continued getting my cock harder. After a while, she opened her eyes and saw what I was doing. She stared at the cock for a moment, so near and yet so removed, and lifted her head toward it. I kept it a few inches away from her waiting lips, now pulling harder, keeping the movement on the shaft from thrashing the head around too much. Her mouth was the target and I didn't want to miss. She strained forward even more and I felt the very tip of her tongue flick at the opening where the load she waited for would come from. The sudden touch of flesh sent warm flashes to my balls, and I grabbed the back of her head to keep her face tilted up, and then leaned my cock forward into the warm, wet, waiting hole. She did almost nothing but allow her mouth to stay soft and inviting, and before I knew it, I was feeling the familiar rising heat in my bowels that signalled the beginning of an orgasm. I wanted to play with her mouth longer, but I had lost, somewhere during the past few weeks, all impulse to prolong or tamper with natural rhythms. If it was time to come, it was time to come. So I let go and let it happen, and my cock filled with melting sensations as she cupped her hands under my buttocks and brought me up and forward to lay my entire cock deep in her mouth as I spent an unusually copious flow into her throat. She clamped her lips around my prick and sucked it all the way from the base to the tip, pulling all the sperm out of the tubes, and then turned her face. I saw what she was about to do and I damped my hand over her mouth. "You'd better swallow it," I said, "or there's going to be more of what you got last night." She made a wry face, and then gulped the sticky fluid down.
I got up quickly and set about to dress, which was not easy considering that each movement sent spasms of ache through me. But I got on my shirt and finished buttoning it, while she lay on the bed regarding me coolly. I felt tired and disgusted, with myself, with her, with everything. I turned to leave when she called out to me, "You pay now." I spun around and spat out, "Enough of this shit. You can carry Tocco's charade as far as you like, but I have finished playing. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay you anything."
I tromped out and sat on the wooden stairs, putting on my shoes, as she shouted after me, "Goddamn cheap G.I1 Bingo no suck you again! You no come back here again!" Internally, I gave her an A for sustained performance, and then went out of the courtyard, kicking gravel as I walked.
I headed straight for the house, my mind in a turmoil. It had all seemed senseless. Yesterday I was so clear about everything, and then Tocco leads me to this scene, which is nothing but idiotic violence and brutality, and then a cheap Hollywood-type imitation of a Japanese whore to go through melodramatics with. Tocco had indicated that I would learn a lot, but all I seemed to find out was that people will go to any lengths to live out their fantasies. And while I had to admit I was being priggish, since it wasn't too long ago that I myself was in that boat, I resented being exposed to it again, especially so soon after I had come to terms with my own problem.
I marched into the dining room and made myself a cup of coffee, to sit and smoke and let my mind settle. I decided to let the whole thing vanish from my memory, and was just beginning to feel better about it when Tocco came in and sat next to me. He sat silent for a few minutes and then said, "You should have paid her."
His words were like picking at a scab and opening the sore again. "For Christ's sake, Tocco," I said. "What was the point in bringing me there? She wasn't even a very good actress."
"You fell for her, didn't you?" he said.
"Momentarily."
"But she likes how she lives, and an affair with her would be very tricky. She would have to fit you in amidst the daily forest of cocks. And your ego wouldn't be able to withstand it."
"Oh, what's the use of pursuing this?" I said. "The masque is ended."
Tocco looked at me. "Oh, it wasn't a masque. She isn't acting."
I rolled my eyes up in impatience.
He continued. "She did that for seven years in Japan, and had become quite infamous, as well as making enough money to buy seventeen houses and some large plots of land. Her plan was to retire at age twenty-five and travel. She's a very intelligent and ambitious girl."
"So, what's she doing here?" I asked.
"Last year, she went out for a walk and never returned. They found her sitting on a park bench talking to herself, totally incoherent, and practically catatonic. She just upped and burned out. They put her in an insane asylum, where she probably would have become a vegetable, but I heard of her situation, and considering her immense sexual accomplishments, I brought her here, where I rebuilt her home."
My mouth dropped open. "You mean she's crazy?" I asked.
Tocco smiled grimly. "What's crazy?" he said. "She is who she is. That's all."
"But then she just goes on sucking off scores of men a week? I mean, where does that lead?"
He regarded me mockingly. "Where does anything lead, Michael? The only difference between you and Bingo Katy is that she lives her condition fully, without any internal commentary constantly underlining her action. She is at one with herself, so she doesn't have to become anything. You are still thinking there is something more to be, even though you have overcome the notion that there is something more to know." He paused a moment. "You have to get past the stage where you know that you know."
I took a deep sip of coffee. "Tocco, you're fucking with my mind," I said.
"Michael," he answered, "in light of the way Bingo Katy lives, in the face of the brute fact of her condition, and how she exists in it, without artifice, without guile . . . that she is able to be a beautiful hustling cocksucker and make no pretensions about it ... how much weight do you give to that tawdry intellectual label by which you now mollify yourself, the notion of 'male lesbian'?"
I looked at him a long while, our blank reflecting screens playing a thin edge of tension back and forth. And in that space, I saw that he was right. Even when I had gone most far-out, had indulged in living the wildest fantasies, always some part of my mind was watching, comparing, filing. And when I had thought I had gone beyond thought, simply because there were no words in my mind at the time, my attitude and total posture treated my behavior as mere illusion while the Observer inside me claimed to be the true reality. And yet, who was that Observer but another facet, another aspect of 'I'?"
Finally, I spoke. "Who am I, Tocco?" I said.
He nodded. "The other day you were asking who
I
was. Now your question is aimed in the right direction. I hope you don't make either the mistake of trying to answer it, or of ceasing to ask it."
"But isn't metatheatre the maintenance of the self as audience for the play of the universe?"
"Not so long as you see self and universe as two separate things."
I snorted. "Are you going to take me on an 'it is all one' trip?"
Tocco leaned back and gave me a long level look. "When you have reached the outermost edges of your ego, and find it all to be desert; and then have gone to the center of your being, and found it to be void, what do you do then?" He paused. "Metatheatre is when the game of illusion is understood as reality, and reality is known as mysterious, and the mysterious is felt as familiar—the familiar being, of course, an illusion."