Vicarious (The Vicarious Trilogy) (6 page)

“I decided I needed to be in better physical
condition. My boyfriend—it was so exciting to call him that—had an admirable training regimen that kept him in top condition and I was now keen to increase my stamina, strength, and flexibility. I started running in the mornings, and joined an afternoon yoga class twice a week. I also gave up soft drinks and began to pack healthy lunches instead of eating fast food. I was a slender enough young woman to begin with, but I had never done anything to tone my body.

“I especially loved the yoga lessons, and found myself running less and attending class more.
Gradually, my flexibility increased and one day as I swung my legs overhead into plow position, I realized that I had seen something similar in the Kama Sutra, and the connection was made.  Of course! The two went together, a system for conditioning the body and 64 ways of enjoying it.

“After just
a few weeks, I could see better definition in my arms and legs, and my clothes were looser around my waist, but best of all, I was feeling freer in the bedroom. I was no longer self-conscious about putting myself into vulnerable positions. Over time, I introduced a dozen poses I’d discovered in the Kama Sutra to our lovemaking.

“
It was a magical, wonderful time in my life, but then I blew it.

“I was intoxicated by my new life as a sexual being, and one day after an especially invigorating yoga class, I had sex with the instructor in
the studio’s back office. It was sweaty, fast, and fun, but as I left the studio, my heart sunk. How was I going to face my boyfriend? I realized I was a heartless girlfriend who was a terrible liar. I mean, I was terrible at telling lies, so ultimately, I didn’t lie at all. I ruthlessly told him the truth.

“I know now that he was crushed by the news, but in the moment, he put on what I thought of as his warrior face
, like a forbidding and distant wall. He said nothing at first, but then quietly asked me to leave. I cried for the rest of the summer, but it was over. Semper fidelis, right? What I had done was unforgiveable.

“
Concentrating during yoga class was the only thing that eased the heartache, so I continued my practice but at a new studio. I couldn’t face the silly, New Age-affirmation-spouting instructor I’d thoughtlessly screwed. I knew he wasn’t half the man my boyfriend was. I was so disappointed in myself. I hadn’t lived up to him at all.

“Now that time has passed and the pain has softened, I can
hear earnest spiritual affirmations or ‘Semper Fi’ without cringing. Maybe I’ll look in the attic for my copy of the Kama Sutra. It’s been awhile since I’ve explored that part of life, but who knows? I’m feeling a sudden inspiration to find a fellow explorer.”

The librarian
stood and left me to the Kama Sutra in the study room.

Chapter 11:
Big Farm, Big Feet

This tale of
sexual adventure was shared by a woman I met at a party. She was visiting our mutual friends and decided to tag along. We sat in the corner of the patio, talking, while the loud party continued inside.

“I once
casually dated a man fresh off the farm,” she told me. “On the spur of the moment, he invited me to a family wedding, and it sounded like great fun.

“T
he reception was held in a big old barn on a neighboring farm. I’m a city girl, so I’d never experienced anything like it. You know how romantic weddings can be…soon, I started wondering what it would be like to marry this guy and live on a farm. Crazy thoughts, in other words, brought on by a combination of strong allergy meds, stronger alcohol and the sight of all those cute baby farm animals!

“I danced with
a dozen cousins, some of which, I swear to God, were wearing denim overalls. Yes, to a wedding. I was shocked but I seemed to be the only one. My date was tall and broad-shouldered, and I noticed lots of girls admiring him. He looked good as he danced with old women his grandmother had grown up with, with the flower girls, and even with his high-school sweetheart, married to someone else and hugely pregnant. Then he swung her two little boys around by their wrists as they squealed and begged for another turn. He was a nice guy, and I have to say, watching him enjoy himself in his ‘natural environment’ had piqued my interest. He was becoming more attractive by the minute, and I began to think I might sleep with him on this trip.

“Finally, he put down the last little kid, and
begged off, saying he needed a break. I brought him a beer, and we went outside to cool down. We stood at the fence looking across the fields. The stars were blazing away by the millions and the breeze was just strong enough to keep the mosquitoes at bay.

“
’Doesn’t it smell great here? I’ve missed this,’ he said, taking deep breaths. I could pick out a bitter green smell (alfalfa, I later learned) and the earthiness of cows, but standing there with him, thinking that this could be my future life, I felt the atmosphere take on an exciting strangeness that hollowed out the pit of my stomach.

“I looked at him, and whatever he saw in my face inspired him to set down his beer and take my hand. We walked out of the barnyard and started across
a field stitched by lightning bugs. When he noticed that I was struggling in my sandals, he had me climb onto his back, and he carried me, with my skirt hiked up and my shoes dangling in one hand, toward a gathering of trees in the distance.

“
In the darkness under the trees, there was a stream and a couple of picnic tables. He sat on top of a table with his feet on the bench, and I stood between his knees while we kissed for a long time. The music from the reception seemed far away, and every so often the breeze stirred the tree tops. I loosened my hair and let it fall down my back. He stroked the length of it for a while, then unbuttoned the top of my dress and pushed it down over my shoulders, kissing my throat and the tops of my breasts.

“
His hands were gentle, but I could feel the restrained strength in his arms and ached to be crushed in them. He unhooked my bra, and between the cool breeze on my skin and the excitement of being naked outside, my nipples rose rock hard on my tits, also firmed by the cool air. He moaned as he closed his lips over them.

“
I was both worried and excited by the thought that someone would wander over and discover us. I shimmied out of my dress and kicked off my panties. I stood nude while he whispered that I was beautiful. I shivered with the pleasure of being naked in the night air while he stayed completely dressed.

“Finally, h
e unzipped his pants and took out his cock. I couldn’t resist touching him…or rather, his huge penis. It was just…huge. Did I mention huge? Until then, I personally wondered what all the fuss was about, like, big cocks, who cares really, but then I’d never seen anything like that! I couldn’t keep my hands off it. After a while, he moved away to help me step up onto the surface of the table, and lay back so I could straddle him. He put his hands around my waist to ease me down onto his cock. I was slippery wet but his girth meant we had to go slowly. I sank down onto his shaft and had to catch my breath while I got used to the size of him inside me. I could feel him pulsing and my own internal muscles responding, squeezing him in rhythm.

“
I also felt a surprising, intense arousal that had nothing to do with my clit. Yep, his gigantic cock had activated my G-spot. The G-spot was also something I’d personally wondered what all the fuss was about. Now, I know. If you’re wondering whether it’s real, you haven’t found it yet. Keep looking!

“
After a few breaths, he slid his palms under my hips and used his strong arms to raise me up and then lower me onto his cock again, slowly at first but then more and more quickly. I placed my hands on his broad chest for balance and relaxed into his rhythm. He was doing the work for both of us…all I had to do was let go and let him lead. He pumped me up and down, faster and faster, while my excitement built to the point of no return. Although I could sense that he was getting close, I couldn’t wait for him. As soon as I went over the edge, though, I felt him coming too.

“I collapsed o
nto his chest, and he held me until our breathing slowed and I could carefully ease his softening cock out of me.

“
Best sex of my life, at that point, and for the next several months, I was convinced he was the one, and obviously, we would get married. The problem, though, was that we could never duplicate the intensity of that night on the farm, and as it turned out, we had very little in common other than one night of incredible, outdoor sex. It was a difficult decision to break it off—no farm, no diamond ring—but I’ll always have the memories of that night.

“
And, I will always be grateful to him and his huge cock, because he introduced me to my new BFF…my G-spot.”

Chapter 12
: Wondrous Mechanical Devices

I began
collecting stories of true erotic adventures because I was keen to prove the Gorgeous Sadist, my literary agent, wrong, wrong, wrong. I didn’t agree that my personal dry spell was affecting my writing, and felt that I could easily replace the passion missing from my writing (and my own love life) with the vicarious experience of other women’s sexual adventures. 

As I collected the
se stories, though, I felt a growing appreciation for the human capacity for play, for creative expression, and for honesty regarding sexuality. I was fascinated by the stories I’d heard. It was so brave of these women to tell their sexual stories to a stranger, to offer such intimate insights into their personal lives, and to admit to some fairly outrageous behavior. I started to realize that these women had been courageous not just in the telling, but also in their search for pleasure.

As I walked
down to the post office one day, I began to wonder about my own capacity as a sexual being. Could
I
be as courageous, as creative and generous, and as honest about my desires?

Perhaps
. I wanted to think I could. Yet, there was nothing in my own very vanilla, monogamous sexual history like the stories I’d collected. No sex with strangers, no threesomes, no collegiate lesbian experiments. I thought of myself as a modern and sexually creative woman, but was I really?

I
also began to wonder if my Gorgeous Sadist was right, that when it came to passion, I
couldn’t
write what I didn’t know. 

Arriving at the post office,
I retrieved a stack of bank statements, ads, and credit card offers. As I pulled them out of the box, a small, heavy envelope fell to the floor. There was no return address, but I noticed it had been post-marked in a nearby city. Inside, a stiff notecard was imprinted with the words ‘The Gentlewomen’s Scientific Society’ embossed in gold foil beneath an ornate crest.

Inside,
someone had written one short phrase: “The play’s the thing…”

A
single theater ticket was enclosed for a show called “The Wondrous Mechanical Devices of Doctor Pantomime” to be presented at 8pm the following Saturday evening. I was unfamiliar with the theater but found it mapped online. It was an anonymous warehouse in an older section of the city. How very off, off-Broadway, I thought.

I asked
friends, but no one had heard of the society, or a play called “The Wondrous Mechanical Devices of Doctor Pantomime”. I found no references online, either. Intrigued, I decided to go, but as a precaution, I’d emailed the details to a close friend and arranged to meet her for drinks after the play.

That night, I arrive
d at the warehouse and stood in line with a lively crowd. Many were dressed in costume, wearing old-fashioned tuxedos and beaded gowns, little hats perched at saucy angles and fingerless gloves. I noticed women wearing aviator goggles as headbands and buttoned-up black boot, and men with slicked down hair and tuxedoes. Two different men were sporting monocles.

I thought this
was a good sign. The play obviously had loyal followers who returned in costume, like the “Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Inside, the
warehouse was cavernous and dark, with glowing gaslights positioned around the perimeter, and the theatrical lights centered on a free-standing proscenium arch built from metal truss, hung with a lush red velvet curtain festooned with gold bullion fringe. A piano player filled the space with a quiet but commanding classical piece. An elegant couple passed me, trailing perfume.

I
nstead of typical theater seats or even folding chairs, the space was filled with an assortment of Victorian-style furniture, ranging in size from small love seats to long sofas with as many as ten cushions. My ticket led me to a plush sofa just right for two in the middle of the theater. I felt conspicuously alone, and couldn’t help staring at the costumes of the people around me.

A
young couple settled in front of me. When he lifted her hand to kiss it, her ring and bracelet sparkled. How romantic! Then I noticed the man’s smooth jaw, and his rather delicate throat... Suddenly, I looked around, realizing that actually, there were no men in the theater. There were groups of women, yes, but the couples were also all women.  

I
felt my face burning. I was embarrassed, not by the women around me, but by my own lack of sophistication. Alright, I thought, I am normally very observant, as a writer must be, but I was out of my element, and distracted by the costumes…

When t
he lights dimmed, a quartet entered the room, seating themselves around the piano player. I sat back, uneasy, not knowing what to expect from this strange play.

The
music swelled, and the curtain opened to reveal a spare room, decorated in an old-fashioned style with carved wooden furniture. A woman entered draped in a sheet. She walked to a full-length oval mirror and stood facing it. Then she dropped the sheet.

She
regarded her image in the glass, while the audience sat in silence. Her slim figure was lit with a faintly blue light, as if she were made of marble.

The woman
slowly traced a line across her small pointed breasts. Then she placed one hand on her hip, and the other lightly stroked the triangle where her thighs met.

She tossed her head,
laughed silently and lifted a strip of cloth from a table and began to wrap her small breasts, flattening them to her chest.

Satisfied with the binding across her breasts, s
he buckled a belt around her waist and between her legs. Then she turned to the audience to display a false penis and scrotum. She strutted a few paces stage right, her steps longer, and her shoulders squared, transforming her walk into that of a man.

The music kept pace with her movements as she dressed
in a dark suit.

Finally, s
he stood looking at her disguised self in the mirror, tilted a top hat onto her head and picked up a black walking stick to twirl it. She blew a kiss to herself into the mirror and exited the scene.

Stage
hands quietly and quickly pulled the dressing room props offstage revealing pieces of a larger set. It appeared to be a room in a hospital but one equipped with several platforms surrounded by brass pipes, dials, and nozzles. A nurse in a tight white uniform bustled into the light and began to arrange instruments on a cart. A doctor strode in, a commanding presence. When he removed his hat, I recognized the woman from the first scene. The nurse hurried over, taking his hat and suit coat while the doctor pulled on a lab coat and hung a stethoscope around his neck.

The nurse handed
him a clipboard. After flipping through a few papers, the doctor and nurse exchanged a look over the chart. No spoken dialog…I nodded to myself. The play was indeed a pantomime.

A
beautiful brunette in an elaborate costume entered, clutching a satin purse in her gloved hands. The nurse motioned for her to sit, and she perched on the edge of a chair, anxious and tense. The doctor paced around her, referring to the chart while he examined her. He tilted her face up by her chin and turned her face to one side then the other. He pulled off her gloves, one finger at a time, and stared at her palms while she blushed.

The doctor
stood, arms crossed, considering.

Then, he signaled for the nurse, who
led the young woman off-stage.

While the
lighting mellowed to amber and the music changed, the doctor stripped off his lab coat and stethoscope and put on a long black rubber apron and gloves over his white shirt.  Then he pushed and pulled the pieces of machinery into position. The tall platforms glided silently on wheels as he positioned them in an arc across the stage.

The nurse
returned, followed by four dancers, all very attractive and dressed in filmy hospital gowns. As the nurse moved across the stage, she assisted them onto the platforms one by one, buckling them in as they arranged their bodies into various poses.

Next
, she led in the brunette, now dressed in a simple, white nightgown. The doctor took the woman by the hand and helped her up onto the largest contraption at the center of the stage.

There,
she stood on a platform against what looked like a webbed stretcher. The doctor strapped the patient’s arms and legs into position, well apart, and the tipped the stretcher into a slightly reclining position. The other four women were ranged around her on their own contraptions, displaying themselves in one pose and then slowly moving into another. The nurse went from patient to patient, tugging on straps and adjusting the heights and angles of the pipes and nozzles attached to the frames of the contraptions. The dancers’ slow movements were sinuous and flirtatious as they tried to catch the doctor’s eye.

The doctor was absorbed in his task, though. As he
checked the tightness of the straps at her ankles, the brunette looked pale and breathless, with her eyes wide and fearful. She panted, chest rising and falling visibly under her gown.

The music swelled
and swirled as steam rose to obscure the background. The contraptions began to spurt streams of water from nozzles and faucets. The water caressed the women’s bodies, turning the nightgowns entirely sheer, striking and teasing breasts, bellies, and buttocks. The women writhed and twisted in their straps, straining toward the fountains of water and moaning with pleasure.

I watched with my mouth open, unable to believe what I was seeing. The water cascaded and streamed off the beautiful bodies under the lights. It flowed across the floor and
disappeared into a narrow opening that arced across the front of the stage, like the negative edge of an infinity pool.

Perhaps like
every other woman in the darkened theater, I couldn’t help thinking of my own handheld shower nozzle at home. I might have been the only one blushing, though.

All around me, couples were
pressing close together on the love seats and couches, indulging in some surreptitious audience participation. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see a woman’s dress hiked up, her knees apart, and her date’s arm disappearing up her skirt. The air was scented with sex.

On stage, the doctor went from patient to patient, encouraging them, placing
his hands, encased in the rubber gloves, on their arms and thighs, and turning up dials on a couple of the hoses, to the delight of each patient. He leaped into the center of the stage again, and motioned for the nurse to the other side of the young woman.

The doctor raised
his gloved hand to gesture to her breasts, nipples standing out prominently under her wet and transparent gown, to demonstrate her readiness.

The doctor and nurse faced each other across the young woman and
picked up the hem of her gown.  Together, as if quickly folding a sheet, they neatly pleated the fabric, revealing the woman’s ankles, knees, thighs as they fastened the wet gown above her naked hips. She thrashed and twisted her head from side to side, unable to free herself.

The nurse
put a long, thick hose into the doctor’s hands, and the doctor adjusted the brass nozzle on the end, until he was satisfied with the force of the stream of water.

The
brunette gasped as the doctor focused the stream of water first at her ankles, then he slowly moved it up each leg in turn, until the stream arced directly onto the woman’s exposed pudendum. She writhed against the constraints.

The
doctor moved the stream of water back and forth rhythmically, until the nurse rolled over a heavy stand to secure the hose in place. Then, when the water was stationary, the woman on the contraption began to move her hips herself, arching toward and away from the water in time with the music.

With a flourish, t
he nurse brought out a large brass phallus, and lubricated it, slipping her hand up and down its length.

On the other four contraptions, the women continued to writhe and stretch,
until in turn, each contraption sprouted one, or two, or even three brass attachments, also shaped like penises.

The doctor
took the phallus from the nurse, and the nurse then moved to the patient’s side, where she pressed the woman’s thighs farther apart.

As the doctor slid the
object up into the brunette’s vagina, slowly and firmly, the other patients were vibrating their bodies within the confining straps, moving into position for the attachments to fit snugly into a variety of orifices. The nurse slid to her knees at the doctor’s feet and while he gestured encouragement to the patient and moved the phallus in and out, faster and faster, the nurse pushed aside the rubber apron, unbuttoned his trousers and took out the doctor’s rubber penis. She held it on her outstretched finger tips, admiring it for a moment.

As one by one the four patie
nts each reached a loud climax—the only spoken dialog in the pantomime—the nurse fellated the doctor’s rubber penis and thrust her own hand into her crotch. The doctor and the nurse and then finally, the young woman in the center limelight, all reached loud crescendos of their own.