A Crumbling Facade

A CRUMBLING FACADE By Akbar Del Piombo A Renaissance E Books publication ISBN 1-929670-30-3 All rights reserved Copyright © 2000 by Renaissance E Books This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission. For information contact: Renaissance E Books P. O. Box 494 Clemmons, NC 27012-0494 USA Email [email protected]

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Part One A Crumbling Facade CHAPTER ONE "Oh, the funny thing!" "Don't be afraid of it; here, put your hand on it." "But what is it? I've never seen anything like it before." "No? You'll see a lot of them from now on. Go ahead, touch it, it won't bite you." "I wouldn't dare put my hand on it!" "If you touch it, you'll really see something you've never seen before!" "Oh, it's so ugly! Put it away!" "I'm going to show you something you're going to love; there, see how it wants to touch you?" The voices of the very innocent eighteen-year-old Mathilde, the rector's daughter, and Sylvester, Count Schoszkly's son by a previous marriage, were but a faint murmur on the other side of the partition where the Baroness lay abed. The noble lady was picking desultorily from a box of chocolates, suffering a heavy ennui. The windows were covered by drapes as if she had no desire to see the light of day. She found the early August afternoon oppressive with its blinding sun and humid stillness. The velvet folds of the drapes turned the atmosphere a deep crimson, coloring the wan cheeks of the Baroness with deceptive life. She took another chocolate from the box and ate it listlessly. In the giant mirror above her head, set in the roof of her antique bed, she could see the roseate form of her body, so much like a statue she had seen once in the Borghese Palace. What was her name, Pauline? Like her own! Had that other Pauline been a wicked woman? She tried to recall the features of the statue and decided she must absolutely investigate the life history of her namesake. Perhaps Sylvester's father knew. He was such an instructed man. She placed her hand on her breast and watched herself in the mirror while she played with the soft roundness

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of her right breast. Then, to even the picture, she put her other hand on her left breast, and while she enjoyed the pleasurable sensations of toying with her nipples, she watched herself much as if it were someone else. Then her right hand removed her left breast from beneath her dressing gown, and when she had her breasts fully exposed, she stopped to admire the globes above her. Her thighs were unconsciously rubbing together, increasing her desire to explore her hidden sex. She took another bonbon while she undid the dressing gown and munched the sweet with smacking sounds, changing her position to see more of her generous backside. The thinness of her ankles emphasized the expanse of flesh, which rolled around her hips. Behind the door, which gave on her study, knelt her personal maid, a long-lashed eye glued to the keyhole. The white bonnet on her head had been pushed back by the doorknob and fell unnoticed to the floor in the maid's absorption with her mistress' dallying. While so engaged, her mouth dropping lower and lower in troubled astonishment and her panties moistening from her arousal, the butler, Hughes, entered the room. Immobile, with a pot of roses in his hands, he was about to ask a question when the true nature of the situation dawned on him. He put down the flowers quietly and tiptoed toward the maid, his cock growing instantly erect, his eyes glowing strangely, his intentions wicked. How alluring she looked from behind, her ass swelling roundly, her back arching slightly, her long legs stretched fully and provocatively. She was at the perfect angle to be taken, and the butler undid his trousers soundlessly, grasped his cock in his hand, rubbing it vigorously to full erection, and eyed his target. The second he drew up behind her, he snatched up her skirts, pulled down her panties, and, with accomplished skill, plunged his burning tool into the hairy slot, grasping her waist with his free arm to help support the blow. His rod slid easily into the lavishly lubricated hole. The poor maid, nearly out of her wits from the unexpected attack, was at the same time gasping in the most sensual way, the shock having brought with it its own appeasement. Through the keyhole, the quickly transported Clara could see her mistress playing joyfully with her own pussy, rubbing her hands over it, caressing it now slowly, now quickly, moving one hand up to her

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naked breasts, squeezing them, and then down along her inner thighs. Clara's body was filled with desire, and the combination of being entered by her unknown assailant, and watching her mistress bringing herself closer and closer to ecstasy was enough to make her want to moan with rapture. But she kept silent, for she did not want to alarm her mistress, or in any way pull her away from her masturbation. She watched as her mistress gazed lovingly at her image above her, swaying her body slightly from side to side in order, Clara assumed from her own experiences, to watch the lissome movement of her full, voluptuous breasts. The woman's legs spread further apart, and, as if mimicking this movement, Clara spread her own legs wider, her stance now ready to accommodate her orgasm, which was quickly building, thanks to the enormous cock now pounding in and out of her, rubbing against her enraged clitoris. All at once, the butler grabbed her full hips, pulled her hard into his distended belly, drove deeply into her moist cunt, his breath spilling to her neck; and her mistress arched her back, writhing, and worked her orgasm to explosive proportions with her wildly rubbing finger; and Clara felt the warm waves rushing through her body, bathing her in luxurious, flowing pleasure. The hot summer air carried with it the sounds of a horse and carriage coming up the drive, yet none of the busy people in each of the three rooms heard a thing of what went on elsewhere. So it was that Prince Pivo arrived, sweating and unheralded, at the baronial domain. He stepped down from the carriage and mopped his brow with a flowing silk handkerchief, which he tossed disdainfully into the air after having blown his nose. He looked round him questioningly, annoyed that no one had come to the door to receive him. Prince Pivo never knocked at a door, nor ever in any way signaled his presence, for he never went anywhere he wasn't expected. He waved the carriage on, and sat down on the baking stone steps, pulling his visored cap lower to protect his eyes from the sun. He watched the carriage roll past the gate and disappear around the high wall of the estate. When the horse's hooves had died away, he stood up and listened, obstinately refusing to enter the chateau, but intrigued by the extraordinary silence that reigned in the house. A hundred fading rose

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bushes crowned the lawn on either side of the stairway, and, separated from them by a cinder path, were two giant chestnut trees. Beyond them, to the right of the house, was a clump of smaller trees sheltering the pavilion reserved for certain intimate tea parties at five, and other more intimate parties at midnight. The Prince decided to wait in the pavilion for any sign of life. He was to get that sign sooner than he imagined, in a most original manner. As he approached the miniature house, he thought he had seen, for the briefest instant, a face pass before the open window. Its movement was so rapid he had not been able to distinguish the features. He stopped and looked, and suddenly it appeared once more, rising as if from the floor, then sinking away again. And still he had seen no features. He moved closer, thinking that perhaps one of the children was playing games with him. When it came up a third time, he saw with horror that the face was absolutely devoid of any characteristic particular to faces and was as smooth and round as a balloon. He waited to see if the apparition would rise again, searching in his mind to identify the strange shape. And there it came again, as smooth as before, as mystifying, and as hasty to descend. Deciding to take matters in his own hands, and finding a box nearby, he placed it under the window, and raised himself up. Not three inches from his nose, so close that the telltale odor of pure lust would have told him what he wanted to know were it not that his eyes saw enough, the beautiful buttocks of Wilma von Spratten Olaf-Pinz hove up again and went flying down the long, spike-like prick of Silas Cisterne, her singing master. All about the floor lay abandoned sheets of music, and Silas, in their midst, lay rudely pinned by his pupil's robust arms, suffering his enforced copulation with as much forbearing as he could muster. Prince Pivo nearly laughed aloud at the horrible grimace on the master's face. A voice sounded from a corner of the room, a high bombastic voice, somewhat nasal in quality. The startled Prince made out the familiar features of Harmon Heath, the great Shakespearean actor and notoriously flagrant homosexual, astride the piano stool with his bare feet in his fallen trousers and his hairy thighs partially obscured by flower-print drawers. His cock was erect, its blubbery head buried

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deep in his soft palm, and while he intoned his well-known lines, he caressed the obscene phallus with long, leisurely strokes. "Sweet Phoebe, do not scorn me; do not, Phoebe: Say that you love me not; but say not so in bitterness…" He addressed his cock as if it were a personage in the play, sometimes frowning severely, sometimes with his face a mask of pain, sometimes smiling wickedly. All the while he spoke, he played with the swollen tip, pointing it at the harassed music-master in illdisguised disappointment. The rude-natured girl had deprived him of his old friend's services, but he dared not intervene after having seen her extraordinary strength redoubled by her violent passion. And anyway, the scene as it had unfolded was higher comedy than he had ever seen on the stage. Wilma, having rushed breathless into the room, had caught the two men with their trousers down around their ankles. Both men had had cocks in hand, and were rubbing them with increasing vigor in response to the other's arousal. Just as Silas was about to come, he was startled by a great propulsion forcing him backwards, away from the actor's outreaching hand. Shocked, Silas had stumbled and, his trousers around his ankles, had tumbled to the floor, his eyes wide with horror. Wilma was upon him in an instant, bounding with the speed of an antelope onto his trembling body. The actor, meanwhile, had begun laughing, and had continued to masturbate, rubbing his hands up and down the length of his cock. Silas, having regained his senses, at once told Harmon Heath to stop laughing, while pushing Wilma's advancing, lasciviously naked body away. He had failed on both counts, and the actor had gone on laughing, and Wilma had continued in her assault. Soon, Wilma was lowering her massive form onto the uprising cock of the great master of music, and the actor was shifting into a brooding, pensive character, finding his Shakespeare useful for this. It was at this point: where the actor, squeezing his cock, aiming it as if it were a prop toward his lover, was about to explode in thespian extravagance, that the Prince happened upon the sight. Wilma, descending a final time onto the poor man of music,

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swallowed his cock whole and shuddered, dropping her upper body, smothering the supine man beneath her with her heaving, mountainous breasts. The Prince scratched his head at the spectacle in the pavilion and stepped down from the box. Wilma's lovely and energetic behind had aroused his own volatile nature and he strode away from the pavilion with a growing muscle between his legs. He walked by the front entrance once more. Even before he came abreast of the steps he saw the door was open but not a soul was in sight. The golden chandelier that hung in the front hallway shone in a hundred shades of orange and yellow from the brilliant light out of doors. The Prince stood a while at the foot of the steps, but not even a stray butler came to the door to give the Prince sufficient pretext for entering the house. Shrugging his shoulders contemptuously, he went part way around the house and headed for the stables where the Baroness' magnificent thoroughbreds were housed. He had set his mind on a lively canter in the park to distract him, yet the persistent image of Wilma's ass affected him more and more, and when he entered the sweet-smelling enclosure, where the stamping and snorting animals were taking that nervous repose common to their kind, he nearly turned back. A mare whinnied, whether from fright or nervousness he could not tell, but a suspicious scrambling sound of human footsteps gave him the clue, and opening the door of her stall he discovered that, in the corner, lay a half unclad groom atop a young woman, probably a waylaid dairy maid. The groom was pumping his cock in and out of the woman, his white ass rising and falling in the air, his pants down about his knees. The woman beneath him, not far removed from girlhood, judging by her look of fright and young features, was moaning with practiced intonations, but halfheartedly. Her skirts were pushed up around her waist, her knees bared, her shoes still on. Her panties were twisted around one ankle. The Prince could just make out the bottom swell of her buttocks, coming out from under her, whenever the groom raised his body in order to plunge deeply back into her cunt. "Ho, ho," cried the Prince at the same moment in which the young

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woman looked over her lover's shoulder to see the Prince standing there. She gasped and he spoke at once. The groom withdrew quickly from the girl, and the Prince could see that, just as he did, he came; and he laughed to think of the awkward position this put the young man in, coming and startled at once. The groom's organ pulsed in midair, spurting liquid onto the girl's leg, and he clambered up from the ground with a quick look to the girl, and then tucked his cock into his pants. "Sire," he said, duly humble and yet anxious to make his case, "I had nothing to do with her before, believe me. Honest, I swear it. This was the first time." "Haven't I just now caught you fucking the poor thing with your common cock? Hey, now?" "But, Sire, this was the first time, I swear it. I'll never do it again if you let me go." The Prince let the boy go and studied the girl, still lying supine on the ground, her legs still spread, bits of hay rising up between them. It was then that he saw that this woman was no virgin. In fact, as young as she looked – no more than twenty at the most – her cunt was as big as that of the biggest, oldest whore in Paris. "My God," he exclaimed. "How could you fuck that? A man might as well put his cock in a vat full of cream." The woman huffed indignantly, and glowered at the Prince. "What pleasure is there in that?" he asked, turning inquisitively to the groom. The groom, reassured that he would suffer no harm at the Prince's hand, straightened his body, but hesitated to answer. He watched as the Prince knelt on the hay and reached out his arm to touch the woman's cunt. His fingers swept back and forth across the span of it, and then up and down, taking in the length and breadth of it, and he whistled in amazement. "Why, boy, tell me something. What possible pleasure can you get from her? You would do better to go after the cook. Stay away from cunts this big. You will only ruin your chances with other women." The groom did not answer him. He seemed to be turning something over in his mind and then, without warning, in a gesture full of pride, he boldly tore open his fly and dragged forth a prick that would suit

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that cunt perfectly. Prince Pivo ceased his remonstration, frankly overwhelmed by the evidence, amazed at the groom who stood with his legs apart to let the long and cumbersome cock dangle about his knees. The lad had produced the most convincing argument in favor of his tastes, and Prince Pivo felt somewhat humbled, even ridiculed, before the fantastic organ. "How did it happen?" he asked finally, in a voice that was full of respect. "Were you always hung like that?" "Yes, Sire. My father took me to all kinds of specialists, but they haven't been able to explain it." He went on to explain the shame he had felt, and how he was afraid he would have to go through life deformed and banned from society. But the Prince was less interested in the boy's personal woes than in seeing that horrendous object in action. He interrupted the groom and asked him if he could get it hard. He said he certainly could. "Then do so," ordered the Prince. The groom picked up the head of his club in both hands and began masturbating, beating it back and forth with his forearms when it had risen sufficiently into the air. Then, in the manner of a child lifting his glass of milk from the table, the groom made a circle with his two hands and slipped it down over his cock, now moving up and down the length of it. Bit by bit the violet-colored skin began to stretch, the head dilating, filling out to its truly horrific proportions. When it was fully hard, the tip reached nearly to the space between his two nipples. The woman seemed unimpressed, but the Prince looked on in stupefied amazement. He was no longer certain if the woman would be capable of taking such a gigantic organ into her vast hole. "You might as well put it into her," he said, "just for curiosity," remembering that he had chided the boy but a moment ago for that very thing. The groom needed no urging now that he had himself back to a passionate state of arousal, and with official approbation to boot. He knelt some distance away from the woman, who laconically spread her legs again, but otherwise seemed entirely disinterested, and took his cock in hand, aiming it toward the gaping hole. With a sudden

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shove, which called for all his strength, he drove the cock into the woman's cunt, her cunt hairs borne along the length of his shaft as it dipped into the hole. The woman again made a half-hearted attempt to moan, only the Prince had then to wonder if she were as dispassionate as she seemed. Indeed, her eyelids fluttered, and her legs trembled. Perhaps this was simply a game she played, this pretending that his cock made no difference to her one way or the other. At any rate, the Prince, his ears ringing from the thunderous sound of the groom's balls slapping the girls legs and outward swelling buttocks, watched the prodigious penis slicing in and out of the cunt like some greasy piston pumping in and out of a chasm of flesh. The lusty odor that emanated from the slobbering hole soon whipped the nostrils of the mare sharing this stall into a frenzy of foam. At once, all the horses reared and kicked, demanding to be let free. A ferocious stench filled the air, a biting odor that pinched Prince Pivo's nostrils and made him want to vomit. "Do they always get so heated up when you fuck her?" shouted Pivo, trying to make himself heard over the din. For a moment he had the impression that he was in the center of a foundry where a ceaseless roar and hammering accompanied the flashing flames of a furnace; white molten metal being poured from a ladle while busy black gnomes ran scurrying in the heat, screaming insanely as if they were the keepers of hell. The long, churning prick delved in faster and faster, drawing forth the escaping mucus of the bestial vagina. The woman was borne backwards by a great, driving thrust, her dripping flanks wobbling from side to side as though there were not yet enough of that prick boring into her. The groom for his part was rapidly working to orgasm, slamming his belly like a madman, oblivious to the earshattering chaos about him. He gave everything in his labors, and a fleeting grin transmitted his thrill of pride and power. It was inevitable that when the woman gave out her first and final cry of spending orgasm that the sex-crazed stallions should no longer hold out, and in a demoniac concert their flying hooves shattered the wooden stalls and they burst from the stable in a galloping mass of flaming nostrils, satanic eyeballs and frenzied escape. Full in their

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midst, and clinging for his life to the woman in whose cunt he was still embedded, the terrified groom shook hysterically, his orgasm now exploding from his massive organ; the bedlam he inspired breaking out all around him, costing him, perhaps, his job. Prince Pivo, having leaped to a rafter above for safety from the stampeding herd – now a half-mile away on the rolling green, like a tornado sweeping across the plains – descended when the groom pulled out of the red, yawning cunt, which was now flowing with his milky fluids. It took the Prince some time to recover his aplomb, and he retraced his steps to the entrance still shaken from the harrowing spectacle. A woman ran up the steps as he rounded the corner, holding her scarlet gown high in the air. Her hair was hidden by a lavish powdered wig adorned with a purple plume, and her features were covered by a mask. Pivo saw her long black stockings, and at the last step she picked her skirts up higher, revealing an exciting expanse of white thigh. The panther-like eyes behind the mask seemed to gleam provocatively at him, and she bent down and removed a ribboned garter from her leg. It struck him in the eyes as she escaped into the house, a high, trailing laugh echoing in her wake. Pivo picked up the garter. "'Tis folly," he accused himself, dashing up the stairs three at a time, "pure folly!"

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CHAPTER TWO The Countess Schoszkly lay stripped to the skin on the tiger fur. Her great thighs glowed a ruddy pink where her lover, the internationally known author-sportsman and big-game hunter Simeon Phlegmway had, for the past two hours, been struggling in vain to penetrate his lovely mistress. He sat slumped in the baroque armchair made from the moose antlers he had given to von Spratten on her last birthday. At his feet lay a slew of empty whisky bottles, mute witnesses to a desperate effort to whip his failing organ into action. His chin lay on his hairy chest and, further down, his prick lay small and flabby over his once-powerful balls. He was a sad and miserable sight, the picture of defeat. Wearily, his hand sought another quart of whisky from the crate behind his chair. He felt the bubbling gas in his stomach stirring again and he emitted a series of acid burps, nauseated by the sight of his hairy paunch, which concealed beneath its virile envelope a mass of organs in the throes of decay. He uncapped the bottle and downed a goodly part of its contents, achieving for immediate result a new series of hiccoughs and a long, low belch which brought but momentary relief to his system. A mass of papers, the start of his latest novel, Satyrs in Paradise, lay next to his noiseless typewriter on the marble-top table. On the walls hung the many trophies of his hunting trips, for the Baroness von Spratten had given him this room as a private den during his periodic stays at the mansion. The Countess moaned in unappeased desire, which caused Simeon to take a deeper draught from the consoling liquid. His worries were all the more aggravated by his fears that Count Schoszkly might burst in on them in a jealous rage. The Count had recently grown suspicious of his wife's fondness for the sportsman, and Simeon had on several occasions caught a bilious glare from beneath the heavy aristocratic brow. He had mentally made a note to steer clear of the Count as much as possible. Perhaps, he ruminated, that was why today his prick remained obstinately prone, immune to all the artful attentions of the Countess. The presence of the Count in the same house filled him with apprehension. The libertine Countess was not only indifferent to her

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husband's whereabouts, but even the more stimulated to keep the horns she had placed on his head rooted there forever. Had she not said to Simeon once, pointing to the antelope head on the wall, "You get your horns in Africa and the Count gets his in his own bed." He had laughed then, and had fucked her immediately, imagining himself a ferocious buffalo, like one he had once killed, storming the female with all his sinewy maleness, transporting her into the seventh heaven of delights with his virile member. And now? Now he was sprawled helplessly on his back, gasping for air, sweating abominably from his exertions to raise a suitable hard-on for the Countess. This is the result of civilization, he thought, seeking the cause of his trouble. I was never like this in the jungle. He recalled the native girls he had screwed beneath the mango trees, on the sodden floors of primitive huts, under the flapping canopy of his tent. He remembered the harsh, pungent smells of their black skin and the wiry curls on their heads. And what about that tall Ubangi whose lips had clamped shut on his nose just as he came? Ah, Africa, how I long for you and your earthy ways, your simple, vital life; how different it is from the enervating debauch of civilization. He finished the bottle in agony. The Countess moaned again and dutifully, manfully, Simeon Phlegmway struggled to his feet and approached once more the hot, seething flesh of his mistress, pulling on his penis with determination, and dropped to his knees before her. Had he but known the truth, he would have given less concern to the whereabouts of the jealous husband, for while he was moving in between the Countess' thighs, raised again in revived hope, Count Schoszkly was himself confronting a luscious example of robust femininity not two doors away, in the person of Eliza Cramp, the nymphomaniac governess who had corrupted his son Sylvester. In all truth, he had started out in search of his wife, but had fallen victim to the designing governess, who had followed him stealthily into the bathroom, disrobing rapidly while he urinated in the bowl. Thus, when he turned to leave, shaking the last drops from his prick, he was startled to find his way barred by the ravishing sight of her sex-starved body. And neither did he have much choice in the affair, since the aggressive governess unhesitatingly shoved her great bush

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forward, rubbing it lewdly against his tool. Unlike the lover down the hall who was struggling for an erection, the Count's muscle sprang upward with an alacrity that denied his age, and he grabbed the willing woman in his arms and pushed her against the wall, bracing himself by putting his hands above her head. She parted her legs, panting heavily; and the Count bent his knees slightly, positioned his cock at the entrance of her cunt, and drove his turgid shaft into her hole, causing the woman to moan deeply. The ungovernable governess, whose services would no longer be required now that Sylvester had come of age, heaved and shoved with all the fire and heat of the stampeding horses now escaped from the stables. She grabbed the Count's ass, squeezing it between greedy fingers, and pressed her hot mouth to his, forcing his lips apart with the tip of her twisting tongue. The Count opened his mouth and admitted her tongue, spiraling his own around it. He could feel her voluptuous breasts pressed warmly to his chest, her nipples rising like hard little berries, poking into his own. Their kiss passionate, his cock buried deeply within her and moving slowly, rhythmically in and out, the governess clamped her legs around his waist, so that he was holding her aloft in his arms, her body impaled on his hard cock, and they came in unison, both bodies quivering in uncontrollable bliss. "Now," she said as he let her down gently, his cock slipping limply from her gaping cunt, "lick me." The Count, never one to turn down such an inviting offer, got down onto his knees and forced her legs apart with his head, his tongue coming out to dance lightly across the dripping, red surface of her cunt. Her lips were spread wide apart, revealing the hole and its creamy contents, and her clitoris was as hard and round as a berry, poking out of its protective shield. The Count licked around and around the hardened clitoris, urging the governess back toward orgasm. Then, sensing that she was about to come a second time, he thrust his thick, strong tongue deep into her hole, twisted it around, licking her inner walls, tasting their combined fluids. The governess bore down on his tongue and lips, and her clitoris found a natural bed on his upper lip, over which she began to rub until the warmth rose steadily and irrevocably in her body. "Oh, yes," she moaned, weaving her hips back and forth, her naked

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buttocks scraping on the wall against which she leaned, her cunt being lapped at by the Count's eager tongue. And then, in an instant, she was blinded by the onrushing pleasure, and she could feel her clitoris expanding to monstrous proportions, her inner walls, having nothing to cling to, expanding and contracting wildly, making her orgasm all the more powerful and lasting. The Count licked greedily, thirstily, his tongue daring in and out of her, savoring the taste of her orgasm, and she flowed into his mouth, discharging the fluids left behind by his orgasm and her own. The door of the bathroom opened for a second and Prince Pivo's smooth-shaven visage thrust forward. In that second his eye encompassed the naked thighs of Eliza locked around the Count's head, his bearded chin sunk into her cunt, both of them wriggling their asses in total abandon. The Prince shut the door again, greatly moved by what he had seen, a vision he was to recall again and again for the rest of his days. It would have been an impressive sight in any respect, but he was already so much in heat that his prick nearly shot in his pants and it was only the force of his iron will that kept his hand from his fly. The masked beauty from the front steps had successfully eluded him and had escaped to the summer ballroom where her friends, costumed as she was, had resumed the ball beneath the garlands of flowers and colored paper strung about the room. There was a curious resemblance between the red crepe pasted on the windowpanes and the crimson drapes of the Baroness' bedroom. It was no doubt a color she favored strongly, finding in its vigorous intensity the outward expression of her passionate nature. But she had been so terribly bored in the past weeks, prey to an unusual lassitude; and, fearing that she was reaching that dreaded climax in her life, the menace of menopause, she had sent out invitations to right and left, stocked the cupboards with the most succulent fare and gone so far as to redecorate a portion of the great house in the Italian manner of the seventeenth century. If anyone had thought to ask her why she had chosen that particular epoch, all they would have gotten for an answer was that she "simply adored the number." But such a question was unthinkable, for her friends had a healthy respect for her sharp tongue

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and her unpredictable eccentricity. In spite of this lively view and her inherent gaiety, the Baroness had not been able to stave off the oppression that now kept her abed, whiling away the hours with her chocolates, whose sweetness was of little help to her morale. She was only vaguely aware of the party below, to which she had invited all of her friends. That she was not there at this moment surprised no one, for it was not at all unusual for the Baroness to throw a party and then choose not to attend it herself. Having now passed many hours in idle play with herself, she gazed at her image still hovering out of reach above her, and imagined how it must feel to be a man. She thought of what it would be like to drive a cock into a woman's wet, warm cunt, and the more she thought about it, the greater was her desire to possess a penis. She had never had such thoughts before, even as a girl, and it did not strike her as odd that so late in life her dreams and fantasies had taken this strange new turn. She was not at all disturbed, being entirely used to her curious mentality; she accepted the most outlandish conceptions as simply normal ways of thinking. Now she was reaching her second climax, her fingers working rapidly around her clitoris, which she could see in the mirror emerging from her folds like a budding flower. She thrust three fingers into her open cunt, pretending that they were a cock. She pushed them in and out, now and again putting them in her mouth and sucking from them her sweet juices. Her clitoris now enraged, throbbing, she swept her finger lightly over it and pushed down on its side, coming in violent shudders of ecstasy. A sudden noise disrupted her blissful transport, and she sat up abruptly. Going toward the door, she opened it and saw her butler, Hughes, pounding for all he was worth into the grinding ass of her maid. The Baroness' face was darkly contorted, though she was not angry, and the maid inwardly recoiled, frightened for her job. Hughes move to get out of Clara's hole was blocked by her involuntary effort to shut her legs tight. The powerful muscles of Clara's vagina contracted instantly, locking him helplessly to her groin. Needless to say, the bored Baroness was beside herself with delight and, far from chastising the imprudent servants as they had expected,

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she ordered them to enter her chamber. The encumbered Hughes then discovered the permanency of his position, but rather than disobey his mistress, he proceeded to crawl with the maid buckled to his stomach, like some wobbling grizzly bear with her cub suckling at her paps. The Baroness ordered them to strip naked, which was no small feat, bodily combined as they were, and then, dropping her own dressing gown, told them to get onto the bed to resume their fucking as they pleased. Clara and Hughes obeyed, and though the unrelenting muscles in Clara's vagina refused to release the butler's cock, they tumbled awkwardly onto the bed and Hughes moved slowly against her, as if stirring his cock within her, for he could hardly move. Meanwhile, the Baroness slid her gigantic ass between their faces and ordered them to lick everything that came their way. With Clara's tongue probing in her bung and Hughes's in her cunt, she braced herself on her pillows and gazed upward once more to enjoy the frivolous sight. And what a sight it was. The heads of both Hughes and Clara strained toward her parted legs, their tongues twisting and writhing in her holes like frenzied snakes, her regal, white ass crowning them. She insinuated herself deeper into the space between their heads and wove her ass back and forth provocatively, just to see the movements in the mirror above. Scanning the image, she looked at Hughes's ass, pumping wildly up and down, propelling his cock deeper and deeper into the maid. His buttocks parted every time he withdrew from Clara, and then clenched when he pushed back in. The sight was evocative of many things for the Baroness, but none so much as when she'd been witness to two men fellating one another. She had been fascinated by the sight of their buttocks working their cocks into each other's mouth, their mouths sucking avidly, hungrily, coaxing forth an orgasm as gluttons suck marrow from a bone. Hughes spread his tongue wide over the Baroness' cunt, licking broadly, stretching it far back so that, for a moment, the tip of his tongue met Clara's and they kissed, the Baroness' ass their bed. And then Clara filled the asshole fully, pushing her tongue in and out of it, filling and emptying it, and Hughes swept his own tongue back down until the tip came to rest at the clitoris. The Baroness, entranced by the

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sight of her rapture, opened her mouth to moan, noted the way her full, red lips spread supply over her perfectly white teeth; then moaned, and allowed herself to come, unable to keep her eyes open. She could feel the butler's tongue spreading warmth over her entire body, though it concentrated on that miniscule point of her sex, that center of her being, encircling it lovingly, or, at least attentively – dutifully. And as he felt her cunt opening fully in pulsing spasms, he drove deeply into Clara's own wet pussy and exploded, his cock expanding to the limitations of the throbbing walls of the cunt now taking him fully into its depths. When all three were satisfied, the Baroness changed positions, crawling to the foot of the bed, between their legs. She insinuated her head into that space where their loins met, and began to lick the butler's balls with light, feathery strokes, now and again straining to reach into Clara's cunt. When Clara shifted slightly so that access to her cunt was easier, the Baroness drove her tongue into it, tasting the fluids of their orgasm, and felt the Butler's softened cock begin to harden, growing to fill the hole. The Baroness did not remove her tongue, as it was quite a novel sensation to feel a cock growing fully erect, hot and hard, inside a woman's cunt, and instead, she twisted her tongue around and around, sweeping the edges of the cock and the wet inner walls clinging to it. When the cock was fully hard, she withdrew her tongue and began to lick Clara's clitoris, her tongue pressed between the base of the butler's cock and the point of Clara's sex. Running her hand along the backs of Hughes's large, hard thighs, she ran her forefinger around his asshole, teasing him by poking at the entrance without entering. The butler squeezed his muscles tight in order to dissuade the Baroness from shoving her finger into him. This, of course, stimulated the Baroness; and, her tongue beating madly over Clara's clitoris, winding around the base of Hughes's cock and sweeping over his balls, she removed her finger from his ass, put it into Clara's hole alongside his long cock, spun it around inside to moisten it, withdrew it and, finding the asshole immediately, shoved it in deeply. Hughes cried out, and then silenced himself by pressing his mouth to Clara's. In fact, he found it quite pleasing, and the Baroness, sensing this

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from the way his buttocks had contracted and then began to expand, giving her more room to move around inside his dark hole, began to wiggle her finger back and forth, pulling it quickly out and driving it more deeply in. The butler began to fuck Clara violently, stimulated by the sensations filling him from behind, and he pumped in and out of her in the same rhythm as the Baroness pushed in and withdrew her long forefinger. "Another one," he said hoarsely, and Clara thrust her cunt upwards, believing that he was talking to her. The Baroness, however, knew perfectly well what he was referring to, and she shoved a second finger into his dark hole. His violence took on a new form, and his entire body began to shake and writhe, as if trying at once to escape the sensations in his ass and move closer to them. Clara was exultant, and a beatific smile passed over her lips as she came, the butler pounding into her, her breasts swaying from side to side, chafing against his hairy chest. "Another one!" he yelled, now on the verge of orgasm. The Baroness drove yet another finger into his behind, and the butler, responding to this intrusion, squeezed his buttocks tightly, thus trapping the three fingers inside. He slammed back into Clara's body, his balls smashing against the Baroness' tongue, and shot an endless stream of come into Clara's cunt, feeling her inner walls sucking at his penis. It was exquisite, and the Baroness coaxed a prolonged orgasm from him by gently plying his balls with her tongue and soft lips.

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CHAPTER THREE The Countess Schoszkly had the reluctant organ in her mouth once more, and was sucking greedily and yet with exaggerated tenderness on the immobile phallus. Phlegmway knew that soon her patience would give out, and then his role as a lover would be finished. He broke out into a cold sweat thinking of his reputation. Phlegmway, the world-renowned raconteur, the lion of the best salons, the indomitable sportsman-hunter, the writer of tales, the irresistible seducer, thrown from his pedestal into the gutter because four inches of tubing refused to become nine. (He wondered with dispassionate curiosity just how many inches he did have when it was erect.) It was ridiculous, but she would end up despising him. After that, she would let fall the insidious word, which would fly from mouth to mouth, from continent to continent; and, before long, the irreparable damage would be done and the great Phlegmway would cease to exist as far as women were concerned, and men would treat him indulgently, as an inoffensive rival. Phlegmway the eunuch! "My darling," he whispered in hoarse, and what he hoped were passionate, tones. "My treasure. It is nothing. Nothing at all. A simple biological necessity … I need to piss." The Countess let go of his prick and wiped her mouth with her hand. "Go piss," she answered curtly, and somewhat sarcastically he thought. He left her on the rug, ruefully toying with her ravenous pussy, having one last scheme in mind to save the day. It must be said to his credit that his plan was daring, as he had proven himself to be in the most dangerous situation in the jungle. It was a calculated risk, worthy of a man of action. Harmon Heath was his best friend and one of the few people in whom he could confide. And what was important for this occasion was the close physical resemblance between them. Perhaps it was for this reason alone that Harmon had, on every possible occasion, attempted to bring Simeon's tastes into accord with his own; Harmon Heath was a megalomaniac, and what better way to satisfy himself than to have sex with another man who looked so

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much like him? He had, however, failed every time. The writer's flagrant maleness, as Harmon called it, was a detriment to his finer qualities; which, Harmon was certain, lurked just beneath the surface of all that showy brawn and daring. Simeon smiled wryly at the irony of what he was to propose; namely, a bargain that would put himself in the awkward position, no doubt, of submitting to sodomy in order to maintain his reputation as a great lover of women. The more he thought of it the greater became his excitement. "I am a genius," he said to himself. "Why, it's worthy of a novel. What a beautiful, complicated plot. The struggle, the psychology … the sex!" As he ran down the stairs, hastily putting his clothing together, he posed the question as to whether the subject could be dealt with best in a novel, or in play form. "It would be tense on the stage, that's for sure. Dramatic … daring. Why, it would certainly be banned!" What a shocker that would be for everyone. A play by Simeon Phlegmway, banned. His enthusiasm for his martyred play nearly caused him to forget why he was running downstairs. When he reached the brilliant sunlight, he looked around him like a man who has lost his way, bewildered, when a cry of agony sounded from the grove. Simeon rushed in the direction from which rose the cry, certain that both the voice and the abandoned ecstasy belonged to his friend. The old exhilaration stirred within him; the contact with nature and danger … coming upon the brush, on the other side of which was the grove, he saw Harmon on the verge of collapse, the groom's cock pulling out of his ass. After having bid adieu to the music master and the salacious Wilma, Harmon had wandered outside in search of distraction, for reciting his Shakespeare made him anxious for a stage. Having found the groom sitting in disconsolate thought on a felled tree, Harmon had approached him casually, knowing a little something about the man's mythic cock. They had struck up a meaningless conversation, both knowing where it was leading. Finally, having tired of the formalities, Harmon had dropped his pants, bent over, spread the cheeks of his ass wide, and invited the good groom to penetrate him. The groom, happy

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for an opportunity to spend his seed, had gotten an erection immediately, and had worked the very tip of his magnificently proportioned cock into the actor's well-used hole. The actor had groaned and shoved and heaved, trying with all his might to accommodate the monstrous instrument. Finally, after closing his eyes tightly, and gritting his teeth, he'd slammed back against the groom's belly, and opened his ass wide; the large cock drove inside, cleaving the buttocks wide. It was this entry at which Harmon had screamed, thus directing his friend toward him. Simeon, coming upon him quickly – for there was no time to lose, lest the Countess grow suspicious of his absence – helped the actor regain his composure, and drew him away from the grove and groom. Worried that the misadventure had ruined the man's potency, Simeon exposed his plan rapidly, begging Harmon to render him this service, after which he would do anything the actor wished. "What? Fuck a woman?" "Just this once!" "Never! Why it's unthinkable, perfectly disgusting. Ask me anything but that. What about my reputation?" "No one will ever learn of it. The room will be dark; you're the same build as I am, and your ability to imitate anyone's voice will keep you above suspicion. You don't have to stay long. She's so hot now she'd go off on a finger, but I can't have it happen that way. You fuck her and leave and I slip right into place. Just this once, Harmon, do it for me." Simeon's plan was airtight and it would certainly have worked out as he intended if the Countess' stepson, Sylvester, had not been in the hallway when Simeon left her. The unscrupulous young man, his Machiavellian instincts ever on the alert, had been instantly intrigued by Simeon's manner, and had slipped noiselessly into the chamber where his stepmother lay spread out on the floor, burning with lust and unrequited passion. Fresh from his conquest of Mathilde, and equipped with the libidinous nature he had inherited from his father, his sensual hunger knew no bounds, springing to life at the tempting vision. Even before the governess had taken it upon herself to bring his fiery temperament

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to fruition and educate him in the delights of fornication, he had felt a surpassing desire to fondle his father's wife, toward whom he felt no filial devotion whatsoever, as neither bothered to pretend that they were related in any way. Many were the times, however, that he had found one pretext or another to snuggle against her warm breasts and feel their softness against his cheeks; or, with assumed indifference, to let his hand stray to her backside and feel the large, inviting globes of her ass, the curve of her hips, and the slope of her thighs. He was not so unobservant that he had failed to suspect something of the relation between the Countess and Phlegmway, and he had jealously spied on them, observing with hatred certain liberties the writer permitted himself with his stepmother when they thought they were alone. His young and able cock grew stiff as soon as he saw the Countess on the rug. He closed the door and dropped to her side, grasping her breasts in his hungry hands, lavishing them with shameless kisses. The Countess attempted to rise, horror-struck at her husband's son's behavior and yet prey to sudden, strange emotions. She opposed him with an indignation that was only partially sincere, for her overwrought sensuality undermined her will. Certainly, if her stepson were of weaker stuff she would have chased him from the room, but his wily brain did not stop even at blackmail. He threatened to expose her illicit relationship to the Count, his father, if she refused his demands. "Is this monster of depravity my own husband's son?" she cried. "To what devil did your mother give birth?" "A devil!" he cried, pulling down his pants and showing her the hard prick he had. No other argument could have proven as efficacious as the view she had of his erection. The long, painful séance with Simeon's inert cock had whetted her appetite beyond measure, and the ensuing deception had driven her nearly to madness. Sylvester's penis transformed him in her eyes into the long-desired object of pleasure. He threw himself upon her and the sudden sensation of his hardness brought a miraculous relief and, tossing conscience to the winds, the Countess gave herself up to him with a fierce cry of joy. In one spontaneous movement she had him locked tight to her breast, feeling

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with her groin for his member, holding him as she had held him innocently enough before, crazed by a vicious joy at that very thought. They fucked hard and passionately on the rug, their orgasms coming almost at once in a delirious burst. Harmon was posted at the door, waiting for the signal to replace his friend. When all would be in readiness, Simeon's hand would reach out and tap him on the shoulder. Then Harmon would glide noiselessly behind him and drop to the floor at the Countess' feet. Simeon would pass quickly over her head, holding her eyes shut with his hand, Harmon crawling forward in the meantime, and when Simeon's hand left her eyes, Harmon's prick would already be plunging into her cunt. It was relatively simple, but would have to be executed with the greatest silence and rapidity. Perhaps, if he had been less nervous himself, Simeon would have remarked the difference in his mistress, but he was concentrating on the maneuvers he had to perform and hardly looked at her, closing the blinds while Sylvester crept stealthily into the closet. Hardly had the writer disappeared than Harmon heard the sound of footsteps approaching the angle of the corridor. Terrified that he should be caught in nothing but his tattered shorts, and fearing ridicule more than anything else, the actor lost his head. A door across the way offered the only hope of escape and, abandoning his miserable friend to his fate, he ran to shelter as Prince Pivo rounded the corner. The sudden slamming of a door caught the Prince by surprise and he stopped in his tracks, then walked cautiously forward, alert to every sound. As he came abreast of Simeon's room, the writer's hand appeared from the crack in the door, seeking Harmon's absent shoulder. Intrigued, the Prince drew up before the door and attempted to glance into the darkness of the crack. The hand found his arm and clutched it desperately, and before he could pull himself away, he found himself in a stygian darkness, being led like a captive animal to slaughter. Apprehensive, he attempted to free himself, and the sweating Simeon tripped and fell on the Countess, dragging Pivo with him. The naked thighs greeted Pivo's face like a pillow of flesh and his hands quickly sought to determine the nature of the body beneath him.

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Simeon had left, according to plan. The Prince inched his way forward, breathing hard and fast, feeling the voluptuous curves which invited him, nay, received him with open arms, for Sylvester's rapid assault had only assuaged the most immediate and pressing needs of her body, leaving the slower, more mature portion of her sensuality in a kind of twilight awakening. The Prince was more than ready for a woman, having been pushed to the limits of endurance during his unavailing search for the masked beauty. As he slithered along her body in the dark room, his groin was alive with the tremors of anticipation, heightened even more by the enticing smell of the unknown, invisible woman who was accepting him readily, communicating her desire for intercourse by grasping his body with her hot limbs and pulling him desperately toward her. He freed one hand and undid his trousers, allowing his turgid weapon to spring out against the moist hairs of her pussy. She moaned with delight and threw open her legs to receive him fully, grasping his cock fervently in her trembling hands, and, with a great inward gasp, brought the fiery head between soft, lubricious lips and helped him push it in, driving her ass up from the floor with such force that her cunt swallowed the entire shaft to the hilt and lingered there for a moment while its interior muscles seemed to lick the glorious cylinder with the most sensual, maddening movements. Pivo's blood raced in his veins, hammered in his temples like a machine gone mad, and he threw his body against the succulent woman again and again, impelled by the voluptuous assaults of her encircling cunt to drive the head of his cock deeper with everincreasing speed, to suck up every drop of the honeyed sensations. She rocked and trembled from his blows, her head swaying to and fro in ecstasy, and he felt her kisses all about his face and neck, her breath fanning the consuming flames into a stupendous conflagration. Her wet and streaming body writhed in the most violent contortions, and he felt that never in his life had he met a woman with a passion to equal hers. Hidden in the dark, and listening in awe to the prodigal scene, Simeon held his breath, wondering if ever he could match what was taking place. Behind him, in the closet, Sylvester was also listening,

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burning with impotent rage. The lascivious battle was moving rapidly to its close. Pivo felt the Countess' buttocks lift him up, and suddenly the frantic energies of love burst from his distended cock, spitting a warning blast into the cunt before it opened up to the full and shot a long, insane stream of joy into her flowing vagina.

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CHAPTER FOUR The afternoon wore on in its lazy midsummer fashion. Crickets chirped on the baking steps, hopping between long blades of grass, which grew between the interstices of the crumbling stones. The shutters of most of the windows were missing and those that were still in place hung on rusted pins, threatening to fall in the first gust of wind. Of the fifty-odd chimneys that once rose elegantly skyward there remained but a dozen still erect, and the facade itself was riddled with gaping cracks through which lizards came and went with ease. There was not a door inside that did not creak, not a plank or tile that did not need attention, and the gilded molding that decorated every room had lost its glitter with age, and ran cracked and peeling like a badly healed scar. The enormous tapestries had lost their color, the fragile weaving crumbling into dust at the touch. Because of the shoddy, run-down condition of her estate, the Baroness was generally judged to be a slovenly woman, but her intimate friends knew that her indolence was the direct expression of her confusing personality, and that she felt the real family coat of arms, like the facade, was rotting away. After her servants had worked her into a lather, and the surging orgasms had spent their force, she lay back on her pillows with a sigh and contemplated the mirror in a soft and comforting euphoria. "You may go now, Hughes, and you too, Clara. That will be all for today." "But, madam," the butler answered, feeling his tongue raw and thick to the touch. "But, madam, I am stuck." "Pish, Hughes, why worry? You and Clara make a perfect couple. Yes, you were made for each other, that's easy to see. Perhaps we shall have a wedding, eh, Clara? He's a fine man, Hughes, handsome in his way. I find his bald head quite agreeable. It suits his face, don't you think? It's high time you two settled down." Clara was unable to answer her mistress because her face was still enclosed between her grandiose buttocks. It was Hughes who replied, saying that he didn't know Clara well enough, and that, besides, he couldn't even think about such things in his present position.

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"If you mean the position you are in now," answered the Baroness, "I can think of none more suited for matrimony. You have your prick in your wife-to-be and your tongue in your boss' cunt. It is an enviable position. And if you never get your thing out of Clara's twat, why, the happier wife she'll be. While I am against forced marriages in principle, Clara is dear to me and must remain an honorable girl. The least a servant can do for her mistress is to be honorable." Hughes did not care very much for the way things were going, but there was little he could do at the moment. The Baroness leaped lightly out of bed and covered them up. Pulling some clothing off a chair, she stopped at the door and called out, "Ta, ta, my dears, have fun," and left them blithely to their fate. Clad in a brief corset of yellow silk, to which were attached her stockings of transparent black, and wearing a pair of cobalt-colored pumps with long, thin heels, she descended the main staircase, eager to see if her closest friend, the Duchess of Toscanelli, had arrived for their usual hour of tea and smut. The Duchess had an incomparable talent for delving into private affairs, and she shared with the Baroness an insatiable appetite for scandal. The Baroness knew the Duchess would love the episode with Hughes and Clara and she chuckled to herself at their ridiculous posture. Sigara (that was the Duchess' first name) would lose no time in spreading the tale through all the salons, making sure that the Baroness' names would creep up continually in the conversations, thus keeping her fame alive. "What else do a couple of old bags like you and I have left in this world if it isn't our lousy reputations?" the Duchess had asked. The Baroness had agreed entirely with her friend's assertion, made only the week before when the two of them were having a massage together. "Except," she had added, indicating her cunt, which her masseur was carefully shaving, "except that we still have these." "I don't understand your desire to have your pussy bald. Without a hair, you will lose all your charm." "I can't explain it, my dear, but the other day I began to have these infantile fantasies. I got to thinking about the puffy bit of flesh with

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the folded-in slit and I decided that it was really incredibly obscene." The Baroness had been skeptical about it, and had watched the masseur's razor expectantly. When he had finished, Sigara had stood up, and the masseurs and ladies had discussed the relative lewdness of a hairless cunt. The Baroness conceded that it had a somewhat repelling aspect which might be interpreted as obscene but had remained firm in her belief and thus kept her own bush intact. Yes, the Baroness thought to herself as she went down the stairs, Sigara will enjoy my story. It must be said that she made a brilliant figure in her brief costume, for the colors fairly shown amidst the dull ruins of her chateau. Her high heels clattered on the stone floor as she approached the entrance, the echoing sounds of her strides reawakening the long-dead clanging of medieval knights armed for combat who, like the Baroness, had walked at one time through those very halls. The Baroness was long used to the ghostly sounds, and she ignored them, walking outside. She stood in the sun, letting her voluminous hips bask in its warmth, and scanned the gateway for her friend. Beneath the shaded alley, where Prince Pivo's carriage had wheeled in, the Baroness saw the approaching silhouette of the Duchess of Toscanelli. She did not raise her eyebrows in surprise at the unusual attire of her friend, which was, in fact, exactly like her own. The Duchess seemed somewhat out of breath, and perspired freely in spite of her semi-nudity. The reason for that was lying some twenty yards behind her in the person of the aged gatekeeper. He was hidden from sight in the center of some tall bushes, his greasy trousers snarled in the branches and his knobby knees the color of the Duchess' cheeks. Beneath his shirttail hung his spent cock, lying moist and chafed on his scrawny thigh. The poor man was in a dilemma, uncertain whether he had been honored to fuck a duchess, or cursed to have fallen into the hands of a demon. The Duchess walked in a stately manner, with hardly a mark on her body from the swift encounter, save one or two escaping drops of sperm running into her stockings. "Ah, there you are, Sigara! How sweet of you to come." "How sweet to come, that's for sure! How are you, dearest Pauline?

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I am so hot. I think you have things to tell me. Look at those sly little dimples." "And that crease in your corset? You have things to tell me, vixen, getting laid before you come to see me!" The Duchess mounted the steps and the two ladies embraced in the sun, stepping back to admire their new corsets, then hugging each other more fervently. They went into the house, flattering themselves with gay cries and much fondling of buttocks. "What a perfectly lewd shade of yellow!" exclaimed the Duchess, running her hands around the silken surface. "And that magnificently obscene hue of violet!" answered the Baroness. "It has some stupid name like 'Flower of Sin' or something of the sort." "Mine is simply called 'Concubine'." They fell into each other's arms once again, laughing until the tears came to their eyes. "Now then, Sigara, not a minute more of suspense," said the Baroness when they were installed in the tearoom. She uncorked a bottle of brandy and poured out a tumbler-full for her friend, but reserved the bottle for herself, taking long swigs when the other spoke, and filling the rapidly emptying tumbler repeatedly. Over the chimneypiece was a built-in cupboard, which had replaced the portrait of her husband, and which held a coterie of bottles that would have done justice to a saloon. The Duchess took a draught and, spitting a piece of cork onto the floor, resumed her introduction. "A mind for scandal, just too delicious … three days ago … oh, I don't know where to begin: this morning a virgin, such a lovely thing … yesterday I heard about Manfried and Shirley Short, you didn't know a thing, I'm sure, and …" "One at a time, I beg you!" "… not a man at all!" "What was that? Oh, Sigara, calm down. Here, have another shot. Now start again." The Duchess helped herself to a generous portion, gulping loudly

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and wiping her lips with the back of her hand. "Ah, that's better. Let's see: this morning … as young and green as a sapling he was, and just as hard. Of course, he didn't know the slightest thing … hardly eighteen … and so adorable the way he fumbled. Red as a beet when I showed it to him. You'd swear he thought it was going to bite him. First time he'd ever seen one!" "How thrilling!" breathed the Baroness, setting the bottle down a moment as she reflected on the scene the Duchess had painted. "Well, I was sure he'd get cold feet when it came down to the business. So young and naive. He didn't want me to touch him and I was just dying to get that young thing in my mouth. And, of course, as luck would have it, he had to rush off …" "Then you didn't get laid after all?" asked the Baroness in dismay. "Certainly I got laid! Rather hasty I suppose, but these days most of the screwing seems to be somewhat of the hit-and-run style. Rather bourgeois, I admit … but I'm seeing him again tonight, so I can't stay very long." "But you must stay. Harmon might be here." "He's as much a cunt as you and I. What is this mania to convert him? I am against it. It's against nature. One must always let nature run its course." "Sigara, when you talk like that I have a horrible craving to fuck the daylights out of you." "What you need is to get out of your shell and to leave this place. You've no idea how good the change would be." "What an illusion," replied the Baroness. "Let us concentrate on perversion." Both ladies were sitting cross-legged in the manner of the most elegant society, drinking and chatting in the faded decor like two brilliant insects conversing in the dampness of their retreat. The Baroness reminded her friend to tell her of the scandal into which she had fallen. "I wouldn't call it a scandal in the true sense of the word. I mean, some of the scandals I've seen! Did I ever tell you about the Marquise de … oh, what was her name? Anyway, I caught her red handed with her husband's nephew, her mouth wrapped around his cock … stick to

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the point, I know," said the Duchess to the exasperated Baroness. "As I was saying, scandal. The boy … delicious virgin, no more than nineteen. Remember when nineteen seemed old. How long ago that was!" "Sigara, I am dying to hear your story, but can't bear your diversions. Please!" The Baroness spread her legs, displaying her naked cunt, as if to offer it as a reward should the Duchess stick to her story. "Okay, okay. Lovely cunt. The poor boy … can't really call him a boy though. He's the gardener's son, helps his father whenever he's needed – going away to university in the fall – I told him this morning, having found him outside, just sitting there beneath a tree … I told him, 'You can't go to university a virgin.' The poor thing nearly choked to death. How shy! You should have seen his face. I let him see a good piece of thigh, too – you see, I was strolling the grounds in my dressing gown, which I like to do sometimes when the morning is especially warm … well, you know that." "Yes, Sigara, I know all about your lewd strolls. Now tell me …" "The poor thing nearly choked to death, asked how I knew he was a virgin. 'Darling,' I said, 'how could I not know? Just look at that face of yours' – rosy cheeks, wide eyes, tousled hair – you should see him! Just as I said the word virgin, his cock grew hard! How embarrassed he was … tried to hide it with his hands. 'What is troubling you?' I asked. 'Why so ashamed?' You can't imagine how innocent he was! I thought I'd go mad if I didn't get at that sweet cock, and the morning air was so fresh, so sweet, just like him! He, of course, was frightened by my lewd suggestions and staring eyes and moist lips." "Naturally," agreed the Baroness. "I knelt down in front of him, letting the bathrobe part, revealing my naked cunt, my breasts. His face turned beet red, his cock nearly burst out of his trousers … I reached out my hands, setting my fingertips lightly upon that bulge, that hard, delicious bulge, and sort of scratched it through the fabric with my nails. I thought he was going to come right then and there." "Did he?" "Well, luckily, I pulled my hand away just in time. You see, I was

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going to stand. I did, letting the gown slip off my shoulders slowly, seductively. He just stared up at my white breasts hovering over his head, his eyes so wide and blue. I rubbed my thighs against his soft cheeks, and his pink tongue came out in pursuit of them. Then I pressed my mound against his mouth. Again, the pink tongue …" "Heavenly!" exclaimed the Baroness. "Superb! You should have been there," said the Duchess, reaching over to pinch the Baroness' nipple. "I had him pressed against that rough tree, his cock straining against the fabric of his trousers, his young, pretty face agonized. Slowly I backed away, until I was about two feet in front of him. Then I leaned over and dangled my breasts in his face. His pink tongue came out again and swiped at my nipples, hard as berries, red as roses in the sun. He tried to take one between his lips, but I eluded him by swaying them back and forth, knocking his downy cheeks with them." The Baroness clapped her hands. "Too, too, too delicious!" she said. "You haven't heard the half of it. Then I knelt again, and straddled him, taking his cock out of his trousers. He moaned the most virginal moan I've ever heard, sending shivers down my spine. Do you know how long its been since a moan sent shivers down my spine? I said, 'Now, do you really want to tell me that you want to go to university a virgin?' He just shook his head, almost mournfully, as if he didn't really know. But as soon as my fingers wrapped around his hot, smooth cock, he closed his eyes. Then I lowered my cunt onto him, and swallowed him whole. I've never seen such rapture – his face was angelic – and in two seconds his cock was throbbing inside of me, releasing his sperm deep into me. I hadn't even time to take him fully in!" "Magnificent, Sigara. How I envy you!" The Baroness and the Duchess laughed heartily. The Duchess got up from her chair and went to sit in her friend's lap, setting her breasts free of the corset by lifting them upwards. The Baroness did the same, and the two women began to brush their nipples against each other, their faces flushed with desire, their nipples bristling and hard. The Baroness finished off the bottle and tossed it to the floor, where it shattered. Neither seemed

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to notice. They rubbed their luscious breasts together, each pressing hard against the other's full, supple flesh, and then releasing. The Duchess leaned over and placed her full, red lips to the Baroness' and they kissed passionately, their tongues spiraling wildly, enflaming their desire. The Baroness took hold of one of the Duchess' breasts and squeezed it voluptuously, pinching the nipple between two fingers. The Duchess squirmed in her lap, and breathed hot, passionate breath into her ear. The Duchess let drop an allusion to the Baroness' deceased husband, declaring that he had nearly ruined her subtle tastes. "No more than your own," replied the Baroness, recalling a time when she had pulled her friend out of bed and chased the Baron from the house. "Well, that's water under the bridge," she continued, shivering in response to the Duchess' finger that was exploring under her corset. "We have neither of us been tainted with his crudity." "The Baron had a certain something, nevertheless," mused the Duchess, twining Pauline's pubic hairs into tiny knots. "Well, he was well hung." "Ah, that he was," Sigara agreed. "But," she went on, changing the subject, "I must say I am intrigued with your friend Povi. Who is he, really, my dear? I haven't been able to find out a thing about him." But the Baroness could no longer go on with the talk. Her legs were spreading further and further apart in appreciation of the lascivious fingers playing with her clitoris. "Later," she moaned, "later we'll talk." They slipped slowly to the floor, their bodies entwined like two opulent, loving anemones, and their stockinged legs waved in a sensuous rhythm like the somnolent swaying of those watery plants. The Duchess, who was atop her friend, swung around and bared the Baroness' bush to her tongue, immediately finding the fleshy underside of it and coaxing from its hiding place the hard little clitoris. The Baroness moaned and dragged the Duchess' cunt toward her face, pulling it down until it rested moist and warm against her full lips. They writhed together, each lapping at the other's cunt, as she

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would wish for her own to be touched. There was little room for dissatisfaction, however, as they had so many times before tasted each other's pleasures that they knew exactly what would please the most. The Duchess pressed her cunt lightly and then forcefully against the Baroness' face as she drove her tongue deep into the sweet opening now pulsing at her open mouth. She ran her hands up and down the Baroness' long legs, scratching lightly as she did so. The Baroness began to thrust upwards, forcing her cunt against the Duchess' mouth, her labia wrapping lightly around the tongue and then moving to the side, her buttocks slapping against the floor. She took the Duchess' clitoris between her lips and began to suck softly, calling the orgasm to the surface with slow, deliberate strokes of her expert tongue. Soon, both women were moaning and grinding their cunts against each other's soft lips and tongues. The rising tempest of their flooding vaginas ceased only when the gurgling currents of their orgasms subsided and exhausted the last of their strength.

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CHAPTER FIVE The oblique rays of the descending sun flickered through the massive shadows that played about the surface of the house's expansive facade. Throughout the length of the upper story the light passed beyond the open windows, sending long rectangles across the rugs to the further walls. The Duchess ran down to a waiting carriage, holding her bosom in check as she called out, "Tomorrow at five." The carriage creaked along the gravel and the Duchess disappeared from sight as the Baroness turned back to her house. A naked body passed through the sunlight in a window, disappeared. Behind him, on the bed, lay a woman, also naked, holding herself in readiness. Her scarlet gown lay discarded on the floor. A foot trampled the heap of clothing, and he leaned over the woman, his pink cock stretched to the full, ready to pierce her hairy slit. First cousin of Hans the poet, Manfred von Knachteppl regarded his prize in triumph. The scarlet gown crushed between his toes seemed to symbolize the rapid seduction that had made her his victim. Manfred's costume was on the chair in the corner where he had thrown it in haste but, like her, he still wore the mask that concealed his identity. Manfred's chest expanded with passionate fervor, and he exerted the maximum self-control in order to penetrate the lovely creature with art and subtlety. His high station in life required that he never exhibit an excess of emotion, and the long scar on his cheek testified to his valor. Yet he would have preferred to lash into the desirable woman and literally storm her sexual haven, for the brute in Manfred had never died. Perhaps, to the onlooker, Manfred's studied approach would have seemed absurd in the extreme, but that would only reveal a lack of worldliness in the spectator. More than anything else, Manfred resembled a slow-motion film as he brought his weighty cock down into line, its pale purple head barely brushing the extremities of the long, wavy cunt hairs. Manfred sighed with repressed anticipation and the sigh was echoed by the beautiful woman whose eyes were shut beneath her mask. His exceeding delicacy teased her more than she

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would have liked, and she moved her lips impatiently, hoping to induce the rigid Prussian into movement. Alas, this was a soldier, and a noble one to boot, and there was little she might do that would penetrate the solid armor of his discipline. Direct descendant through an indirect line, the temper and solidity of the "Iron Chancellor" lived anew in Manfred's rugged veins. Every muscle in his body was restrained and his heavy features reinforced the grossness of his soul. Had he talent in such a direction, Manfred would have been the idol of a million movie fans. He had clear, babyblue eyes, which gleamed attractively; and women were drawn to his high, intellectual brow, beneath which his piercing glance disrobed them with a satyr's fury. The soft words he permitted himself to pronounce in feminine company were hopelessly banal, but the deep timber of his voice and the magnificent expanse of his chest turned such a fault into charm. His sluggish movements and dull brain seemed to exude a strange and forceful sense of power, and female instincts responded immediately to the hidden beast in his soul. Manfred thrilled his victims to the core. He had made the acquaintance of the masked beauty only twenty minutes before, and in that brief space of time had led her from the ballroom as if she had been hypnotized. Knowing the chateau well, he brought her to this empty room, where he'd raised her skirts and run his hairy hands over her silky skin. Without a murmur, she had stripped and placed herself on the bed, moaning drunkenly for his attack. Manfred's style, as subtle as it was in appearance, was nonetheless Wagnerian in scope. Leading the way, his cock-head advanced to the waiting pussy displayed majestically between the outspread thighs. "Whoever you are," he whispered, "I luff you madly … I luff you hotly … passionately…" "Take me … take me, lover," she moaned, "I can't stand it." His cock met her lubricated lips, and the beauty nearly swooned as it made its way through her tunnel. He pulled up her legs and brought his hairy groin flush against her belly, but found his disciplined will melting like butter in the heat of her sex, and in two fierce thrusts his boiling sperm gushed wildly through her cunt.

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He was blown and spent, feeling the sexual force drain out of him in the lightning orgasm, and his body collapsed, incapable of renewing the struggle. She had merely begun to taste the pleasures of fucking, and the sudden deflation of his cock left her fuming. She waited a moment, hoping that his brief attack was simply a part of his subtle foreplay. But when she realized that Manfred was definitely through, she recoiled in contempt. She left him in disgust, her inflamed pussy driving her like a savage in search of relief. By nightfall the facade had become an enormous black wall through which one saw the many rooms, their lights mimicking the rays of the sun, their beams projecting like a battery of stage lamps onto the gently moving foliage. From the first floor to the third, each of the windows looked in on a theater of love. The immaculate white shirtfront of a lord gleamed brighter than anything else in his room. He was leaning against a bureau with one hand on the curls of Pamela Pampagrossa, looking dreamily at the treetops. She had removed everything but her shoes and stockings and knelt before him on the floor, his bristling cock at the tip of her tongue. The lord's trousers were impeccably pressed and he warned her not to soil them. In her eyes also was that same vague look, fixed more or less on a button of his fly. She lapped his cock steadily, feeling with her tongue as much as she could reach, augmenting his thrills with one hand on his balls, twirling them back and forth with a slow, sensual movement. The window next to them showed a second lord, who was seated and stripped to the skin. His arm was around the waist of a woman whose gown fell over his limbs to the floor. She was in a strange, taut position, arched over his lap with one knee on the floor, the other out at a right angle, pulled back to allow his hand access to her stretched pussy. She held his prick straight up and her head bobbed like a cork as she sucked away with faint gasps and moans. He himself had his head back, mouth open as he concentrated on each new voluptuous thrust. The next tableau brought to view a man and woman on a bed, she on her hands and knees, her breasts hanging heavily between her arms

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and her long tresses swirling over her eyes, which were closed in ecstasy. The prick that slithered in and out of her ass belonged to the Duke of Porking, and he was grunting heavily over her back, pushing his cock between her buttocks like a panting dog. Sometimes he stood straight, his hands pressed into the fleshy cheeks, watching the pulpy strawberry of her bung absorb the fat cylinder of his penis with relish. Then he would bend down again and feel for her stiff clitoris to massage its sensitive craving into a rising paroxysm of joy. She buckled suddenly, falling on her stomach, her ass rigid, tight with the immersed cock, quivering lasciviously, drinking in the fuming ejaculations of the Duke's throbbing member. The scarlet clad beauty entered their room in time to hear the woman's cry of bliss. She stared wild-eyed, absorbing with masochistic attention the voluptuous denouement of the couple. Then, turning with redoubled fire in her loins, she fled the disturbing scene. She was not the only troubled individual in the chateau and, despite the idyllic interludes in the front chambers, certain back rooms threatened to break the relative harmony. It seemed but a matter of time before the illicit relations would come to light, and their consequences, born of the amorous chaos, could explode with a suddenness as brutal as it was unexpected. Not even the Baroness, returning to her boudoir, was aware of these things, for her debilitated memory had failed to recall the presence of so many guests in her domain. Her diversion with the Duchess had swept her mind of all thought and brought her spirits to a jovial turn. She chuckled to herself as she thought of Hughes and Clara lying the whole day through in her bed. She decided that if they could never move she would keep them there as a special treat for her more privileged guests. As she passed by the bathroom where Count Schoszkly and Eliza were playing and splashing in the tub, she opened the door and stuck her head in. "Hello there, Schoszkly!" she cried. "Naughty fellow; what will the Countess say when she hears of this?" She closed the door rapidly before the stupefied Count could find his tongue. He would have had trouble answering her in any case

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since three-fourths of that organ were jammed in the governess' twat. The moment she closed the door, another one opened and Prince Pivo and Countess Schoszkly fled surreptitiously down the hall. The Countess was stark naked and the Prince was holding his trousers up with one hand and guiding the lady with the other. The Baroness felt a twinge of jealousy. "Ah," she muttered to herself, "I've got them all by the balls." A moment later a third member of the Schoszkly clan, in the person of Sylvester, darted out of the same room. He flew by her with panicstricken eyes, very nearly knocking her over in his haste to leave the environs. "Well, there are funny games going on around here," she thought, "I've never seen such an active family. They seem to be all over the place." Simeon and Harmon were in the thick of a violent quarrel when she arrived at the writer's den. "Couldn't stop, eh?" she heard the accusing voice of the author. "I didn't do a thing! So help me, I didn't touch her!" "The man who hates women!" "I wasn't even in the room, I tell you!" "All day long. Me in the dark, chewing my nails while you fuck my woman!" "For the last time, will you listen to me or not? I never touched your damned woman!" "Careful there!" "I told you before, I wasn't even there. I thought it was you screwing her!" "Me? With this god-forsaken wreck of a prick? Me? You were going to help me, remember? You did a fine job!" The Baroness listened carefully, her mind in total perplexity. "I do believe," she said to herself, "I do believe this house is going insane."

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CHAPTER SIX A score of couples were dancing in the summer ballroom. The sound of their laughter sometimes drowned out the five-piece orchestra of itinerant musicians, a motley lot who had obviously been picked up from the street in one of the Baroness' moments of whimsy. She thought it would lend something choquant, even pourri, to have the riffraff, as she called them, among the tuxedos and gowns. "Why," she had exclaimed, "they look like they belong here. They absolutely look like my chateau!" Their gray rags did in fact seem to be made of the same rotting tapestries as hung from the worm-eaten beams of the rafters. The guests had grown accustomed to their cacophonous music, and had even invented some guessing games with little prizes for those who were able to tell whether they were dancing to a fox-trot or a rumba. The musicians felt at home in all this ramshackle display of former glory, and most likely they assumed the Baroness had set up the dance in a barn. Great swatches of light swept across the room, jumping and flickering like quicksilver from the corner of a wicked eye to a pair of laughing lips. The faces themselves were like bleary forms in a haze, sweating and grimacing in the light and then lost once more to the dark wave of the debauch. Heads bloomed forth in the spasmodic light, wild flowers of rouge, cheeks blotched with red cut by carefully painted lips whispering in an attentive ear. The dancing, frantic light revealed in a flash the nocturnal glance of a libertine, struck the crystal facet of a diamond, rolled over bald pates bobbing carelessly in the sea, and fell lovingly into the soft tresses of the women, before disappearing in an instant only to reappear, as if by magic, on the bold sheen of a shirtfront. It gained ascendancy over the costumes, the baubles and then the flesh, becoming so integral a part of the movement that each human molecule seemed to seek a place in the sun, attaching itself voluptuously to the glitter as if it were a human caress. In one corner, where the festoons had fallen and lay like sleeping serpents across a horde of empty bottles, two women were the center

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of attraction for a group of agitated men. Hoarse laughs followed the lighter feminine giggles in a continuing chorus as if an endless series of jokes made it impossible to cease the merriment. The blonde and the brunette had begun to undo their shoulder straps. The men fidgeted and some reached out eager hands to paw the inebriated ladies. Egged on by the excited males who were arguing among themselves regarding the proportions of their hidden charms, the women were debating whether they should go further and show the men what promised to be an inspiring vision, for each of them boasted a pair of breasts that were most uncommon, both in their size and shape. The blonde had a magnificent streamlined construction, which benefited from her ridiculously flimsy brassiere; the other had a wider chest, and the overall surface of her globes would easily extend beyond the grasp of the largest hand. Several of the spectators had their hands on their balls, jiggling them in silent homage to the sensual power of the breasts. They stared with shining eyes, anticipating the delicious moment with illconcealed impatience. Each had a stake in the proceedings and some called out to the blonde to "take a deep breath" or urged the brunette to "stand straight." Finally, the women, overcome by so much adulation, and giving in to flattery, agreed to drop the straps. A count with a long, gray beard and velvet vest ordered a fanfare from the orchestra, and amidst earsplitting roars and a shrieking trumpet, the gowns fell away to the waist. The women at once undid their brassieres and flung them gaily into the crowd, where a dozen hands flew up to catch them. At first the women covered themselves coyly, suddenly embarrassed by their nudity, but the tumult and upheaval seemed to answer some secret desire for mass approval, and simultaneously they stretched their arms out in a gesture of welcome and proceeded to strut back and forth so that all might see. They even went so far as to let their phenomenal mammary glands touch together. The touch was like a spark of life which flew from nipple to nipple, and they were infinitely more moved by their contact than they would ever have imagined; they remained as if rooted in place by the sensation.

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They put their arms around each other, pressing their bodies together, the waves of warmth their contact caused evident not only in the almost imperceptible throbbing of their bodies, but in their eyes – now closing, now fluttering open, as well. They began to sway slowly back and forth, their breasts rubbing sensuously together, the nipples pushed into the voluptuous fullness of the flesh by the urgency of their embrace. And then, overcome by the sensations, they began to kiss; at first tentatively, one woman pecking at the other's full lips, and then more passionately, their lips parting, tongues darting in and out of the other's mouth. Their lips were shiny with saliva, and their tongues twisted like snakes. All the while, they held firm in their embrace, reveling in feeling the soft contact of their breasts. And even if the men could not feel the heady giddiness passing through the women's bodies, the sight of their meeting was nearly as powerful a stimulant to their salacious minds, and hands delved deeply into pockets in frantic, yet furtive, tribute to the gorgeous breasts displayed before them. As the women increased the tempo of their swaying, moving more rhythmically back and forth, their thighs rubbing hotly together, their breasts forced this way and that; the men began to massage themselves more openly, some taking their cocks from their trousers, others finding the concealment of pockets preferable to exposure. Yet all were manipulating themselves in response to their desire. One man, his cock sticking out proudly from his trousers, had his hand wrapped firmly around it as he made his way nearer to the women. He pumped vigorously up and down on it, squeezing it hard, releasing, and squeezing again. Now he was within touching distance. The two women didn't seem to notice him, though, so engrossed were they in their own pleasure. He was so close that the tip of his cock just missed touching one woman's hip. Without any hesitation, he urged his cock between the meeting of their bodies, put one hand on each ass, pushed them together, and began thrusting in and out of the space where their thighs met. The women came groggily from the ether of their pleasure, their nipples burning red from the rubbing, and, noticing then that this man was essentially fucking them, they pushed him away just as he began coming. He stumbled backwards, his hand

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moving frantically to his pulsing cock, his creamy liquid spurting out, his face contorted with both pleasure and surprise, and finished himself off with a deep, agonized groan as the two women turned away in disgust and returned to each other. Their hands went to each other's breasts and they began fondling them with ardent need; one woman squeezed hard as the other lightly caressed. And then, the other began to run her hand slowly, sensuously, up and down between the dark space of their breasts, while the first began to tug at her nipples, pulling at them as if trying to pluck them. Another over-eager man insinuated himself into their coupling, reaching out to touch first one breast, now another. Finding one woman's breasts more desirable than the other's, for they were decidedly larger and more voluptuously full, he began to cup them with his hands, thus infuriating the other woman. It was inevitable that a dispute should arise, and the count with the velvet vest removed his belt to measure the breadth of the bosoms. The belt proved to be too short, and the tempers of the women even shorter. The blonde let go a nasty remark about her sudden rival's "puny lemons," which touched off a light that might have seen the utter ruin of both women had not the men leaped forward and split them apart. Kicking and screaming like a pair of wildcats, they were borne through separate doors, followed by a flock of barons, counts, and dukes, all snapping at one another like hungry dogs as they tried to get in close. The count who had given up his belt was thrown over in the melee and dragged out through the door with his trousers encumbering his ankles. Angry words led to insults and someone pushed his fingers into the eyes of a vociferous baron, which brought immediate reprisal in the form of a badly aimed fist which caught another on the back of his neck; and before the observers had gone halfway across the terrace, they were flailing at one another with all the fury of their pent-up emotions. Meanwhile, someone attempted to run off with the blonde, whose screams redoubled now with fear, and the cry of "Rape! Rape!" sang out beneath the chestnut trees like the wail of a stricken bird. The brunette was less squeamish about such things and began to

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take an evil delight in the battle for her possession. They had taken her into a hallway where the narrow space limited their clumsy battling, so that most of them did more damage to themselves than to their opponents. She was carried off in triumph by a scrawny individual who was no more than the valet to the Duke of Porking. His thin legs nearly gave way beneath his burden, but he managed to carry her up the stairs, leaving the nobles in a sorry heap at the bottom, their eyes swollen and their noses dripping blood. Two figures who had watched these proceedings from beginning to end in silence turned away and disappeared through a small passageway which led to the gaming room. They had met but a short time before, and when the tall Marquis discovered the Baron's passion for gambling, he leaned down and whispered in the other's ear. The Baron's nearsighted eyes lit up behind the thick lenses. He seemed to approve the Marquis' scheme and followed him into the smoky room, where they remained awhile watching the roulette wheel in the same manner they had observed the spontaneous striptease. Men came and went in a feverish activity, which resembled conspiracy and plotting more than gambling. Like brokers in the stock market, they eyed the green table as if it were the control point of the house, directing everyone from its spinning wheel. One could read on their faces the nightmarish dreams of decay and the growing anxiety, which colored their covetous glances. When someone failed, he lost not only his wealth, but the esteem of his fellows as well. No one was fooled by his nervous laugh or empty bravado, attempting to shrug off his loss with a jest. There was only one law in the house, and that was to succeed. There were some old ones among them who still believed they could get rich quickly, and the cruelty of their fate was no longer apparent to them. The Marquis and the Baron had finished the terms of their agreement and shouldered their way out of the din. "A mulatto," said the Marquis on the stairway. "Coffee-color …" "And an albino," laughed the Baron, chuckling nervously. "Good, good. Variety, eh?" The noise of the gaming room died away as they mounted to the

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third floor. The long limbs of the Marquise de Guadeloupe were crossed lazily over each other. One by one the black pumps dropped to the floor. She closed her eyes and lay back on the divan, dozing off into a vague half-sleep. The lights were burning in all the lamps, infusing the room with a monotonous yellow glare. She had a scar on one side of her face, all the way to her neck and beyond. She kept her black hair long and pushed it to one side to conceal the ugly ridges. In the middle of the room stood the Marquis, his long features wrinkled as he puffed out his cheeks and stared at his wife through the smoke from his cigarette. Beside him was the stocky figure of Baron Goffe, whose shriveled eyes squinted through thick lenses at the seductive Marquise. "Well, Baron," said the Marquis in a voice that seemed to echo coldly in the other's ears. "There she is." The Baron nodded thoughtfully, appraising the woman whose form he could barely make out. "Most interesting," he mumbled, "most interesting." "You might step up closer," the Marquis went on. "With your eyes …" He dropped the phrase unfinished, as if he disdained useless conversation. The ashes fell from his cigarette and he brought his shoe behind his other leg to wipe it off. The Indian jacket of the Marquise was unbuttoned to her waist, revealing the dark globes of her breasts and the maroon-colored patches, which covered nearly a third of the surface of each breast. Her large, pulpy nipples grew like mysterious fruit, troubling the smooth flesh around them with their hard, aggressive sexuality. The Marquis, holding his cigarette out of the way, stepped to the divan and pulled away her long tresses, and the Baron started in horror at the lava path of mutilation which ran through her cleft, disappeared for a space, then loomed up again at her navel. The Marquise's eyes opened lazily at his touch. She watched, bemused, as he stepped out of the way to give the Baron a fuller view. "Show him the rest, " he ordered.

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She looked up at her husband and rose slowly from the divan. Her long legs stepped out of the fallen skirt, the nut-colored skin invisible beneath the smooth sheen of her stockings. "What was it?" whispered the Baron. "Vitriol," replied the Marquis, crushing his cigarette in his palm. "Vitriol!" The Baron shuddered. His tongue felt dry against his teeth and his eyes shut and opened, unable to focus clearly. "Yes," the Marquis went on, more as if he were reflecting on something to himself. "She has temperament." The Baron knew from the Marquise's manner that he would eventually discover the secret of her scar. "Well," the tall man said at last, motioning to the Marquise that she might return to the divan. "Does she suit you?" The Baron removed his glasses and polished them. Without them, his eyes had an obscene nudity, the heavy lids reminding one of an infant's luminous flesh. He nodded. "Yes. Now, if you will step into my room." The Marquis smiled and led the Baron to the door, ignoring the dark nudity of his wife, which had moved the Baron's senses so profoundly. Baroness Goffe was seated at her dresser when they entered, paring her nails with a silver-handled file. She was nearly a head taller than her husband and as white as the Marquise was dark. A rich mass of golden curls fell to the nape of her neck where her full shoulders escaped above the fringe of her dressing gown. Even though she was sitting, it was apparent that her body was shapely. The firmness of her unsupported breasts threw their round shadows onto the transparent cloth. "Well," began the Baron, imitating the Marquis, "there she is." The stoical Marquis studied her without a trace of emotion. "Well?" asked the Baron, searching in his pockets for a cigar while he eyed the other nervously. The Baroness continued unperturbedly to file her nails. "If you'd care to see more …?" the Baron asked. "No. Not necessary."

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They went out and returned to the gaming room, taking a small table apart from the noisily chattering crowd. Amid the sounds of rolling dice and cards snapping in the gambler's hands, they ordered drinks and waited for their cards. The Marquis sipped his milky absinthe in silence, fingering the deck from which they were about to choose their cards. He shuffled them once and placed the stack in the center of the table, motioning to the Baron to make the first move. The Baron selected a quarter of the deck and could hardly refrain from a cry of joy when he saw the ace of spades. The Marquis drew the deuce of clubs and let it fall back with contempt. They remounted the steps. The Baron hesitated a moment before the door. It was the Marquis, who, leaning over his shoulder, turned the handle and prodded the stocky noble forward. The Marquise was stretched out on the divan exactly as they had left her. Her husband entered the Baron's room without ceremony and signaled the other's wife to follow him. She joined him at the window in the Marquise's room, taking her place in a deep armchair while he leaned against the windowsill. They smoked casually, in silence, while the Baron started to undress. The Marquise had turned her head and watched him, the ever-present, bemused smile playing about her lips. Her husband watched the Baron, who was having difficulty with his trousers, completely ill-at-ease because of the battery of eyes directed at his portly body. The Marquise laughed once. The others seemed an almost indifferent audience. The Baron's excitement at having won the Marquis' wife was lessened somewhat by the fact that at the same time he was offering himself up as a spectacle. It had all been understood in the agreement before, but he hadn't realized quite what it meant. Now that his wife and the Marquis were sitting there, smoking calmly, waiting for the exhibition to begin, he felt his knees wobble with indecision. He was afraid to catch his wife's eye, despite the fact that, were he to do so, he would be unable to see it. The Marquise languished on the divan, but if she was moved by the impending approach of the naked Baron she gave no sign of it.

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The Baroness and the Marquis watched the stubby, white body as it mounted the divan. The nearsighted Baron stooped forward to find the place where the Marquise's legs joined. She laughed again and raised her head to observe him. He began by licking her cunt with his tongue, her long pussy-hairs scratching against his thick lenses. He pushed his tongue between the fleshy lips of her cunt, spreading them wide by stroking up and down, back and forth. She tasted faintly of some spice, which he would not identify – cinnamon maybe. Plunging into her opening, which was moist with her increasing desire, he probed her inner walls with pointed tongue, licking upwards, sweeping it crossways. She shifted slightly under the deluge of warm sensations flooding her body. His tongue, though not expert, was more than adequate to arouse her. Leaving her passageway, he began to lick the outer folds, first one side and then the other, feeling all the soft fullness of the wet flesh. Then, slowly, deliberately, he made his way to the hardened bud of her clitoris, now emerging from its thin sheath at the apex of her cunt. He dabbed at it with the tip of his tongue, poking into it, pushing it softly from side to side. The Marquise groaned and thrust her ass upwards in order to have him more fully attend to her pleasure. But the Baron was slow and deliberate, and as he licked her cunt and her now raging clitoris, he pressed his hard cock against her legs. The Baroness was all the while watching with rapt attention as her husband's cock grew harder and harder, the red tip like flame burning the Marquise's soft brown flesh. The sight turned her mouth dry, and she licked her lips, her heart beginning to thump loudly against her ribs, so hard that she was certain everyone could hear it. Yet the only sound to be heard was the hard, choking breath of the Baron as he lapped at the Marquise's delicious cunt; it sounded like someone devouring in solitude a long-awaited feast. The Baroness, so intent on the sight of her husband's cock pressing against the Marquise's soft, full thighs, was also fully aware of the presence of the tall, mysterious Marquis next to her, and thinking about his cock sent waves of desire rushing through her taut body. With a silent inhalation, the Baroness reached out towards his leg. The Marquis felt her soft palm coming to rest gently on his thigh

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before it began its ascent toward his cock, now growing stiff beneath his trousers. The smoke curled out of his mouth and drifted overhead, forming a long, bluish cloud that hovered near the lamps. The Baroness' fingers found the hidden buttons of his fly, and, though they trembled with excitement, they were dexterous enough to undo the buttons one by one with quick stealth. With a thrill, she discovered that his prick was large and thick, pulsing with delicious throbs in response to her now enclosing hand. She freed it from his pants, and it sprang into the air, the rounded, velvety tip shining in the dim light of the room. The Baroness, overcome with desire, got down onto her knees and took the cock into her mouth. She stroked the smooth tip passionately with a broad tongue, darting over the little hole, tasting the escaping sperm, savoring it. Then she ran the tip of her tongue around and around the distended ridge below, coaxing the prick into full erection. Her lips parted and took it into her mouth, now slipping slowly, coolly down the hot length of it. The Marquis put his hand on her back and felt slowly for the end of the slope where the smooth promontory of her ass began. The Marquise lifted one of her long, bronzed limbs and let it slide across the white flesh of the Baron. The dark luster of her skin triumphed in all its beauty against the pallor of his obese back. He was beginning to perspire from every pore, exerting his tongue to induce her to orgasm, the tiny sex having emerged fully. The budding clitoris expanded, awakening more and more to his hot, intense caresses. Her blood pulsing thickly through her veins, the Marquise closed her eyes and accepted the amorous drive with pleasure. The Marquis, now bending over, both into the warm hold of the Baroness' mouth and into her back, began to explore her intimacy, slipping round the warmth of her flesh, pulling her gown out of the way. Instantly, he found his way to the patch of hair that began with the few, isolated curls near her pink bum; and, running his fingers forward, he came to rest at the luxuriant mass of hair gathered at the lips of her sex. The Baroness moved her thighs apart to give him easy, exquisite access, and she began to pump her mouth more quickly up and down on his cock, the motions spurred by his fingers now playing

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in the hot, moist folds of her cunt. With his thumb and forefinger, he lightly rubbed the hardened clitoris, beating its tiny head back and forth in an ever-increasing tempo until he had her torso convulsing rhythmically with his calculated strokes. There was not one inch of her that was not heaving and tossing in the passion engulfing her. The saliva ran out of her mouth, streaked like teardrops down her chin, and splashed onto the beautiful rod, which now shone and glimmered in the light. The long, blue veins stood out hard and strong, providing the cock with such an effusion of blood that it threatened to explode at any minute. The Baron had worked himself into a frenzy, coddling his face in the juicy aperture of the Marquise and, suddenly unable to contain himself any longer, he leaped forward on the long, dark body writhing under his lascivious tongue, and sank his boiling cock into the seething tempest of her cunt. At that instant the Marquis leaped up, throwing the Baroness flat on her back to the floor, and rammed his sturdy prick full into her. Her legs shot up and clamped him hungrily to her breast. A chorus of ecstasy issued from every mouth. The springs of the divan creaked and groaned in a regular thumping. The Marquise's limbs were outstretched in vulnerable ecstasy, opening her hole to the fullest, swallowing the Baron's prick to the hilt. The Baron's arms were fastened around her waist and he lifted her body in the air as he drove in anew, his white ass shuddering from the impact of their groins. His prick was sliding over her throbbing muscles, wobbling crazily between her well-lubricated labia and feeling the movement of her clitoris bending under its head. The sight was enough to drive the coldest observer into the throes of lust. The hairy sack of the Baron was slapping between the bounding legs of the Marquise, his white ass rising high in the air, pale and tense, the pink oval of his bum contracting, marking the furthest extremity of the love-shaft, before he drove it down again, her crotch rising midway, then bearing her back to the pillows with his weight, and revolving his ass in rapid circles, churning her blissful interior into a swishing rapturous swelling. On the floor, his blondehaired wife wrapped around the Marquis, whose dark suit made him a

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contrasting form locked within her embrace, heaving and moaning from the thrashing of his livid cock. The Baroness, having been markedly excited by the view of her husband atop the Marquise, was the first of the four to swoon in the transports of orgasm. The sweetly hot secretions so tickled the Marquis' rod that he could no longer retain the pent-up sperm and, groaning savagely while he forced his way through to orgasm, felt, in his turn, the torrid burst of passion spitting wildly in a series of Herculean blasts. Exhausted, he dropped, panting, to the yielding, soft body of the enraptured woman. The springs of the divan ceased creaking in an instant and the Baron came, shuddering down the length of his cock, blowing his sperm into the flowing cunt of the Marquise. A general groan sounded from the sudden silence surrounding them.

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CHAPTER SEVEN An owl hooted from somewhere in the swamp and then winged its solitary way through the trees, stopping at times to stare at the distant lights of the chateau, cocking its head quizzically at the strange sounds the breeze brought to the swamp. Overhead, the stars no longer shone, but were obscured by the gathering clouds. The murmur of rain and muted boom of thunder began to fill the swamp. One by one the lights in the house went out, and when the storm broke, scattering twigs and leaves with its heavy gusts, lashing at the ancient structure and tossing loose tiles to the ground, every one of the inhabitants was fast asleep, oblivious to nature's violence. Day came and the storm subsided. The grass was bent and trampled, and great swaths of water covered the grounds in miniature lakes. Water continued to drip through the rusted drainpipes, trickling down the facade to the cinder path, which now ran like a moat around the chateau. Nearly hub-deep in water, its fenders splashed with mud, stood a heavy Stutz touring car, soiled with travel. A man was curled up on the rear seat, his face covered with a derby, which muffled the sound of his snoring. The sun was well past its high point when the hungry guests came to table. The meal was passed in a convivial atmosphere at the expense of certain husbands who suspected the unwelcome gift of horns in the night. Their heavy brows served to heighten the sweet aftertaste of forbidden fruit, and many an eye stole a secret glance of conspiracy across the table. The conversation was light and easy, and stories like the sorry plight of Hughes and Clara drew merry chuckles from the nobles. There was much speculation about the "striptease of the blonde and the brunette," and the Duke of Porking's valet was held in esteem by some, though to others he was no more than a boorish upstart. But the most interesting problem was the mysterious disappearance of the blonde. No one knew what had happened to her and she was still missing from the table. Someone started to count heads, but he was laughed down as being absurd, for the exact complement of guests in the house was another mystery.

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Meanwhile, the owner of the Stutz, a bizarre person in a blatant suit, was seated at the kitchen table, consuming with evident distaste a pile of caviar which he washed down with vodka, grimacing painfully each time he did so and mumbling a heap of abuse on the cook and the "establishment" as well. His vest and pants were unbuttoned and a large napkin hung in a despairing way across his front. Several fish eggs were stuck to his unshaven chin, which trembled as he chewed. "Barbarians!" he muttered. "Downright uncivilized!" The cook and he could not understand a word each other said and suffered from mutual fright. The stranger had wanted a simple breakfast of ham and eggs, but dared not insist when the harassed cook served him the bowl of caviar. He had presumed it to be the socalled "continental breakfast" and, rather than show his ignorance, he sat down miserably to eat. The Baroness' daughter was the first to make his acquaintance. Wilma had left the table in search of something sweet and barged in on him just as he was spluttering from the vodka. He swallowed hurriedly when he saw her. "You speak English?" he asked. Wilma nodded in surprise. "Well, it's about time," he grunted. "What kind of a joint is this anyhow? You can't get a decent night's sleep, people up all night, hollerin' their damned heads off, and you can't get a normal breakfast. Here, look at this," and he shoved the caviar forward. "Fish! What the hell, I've been around in my day, but I never seed such a looney joint before! Where's the manager? I couldn't even get a room, nobody downstairs to check you in and my chauffeur had to stay in the car!" "I'm afraid there's some mistake," Wilma began, but he broke in on her before she could continue. "Mistake? I'll say there's been a mistake. I would'na come in no joint like this if we wasn't all pooped out from travelin'. Tell 'em to make out my bill for these eggs and the drink, but I ain't payin' for any room … I slept in an armchair. Where do you wash around here? Never seed such a crummy place, everythin' rottin'. The damned chair was shot to hell, springs all comin' out and the stuffin's. Say, this place is gonna fold…"

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"You made a mistake, mister, this isn't a hotel. This is a private residence." "Private?" he nearly shrieked. "Private? You got more damned people runnin' loose in this joint, they was runnin' by me all night, back and forth and every which way, and you call this private?" "This is my mother's house, the Baroness von Spratten Olaf-Pinz! The people you saw are her guests and have a right to be here, which you don't!" The Yankee regarded her in silence for a few moments, digesting the news with a certain apprehension that he had committed a gross blunder. "Well, now, cutie, if that's the case, I take back all I said. I mean, I really thought this was a hotel. The only place lit up on the lousy road. You know what I mean? Where's your ma? I'll make it up to her. Baroness, hey? Well, whaddya know?" Wilma broke out into laughter. "Wipe your chin," she said, "you look like you're breaking out with a disease." She was intrigued by this peculiar phenomenon and began to question him. "Well, baby, I don't wanna pat myself on the back, but my racket ain't easy and I came up right out of the dirt. You people live like this all year round?" He shook his head in wonder. "Balls all the time? Sportin'? I couldn't hold out a week." "But what do you do? Are you a millionaire?" "Hey, not so fast. That takes time. I got a crowd workin' for me though, yeh, real hot stuff. You really want to know? Yeh, well sit tight baby, this'll kill ya; I run a first-class cat-house out in Jamaica. No, not the island; New York. What? You don't know what it is? The oldest profession; yeh, now you got it, yeh, that's right. I was born for acquisition. Now don't talk to me about 'slave trade,' this is all salable goods and you don't hear any of the pussy griping. Why, my kiddies got more furs and nylons than the whole borough thrown together. Ain't one of 'em on the streets either. Stay off the streets I tell 'em or you'll never be nothin' but peddlers. Been livin' for fifteen years on ass

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and I ain't starved yet. No rebates and no discounts (though I got a few friends). I still wear pinstripes. Feel the cloth. Eh? A dozen thrills made it! The sockeroo in your pants!" He finished the caviar, wiped the bowl with his finger and, after sucking off the row of fish eggs, washed it down with more vodka. Wilma was thoroughly fascinated with him, listening to his machinegun chatter with childlike wonder. He leaned back in his chair and drew a cigar butt out of his vest. "But," she asked, taking advantage of the moment's silence, "isn't it risky?" "Risky? Why sure, honey, but where will you find a more congenial atmosphere? Well, there ain't a single soul who ain't spoilin' to wipe us out with the Gospels. We got 'em all, the High, the Low, the Broad, and the Free Church; every Apostolic Father wins his spurs on my back. But I know when the prongs are set. The trade is the giveaway. When it bogs down, that means the revivals and the Woodoo has begun, and right away the papers break out with the Revelations and all the Father Johns whoop it up on the warpath. But, honey, calumny is my meat. Everybody's business feeds on a red-hot scandal. We're even hired out for divorce. Ever seen our ads? 'Divorced in No Time'… Really made a bang. A lot of money in that, but the city fathers tore it down. We had some great parties, got to be a tradition after a while. Them 'other women' parties; press photographers, sheriffs, dicks, everybody, including the bride-to-be." "Tell me about the girls," Wilma asked, "I always wondered …" "What, the girls? Oh, we get 'em plump mostly, the customers don't go for the scrawny meat. Naw, never mind the fashion, we ain't sellin' clothes. Everyone knows a fat girl's the hottest. We keep some skinnies on hand, but mostly for the whip crowd. They like 'em bony. They're a crazy bunch anyhow. You know it. Harmless, though; take their beating and go. Highest payers, too. I noticed they're all in the upper brackets; bankers, senators, actors, intellectuals. All goes together: money, brains, and whips. Well, you got to keep a versatile bunch, stimulates the clients. Never know in advance what makes a hard-on. It's the little things, like garters, fancy clocks, frilly pants, snaps, French brassieres, fat fannies, big tits, big mouths, big eyes,

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belly-buttons, hairy crotches, smelly armpits, protruding assholes, long nipples, hairy nipples; and some fall for tiny tits, thin back, small rumps, short legs, fat thighs, and no hair. We got two freaks, a crosseyed woman with a double-barreled cunt, and the other ain't got no pussy at all, just the weeniest little peehole, but her bung is so big you could put your arm all the way through. Also a midget who fucks like a rabbit with a built-in dynamo. Oh, we got some bunch, I'll say. We ain't never had a dissatisfied client. All over the world; we got 'em from everywhere. Most of the first-timers start off with a Frenchie, sort of classic, you know, but later they get curious and start humpin' stranger breeds. What's that? Do we all live together? Well, I should say we do! Baby, if there's one trade in this world where everyone sees eye to eye, this is it! A lot of 'em ain't even learned any English yet, but I understand 'em okay and so do the customers. We ain't nothin' but one big crazy family; the biggest goddam humpmob you ever laid eyes on!" Wilma felt a stirring in her genitals as she pictured the lurid brilliance of foreign fleshpots, the eerie nights of whoredom with its salacious women parading in the great carnival of flesh. It moved her blood to think of the world within a world that day obscured and night released from its bonds. When he got up and mashed the cigar butt in the caviar bowl, she rose hurriedly and asked him if he had to rush off. "Well, baby, I gotta lot to do, you know. Maybe I'll stop by on my way back from my business. On second thought, that wouldn't be so good because I'm gonna have an awful lot of company, nothin' aristocratic you know, and your ma mightn't go for that crowd." "No, wait, you must meet Mother. I'm sure she'll adore you. Besides, it wouldn't be very polite for you to leave without thanking her." She led him out by his lapel, drowning his protests with her obstinate will. The idea of a pimp in the chateau set tongues to wagging. His presence was the last word in scandal, but Wilma led him determinedly through the dining room, past the battery of haughty eyebrows, as if she and the Yankee were entirely alone. Her

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composure was one thing, but he had never in his life faced a single member of the aristocracy, and worldly as he was, he turned pale under the icy glances of the bluebloods. It seemed as if the table would never end, and he heard the murmurs that followed them like a hornets' nest rising in anger. "Qui c'est?" "Un Americain?" "Sans doute!" "Quelle honte!" "Ah, Wilma, she was never properly broken in." "Et comment!" She has the manners of a putain!" "Well, with a mother like that?" "Mais non, the Baroness has no equal in refinement." "Tu parles! She is a first-class whore herself. She's a naturel, my dear." "A what?" "Ah, well, a bastard, if you like. Born out of wedlock. You mean you didn't know? Why I thought it was common knowledge!" "Excuse me, but I make a point of knowing nothing that is common." The Yankee's ears were red and he felt hot under the collar. He was glad he didn't understand a word, for he suspected he would have been obliged to stop and challenge them. Wilma led him through a pair of glass doors into the tearoom, where she made him take a seat while she ran upstairs to fetch the Baroness. In the Stutz, meanwhile, the chauffeur stopped snoring. The derby had fallen to the floor, letting the morning light strike his lids. He arose and stretched, then looked around him, growing fully awake with a start when he saw the chateau. He rubbed his eyes and stood up, brushing his jacket and trying to reshape the crease in his trousers. With great care, he stepped down from the car, cursing the water that flowed into his shoes before he jumped to dry land. Though sleep still fogged his brain, he seemed to regard the building with extraordinary care. Unlike his boss, he did not go around to the rear, but mounted the front steps as if he knew them well and was

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accustomed to entering domains such as this by the front. He stopped in the entry and sized up the decrepit state of the furnishings with his wide eyes. The pimp saw him through the doors and beckoned to him and was astonished to see that the man took his time, strolling about the hall, tipping his derby forward in a cocksure manner as if he were the owner of the place, picking up a vase, wiping the name clear on a portrait, and in general so much at ease that the Yankee studied him as if he had gone mad. The chauffeur executed a low bow to his employer and then entered the tearoom.

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PART TWO I HAVE COME BACK CHAPTER ONE It is hard for me to explain the emotions that seized me when I first glimpsed the familiar building. My back refused to straighten, not being used to leather, upright cushions for a bed. The car had indeed been unrelentingly uncomfortable, and that I had slept at all was miraculous. I was alone when I awoke and, for all I knew, abandoned and left on my own. What a shock it was when I saw the ancient facade, running with water from the storm, and yet, broken-down as it was, I recognized it instantly. My heart beat fast when I ran up the steps, and the first thing I looked for was the golden knocker. It was there, discolored and hanging loose, and I grasped it like the hand of an old friend, searching for the baronial arms above. They were gone, marked by three holes and a white triangular shape on the wood and, with a hollow feeling, I opened the door, half expecting to find Smills' smiling countenance before me. The butler was not there, of course, and the entry was a perfect shambles. The portraits that hung in the room were covered with dust, and at first I cold have sworn that Heloise and her husband were, as usual, face to face on opposite walls. I discovered a name that was long and unfamiliar, and all I got from it was the initials, V.S.O.P. Perhaps it was that which revived my spirits and chased my melancholy away. With a name like that, I thought, the old tradition is certainly still alive. Uncle Jasper was calling to me from the library, or what used to be the bibliotheque, for not a shelf was in place and over the mantel of the chimney was a full-size liquor cabinet. From the dining room I heard the noise of people eating and talking, and I even caught a phrase or two, which I sensed referred to Uncle Jasper. I never heard people speak about anyone else the way they did about him. "What are you doin', boy?" he asked me indignantly. "Why, you act

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like you own the place. For Christ's sake sit down and don't make me ashamed. They ain't nothin' but high-class people in the joint!" "Well," I laughed, kicking back a corner of the rug, which I recognized in spite of its nearly obliterated design, "it was you who said it was a hotel." "It looked like one in the dark, but I never saw a crummier joint. Hey, listen, I'm gonna meet the head of the house in a minute. No kiddin'. Now I don't want you to pull any boners. Just stand here, sober-like and don't say nothin', except yes ma'am and no ma'am. Get me?" "Yes, ma'am." He didn't know whether he should smoke or not and kept running his hands along his vest pocket where he kept the choice Havanas. He looked like he had his asshole pinched up tight with nervousness. In the old days Czerni would have been delighted with such a character, but I was thinking about other things besides Uncle Jasper's discomfort. "Did I hear you say you're going to meet the owner?" I asked. "Listen, kid, I made a hit with the daughter. A real solid piece of meat! She went up to get her ma and …" "You don't need to go anywhere," I interrupted. "Not if you're doing so well right here." "Now don't get me wrong. We ain't mixing business with pleasure. This is a little social call I owe the dame on account of usin' her joint for a hotel." I remembered a lot about the place, and some of the names came back to me: Arlette, Sacha, Igor. The tales of the nobles were still faintly etched into my memory, and every now and then, when I had nothing better to do, I still regaled myself with silent stories of evenings past. How we had consumed crates of vodka and caviar! I remembered Sacha's fantastic caravan with warmth and not a little sad fondness. I wondered who von Spratten was and if she knew what had become of the Baron and his beautiful wife. Mother and daughter appeared and the growing nostalgia fled with their entry. The Baroness was the spirit incarnate of those hectic days, and she entered with a fire and turbulence which defied the mold and

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decay of the surroundings; for an instant I had the acute sensation of finding myself once more in the orgiastic environment of my old friends. She went right up to Uncle Jasper and said, "Hello, Mr. Pimp, delighted to meet you." Uncle J.'s usual callousness abandoned him under the frontal attack of his hostess and he stammered sheepishly, glowing beet-red with embarrassment. "And who is this charming gentleman?" asked the Baroness, turning her liquid eyes on me. "Oh, he must be the chauffeur," cried Wilma. "Aren't they darlings?" "My name is Pike, Madam. Henry Pike." I bowed serenely, observing with delight the incredulous, stupefied features of Uncle J. Suddenly, and without warning, he had ceased to be the center of attraction. The Baroness clasped me in her arms, hugging me as if I were her son returned from the war. "Oh," she cried, "how unbelievable! You must tell me what became of you all these years. I heard so much about you. Heloise simply adores you!" "You are very kind," I answered, "but …" "Oh, we have so much to talk about! Such a lovely surprise! Wilma, will you see to your pimp? The Earl and I are going to have a little chat." "Uncle J. was nearly purple. He observed us with suspicion as the Baroness led me to her boudoir. "Earl? Earl? What did she mean by that?" I heard him ask Wilma as we went out. Dust swirled with each footstep in the old familiar hallways, where Czerni and his flock had cavorted in their licentious games. By the time we reached her boudoir we too were covered with a light coating of dust. The Baroness drew up her chair in front of me and opened a bottle of brandy. "No, thanks," I said. "I couldn't think of drinking anything but vodka in this house." She rose with an understanding smile and went to a closet from which she dragged forth an ancient crate pasted with almost illegible

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labels. "Oblowoff's," I cried, starting up and taking the crate from her hands. "How well I know those labels … 'Divan Oteil, Istanbul', 'Minerva Hotel, Athens', 'Imperial Hotel, Belgrade'… Then he's here?" "Alas, no," she sighed. "And Czerni?" "Lost, I'm afraid. They're all lost." She went on to tell me that Czerni had entrusted his chateau to her some years back, saying that if it had to go to ruin it couldn't be in better hands. "But where did he go?" "He went off to get an onion." "What?" "Well, it's some onion indigenous to Africa; supposed to have an intense effect on the male organ. You didn't know, I gather, that after the fabulous orgy in the hospital the old boy ran dry! Quite understandable from what I heard. Anyway, it was a blow, as you can imagine, and he was just too miserable for words. Of course Heloise didn't really mind because there was always her fantastic metallic stallion around. You know that room of hers, with that beautifully sculpted masterpiece, that mechanical horse? Yes, well, as I said, it didn't bother her, but poor Czerni was ready to go out of his mind. Then he ran across someone who told him about the onion." "I see it all." "Of course. He was absolutely desperate. He set up an expedition and went off to Africa." "But that was all so long ago." "Quite. I'm afraid he's lost." "Not Czerni," I answered. "He swore he'd die with a hard-on!" "Let us hope so. Let us hope he is still alive!" "With a hard-on," I added, as we raised our glasses to his memory. "In that case," she laughed, "I hope he's using it!" The party got better and better as we discussed our mutual friends and poured out drinks, one after the other. The noble liquid warmed my mind with the joy of rediscovery. The way she looked at me with her sparkling eyes, taking in every detail, right down to the lurking

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prominence in my trousers, and letting me know by an apparently casual gesture that my presence was more than desirable, turned my blood hot and cold. There was something warm and inviting about her; perhaps it was the grandiose dimensions of her ass, which I had immediately noticed, or her daring décolletage which allowed a tantalizing view of her swelling breasts, or maybe just the right touch of devilry in her eyes. In any case, I was susceptible to all her charms and needed little prodding to draw closer to her. The conversation took an intimate turn with our heads leaning toward each other so closely that the curls on her forehead grazed my own and I could feel the warmth of her cheeks mingling with that bit of pernicious perfume, which sent my prick riding up in my pants. Finally, I could resist the engaging cleft of her voluptuous breasts no longer and, bending forward, nuzzled my face into that dark, lusty space. "Oh, Pike, you villain!" she cried, rubbing them hard against my cheeks. "How thrilling to meet you at last!" I wasn't talking any longer, being far too busy releasing her breasts from their prison. I lifted first one, and then the other, out of her dress, handling them as if they were the ripest, fullest of fruits. Now both exposed, they hung heavily over her neckline, tantalizing me with the red, rich berry-like nipples, hardening under my gaze. I leaned over and kissed first one and then the other. Then, wrapping my lips around one hardened nipple, I took the breasts in my hands and began to knead them, pushing them together and pulling them apart. As I did this, drinking in her sweet fragrance through my widespread nostrils, feeling the soft roughness of her nipples with my tongue, she took my cock from my trousers and held it firmly, wrapping her lithe fingers around it with sensuous expertise. At once she began to manipulate it, pumping up and down the length of it, encircling the head with her palm, gripping the base with the whole of her other hand. Wanting desperately to feel her cunt enveloping me wetly, I grabbed her by the cheeks of her great ass and lifted her with one heave onto my lap. What a stupendous thrill it was to discover that she wore no panties! In one coordinated movement she was out of her chair and sliding onto my uprising rod. The two of us nearly swooned from the

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sudden fire that flamed in our groins. She rose slowly, her toes just barely touching the floor, and lingered there with her pussy lips caressing the tip of my cock. Again and again she repeated this delicate treatment until I felt the first bubbling juices of her cunt begin to steam down my shaft, and my own liquid fire rising mercurially through my weakened, yet tautly muscular body. The bottle was in her hand all the time and at the height of each movement, she took a shot and then kissed me passionately, her tongue darting like flames into my mouth, burning me doubly with its fierce stroking and the velvet bite of the vodka. As our passionate ardor increased, we began to move faster and faster until she was literally jumping up and down, slamming her cunt in a furious gallop while I retaliated with reciprocal shoves, hard and short, which fairly drove us mad. I felt my cock suddenly widen with its load and, as she came bounding down, it spurted a long creamy wave up her channel, driving a moan from her lips and causing her to drop the bottle as she let forth the multiple secretions of her own pleasure. Her muscles continued to work on my cock long after we had finished, absorbing every last drop of my honey. "Ah," she sighed, "that was good!" She immediately wanted to go another round. Getting onto her knees before me, she took my soft cock into her mouth, licked it clean of our sex, and then began to suck avidly on it, coaxing it back to erection. The libidinous massage achieved its goal, and when my cock was solidly hard, she turned around and sat in my lap, her back to me. She placed her legs over mine, wiggled her full buttocks until my prick was coming up between her legs. The position was exceedingly exciting, affording my cock the thick, pulpy passage of the front of her vagina. With my hands coming round to her breasts, squeezing them, we began again. Slowly, she rose and fell on my cock, taking me wholly into her, and then letting me slip completely out of her. Then she hovered over my yearning, throbbing tip, teasing me, and I fondled her breasts with increasing vigor, tugging at her nipples in an unconscious attempt to urge her to take me back into her. Again, she slowly lowered herself

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onto my now raging cock. I let up on her nipples and began to run my slightly rounded palms over them, feeling the hardness of them sweeping across my skin. Finally, I was fully inside her again, and instead of rising again, she began to circle her hips around and around in my lap, my cock stirring inside her. I could feel the tip of it hitting the far front wall of her cunt, wetted by her thick moisture. This was a highly pleasing position, for her pubic bone bore down hard on the base of my cock as the head rubbed against her soft, wet walls. With one heave, I lifted my ass off the chair, grabbed hold of her breasts, and drove into her, exploding. At that moment, I could feel her inner walls begin to pulsate wildly, sucking me deeper into her it seemed, as my cock flooded with her wet release. I passed the rest of the afternoon with the Baroness in a veritable orgy that never seemed to let up. She had opened her daybed and we reclined on the moist sheet after each fuck, drinking and smoking. It seemed as if I had never really left the chateau, and that sooner or later Czerni and Sacha would come blasting in in their tempestuous manner, screaming curses at each other, begging me to leave off so that they might share in the luscious delights of the hot-blooded Baroness. Czerni's "onion" became a historical fact that day, and it never failed to draw a smile when we brought it up in conversation. "But you never said a word about yourself," she said finally, propping her head on her arm and questioning me with her eyes as well as her lips. "And that incredible person who came with you! A Yankee pimp! Where did you find him? Are you pimping, too?" "Well, not quite. Uncle J. wants to break me in, but I have other ideas for my future."

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CHAPTER TWO I lied when I spoke about my plans for the future. I could never face more than two hours of the future at a time. However, I didn't want to make a bad impression on the Baroness. I found out later that I was merely wasting my time; that good lady gave less of a damn than I did about what the morrow might bring. She was out for a ball, any kind of a ball; a pair of them, preferably, hanging in some guy's sack between his legs with a ruddy cock above, just waiting to jam it into her bloodthirsty cunt to the hilt. Well, it was a way to look at life, especially when one sees a lot of assholes breaking their nuts about their lousy future, which generally turns out to be a rocking chair in a home for the aged. My own philosophy wasn't far removed from hers. The years I spent with Uncle J. in his cat-house, helping him run the place (which for me meant mostly fucking the broads when he was out on calls), corrupted me once and for all. It wasn't the corruption that bothered me though, because that again is only a point of view. What got me in the end was the boredom, the sheer, penetrating boredom that began to eat away at me. Uncle J. wasn't the man to understand that kind of thing. He could go on, day after day, doing the same thing he's always done, and never feel a moment's ennui, never question himself, because he's absolutely certain of how to go about living. I was about ready to quit, but then the trip idea came up. New lands, new faces; it was what I needed. But the freakish coincidence of finding myself in Czerni's chateau once more turned my ideas over, and I found I desired nothing more than to remain there with the Baroness, nursing a secret hope that my friend would one day turn up. Uncle J. called me a damned snob when I told him I didn't want to go any further. "I am that," I answered firmly. "I am most definitely a fucking snob." "Nothing but a pack of names," he snorted. "Titles. Take them away and what have you got? Just a band of washed-out, good-for-nothing, useless characters." "Now who's being snobbish? Besides, why did you run for alderman last year if you're not interested in titles? You weren't going

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to make any money out of it." "No sir! It was purely civic pride, something you don't understand, you and this nobility of yours. I could've done a lot of good if they'd put me in." "And maybe worked your way up to Senator? Another title." "And a good one, bejesus. Run the country." "Run it where? Frankly, as far as I'm concerned, it can walk, wherever it's going. I'm in no hurry. All you get from running all the time is a big fat ulcer." The upshot of the argument was that I turned Uncle J. against the nobility, once and for all. He started a one-man war against them; in fact, I think he was on the verge of some "clean-up" campaign like the kind they used against him in Jamaica, only he was a little confused about what he was going to clean up. He started in on Wilma, talking with an ambiguity, which marked his own uncertainty as to just what he was getting at. Wilma merely yawned, bored. "Tell me more stories about the whores," she said, sidling up to him. "You're a better story-teller than you are a lecturer." Uncle J. fumbled with his words, having run out of stories, which, in itself, was quite a rarity. Then Wilma stripped naked, standing before him, her large breasts springing free of her dress, her long, heavy legs trembling with sudden anticipation and desire. "If you haven't any more stories to tell, why don't you just fuck me?" He was sitting down, and she swung one leg over his lap and straddled him, setting her naked cunt on to his hardening bulge. Uncle J. was even less certain then about what he wanted to clean up; after all, he was in the business of corruption. "Well," he said, bringing his arms to the slope of her back, letting his fingers slip over the thick swell of her buttocks, "can't say I remember what I was going to say." Wilma reached her hand beneath her cunt and unzipped his trousers, taking his hard cock in hand and squeezing it. I, for my part, was loitering about in the doorway, having been monitoring him, waiting for the grand insult and ensuing fray. Seeing that this was not likely to happen now, I made to leave, but Wilma demanded that I stay and watch. Uncle J., groaning silently

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from the treatment his cock was getting, mumbled something, but I couldn't hear what. Most likely, that he didn't much like the idea of my watching; but, in essence, he bowed humbly to her noble desire, and simply blocked me out. "But shut that door," she said. I shut the door and stepped into the room. Then Wilma began to writhe on his lap, rubbing his smooth cock back and forth over her moist pussy. She rose and fell, taking the head of the cock up and down the length of her opening, caressing her clitoris with it. Her buttocks quivered alluringly, and I couldn't help but to think about penetrating her from behind. But, because of the strange and sudden embarrassment of my uncle, I forbore. Instead, I sat in a chair opposite them, where I could watch her ass in all its full, white glory, and where my uncle wouldn't see me, eclipsed as I was by her large form. I immediately took my own cock, now hard, from my trousers, and began to idly caress it as I watched her back gyrating in increasing pleasure. I could see when she placed his cock at the entrance of her cunt, for her legs spread wide apart, and she lifted herself slightly into the air, her naked toes supporting her. The cock stood proudly up and lingered at her entrance. Then slipping slowly onto it, it vanished into her wet hole. My hand gripped my cock. All I knew of Uncle J. then was what I heard from him, groaning and moaning in a manner most unbecoming to a man of sudden morals. For my part, I kept silent, for I wasn't one to disrupt another's pleasure, though the sight of Wilma's big ass moving this way and that, her cheeks spreading out over Uncle J.'s legs, her dark hole emerging and pouting, it seemed, for lack of attention, was quite enough to make me want to groan myself. Perhaps the most alluring thing about her was the two dimples at either side of her tailbone. They winked in joyful response to her swaying, supple rhythm, and I longed to kiss each one. Instead, I ran my palm quickly over the engorged head of my cock, running it in circles, my palm wetted by my tongue, and grasped the base of my cock with my other hand, pressing down on it hard. Then I saw Uncle J.'s hand emerge from beneath Wilma's ass, his snaky fingers running up and down the length of her buttocks, his

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forefinger dancing teasingly at the entrance of her asshole. This sent Wilma into throes of either ecstasy or discomfort, I could not tell. At any rate, Uncle J. shoved his finger deep into the hole, and Wilma began to rise and fall on his cock with increased frenzy; I could imagine, but could not see, her breasts rubbing warmly against Uncle J.'s chest. I was on the verge of coming, my hand squeezing my cock with little pulsing grips, my balls tightening, my legs trembling, when Wilma shouted that she was coming, and Uncle J. heaved deeply into her, his cock no doubt buried to the hilt. Wilma's ass expanded and contracted around the finger buried deep within it, and her head dropped forward onto Uncle J.'s shoulder, and all went black as my own orgasm arrived. A few seconds later, after our recovery, Uncle J. excused himself, unable to look me in the eye. Later that day, I ran across an aimless Baroness; she was wandering mindlessly around the decaying hallways of the chateau, on her way, it seemed, to nowhere. When I asked her what the matter was, she started, looked at me a moment as if she didn't know me, and then her face brightened as if in sudden recognition. She was on her way to her boudoir, I discovered, and she gestured for me to follow. It was not until we were actually seated in the two chairs of our earlier amorous meeting, that she spoke in answer to my question. "It's the Prince – Prince Pivo – I'm madly in love with him," she said, her lips flickering into an almost self-mocking smile, and her eyes gleaming with mischief. I'd never seen a more morose character in all my life, and I told her so. "Yes," she sighed, "he's so melancholy, isn't he? Hardly the bon vivant. And yet, I find him awfully attractive that way. I wouldn't want him to be anything but sad. And then, too, there's the Prince part of it, the finest title of all." "No, I guess you couldn't get much better than that," I said, nodding my head in agreement. "Unless of course, he were King Pivo." She broke into a full-blown smile. "Yes … King Pivo," she said dreamily. "I can barely stand to have him here in this house. I'm always thinking about him. I don't know what to do to divert my thoughts. It gets so boring, living in this broken-down house. All year I'm pretty much alone and then, like

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now, guests come to fill the place up, and I become more aimless and despondent than ever. I don't know what's wrong with me. After all, it was I who invited everyone, and yet it seems almost more lonely when they're all here. And the Prince, he doesn't seem to notice me." I sure noticed her. Her breasts swelled provocatively from the neckline of her dress, heaving in her wayward restlessness. Her thighs, spread on the seat of her chair, simply invited touch. Seeing my eyes traveling up the line of them, she spread them slightly and smiled again. "Oh, Henry, you really are incorrigible!" I leaned over and kissed the full flesh escaping from her dress, my lips sinking deeply into it, my tongue emerging to dip wetly into the dark space where her two breasts were pushed together by the tight constrictions of the dress. She wiggled forward and pressed my head to her. She reached behind her and unzipped the tightly drawn dress, her breasts springing loose as the zipper made its way down her long spine. I took my hands and freed the breasts, taking one into my mouth, my teeth nibbling softly on the hardening nipple. She giggled and ran her hand up my thigh, finding my cock. With deft fingers she undid the buttons of my trousers, and she reached into the open flaps, grasped the cock and began to pet it lovingly. As if we both understood our next move instinctively, we stood at the same time and went to the bed. Hurriedly, we took our clothes off and, naked, we embraced. Her breasts spread warmly against my expansive chest, and I urged my cock between her slightly spread legs, pushing it in and pulling it out, feeling the softness of her inner thighs. Then I pushed her onto the bed, where she landed with an elegant little bounce, and I fell onto her, my cock immediately finding the wet opening of her cunt, which awaited me with salacious moistness. I slid fully into her, feeling every inch of her inner walls sucking at me, drinking me in, and reached beneath her to lift her buttocks off the bed. Her legs came up to encircle my waist, and she gripped me firmly, bearing down on me so that the base of my cock rubbed hard against her little clitoris. We fucked ardently then, in an almost silent battle; her legs holding me tightly within her, my own legs forcefully breaking her grip so that I could plunge in and out of her freely. It was

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an erotic battle, to say the least, and the tension of it brought us quickly to mutual orgasm. Suddenly her heels stopped bouncing on my back, her fingers dug into my flesh, her cunt contracted, and her throat filled with voluptuous moans. My cock, buried deeply within her, expanded to its full proportions, stilled momentarily, and then let loose its jet of release, and I fell heavily atop her, panting and pushing more fully into her, letting my orgasm take its long and slow course to completion. Just as we were slipping into a dreamy state of half-sleep, the Duchess Toscanelli, whom I had not yet met, strode in. I started in nervous awareness, fearful that it was the Baron who was now intruding on our post-coital peace. But, to my relief, it was a remarkably beautiful woman wearing a jazzy corset of her own design, I gathered, judging by the way it clung provocatively to her body in all the right places. She shrieked with delight at the sight of our entwined, languorous bodies, and tore off the corset while introducing herself to me. "How do you do," I said. "I do quite well," she said, jumping onto the bed and moving not toward me, as I had half expected, but toward the Baroness, dangling her locks over my friend's breasts with lusty cries of delight. "Oh, I must say hello to my little darling BooBoo," she giggled, and moving backward, she lapped and kissed the Baroness' sloppy pussy. She wriggled and jiggled with all the energy of a new arrival, and even if the Baroness had wanted to throw her off, she wouldn't have had an ounce of strength to do so. I watched the Duchess as she worked herself up over the Baroness' crotch; the two smiled at each other with a familiarity that comes from years of intimacy. The Duchess' luscious breasts hovered pendulantly over the Baroness' as the Duchess prepared to kiss her. I watched enraptured as their nipples grazed one another with soft, brushing contact. Then the Duchess lowered herself, her breasts spreading softly onto the Baroness', forcing the flesh outwards, and she set her full lips against the other woman's. They kissed intimately, their lips parting, their tongues slipping into each other's mouths. Their bodies, meanwhile, began a slow, rhythmic rubbing, their cunts grinding

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softly together. It was a voluptuous meeting of flesh, and I wanted to be in the middle of it. But before I could move to join them, the Duchess noticed my prick. It fascinated her even though it was lying soft and flabby on my thigh, worn out from its tremendous battle in the Baroness' hole. She started to play with it and it made her even hotter than before, which I wouldn't have thought possible if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. She slid partway over to get it into her mouth and started calling it her "little BooBoo," like the Baroness' pussy. She was already worked up to firing pitch when my prick began to harden. That did it for her. She was more excited by a prick going up than if she had already found it that way. The power of suggestion was an intense erotic drive in her, it seemed, and a prick getting hard in her mouth was living proof that she was desirable, that what she felt was not something isolated, cut off from the world, but a tangible communicable sensation, and it was enough to send her into ecstasy. Her pussy bobbed and sucked in the moisture of the Baroness' crack and began to tremble as a sexual torrent washed out of her. It was the most sudden, overwhelming onslaught of orgasm I'd ever seen. I was now in a state of full erection, enlivened by the Duchess' spirit, but both women were now exhausted and not yet ready for any renewal. There wasn't anything to do but wait until their fires could be kindled anew, so I pulled the Duchess down alongside me and lay there like a king, rubbing their breasts and stomachs, their lush pussies, enjoying the duplicate arms and legs which hemmed me in on all sides. Gradually the women regained their strength and with it the rich store of appetites that were well-nigh insatiable. Both of them wanted to play with my prick in order to build up to the intoxication that would follow. They scrambled round, giving me the benefit of a most delightful sight: the ample globes of their buttocks swaying frivolously in the air like some happy animals, peeking at me with the hidden cyclops' eye submerged between each of the rolling forms. They agreed to suck me together, each one taking one side of the staff and making it her special province. I was profoundly affected by their heads moving in unison. I placed a finger in each of their nether

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orifices, twirling them to and fro in the soft mush of their bowels. I devised another trick of using my thumbs in their assholes and twiddling their dangling clitorises with my little fingers. I found I could do what I wanted with them and had them moaning deliriously as I rotated their asses and swung them every way in my grip The volatile Duchess could stand very little of such treatment and begged me to fuck her, rolling out of my grip and opening her thighs so that I might enjoy the view of her liberal opening. One saw it clear and well-defined, a long curving pinkness, which, revealed by the baldness that surrounded it, was by far the most obscene cunt I had ever seen. The Baroness was quite willing for me to service her friend, and she shifted her own position so that the Duchess might lap her cunt and she, in turn, play with my balls as I began my pumping. I was on my knees then, braced against the Baroness' head, viewing her great posterior which wobbled over the Duchess' face, absorbing her friend's tongue and, I supposed, nearly suffocating that woman in the mass of her fur. The Duchess came a half-dozen times before I felt my injecting tube fill with its prolific egg-bath. Her last orgasm and mine were simultaneous, so rich and full that I had the sensation of swimming through Niagara Falls. She herself told us later that my prick must surely have enlarged her cunt for, in her own words, "I felt like a suit of skin on that thing. All my insides just went blooey, melted away, and the head of it was poking up my throat." *** Teatime with the Baroness and Duchess Toscanelli was an event I always looked forward to. The Duchess would bring us up to date on her affair with the university student and various little incidents, which always seemed to happen to her no matter where she was. For myself, then, I had little to complain about. My life was a bed of roses as they say, and even Uncle J. was beginning to lose his antipathy, though he remained on hostile terms with nobles as a matter of principle. I rather admired him, for one would have to search far and wide to find another pimp with principles. Nonetheless, he was concerned about finding new recruits and he

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came to me one day and declared that his stay was over. The Baroness would not hear of me leaving. She feared that I, too, would get lost in the jungle, disappearing forever like Czerni. There was no arguing with her, and Uncle J. left early one morning, driving the Stutz himself, accompanied in my place by the author, Phlegmway. A few hours later we could find no trace of Wilma. At first the Baroness was quite unconcerned. It was at the evening meal that Wilma's absence was indisputable. The truth dawned on us immediately. "She has gone off with that uncle of yours!" said the Baroness. I more or less expected her to take it rather badly, but the Baroness dropped the matter with a shrug. "She has awfully hot blood," she added, making sure my glass was filled, "and perhaps travel will tone her down." "Don't be surprised," I answered, "if Uncle J. takes her into partnership in his business." "Well, for all I know, she could use a bit of a serious life. Younger generations always need a little reining in. I mean, of course, from the point of view of the older generation which hates to see youth doing what it does." "Hear, hear, well said, by Jove," exclaimed a nearsighted Baron down the table – the Baron Goffe, I believe, for I remembered the extreme pallor of his wife who was sitting next to him. "Well said, indeed. My dear, we of the older generation must learn to be generous." He was rather a flat individual, I concluded, turning my gaze to observe the mulatto woman with the long dark hair that covered one side of her face. The Baroness noticed my wandering eyes and gave me a warning kick in the shins. Well, well, I thought, I see I have now become private property. It certainly wasn't like her, though, and could have happened in a moment of weakness. And, in fact, I think she later regretted it. But that moment was fatal. I began to observe the ladies present with a keener eye, making mental notes on the more desirable ones and how I might go about possessing them.

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The meal ended, and we all retired to the lounge. The atmosphere was relaxed and comfortable. Voices were hushed and the cheerful tinkle of spoons stirring in cups, and of ice dropping into tall glasses fit the mood of repose perfectly. In the course of an hour, I accumulated a list of names of people I wanted to meet more intimately. There was a hefty governess who, I saw, would be no trouble at all. She looked at every man that passed and was forever primping and pulling her sweater tight to show off her breasts. I marked her down because I figured she would be a good lay. Her boss, the Count Schoszkly, had a wife who was far more intriguing. I caught her eyeing the Prince in a way that left no doubt about her inclinations. Furthermore, her husband looked darkly on anyone that spoke to her. I turned away and left her place on my list open and undetermined.

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CHAPTER THREE Strange circumstances led me to the dark underworld of the house that night. I was upstairs, snug in my bed oddly enough, when the storm broke. This was no ordinary storm, but one which threatened to send the whole house crashing down into a splintered heap of rotten wood and crumbling stone. In fact, I thought I heard the east wing shattering in the wind. Afraid of being buried beneath the detritus of the house, I made my way along the dark corridors in search of other guests concerned for their very lives. Strangely enough, I found no one; it seemed as if everyone were either sleeping soundly, or believed very strongly in the durability of that old house. Downstairs it was as dead as a graveyard, as dark and as still, save for the shaking windows and trembling windowpanes. The rain beat like so many bullets against the glass, threatening to shatter it at any minute. Lightening illuminated with eerie clarity the night-shrouded rooms. I wandered around, still expecting to find a huddle of frightened people, grasping at each other for comfort against the storm and the shaking chateau. There was no sign of life anywhere. And then, just as had happened years ago when I had been a younger guest in that house, I got lost. I was unable to make my way back to my room through the maze-like layout of halls and adjoining rooms. When I thought I was ascending, I was actually descending; the architect must have had a Gothic sense of irony when he designed that place. How it was that I was descending to the underbelly of that house instead of climbing upstairs, I'll never know, but descend I did. The air got thicker as I made my way into an ever deeper, more deathlike darkness; here the lightning did not reach. Silence prevailed, and I could hear my own breathing; indeed, my rapidly beating heart was loud in my ears, as if it were a distant call to warriors. I felt my way along the damp, cold stone walls, covered with cobwebs, searching for a way out of that accursed, hellish labyrinth. Every now and again I felt a spider drop onto my head, or heard a bat alight, startling me with the snapping sound of its leathery wings. I was not altogether certain that I wouldn't have chosen burial under the

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inevitable rubble instead of this. But I had no choice, for I could not find my way out. The storm seemed miles and miles away, the thunder coming now and again to my ears like a distant roll of drums. At least, I thought, if the house crashes down, I'll not be affected. There was little comfort in that, though, as I seemed to be moving nearer and nearer to something altogether more sinister. The strange air of foreboding I could neither explain, nor explain away, continued to increase. I continued to creep along the dusty, dank corridors. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the furnace gurgling away, and I made my way toward that sound, hoping that there I would find some light, something familiar to which I could attach reason. As I moved nearer to the gurgling sound, I thought I heard laughter, and though I was glad for the human element, I was even more fearful. Who, I wondered, would be down here laughing? Perhaps it wasn't even human, whatever it was; perhaps this underbelly of the house was inhabited by ghosts. This was discomforting, to say the least, but having nowhere to turn, I moved on. The laughter became clearer, and I could not deny that it was, indeed, laughter I heard. As I rounded a corner, the sharp, cold stones threatening to cut me if I was not careful, I saw in the distance a dim light escaping from beneath what I assumed to be a door. It was from there that the laughter came. I approached it on wary feet. Standing now at the doorway, I noticed a bright yellow hole in the door – the keyhole. There were indeed people in that room, though I did not recognize any specific voices. I bent down to peer through the hole. What I saw shocked and amazed me. The room was full of naked people; people of all shapes and sizes, dancing in maenad-like frenzy. They were linked by their hands in a large circle, dancing now in this direction, now in that. At the center of the circle was a woman, no younger or older, it appeared, than twenty, her legs splayed, her look one of dim, familiar fear. The people shouted in mad frenzy. The scene looked almost sacrificial. For a moment, I dared not breathe. I did not want to be discovered, lest I become the sacrifice of this witching madness. The walls of the room were bare, the stone gray and hung with cobwebs. The beams above, which I could see if I strained my eyes

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upwards, were also hung with cobwebs so that the room had a strange, otherworldly misty quality about it. There was a faint red glow that permeated the room and made everyone's naked flesh look as if it were being licked by dimly flickering flames. I wondered if there wasn't a fire burning somewhere in the room. One woman, I saw then, sat on her haunches in the corner, wailing. A man, next to her, clapped his hands and rolled his head on his shoulders. The circle widened and contracted, naked flesh quivering, breasts swaying wildly, cocks jutting dangerously out and likewise swaying in the abandoned dance. The young woman at the center of the circle lay supine on the cold, damp floor, and heaved her loins upwards each time the circle closed in around her. When it expanded outwards, she slapped her buttocks to the stone floor and threw her head forward so that her chin came to rest on her upward heaving breasts. It was strange, indeed. Her look was one of rapturous, wild fear. There was an overall quality of evil potency inside and I feared what would happen to me if I entered, and yet I felt compelled to enter. But I decided to be patient, to see just how evil the proceedings became before I ventured into them. This was basically a life-preserving instinct and I made myself comfortable for the time being at the keyhole. "Have they begun already?" came a hushed voice at my back, causing me to literally jump backwards, almost stumbling onto my ass. I turned abruptly to see who had spoken, who had discovered my probable intrusion, but it was too dark and I could not make out the features. The voice itself belonged to a woman and was husky and thick. I could smell her faintly and her scent was heavy and rich, as if she'd just masturbated and spread the juices of her orgasm over her pulse points. "Who are you?" I asked. "Down here we have no identity, but are all one," she said. "Well, I, for my part, will keep both my identity and my courage. I don't know what you do down here, but it looks rather sordid." "Sordid it is. But I can assure you, no one gets hurt. Would you like to join us?" "I think I'd rather find my way back upstairs and spend a quiet night with the storm."

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"Ah, yes, the storm," she said, laughing under her breath. "It's always the storm that compels us to enter darker worlds than we're used to. Did the storm bring you to us?" "I thought there'd be a gathering of people, yes. But I certainly didn't count on this hellish, cult-like debauch. I only wanted to save myself from the house itself." "We can save you from mortality." "What the hell are you talking about?" "Why don't you join us and see for yourself." "No thank you," I said, now fully convinced that I did not want to enter that room of wickedness. "Well then," came the voice in the dark, "maybe I can persuade you in another way." Suddenly, in the thick, heady air of the darkness, I felt a naked body enfolding me. I was in my dressing gown, and to my constant regret ever since I'd left my room, barefoot. Her hands, coming around me from behind, parted my dressing gown and took it from my shoulders. I made a faint, half-hearted protest. But, no matter how foreboding the circumstances, my cock had a mind of its own and seemed to regard every instance of sexual attention as safe and compelling. "Ssh," came the voice in my ear, her hot breath filling me with such emotion that I shuddered. Whether I shuddered in fear or desire, I do not know, but my cock stood upright and ready for action. The silk dressing gown slipped down my backside like cool water, and I felt her hot, moist body pressing against me. My buttocks, now fully exposed to the dark danger of that underworld, met the woman's coarse pubic mound, her slightly distended belly fitting into the dip of my back. By that I was able to judge that we were basically the same height, though by the deep huskiness of her voice, I would have judged her to be at least six feet tall. Her lips slid lightly across the back of my neck, her hot breath spreading over my prickly flesh like warm, thick balm. "Don't be afraid," she said and, of course, this made me slightly afraid. But I said nothing; I'd be damned if I'd let her get the better of me, even though it did seem as if I'd entered hell. Her hand slid slowly around me, her fingers pinching my nipples

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with urgent ferocity. I almost yelped, but held my reactions. She twirled my scattered chest hairs around her fingers before sliding her hand further down my body, running it back and forth as she went. When she reached the thick brush of my pubic hair, she tugged at it, gently at first, luring me into a state of erotic quiescence, and then she began to pull at it harder, as if trying to pluck it. "Do you need the pubic hair of some unsuspecting mortal for your witches brew?" I couldn't help making this little jab at their proceedings; and, actually, I wanted to distract her from pulling even harder at the hairs, for it stung. She merely laughed softly and continued to journey downwards to her inevitable destination. My cock sprang insouciantly upwards to meet her snaky fingertips. In an instant she was pinching the head of it between her forefinger and thumb, and it swelled more fully with my increased desire. I had to admit that the pressure she brought to her attentions was anything but morbid. It was quite pleasing in fact, and I began to want her desperately. There was something highly erotic about the underworld in which we stood; an air charged with dark desire. Her body continued to press against mine, and I could feel her belly expanding and contracting with her slow, even breathing, pushing into the slope of my back gently and very warmly. She took my cock into her hand fully then and began to tug at it, pumping her fist up and down on it as if to coax it to full erection. I wanted to tell her that she needn't bother, that it was as hard and as big as it was going to get. What did she expect? I was not of small proportions, and I wondered what giants she had fucked. Judging by the proceedings on the other side of the door, she'd probably fucked giants. I laughed thinking about this. "When you laugh down here, you tempt the spirits. Have you ever been fucked by a ghost before?" As she said this, she licked the apex of my spine and I shivered. "No, I can't say that I have. And I daresay, neither have you." She did not respond, but ran her tongue down the length of my spine until she was on her knees behind me, her tongue now tracing the line of my buttocks. Her hand still gripped my cock and I felt her other one

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slipping between my legs, pushing in and out of them, rubbing against my inner thighs, knocking my balls back and forth lightly. I probably could have come right then and there if it hadn't been for my determination not to. No mere mortal was I! I felt like saying. In fact, I could probably fuck her to death if she loved death so much. I didn't pause to realize that she had me bewitched, enthralled and completely weakened to her will. Her tongue continued its pursuit of my asshole, slipping down my dark cleft and then riding back up it. With every stroke she skipped over the hole itself, teasing me. All of a sudden, she let go of my cock, letting it stand untouched in the darkness. As my desire at that point demanded touch, I moved my own hand to my cock, but she knocked it away and told me not to touch myself. I obeyed, strangely enough. Her tongue then found the hole and she traced wet circles around it, now and again jabbing the tip of her tongue into it slightly. This was highly, almost unbearably, erotic and my cock threatened to burst, touch or no touch. I was standing some two feet away from the door, almost flush against the wall. If I had stepped forward a little bit, my cock would have grazed the cold, rough stone. I was careful to remain rooted where I was. Her fingers began to scrape lightly back and forth along the length of my cock, her long nails scratching me, but not painfully. Her tongue twisted around and around the rim of my asshole, never delving in deeper than about an eighth of an inch. From the other room, the din increased to a fevered pitch, and I wondered what was happening. As if reading my mind, the unknown and mysterious woman said, "Time for the sacrificial offering." "What is that?" I asked, my own voice now as husky as hers. "The woman who has offered herself up to be worshipped will call to the spirits. If the spirits are so inclined, they'll come and fuck her." "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." Again, my words were met with utter silence. The woman said nothing but plunged her tongue deeply into my asshole, propelling me forward slightly. The tip of my cock scraped against the stone wall, and I wondered if it bled. I tried to step back, but the woman inhibited any movement, either

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forward or backward. Her hands now held me firmly around the waist and her tongue was plunging in and out of my asshole, causing the most exquisite sensations to course through my body. Again, I tried to take my cock in hand, and again, she knocked it away. It was as if she anticipated my every movement before I myself thought to move. I could feel her soft hair tickling my balls, which almost rested on the top of her head. She forced my legs wider apart then, so that my balls dangled against her forehead and clung to her damp skin. Her hands began a lithesome dance up and down my inner thighs, teasing me to gross desperation. I was expanding to unearthly proportions, and I needed release before I exploded bodily. As she probed the inner walls of my asshole with her firmly pointed tongue, she continued to tease me with her light, almost ghostly, touches. I wanted to scream. And when I moved, trying now to overcame her strange power and turn it on her, she drew away from me and slapped my buttocks with her open hand. It stung. "Don't resist me," she said with a subdued forcefulness that would have tamed the fiercest of brutes. And since I could hardly have been considered a brute, fierce or otherwise, I immediately withdrew my claim to self-will. "That's better," she said, more softly now, feeling me physically relent to her every whim and wicked design. Then she moved her mouth down the backs of my thighs, kissing the tautness of them, licking them slowly with broad strokes of her tongue as if tasting every inch of me, savoring me. She kissed the backs of my knees; I had never realized how sensitive they were before, my whole body surged with a strangely chilling warmth. Then she moved on down to my calves, taking them into her hands, gripping them firmly, squeezing them. It was as if she were preparing me for something, both relaxing my every muscle and winding them tight with the sweeping motions of her tongue and the gentle urgency of her obviously full lips. I couldn't help but think that she was embalming me with sensuality. She wound her fingers around my ankles, my feet rooted to the spot, my heart beating rapidly, my breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps. Her cold hands felt like chains, binding my ankles

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together. And then she was on her hands and knees, kissing my feet. This was a position of submission, of servility; and yet, it seemed indeed as if she had bound my ankles together, as if it was I who was servile to her. She kissed each toe in its turn, running her tongue between them, anointing them with kisses. She plunged her tongue into the space between the arches of my feet and the hard, dirty floor. I had never before experienced such strange and bewildering contradiction. Was she kneeling at my feet, kissing me, in a gesture of submission? Or was she very masterfully making me obedient to her will? I did not know. In fact, I could hardly think at all, so strong and overwhelming was my desire, my need to enter her, be entered by her. She took the heels of my feet into her mouth and sucked on them, each in its turn, causing me to groan and lift that foot off the ground. I wanted her to swallow me, to take my entire foot into her mouth, onto her soft, wet tongue. And then I felt her long nail scraping down the sole of my raised foot. I jerked it away and she bit my heel. She scraped the sole again, and, again, I jerked it away, and again, she bit my heel. My cock was throbbing in mid-air, but I did not dare touch it. And for a third time, I felt her long nail running along the sensitive sole of my foot. This time, I kept the foot inert, though my instinct was to jerk it away again. She rewarded me by taking a toe into her mouth and sucking on it until it seemed my orgasm was ascending rapidly in my body, from that point where her curling tongue was wrapped around the toe, up to my head, and falling quickly to my cock where, I was certain, it would explode. But she must have sensed this, for she let the foot drop back to the floor, and, as soon as it left her mouth, it did just that; dropped like an inanimate object. My legs began to tremble uncontrollably. My cock began to jerk upwards, as if it alone had any will. And then I felt her head ascending between my legs and I was reminded of the slow ascension of a full, round moon; a strange image for a woman's head. It stopped at the nexus of my thighs, my balls resting heavy on her brow again. I could feel all their heaviness, as if they were weighted with lead, and my cock felt even heavier, as if it would break away from my body, as if the whole of my body could not bear the weight of it.

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Her hands came slowly around me, inching their way to my cock. I still faced the wall, and had grown so accustomed to the dark by now, so much a part of it, that I could make out the crags and crevices of the stone wall. I thought I could even make out things crawling on it, in the same manner, it seemed, as her fingers crawled over my naked flesh. And then, in an instant, she was upon me, her hands grasping my cock, pulling at it, pumping on it. I almost fell under the sudden weight of this passion. Her tongue went once again to my asshole and she began lapping at it thirstily, with a demonic thirst. Just as all my weight seemed concentrated then in my cock, so too did it seem as if I were literally sitting on her face, though this, in fact, was not the case. She had strange powers indeed. Recovering myself momentarily, I moved to turn around, for I was ready to plunge into one of her orifices, be it her mouth, cunt, or asshole. I did not care, but I wanted her with a desperation that I had never felt before. And, as my feet shifted slightly on the cold, almost earthen floor, I felt her teeth sinking into my ass. This time, I screamed out. But the scream was subdued, hushed by the greater pleasure surging through me. I stood frozen to the spot. "Is it pain, or pleasure, you want?" she asked, her fingers tracing thin lines from the tip of my cock to the base. "Do I have a choice?" I asked, certain she was going to devour me at any minute. "As long as we're breathing, we always have a choice." I felt her nose insinuate itself into the cleft of my buttocks. "Should I take that as some kind of warning?" I asked. I didn't know what to expect from her; perhaps she was a witch, an evil enchantress? And, as I should have expected, she did not answer. Instead, she kissed the base of my spine with a powerful, potent urgency. Her lips pressed into the dip of my back and did not let up until I was turning around to face her. It was not a movement I made of my own free will. I turned as if enchanted. The pressure she placed on my spine was like some strange catalyst for movement, and I turned around like a puppet being manipulated at her hands. "That's a good boy," she said.

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I was now facing her, the tip of my cock knocking against her nose. She took me into her mouth then, her full lips wrapping firmly around my cock and sliding downwards until I was completely held by her warm, wet mouth. She sucked as if draining blood from me, as if feeding off me. I swooned and fell backwards. My head hit the wall, bringing me back to reality for a moment. But before I could gather my senses fully, she was bounding onto me like a tigress, clawing at me and, I swore, hissing. I was laid out flat on my back, my buttocks grinding into the stone floor, my balls resting flat on it, poked at by the sharper edges of the stone. My legs were splayed helplessly, my entire body vulnerable to her designs. The hissing sound came again, and I felt a tongue darting snake-like across my chest, teasing the nipples. Her own nipples brushed against my belly warmly and slid up my body until her mouth was on mine. She thrust her tongue between my lips and I moved mine aside to grant full access to my mouth. Then, in a tremendous show of self-will, I drove my own tongue into her mouth. Before I knew it, she was biting down on it. But not as hard as I would have expected by then. Instead, she was nibbling on it, as if it were a little hors d'oeuvre. She began to suck on my tongue, pulling it to the back of her throat. All the while, my cock went untouched, and it strained toward her cunt, which hovered above it like some unattainable goal. And then my body was completely overwhelmed by a fiery rush of sensation. Her cunt had descended upon my yearning cock, had taken me wholly in. She was burning, a conflagration of hell, it seemed, swallowing me into her with exquisite hunger. I tried to thrust my buttocks upwards in my usual gesture of fucking, but my body was weak, completely weak, as if depleted of all energy, except that energy which it took to make me desire her. I went limp, and every nerve, every fiber of my being seemed concentrated in my cock, now buried fully within her. She leaned forward and her breasts swung up to cover my face. I reached out my tongue and took a nipple into my mouth and sucked on it. I could have sworn that it seeped a sweet juice, like fruit. What demon was devouring me? I wondered, even though it was I who was, just then, devouring her breast. She laughed wickedly and, I was

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certain, began to lick the stone wall behind me. Her cunt gripped me firmly, inexorably, and I felt my entire body breaking, breaking, shattering, it seemed, into a million points of white, fragmented light. I moaned, but no sound escaped my open mouth. She hissed and hissed again, just like a snake. Her body writhed atop mine, urging my orgasm with an abandoned madness. I tried to take her other nipple into my mouth, but could not catch it. I could not even move my tongue; it was too heavy. I broke a thousand times, it seemed, the entire world reduced to this fragmenting light and the awful sound of her hissing. Afterwards, she pulled off me, my cock falling limp, dead-seaming, from her cunt. I was exhausted, completely enervated. I didn't even feel like a human being, but like something more akin to a corpse. "Now will you join us?" "Yes," I whispered, as she took me by the hand and led me through the heavy wooden door and into the room, which shone, with an ungodly red glow.

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CHAPTER FOUR At first, no one seemed to notice that we had entered. In fact, several people looked our way, but didn't so much as blink; it was as if we were invisible, and I remembered what the mysterious woman had said about having no identity down there. Not only were we stripped of our identities, it seemed we were stripped of our very corporeal selves. But I knew this was impossible, and, taking the first opportunity I could, I looked toward the woman who had so enthralled me on the other side of the door, to see who she was. I recognized her immediately as the woman I'd met at dinner, the governess, Eliza Cramp. My first reaction was utter dismay, for she had not impressed me particularly as being that type; although I couldn't say for sure what that type was. Strangely, though, when I thought about identifying her, the word 'mistress' ran through my mind. She was my mistress and I her servant. Or was she? I was utterly confused, and the strange proceedings surrounding me did nothing to clarify my thinking. The woman whom I had seen lying naked in the center of the circle was now writhing madly to and fro, her buttocks slapping against the stone floor, her legs splayed, her head rocking back and forth, her mouth open, her eyes wide. The people in the circle were still linked together and still dancing their wild dance. What seemed to have changed from the time I'd spied them some thirty minutes earlier, was that all the focus was now on the woman. It was as if there were some strange flow of energy running from each of the people in the circle to the woman and back. It was an electric current that was almost palpable in its power. I felt myself drawn in to join the circle, though I remained standing where I was. And then the woman began laughing hysterically. It was a false, empty kind of laughter that shook her entire body and made her writhe all the more wildly. The circle expanded until people were no longer linked with their arms behind their neighbors' backs, but stood with outstretched arms, their fingertips lightly touching the fingertips of those to either side of them. Buttocks quivered, breasts heaved in deathly anticipation of what was to follow. In the red glow of the

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room, I could see every muscle in every body straining against the flesh that encased them. The sharp laughter resounded off the stone walls, coming back to me a dozen times, it seemed, as new peals rung out. Everyone else was dead silent. I found myself breathless with anticipation, and I waited awe-stricken to see what would happen next. And then, in the instant that I blinked, it seemed truly as if the woman were lifted bodily from the ground and slammed back down, her flesh smacking against it. I couldn't believe my eyes. She was then thrown into a state of utter depravity, rolling around on the floor, rubbing her body against the stony hardness, heaving her buttocks into the air, and all the while whimpering like a hurt dog. I was dumbstruck, and I was careful not to blink again, lest I should miss something. The circle closed in around her and began laughing in the same empty tones which had escaped her mouth. They were careful, I could see, not to touch her though, and they hovered over her like so many maenads over their prey. The man who was sitting against the wall opposite me, and who had all the while been clapping, suddenly stood and spread his arms wide like wings. His penis was fully erect, and he yelled, "Angelique!" My attention was immediately drawn to him, and my heart started beating more rapidly, for this sudden scream alarmed me terrifically. His body was now contorted by an agony without visible cause. His cock waved before him, and his knees were slightly bent in order, I assumed, to bear the considerable weight of his agony. "Angelique!" he cried again, "Angelique!" He brought his hand to his cock and began to masturbate himself; and at the same time, he began to dance around the room, skipping here and there, his hand pumping fiercely up and down on his hard cock. The other men in the group, too, began to masturbate, and a chorus rose up, all chanting, "Angelique, Angelique, Angelique." The circle broke and the men, like the one who had been clapping, began to skip hither and thither, all with their hands working their cocks into a frothy frenzy. They rubbed them erratically, on account of their erratic movements, sometimes loosing grip, sometimes knocking them against the people surrounding them. The women remained standing where they were, and did not touch

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themselves. In fact, it seemed again as if they were completely unaware of the activity surrounding them. They simply stared unblinking at the woman lying on the floor, who, I assumed, was Angelique. The chanting continued, and I was reminded of some ancient goddess and her worshippers, for the chanting had an exultant quality about it, as if by saying the name Angelique, the men were transported to ecstasy. They continued to masturbate themselves, running their hands up and down the length of their cocks and, all at once, as if on cue, they rushed over to the woman lying supine on the floor and began a ritualized working of their cocks. All hands moved up the cocks at the same time; all hands pressed down on them at the same time. It seemed their personal pleasure was given over to a greater, unified pleasure, so that individual tastes and styles did not matter. What mattered instead was the ritual. Each man seemed to take pleasure in the same rhythm, the same speed, and the same pressure placed on his cock by his own hand. They stood over the woman, Angelique, all looking intently at her body; which still writhed, but more slowly, more languidly now, her voluptuous breasts swaying from side to side, her legs spread wide. Her cunt, I could see to my delight, was a deep, shiny red, surrounded by rose-colored lips and black, coarse hair. And then, all at once, the men stepped in closer to the woman, pumping more frantically now on their cocks, and came, their orgasms spurting out of them at the exact same time, aimed at her body. The creamy liquid landed now on her breasts, her belly, her open cunt, her thighs, her feet, her face. She seemed transported, and her writhing took on an unearthly quality as she rolled slowly back and forth to catch every last drop of sperm shooting out of the forward aiming cocks. When the orgasms subsided, the cocks, naturally, went limp, and the men backed away, leaving the woman lying there, her eyes closed, a faint smile tracing her lips. Her body was literally covered with the milky fluid of each man's orgasm. It was now apparently the women's turn, and they moved in, like maenads, and kneeled around the woman. Immediately, they began to lick the sperm from her body, lapping at her flesh thirstily, almost devouring her. Their buttocks swayed to and fro, their hair fell forward onto Angelique's body,

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sticking there in the sperm, their thighs trembled. It was quite a sight. They must have spent a good fifteen minutes licking the woman clean of the sperm, and I could see individual tongues darting over the flesh, lapping at it in broad strokes. One woman worked on the left thigh, another on the right thigh. One woman licked a breast, running her tongue in circles around and around the nipple, and the nipples, I could see, stood hard and defiant to the beating motions of her tongue. Another woman licked the navel, poking into it, pushing into it, and releasing it. One woman worked the inner thighs, thrusting her tongue into the space between them, running it back and forth. It was evident, to my disappointment, that she did not touch the cunt. The cunt, it seemed, was sacred, and was to be saved for something else. Another woman hovered over Angelique's face and kissed her, drinking from Angelique's full, red lips the sperm that had landed there. The kiss was long and passionate only on the part of the woman; Angelique did not seem to return it, though she parted her lips and admitted the woman's tongue whenever it darted into her mouth. Finally, it seemed, her body was cleansed of sperm and the women reluctantly withdrew from her, though it was evident that they wished to remain where they were, worshipping her smooth, white flesh with their tongues and mouths and lips. Again, Angelique was left lying alone on the floor. The same faint smile traced her lips, her thin eyelids fluttered like tiny flames. Traces of saliva shone now and again in the candlelight; there were candles lining the room, hundreds of them, which accounted, I finally noticed, for the ungodly glow. The chanting started up again, and this time the women joined in, all clapping unrhythmically, all calling out Angelique's name. It was then that I was reminded of my own presence in this scene, so engrossed had I been in this strange sight. Eliza Cramp, the mysterious woman who did not seem so mysterious now that I was able to identify her as the governess from upstairs, stepped forward. She strode over to Angelique on strong legs, and I watched her buttocks rise and fall above the backs of her thighs as she walked. I was aroused and my cock stood straight out before me. I wanted to touch it to alleviate some of the agonizing longing centered there, but dared not; I could not judge how these demonic people would react,

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although they seemed harmless enough. I recognized some of them from previous encounters with them, or from dinner. Instead of touching myself, I watched intently. "My little changelings," said Eliza, "when the full moon is veiled with cloud, when storm gathers, so, too, do we. I am glad to see you have not forgotten our code of honor. Angelique is a worthy goddess indeed. Tonight we have a new member," she said, turning toward me. I stepped back instinctively, for I had no notion of joining this little cult. And, true to nature, Eliza seemed to anticipate my thinking. "He thinks he will not join, but he has already been initiated." I nodded dumbly. "Come here, changeling." I stepped forward just as dumbly, as if compelled toward her by some force that I could neither explain nor resist. My cock betrayed any attempt I might have made to seem disinterested in these proceedings, and when I reached the place where Eliza stood, I stopped dead in my tracks. Her face glowed with wicked intent. I could hardly breathe. Angelique lay unmoving at our feet. Everyone stared at me. "The initiation has not yet been completed, but then, you guessed as much, didn't you?" she asked me. "Initiation into what?" I asked. "Oh, come now. It was you who wandered down here tonight. Do not think you came of your own free will. Something led you here." "I came because of the storm," I protested. "Exactly! Angelique is goddess of the storm and dark night. Now you must worship her with lightning brilliance and thunderous drive." "What the hell are you talking about?" I backed away, and as I did, I felt at least a half-dozen hands on my back, pushing me forward. The coldness of the touches sent shivers up and down my spine, and it was then that I cursed my circumstances aloud. Before my words were even out of my mouth, I felt something sharp and quick slashing across my backside, and I was propelled forward by the burning, instant pain. "We do not speak irreverently here. Angelique does not like it. She would tell you herself, but has been forbidden to speak. You see, in our little religion, our goddess is both exalted by us, and servile to us.

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She must do whatever we command her to do, and in return we worship her." Eliza then prodded Angelique with a swift kick to the side, though it didn't seem to cause any pain as Eliza was barefooted. This seemed to be a cue, and Angelique then got onto her hands and knees and crawled toward me, in what I have to say was an altogether provocative manner. Her breasts hung heavy beneath her, her nipples swept the floor alluringly, if not painfully, and her eyes followed the line of my body, her lips parted slightly. When she reached my feet, she clasped me by the ankles and began to kiss my legs, starting first at my shins and moving her mouth upwards, in almost the exact same pattern as Eliza had done earlier. My flesh tingled with the soft pressure of her lips on it. I closed my eyes a moment and, suddenly, I felt her warm mouth closing over my cock, taking me wholly in. I groaned and gave myself over to her. She sucked on me with expert attentions to my most sensitive areas, running her tongue around the ridge of the bulbous head, pressing down on the base where my cock jutted out from the thick brush of pubic hair. I could feel her inner cheeks clinging to me, sucking me deeply in. My legs almost buckled when, at the same time as her tongue began its lithesome sweep back and forth, my cock held firmly by her full lips, she began to lightly scratch my balls. "That's enough," said Eliza, rather coldly, and just as I was about to come, Angelique pulled away, leaving my cock wet in the cold, damp air. I almost dove after her, but thought better of it. What happened next was perhaps the most remarkably strange thing that had ever happened to me. At Eliza's command, each woman and man in the room came up to me, looked me directly in the eyes with an unmistakable vacuity, bent down, and kissed my cock, causing it to shiver in response to each pair of lips that was set upon it with a painful lightness and quickness. By the time the last person had thus anointed me, my cock was a deep purple and strained against itself. I had to squeeze my eyes closed in order to keep from relieving myself, and my cock fairly commanded me to touch it, so engorged, so needful of touch was it. "Now worship her," said Eliza, who then touched her own breasts and began a lascivious, alluring dance around me, running her hands

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up and down her body, now bending over before me, revealing her dark hole, now standing and running her body up and down mine. "Worship her!" I moved to Angelique and took her in my arms. How did one worship a woman one didn't even know? I wondered vaguely. But it wasn't too difficult. Angelique was perhaps one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen; she had a certain dark beauty about her. Her long hair was raven-black, her skin alabaster, her lips red, her eyes green, her breasts full and voluptuous, like her ass; her shoulders broad and poetically sloped; her belly flat and firm. She looked at me with an almost innocent pleading, which I could not translate to any knowable supplication. I set my hands on her buttocks and caressed them, brushing back and forth before I began to knead them; the full flesh gave firmly to my fingertips. She began to wriggle her body in my arms so that her breasts pressed warmly against my chest; her loins rubbed against my own, my cock standing up hard between us. When I moved to kiss her, first pecking her lips lightly, and then setting my mouth more firmly to hers, I felt the hand of someone, most likely Eliza, slap my buttocks. I pulled my mouth away, guessing that one did not kiss one's goddess. Instead, I concentrated on the feel of her warm thighs pressed against my own, on her coarse pubic hair becoming entangled in mine, on her long, lithe arms holding me firmly to her body. The others, whom I noticed only by accident as I moved my mouth to Angelique's neck, my eyes opening for a moment, again formed a circle around us. They danced this way and that, chanting again, "Angelique, Angelique…" Far from inhibiting me, this aroused me, and I began to work my cock between Angelique's thighs, and she parted her legs and closed them again around my cock, rubbing me with the soft inner flesh of those luscious thighs. As the circle drew in closer to us, I noticed that there was a particular order to it, one that had previously escaped my notice. It did not alternate between man and woman, but rather there were two women, and then two men, and again two women, and two men and so on. I realized that each person was hemmed in by a man and a woman to either side. Bodies pressed against bodies as Angelique and I continued in our

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coupling. The others encircled us like a pack of dogs, panting and watching us with lewd, suggestive eyes and open mouths. I held Angelique by her buttocks and pressed her hard to my body as I rubbed my cock against her belly, between her thighs, against her coarse hair. Gently, she pulled me to the floor. I went willingly and eagerly. The circle opened to give us space, and no one, I saw, took their eyes from us, though they had begun to idly fondle their neighbor's genitals. Now on our knees, Angelique swayed back and forth, her eyes closed, her look one of pure rapture. She leaned in close to me and whispered softly in my ear, "Worship me." I was alarmed, for, as Eliza had said, she wasn't allowed to speak. But it seemed no one had heard, and she moved her mouth to my other ear and said again, "Worship me." Her breath filled my ears and made my spine crawl with shivers. And then she jabbed her pointed tongue into my ear, twirled it around inside and nibbled on my earlobe so that I moaned. I was ready to worship her; my cock throbbed and my blood pulsed thickly through my veins. Softly, I urged her onto the floor and she went easily. As she lay on her back, I climbed onto her and her hand came out to grasp my cock, squeezing it lightly and then more firmly, urgently. Again, it felt as if I were about to come, after I had waited so long for relief. The circle surrounding us broke up then, and the bodies moved together in a mass of writhing flesh. Buttocks rubbed against buttocks, breasts knocked against breasts, cocks beat against other cocks. The room was in chaos by now as I placed my cock at Angelique's wet, inviting, and pungent entrance. Eliza was the only one who was not joining in the mass orgy. Instead, she stood over us, monitoring, it seemed, our every movement. Just as I was about to plunge into the inviting cunt, Eliza spoke in her cold voice. "If you enter her like that," she said, "you'll profane the goddess." I looked up, bewildered, and I thought I heard a sigh of frustration escape Angelique's pretty mouth. "You must worship her with your mouth, the same mouth that spoke irreverently in our midst." Dutifully, I crawled down Angelique's body until my mouth was at

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her cunt, my knees scraped and perhaps bleeding to the rough stone floor. My buttocks rose fully into the air, my cock jutting out before me. I lowered my mouth to the fleshy, wet, red lips of Angelique's beautiful cunt. She tasted sweet and I could feel the pulsing of her cunt against my lips. I reached out my tongue and licked around the outer folds, pushing them to the side, parting them so that the ruby-red center was exposed in all its flower-like brilliance. Setting my lips to the round opening, tasting all her sweetness and her flow, I felt, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, a hand being placed on my backside, fingers beginning a light dance on my thighs, mouths pressing against my buttocks. I almost jerked away before I thought better of it. And then the sensations became far too sweet to want to elude them. I began to probe the inner walls of Angelique's cunt with my tongue, twisting it around inside of her, reaching in as far as I could go. Someone's tongue darted into my asshole. Someone's fingers wrapped around my cock. Someone straddled my back and rubbed her cunt on it, almost sending me crashing to the floor under the weight of her desire. Eliza laughed. "Ah, my little changelings," she said, "my little changelings are having so much fun. It's a pity their mistress can't partake. It's a pity that someone has to watch out for the slightest sacrilege." I trembled slightly at these foreboding words, which I guessed were directed solely at me, as everyone else seemed to have a good understanding of what was expected of them. "Lick her cunt with humility," said Eliza. I was beginning to think that she took some sick enjoyment from my degradation, and I didn't appreciate it at all. And, were it not for Angelique's alluring cunt now facing me, for her soft beauty and what I guessed to be her natural inclination to be loved simply, I would have retreated then and there. But, alas, I continued to delve deeper into the sweet Goddess, pleasure. Hands and mouths and fingers crawled over my body like so many teaming worms. It was both eerie and pleasurable, and as I tasted Angelique's cunt, drank from it, pleasured it, I felt my own orgasm rising in my body like mercury. Someone had taken hold of my cock

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with his or her mouth. In fact, that someone was lying supine on the floor between my legs and I was able to pump my cock into their mouth with ease, as if I were fucking it. I continued to probe the inner walls of Angelique's cunt before I withdrew my tongue fully. Then I began to seek her hidden clitoris, the bud of her being, the jewel of her divinity. "Treat it reverently," Eliza said, sensing once again my intentions. I ran my tongue back and forth over the tiny bud, coaxing it from hiding, and it emerged like a little ruby, so red, so full of hidden mystery. Someone was tonguing my asshole. Someone else was still sliding back and forth on my back, as if I were a beast of burden. I could feel her cunt slipping up and down, back and forth, the wet lips parting and rubbing needfully against my flesh. It was erotic. And the person between my legs was sucking avidly now on my cock, pressing down hard with their lips, holding me firmly and wetly. It was exquisite. Angelique groaned as I rubbed her clitoris between the soft beds of my lips. I applied a gentle pressure to it and stretched my tongue forward, thrusting it into her opening as I continued to suck on the clitoris. This seemed to please her exceedingly, for she began to roll slightly back and forth. On instinct, I reached up and took hold of her voluptuous breasts, the nipples poking through between my fingers as I squeezed them. I felt her lithe hands falling over mine, and she, too, began to fondle her breasts. Just then, Eliza, to my great surprise, left our side. I wondered vaguely what she was doing, as I did not trust her for a minute. I wanted to look up to see where she had gone, but she had appointed someone else to replace her in the duties of guardian of their precious goddess. I continued to lick Angelique's cunt, wondering with increasing curiosity what the evil Eliza was up to. I felt the damp, suffocating air stirring at my backside, heard someone groan, and felt a body knocking momentarily against my thighs. Someone was being kicked out of the way. But, luckily, it was not the person who was lying supine beneath me and sucking on my cock with increasing ardor. All of a sudden, and as a great blow to my senses and my

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sensibilities, I felt a huge cock driving into my asshole. I let out a loud yelp, my mouth being propelled forward against Angelique's cunt so that my shout of surprise was muffled by the fleshy collision. I wanted to scream in pain. Whoever was driving into me hadn't bothered to lubricate himself, and it felt as if my asshole were being torn apart. I chanced a look behind me to see just who the hell was invading me in this manner. I was not a little shocked to see that it was Eliza. She had strapped a hideous contraption around her waist, a thing of monstrous proportions, and was driving it into me and pulling it out of me with all the fury of a bull in heat. I wanted to curse her, to kick her away. But Angelique purred sweetly and drew my face back to her cunt. She mouthed the words, "Worship me," and smiled softly, her eyes closing slowly and fluttering in their private darkness. The woman beneath me took my cock all the way into her throat, and I could feel the inner walls of her mouth clinging to it, sucking me wholly in as if she were attempting to swallow me, cock, balls, and all. Eliza pounded into me, her belly slamming against my buttocks, tearing my ass in two, irreparably, I feared. "Worship her!" she yelled as she pulled the phallus out and drove it back in. I worshipped the woman at whose cunt I had been so avidly sipping. And though I loathed Eliza Cramp with everything I had, I also came to enjoy the sensations of that thick, long phallus driving in and out of me with ever increasing speed and force. That, coupled with the mouth wrapped firmly and softly around my cock, caused me to shudder in preparation for my explosion. I licked wildly at Angelique's sweet cunt, lapping up all her milky fluids, sucking at her clitoris, her fleshy folds, her wet opening. She began to writhe on the floor in the same manner and rhythm as she had previously done when the men had masturbated, shooting their creamy fluids onto her flawlessly white flesh. Everyone fell to the floor then, as if anticipating my orgasm, and, like Angelique, writhed in the throes of passion. Bodies rolled over bodies; breasts displaced breasts; cocks drove into cunts and assholes with the abandon of untamed animals. I could feel the vapors rising

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like steam from the sea of hot flesh, inundating me, making me almost nauseated with the cloying scent of lust. Hands swept over my body, fingers probing every inch of me, coaxing my orgasm, it seemed, from every pore of my flesh. Eliza slammed into me, the phallus filling my dark passage completely. The muscles in my ass began to expand and contract wildly, clinging to the fake cock, trying both to expel it and take it in more fully. Someone began to tickle my balls with a light, feathery touch. I did not think that it was Eliza, as I thought her incapable of such a loving caress as that. The woman sucking on my cock let her mouth slip from it completely, and I jabbed at her face in order to find the open orifice, trying to drive it back in. I poked at her nose, her cheeks, her eyes, even an ear, until she opened her mouth again and let me plunge my cock into her throat. At that moment, my orgasm now ascending throughout my body, my explosion imminent, I felt Angelique's cunt begin to throb against my lips. I opened my mouth and swept my tongue up and down the full length of her pussy, letting it rest, finally, on her clitoris, now pulsing, straining to expand beyond itself. The bodies on the floor rolled to and fro and the first moans of orgasm rose from the sea of flesh. My own cock began to pulsate as my orgasm made its way to the surface. My asshole was filled completely with the fake cock, and my muscles gripped it tightly. I closed my lips around Angelique's ruby clitoris and sucked her orgasm from her, her creamy fluids now flowing from her pink, gaping, and pulsating opening. My cock burst; my fluids shot forth into the open mouth, the throat of the woman sucking on it with such expertise. A mass groan arose; everyone was coming. My sight went black; I could see nothing. I broke into a million shards of white light, coming, coming forever it seemed in the mouth holding me firmly and wetly. Eliza pulled out and drove back in, as if to urge my orgasm into another round of explosions. It seemed that it worked, for my orgasm did indeed seem endless, and I sucked on Angelique's sweet clitoris, her own orgasm flowing endlessly, lapping onto itself like the rolling waves of the sea, until she was squirming away from my tongue, unable to endure the extremes of pleasure now subsiding in her. I fell

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CHAPTER FIVE When I finally awoke from deep sleep, I opened my eyes, not knowing where I was, and sat up abruptly. Looking around, I began to vaguely recall the proceedings of that strange night and was surprised to discover that I was alone in that dark, dank room. Immediately, I stood and made my way through the labyrinthine corridors. This time I seemed to have no difficulty finding my way above ground, and I emerged into a loud, day lit house. I had no idea what day it was, or how long I had slept. I assumed that I had merely slept through the night, but I could not be sure, for I felt extremely well rested. And, judging by the level of revelry into which I emerged, I guessed that I might have had slept through one whole day and another night. It seemed, indeed, as if the party now in full swing had been going on for some time. People whom I knew slightly greeted me casually, as if I had been among them all the while. I assimilated myself easily by simply losing myself in the crowd. The counts and barons in the gaming room erupted now and again in boisterous shouts, adding to the mounting, general depravity now filling the house. Something was in the wind; everyone, I sensed, could feel it. Perhaps it was the Grand Orgy for which they had spent their lives in preparation. The house was jammed with people who had arrived during my absence underground, and as I made my way from room to room, I discovered a sea of beauties whose combined perfume swirled around my nostrils and threw me into a dizzy state. Dark eyes welcomed me and beautiful lips opened in salutation. I looked everywhere for the mysterious, lovely Angelique. The state of the rooms on the upper floor was becoming rapidly catastrophic. The storm had wreaked havoc with the roof, and water penetrated the fissures, enlarging them, cracking some open, forming huge incrustations of mold that obliterated the already faded wallpaper. Plaster was powdery to the touch and fell from the ceilings without warning. As there were few servants to care for the rooms, people walked through the mess and left their traces in the halls. With the great number of people now in the building, the supporting beams shook with their weight and floors weaved under their movement. On

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the north side, a portion of wall nearly as large as a man had given way and fallen to the ground, leaving an enormous gap through which the wind blew freely. During the day the lizards clambered over the exposed brick and wandered at liberty across the remaining furniture. No one seemed to pay the slightest attention to these warnings. When they washed, if the faucet refused to close, they simply let the water run. A countess on the second floor found her door lying on the floor when she awoke. No one came to replace it on the hinges and she used the expedient of placing one of her sheets across the doorway to block the way. I admit I was somewhat concerned about these things, but when I mentioned it to the Marquis de Guadeloupe, he merely raised his eyebrows and gave me a cold glance as if to say, "Pish, petty things …" I soon grew as indifferent as the rest and became quite used to casually flicking some bit of fallen plaster from my coat while continuing to sip my drink. There were far too many people, even for the banquet hall, and when dinnertime came, rather than stand in ignoble queues waiting their turn at table, groups went out into the fields and set up barbecues. The grounds had all the appearance of an encamped army that had taken over a shell-wrecked chateau. The fires flickered brightly, and the people crowded close together while they ate, for the early autumn nights were growing cooler with approaching winter. Their habit of holding salon was so ingrown that wherever a dozen collected they struck their poses and indulged in long discussions, which could shift from Chaucer to scandal with the greatest ease. While strolling from fire to fire I heard the actor, Harmon Heath, holding forth, keeping his audience spellbound with his fine bass voice. He was declaiming from the Friar's Tale, and not one of the auditors understood a word of the ancient English, nor perhaps did Harmon himself, and yet we listened as if our understanding was unquestionable. "Now, by my trouthe, brother deere," said he, "As I shall tellen thee a feithful tale, My wages been ful streite and ful smale; My lord is hard to me and daungerous,

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And myn office is ful laborous; And therefore by extorcions I lyve; For sothe, I take all that men wol me geve, Algate by sleyghte, or by violence, Fro yeer I wynne al my dispence; I kan no bettre telle, feithfully." While Harmon's soulful eyes shone in the firelight, burning in the transport of his poetry, the brass-rimmed spectacles of Silas Cisterne veiled the singing master's emotions. Silas listened to his idol with an adoration that passed the limits of intellectual pleasure. The Grand Orgy was in the back of his mind, as it was for all, but for him it was clothed in Harmon's business suit, which by the magic of his art had all the simple grandeur of Demosthenes' flowing robes. Another group was established about an aged crone. She pretended that in her youth she had been a dark and ravishing beauty who had played her part in the court of the Czar before the empire was dissolved. Whether she had been beautiful when younger no one could properly say. Her face was a human replica of the chateau's facade, channeled with crevices that had eaten the once smooth skin into the compelling mask of age. She was so ancient and so hoary that she seemed far less a human being than a gnarled stump come to life. The younger women about her seemed airy and fragile in comparison, and I thought they crowded close in to her in order to set off their charms, as well as to pierce the secret of their destiny in hers. There was a particular poignancy in this group, which in this aspect alone presented the evanescent dream called life. Someone brought up Rasputin and the crone laughed at his name. She pinched her nose and spat into the crackling flames, which sizzled in that instant as if a witches' brew were boiling there. "Grigori," she began, "the 'Staretz', the 'Man of God'. Ah, we danced like dervishes in the mystic act … whipped the Holy Ghost to ecstasy. We annihilated the earthy Ego, sanctified ourselves in Sin!" She had known the old St. Petersburg house at number sixty-four Gorokhovaia Street where he received the visits of his followers, violating one and all without distinction for age or position. A captain's wife, a common prostitute, an actress, the mistress of a

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senator, the concierge next door, all of them went through the arms of the insatiable monk. He fascinated them like a serpent in a chicken coop, taking a charming body offered as a gift, finding new vigor endlessly in his desire to satisfy each ravishing visitor, and he could say with Cardinal de Richelieu when asked the reason for his smile, "I smile because I think, ladies, that I have had you all!" She had bathed with him, with the other ladies of the Court, who had followed him to Siberia, removing their diamonds and beautiful gowns to humble themselves in his water after he had commanded them to undress and "wash the moujik." Theirs was the last fire to go out, which testified to the sorcery of the salacious monk who lived again in the toothless mouth of the onetime beauty who had fornicated in the last Imperial debauch of modern times. An age had crumbled, a long epic poem had come to an end, and she had acted in the final role, anointing the flesh of he who had predicted the ruin that would follow his death. But these open sky salons were little more than a pretext, a side play, a diversion, keeping all temperaments open and disposed to a certain liberality, which, when the time came, would hurl us all into the riot and debauch of the Grand Orgy, now that we were sufficiently warmed and spiced by the stories and the libidinous thoughts they provoked. There was, here and there, some spat or skirmish flaring up, but none was more than a passing, remote affair, and the tension heightened by these false alarms created a suspense which endured throughout the buzzing chateau; an air of mystery whose charm and seduction kept us prisoners, chafing at the bit, high-strung, and on edge. In the course of my promenade, I encountered Baron Goffe. I believe he followed me for a while after I left a circle of vivacious ladies. He took me by the arm, hesitantly, as if he preferred that I should come of my own accord. "Pike," he said, "excuse my interruption. I see you are on a philosophical tour of the assembly, but there is something I should like to talk to you about." He didn't know me well enough, or he might have avoided so much

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ceremony. The thing that was on his mind was no more than the subject of some rumors he'd heard regarding the nefarious rituals in the basement. "You understand, I got the story secondhand. It seemed too fantastic to me, really, but quite interesting, n'est-ce pas? Yes. Well …" He hesitated. He didn't want to appear more curious than the others, but the reports he had heard had moved him greatly. He was extremely interested and thought I would oblige him with some juicy anecdote. When he saw that I took no offense at his questions, he became bolder and confessed that this particular type of debauchery was too intriguing for the reports to remain unconfirmed as far as he was concerned. "They attacked you, didn't they?" he asked, stopping me to stare through his lenses as though he would pierce my thoughts. "That they did," I answered, "and I would rather forget the whole thing." "Yes, yes," he agreed hurriedly, "it must have been most painful…" I saw that he not only wanted me to corroborate that fact, he wanted me to illuminate on it, embroider it, and give his masochistic leanings something to taste, if by proxy alone. I gave him his money's worth, painting the she-devil Eliza Cramp in the most lurid light. Watching his drooling lips savor the heinous debauch stirred within me a certain latent sadism. I made the pains insupportable and went into certain gory details, observing the Baron's eager attention with amusement. "Listen, Goffe," I said. "There's no reason why anyone who would care to run that gauntlet couldn't do so. With a bit of clever wangling one could easily find one's way through those corridors below ground, though I myself will never go back." "Yes, do you think so? Most interesting! Most intriguing!" He thanked me and disappeared in the dark. I watched the stocky figure pass rapidly before a fire, and wondered vaguely if he was going to follow my hint. It's funny, I thought, as I approached the lighted interior. I should have been a poet. I see this house as something living and strange. These people pass through it as if they were the molecules that make

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up the heat and glow of its blood … an apocalyptic vision, the face of a dying courtesan reliving her crapulous past, gloating in her last agony over the fire that consumes her life. But, after all, I continued, it's better I leave the poetry to the others. I was arrested momentarily in my musings by a young duchess, who, thinking she was alone and unobserved, was probing a delicate finger in her crotch, her skirts held bunched in a charming way around her waist. She was bringing the finger pensively to her nose, sniffing the aroma of her pubes as a cook does some succulent dish. "Are you in heat?" I asked the young duchess. "Not yet," she replied icily, hitching her skirts further up and spreading her legs wider so that I could see the most intimate details of her inner cunt. She dipped two fingers into her opening, twisted them, withdrew them, and dragged them back and forth over her now expanding clitoris. It seemed that the only stimulant she had needed was an outside observer such as myself. I happily accommodated her, and sat down in an overstuffed armchair that was coming apart at the seams, making myself comfortable for the duration. Her finger began its concentrated assault on the apex of her sex. I felt my cock begin to harden at the sight of her tiny pink clitoris emerging like a little bud from its thin, membranous sheath. The duchess began to squirm in her chair as she moved her fingers rhythmically around and around the point of her pleasure. Her legs were spread wide and I imagined driving my cock between them, rubbing it against the soft flesh of her inner thighs, thrusting into her wet passageway. I shifted in the chair, affording my hard cock as much breathing room as possible. "Why don't you take it out?" she asked, her voice husky with increasing pleasure, her wrist working to hold her hand steady as she teased her orgasm to a slow crescendo. I undid my trousers at her invitation and took my cock out, grasping it firmly and squeezing, running my hand up and down it. I never took my eyes off her cunt, and she, in turn, stared at my hand on my cock, which was rapidly turning a deep purple. My balls ached. Thrusting three fingers into her cunt, she pulled them slowly out while the finger of the other hand continued to encircle the clitoris.

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Raising her hand to her mouth, she parted her lips lasciviously and ran her wetted fingertips back and forth over her full lips, making them shine with her inner wetness. Then she began to suck on her fingers in a manner that mimicked, I assumed, how she would suck on my cock. I groaned silently and mentally strained toward her, driving my cock deep into her throat in my imagination. "You'd like me to take your cock into my mouth, wouldn't you?" she asked, her words slurred slightly by her fingers filling her mouth. I simply nodded. "Imagine my fingers are your cock," she said, spinning them on her tongue, pushing them to the back of her throat and pulling them out so that just the tips of them rested softly to her soft lips. Then she sucked them back in. Her cunt was now pulsing almost imperceptibly, but I could see the increasing moisture beading her outer lips, the deepening color, the raging clitoris being beaten back and forth by her forefinger. I pumped vigorously on my cock, imagining, as she had said, that it was moving in and out of her luscious mouth. And then, suddenly, my orgasm was rising to the surface. I watched intently as hers did the same, her cunt throbbing, her eyes half-closed, her mouth hanging open in preparation for the deep-throated moan that was soon to escape. We both stared at each other's sex with an intensity that blinded us to all superfluous peripheral things. Her body began to shake, her head began to roll back and forth on her shoulders, her inner thighs began to tremble. My cock was now at full erection, and it was hot and hard in my firmly gripping hand. Within seconds, I was thrusting my buttocks off the seat, thrusting my cock deep into the circle of my fist and coming. I tried to keep my eyes open, glued to her pulsating cunt. She moaned and pressed the palm of her hand to her clitoris and rubbed. I heard von Spratten's laugh somewhere behind me, and thought she had witnessed this little scene, but when I turned to look, the room expanding beyond me, I saw that she was at the far end of it, leaning on the edge of her private bar, deep in conversation with the morose Prince. I tucked myself back into my pants and ran my fingers over my belly, taking up the creamy release onto my fingertips, then stood,

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and walked over to the enervated Duchess, and anointed her beautiful lips with my milky orgasm. Her eyes closed, she licked her lips and made a sound that suggested complete satiation. Then I moved toward the Prince and von Spratten quietly, so as not to disturb them with the knowledge of my presence. The Prince struck a handsome figure in the uniform of the dragoons and it was clear that the effect was not lost on the Baroness. "Let us face it, Prince," I heard her say, "we are the last word." "The last word, Madam? Perhaps, insofar as you are concerned, for you have gone all the way, but I, well, I think!" "I know," she answered. "You are the introspective type. People like you have to examine their entrails all the time, watching for the first signs of disease. Oh, I am lucid, have no doubt about it," she said when he looked up at her. "You are surprised, I see, but unlike you I don't let what I see get in my way. Le bon mot, Prince, le bon mot, that and a 'hey nonny nonny,' drink away, love and die, that's my story and to hell with the entrails!" "Why is everyone so intellectual tonight?" yawned Duchess Toscanelli. She was sprawled out on the sofa, holding her glass up to the Baroness. The gray-breaded count was asleep on the floor, his head propped against the sofa at the Duchess' feet. She had dropped one of her shoes and was trying to grasp the curls of his beard with her toes. "Give me another drink, I'm falling asleep," said a theatrically bored duchess. "And that, Prince, is my answer," the Baroness finished, "I'm falling asleep … here dearie, drink up, fall is upon us and winter is not far away." I clapped my hands in approval. The Prince turned a jaundiced eye my way. He was a flabby decadent, unsure of himself, acting in fits and starts. "You look like an intelligent man," I said to him, and he raised his chin in satisfaction. "What a shame it is that you're not." The Duchess squealed with delight, knocking the graybeard over at the same time. The Prince stiffened, but the Baroness was quick and held his hand, which had darted to his sword.

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"None of that," she said sternly. "Keep your tempers. We are all of us on edge, but really, Henry, you must learn to be more civil." "I meant what I said," I went on, disgusted with myself for having blurted out loud what was merely a passing reflection. Now that I had blundered, it would have been worse to retract my words. Far better to appear a brazen cock looking for trouble than a simple fool who can't keep his mouth shut. "Indeed," exclaimed the Prince. "Very well. We shall see each other tomorrow morning on the dueling grounds!" The Baroness tried to catch the glove he drew from his belt and whacked across my cheeks in two short, but skillful strokes, but she was too slow. He then turned on his heels and strode angrily from the room. The Duchess' mirth turned his ears red, but I was burning as much from the challenge. "Henry, you are impossible!" the Baroness cried. "Go and excuse yourself and stop this silly business. We are already several men short and I can't afford any losses." "Impossible," I retorted. "Tomorrow is a bloody day!" "Mmm," said the Duchess, "blood." She slipped lazily out of her dress and turned on the sofa to face me. Naked, she was incredibly alluring in an indolent sort of way. The Baroness laughed throatily and said, "Yes, blood!" She, too, undressed, while the count slept away on the floor, occasionally coming dangerously close to choking on his snores. "Henry, why don't you treat us as your last fling, assuming, that is, that you're going to stand up for yourself tomorrow. I don't mean to frighten you, my dear, but the Prince is an accomplished swordsman." "Are you implying that I might not live to see tomorrow night?" I shifted uncomfortably at the thought, and cursed my rashness. "Well, let's just say it's a perfect excuse to indulge yourself tonight." The Baroness moved over to me and began to undress me, her eyes gleaming with mischief. I let myself be stripped naked and, despite my worries with regards my life, my cock rose to this new and perhaps far more profound challenge. The Duchess lay idly on the couch, watching us, running her hand slowly along the curves of her body.

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Now naked, I embraced the Baroness and felt her full breasts spreading warmly against my chest, her loins pushing against my own, coaxing my cock to full erection with little pressures from her mound. She lifted her face and kissed me full on the mouth, darting her tongue between my lips. Her wet tongue was warm and filled my mouth with a sweet taste of lust. I returned the kiss avidly and reached behind her to grasp her round buttocks. Still kissing, I was unaware that the Duchess had stood and was now behind me. Suddenly I felt her warm, full body pressing against my backside, enclosing me in a sandwich of soft, yielding flesh on either side. I felt the coarse hairs of her cunt scratching my buttocks as she moved rhythmically, swaying slightly. Somehow we fell to the ground in a heap of flesh. I was atop the Baroness, my cock jutting between her legs, which lay flat on the floor, and the Duchess was atop me, her body pressed into my back. Then we rolled so that I was in the middle of them, and they were coming at me from either side, kissing me all over. I gave myself over to their mouths and hands and lay inert, enjoying every last sensation that they brought to my taut body. The Duchess wrapped her lithe fingers around my upstanding cock and began to play with it, fondling my balls with her other hand. The Baroness was kissing my mouth, my neck, my ears, whispering what she would do to me so that I shivered as her hot breath filled my sensitive orifice. She pushed her tongue deep into my ear and I moaned. Limbs were sprawled every which way, our bodies undulating in the increasing rhythm of our passion. I felt the Duchess move down my body, her lips being set to the tip of my cock. Slowly, she pushed her fist down the length of it and let her mouth follow slowly in its wake. I was consumed with desire and I thrust upwards in order to shove my cock all the way to the back of her throat, which opened widely, taking me in wholly. The Baroness, seeing this, gave a little whine and climbed atop me, straddling my face so that her cunt hovered salaciously over my mouth. I stretched forth my tongue and began to lap at her cunt. She, facing the Duchess, whose warm, wet mouth was swallowing my cock, leaned over and began to battle her friend for access to my organ. I continued to lap at her moist, sweet

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cunt. Teeth scraped lightly against my sensitive skin, and one mouth gave way to another. Checking to see what was going on, I shifted out from under the pressure of the Baroness' insistent cunt and saw that it was now the Baroness who was sucking on me. I set my hands on the swell of her hips and began to caress her buttocks, tracing a thin circle around her protruding asshole. The Duchess, having lost her place at my cock, said something, and the Baroness let me slip from her warm hold. I was left momentarily unattended as the two women argued quietly. Then it was settled, and the Baroness sat up, set her cunt back to my face, and the Duchess climbed onto me, and took my cock in hand. As I was thrusting my tongue deep into the Baroness' hole, I felt the warm, wet sheath of the Duchess' cunt slipping over my cock, taking me completely inside of her. Her walls gripped me softly, but firmly, and she rose and fell on my cock with expert rhythm, lightly fondling my balls with her long fingers. The Baroness, meanwhile, began to slide back and forth over my parted lips, working her clitoris between them. I took it and rubbed it between my lips and she, in response to this, leaned over and kissed her friend on the mouth. We were thus connected, the three of us, and began our long ride to ecstasy. The Duchess, accommodating me fully, began to circle her groin over mine so that I could feel the tip of my cock rubbing against her far wall, probing every inch of her cunt. The Baroness squirmed on my face and I licked her outer folds, sinking my tongue into the flesh of them, and then drove into her hole. Her clitoris continued to rub against my lips, and the two women continued to kiss. I reached out and, sticking my finger between my mouth and the Baroness' wet cunt, slicked it with both my saliva and her prodigious moisture, and then shoved it deep into her asshole, driving her forward slightly. I drove my finger in and out of her tight, dark hole as I lapped up the sweet moisture from her cunt, now seemingly dripping onto my face. The Duchess was now rising and falling on my cock with increased violence, pounding against me. With my free hand, I reached around the Baroness' body to take hold of her breast. I discovered then that the women had lifted their breasts and were

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caressing each other with them, pushing their nipples together, rubbing them back and forth. This aroused all sorts of images in my mind, and my cock began to pulse inside the Duchess' cunt. "He's coming," she said into the Baroness' open mouth, "he's coming." The Baroness laughed and began to force her cunt even harder against my mouth, her buttocks resting now on my forehead. I reached up and touched their breasts, took them into my hands and began to squeeze and fondle them indiscriminately. The Duchess bore down on the base of my cock, her clitoris pressing hard against it, and I could feel her inner walls begin to throb in response to my now throbbing cock. We came together, the three of us, in a mass wave of ecstatic flesh – the two women kissing passionately, rubbing their breasts and hard nipples against each other, their cunts opening in wet orgasmic pulsations – my cock buried deep within the Duchess' cunt, and my tongue buried just as deeply within the Baroness'. Afterwards, we lay about for some time, idly fondling one another and discussing the prospects of my forthcoming duel.

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CHAPTER SIX The Prince and I met on the front steps. The air was brisk and the sky was a cold, steel color, banded on the eastern rim with the red light of dawn. He was accompanied by an Italian-looking officer wearing a uniform made colorful by a dozen rows of medals, and another, shorter, man who wore a tall kepi and boots with long heels to make up for the deficiency. No one said a word and they stayed to one side of the porch, staring rigidly in the direction of the swamp. I was obliged to do the same, as there was nothing else of interest to look at. I wondered how I looked in company with these very military gentlemen; I, with my brown derby cocked slightly at the boulevardier's angle, and a waistcoat of black and gray stripes, which had been fashionable when my grandfather bought it. He had given it to me on his dying day, his very last words being, "Son, it cost me an arm and a leg. I give it to you as a talisman. Wear it only on delicate occasions. I know it is out of style and you will look absolutely ridiculous in it, but pay no heed to the scoffers. Everything goes out of style." I think the Prince thought I was mocking him because of the waistcoat. What I really missed not having was a handlebar mustache with which to confront my adversary. His seconds were admirably endowed with those masculine adornments, and the long waxed tips that curled upwards past their cheeks gave them a dashing air which even the short one in the high boots managed to hold in spite of his constant need to keep the oversize kepi from falling over his eyes. However, I did have a monocle for the occasion, which gave me something severe to counteract the flippant derby. After a quarter of an hour's silence, the Prince asked the Italian officer to inquire about my seconds. The officer spoke in the most courteous manner and I answered that I had not the slightest idea where they were. It wasn't quite true, for I knew very well that if they weren't in the gaming room, the Baron Goffe and the Marquis de Guadeloupe could each be found in bed with the other one's wife. There was another five minutes' silent waiting and the Prince was getting impatient because dawn would be over if we didn't get on with

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the affair, and it would have to be postponed till the following day. The two rakes showed up, both of them tipsy and in a terrible disarray. They had been drinking and gambling all night long, and early in the morning had started to wager on the respective lengths of their erections. The betting was inconclusive because, though they had labored prodigiously, neither one had been able to get a hard-on, and they appeared now on the porch as if by chance, supporting each other, and still arguing about the prowess of their members, which hung loose and dangling out of their flies. They embarrassed me further because they had forgotten all about the duel and were simply bent on "taking some air" to revive their constitutions. We all set off for the swamp, the opposing party marching ahead in precise formation, heads straight and shoulders back, while my stewed companions and I brought up the rear in a motley fashion. The Marquis and the Baron had no idea where we were going, but were pleased to find others awake at this hour and went along for the company. When we reached the edge of the swamp, the Italian officer suddenly discovered the absence of dueling pistols and began to harangue the short fellow, growing so livid I thought we risked another duel. He sent the unhappy man stumbling back to the house in his high boots to fetch the weapons, and the rest of us plunged into the swamp and headed for the notorious dueling grounds. The Prince waded into the muck, which came up to his knees, and before he had gone ten feet his spotless uniform was splashed and dripping with the foul swamp water. I was some twenty yards to his left and held the tails of my waistcoat to keep them from getting soiled. Behind me, the Marquis and the Baron halted at the edge of the muck and wanted to know what the hell I wanted to walk in that mess for. "Come along," I said. "I have no choice in the matter." They flatly refused to enter the swamp, saying they weren't that drunk. The Prince was now out of sight and the Italian was watching us suspiciously. I had to turn back and explain the whole story from beginning to end before my seconds finally remembered their roles. The short fellow had returned with the silver case that contained the

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pistols and we went into the morass, slipping and sliding, grasping at slimy weeds for support, and feeling an extreme discomfort from the repugnant growth. It would be just my luck, I thought, to run into some deadly serpent. It isn't enough I have a duel on my hands; yes, that's the way it goes, it never rains, but it pours. It took us nearly an hour to reach the grim island in the swamp, littered with fallen leaves and charred tree trunks. I heard the flapping of wings overhead and saw a buzzard circle beyond the outstretched branches. Was this to be the scene of my last act on earth? A pitiful and capricious destiny had led me panting and out of breath, covered with slime and filth, dragging my weary limbs like some useless beast of burden, to end my life in a corroding swamp; and my only living witnesses were a pair of drunken nobles, a waiting buzzard, and my executioner. All this for a chance word in a thoughtless moment! I wanted to cry out to the Prince, who was straightening his uniform, that our joke had gone far enough. He must realize the absurdity of it all and not push his cruelty beyond reason. But he was a military man and his cold eyes examined the silver case with care. The condition of his pistols was more important than my life. The Italian officer let me select one first, holding the case as if I were being presented with some official honor. The Prince stepped forward and took his place behind me and I heard the sharp click as he cocked the hammer. The Marquis and the Baron had fallen exhausted at the foot of a tree and never so much as looked our way. It is fitting, I thought to myself as I waited for the command to start, that my seconds are those two confused characters, who have no notion why we came so far on such a miserable journey and are happy at last to rest. I didn't hear the fatal order, and the abrupt departure of the Prince counting off his paces nearly caused me to fall, for I had been resting against his back. I started up hastily with giant strides, hoping to put as much distance between us as possible before the firing took place. I advanced until the count of ten, and, sweating profusely, turned on him with the barrel leveled at his heart. Something seemed to be

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creeping up my legs and my line of vision went rapidly lower until it was aimed at his knees. I saw the flash and heard the report of his gun an instant later. My body sank and a heaviness welled over it, and suddenly I was enveloped in the black, swirling grip of the quicksands. It had all happened too fast, without my having a chance to fire; I disappeared in the marsh while the Prince and his lieutenants gaped stupidly at the spot where I had been. *** The lieutenants carried me out of the swamp, but not without a good deal of cursing and struggling. The Prince, the Marquis, and the Baron followed a moment later, my former adversary thoroughly disgusted with the fiasco and the necessity of returning in the company of drunkards who depended on him for support. The entire chateau had emptied and everyone was waiting with bated breath at the edge of the swamp. They had heard the distant shot, only one, and were sure that one of us had been killed. When they saw that all of us had come back, they were genuinely relieved and a great howl went up at our tattered and dripping clothing. There was further cause for merriment when they learned of the ignominious miracle that had saved my life. The Prince and I avoided each other with great care after the duel. He felt he had undergone public dishonor by failing to kill me, but was not eager to risk another duel because my perpetual bad luck had a way of contaminating everything around me. Upstairs in the Baroness' bath, I thought of an old saying someone had once applied to a friend who had struck it rich: "Yeh, Herb's the guy who falls in shit and comes up with gold in his hands! Me, I fall in shit and I'm happy if I come out alive." When my bath was finished, I lay back to enjoy the warmth and peace, observing the clear blue sky through the massive aperture where the window had given way. I believe I dozed off for a while, for I remember coming awake suddenly at the sound of voices. At first I paid no attention to them, for none of the sounds were clear. They came from the dressing room, which gave on the room with the bath. There was some moving about, and finally I

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distinguished the low bass notes of a male voice and the higher pitched sounds of a woman's. By the tones and force with which they spoke, I guessed they were having an argument, which naturally led me to conclude that it was a married couple. Whatever it was, the woman was quite worked up, and she opened the door wrathfully and entered the bathroom. As the rim of the tub was high enough to keep me from her line of vision, she was unaware that someone was already there, and calling a string of ignoble titles back toward her husband, she stepped over the side and planted both feet on my stomach. She gasped in fright when she saw me, and toppled headlong over my prostrate form. Her husband, hearing the splash, burst into a fit of laughter and called out that she ought to look where she was going. I heard him go into the toilet, where a few minutes later he began a long series of turbulent farts and groanings, which testified to his bad physical condition. Meanwhile, the woman recovered from her surprise and started to excuse herself, saying she hadn't known the tub was occupied. "Not at all, not at all," I protested gallantly. "I am glad I broke your fall." "It was only right you did," she answered, "since it was you who caused it." "What are you mumbling about?" her husband called out from the other room. "Good God, what a tongue!" Her face showed the lack of sympathy she had for her spouse just then, and she wrinkled her nose in a show of longstanding disgust. Needless to say, her naked body with its pert, firm breasts, full buttocks and ample hips was far more soothing than the bath and provoked my penis to erection. If she had had the intention to get off me, her husband's irritating voice killed it then and there. "Tongue, is it?" she called out to him. "I'll give you tongue all right. You haven't heard anything, believe me!" "God-damned fish-wife," I heard him bark. The poor guy didn't know it, but each insult he threw at her opened her pussy wider and wider over my prick until the two made closer acquaintance and she came down viciously to seal their meeting.

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"I'll show him how this fish-wife can swim," she retorted, rippling the water with her ass. "What's that?" he called. "What'd you say? My answer to you is this," and he laughed with false, but violent, mirth that must have deafened his ears in the tiny room. "And mine is this!" she retaliated, running her cunt up and down so hard and fast that the water flew and splashed across the room. "Cunt!" he shouted. "Asshole!" she replied. The battle between them waxed hotter than ever, and while I was getting laid, I nearly drowned in the churning wake of the angry woman. What a chorus they struck up between flying insults and her gurgling, waterlogged pussy! Her breasts bobbed on the surface of the water, which lapped warmly around my chest, as she rose and fell on my cock. Every now and then, in one of her more violent heaves, her breasts flopped up and slapped back into the water, making it splash on my face where it dripped like sweat over my lips. Her cunt enveloped me completely and more warmly than the water, the wetness seeping into her hole and flooding her. She felt as light as air on top of me and I bore the weight gracefully, lifting my buttocks off the tile and plunging deeper into her. The symphony of their fight ended finally with a flurry of groans, shooting sperm and a great female moan of joy. The bathroom door opened and he stepped forth, sighing as loudly as she. He stood there a moment before he burst out in another of his gargantuan laughs: the man was equipped with the most marvelous set of chords I ever heard. "Well, if you aren't a howl," he said. "What do you think you're doing, screwing? You masturbate too much, my dear … at your age!" The clever women said nothing until she had risen from the tub, giving me a sign with her hand to get ready to leave. "Bring me my bathrobe," she ordered. I was afraid he would refuse, but fortunately he was at heart the obedient husband and I escaped by the gap in the wall while he went to retrieve the robe. I stepped outside onto the balcony and threw her a kiss, which she answered.

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As I went down the balcony, I heard the quarreling resume once more, though the woman was far less vindictive now. My problem was how to get back inside, and it was not simplified by my nudity. I had been in similar predicaments before, but only at night and I knew how ridiculous I would look if anyone should find me. Through broken panes I saw the room that used to belong to Heloise when she and her husband lived in the chateau, with the remains of that extraordinary scaffolding which had supported her prize mechanical stallion, Ernest, when she had given herself over to the primal urge to enjoy his powerfully sculpted cock. The wood was rotted and the ropes hung in shreds over the planks, which would hardly have sustained an infant now. The floor was covered with a thick layer of dust, fallen brick and mortar. I tried the window and felt it give way; it fell with a resounding crash, which blew up an enormous cloud of dust. I was covered from head to toe with dirt that clung fast to my wet skin, producing a sudden and radical alteration of color. The tarnished mirror saw a ghostly gray figure, some heretofore unknown type of savage, stop and survey his image. "All set for the ball," I exclaimed, impressed by the Faustian clouds of dust. Then I left in search of some lonely Marguerite below. I came down by the back stairs and circled round the outside to the summer ballroom. The veranda was cluttered with harlequins, gondoliers, gypsies, peasant girls, milkmaids, dancers, and the like; all wore masks and were chatting, drinking, and fondling in that especially careless atmosphere one finds when people disguise themselves. I scooped up a mask that lay near a bush; bending down I saw two pairs of feet belonging to a couple locked in each other's arms. My impromptu costume proved to be a real success, and several interested women pushed forward to compliment the stunning effect. "Thank you," I told them. "I was afraid it might be somewhat drab." "But not at all," they assured me. "It has something a little eerie about it, which is intriguing, but it is certainly not drab." More than ever we felt the approaching hour of debauch. Not only were there the external signs, such as flushed cheeks, lowered voices, and softly swaying bodies, but there was the ever-present electricity

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passing through the subconscious; waiting, alert, trying to guess what the spark might be. At that very moment, the Grand Orgy was fast approaching the chateau, speeding up the highway in a spectacular way, spreading panic in the surrounding fields with blasting horns and raucous voices. The Baron's inseparable butler, Smills, was driving, accompanied by Mr. Griffin, butler to the eccentric Grand Duke, Cosimo de Beaucouillon, whose orgiastic marriage to the actress Maggie Choates had every salon buzzing for months afterwards. The Grand Duke and his butler, who was the Duke's double in every way, save for the blood that flowed through their veins, flanked the Baron in the rear, their flowing beards making the Baron seem more hairless than ever. There were limousines packed with the Duke's mistresses, followed by the ugly Countess Rubilovsky. Her opium pipe was going full steam and shielding her from view with its bluish vapors. Uncle J.'s Stutz brought up the rear. He was at the wheel, gesticulating to his friend and compatriot, Mr. Edward Champdick, whose fame resided chiefly in his ithyphallic condition, which had plunged him through a harem on the Golden Horn and turned Istanbul green with envy. It was a staggering entourage dotted with familiar faces. The lesbians Hortense and Clarissa; the ravishing Carlotta Di Pizzina; Kashka Varnishkas, the queen of all the femmes fatales, whose extraordinary gowns exhibited more of her naked flesh than they concealed, a flesh that was tattooed with lascivious designs to add to her peculiar charm; the taciturn Compt D'Avino; Prince Paul-Jonah, whose address books contained an inventory of the most fuckable bluebloods on the continent; and so on, turning up in a caravan whose like had not been seen since the awe-inspiring arrival of Count Oblowoff through this selfsame drive a few years back. "This is it," said Czerni to the Grand Duke and his double. "I told you von Spratten would wreck the joint. Just look at that facade!" As if to prove the Baron's point, a whole section of roof over the left wing gave way. "Fuck it," drawled the Duke de Beaucouillon. "We didn't come here to build anything."

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"Certo, no," chimed in the Conte. "Ci vuol un po' d'amore adesso." "Amour, amour! La douce folie!" Rubilovsky sang out of her window, tapping the ashes from her opium pipe. Wilma, accompanied by Uncle J. and Mr. Champdick, was the first to mount the steps, and the Baroness received her daughter with open arms. "How happy I am, my dear, that you've come home!" "Yes, mother, I've had a better offer than travel. Mr. Champdick here has a very good friend, a king, who is always on the lookout for a wife. I told him to invite him here and save me the trip." While all this splash and show was taking place, I danced on with the others in the ballroom, unaware, tasting the sweet anticipatory pleasures of close embraces while following the orderly patterns of a fox trot.

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CHAPTER SEVEN "Good God! Is that you, Czerni?" Czerni did the little dance, which always accompanied his spontaneous joy. "Ay, that it is, I have come back! Bring up the onions, boys! Meet a couple of dukes," he added. "Grand ones, of course. Take a bow, gents, this is my very good friend, von Spratten, known as 'V.S.O.P.' to her intimates. Didn't lose any time in running the place to pot! I hope you at least kept those crates out of danger." "How do you do, your graces?" she said, curtseying without difficulty, feeling with a warm glow their appreciative eyes dipping into the cleft of her bosom. "The vodka is safe, never fear…" He didn't wait to hear more, but made his way through the crowd, anxious to find his precious drink. "Take care of the introductions yourselves," he shouted. "Wait, one minute, Czerni!" She wanted to tell him that I, too, was there, but he disappeared in the direction of the cellar. The personalities issued from the cars and were received by the Baroness in a whirlwind of bowing and hand kissing. "Take your things upstairs," she said. "There are no more servants and we are now so many that we shall all have to double up in the rooms." This last bit of news quickened everyone's pulse. The word began to spread through the house of this magnificent entourage, and from then until well into the evening people were engaged solely in meeting one another. This was so vast an enterprise that we in the ballroom knew nothing of the new arrivals until the steady influx of dancers compressed us into a solid, immobile mass. Dancing was out of the question and we listened wistfully to the music instead, and finally consoled one another with a general rubbing and massaging which gradually grew warmer and more intense. The sturdy shapely limbs and plump rolls of buttocks hemmed us in, prisoners in this living wall of flesh. Hands crawled everywhere in the voluptuous mass, fingering through brassieres and twiddling the luscious nipples hidden

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there. Buttocks were grasped firmly and kneaded with liberal attention. Breasts popped out and tongues began to lap and suck the globes, which showed, beneath the chandeliers like the rolling surface of a sea in which no man would hesitate to plunge headlong, a sea of breasts, interspersed with male and female heads. My partner had her head resting on my shoulder, both hands clasped round my neck while my naked body, rubbed clean of its coat of dust, pressed against hers. She lifted her skirts, hitching them around her waist, and spread her legs as wide as the sea of flesh surrounding her would allow. I set my hands on her hips and, bending my knees slightly, placed my cock at her entrance. Then, thrusting deeply into her cunt, I grasped her tightly and we continued in our dance, moving back and forth with the swaying crowd. To our right, another couple was dancing in this same manner, the man's cock buried deeply within his partner's cunt, their moist bodies pressing lewdly against each other. All around us people were coming together in whatever fashion most suited them: men danced with other men, their cocks jutting out before them; women and men danced, fucking; women embraced women, rubbing their breasts together, their loins circling and grinding to the increasing tempo of the music. The slow, hypnotic movement of the mass dance could only be described as a long screw in slow motion. Rising now and again above the lapping sounds of mouths on breasts and necks, could be heard a long, drawn-out moan of ecstasy. Cunts were being flooded with the sweet juices of orgasm; sperm gushed into the soft channels of generous cunts; bodies pulsed to the harmonious rhythms of both music and moaning. As I fucked my partner, all the while swaying to the music, I began to feel behind me the revolving of full, firm buttocks against my own. Our flesh met and grew hot. The woman pressed against me and bent over slightly so that I could feel her cleavage parting, her asshole revealing itself to my own. Just as I was about to come, my partner was spun around by someone else. I, not one to waste time lamenting such a loss, turned around myself so that I was now facing the backside of this other woman, her buttocks parting for the tip of my cock, which was now sliding up and down her crevice. She continued

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in her little rhythmic dance as I prepared to enter her from behind. Her warm, moist crack, dividing the great globes of flesh, received my cock readily enough, but I had difficulty locating that intimate hole which is not generally employed in the way I intended. It cost me some effort to squeeze the head of my club through the unwilling aperture, but once I managed to fit it in place, it penetrated into her bowels in a thoroughly satisfying way and I felt the gentle vibrations of another prick batting its head through her cunt. Now I was able to appreciate to the full that delightful movement of hers. Thus began the Grand Orgy. There was no wild scrambling and mauling as some had supposed there would be. Rather, it began with a long, luxuriant opening movement, andante in tempo, neither too slow nor too fast, but dreamlike and sensual, drawing us all into the warmth, the perfume, the heady smell of mixed perspirations, acrid cunt juice, and sperm; all fusing into an aphrodisiac all the more potent through its constant replenishing. And because of its discreet manner we were not aware that it was upon us, mesmerized as we were and content to absorb the pleasure in each stage. The second movement, the allegro, commenced while we were still involved in the first. All credit goes to the Baroness, who sparked the conflagration in her salon. Inspired by the handsome de Beaucouillons, and his butler – both of whom were ready to service the lusty woman at the first likely moment – she led them in, making sure to precede them so that they might appreciate the great ass which was her pride and which had given me so many enjoyable hours in its generous intimacy. Their conversation centered naturally enough on the remarkable resemblance between the two bearded gentlemen who were in no way related by family. Her curiosity was excited by these duplicate personalities and, one thing leading to another, she finally admitted she had a craving to see if nature had carried this doubling right down to their balls. The Grand Duke, who had never been known to refuse a lady's request, drew forth his cock and held it in his palm. The butler did the same, thereby showing that though he was not of noble birth, he had been thoroughly educated to acquit himself with honor.

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She was dry in the mouth as she studied the two fine cocks. She took them, one in each hand, and stroked them carefully, enjoying the smooth-as-silk skin in which sturdy muscles were sheathed, and so treated them that shortly the two weapons enlarged and grew to fighting shape. Then and there the hot-blooded Duke grasped the Baroness by the waist and lifted her high in the air. His friend then took her skirts and together they executed a swift maneuver which stripped her bare and exposed her to their double assault, the two pricks driving into both holes in one sweeping move. Her gigantic ass served as a buffer to the cocks and took a tremendous pounding from these two who, since the celebrated nuptial night when they had discovered their brilliant talents in the "double fuck," had never taken a woman singly since. Von Spratten's friend Sigara, who never let the Baroness out of her sight for any length of time for fear of missing some special treat, caught the trio in the middle of their sport. Reproaching them for having gotten off to a fast start, she quickly disrobed, revealing her taut nakedness, which shone in the golden light surrounding her. She kneeled behind the Duke, no doubt choosing him for his noble blood, and began to tongue his low-hanging balls, all the while rubbing her breasts along the backs of his hard legs, sliding them up and down at her pleasure. Her friend the Baroness looked no more substantial than a rag doll, being thrust forward onto one cock, and pulled back onto the other. Her head rolled about on her neck, her breasts bounced erratically, her arms hung limp to her sides. Were it not for her beatific expression, one might have thought she was miserable. But enjoy herself she did. All of a sudden, she let out a long, low moan, and clasped her arms around the Duke's neck. Her legs encircled his waist and, impaled on both cocks, she shook violently, coming. Her release could be seen dripping from one cock to the other, and Sigara, still tonguing the balls which flopped in her face, caught all the drippings on her tongue and drank greedily, bringing herself to orgasm with the expert maneuverings of her fingers. The two men buried deeply within the Baroness leaned forward and kissed as they, too, came. The evil Eliza Cramp, spotting Mr. Champdick, moved over to him

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in order, no doubt, to claim his perpetual erection for herself. As it had been seen, Eliza was already considerably deranged, but the effect of his enormous and unflagging cock so stunned the woman that she lost her voice, and possibly what was left of her mind as well, for she remained rooted to the ground before Champdick, unable to move. With the mass of swaying flesh surrounding them, Eliza dropped to her knees, as if to worship the cock, and mumbled something incomprehensible. I guessed that the missing Angelique had lost one devotee, and that Champdick didn't know what he was in for. Eliza ran her hands up and down his thick legs and continued to mumble nonsense. The cock kept striking her head each time she rose up his legs. She seemed to enjoy this especially, as if she were being beaten with it, and she managed her movements so that, no matter what she did, the cock rapped at her head relentlessly. Bodies moved around them, not seeming to notice this subtle activity taking place. I alone watched in utter amazement, recalling, as I did, the dark force of Eliza some nights before. I still hadn't seen Angelique, though I had thought of her often, and I was tempted to stroll over to Eliza to inquire about the other woman. But I was thwarted by an unidentified body wrapping itself petal-like around my backside. Hands slipped down my belly, caressing me lightly. My cock rose to meet them as they continued to travel downward. Long, lithesome fingers grasped me and began to tug at my cock. My heart began to beat rapidly, and feeling this new attention to my body, I continued to watch Eliza, who was now kissing the cock with ardor. I felt a mouth being set hotly to my neck, and I shivered. My cock was held firmly by the hands, my buttocks pressed into the groin of the woman behind me. All around me bodies swayed this way and that, everyone naked, everyone yearning with open potency. The breasts of the woman rubbed my back, one to each side of my tingling spine. Lips moved to my earlobe, teeth bit softly into the flesh, a tongue darted into my ear. I moaned. "Worship me," I heard. It was Angelique! "Worship me," she whispered again with that familiar, almost innocent, softness she had about her. Her hands clutched my cock urgently, and I turned around. I kissed her immediately, forgetting about the movement surrounding

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me. Gently, I lowered her to the floor, bodies parting in order to give us room. She lay supine and naked. I parted her legs with my knees and slid my cock into her wet opening. We fucked passionately, my buttocks pumping up and down in the air, my cock moving in and out of her, my hands slipping up her body to grasp her breasts. From somewhere I heard a loud groan, and immediately recognized it as coming from Eliza. "Eliza's found someone else to worship," said Angelique with unmistakable relief. She then wrapped her legs around my waist, clinging to me for life, it seemed, and raised her buttocks fully off the floor. I drove into her and felt her cunt begin to lap at my cock, the inner walls clinging wetly to me, pulsating in her orgasm. My own orgasm rose quickly and exploded deeply within her. The chateau was alive with the running din of conversation growing steadily louder in volume as each minute ticked away. Angelique and I, after our reunion, lay for a few moments beneath the legs of the revelers moving here and there in the increasing chaos of the ballroom. Finally, the crowd beginning to surge more violently, we stood and made our way through it and onto the grounds which were bathed in the bluish light of early evening. We strolled leisurely, our arms around each other in a silent union that did not end with our coupling. There was a strange understanding between us, as if we had known each other all our lives. Walking across the green, we admired the chestnut trees, which seemed to stand like aging sentinels before the crumbling facade of that house. Light streamed forth not only from the windows, but from the lengthening gaps in the walls as well. I wanted to ask Angelique about her involvement in the strange proceedings of that stormy night, but I didn't want to put her on the spot. I decided instead to wait until she volunteered the information, and we walked on in peaceful silence, the din of the party growing more and more dull the further away from the house we got. "You know," she said. "It's really just a game we play. I'm not sure anyone really believes in what they do or say down there." She spoke softly so that I had to lean my head into hers to hear. "How long …"

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"It started a few years back," she said, interrupting me, knowing exactly what I was going to ask. "The Baroness had invited some of us to spend a weekend with her. And, as is typical of the Baroness, once we arrived, she never showed her face once. So, we had to amuse ourselves. There was a violent storm the first night and we all gathered in the drawing room, except, of course, the Baroness. To this day, I don't even know if she was in the house. Anyway, most of us were sort of in a half-sleep, having been awakened by the storm. Some even showed up having forgotten to put on any clothes. So there was this air of foreboding mixed with lust. I don't know exactly how to explain it." She stopped and walked on for some time without speaking, as if pondering for the first time just what exactly did happen. We came to a small, pristine lake, which I had never come across before, and, as it was rather hot, we decided to take a swim. Undressing slowly, Angelique was evidently still thinking about that night. As she unzipped the back of her dress, she began again, her breasts falling free just as the first words escaped her mouth. "There was a man there, I never knew his name and have not seen him since, who had been eyeing me since my arrival. He was very tall, with jet-black hair and piercing blue eyes, as blue as ice." Now slipping out of her dress, I could not help but to concentrate more on her beautiful nakedness than on her words. I was naked by now and we stepped to the edge of the gently lapping lake. "He was in the drawing room when I arrived, having a cocktail. His dressing gown was open slightly so that I could see his legs, and when he saw me, his cock instantly grew hard which, at the time, shocked me terribly. Seeing this, I turned to go back to my room, for, as I've said, there was a strange air of foreboding. But as there were some other people in the room who knew me quite well, they urged me to stay. The man asked me if I'd like a drink, and I declined." The water was cold, but refreshing, and we waded in knee-deep. Angelique shivered and I put my arm around her and rubbed her back, urging her to continue. I watched as her nipples hardened in the cool air and light spray of water wetted them now and again. They glowed translucently and I longed to reach out and touch them.

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"When the entire party had gathered there, we all sat around discussing trivial things. That man never took his eyes off me. I was dressed in my negligee, which, I only realized later, was completely transparent, and I was naked beneath it. Anyway, he made me nervous, but aroused me at the same time. I could feel my cunt beginning to ache under the steady gaze of his eyes, and my inner thighs began to moisten. But I tried to ignore him. Each time the thunder boomed, I was certain the house would cave in. And each time the lightning seared through the sky, it lighted the party in a strange, otherworldly white glow. At one point, someone started talking about some cult of which they were aware, where the high priestess chooses a goddess to both worship and degrade at once. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and I squirmed nervously away from the conversation, asking anyone if they'd seen the Baroness." By now we were standing almost shoulder-deep in the dark water, and Angelique stopped, turned to me and looked at me with searching eyes. I could not fathom what she meant to say, and so I drew her into me, holding her fast. Her wet breasts chilled me and warmed me at once. I kissed her face, her neck, and told her softly to continue. The story was beginning to arouse me and the night sky was deepening to a lusty deep blue color. My hard cock pressed against her slippery thighs and she continued. "The man said that he'd seen the Baroness earlier, engaged, he said, in a tête-à-tête with the Prince. And then, looking directly into my eyes, he said, 'But who gives a damn about her? You eclipse all others.' Again, I squirmed, for even though I didn't know him, I knew precisely what he had in mind and I begged a headache and rose to depart. But he stood just as I did, strode over to me, grabbed me hard by the arm, and pulled me back. The rest of the party, knowing what he had in mind as well, looked at us with anticipation. He tore my negligee from my body, leaving me standing in that roomful of strangers, friends, and acquaintances, naked. Just then Eliza, who was then still the family governess, entered the room, looking for her charge. Seeing me, and perhaps sensing the air of expectation in the room, she walked right over to me and touched my body. The man laughed and stepped back, his cock jutting out from his dressing

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gown. I shuddered at the woman's touch, but for some reason, I did not back away from it." "Did you like it?" I asked, cupping her breasts in my hands and squeezing them. "Yes." I slid my hands down her back until they came to rest on the swell of her buttocks. Our bodies were almost completely enveloped by the dark water, our faces obscured by the blackening night. I urged my cock between her thighs and began to rub it back and forth. She closed her legs and pressed them firmly against my cock. "Yes," she whispered, "I liked it." Even more aroused than before, I ran my finger up and down the cleft of her buttocks and continued to rub my cock between her legs. "Then what happened?" "Well, as I said, the man backed away, his cock emerging from his dressing gown, and sat back down in the chair. Everyone else, those who were not already naked, undressed. Eliza began to kiss me on the mouth. At first I was so shocked that I did not return her kiss. But then I felt a hand landing sharply on my buttocks and I was told to kiss her back. I reluctantly began to return the kiss, parting my lips slightly in order to admit the woman's tongue. The fear that surged through me seemed to be the manifestation of that foreboding I'd sensed, and I had no idea what was going to happen. 'She's really quite beautiful, isn't she?' I heard someone ask, and a general chorus of agreement arose. I knew then and there what was going to happen, and the man who had been staring at me commanded me to lie on the ground. I did so obediently, and not unwillingly for I was rather aroused, despite myself." She stopped at the feeling of my cock making its way to her cunt. Spreading her legs, she grasped it and guided me into her, the water lapping around her breasts, making them even more provocative. "Go on," I said, slipping into her. Moaning at my entry, she continued. "I lay on the ground, sort of covering my breasts with my arms, and protecting my sex by pressing my legs together. Eliza stood above me and undressed, her legs to either side of my body so that I could see her cunt the minute it was

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uncovered. It looked very beautiful, inviting … but I was frightened, and the storm was gathering in force outside. When I looked around, I saw that some people were touching, idly fondling themselves and those closest to them. The man, I saw, was still staring intently at me. When Eliza was naked, she ran her foot down the length of my body, kneading my breasts with her toes, and then brushing them lightly across my belly until her foot came to rest between my legs. I was almost certain she was going to push it into me, and I stared at her in disbelief and fear. She laughed maliciously and got down on her hands and knees." "Did you want her to fuck you?" I asked, driving my cock deep into her cunt. "Yes," she said, groaning. "How did you want her to fuck you?" "I wanted her to lick my cunt." "Did you like being watched?" I asked, pushing my cock into her as deeply as it would go. "Yes, I liked it very much. There were about twelve people, all naked, all touching, all aroused. I liked being watched, and I wanted everyone there to fuck me while everyone else watched." I withdrew my cock then and she gave me a worried look, as if she feared that she'd repelled me somehow with this confession. On the contrary, I wanted greater access to her body than the water afforded us and I led her out of the lake and onto the grassy shore. By now the night was dark and the quarter moon shone with a dim white light, the world silhouetted mysteriously around us. As soon as we were out of the water, we fell to the ground in a passionate kiss, my mouth pressing against hers with an urgency that cut into our lips almost painfully. She wrapped her legs around me and drew me into her. My cock hovered about her opening, teasing her. "Tell me more," I said, sweeping the tip of my cock back and forth over her outer folds and pushing it lightly into her opening and withdrawing. "She began to kiss my feet, telling me how beautiful I was, how worthy I was of being worshipped. The man, who still would not take his eyes from me, nodded almost imperceptibly and took his cock in

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hand, beginning to rub it softly. He took a sip of his drink and rolled it around his tongue, swallowing finally, his eyes on my cunt, which was open to his gaze. Eliza, meanwhile, was making her way up my legs, kissing every inch of me, anointing my flesh with her tongue." She gasped suddenly as I bent down and took a breast into my mouth, sucking on first one and then the other as if trying to extract from her nipples the elixir of life. I felt her fingers wrapping around my cock, guiding me to her passageway. But I withheld my thrust and denied her the pleasure she sought with a desperate tension now running through her body. "Fuck me," she whispered. "Not yet." I ran my tongue around her hardened nipple, beating it back and forth, and then moved to the other one. My hands strayed between her thighs and I swept them lightly back and forth, now and again coming softly against her cunt. Each time the side of my hand touched the outer folds of her cunt, she heaved her buttocks off the ground in order to have me touch her more fully. "Did it turn you on to see the man playing with himself?" In answer, she squeezed my cock hard, tugged on it slightly, and ran her fist up and down the length of it. Then she spoke, "I watched as his face grew increasingly contorted with that blissful agony that precedes orgasm. His eyes never closed, never left my cunt, and he began to work his hand harder and faster on his cock. One couple, whom I did not know, were fucking, the woman had straddled the man's lap, her back to me, and she was rising and falling on his cock. I could see her tiny asshole emerging and vanishing as her buttocks parted and closed in her rhythm. That turned me on, too. Two others, two men, in fact, were tumbled to the floor beside me, the one man turning to the feet of the other. I watched as he plunged his cock into the other's mouth and took the other's cock into his. That was arousing. They were so close that I could see the wetness of their cocks as they slipped in and out of each other's lips. I could see the one man's balls slapping on the other's forehead. "By now, Eliza's mouth was at my cunt, her tongue circling around it, but never moving into it. She teased me by breathing hot, humid air over the surface of it. My clitoris throbbed painfully at this lack of

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touch. The man who was pumping his hand up and down on his cock smiled wickedly, knowing my agony. I groaned … please, fuck me," she said, with a new urgency in her voice. My cock dipped into her cunt halfway and then withdrew. "What happened next?" It was more difficult than she knew to forbear. But I wanted to increase our arousal to the breaking point. Then I would fuck her. "The man spoke finally, his eyes glued to my cunt. He told Eliza to stop touching me. Then he commanded her to spread my legs wide and hold them there. Two others, taking the cue, got down on their knees and held my arms over my head. I was splayed wide and vulnerable. But I liked it. It was almost a liberating feeling, to be thus exposed and vulnerable, my cunt gaping open and pulsating, my hands and feet pinioned by others. The lust was building. Then the man instructed each person there to kneel beside me and kiss me, or caress me; to worship me in essence. Everyone did, save for the two men who were lying beside me, engaged in an increasingly violent passion. For a moment, it seemed as if time were frozen, and I watched for the longest time, it seemed, the one man's buttocks expanding and contracting as he thrust his cock into the other man's mouth. And then, all of a sudden, mouths and hands were on me, sweeping over my body, kissing me, licking me, fondling me reverently. Men's cocks pushed into the sides of my legs, into my waist, the side swell of my breasts. Women's breasts dangled over me as they leaned down to kiss me or otherwise touch me. It was an exquisite moment, when my entire body was made into a purely sexual thing. The man, meanwhile, had stood again, and was now standing between my legs, staring down at me. He spoke in a resonant voice, which seemed to mimic the thunder, and told everyone to stop touching me. They all left me, and for a moment, I lay there, splayed open, untouched. My cunt ached terribly, and I longed for him to drive his cock into me." "Just like you long for me to fuck you now?" "Yes," she whispered, trying once again to guide me into her. And, again, I simply let the tip of my cock sweep lightly, softly, over the surface of her cunt.

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"He stood for some time, his cock jutting out before him, his strong legs tensed, his chest heaving, looking down at me. Finally, I could bear it no longer, and I pleaded for him to enter me. He laughed maliciously, as if he all of a sudden despised me, and reached down, turned me over, and began to spank me. I didn't squirm away, though I have little tolerance for pain, because I liked it. It was strange. The stinging felt good, as if it would alleviate my desire if it continued. Then he turned me back over, my buttocks stinging and red, and glared at me. "'Do you want me to worship you?' he asked, and I nodded, wide eyed, for I didn't know what I was supposed to say. He then got down onto his knees, clutched my breasts and squeezed them, aimed his cock at my entrance and drove into me." This said, I pushed my own cock deeply into her, extracting the deepest of moans from her throat. "Like this?" "Yes," she said, heaving her buttocks upwards, urging me to enter her deeply and with greater force. "Harder," she said, "fuck me harder." I began to pound into her, her breasts swaying from side to side, her legs rising into the air. My balls slapped against her thighs as I drove into her with all the force of my pent-up desire. "Do you want me to worship you?" I asked, guessing at the answer. "No," she said, moaning, her orgasm building. "No!" She came, her cunt throbbing around my cock, absorbing the pulsations now coursing through it in my own release. I drove deeply into her, exploding relentlessly against the far wall of her inner cunt. Our bodies pulsed in a melding rhythm until every last wave of our orgasms had subsided. "I didn't think so," I said, rolling off her. After a time of just lying there, regaining our strength, I asked her why she had allowed it to continue if she disliked being worshipped like that. "I don't know," was all she said. "I don't know." By the time we had wandered back to the chateau, the summer ballroom, in which the great, slow screw had taken place, was empty. The festoons hung limply from the ceiling or lay trampled on the floor. Instead, the numerous hallways and winding staircases offered a more social trysting place, with frequent chance of escape into

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cabinets, bathrooms, and closets, not to mention the obvious recourse to bedrooms. At the bottom of the stairs sat Silas Cisterne, the music master, his legs splayed wide. Before him stood Harmon Heath, his cock jammed into the master's mouth. As Silas sucked him to orgasm, Heath waxed melancholy, using Shakespeare as his guide. Beyond them, in the room just off the stairs, I saw the Duchess of Toscanelli engaged in a slow dance with the brooding Prince, the Baroness seated casually on the sofa behind them, watching. Everyone was naked. The Duchess, rubbing her body lasciviously against the Prince's, was coaxing his cock to erection with her little swaying movements. Her cunt, I could see, pressed hard against his slowly rising cock. Finally he was hard, and she, gleeful, grasped him and spread her legs wide, shoving the cock into her cunt. They continued to dance like that and the Baroness clapped in her jaded fashion. Everywhere, people were clasped in embraces that would lead to far better things, or they were already fucking openly. Angelique, who seemed only half-surprised at this debauchery, upon seeing a friend of hers, kissed me and skipped off. I watched her depart and made a mental note to find her later. I was not finished with her by a long shot. After mindlessly gazing around me for some time, I stepped into the summer ballroom for a much needed moment of solitude. Thinking I was alone, I sighed heavily and kicked my way through the fallen festoons, moving toward the window. It was then that I saw the luscious Marquise de Guadeloupe and the Baron Goffe in the corner. He had her pinioned against the wall and was pounding into her. Her legs were around his waist; she was held aloft by his cock, held firmly in his arms. I watched for a moment as he moved in and out of her, his buttocks pumping madly, shaking. Her nails, I could see, dug into the flesh of his back, dragged down his spine. I wondered if he were bleeding, but could not see in the dim light. Just as I was turning to leave, having seen enough indulgences for a while, I saw the Baron's body stiffen, press the Marquise even harder to the wall, his buttocks contracting, pinching tightly together, and his head loll back on his head. He shouted something, and came. Then I

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made my way through the crazed crowd. While all the fucking and hollering was going on, Czerni was slowly drinking himself to death in the cellar. He had ploughed through several bottled sand onions, and was thoroughly wretched due to the obstinacy of his prick. He was sitting, dressed the way he had come, quite elegant in his way, but minus his trousers and shorts. His cock flapped limply in his fingers as he tried it again. "It's no use," he bawled. "No use. Look at me. Look at me." That was how I found him. After all those years apart, my first view was the pathetic spectacle of my noble friend, bathed in tears, cut to the quick with despair, intent on drinking himself out of life. I stopped on the cellar stairs and regarded him an instant, taking the scene in at a glance. I was moved, for the pathos of his fate was all too cruelly marked by the wild din of the debauch overhead. I made my way through the litter and stopped in front of him. He first saw my shoes and slowly raised his head, his hand still holding his lifeless organ. We looked at each other without speaking. Slowly, he rose from the onion sack and I saw how terribly he had aged since the last time I had seen him. "Pike," he said in a voice broken with pain. Still, he tried hard to express that my presence brought him a ray of joy. But his tragedy overwhelmed even that slight attempt, and he slumped once more to the sack. "You see me, Pike? You see me? Am I an old man? You remember those times? The women we fucked … my wife, even, Heloise … and her sister, Arlette. Look at me. Just look at me! How did it happen? I don't know, I don't know. I feel as though my blood is water, my brain is a shriveled cabbage. Nobody looks at me any more … women. No, like I don't exist … look right through me..." "Czerni." "No, Pike, it's all over. This is the end. I feel it. Listen to that racket! Oh, God. They're fucking and fucking and fucking. Screwing their damned heads off. They'll kill themselves in that glorious death I wanted for my own. But, no, for me, there's only this," he indicated the ripped open cases of vodka. "Have a drink, Pike, for old time's

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sake … for Sacha … for me … for the end." A dull, distant boom sounded. The rotten rafters of the right wing had collapsed and dragged with them a crumbling mass of wreckage, tearing away rooms and beds with a sickening sound. I heard rats scurrying away, but we were too far engrossed to realize what the noise meant. "I lived too long in boudoirs," he went on after we had downed our toasts. "Too long. All the air I ever breathed was female; perfumes, powders, colognes; like a hothouse, yes, a hothouse flower. Too long, too jaded now, abused, spent, worn out … look at me. I thought this onion … well, my last chance. Years in the jungle, horrible, wasting years. Beriberi, malaria … years of fever, but I kept on … I kept on … all for an onion. A miserable, stinking onion supposed to give you a hard-on. Everybody else gets one, but not me." "I am grieved to meet you this way. I understand how you feel," I said, wondering if I really did. "But if you went so far and suffered in your veins, let's see if we can't get it pumping. Come on upstairs … you have the finest orgy that ever was, taking place right in your own house." "My house," he cried, waving his arms at the junk surrounding us, his words echoed by another groaning tremor that proclaimed the destruction of the left wing. "My house, and look at it. It's like me, Pike, old and crumbling, used up, eaten out. It belongs to another time, the way I do. Even you in some ways." "If Sacha were here he would laugh at you," I answered. "He never gave a fuck what year it was, what century it was, who was running what or where. Fucking is all in the mind, he said, you remember? You get a hard-on up here," and I pointed to his head, "before you get it down there." I decided that, come what may, Czerni had to be brought back upstairs. He had to see that roaring furnace of rutting females. He had to hear the lust cries again and smell the aphrodisiacal pungency. He had been warped, badly warped if he took to grieving in a damp cellar at a time like this. Had I been able to see what was actually taking place overhead, I would never have bothered to discuss it with him that long.

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Everyone who had been previously dressed, was now divested of all clothing; the entire party was romping about, blissfully naked. A great circle was in progress, and women and men alike rushed childlike to get in its exuberant path, as if celebrating spring for the first time ever. Men trailed behind women, their cocks plunging into eager holes, dripping with a lubrication which let the organs out as easily as it let them in. A count drove his cock into the raging slit of a dancing baroness, and came slipping out on the next step only to ram his steaming dick all the harder into a squealing duchess. Wherever one saw a breast, one saw, too, a hairy hand mashing the full, pliant flesh, or twisting the hard nipple like a berry from a vine. Mouths were set to breasts, to necks, to cocks, to buttocks; everywhere, people were feasting on the flesh of their companions. The hands on breasts were replaced here and there by the alabaster fingers of women, who reached out to enjoy the pleasures of the full, swaying flesh of both themselves and others. A woman held her breasts, pushing them together for a man to drive his cock into the dark, voluptuous space between them. The man rubbed his cock back and forth, back and forth, the shaft held firmly by the enveloping, soft flesh, while the woman watched the ugly, tearing cylinder emerging and vanishing in its shiny sheath, the distended hole loosing the first drops which told the woman that shortly, the ejaculation would come. Her mouth opened like a waiting receptacle, and the cock exploded, the stream of sperm shooting into her open mouth. She swallowed it lovingly, savoring the thick taste of it with great gulps. Long, heavy sacks hung beneath hard cocks, slapping between thighs with the lascivious movements of the fornicators. People cried into one another's ears, bit into soft flesh of earlobes, collapsed to the floor in a writhing mass of desire and need. One man pumped his cock into a woman's cunt beneath him while his ass was being filled by another man. The three of them fucked as if there were no other movements around them; in fact, everywhere, people were dropping to the floor in order to satisfy their every lust. Here two women rolled around together, their breasts pressed in a voluptuous meeting of flesh, their cunts open and sliding against each other, their arms grasping each other's waist and hips. There a man had his head buried

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between a woman's thighs as he pumped his cock in and out of her mouth. Eliza Cramp was kneeling again before Champdick, worshipping his unflagging cock, handling it with the greatest of reverence, kissing the tip of it, licking his balls. Harmon Heath was searching for the infamous groom with the magnificently proportioned cock, calling out for him, yelling over heads and entwined bodies. A formidable army of naked men and women marched down the stairs, all pressed against those behind and before them; a long chain of humping backs. They sang, shouted, and screamed in the frenzy surrounding them. "Fuck on, you bloody bastards!" "Fuck on!" the chorus repeated. "Now in!" With one accord, the army of pricks went through to the hilt in the cunts before them. "Now out!" People issued from all the rooms, from the cabinets, the bathrooms, the toilets, and from every accessible corner, and plugged in to the descending line. No one could hear the sudden roar of the remaining roof as it bore down with its crumbling tiles the stacks of the chimneys, hurtling through the ceilings of the rooms they had left. But the last monstrous crash had sounded as if war were being waged, and I grabbed Czerni by the arm and led him to a safe corner. The holocaust of ruin had destroyed the upper floors, and we saw the chandeliers swaying recklessly, giving warning of another and even greater collapse. But Czerni had no thoughts for his disintegrating chateau. He feasted his eyes on the bombastic fornication, which roared louder than the falling masonry. "God." I stood spellbound by him, watching the incredible sight. A beam of satisfaction began to spread from jowl to jowl, the first I had seen on his face in years. "This is something to see, by Jesus!" he exclaimed. "This is something you want to watch!" He stood there with his shirttails hanging over his paunch, a

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forgotten bottle in his hand, and lived the finest moment of his life. "Now I could die," he cried. "Pike, now it's all right, I don't care!" If that was his intention, he nevertheless bounded forward into the mob. His bandy legs wobbled a bit, and yet managed an amazing leap, deep into the thick of the rosy buttocks. His head appeared an instant later and he was calling me into the fray, and I heard the old familiar note in his voice, which told me already what he had to say. When I reached his side, he was plummeting the remaining portion of his fully erect cock into the hindquarters of a meaty duchess. "To hell with the onions!" he cried. "Give me a real live orgy anytime! Nothing like a mass grouping of flesh to get the old prick standing again!" His face turned blue, his eyes closed tightly, and he drove deeply into the asshole of the Duchess, growling like a wild animal and shooting forth his fluid with relished ease. Afterwards, he came dripping from her tight hole, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, stood erect, and looked around for his next victim. "Over there, Pike," he said, pointing. I looked. He had his eyes set on Angelique, who was just then dancing a slow, solitary dance, her clothing stripped from her body, her eyes closed in private bliss, her hands exploring her delicious frame with languorous strokes. "Just look at those breasts." Czerni let out a long, appreciative gasp. Her breasts were indeed alluring. They were full and firm, moving to and fro with her slow movements, her nipples hard and red. Others surrounded her in admiration of her body. A few men played with their cocks as they watched her slow, deliberate dance. "By God, I think I'm cured." That was the last I heard of Czerni that night, and I watched as he pardoned himself from me and made his way toward the lovely Angelique. He moved up behind her, pressed his naked body against hers, reached in front of her and grasped her breasts, squeezing them. His cock, I could see, rose immediately in response to the contact with her soft flesh, and he drove it between her lean, firm thighs. As he did so, they turned a half-circle, and I could see his cock jutting between them. She took her hand and guided him inside of her. Czerni went in with a smooth thrust, his buttocks clenching tightly, his face pressing into the side of Angelique's long,

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white neck. Then, looking over to me, he winked, kneaded her breasts, kissed her neck, and came inside of her. At that moment, I was thrown from my feet and dragged by the insensate Eliza to the fringe of the crowd, where she hurriedly spat on my prick before she stuck it into her mouth. She sucked vigorously, taking me fully into the depths of her throat. Her tongue spiraled around and around my cock, wetting it, warming it, drinking me more fully in with each stroke. Her fingers came up between my inner thighs and began to fondle my balls softly. I moaned and bent my knees slightly. I felt hands on my ass, unfamiliar hands, kneading the flesh, pulling the buttocks apart. A tongue drove into my asshole, twisting around inside of me. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that it was the Prince. He was on his knees, licking me, running his hands up and down the backs of my thighs while Eliza sucked me to orgasm. I heaved into her mouth and came in a series of endless waves, which ran from the tip of the Prince's tongue, now buried deep within my asshole, through my entire body and escaped from the hole in my prick into Eliza's wet, sensuous mouth. A moment before the floor above us gave way, the haggard figures of Hughes and Clara appeared at the top of the stairs; they were still locked together in the vise of her cunt. They stared with horror at the raging carnage, unable any longer to understand a world that sought to get into a position from which they longed to extricate themselves. Phlegmway's voice was the last I heard, shouting something about a novel, and then the crash came, driving us under, one and all, in a long blood-curdling roar of stone, plaster, wood, brick and the animal screams of orgasm. Finis