by Marco Vassi
We hung like that for a long while, then she fell back. All at once a wave of pain and fatigue washed over me, and I rolled over, already lapsing into unconsciousness. Then a shadow crossed my eyes and I opened them to see Tocco going over to Sylvia. He was helping her up. "Sylvia, my dear girl, how happy I am for you. You achieved it."
A pang of bitterness hit at me and I spoke through broken lips. "Tocco, you bastard, you used me! You did this just to get the energy out of me for her orgasm!"
Tocco came over and leaned down. He looked genuinely solicitous. "Don't be angry, Michael. I told you we would be assisting each other in our researches. Besides, think how much you learned this afternoon."
The truth of his words mollified me, but I couldn't resist a final thrust. "Add another item," I said, beginning to go black again, "in the catalogue of ultimate experiences."
Tocco stared at me. "If you fully understood what you said just now, there would be no need for any further work on your part."
I started to reply, but then I passed out.
NINE
WHEN I WOKE up, I heard birds singing. For a moment I thought there might be something wrong with my ears; then I opened my eyes to find myself in a large Victorian-style double bed. It was in a huge room, and one wall was a series of French doors which opened out onto a garden. The sun was shining, and far in the distance I could see mountains. As far as I could tell, I was in paradise.
Except when I tried to sit up, and then a sheet of flaming pain swept over my entire body. Immediately all the memories returned, and I fell back, perspiring. This must be the country place that Susan had mentioned. I wondered whether there would be barbed wire fences, and then I realized that something had changed in me. Tocco would have no fear of freak-outs in the country because the only people who came here were those who had passed certain criteria. For here was where the "real" work was done, and I momentarily shuddered to imagine what could possibly come next.
So far, however, nothing had happened that didn't have its own inner logic, and each event, no matter how grueling, was enlightening. Although I seemed to know no more than I did a week ago, I felt somehow stronger, clearer. My mind was sharp and bright, although I wondered whether my body could take many more scenes like the one with Sylvia.
I began to drift off back to sleep, when the inner door opened and Tocco walked in. This time he wore a simple dressing gown, and carried a tray with orange juice, coffee, and cigarettes. He seemed to be the very soul of good humor.
He sat at the edge of the bed, put the tray on my lap, and smiled. "Michael, I wonder if you realize how much of a fool you are?" I was startled. I hadn't expected invective. "I don't mean to bring your spirits down, but merely to point out that you are yet incapable of distinguishing fact from fantasy." I rolled my eyes back in my head. It was starting already. He saw the gesture and said, "Excuse me, Michael. You're right, I should at least let you have breakfast first." He helped me to sit up, and I took a long, thirsty gulp of freshly squeezed juice. I could feel my blood sugar rising almost immediately, and my outlook brightened. I finished the juice, and it wasn't until I had begun on the coffee and lit a cigarette that he continued.
"You may think it odd that I don't give you more time to recuperate, but you are in an especially receptive state right now. Your mind is clear and your body incapable of producing too much tension. So I want to proceed without delay." He paused a moment, then took a cigarette himself; it was the first time I had seen him smoke. "Of course, you have no difficulty in obvious matters, like crossing the street, where you know that the cars whizzing past, although an illusion in the cosmic sense, can mangle your body on the physical plane. But in sex, where the fine line between so-called reality and so-called illusion is crucial, you are still like an infant on a see-saw, carried away by the exhilaration of the swinging."
"Doctor Tocco," I began patiently. "I don't need to hear all this. That problem is precisely the reason I sought you out."
He nodded. "Indeed. But a definition, especially at this point, is necessary.".
"What happens at this point?" I asked.
"Ah!" he said, and clapped his hands twice. The door opened again and in walked one of the men who had formed the party of eight around Susan that night. It was the one with the gigantic cock. I took a quick inventory of my physical condition and shuddered.
Tocco leaned forward and said, "This will undoubtedly be painful for you, but nothing like what you have already gone through. And the rewards will more than compensate for that. Unless . . . you really don't want to." He seemed genuine in his offer to allow me a cop-out, but almost despite myself, I felt excitement rising in my loins. "All right," I said, "let's go ahead."
The big man, whose name turned out to be Samuel, came over and rolled me on my stomach. The breakfast things were put aside and the sheets pulled down. I was in bandages from neck to coccyx, and only my ass and legs were exposed. Already the sexual stirring had begun to grow strong. I wriggled a bit, and Tocco said, "How easily the supposed female in you comes out, doesn't it, Michael? You feel yourself vulnerable, desirable, luscious." The words dripped with sensuality as he spoke. "All right then, prepare yourself, for we are going to take this trip together."
My legs were spread apart and oil rubbed gently all over my buttocks. Fingers ran up and down the crack between my cheeks and insinuated themselves into the hole. I was tight, and I flinched, but Samuel was experienced, and he retreated, only to move back in again and repeat the process until I was totally relaxed. The finger moved in slowly and more deeply. I raised my ass slightly and he inserted a second finger. The stretch was delicious, and I went through a series of inner changes. One moment I was a badly whipped man letting a stranger shove a finger up his ass, and the next I was a beautiful and irresistible woman, drawing the male power to me through sheer magnetism.
"Tocco," I said, "the fantasies are incredibly divergent."
He leaned toward my ear and whispered very softly, like a Tibetan monk giving final instructions to a novice on his first trip: "Just a touch of yin and yang, Michael. All life is a swing between the opposites. Only for you, the strongest poles are male and female. See if you can relax and enjoy the swing." Then he inserted an inhalator in my nostril and the heady fumes of amyl nitrate filled my lungs. Almost at once my body flushed with sensation. I don't know what the physiology is, but what I felt was blood rushing to the skin area, and every pore, every hair follicle, was alive to touch, to the air, to the ethereal currents in the room, and, most pointedly, to the fingers now thrusting inside me.
I arched my back fully and raised my ass so the fingers would penetrate more deeply. I wanted them to pierce to the heart of me. I reached back and pulled my cheeks open. As from a distance, I could hear my breath come in harsh rasps.
Then Tocco's voice: "You let yourself get swamped by the sensation that time. I am going to explain this as we go along. I don't want you to remember it, it's all being taped anyway. But let the meaning of the words sink in. If you will notice, there was the split between the two images of male and female. Now there is a split between image and sensation, and you got trapped in the sensation only. Here, try this."
He helped a pipe to my mouth, and I clasped it between my teeth and took several deep inhalations. It seemed to be a highly potent distillation of hashish, and as I smoked, Samuel thrust into me all the way up to his knuckles. Within seconds, however, the sensations grew dimmer, and I could actually feel myself swinging back into fantasy. This time I sensed myself as a great ancient god, poised on all fours, immense in size, totally alive for eternity. I was very still, and watching over an ageless desert. And as I flexed my animal forms, Samuel moved down and inserted the tip of his cock into my asshole.
There is no accurate way to describe what happened. It was as though the universe opened. I straightened and felt like a streak of lightning frozen at the instant of highest impact. I was all energy, all creation.
Again, however, Tocco beg
an whispering in my ear. "That's all very well, Michael, but you are still Michael, lying on a rumpled bed, semi-delirious with pain and dope, having a great cock shoved up your ass."
"No!" I voiced involuntarily. "I am Baal!"
"Hah!" he shouted, almost deafening me, and flipped me over. Startled, I lay on my back, and Samuel grabbed my legs and pushed them back. Once again the popper was shoved into my nose, and left there until I had inhaled all of it. Again I soared off, past caring who I was, or where. All I knew was the overwhelming sense of . . . ? The sense of. . . ?
There was no word.
I closed my eyes and lay back to let Samuel begin his terrible long entrance into me, when a great weight covered my face. For a second I was startled, and then I realized that it was Tocco sitting on me with his full weight. I began to suffocate and tried to escape, but there was no getting away. Mounds of soft flesh moved down on me inexorably. I yielded, and went wild. I began to lick and suck and gulp. I didn't know what I wanted. It was sheer frenzy exploding under the engulfing ass. And as I bent to reach for more, the huge cock began to drive into me.
I was certain that I would be split apart. The pain was excruciating. I screamed at the top of my lungs, but the cry was muffled. And the more I screamed, the more the weight bore down on me. I gasped for breath and each gasp filled my mouth with flesh and hair and the rough stinging taste of asshole. And then I went under, like a man drowning. I gave up all hope and caring whether I breathed or not, and with that, the pain stopped, and I started to sink into a deep, deep sea of sensation and imagery.
I opened my legs and in a last embrace took in everything, all the pain and joy and yearning and loving and hating and being that it was possible to feel. And the cock just entered and entered. It went into places where I had always stopped in the past, where I had been afraid of being damaged. But now I welcomed it. I could feel the bones at the bottom of the pelvis separating. I thought, "My God, at last I am really being had." Tears came to my eyes, for this is what I had always wanted, to be filled, to be completely filled. And as I thought that, Tocco moved up and then leaned forward and put his cock into my waiting mouth, my mouth that had been longing for just that sensation, just that contact. And I knew that this time I wouldn't gag, that I could allow him to plunge as deeply as he wanted. And he drove deep and far into my throat.
My mouth filled with the foam of churning saliva; my ass went liquid and warm. I could feel my breast heat up and my bowels become loose. Another popper went into my nose, and my heart filled with gratitude. Oh, thank you for understanding, for knowing, for not waiting until I had to use words to let be known what I wanted. And as the drug took hold I sailed off into a place beyond all power of description. And as I went out, I saw, as though standing by the sidelines, the figures of Christ and Buddha and Einstein and da Vinci, each in a place where no human being had been, each equally far out, each totally different. I knew now that I was going somewhere no human guide could help me navigate.
The music of Beethoven crashed in my ears, and as the glorious strains of the Gloria from the Missa Solemnis rang out, I saw the single last outpost—a great Gothic castle at the edge of the void. There, Gurdjicff strode the walls with his great bald head and flowing mustache, wearing a perpetual scowl, carrying a single banner that said TERROR. He looked up as I flew past, a look of pity in his eyes, then he smiled and saluted with his hand. And I was free.
And somewhere in that freedom, I felt the great throbbing in my body, the pulsing of cock and heart and brain, the hot cascade of sperm, and the single realization which sang like all the choirs of mankind combined in one shout. LIFE it rang, and LIFE. And then, just at the moment when the seed should have landed, when all of this should have come home to be planted, in a searing blinding insight of jagged pain, I felt the hollow emptiness within me where there should have been a womb waiting with its fertile egg.
"No!" I cried, and in pain bit my lip clear through.
A long time passed; Tocco got up and Samuel pulled his cock out. I lay there, breathing heavily. And then Tocco leaned over and put a cold compress on my mouth. There was a great weariness in his eyes. "So, Michael," he said, "we have reached the center, haven't we? You've found what you've been looking for, and learned that you can never have it."
I looked at him in wonder. "How did you know?" I asked.
He sighed; he lit two cigarettes and held one out to me. "I'm afraid that it has been obvious since I first saw you. But that isn't saying too much for my powers of observation. This may bring you down, but your crying need for a womb and baby in your belly is almost universally widespread." He got up and began to pace. "Do you want to hear this now?" he said. I nodded yes.
"The history of the world since the advent of the patriarchy has been one long, bloody quest to fill some aching gap in man's makeup, and we have tried with war, with art, with science, with phallic rockets to the moon, and still there is no satisfaction. It doesn't take too much intelligence to understand that what we have been looking for is something we can't have."
"But that isn't the only quest," I said, "We are also looking for an escape from death."
"The only escape from death is in the continuation of life. The ego dies, there is no way around that. But life itself can continue. And it is to our everlasting shame that we are too greedy to be content with the continuation of life simply, that we want to make it ourselves and rob women of their essential glory. Soon, the scientists (and again he spat out the word) will be making babies in test tubes. And all meaning shall disappear from the species forever. We will have become sterile."
"Am I a homosexual?" I asked, puzzled by his words.
"Oh, you idiot, everyone is at least a homosexual! That has nothing to do with it."
My head began spinning. I lay back and suddenly realized that I was trembling. We had gone from orgasm to discussion so quickly that I hadn't had a chance to savor what happened. Now I let go, and let myself feel the delicious afterthrob in my asshole and the tang of sperm in my mouth. I began to stretch luxuriously, and yawned. For an instant I felt like a cat, then like a woman. Even my face melted into soft lines, and then the realization struck me. I looked up.
Tocco was staring mercilessly into my eyes. "No, Michael, it is too late for that now. You can become as soft as you like, but never will you be able to have the full fantasy of being a woman. You can pretend, but you know that you are not. You can dress up, and have empathy, or play out the roles you have been conditioned to play. But the seed of awareness grows in you now. From now on, whether you suck a cock or fuck a cunt, it will have to be as a man."
I grew disgruntled. "You make it sound like a John Wayne movie."
"Oh, no," he said, "it's not that easy either. I am not talking about any image of man. But you will have to come to terms with what it actually means to be the male half of the species, and not have any notions of inferiority or superiority, but simply the ability to examine the issue. And you will have to do it on your own. There aren't many real men around to learn from."
"Are you a man, Tocco?" I asked.
His face grew soft and he smiled. "Michael, from where you are, you can't even begin to understand my sexual problems." And for an instant his eyes opened and I looked to plunge deep into his soul. All I could glimpse was a sense of incredible height, and rumblings of a power far beyond my ken. Then the inner door closed, and he was simply Tocco again.
He put his hand on my knee. "You must be tired now, and I will let you rest." He turned to Samuel, but I interrupted. "Uh—can Samuel stay?" The thought of having that cock in me again made me giddy.
Tocco smiled one of his rare Cheshire-cat grins and said, "Why, that's entirely up to Samuel."
Samuel and I looked at each other and I felt myself go weak again. No matter what the metaphysic was, I still wanted to be fucked, and I could tell the feeling was reciprocal. Besides, there was an almost full box of poppers by the bed, and I wanted to take it on my stomach this time.
Tocco put on his dressing gown and began to leave the room. At the door he turned and said, "Be careful, Michael. Now that you have begun to understand the difference, the true difference, between the man and the woman in you, you can no longer take refuge in your fantasies of faggotry. You will be able to see through all that socially-conditioned nonsense. And you will be making real decisions from now on, whether your primary vehicle will be homosexuality or bisexuality or heterosexuality. But I have a suspicion that your synthesis is a bit more subtle than any of those, and you should tread delicately for a while. The more conscious you become, the more weight your actions carry. But for now, by all means, enjoy yourself."
As Samuel lowered himself onto me and I put my legs around the backs of his thighs, I could see Tocco sailing out yelling a cheery "Carry on" over his shoulder.
TEN
DURING THE FOLLOWING week I walked in Tocco's garden of delights, letting my body heal, and thinking over everything that had happened. It was like a friendly village. From time to time I would see people I knew, but knew only through having shared some more or less bizarre sexual experience with them. Already, however, the notion of strangeness in sexual matters was leaving me. My prejudices were melting off very quickly, or so it seemed. Before coming to ISM, I had considered myself quite liberal, and was tolerant of all forms of sexual practices. But there still lurked in me feelings that some kinds of sex were more "natural" than others. I was moving past that, and also past the notion of anything's being all right between two consenting adults. It now seemed silly for adults to consent to anything unless they had the fullest awareness of what they were getting into.