by Marco Vassi
Scotty looked up. "What's happening?"
"I don't know what to do next," I said.
There was a short silence, then Ellen said "It's like I feel we should stay together, but at the same time I feel the need to get back into myself."
"That's it," said Susan.
We all looked at each other. The vibration of our orgasm still throbbed in our bodies and in the air, and none of us wanted to lose that moment of blinding union. But it was gone, dead, only a memory now, and life pushes on, always. Yet, neither did we want to lapse into some mechanical routine where we would lose the fine edge of perception and empathy.
"Let's sit back down," said Scotty, "and ride this until it ends."
We dropped our clothing and got back on the bed. I felt an urge to speak, but there was nothing to say. The others seemed to feel the same. So we looked at one another. In that time and space odd shapes began to form. The ways our eyes moved, and the subtle language of our bodies, and the thoughts which rolled through our minds, all were amplified in an obscure - fashion, so that the room came alive with messages, but it was impossible to tell who was saying what. Then I became aware that there was no effort to communicate on anyone's part. Each of us was just sitting there doing his own thing, and letting expression flow as easily as water moves downstream. All at once there was a collective sigh of relief. Suddenly, there was nothing to do, nothing to say, nowhere to go. The moment was eternal, each moment, from moment to moment, and there is nothing but the constant awareness of it as it presents itself, always immediate, always fresh, always true.
Susan said, "How long can we sustain it?"
I answered, "The question is, how long will it sustain us?"
This was the final confrontation, after each of us had tried as hard as we could, after we had worked and suffered and striven to find some answer, some solution, the universe simply stepped in and let itself be known. Suddenly I saw my entire life as a child's game of attempting to alter the course of the inevitable. Here I was, a mortal, vulnerable animal, sitting on the edge of a great hunk of rock, hurtling at fantastic speeds and in dizzying interpenetrating cycles through a mysterious black universe, with no one anywhere to give the slightest hint as to who I was or what anything was about, and in this condition I had been attempting to exercise what I solemnly had called my free will. I took a mental photograph of the cosmos and breathed a silent prayer: "Thy will be done."
And with his impeccable timing, at that very instant, Tocco threw open the door and stepped into the room. He was dressed in a white tunic with a short broadsword slung around his waist. Around his shoulders hung a purple cape. He wore a great golden helmet topped by a yellow plume, and on it emblazoned the initials: ISM. He let his impression sink in and then smiled. "Allow me to introduce myself," he said. "I am Isador Tocco, M.D., Ph.D., and Charlatan, currently Director of the Institute for Sexual Meta-theatre."
Susan looked at him open-mouthed. "Tocco, you're stoned," she said.
Tocco stepped in further and with a wave of his arm said, "I see you people are having a seminar."
Technically, that was true. After I had seen Tocco last, I hung around the grounds for a while, not knowing what to do. It seemed that no more lessons were forthcoming, and no one seemed particularly interested in involving me in anything. I wondered whether I was getting a brushoff, and started to think about leaving, when one morning I woke up with the feeling of being at home. Then I realized that I lived here; it wasn't merely a school. There was nowhere else I wanted to go. I thought of the world "outside", with its stupidity and frigidity and lack of truth, and I knew that I was with people who had become like a family to me, or rather, like a tribe.
And then I understood what ISM was about. There was no research going on that was destined for publication in any journal. Everything that happened was geared to changing people in a radical way, mutating them so they lived their lives in a totally new manner. And once this happened, these people would want to stay with each other, doing all the simple ordinary things of life, but with heightened awareness and wider consciousness. Life here, after all, wasn't so terribly different in its forms than anywhere else. People ate and slept, talked and fucked, fought and loved. Rather it was a quality of richness, of fullness, that permeated everything; and this was the crucial change. I remembered an old Tibetan line about, "The highest art is the art of living an ordinary life in an extraordinary manner." Here there were no hidden games, our social roles were the stuff of our interaction and we knew it, so we learned to play the game well. And the ineffable, as always, was able to take care of itself. There was as much true mystical experience in one of ISM's orgies as in all the sit-up-straight meditation monasteries in the world.
That day, I went out into the garden with new eyes. And immediately everything changed. I met Susan in one of the paths, and it was good just to share time and space with her, with no compulsion for either of us to do anything; we had just to be, and let events shape themselves. In a way that was impossible before we became friends and spent days walking and sitting quietly and making love. Even fucking was a different matter, like a dance which began with each of us in a separate center of awareness, moving out of that and into a mutual circling which culminated in hard cock sinking luxuriously into the soft wet perfume of cunt, while our hands and eyes and legs and breasts continued their complementary movements, all building toward the moment when climax brought us erupting like a geyser into a sweet relaxation.
One day, while walking through the woods, we met Scotty and Ellen. They had been with Tocco for over a year, and the four of us liked each other at once. There was no immediate rush to intimacy, but over the weeks a closeness developed that was special without being exclusive. We met as four sometimes, or in combinations of two and three, so that no single pattern of relationship came to override all others. Then, one afternoon, over coffee and books, we all looked up at the same moment, and the awareness that the time had come was unmistakably present. We handled the details in a business fashion, with Scotty volunteering to take care of the dope, while I said I would take care of the room which, with no little irony, I fixed up like one of the places in the gay baths I used to visit in New York. When we entered that evening, there was a rich sexual tension enveloping us, but also a sense of beginning a serious experiment. Which went splendidly right up to the moment of Tocco's dramatic entrance. ,
Tocco lowered his great bulk onto the bed and looked at the four of us. "What a lovely picture," he said. "Reminds me of when I was your age and first discovering the liberating effect of intelligence."
I was shocked at the bitterness in his words, and stared at him to see whether it was actual or another bit of put-on. He turned and levelled his gaze at me and I saw nothing in his eyes but a fierce undefinable energy. "Well, Michael, once again it seems to you that you have discovered something," he said. "What are you doing?" I asked. "My usual task," he answered, "making sure you don't get swept up in the flush of realization and begin to identify with the moment. That's a peculiar weakness of Scorpios: bringing so much passion to an event that it seems, somehow, more than real."
The phrase rang in my head like a gong: "more than real." I looked up to answer and realized that perhaps ten seconds had gone by, with everyone watching me. "It's impossible to be more than real, Tocco," I said. Tocco leaned forward. "Oh?" he said, "and would you care to defend the metaphysics of that?"
I wanted to respond, but no words came out. The word-machine was totally non-functioning! My mind was broken. I tried to speak and made incoherent noises with my mouth. Tocco chucked me under the chin and turned to the others. "He was such an articulate lad, and look at him now I" Scotty and Ellen laughed and Susan clapped her hands. Tocco had moved in, and with a few deft strokes had totally paralyzed my personality. "How old would you say you are now, Michael?" he asked. I closed my eyes. I felt as though I were about three. And just a few moments ago I had pretty much solved most of the problems of existence.
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"Tocco," I blurted out, "you are a crazy-maker!"
"Also a sane-maker, Michael, don't forget that."
"What do you want?" I asked. "You helped me get to a place I've wanted to be in for so long, and now that I am here you're trying to pull the rug out from under me."
He leaned back, his eyes never leaving mine. "You're like a child in a field of flowers, so busy running around to each one, trying to squeeze the essence from all of them, knocking yourself out rushing and never for a moment stopping, just to sit, and watch the entire view. You keep getting lost in a small tunnel of signification, forgetting that there are clouds and birds and the sun and all of time and eternity available too. Michael, you're ready to lean back and start pasting realizations in your scrap book. You keep missing the point, that the idea is only the theatre; the play is life, which cannot be measured by your mind."
He rose off the bed and drew himself up to his full height and weight; his eyes flashed, and he was formidable. The others seemed to pull back from me, and I felt myself oddly isolated. The sense of strangeness, of an alien presence, pervaded me, and I sat gripped in an existential paranoia.
Tocco looked down and intoned, "Come with me, Michael. Come to the place where there is no sleep, no lapsing back into hypnotic ease. Come out into the true void." He paused, then added, "You have only to open your eyes. The mystery stands always before you, dressed in forms you seem to recognize, speaking words you seem to understand."
The ground gave way beneath me. I put my hands over my ears. "Stop it, for God's sake, stop it," I cried.
Tocco smiled a slow, malevolent grin. "Why, Michael," he said gently, "you are the only one in the room."
And then it seemed as though a precipice yawned in front of me. Beyond the cliff edge lay a canyon which had no bottom, and I felt myself drawn to its edge. I went like a sleepwalker and stood at the very edge and peered straight down. I knew that if I dropped, there would be no hitting earth ever again, that I would be always flying, always hung in the unsupport-ing air. And yet the incredible freedom of it pulled me forward, down. No attachment to anything ever again, never a holding on, an identifying. There would be no more reason, no more memory, no more fear.
I turned to look at the others, people whom 1 had felt such a close and lasting union, they seemed far distant, like trees on a fast-receding horizon. My eyes implored theirs for help, for some sign, but nothing came back. I was totally alone, suspended between the inexorable pull into space and the crying need to have something or someone to hold on to.
"Death!" shouted Tocco. "Accept your own death."
And he slowly and majestically drew his sword. I watched him raise it above his head, reverse his grip, and point the gleaming tip at my chest. Something in the moment gripped me, and in a flash I saw the total meaning of everything. A rush of joy danced through me, and smiling, I flung my arms to my side and bared my breast.
"Then die, Michael," Tocco said, and with a quick thrust crashed the sword into my chest. I felt a sharp pain and crumpled over.
And waited to die.
A long long time passed. From far away I heard titters.
I wasn't dead.
I lifted my head and looked up at Tocco. In his hand he held the squashed remnants of his sword. The thing was made of papier-mache.
The slow burning sensation began in my feet and rose up my body like mercury in a thermometer. I felt my face go beet-red, and I looked around at the others. They all had their hands over their mouths, trying to suppress their giggles. I could feel my face turning into an angry mask. And then Tocco just broke out. Peal after peal of laughter roared from his belly. Scotty let out a high-pitched whinny, while Susan and Ellen laughed silently into their lips.
There was no way to sustain my anger, and it lapsed into a sullen pout. I sat there until their mirth subsided, and then Tocco, tears in his eyes, clapped one hand on my shoulder. "Oh, Michael! You'll never make it at this rate!"
I looked up sharply. He sobered instantly, and making a sweeping gesture which took in the entire Institute, said, "You'll never make it this way."
I had no time to react to his enigmatic statement before Susan's voice cut in: "Why, he's not even bored yet."
Tocco spoke to her sharply. "He doesn't understand the terms in that way yet. Don't confuse him." To my surprise I heard her say quite contritely, "I'm sorry."
Tocco was about to add something when, suddenly, a giant bell began clanging. The four of them jumped up in haste, looking at each other in alarm.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Probably the police," said Tocco. He turned to Scotty. "I knew we were getting too conspicuous in the village. They must have begun watching us through binoculars."
"What happens now?"
Tocco turned to reassure me. "That's the first alarm. It means we have five minutes."
"Can we bluff it out?" asked Ellen.
"No," said Tocco, "we could never get rid of the dope and the tapes and the movies and photos in time. We'll have to pack it in."
We all looked at each other for a moment. "Come on" he said, and began moving out of the door. "We'll go through the elevator in my office and then jam it from the bottom."
We started off at a brisk pace down the hall, Tocco's cape flying behind him, his helmet bobbing up and down, holding his crumpled sword to the fore. The four of us followed after, cocks bobbing and breasts bouncing, clutching our clothing to our chests. Like a man at the point of impact in an auto accident, I saw the headlines on tomorrow's newspapers, and photos of us, with little black strips to cover our genitals and nipples. It all seemed to fit.
We turned a corner and were in clear sight of Tocco's office, when six cops came tumbling down the hall from the other direction.
"Fuck!" said Tocco.
He turned left and bolted into one of the rooms, us piling in after. Even in that instant I could see the cops' eyes go wide as they saw Ellen and Susan scrambling past. It halted them for a moment, and one of them yelled out, "She's got no hair on her cunt!" The moment's delay in their charge helped us, and we got into the room and bolted it behind us.
"We take our chances in the woods," said Tocco, and in the next minute we were flying across the lawn, heading for the protection of the trees.
Tocco ran amazingly fast. And before I had gone three-quarters of the way to cover, he had disappeared. Scotty and Ellen flashed in after him. Susan veered slightly to the left and vanished behind a tree. I tried to turn to follow her, but I was already plunged in a different direction.
I ran for five minutes, stumbling and banging my shins against tree barks, until I fell totally exhausted to the ground. I lay there gasping for a minute, and gradually came back to myself. The wood was uncannily silent, and almost pitch black. I heard no noises of people running and thanked my destiny that we had escaped.
And then I sat up with a start. There were no sounds. Where were Susan and Tocco and Scotty and Ellen? I began to call out, then realized that would only give me away to any police in the area. I got up silently and dressed. I had only a shirt, trousers and shoes. My socks were somewhere in the house. And the night was chilly.
I began walking, knowing I would sooner or later come to a road or to the stream, and find my way back to civilization. If I could get back to New York, I had friends who would let me crash with them until I got something together.
I walked most of the night and came to the main road. It was almost dawn and few cars passed. I crouched down in the shadows, of some bushes and waited. Soon a produce truck came lumbering up the road. I jumped out and hailed the driver, who came to a suspicious halt.
"Going into the city?" I asked.
He wavered a moment and I plied him with my friendliest manner. "I'll ride in the back, OK?" I said. And before he could think of his response, I moved off and jumped into the rear opening. A moment passed, and then I heard the gears grind.
I sat on some crates and chewed at a head of cabbage as we rolled
off, and wondered what had become of the others. I put my hand down to my crotch and grabbed my cock for comfort. I felt empty, untroubled, and sad.
In a while, the sun rose and the smells of dawn blew through the truck. "We'll meet again, Tocco," I said to the passing fields.
By the next afternoon, I was in the city. I had enough money for a room and food for a week, and then it was looking for another gig. I became depressed and headed out to one of the favorite cruising bars uptown. The crowd was the same as it had always been. But somehow, I had changed. Everyone seemed dull, lifeless, asleep. They looked as though they were going through some endless meaningless dance, without knowing why, or even aware that they had a choice. Or did they have a choice?
I flashed a young couple who were looking to add excitement to their marriage, and after the preliminaries, we went to their place. She was attractive in a thin sort of way, and he was more interested in watching than participating. In fact, after a while he asked if I minded if he took out his movie camera. I gathered that after their guests left, he got his jollies by having her suck him off as he watched the movie of her making it with another person. I went through the ritual and enjoyed it, because she had a friendly cunt, the kind that is very soft and accommodating. And she had a way of throwing her ankles over my shoulders so that I practically penetrated to her navel that I liked.
But there was no Tocco to come in and make trenchant remarks on the follies of the human condition. There was no Kate to look into my face with eyes of infinite pain and compassion. There was . . . there was no Susan. And for a while I became sentimental, and then realized that it wasn't the people I was missing, it was what they did.