Tackling the Team (The Vassi Collection)

by Marco Vassi

  His tone was teasing, and I wondered how he could be so lighthearted about such a terrible occurrence. I glanced over at him, a little embarrassed that he had seen me in such a state, but his eyes were steady and warm. It seemed that nothing could ruffle this man.

  He picked up his cup and sipped at his coffee, staring into space for a long time. For the first time since I was a child, I could hear the quality of silence; not merely the absence of sound, but the vibrant vitality of the creative void itself. It was as though Tony had entered a profound meditative state, although there was nothing about his posture or facial set which indicated anything but simple reflectiveness and relaxation.

  “This may seem odd to you, Julie,”‘ he said at last, “but I want you to see something.”‘ He went into a drawer of the low table next to the bed and pulled out a stack of photographs.

  “You know, when I saw you there, it was something close to a mystical experience. You had reached the bottom of the pit of degradation and had become so grotesque that you transcended categories altogether and emerged as a creature of unearthly beauty. I took these because I knew that such a moment could never occur again.”‘

  He handed me the pile of photos and I leafed through them slowly. They were all Polaroid snapshots, taken with a flash, and all portrayed me, from a dozen different angles and from far away to extremely close up. He was right. Unconscious, twisted, dirtied, tied, naked, beaten, I presented a picture of such complete surrender that an eerie beauty was born. I saw myself as some kind of sacrifice, the slaughtered virgin on the altar of professional football, and even the white goalpost served to augment the image, rising ghostlike and symbolic over my shattered body.

  The last photo was difficult to make out for an instant, and I studied it intently before seeing that it was a shot of my cunt, the tip of the football protruding obscenely from between the horribly stretched lips.

  “What are these for?”‘ I asked.

  “For me to look at from time to time,”‘ he said. “And for nothing else or no one else. They have a meaning for me that I won’t try to explain, even to you. But they provide the key I’ve been looking for ever since I met you, the understanding of why I am so powerfully drawn to you.”‘

  “Tony,”‘ I protested, “you mean that you found me in that brutalized state, maybe dying from internal hemorrhage, and instead of cutting me loose at once you took the time to snap all these photographs of me?”‘

  “Well, I didn’t take the pictures at once,”‘ he replied. “I had to go to my locker to pick up the camera.”‘ And with that he laughed, obviously enjoying some private joke.

  “What’s so funny?”‘ I said, my voice rising.

  “Oh, the obviousness of things,”‘ he replied. He took out the pack of cigarettes that was stuck in the sash around his waist, lit one, and commenced staring into space once more.

  “Tony,”‘ I said, “what’s happening?”‘

  “I’m afraid I don’t know,”‘ he told me, blowing out a cloud of smoke. “I’m not too much different from you. Some years ago I graduated from college, and joined the Marines. There I received an education that made me rethink everything I’d learned to date. I was stationed in Japan, and had the good fortune to meet a master of erotic arts. At the same time I was introduced to certain meditation techniques. When I got discharged, the job as trainer and coach presented itself to me. I had come to the conclusion that the healthiest—both physically and psychologically—way I could earn a living was to do something that involved the vigorous use of my body. I have no worldly ambitions as far as career is concerned; my real work is of a different nature altogether. And so I’ve been working for the Seattle team, and living my life, and doing a lot of travelling off-season. I’m really quite content.”‘

  “And how do I fit in?”‘ I asked.

  “That’s curious,”‘ he said. “I’ve been aware for some time now that I need a mate, someone to complement me. Also, someone to make love with. And since I realized that whoever she was would be chosen for me by the same Force to which I have surrendered the rest of my life, I have been waiting for a sign. And as I told you, when I saw you, I knew that you were probably the one.”‘

  I shook my head in wonder and disbelief. He sounded so certain of himself, so confident, that I felt there had to be a flaw somewhere.

  He must have read my thoughts for he went on, “I don’t expect you to understand all at once. In fact, I’m just learning about it myself, what it’s like to live by faith. You have no idea how chagrined I was when I began to find out what you were up to. The orgies, the violent sex, the perversions. Again, I have nothing against any of that as an activity in itself, but that you were so indiscriminate had me doubting my intuition. And then I started to see that you were being prepared, you were being taken through a complete cycle of a certain kind of abandonment. That, in a word, you were being trained, by destiny, to exorcise all the residue of false sexuality that everyone in this society is heir to. And then I knew that I had only to wait, to have patience until you were clear, and came out the other side. And then we would be free to find one another.”‘

  “If that’s a declaration of love or a proposal of marriage,”‘ I said, “it’s the least unromantic one I’ve ever heard.”‘

  “You have no conception of true romance,”‘ he shot back, an edge to his voice. “You still think that romance is a feeling; you don’t understand that it’s a worldview, a sublime discipline, a path that very, very few can follow successfully, and one laid with more traps than the mind can imagine.”‘

  Despite the act that he was melting my resistance with every word, a resistance not to him but to the vision he was creating before my eyes, I tried to hold my ground, even though in my heart I was fiercely certain that he was speaking my deepest, most secret fantasies.

  “Well, what happens now?”‘ I asked, attempting to rise to sarcasm, “do I just fall into your arms or do you have a detailed blueprint which will tell me how to behave?”‘

  He put out his cigarette, stood up, unwrapped the sash, and let his robe fall to the floor. He stood before me completely naked. And he was extraordinarily beautiful, with a body like a dancer’s, slim, the muscles long and pliant instead of knotted tightly. He was covered with a very fine down, except for his chest where a thick patch of black hair erupted, and the triangle between his thighs, the mat of curly brown pubic hair. His cock was soft, and hung full and curved from his crotch. Even in that state it was thick and long, succulent, as though filled with juicy pulp. The crown flared out in violet grandeur, impassive and hooded. His eyes shone with a strange light, and for a moment I thought I was in the presence of a god.

  “What you have seen up to now,”‘ he said in a measured tone, “has been merely the personality. Now you are looking at the body. And soon you will see the essence itself. And then you will know what to do.”‘

  He walked around to the other side of the wide mattress, sat down facing me, and folded his legs. His hands pressed down on his knees, palms toward the ground. He took a deep breath, and his gaze went inward. I don’t know quite how to explain what took place, but it was as though he disappeared. He was there, and yet he wasn’t.

  I watched him for perhaps five minutes, my heart racing. And then he returned his gaze outward and pierced into the space behind my eyes with his glance.

  “I can instruct you in techniques, and I will, slowly. But more important than that is the structure of our flow. The movement must begin with you; you must have the impulse, you must initiate. And I will serve as the unmoving point around which your dance takes place. I can be no more than the focus.”‘ He paused. “Do you understand?”‘

  “You mean I’m the one who gets on top,”‘ I said.

  Tony laughed, a deep, warm, reassuring sound. “Yes,”‘ he said, “although the position can vary. Later, we can lie side by side, in equality. And on rare
occasions we can enter the animal mode, with me providing the thrust. But the central idea, and the one which will form the basis of all our erotic activity, will involve your being the one who decides the time of our union.”‘

  Something tugged at my brain. “Wait a minute,”‘ I said, “what if I don’t want to get into anything with you? What if I put on my clothes and walk out and never see you again?”‘

  “I do not own you, I do not hold you, I do not control you. I am the self-contained. Again, I tell you, the decision to come or go, to join or pull apart, is completely yours.”‘

  I sat up, throwing the sheet off me, disregarding the twinges of pain. A current of anger had begun to run through me. “You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?”‘ I said. “You’ve come to your conclusions and now you think you can get me to go along with your game plan.”‘

  Tony raised one hand, palm forward. It was a gesture that meant stop, but I recognized it as one appearing on Burmese statues of Buddha. “I have to keep reminding you,”‘ he told me, “that I desire nothing. I have revealed to you everything that I am. And now you must decide whether you are in accord with that or not. There’s nothing personal in any of this.”‘

  “That’s just the trouble,”‘ I exploded. “It’s all so fucking impersonal. You act as though I were a figure on a diagram instead of a person.”‘

  “What you identify as person,”‘ he replied, “is just your separative ego. That’s as relevant to your true identity as that sign across your belly.”‘

  His remark caught me up short, and in that moment of abrupt stillness, I realized that I had become quite aroused. It was not a specifically erotic feeling, for it had none of the sharp focus of lust. But my entire body surged with energy and my mind crackled with alertness. I found myself moving toward Tony without having had any conscious desire to do so.

  “How is this different from any other trip?”‘ I asked, slightly maddened by his imperturbability. “I mean, what you’re telling me sounds very grand, but in effect it’s just another offer from a man, isn’t it?”‘

  “Well, I’m a man and you’re a woman,”‘ he said drily. “I suppose that that aspect of our interaction has to enter in at some level. And, of course, you’re free to view things from any angle you desire. For myself, if I’m going to assume any viewpoint at all, I prefer it to be the loftiest possible.”‘

  He seemed unassailable and as I watched him I pondered the many aspects of the confrontation. Having behaved in a scrupulously gentlemanly manner, having spoken to me with only forceful honesty, having rescued me from the dangerous situation of the previous night, knowing all about my record of debauchery and overlooking it as lightly as he might a trivial bad habit, this man now sat naked before me and offered me a relationship in which our erotic life would be led solely by my impulses. And beyond all this, I would have absolute freedom to come or go as I pleased, whenever I wanted.

  And at once I saw the subtle trap of his disclosures. For if I began to taste the heady froth of such a relationship, I would never be able to settle for anything less. And since it would be nearly impossible to find another man who operated consistently on that level, I would find myself bound to Tony.

  “But this all implies marriage,”‘ I said.

  “I’d rather call it mating,”‘ he replied. “The connotations of the other word are too misleading.”‘

  “And how would we live?”‘ I went on. “Where? What kind of life style? Would you expect me to chant with you and become a Buddhist or whatever the hell you are?”‘

  Before the words left his mouth, I knew what he would say. “I expect nothing,”‘ he told me.

  Almost like a commando attempting a last-ditch effort to find a chink in an enemy’s defenses, I went for his cock. I had climbed to such a pitch of generalized excitement that I needed to give the energy some form, and as a cloud of electrons will be polarized and release their charge in a single sizzling bolt of lightning splitting the sky and striking whatever object is unfortunate enough to rise sufficiently above the ground to attract the jagged thunderbolt, so the electricity in and around my body gathered at the base of my spine, rose up the s-curved column, and shot out of my tongue. I fell forward very slowly and my head dropped into his lap where his turgid cock met my already sucking lips.

  “Now we’ll see just how cool he is,”‘ I thought as I curled my tongue under his prick and took it into my mouth.

  For a few minutes I tried every cocksucking trick I knew. Licking, nibbling, sliding the shaft down to the base of my throat, biting the tip gently. I rolled around on the bed as though groveling before him, giving him full view of my ass. I rubbed my tits against the sheets, stoking the fires of my own desire. I held the base of his cock with my hands and jerked it back and forth, stuffing him inside me.

  Tony got hard very slowly. His cock came to life like a sleeping man gradually waking into consciousness. It was as calm as he was, and I knew that he was allowing the pleasure I gave him to seep into his skin. There was no grabbing, no haste, no urgency on his part. All that came from me. Which, I recalled, is how he had said it ought to be.

  While I tried to resent finding myself in the position I had fought against, I could not deny that I experienced a dimension of erotic enjoyment I had not known before. I felt, amidst my growing arousal, a sense of vast space, of endless time. It was as though what was happening was not just a limited act, with a beginning, middle, and end, but an ongoing process, a general movement which was proceeding eternally and of which we were merely the momentary symbols.

  I lost myself in my reflections as I let my body do its ritual, and before I was conscious of its occurrence, Tony’s large, beautifully sculpted cock was stiff and throbbing in my mouth.

  I feasted on its length and shape, treating my tongue to the textural smoothness of the flaring crown. I buried my face in his crotch, letting the phallus slide deep into my throat. I licked its veined underbelly, and covered its taut skin with glistening saliva. Unhindered, appreciated, I lavished love upon the rigid principle of creation.

  I pulled back and looked up into Tony’s face. His eyes were lidded, seeing me but not staring. His gaze was as impassive as if he were watching a sunset, and filled with as much of a sense of wonder. His body was still. I ran my hands up his chest and was barely able to feel his heartbeat There was not a whisper of urgency in the coursing of his blood.

  I slid up his torso, flowing the movement of my arms. My hands went around his neck, my legs curled behind his buttocks. And with a small easy movement, I covered his cock with my moist and tingling cunt.

  As he slid into me, as I lowered myself onto him, a low sigh escaped my lips. He filled me totally, perfectly. The inside of my cunt was sore, but all my stiffness and pain faded to the background. I leaned my head against his chest, my breasts pressing into his ribcage, and tightened the clasp of my legs and arms. I embraced him totally, and opened deep inside myself as he penetrated into my core.

  We sat like that for a very long time, not moving, until our breaths became as gentle as those of a sleeping infant. More than any superficially sexual sensation, I felt a deep and abiding completion, a joining which held intimations of a real union. Everything else—thoughts, emotions, the structures of mundane existence—melted and ran off my soul like ice yielding to the mid-day sun. I entered a state of awareness which soared beyond all words, beyond all meaning, a gentle undifferentiated bliss which in truth had nothing to do with my much-vaunted individuality.

  To speak would have been blasphemous, and so I remained silent.

  Then, something stirred. I can’t even give it a name or a reason. Simply, suddenly, there was movement. It manifested in my body, but was not only physical. I neither wanted nor did not want to move; the impulse was an imperative from a source far deeper than I could conceptualize. At first slowly, and then with mounting rapidity, I began my dance. My
arms began a pattern in the air, a serpentine slithering through space. My shoulders rotated, and my chest swung back and forth, the right and left sides in rhythmic alternation, causing my breasts to sway. My hips rolled, forming figure-eights along the dorsal plane, circles along the lateral. With that, my buttocks churned across his thighs. And all of this centering finally in my cunt, which had become a turbulent sea of incredibly complex gyrations, swarming over the cock which pierced it like a hundred waves of ants sweeping over an immense log on the forest floor.

  The movement found its necessary expression, and once established, began to increase in range and tempo. I started to spin into a state of transcendent awareness, losing myself like a dervish in the dance. I climbed higher and higher as the spirit of exhilaration seized me in its soaring spiral. Shivers shot through my flesh, my nipples felt like burning coals, my ass sang in an ecstasy of abandon, and my cunt grew dizzy with delight, rejoicing in its heat and wetness and scintillating sensation and, above all, in its utterly unique and totally detached intelligence. It felt itself at last as the complement and complete equal to the organ which had usurped supremacy so early in life and assumed control of the direction of my being. The cunt finally arrived at the understanding that it was its own brain.

  A roaring swept through me, an effusive unfolding; my body flew into a vast consuming convulsion and I thrilled throughout every fiber with the overwhelming orgasm. The cimax went on for minutes, and subsided slowly, leaving me pumping my pelvis spasmodically into Tony’s cock.

  Once again we became quiet, and I slid back into the silence, the unity, the state of undifferentiated awareness. I held him loosely, simply feeling him, his strength, his solidity, his unshakable centeredness. And when I had lost all sense of being separate, when there was no longer an “I”‘ in my consciousness, the movement began again, and again swept me through the many stages of the dance, until I soared into orgasm, a climax which did not have the abrasive quality of an explosion but came rather as the rapid fluttering of wings seen just before a seagull lands upon the water.