The New Sexual Underground: Crossing the Last Boundaries (John Warren Wells on Sexual Behavior Book 10)

by Lawrence Block

  For the Harrison family of Detroit, life in the sexual underground preceded the development of incest within the family. The family includes Arnold Harrison, forty-two, his second wife Phyllis, thirty-four, and the three children of Arnold and his deceased first wife: Faye, twenty, June, eighteen, and Gregory, seventeen. Faye, the older of the two girls, was recently married to Ted Monroe, twenty-four.

  These six persons, father, stepmother, two daughters, son and son-in-law, constitute an incestuous family unit. Among them they have participated in every conceivable sexual combination and permutation. Each one of them has performed every imaginable act with every other member of the family.

  They are quite extraordinary.

  The story of the Harrison family is reminiscent of any number of works of hardcore pornography. As the Kronhausens pointed out in Pornography and the Law, incest is a major component of hardcore erotica, with such standard characters as the permissive-seductive parent figure cropping up constantly. Whether this is such a popular theme because incest is intrinsically exciting to the average person or simply because the violation of any taboo is perforce exciting in obscene literature is an interesting speculation. In any event, I must admit that an interview with the Harrisons left me genuinely shaky. Whether this was a result of moral disapproval, simple shock, personal sexual interest on my part, or a dinner of tainted shellfish the previous evening, I honestly cannot say.

  But to continue. Arnold Harrison’s first wife died fifteen years ago, leaving him with three children ranging in age from two to five. For the next four years a housekeeper assisted him in raising the children. Then, at age thirty-one, he married Phyllis, who was then twenty-three.

  Within two years the newlyweds were actively engaged in wife-swapping. Almost from the onset they became hardcore swingers with a willingness to try anything once and a propensity to enjoy everything they tried. They moved quickly from simple partner exchange to performing in the same room, added troilistic and pluralistic activities, sampled both lesbianism and male homosexuality, attended large-scale orgies, and generally ran the gamut of sex in the swinging society. While the more extreme forms of fetishism and sadomasochism did not appeal to them, they did participate in bondage activity and took pleasure equally in slave and master roles. Several of their ads in the club bulletins contained the phrase “try anything once”—and they weren’t kidding.

  Interestingly enough, it seems to have been Phyllis who took the lead in organizing their lives as swingers. Although Arnold had had some experience as a single male swinger during his years as a widower, his younger wife was a good deal more adventuresome. Phyllis had a long history of bisexual promiscuity during adolescence, including seduction by an uncle and the performance of fellatio upon a male cousin several years younger than herself.

  • • •

  ARNOLD: All this time we were both of us working out what you might call our philosophy of sex. What it boils down to is that anything’s right and proper if everybody involved is happy about it. I would say if nobody gets hurt, but you take the Sadie Mae people, the sadomasochists who don’t just stop at a little mild discipline, and there you have the case of people who want to get hurt, and if that’s what they want I’d say they’re entitled to it. Now you can argue all day as to what’s healthy and what isn’t, but you won’t get anywhere because healthy for one doesn’t mean healthy for another. If a person has the desire to do something, then that’s the thing it’s healthiest for him to do. Holding back your desires isn’t healthy. It can’t be. And as far as what’s the ideal way for people to live, I’d say doing what comes naturally and no holds barred. If it wasn’t something you wanted to do then you wouldn’t get excited doing it and you wouldn’t pop your nuts from it, so you try it and if it works then you go ahead, because that’s the sign that it was meant for you to do it.

  JWW: Did you feel this way from the time you began swinging?

  ARNOLD: More or less, except that I hadn’t worked it out all that far in my mind, and besides I had my own inhibitions which a person has to get by in order to swing free and loose. Hang-ups that had no sense to them, either. For instance I would like it when Phyllis would give another woman a good frenching, would like to watch this, or when Phyllis had the same done to her. But as far as me doing the same with another man, I didn’t like the idea of it. This one couple, the husband wanted to blow me and I didn’t like the idea, but Phyllis and his wife said I should try it and I wouldn’t have to do anything in return, so I did. He made me pop that way but I didn’t enjoy it much at the time, although the funny part is that later on thinking about it I got all hot and bothered, excited about it after it was over. Like being in a car wreck and perfectly calm, and then hours later you start to shake about it. So Phyllis and I talked it over, and what happened was that we made a date to see this same couple again, and this time just pushed my inhibitions aside and decided to find out what it would be like to do that to another man. And as it happens I liked it. That’s a thing I’ve found, if you just forget your inhibitions and try things more often than not you’ll like them.

  • • •

  This extremely permissive attitude not only provided a full and varied sex life for the Harrisons, but it also created fertile ground for incestuous impulses toward the three children. There is always a sexual attraction between parents and their children, but the nature of the incest taboo is such that it is generally repressed. In most cases neither parent nor child is ever consciously aware of the attraction per se. In other cases, a parent will recognize a child as sexually desirable but will simply rule out permanently any thoughts about transforming desire into physical contact.

  The Harrisons, however, had carefully schooled themselves to toss aside whatever inhibitions they might have. This made Arnold far more apt to recognize his sexual interest in his children and far less equipped to repress it. As far as Phyllis was concerned, I am quite positive that the eventual seduction of the three children was a conscious plan on her part from the moment she married Arnold Harrison. Her own attitudes and her prior experiences with incest and the seduction of the innocent certainly suggest as much.

  JWW: When were you first aware of your children sexually?

  ARNOLD: Earlier than I knew about it, I reckon. My oldest, Faye, was nine when we were married, so she must have been eleven when we started swinging. I remember about a year after that I noticed how she was starting to fill out and getting a real appealing shape to her. Nothing like the tits on her now, and her legs were skimpy then, but she was real pretty. Her hair was lighter then, too.

  PHYLLIS: He used to say, “Lord, if I wasn’t her father, I’d think about getting me some of that.”

  ARNOLD: Well, you didn’t help, calling attention to her the way you did. I had some hard times. Not that I was about to walk up the walls, but I would just find myself having thoughts. I would think on how easy it would be to go into her room some night when she was sleeping and just sort of touch her and kiss her a little, and she would never even have to know about it. But I never did anything of the sort.

  JWW: Did you have any fantasies of having all-out sex with Faye?

  ARNOLD: No, nothing like that. They were my own children and that was one thing I knew man didn’t do. If I’d of thought about it more I might have wondered why I should let some rule like that stand in the way, when it was just set up to keep from ruining the race with inbreeding and doesn’t make sense with contraception perfected like it is. But the inhibition was so damn strong I didn’t think of it.

  PHYLLIS: You would have sooner or later.

  ARNOLD: That’s for sure, but I didn’t get to. Not with coming home early from work one day and who’s in the master bedroom but Faye and Phyllis and both of them naked as jaybirds. And what do I see but my twelve-year-old daughter with her legs spread wider than a mile and my own wife going at her like a man dying of starvation, lapping and sucking like all hell, and both of them so caught up in what they’re doing they don’
t even have the damnedest notion that I’m home.

  PHYLLIS: It wasn’t the first time. Actually I had been with Faye every afternoon for a week before Arnold walked in on us. I couldn’t resist her. She was just so beautiful, and I had fallen in love with all three of those kids the minute I walked in the door and became their mother. I was very close to all of them, and especially to Faye. I knew she would enjoy my lovemaking and I knew I wanted her desperately. The only thing that bothered me was how Arnold might react. I knew that he would approve sooner or later but just couldn’t wait. Faye was so perfectly ripe. She was just half my age then. I had never had a girl that young.

  JWW: Did you have any trouble seducing her?

  PHYLLIS: Even less than I suspected, and I had guessed it would be easy. She was ripe, you know, and that was one reason I wanted to hurry with it. I didn’t want some snot-nosed pimply boy to get to her and do a rotten job of it. I invented some errand for June and Greg that would keep them away from the house for a few hours. Then I called Faye into my room for a heart-to-heart talk about sex. We had had talks like this before, when I explained things to her the time she first got her monthly period. This time I told her I wanted to explain to her all the ways in which people made love, so that she would know about it. I stressed that lovemaking was a good thing and gave her a brief explanation of the philosophy of sex that Arnold and I had worked out. And also gave her a lot of practical information on sexual techniques.

  ARNOLD: Don’t forget the pictures.

  PHYLLIS: Naturally we had put together a pretty good collection of Polaroid shots during the time we had been swinging. I had selected a variety of pictures of people she had never seen and explained each of them to her, just what the people were doing and all. I could see that she was responding to this. Most of the photos were shots of one man and one woman, but there were a few of threesomes as well, and at the end there were pictures of lesbians. That gave me an opening to tell her about the ways women could make love to each other, and to get across the idea that this was a good and wholesome thing.

  The rest was easy. I suggested she remove her clothes so that I could see how her figure was developing. She stripped, and I looked at those plump little breasts and that marvelous cunt with just the finest fluff of golden hair—

  ARNOLD: I’m damned if you don’t just sound like poet.

  PHYLLIS: The girl took my breath away. I almost lost control of the situation—all I could think of was that this was my beautiful little daughter and I was going to make love to her. But I forced myself to be calm. I told her she was almost as big on top as I was, but that her genitals weren’t as maturely developed. And, so that she could see for herself, I got out of my own clothes. Then I began touching her, examining her, and encouraged her to do the same for me. I told her I would show her some of the ways people made love so that she could know how it felt. Then I just let myself go and began kissing and caressing her. She didn’t hold back for a minute. She responded from the onset and let me do everything I wanted to her. I must have spent an hour kissing her breasts and bottom and finally tonguing that pretty pink slit. We were together every afternoon for a week. I kept planning to tell Arnold about it but each time I put it off another day. By now I had shown Faye pictures of Arnold and me making love and had told her what a grand lover her father was. I wanted to prepare her for him. But he came home early, and just as I was working my angel of a daughter to a delicious climax, she gave a scream and turned around and there he was.

  ARNOLD: What I did, I just turned around and got the hell out of there. I couldn’t even talk or think straight. I got in the car and just drove, but came close to sideswiping another car so I gave up and pulled over to the curb and sat thinking on it. The thing of it was that I was all tied in knots by it and at the same time whenever I pictured the two of them in bed and what they looked like and what they were doing, well, I would get a hard-on like a steel rod and an aching in the groin like a mule kicked me there. I just stayed there in the parked car until everything sort of drained out of me, and then went home again. It must of been close to midnight when I got there. Phyllis was waiting for me in the front room.

  PHYLLIS: I had sent the two younger ones to a neighbor’s for the night.

  ARNOLD: I walked in and couldn’t say anything. The thing was I still didn’t know how I felt. Then Phyllis came and kissed me, and I held her and I knew it would all work out one way or another. She told me the kids were out, the young ones, and she said that Faye was in her room.

  PHYLLIS: I told him what Faye and I had done, and how the girl was ready for love.

  ARNOLD: Then she said, “Faye’s in bed but she’s not sleeping. She’s awake. She’s naked, and she’s waiting for you to make love to her.” The second she said that, there was that steel rod again and the ache in my balls. I didn’t even bother trying to think. I just tore my clothes right off and went into that room without a word and gave my daughter Faye a screwing I don’t guess she’ll ever forget.

  • • •

  In the days that followed, Arnold examined his feelings at length and discussed the situation constantly with his wife. During this time both of them continued to further Faye’s sex education, and the girl spent every night in her parents’ bed. Contraceptive measures were unnecessary, as Arnold, like many male swingers, had previously had himself sterilized by means of a vasectomy.

  The outcome of Arnold’s deliberation was that incest was the most exciting and fulfilling thing that had ever happened to him and that the tenets of his permissive philosophy demanded that the Harrison family function as a sexual entity. He began planning the eventual seduction of June and Gregory and envisioned the five of them in bed together. At first he intended to wait until the younger children reached Faye’s age; then he decided that it would be detrimental to keep the family divided by a secret for three more years, and that the seduction should be brought about as soon as possible.

  Arnold then proceeded to sell his home and move the family to an unproductive farm twenty miles from the city limits. With neighbors few and far between, he felt this would help the family to engage in socially unacceptable behavior with minimal chance of being found out. During the first week in their new home, Arnold and Phyllis, with the additional assistance of Faye, successfully managed the seduction of eleven-year-old June and ten-year-old Gregory.

  • • •

  ARNOLD: The way we did it, we had all the kids together for a sex lecture. Faye just played along with us. Phyllis and I showed them pictures and all, and then we gave them a live demonstration and let them stand around the bedroom and watch us go at it. When we were through Faye started things off by saying she wanted to try it. We said we would teach them eating first. Of course Faye had had plenty of practice, but the others watched while she had her lesson, and pretty soon everybody was joining in. There was really nothing to it.

  PHYLLIS: They were an ideal age. They hadn’t had time to develop all the prejudices and inhibitions that keep most people from ever achieving real sexual freedom. Instead they came to sex as healthy and clean in mind as vigorous young animals. For example, all three of them developed as complete bisexuals from the start. It was as natural for the girls to make love to me as to their father, as natural for Greg to have sex with either us.

  ARNOLD: One of the best parts was just watching the young ones with each other. I recollect when I was a teenager and the hell of a time I had until I finally got my wick dipped, and how there were so many times in the early days when I’d either just about come on the way to the bed or else not get it up at all. And then I’d take a look at my son Greg and watch him roll off of one of his sisters and get right on top of the other one, just as eager and cocky as a healthy tomcat, and all I felt was proud.

  • • •

  While I would hesitate to suggest a fitting coat of arms for the Harrisons, several mottoes seem appropriate. The Family That Lays Together Stays Together might do, for example. Or It Takes A Heap of Lovin�
�� to Make A House A Home. Or the Spanish slogan slightly amended—Chinga Tu Madre. y Tu Padre Tu Hermanos y Hermanas Tambien.

  Since the original establishment of the Harrison Family Plan some seven years ago, Arnold and Phyllis and Faye and June and Gregory have practiced togetherness in a manner far beyond McCall’s Magazine’s wildest dreams. For the first few years, all contacts with other swingers were suspended, with sexual relations strictly confined to the family circle. Later, when the children were older, Arnold and Phyllis began entertaining occasional swinging couples at their home. The girls commenced taking birth control pills, and the three children joined in the orgy.

  There seems little point in detailing the sexual activities in which the Harrisons have engaged. The reader is advised to give his imagination free rein; it is unlikely in the extreme that he will imagine anything outside the family’s repertoire. A good time was invariably had by all, and the only question in everyone’s mind was what would happen when the girls reached marrying age.

  • • •

  PHYLLIS: All three of the children often said that they wanted to stay with us forever, that no marriage could take the place of our family circle. But we knew this wasn’t right. They all had a right to marriage and children. Then Faye said she certainly wouldn’t want to marry any man who didn’t share her liberal outlook, and that thus any man she ever married would fit right into our family or else she wouldn’t want him. It was the obvious answer and I was surprised Arnold or I hadn’t thought of it.

  Both the girls began dating around the same time. Most of the time they didn’t enjoy themselves very much, because the boys were inexperienced and clumsy. But a few months after her nineteenth birthday Faye met Ted, and I guess you’d have to say it was love at first sight. She came home with stars in her eyes. They had just finished spending three hours at a motel and she couldn’t rest until she told us everything about it, and I knew right then that this young man would be the one for her.