The party takes place at the home of a producer of documentary films, one of the rising young stars in his field. We drive there. The house is at the top of a hill, the last house on a narrow winding lane. The view in all directions is spectacular. The house is jarringly modern in style, stilted on one side. The effect of the setting and the house heightens the sense of unreality.
As we park the car, I begin to feel the effect of the pills. My mind seems to be working faster than normal and I notice a feeling of lightness in my arms and legs. My eyes seem more light-sensitive than usual. I mention this to Evelyn, who advises me not to drink liquor. “They serve alcohol, but most people stick to soft drinks. Almost everybody takes speed and some smoke a little grass before they come here, and liquor just interferes.”
Our hostess meets us at the door. She is a tall blonde with striking green eyes and a full mouth. She wears earrings in her pierced lobes and slippers upon her feet and nothing else. Her body is very well-proportioned, her muscle tone excellent. I have found this to be true of most of the better class of female swingers—they exercise regularly and have a horror of building up flab on their bodies. Unlike other wives, they cannot count on well-tailored clothing and well-engineered bras and girdles to compensate for sagging breasts and stomachs.
Evelyn introduces me. “You’re just in time,” we are told. “Almost everybody’s here but things are still at the getting-to-know-you stage. Let me take your clothes and then I’ll show you around.”
We undress in the hallway. Evelyn removes her dress and shoes. She has worn nothing else. “The last time I wore a bra to one of these parties some other gal wore it home, and you never get the right panties or stockings back, so I don’t bother any more.” I tuck my own socks into my shoes and, grinning inanely, put my tie and shorts in the pockets of my suit jacket. Our hostess leads us into the living room, and just before we enter it I remember an ancient practical joke in which, after the same preliminaries, the naked guests are ushered into a room full of men and women in evening dress.
This does not happen. We walk into a huge rectangular room with several small alcoves leading off it. There are about thirty people present, all of them quite naked. Our hostess takes us from one conversational group to another and introduces us. “This is Evelyn, a dancer, and John, a writer. Marty’s a film editor, Sue and Ellie are actresses, Ed is a stage manager with an amateur group in Glendale and getting into film production—”
Last names are dispensed with, no doubt more for simplicity’s sake than security. I make no attempt to remember names and sense than no one pays much attention to mine. Almost everyone is somehow connected with the motion picture industry, although I take it for granted that relatively few of the “actresses” have made any real mark in the film world. (I learn later that several work sporadically in sexploitation films, one has been the featured performer in stag films, and three or four are semipro hookers, the paid companions of their male escorts who would not be permitted to attend unaccompanied.)
At first I find myself trying not to look at the bodies of these men and women, as if to regard them frankly would be either boorish or a violation of privacy. There is at this stage little in the air that is much suggestive of sexuality. The several conversations overheard concern politics, art, and movie industry gossip. A few of the men have erections, but neither they nor those about them seem to take note of this phenomenon.
I sip at a glass of ginger ale and move from one group to another. I think that the only remarkable thing about the scene is that these people are naked. I participate briefly in a few conversations and feel myself beginning to relax. I no longer feel uncomfortable being nude in the presence of strangers, and am now able to pay more attention to the other people in the room.
The vast majority of them are probably between twenty-five and thirty-five. A few of the men are older, several of the women younger. Almost without exception my fellow orgiasts are physically attractive, especially the women. One becomes accustomed to a preponderance of beautiful girls in Hollywood, but even here the party’s beauty quotient is unusually high. Perhaps half of the girls have removed all of their ancillary hair, including their pubic hair. I notice that most of these hairless girls are blondes, and theorize that they have depilated themselves to avoid the contrast of dark pubic hair with lighter head hair.
One young man, muscled like a lifeguard and deeply tanned all over, has similarly denuded himself of pubic hair. I learn later that he is a photographer’s model often featured in figure study magazines catering to male homosexuals.
In one of the alcoves three girls and two men sit on facing couches. I sit next to one of the girls. The group is discussing a film which I have not seen. For a moment or two I listen to the conversation in silence. I wonder why on earth I have come here. I feel highly keyed up, perhaps because of the pills Evelyn gave me, and also utterly disassociated from the people around me. I fear again that I will be impotent, but less from nervousness than from absolute lack of desire.
Imperceptibly, and at no one’s particular instigation, the atmosphere in the little alcove turns sexual. The conversation goes on as before, but now there is a current in the air, an undertone in the words. On the couch across from me, a dark-haired man with a prominent jaw sits between two very beautiful girls. I breathe in the musky perfume of the depilated blonde beside me while she chats with the man on her right. I suddenly want to touch her but hesitate.
Across from me, the dark-haired man is stroking the thigh of one girl while he talks to the other. The girl takes his hand and places it between her thighs. Without missing a word of his conversation, he begins exciting her genitals with his fingers. Her hips move gently in a subtle rhythm.
I look at her face, and her eyes lock with mine. She smiles softly at me and I smile in response. I realize that if this spectacle had been presented to me just a few moments earlier I would have turned away in embarrassment. Now, however, I want to watch and I know that the girl takes pleasure in my eyes on her.
She lowers her eyes, and I realize that she is staring appreciatively at my genitals. I too look down and am astonished to discover that I have an erection. It comes as a complete surprise to me. I look at the other two men in the alcove and find them armed in similar fashion.
It is as if sexual desire has worked directly upon my body before passing through my mind. Now, suddenly, every woman seems incredibly, desperately desirable. I have fantasies of possessing every woman at the party, taking them one after another. The girl across from me is breathing more quickly as the man increases the tempo of his Fingers upon her vulva. The girl on the other side has her arms around his neck and they are kissing; now her hand drops to his lap and she grips his penis and holds it tightly, her hand moving up and down, slowly pumping his organ.
I turn again to the blonde on my right. Her other companion is kissing her and stroking her breasts. For an instant I am struck by an illogical pang of jealousy which vanishes as quickly as it had come. I no longer worry about intruding. I put my hands on her flesh—her back, her thighs. The scent of sexual arousal mixes with her perfume, and with every breath I am filling my lungs with the smell of her. It comes to me that her aroma is being absorbed into my bloodstream, becoming part of my being. I reach for her loins and encounter another hand—his. I mumble an inane apology and take my hand away.
“Oh, no, please! Three is not crowd—”
With an almost audible click inside my head the last bars come down, the final inhibitions wane. The blonde sprawls on the couch, head back, eyes closed. The other man and I, like twin infants nursing simultaneously, attack her breasts with our mouths and her soft hairless pubis with our hands. She is manipulating both of our organs at once, her soft hands moving as one.
I am entirely involved with passion. Nothing else exists, thought as such has ceased. I kiss and stroke and am stroked, I delight in all of this, and yet yearn for more. I want every sensation at once. I want to grow a thousand mouths and
suck every part of her at once. I want my penis in her hand, her mouth, her vagina, between her breasts. I feel a mouth on me and at first think it is sensory hallucination. I turn and see an angular wild-eyed red-haired girl whom I have never seen before. She is kneeling before me, fellating me. I turn again and fasten my mouth once more to the blonde’s breast. Moments later the redhead’s oral attention ceases, and then in an instant she is astride me and her hand is guiding my penis into her vagina. She bounces madly up and down, screaming incoherently . . .
I reach a shattering climax at the conclusion of the redhead’s wild ride, but continue with the blonde until my attentions, coupled with those of several other men, bring her over the edge. My own climax does not make me lose interest at all. While the pills may have been partially responsible, I suspect too that the whole tempo of our interaction is such that each participant remains in the grip of passion until everyone has been satisfied, as though we are all organs of a single complicated body. The blonde reaches the crest, cries out, falls back limp. Slowly, tentatively, we all disengage ourselves. I sit for a few moments letting my breathing and pulse return to normal. The girl who had been sitting across from me at the beginning of the incident now drops to the couch beside me. Her eyes are shining and her skin is damp with perspiration. I automatically put my arm around her and her head settles on my shoulder.
“Oh, how beautiful! Everything all at once, fantasies come true, everything.”
The blonde remains motionless on the other side of me. One by one the others drift away from our alcove. I glance over to the main room, where a few temporarily depleted individuals stand idly smoking and drinking in the midst of churning bodies. Over on the left a girl is attempting to fellate two men simultaneously and is finding it impossible to accommodate both of their organs at once.
I point her out to the girl beside me. She says, “Who the hell does she think she is, Martha Raye?” We laugh. “But I can see why she wants to try. It must be wonderful if only you could do it.”
I feel highly sexed and sated, at once passionate and fulfilled. I run hand over the girl beside me and she purrs warmly. I know that I am going to have sex with her and want to, but for the moment we prefer to watch the others and chat.
She talks of the last orgy she attended, describes some unusual activities she experienced there. I continue to caress her and she reaches to take my penis in her hand. “Before things got going I was watching you, I was looking right at your cock and watched it get hard. Oh, it’s getting hard now. I think that’s the nicest thing in the world, the way it’s so soft and naked and defenseless and then the blood rushes in there and it gets hard as a rock. You were so funny. The expression on your face before, you looked down and there it was standing up like a soldier, and you were surprised and so proud of yourself. All you men are so very proud of your big hard beautiful cocks.”
And then, “You may not want to kiss me just now. I probably taste funny.”
I kiss her mouth. Another man has left traces of his presence there, and I think as I kiss her that I should be revolted by this. Instead my mind fills with an indescribably vivid vision of her greedily sucking a disembodied penis. I experience no revulsion, only excitement. I go on kissing her, she sucks on my tongue, the vision burns more brightly than ever.
“Oh, this is so wonderful. Do you know what I would like you to do? I want you to screw me in my asshole. I thought about that all day, it was all I could think about, and no one did yet tonight and I want it. Do you like to do that?” I said I did. “I put oil in there so it’ll go in easy. And oh, do you know what else? I would like to eat a girl while you do it to me. I would like her all stretched out and I would kneel over her and just eat her up while you get behind me and do it in my ass. Would you do that?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, love you. Helen! Helen, would you please come here and—oh, damn it, she’s with somebody. Oh, who’s that girl there, the long dark hair smoking the cigarette? She’s gorgeous, don’t you think?”
“I know her.” It was Evelyn, incredibly enough.
“You do? Is she bi? Will she let me do her up?”
“I think so.”
“I never do except at parties, and then I like to, and to get screwed by a man at the same time.”
I call Evelyn. She joins us in the alcove, and she and I grin at each other. She too is sleek with sweat and looks impossibly desirable. I decide that I will have her as soon as I finish with the other girl. Again the fantasy of possessing every woman at the party comes to mind, and I feel oddly confident that on this night of nights I would be capable of the effort.
I do not introduce the two girls because I do not know the one girl’s name. I tell Evelyn what the girl has in mind. She narrows her eyes and thinks it over, and I watch her face as it begins to glow with perceptible excitement. I sense that we have all reached a state of extreme suggestibility, wherein our minds build fantasies at lightning speed and our libidos instantly sense the possibilities of any act which suggests itself or is suggested by another.
“But let’s find a bedroom,” Evelyn says.
The other girl agrees, says, “This is too public. We’ll go find a room and close the door, the three of us, and we’ll do everything, we’ll just go crazy and do everything—”
I am in the living room. Perhaps an hour has passed since Evelyn and the other girl and I called it night. Since then I have smoked a few cigarettes, had a few glasses of ginger ale, and involved myself in several sexual tangles.
Now I am drained, and acutely conscious of my emptiness. My testicles ache from the strain of an unaccustomed number of orgasms. My skin feels coated with perspiration and other excretions from a variety of known and unknown sources. I have a headache and a strained feeling in my lower back. My mouth tastes like the Aegean stables.
I feel as though I might pass out at any moment, and yet cannot recall ever having been so desperately wide awake. I look around me. The main room has thinned out somewhat but there are still a dozen people present, with a little more than half of them presently involved in one or another form of sex. I look at them now with clinical detachment and wish only that they would go away. It now seems quite inconceivable that one could get either pleasure or excitement from the spectacle of other people making love. The sight—indeed, the whole orgy—now strikes me as anti-sexual. I wonder if I will ever feel like having sex again.
I drop into a chair, find a cigarette, light it. I watch another of the hairless blondes trying to join a foursome. There doesn’t seem to be any way for her to join the fun, and I find it amusing the way she makes her way around the heaving bodies looking for an opening. She turns from them, balls her hands into fists, pounds her thighs in frustration. I laugh aloud. She looks at me, starts toward me, and I shake my head to show that I am not interested. She sighs theatrically and leaves the room.
I try to recall if she was one of the girls whom I had in the course of the evening. I cannot remember, and this revelation has a great impact upon me. Somewhere in the orgy’s course I lost the capacity for differentiation. Somewhere, probably after the sojourn with Evelyn and the little girl with the oiled anus, all sex became one complex act, all partners became one faceless composite, all sensations merged into a single impulse. Like tape-recorded music played back at a few dozen times the normal speed, so that all the texture and dynamics of symphony are reduced to a one-note screech pitched almost too high for the human ear to hear it . . .
I leave the room, settle on a couch in a now unoccupied alcove. I turn so that cannot see what is taking place in the room I have left. I think that they are all animals, and then realize the absurdity of this metaphor. Why is it that we persist in labeling as animalistic precisely those acts and attitudes which are exclusively human attributes? Animals do not have orgies, or murder their own kind, or wage war, or overeat, or do any of the things which we thus criticize in human beings. Animals are a cleaner lot—
Why do they do it? Why do the
y drive themselves, deplete themselves, waste themselves in empty meaningless sex? Why do they—
They? We. I start, sit upright on the couch. I sense within me a distinctly schizoid division of personality. I recall the Me who existed earlier, his thoughts, his attitudes, his reactions. What did he have in common with the Me who looked at a room of churning couples and felt nothing but boredom and elements of nausea?
I look once more into the other room. I see other solitary men and women like me, see them walking or sitting, their faces reflecting emotions akin to those I am now experiencing. And I am suddenly struck by a Brilliant Thought—that the orgy is a device which serves to fragmentize and disintegrate the individual’s sexual personality, dividing it into its separate components and giving each a certain amount of time to reign supreme.
We are each of us many persons, many attitudes, many contrary likes and dislikes, many conflicting loves and hates. Each of us, in one or another compartment of one or another of an uncountable number of brain cells, feels every possible way about everything. We are all binary computers with yes and no impulses existing side by side to answer every question we can ask ourselves. The relative strengths of these conflicting impulses, the way they interplay, the answers they produce automatically without us being consciously aware of this elaborate system of data processing, adds up to personality.
But an experience of enormous impact or shock knocks the balance out of whack, and the whole system shifts back and forth, up and down, until it settles back to normal. An orgy has precisely this effect upon the sexual attitudes. At one point every perverse desire is given free rein, and acts which one has never consciously thought of become compellingly exciting. At another point the balance shifts and all the elements of repression and inhibition which normally channel our sexual activity take control; then all sex becomes somehow unhealthy and unclean and evil, and the memory of former behavior sickens us.
The New Sexual Underground: Crossing the Last Boundaries (John Warren Wells on Sexual Behavior Book 10) Page 17