“Nobody tried to grab you?”
“A few tried, but out of 10,000, that’s not bad. I think that if every woman in California went topless, in a few weeks people wouldn’t even notice tits, any more than a guy with no shirt.”
“But wouldn’t you be afraid of being touched all the time?”
“No more so than I would be of someone I didn’t know touching my cheek, or my hair.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I could do it.”
“Scared the boys might go crazy?”
“My breasts are pretty large.”
“No comment, darling. Why don’t you show us?”
She blushed. “No...I don’t think I have the nerve.”
“Maybe it’s because you underestimate your power.”
“Were you always outspoken like this? I mean, how did you grow up? What did your mother say about you going topless?”
“I grew up in a world of tight women in tight dresses getting tight, dear. They did not approve. My mother saw her breasts as assets, and you don’t spend your assets.”
“Sounds like Orange County to me.”
“Actually, it was a little farther south. Republican country — knee deep in reactionary doo-doo.”
“Things have changed since then.”
“Not so you’d notice, where I grew up. Those people would vote for Hitler if he could be brought back in a blue blazer and khakis. And if he could be, they would!”
“So — they would be shocked if they could see you now?”
“Well, fear and shock are all they’ve got to hold on to. This is a pretty scary country right now for those kind of people who are scared of breasts. The economy is the worst since my grandmother’s times, there are nuts with bombs and germs and nerve gas running around killing people. We’ve got earthquakes and plagues and floods and it’s just driving people crazy. These are toxic times, fearful times.”
The interviewer was getting nervous. Opinionated breasts were too bizarre for her show. She tried again to bring the conversation to an upbeat conclusion:
“I don’t really see what going topless has to do with all the dreadful things that have been happening in the world, but I think it’s wonderful that you’ve been willing to share your views and your breasts with us....”
She hurried off, on the track of oddities less opinionated.
Laura chuckled. “I don’t think she liked what I had to say.”
“But the camera liked what it saw, and that’s what counts, isn’t it?” Baron said.
“I guess that was another segment of my fifteen minutes of fame. Next time they can focus on my ass. Wait till they hear what I’ve got to say about that!”
XX
The Hot Spring
Fascinated with her new friends, Robin agreed to accompany them to a secluded hot spring in the mountains. They would soak in the hot pools and lie naked in the sun. There would be interesting people, good food, perhaps even a few rituals. This was the real California life, living well in defiance of the customary order of things.
Robin thought Dollar would enjoy a holiday, but she wasn’t to be found. Maybe she had gone to visit her family, in yet another attempt to make peace with them.
Baron chauffeured them in an old blue Volvo station wagon decorated with stickers and dents. Robin sat in the back seat with Laura, who held forth on a variety of topics while stroking Robin’s thighs.
Without telling Baron, they had shared some mushrooms.
“You know just where to touch me,” Robin sighed, her attention concentrated on the parts of her body Laura was exploring. Laura’s fingers delicately traced the outline of Robin’s slit, moved in wave motions around her clitoris, and entered her vagina.
“There’s nothing like being played with in the back seat of a car,” Laura breathed in Robin’s ear. Robin spread her legs wider, propping her feet on the front seat. She saw Baron watching them in his rear-view mirror and smiled guiltily at him. He winked back.
“Want to join us, darling?” Laura invited her husband. Robin wanted him to say yes, but he demurred.
“There’s plenty of time to play when we get there. But you two have fun.”
He steered confidently around the endless switchbacks that took them up into the cool mountains. The air was dry and fragrant.
“I’m floating,” Robin said dreamily. She snuggled cosily against Laura’s bosom, waves of sensation splashing between her legs.
“You were born to be played with, Robin. You’re so creamy and juicy...” Laura moved from the seat to the floor of the Volvo and plunged her head between Robin’s thighs. Soon Robin felt the most incredible licking, magnified by the effect the mushrooms were having on her, so that the pleasure seemed to build and build with no imaginable end. What kicked her over the edge was looking up to see Baron watching them in the rear-view mirror.
They arrived at the hot spring in the late afternoon and went immediately to the room they’d reserved. It was on the second floor of a sprawling old building with porches running its length on both floors.
They undressed and prepared to go for a dip in the warm pool. Robin felt some initial trepidation at the prospect of appearing naked before strangers, She was not unhappy with her body — it was tanned and toned, and her tattoos and piercings highlighted its beauty — but she felt shame about her scar, even if it was covered over with Star’s design. She envied the unaffected self-confidence Laura and Baron projected both clothed and nude. Laura’s body sagged a little, but Baron somehow defied age. It was his bearing, Robin thought. The mushrooms let her see that he was a warrior from an heroic age on another world. All he lacked was a spear, but on their way up the long path that led to the bathhouse and pool area he found a piece of gnarled manzanita he used as a staff.
Soft, warm, fragrant breezes flowed over her nakedness. Nearby someone played a flute. The tall trees rustled dry leaves. It was like entering the Garden of Eden, with happy naked people everywhere. Of course she was used to seeing strange women naked in locker rooms, but here were naked men of all shapes and sizes, sitting and lying around on large wooden decks as if nakedness were the natural order of things. She followed Laura Aurora and Baron up the steps to the warm pool and slipped into the water. It was silky and full of minerals. Men and women stood and sat in it, their bodies like silver ghosts viewed through the water.
It was like returning to the womb. Silence was the rule, so the only sound she heard was the slapping of the water against the stone sides of the pool. A man moved slowly through the water cradling a woman floating on the surface, swirling her slowly in circles while she lay back in complete trust. Laura read Robin’s mind — they were sisters of the mushroom — and cradled Robin against her breasts, pulling her over the surface of the water, which was kept at body temperature. For Robin, it was like amniotic fluid. She was warm and protected and fed and loved, and, she realised: It is always like this — miraculously beautiful, all the time. I just don’t allow myself to see it. But this is the way it always is: soft breezes, flowers, lapping water, gentle, loving people.... If only she could see things this way all the time, she might be convinced of the truth of this perception.
Everything was holy — but not holy like her father meant it. Whole. Complete. Of a piece.
Dinner was vegetarian and delicious. They sat on the deck outside the dining room with a view of the dark ridges of mountains at dusk. In a clearing below, two deer foraged.
“I feel so relaxed I could melt,” Robin said.
“You were cut out for this life,” Laura replied. “Don’t you think, Baron?”
“She certainly looks happy.”
Robin blushed at this. Happiness was not an attribute she felt comfortable with. Satisfied, sometimes, but happy?
“I don’t believe in happiness.”
“You will when we get done with you, honey,” Laura joked.
“When you were pulling me through the water, I felt that I was experiencing things as they really are
— and then when we came out, I lost it.”
“If you saw it once, you can always get back to it.”
“How?”
“There are all kinds of ways. Drugs...” Here she smirked at the little secret they shared — “sex, ritual.”
Robin thought of the crucifixion of Baron as a turning point in the growth she felt inside. An upside-down ritual.
“I’m still digesting what you did with Baron on the Cross.”
“It’s all in the realm of magic,” Laura Aurora said. “The tattoo you got from Star was meant to have the effect of helping you to realise your own individual magic. That’s what body modification and ritual is about.”
“Shall we tell Robin about tonight? Or just blindfold her and take her along?” Baron asked.
“I don’t think Robin is ready to proceed on that level of trust,” Laura replied, reading the reluctance on Robin’s face.
“What’s happening tonight?”
“There’s a ritual in the mountain lodge. A shaman with great powers will be leading it for some people who’ve come just to see him.”
They had to climb through the manzanita to get to the mountain lodge. They each had flashlights, and so did the shadows who climbed on the zigzag path ahead of them and after them. The stars were out and the moon was coming up to illuminate the inky blackness. Robin’s breath burned in her throat with the exertion of climbing. She could hear Laura’s rapid breathing on the trail behind her. Baron was striding far ahead, using his staff to help him stay balanced.
The mountain lodge was a simple teahouse structure, most of it a deck so everyone could be outside. The view was of a valley and mountains in the distance. It was a clear night and the universe was displaying itself in the form of billions of points of light winking down at them.
The deck was crowded with naked brown people wearing piercings, feathers and leathers. Unlike the more restrained group at Baron’s crucifixion, these people were talking animatedly and showing off the art work on their bodies. Lamps gave off a soft ochre light. Fireflies twinkled.
Robin was introduced to most of the people in attendance. These were pagans, modern primitives, people who celebrated their bodies, and of course Laura Aurora counted them all as old friends. Everyone had a piece of news for her as they walked around. People spoke often of the shaman from San Francisco who would perform a ritual of the body for them this evening. One of Laura’s friends had heard that he was a homeless person, a beggar on the streets. Another was heard to say that this man was a shape-shifter. He appeared in various places playing different roles — whatever you required at the time. He was a Native American whose body manipulations made him an elder of the tribes. Someone else said he was the resident ghost.
A haunting tune, gay but monotonous, was struck up on a portable electronic piano, and the gathering hushed. Once again Robin had the disconcerting feeling that she was about to witness a religious ceremony, but this time she looked forward to it.
A white-haired Indian in his sixties appeared among them. Where did he come from? Robin wondered. One minute he wasn’t there on the deck, and the next minute he was the centre of attention. He wore a tight leather corset so that he seemed wasp-waisted. He wore a garter belt, fishnet stockings, high heels, a gold watch and an amulet around his neck.
She thought of Baron. Obviously he and the shaman had something in common. The shaman bowed to the four directions, taking from a leather bag at his waist a pinch of something he sprinkled around him, and around a bench. Next to the bench a table held a number of small glass globes.
When the shaman moved, he made a jingling sound. Robin’s jaw dropped when she saw what was making the sound. He wore two ampallangs through the head of his penis, and his scrotum was distended so that it hung half-way down his thigh. Later Laura would tell her that his testicles were solid brass.
His big-nosed face was imperious, but Robin was surprised to see that he was missing a tooth when he called out to someone inside the lodge. A dark man in his forties with black curly hair entered, wearing only a black leather pouch for his sex.
“It’s Markus Bloom,” Laura whispered into Robin’s ear. “He’s a friend of ours — someone I’d like you to meet.”
“What’s this ritual about?”
“Exorcising demons.”
Markus Bloom lay prone on the bench. The shaman tied his wrists with black silk cord. Lighting a taper, the shaman used its small flame to heat the inside of the glass globe he picked up. The heat created suction when the open neck of the globe was applied to Markus Bloom’s back. Slowly, as the music played, the shaman applied a dozen heated globes to Bloom, with each one raising a large bump of flesh. It must have hurt, Robin thought, but Bloom made no sound.
As a finale, the shaman then took a stick and began to play on those cups, with piano accompaniment electronically tinkling up to the stars. When he finished, the crowd applauded delicately, and he bowed with great dignity. After he had removed the globes from Markus Bloom’s back, the shaman moved around the deck greeting people. The ritual, although mild next to Baron’s crucifixion, made an equally strong impression on Robin. She left Laura’s side and went over to the bench where Markus Bloom sat. His heavy-lidded eyes and the dark circles under then gave him the look of a satyr, she thought.
“Who are you?” he growled.
“My name’s Robin Flood”
“How’d you get here?”
“I came with my friend Laura Aurora. And Baron.”
He was intimidating her with his rudeness, and she didn’t like it; but she couldn’t just walk away. She had to ask.
“What do you want?”
“What was it like?”
“The cupping?”
“Yes — the cupping.”
“Like holes were being drilled in me with lasers.”
“Oh.”
“What’s the matter?”
“It didn’t seem to hurt you.”
“It’s not the hot cups. It’s pulling the devils out.”
“What do you mean?”
“He means that when you’ve lived as long as we have, you’re bound to attract some negative energy you’re better off not carrying around.” It was Laura, who was accompanied by the shaman. She leaned down to kiss the surly Markus Bloom, and turned to introduce the shaman to Robin.
“Robin, I’d like you to meet Inigahi.”
“What you did was beautiful,” Robin said to him.
He grunted, looking sceptically at her. What was wrong? Why was he staring at her without speaking?
“So — you’re Robin, he said at last, almost mournfully, as if he’d heard reports of her far and wide. Laura Aurora caught the tone in his voice.
“Do you know Robin?”
“I’ve heard about her from a friend of mine, Buddy Tate.”
“Buddy Tate?” Robin echoed disbelievingly. She didn’t know what else to say. She felt disorientated. Buddy belonged to the city, to the scene they’d played out in the Hotel Napa. What would a shaman have to do with a bad boy like Buddy Tate?
“Have you seen him?”
“He’s looking for you.”
“He’s looking for someone else, not me.”
“He’s not gonna give up.” The Indian’s certainty shocked her even more. She was lost in the realm of magic. She had always before been able to keep the different parts of her life in separate, tidy compartments. Now everything was running together: what was going on?
Markus was interested. His dark brown eyes stared so intently at her she felt them pierce her defences. She looked away.
“Wait a minute. Is this Buddy Tate person a tall kid with long red hair?”
“Yes. Do you know him too?” Robin asked, staggered by this further evidence that the world was indeed magical.
“We had an encounter a few years ago. He was just a kid, but he stood out. He was weird, I guess is what it was, and usually I’m the weirdest person on the scene. It was just that once that we met, but I�
��ve never forgotten him. He’s well-hung.”
Robin sank down on the bench and Markus put his arm around her. Laura was talking with the shaman, who kept looking at Robin as if trying to make up his mind about something. He nodded his head at last, but Robin could see that he wasn’t happy.
Laura sat on the other side of Robin and pulled her to her bosom. “I’ve convinced Inigahi to perform the ritual on you that he did on Markus.” She stroked Robin’s neck.
“What? Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s the one you need to help your pain. He can draw those devils out of you. It’s the next step in your transformation.”
“But he doesn’t like me. Why would he do it?”
“He says that he’s watching out for Buddy Tate’s luck, and that you’re part of it. He has no choice. He says you have a lot of bad stuff in you that needs to be pulled out.”
Robin let herself be led to the bench. Laura helped her off with her leather jacket. She was naked under it. She straddled the bench and lay face down while the shaman bound her hands. The wood was hard against her bare breasts, and she felt a chill of apprehension. She had lost control...
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nostrils, hearing from far away the tinkle of the piano. She was more frightened than she had been since she was a child being punished by her father. But this wasn’t punishment. This was healing, this cupped heat that bored holes into her being, heat that sucked at something lodged inside her, something hard that would not be moved made of loathing and fear. She felt herself trembling, but it wasn’t her trembling, she was floating out of her body looking down on the shaman working on her, wondering why she didn’t cry out. She felt her flesh rising in a dozen places, pulling at her tattoo, sucking her shoulder blades up like grotesque small wings. And still the thing inside would not let go, its claws hooked like iron in her.
The shaman removed the globes one by one, each one with a little popping sound that returned her in stages to her body, to the weight of her body, to the reality of the night. Then he slumped to the ground, exhausted by his effort of trying to pull into his own body the demon that lived in hers.
Dark Matter (Modern Erotic Classics) Page 13