They had driven out Ventura Boulevard because the San Diego Freeway was jammed, according to the radio. At a standstill. Ventura Boulevard was not much better, but ten miles an hour was an improvement over no miles.
Just off the Tarzana ramp, the car overheated. Guilder managed to get it into Tarzana, but there was only one service station operating. The proprietors of the others were either staying home or were also attempting to get out of the deadly smog.
"You won't believe this," she said, "but I stole a motorcycle. It was sitting by the curb, its key in the ignition. There was no one in sight, although the owner may have been only thirty feet away, the smog was that thick. I've ridden Hondas before, did you know that? Another friend of mine used to take me out on one for fun, and he taught me how to ride it."
And other things, thought Childe without pain. The thought was automatic, but he was glad that it did not mean much now.
There had been no use in her trying to reach 'Frisco on the Honda. The traffic was so thick and slow-moving that she did not see any chance of getting to her destination until the funeral was over, if then. She decided to return to her apartment. Eyes burning, sinuses on fire, lungs hurting, she rode the Honda home. That took two hours. The cars were filling both sides of the street, all going in the same direction, but there was enough room, if she took the sidewalk now and then to travel.
She got to her apartment, and five minutes afterwards, someone knocked on her door. She thought it must be another tenant. Without a key, it was difficult to get into the building.
But she did not recognize the two men, and before she could shut the door, they were on her. She felt a needle enter her arm, and she became unconscious. When she awoke, she was in a suite of three rooms, not including the bathroom. All were large and luxuriously furnished, and throughout her captivity she was given the best of food and liquor, cigarettes and marijuana, and anything she desired, except clothes. She had one beautiful robe and two flimsy negligees which were cleaned each week.
When she first awoke, she was alone. She prowled around and found that there were no windows and the two doors were locked. There was a big color TV set and a radio, both of which worked. The telephone was not connected to the outside line. When she lifted it, she heard a man's voice answer, and she put the receiver down without saying anything. A few minutes later, a door swung open, and two men and a woman came in.
She described them in detail. One of them could be one of the Paos; the woman had to be Vivienne Mabcrough. The second man did not sound like anyone he knew.
Sybil became hysterical, and they injected her once more. When she woke up again, she controlled herself. She was told that she would not be harmed and that, eventually, she would be released. When she asked them what they wanted her for, she got no answers. Over the year's time, she concluded that her captors were planning on using her, somehow, as a weapon or lever against Childe.
Childe, thinking of the sexual abuse he had suffered during his short imprisonment in the Igescu house, could not conceive that she was not molested in any way. He asked her if she had been raped.
"Oh, many times!" she said, almost matter-of-factly.
"Did they hurt you?" She did not seem to be affected by his question or any painful memories.
"A little bit, at first," she said.
"How do you feel now? I mean, were the experiences psychologically traumatic?"
He was beginning to feel like a psychiatrist, or, perhaps, a prosecuting attorney.
"Come here, sit down by me," she said. She held out a slim and pale hand. He came to her and put his arm around her and kissed her. He expected her to burst into tears again, but she only sighed. After a while, she said, "I've always been very frank with you, right?"
"Yes. But I don't know that a compulsion to honesty was the main factor," he said. "That may have been your rationalization, but I thought that your frankness was more to hurt me than anything else."
"You might be right," she said. She sipped on some coffee and then said, "I'll tell you what happened to me, but it won't be to hurt you. I don't think so, anyway."
* * *
CHAPTER 31
Sybil exercised, smoked more than was good for her, watched TV and listened to radio, read the magazines and books supplied whenever she asked for them, and generally tried to keep from going crazy. The uncertainty of her position was the largest element pushing her towards insanity. However, it was not as bad as being in solitary. The man who answered the phone would talk to her, and she got visitors at least five times a day. The woman who brought the meals would sit with her and talk when asked to do so, and a man called Plugger and a woman, called Panchita came quite often. Occasionally, the fantastically beautiful Vivienne Mabcrough would drop in.
"They talked to me about many things, but they also asked many questions about you," Sybil said. "Mostly what I knew about your childhood, although they also wanted to know about your personal habits, what you read, your dreams--imagine that, your dreams!--and other things I might just happen to know because I was your wife."
Sybil had seen nothing damaging to Herald in this. Besides, her drive to honesty almost forced her to give them complete answers. Or that was her rationalization.
After a while, she began to suffer from sexual deprivation. Her nipples swelled whenever they touched cloth. Her cunt itched. She found herself sitting with her foot under her and rocking back and forth on the heel or rubbing up against the bed post or the back of a chair. She even kept a banana from her meal and masturbated with it.
"If it's any consolation to you," she said, "I fantasized that you were my lover. Mostly, that is."
He did not ask her who the others were. Actually, he did not care anymore. And that was strange, because he was feeling a genuine warmth and affection for her, perhaps even a love. He was happy to see her again and to be with her. Sybil may have changed but she had not changed completely. She still had to tell him everything.
"You needn't be jealous of the other man," she said. "He doesn't exist. He's a fiction. Can you guess who?"
"This isn't exactly the time for guessing games," he said. "But no, I don't know who you imagined at the other end of the banana."
"Tarzan!" she said.
"Tarzan? Oh, for cripe's sake! Well, why not? Bananas, big dongs, and all that. It only stands to reason that the superman of the jungle would be heavy hung."
He was sarcastic, but he was also surprised. There were still things about her he did not know. Tarzan!
There might have been a closed circuit TV monitoring her, she said. Otherwise, why would Plugger enter that evening and tell her she did not need to suffer anymore?
Plugger was a tall, rangy man with a deep tan, black hair which came down in a widow's peak, somewhat pointed ears, and a very handsome face. He stood before her and stripped while she asked him what he thought he was doing, though she knew well enough.
"He had a beautiful body with the smoothest skin, almost like glass. But his cock was big. Not enormous, just big and thick and it had the biggest knob at the end of it I've ever seen. I don't mean the glands. That was big enough, but he had a growth, I guess you could call it a wart, on the side of the head. I told him that really turned me off."
"You sound as if you were pretty cool about the whole thing," he said.
"Well, I was suffering. The banana was a long way off from being perfectly satisfactory. Or perfectly satisfying. And he was a hell of a good looking man, and he had talked with me enough so that I rather liked him, even if he was my warden. So I just told myself, you know, the cliche, if you have to be raped, lean back and enjoy it."
"Really?" he said.
"Well, not really. I was scared. But then he said he wouldn't force me. That helped relax me a lot."
Plugger sat down by her and kissed her. She tried to turn her head away, but he turned it gently back. She protested that he was forcing her, and he replied that he only asked for one kiss. If she did not like it, he would not
kiss her again.
That seemed fair to her, really more than she had expected. After all, if he wanted to rape her, he could.
She lifted her face to him at the same time that he put her hand on his cock and his tongue into her mouth.
The shock that went down her throat and up her arm was almost as if she had touched an electric eel.
"I mean, it was something like an electrical shock but much weaker. I had an orgasm in my throat and up my arm."
Childe jumped up and said, "What?"
"Yes, I know. It sounds crazy. But it was true. I came, I mean you know, when I come, I come with my whole body. But the ecstasy was denser, I mean, more intense, in my mouth and throat and in my hand and arm."
He did not say anything more. His experiences with Igescu's crew had opened doors to an exotic enough world. Plugger was one that he had not experienced, and he supposed that there were many other outré beings in that group.
Sybil had not resisted when Plugger took her robe and negligee off. She had allowed him to move her onto the bed, where he got between her legs and thrust his tongue into her cunt. It was like a spark in a cylinder full of vaporized gas. Orgasm after orgasm exploded in her, and then they began building up more slowly, building until she could endure the exquisiteness no more and felt that she would faint.
While she lay panting and moaning with the aftermath, he climbed onto her and pressed her breasts around his dong. The same shock passed through them; the ecstasy was so intense she could see--but of course it was imagination--blue sparks sputtering from the tips of her nipples.
"The funny thing was, his prick was soft," she said. "Even when he stuck it into my mouth, and transmitted that electrical come, it stayed soft."
"He didn't come in your mouth?" he said. "I mean, spermatic fluid?"
"There wasn't any jism, no. I mean, that shock, you might say, was a sort of electrical come."
She had gone into a series of orgasms, one after the other, so fast that she could not count them.
After this, he kissed her all over, and every inch of her skin felt a minor orgasm until he stuck his tongue up her anus. That almost lifted her off the bed, and she did faint after that orgasm.
She was silent then, as if dwelling with great pleasure on the memory.
Childe finally spoke. "Well, did he ever stick his prick in your cunt?"
He had not meant to sound so harsh but, for the first time, he was jealous.
"No. I tried to get it in even after he said it was no use. It kept doubling back and falling out. But I got orgasms through my hand while I was trying to do it. I said I was sorry I couldn't do something for him. He said it did not matter; he was more than satisfied. I guess that I wasn't far wrong when I said his come was electrical. He had a high-voltage jism, you might say."
She had questioned him about this phenomenon, which became frightening when she recovered enough to think about it. He replied that he was built differently, and he got up, picked up his clothes, and walked out.
He came every four days after that. She asked him why he did not visit her more often, and he said it took time for him to build up a charge. She took him literally, but she was beginning to get frightened again. What kind of weirdos were these? However, when he touched her, her fright went away.
After about five visits from Plugger, two women, Panchita and Diana, came to her room. They talked for a while and left. Every few days, they would drop in. Then, one afternoon, Panchita asked her if she would like some pot. Sybil was very eager to get some, because it would help to pass the many dull moments. All three lit up.
"But it wasn't real pot," she said. "It smelled something like pot, but it must have been something else. It really turned me on, but it also made me very suggestible. I think it had some hypnotic element in it."
"Really?" Childe said. He anticipated what she was going to relate.
"Yes. I got pretty high, and all three of us were laughing hysterically. I had completely forgotten that I was their prisoner and at their mercy. They seemed like very old friends and very lovable. In fact, uh, desirable."
"They made love to you?"
"Oh, yes. Panchita sat down by me and quite casually put her arm around my shoulder. The next I knew, she was cupping my breast with her other hand and then stroking my nipple. I felt a great deal of love--and lust--for Panchita. It seemed the most natural thing in the world. You know I don't swing that way, Herald. I have never had a homosexual experience in my life, not until then. In fact, the idea used to make me sick."
Childe said nothing.
She continued: "Diana, the tall blonde with perfectly enormous breasts, sat down on my other side. She started to kiss me while Panchita pulled up my negligee and began to suck on my nipple. I felt as if I was on fire. I tongued Diana's mouth while she tongued mine. And then I felt Panchita's mouth going down my belly. She kissed me all over there but stopped when she came to my cunt.
"Diana lifted me up then and walked me over to the bed, where she took off my negligee. I got onto the bed and on my back and Diana and Panchita took their clothes off. They stood on each side of the bed and each took one of my hands and placed it against her cunt. They were dripping with lubricating fluid, sopping. I stuck a finger in each slit, and they moved their hips back and forth and jacked themselves off."
"Is it necessary to go into such detail?" Childe said.
"It's good therapy for me," she said. Her eyes were closed, and her head was leaning against the back of the sofa.
The two women had climbed in beside her. Diana kissed and fondled her breasts while Sybil caressed Diana's left breast. Panchita again traveled down her belly with the tip of her tongue. After tracing a triangle around the pubic hairs with her tongue, Panchita got down between Sybil's legs. She spread them apart and then slid a pillow under her buttocks. The next Sybil knew, Panchita was running her tongue over her clitoris end sticking it up her cunt as far as she could. She kept at it until Sybil had an orgasm.
"Then Panchita traded places with Diana, and Diana tongue-fucked me," she said. "Diana stimulated me better, I came about five times. Then Panchita got on top of me, and I licked her cunt and put my tongue up her slit and vibrated its tip against her clitoris. She came a number of times, after which Diana got on top of me. Diana came almost at once.
"Then Panchita got down again and turned me on my side and licked my asshole while Diana licked my cunt again. When I had come a number of times, we made a triangle, mouth to pussy, you might say, fingers up twats, and, and, it was wonderful!"
"You say that even in retrospect?"
"I didn't that night after they left. I cried, and I felt so disgusted and so dirty. The drug had worn off by then, you understand. But Panchita and Diana kept visiting me, and after a while, I quit having guilt feelings. I got to liking it. Why not? What's so bad about making love to women? Does it hurt anyone?"
"No," he said. "Did their lovemaking lessen the effect of Plugger's?"
"Not at all. Actually, if you were to rate orgasms on a scale, I'd have to rate him as Super A-Plus and theirs as B-Minus."
"Next you'll be telling me that Plugger and the two women got into bed with you at the same time," he said.
She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him.
"How'd you know that?" she said. "Pour me another cup of coffee, will you honey?"
He passed her the full cup and said, "Did Plugger touch off the two women, too?"
"Oh, yes. Once Panchita and Diana and I got down in a daisy chain, and he rammed his tongue up Panchita's ass. He said she had the sweetest asshole, which made me a little jealous. Would you believe it, all three of us felt the shock in our cunts and our mouths? That, electricity or whatever it was passed through all of us."
"I can understand your making love to the women the first time," he said. "You were under the influence of that drug you smoked. But you knew how it affected you, so why didn't you refuse to smoke it the next time they offered it to you?"
"Your mind shut down," he said. "You wanted to go to bed with them, so you just forgot how the stuff would affect you."
"I'm not a compulsive Lesbian!" she cried. "I don't have any neurotic drive for women! I can take them or leave them!"
"You just got out of prison, so how would you know?" he said. "However, that doesn't matter. Not now, anyway. How did they explain giving you a hypnotic drug when they said they wouldn't force you?"
"They explained that they did not force me to smoke the pot, or what they called pot. And, later, they said I didn't have to smoke it now that I knew the effects."
"You aren't hooked on the stuff?"
"Absolutely not!"
"Well, you may be right. Time will tell. I just don't understand their nonsadistic treatment. If you hadn't described certain people that I know so well, I would say that another group besides Igescu's had you."
"What are you talking about? Another group?"
"I'll tell you later about my adventures, if you can call them that."
She continued with her story. He wondered if it was just that: a story. There was no doubt that she knew Panchita Pocyotl and Diana Rumbow and others and to do so she must have been held prisoner. But this sexual narrative? Had it really happened the way she said, or was she unconsciously concealing something more terrible? Has she suffered such traumatic, handling that she was repressing it and substituting a fantasy? It did not seem likely, because she did not act psychotic, but then a psychotic often acted normally.
If the Ogs, as Hindarf called them, had treated her relatively considerately, then they had some sinister end in mind.
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