“Do you want to?” She turned the page. Diagram B showed a man entering a woman from behind while she sucked on another man. Blue flowers were falling in the air around them.
“I, I... don’t... I’m not... well maybe... Do you?”
She flipped to the next page. A woman sat astride a man’s cock while he buried his face between another woman’s thighs.
“Now that looks fun,” I quipped.
“Who would be the other girl?” Teresa traced her finger down a leg of one of the Indian princesses, who dangled her foot in a creek while leaning back in open-mouthed ecstasy.
I stuttered, “Do you...uh... who... how?”
“Maybe we should just get stoned and naked with a bunch of people.”
“Okay, like strip and hope everybody does the same? Send out invitations? I’ve never been to an orgy.”
The next day, I walked down to Tompkins Square Park to check out an outdoor arts festival. I listened to The Fugs play a free concert for a while, then bought a small hand-carved hash pipe. I stopped by the HooDoo to say hi to Daisy but just found Julie looking bored. She ignored me and kept tapping a pencil against her desk while I wondered if I should invite her back to the apartment to get naked and stoned.
Maybe. I’ll see what Teresa thinks.
On the way home, I skirted around Monster Alley, more into my thoughts and fantasies of three-way sex than dealing with the mysteries and memories of that brick passageway.
I worried about how I would react seeing Teresa in passionate throes with another guy but relished in the thought of being with Teresa and another woman.
When I entered the apartment, Teresa and Sam were seated together on the couch. The book was laying across Sam’s lap. Teresa smiled at me, and I knew she had proposed the idea of a threesome to Sam. Sam quickly looked back down at the illustrated pages, flipped through a few nervously.
A current of expectation split the air. My eyes darted to take in Sam, the book, and Teresa gauging my reaction. My mouth started to say something, but I just gulped.
Teresa said, “Let’s smoke a joint.”
Sam put the book aside. “In the bedroom.”
We took our tokes in silence, trying to obliterate the tension, and ease into the anticipated moment.
Sam lay back against a pillow. “I can’t believe you two use a manual to show you how to do it.”
“We’re having a blast.” Teresa laughed, a slightly defensive edge in her tone.
“It would have taken us about a thousand years to think of the stuff in that book,” I croaked, dry-mouthed.
“Wow, a thousand years of fucking. Far out.” Sam sat up and reached around to undo her bra. She looked at me, tight-lipped. “I’ve done this before. With men.” Turning her attention to Teresa, a hunger uncoiled within her. “Let me help you.” She lifted the hem of Teresa’s sweater.
We’re really going to do it. Teresa and Sam, both willing, in bed.
We unbuttoned and unzipped each other, trying out kisses with Sam. At Sam’s urging, I stripped off her black underwear as she guided Teresa’s hand to roam over her tits. I joined one hand with theirs and with my other, caressed Sam’s inner thighs.
We kissed and felt each other, getting tangled and out of rhythm, but constantly fingering and sucking our way through missteps and experimental body positions, getting used to being with two other people sprawled naked on the bed. When the three of us finally found our rhythm, we lost ourselves in flesh, relishing new discoveries.
Tits in my hands, in my mouth, thirty fingers, rolling asses, tongues touching, a wet cunt wherever I reached. Sam climbed onto my cock, gyrating and grinding, and Teresa slipped her hand between the two of us, tugging at me furiously until I came inside Sam. Teresa then rubbed Sam to climax moments later as I sucked our lover’s tits still dangling above me.
Our wild ceremony of sweat and intimacy and intoxication never slowed.
Sam rolled off me and spread Teresa’s legs apart. Watching Sam’s tongue and listening to Teresa gasping in pleasure, I became hard again and probed at Sam’s glistening cunt hair, entering her from behind as she lay between Teresa’s legs. As Teresa climaxed, I pumped Sam harder, pinching a nipple with one hand and wrangling my other hand around to plunge a free finger into Teresa’s ass.
Afterwards, lying on the bed smoking, Sam stretched out between Teresa and me. I watched her tits rise and fall as she took a deep relaxing breath before asking me for another cigarette.
“I love it that you smoke Kools. Probably true only acid freaks and queers smoke menthol.”
Teresa, as was her habit, rubbed her finger along her pubic hairs and said, “That was amazing, like life should be lived.”
After a long silence, watching the smoke drift, Sam said, “We’ve got a secret.”
“Yeah, I guess so. We’re all cool though.” Even after our erotic adventure, I felt I was making a daring move, both with her and in front of Teresa, as I reached over and rested my hand between Sam’s legs.
She caressed my fingers, teasing them closer to her vagina. I could feel my sperm, sticky on her skin.
“No, I mean, I’m not going to tell Rebecca. She’d freak out.”
“Oh.”
Teresa sat up and watched my hand, but didn’t seem concerned with where it rested, instead expressing a newly realized anxiousness about friendship and the consequences of our menage a trois. “What are we going to do? How are we all going to be together again with her? Are you sure she wouldn’t understand? Maybe she’d want to join us, and we could do it again.”
Sam laughed. “Sure, Ha, ha. Deets would die. But I know her. She’s one hundred percent dyke and also not the least bit interested in this kind of party. She wouldn’t even go for a three-way with you and me or just you alone while I was with Deets in the next room.”
“Oh god, maybe we should have thought this out better, not brought you into our experimentation.”
Sam grunted, “No, this was great. If she can’t handle it, well, then she’s the one who’s missing out.”
“But it could all be jeopardized—you and her, our friendship.” Teresa placed her hand on Sam’s belly and gently rubbed.
Teresa was up and down, wild in her moods the next few days. I found her crying in the back room of the store. She sobbed and sputtered while trying to explain what she was going through.
“You don’t understand. I’ve never done that with another girl before.”
“You said you really dug it.”
“I did.” Tears rolled down past her nose, getting caught on her lower lip. “I’m afraid of ruining everybody’s life, just because I’m who I am.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. What? How?”
“What if...?” But she collapsed into an incoherent blubbering about loving me.
I sat next to her, my hand on her back, moving it slowly and tenderly, trying to comfort her the only way I knew how.
“We’ve gone too far... taken advantage of each other... and Rebecca and Sam,” she wailed.
Then at night, in an emotional turnaround, she would get excited about our bodies and tease me about needing two women. She expressed wonder at how we were so together about our sexual experience with Sam.
“If Samantha doesn’t want to do it again, we’ll find somebody else. Maybe even do it with another man next time. I love that we’re so open with each other and our bodies. It feels so natural to love anyone.”
Sam came by a few days later, and the three of us tumbled around in bed again, repeating the same pattern. While I thrusted vigorously inside Sam, my eyes met Teresa’s as she lay panting from Sam’s darting and swirling tongue. In a flicker of recognition, we were back in the Poconos cabin, risking our lives, fearing each other, seeing our capability and tendency to delve into places within our souls that were sacred, that had never been touched, tha
t we could never turn back from, and realizing how easily we could send our entire world up into flames.
Weeks went by, and we didn’t see Rebecca or Sam. Our book of sexual delights lay unopened. We didn’t laugh as much, shrugged away any attempt to talk about what was on the other’s mind. We began to snipe at each other, shutting down when tender moments were needed. Doors slammed, the couch had a bedroom pillow on it, and voices were overly harsh or sullenly silent. Tolerance became a chore.
“Well, I think we should stop eating meat,” Teresa said haughtily and handed the hamburger I had ordered back to the butcher at Anthony’s Deli & Fruits.
“What about the spaghetti we were going to have tonight?” I whined.
“What’s wrong with tomatoes and sauce? Go get some mushrooms and peppers.”
“Hey, I really like hamburger.” I stood defiant, sensing another fight.
“You’re so selfish. That’s the way you always are.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.”
“No. What do you mean?”
“You always want another woman now. I can feel it. You think that’s the way it should always be from now on.”
“I never said that. Big deal, you’d be happy with spreading your legs for another chick.”
She glared, threw a red onion at me, bouncing it off my chest. “You never open your eyes anymore when we make love. Did you know that? You never look at me when we kiss.”
An older woman fluttered nearby, nervous and embarrassed. She pinned her eyes in panic on a bag full of apples. I glanced around. Anthony was frowning, a couple picking out potatoes in the next bin grimaced and exchanged glances with each other.
I lowered my voice. “I don’t? That’s not true.”
“It is too. You’re thinking of Sam, aren’t you?” Her voice stabbed, and her eyes flared, reflecting her passion and pain.
But I was in a battle now, resentful of her desires and guilty about my own. I struck back with cruelty and sarcasm. “Me? Yeah, sure... but I bet you do.”
She hissed in a whisper that sliced me into something pitiful, “No, I don’t. Didn’t you think I’d notice that when we were together you only fucked her? You never once entered me.”
Caught off guard with that truth, I distanced myself by grabbing a handful of green beans and stuffing them into a paper bag. “I thought—”
“Well you thought wrong.”
“No, you—”
“Did you get those peppers? Don’t talk to me right now. And don’t forget the damn mushrooms.”
Chapter 56
I checked the mail slot before lugging the groceries upstairs. Like evil twins, letters from both the Luzerne County, Pennsylvania District Attorney’s office and the District Court in Cambridge, Massachusetts sat together, menacingly. Teresa and I, being the main witnesses in the Poconos trial, set for mid-November, were being reminded to appear. Richard’s trial outside Boston was coming up in a few weeks, just before Halloween, and a subpoena ordered me to testify.
When the date approached for me to be in court, Teresa grumbled, but gave me the keys to the VW. I stayed with Ham overnight in Providence, then drove up to Cambridge for the first day of the trial.
I arrived early and was instructed by a court officer to sit outside a courtroom on the second floor. A sharply dressed man introduced himself to me as the person I had spoken to on the phone back in the summer. He looked me over and asked what size shoes I wore. When I told him, he jotted a note on a small pad. Other witnesses began to arrive and sat nearby. I jumped to my feet when I saw the rotund man with the long, white hair appear over the horizon of the final step of the stairwell.
Mister Gerald Pigeon paused momentarily, took in his surroundings.
“Santa,” I called out enthusiastically.
A few other witnesses looked up and chuckled.
He lifted his index finger in a gesture of recognition. He seemed burdened, worn out.
When he flopped himself down next to me, I asked, “What are you doing here?”
He patted my knee as if telling me to be patient. “I’ve got to use the rest room.” Pigeon gave me a kind smile, groaned wearily as he rose.
“It’s always been a riddle, Deets.”
“What?”
His hand fluttered, and I found myself holding a small piece of paper.
How’d that happen?
When I looked back to him, he had turned and was shuffling down the corridor.
I heard the bathroom door lock jiggle and click after he entered.
Still astounded by his sleight of hand, I unfolded the paper.
Scribbled in blue pen, barely legible in terrible handwriting, I read:
When you are offered three years of freedom
But you see evil, sense invisible schemes,
Take the deal
It’s not what it seems
It took me seven rereads, and multiple minute inspections of the penmanship, to make sure I was interpreting the scrawl correctly before I admitted I had no idea what it meant, but it seemed to be an esoteric message containing instructions for me.
I looked towards the bathroom. What was the mystical poet Pigeon up to?
A young woman came bustling down the hall and stopped in front of me. “Here, put these on.” She handed me a shoe box. I opened it and removed a pair of brown penny loafers. “Take off your purple coat.”
“I assume you’re the court wardrobe officer.”
She turned a corner of her lip up and gulped down a clucking sound. It took me a second to catch on, but I figured out her reaction must have been her way of laughing. It looked painful. “I’m Priscilla Treadwell with the District Attorney’s office. The turtleneck and corduroys are fine. The jacket and those green sneakers have got to go. Pull your hair back. You won’t be called for a while.”
I worked my feet into the leather shoes. When I nodded at Miss Treadwell, signifying that they fit, she gave me a thumb’s up signal, then asked everyone on the nearby benches their name, making sharp ticking gestures with her pen on a clipboard.
“Okay, everyone’s here. No talking about the case once the proceedings start in about a half-hour. Remember it’s crucial that you be respectful to everyone, to always, always tell the truth, and if the judge talks to you, address him as Your Honor. I’m sure you all read the instructions we sent you. Most of you will be called to testify this morning.”
“What about Mister Pigeon?” I raised my hand like I was in grade school.
“Excuse me?” The DA’s liaison answered sharply. She didn’t want to be interrupted.
“Mister Pigeon, the white-haired guy. Looks like Santa Claus. He’s still in the bathroom. Did you count him?”
“What are you talking about, Mister Parker?”
“One of the witnesses. He’s been in the bathroom for quite a long time.”
She looked at her clipboard. “All the witnesses are here. There is no Mister Pigeon.”
I stood, moved past her, tripped slightly in my new shoes, and flung open the bathroom door.
“Man, what is this? The door is unlocked,” I yelled. My voice bounced back at me in the small space, but it seemed as if it was reverberating from across a vast distance. The room contained a mirror, a sink, a toilet, a paper dispenser, and a trash basket—but no Pigeon.
“Oh man, I heard him lock it. He did it again. Santa disappeared again.”
Miss Treadwell, sharp, angular, gravely concerned, stood in the doorway behind me. “Mister Parker, I’ll have to ask you to explain your behavior.”
“What? Oh, nothing. It’s just plain nutty. My mistake. Sorry I yelled.” What had I expected of Pigeon at Richard’s trial? For him to explain how a bunch of scribbling on a brick wall in New York was connected to Doctor Steel mind-controlling Richard to commit viol
ence?
I sunk back onto the bench.
Miss Treadwell pursed her lips as her eyes became slits of condemnation.
I recognized my Dad’s dragging step before I saw him. He appeared with Uncle Ted, two lawyers, and Richard. Uncle Ted spotted me and pointed me out to one of the lawyers. Richard’s eyes looked glazed and dark-rimmed. Dad limped grimly towards me. I got up and met my father halfway down the hall. Richard’s lawyers and Miss Treadwell froze still, listening to the first exchange between the opposing camps.
“Hi Dad, I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“If you called once in a while, you would.”
“Sorry, been busy. Kind of lost track.”
“Keeping out of trouble?”
“Yeah. Just trying to sell everything I draw for a while. Not planning another show yet.”
“I’m proud of your success.” He paused, looked at the gaggle of people behind me. “Are you sure of what you’re doing here?” His face had conjured a seriousness I’d never seen before. His eyes bore into mine with a clear message—We’re not messing around here. This is Richard’s life. The family is in crisis, never to be the same. I know you’re honest and think you’re doing right, but blood sticks with blood. Whatever happens in this trial, you chose against us.
Richard’s lawyer gently steered my dad back among the defense’s entourage, and they entered the courtroom.
I sat reflecting on family, remembering games and good times with Richard, wishing that Betsy would come out into the hallway to tickle me. I’d tell her I discovered a black hole, right here, down the hall in the bathroom. She’d laugh, think I was making a crude joke about the toilet.
Hours passed.
I smoked, walked a few feet in one direction, then another—to break in my new shoes—all the while speculating about Mister Pigeon’s abilities and wondering about the knowledge he must possess. I reread the enigmatic poem, suspecting strongly I had been handed another clue about Monster Alley’s mysteries.
Witness after witness entered the courtroom whenever the bailiff called a name. Eventually, each would return and sit back down. They were silent, staring at the floor, sensing, perhaps for the first time, that their words had affected the destiny of a human life. The solemnity grew as more of them appeared, all imitating each other, all hunched tight in thought.
Mayhem (The Remarkable Adventures of Deets Parker Book 1) Page 28