Nude Encounters 2 of 3
"Women are more reticent about undressing than men," Earl had said earlier, and illustrated his point with the story of the couple, engaged to be married, who came for eight weekends, and still the girl insisted on wearing a robe on the grounds. Finally Earl could stand it no longer, so he merely walked up to her and started talking to her, and as they were talking, he casually reached up, unbuttoned her bathrobe, threw it aside, and told her to get into the pool. She said not a word, and did as he said, and he came back an hour later to find her frolicking with the best of them.
"She wanted someone she could blame it on. If anything happened to her after that, she could always point to me and say 'HE was the one who undressed me.'" She didn't want any of that responsibility on her own. But there was no trouble with her ever after.
Finally Patty was getting ready for bed, and I decided to ask Lucille where my bedroom was. She decided I could sleep upstairs, and took me up the narrow stairway, oddly connecting with the kitchen, into the "men's dormitory" of seven or eight beds crowded together under the sloping rafters. Bits of insulating cotton hung over edges of aluminized strips tacked onto the ceiling. "Earl's in the process of weather-stripping the whole place, as you can see." There was a rickety nightstand between two or three of the beds, but aside from those and the beds, there was absolutely no stick of furniture in the room.
Earlier on, Earl had walked into the kitchen triumphantly, saying, "I know which fish has been eating the others."
"Which is it?"
"The angelfish."
"Well, take it out and get rid of it."
In just a few minutes he was back in the kitchen with a silvery flopping shape in a small fishnet. The two of them stared down at the criminal, and Earl emptied it onto the chair on which Timmy, one of the cats, was sleeping. Timmy jolted alert when the moving net came near him, but only stared in interest at the dumped fish lying quietly before him. Even when the black and white cat put out an investigatory paw, there was no motion from the fish, and it looked as if the meal might be a dud, but then the fish gave a little flip of its tail and Timmy was on it in a flash, grabbing it in its mouth and running with it under the next table, where there was a tiny crunch which I quickly closed my ears to, and in the next moment the fish had vanished.
What WAS in the upstairs room were cats, two of them, jumping off the bedcovers and skittering under the beds and down the stairs. The thought of my allergy flipped through my mind, but I dismissed it quickly, hoping nothing would come of it.
Lucille moaned about the poor condition of the bedclothes, since she hadn't had to be ready until tomorrow, and except for John and Patty, there was no one there but us. There was fresh linen on the middle bed, so I said I'd take that, and she said she'd have to do something about the coverlet, and folded it back on the foot of the bed. I wondered about places to hang things, and she motioned to the business ends of nails sticking out of the beams which were the rafters, gave me a few bent hangers, and said I could hang things anywhere, except that the long raincoat might go over in the corner near the brick chimney.
I ended up shoving everything under the bed, where I found a recent copy of Esquire, which I browsed through before going down for my shower.
Also forgot that Lucille had shown me around the place earlier, asking if I wanted to see the swimming pool, and of course I said yes. We walked down the wide stairs cut into the lawn to the enormous plastic-covered building glowing greenly in the night air, and we entered the double doors. The combination of heat and moisture was so startling just inside the outer door that it was hard to separate the two qualities---it was like walking into a Laundromat being used full blast. When she opened the inner door ahead of me, my glasses fogged up instantly, and actual droplets of water collected on them when I took them off.
Breathing was a different matter inside: the air seemed to have more weight than outside, and the moisture clapped a clammy hand on the lungs, making them loath to take a deep breath for fear they might fill up with warm water and drown. But there was a healthful feeling about the air, too, and maybe a very slight odor of medication, which was probably only the chlorine from the water and the dirt-chlorophyll smell from the newly laid sod around the concrete. Visible steam wafted up from the surface of the water at the far end, as if our entrance had so disturbed the fog at the near end that it simply moved off in a huff.
I'd somehow expected it to be totally silent inside, but the blowing wind sucked the plastic coating up and down, and as it did so, moisture which had accumulated into drops on the inside of the roof were flicked off by the erratic ups and downs of the roof, and they splattered into the pool in crescendos and decrescendos governed by the wind outside, flapping the plastic like wet sheets on a clothesline. The wind sound was covered by the sound of the thlup of plastic and plinkle of water, but it could be reconstructed from these two effects.
The raining water caused the surface of the pool, about 20' by 60', to dapple and dimple under the flapped plastic, and the enlarging circles shifted the rest of the water so that it was impossible to get a clear reflection of the many lights strung from the ceiling to light up the place brighter than needed for reading. Metal garden chairs clustered in peopleless groups at poolside, and white wooden benches filled up much of the border in front of a newly-sodded section of crisp green grass, still cut, like green fudge, into the squares showing where the sods were.
True to the brochure that I procured later, there were orchid plants along the far end of the pool, none in bloom, but the green awkward leaves dangled from clumps of ground held by fist-like containers of wire dangling from the ceiling. And there was the slight gurgle of water every so often like an emptying bathtub to show that the water was being re-circulated continuously.
Lucille took me on a tour of the huge enclosure, and I looked to see the green-painted iron girders over which the plastic was placed, and got dizzy thinking of someone shinnying out on those two-inch wide struts to staple all the covering into place. Surely the plastic was only a stopgap measure until there was enough money to put up a permanent enclosure, but the money was slowly leaking out through numerous rents along the sides where the staples had come loose.
"We pay over $100 a month for heat for this place," said Lucille, waving at the furnace-like constructions of tin and tubing along one part of the right side, "and that guy has the nerve to ask us to raise the temperature to 96°." Again, I felt like a mediator between two warring factions---Nudity and Aureon---and I explained that since that was body temperature, being in the water would be like floating in midair, since there wouldn't be any difference between the body, the water, and the air, and it would become hard, in a sensory-deprivation sort of way, to keep the boundaries among these clear, producing a euphoria, a joy, a feeling of good-being for which Aureon so eagerly sought.
"Well, if he doesn't like it, he doesn't have to use the pool at all," Lucille said, immovable. "We keep the heat on all night, anyway, because it would take too long to warm up in the morning again, He'll just have to use it at 90°, and that's plenty hot enough for anyone."
I questioned her reasoning, since I felt slightly chilly at some places around the pool, even with a shirt on, and I feared that resting for hours around the edge of the pool---ach, and I dodged a downpour when the roof flipped immediately over my head, certainly rousting me out of whatever peak experience I happened to be basking in at the moment---would be impossible, and wondered how Dr. Paul Bindrim would get around this. When she said that he hadn't even been out, nor had anyone from Aureon seen the place before I did, I feared even more the success of the venture. But being there a day early was almost worth the price of admission itself.
We left the pool, shutting off the lights from the door, listening to the drops talking to themselves through the long, dark night, and I ran back to the house, chilled by the rapid evaporation in the cold dry night air. "Everyone usually runs back and forth naked," Lucille shouted after me, good-naturedly. She didn't expect anyone to be as hardy as she was, and therefore she couldn't easily overestimate anyone's tolerance to temperature changes.
The lower part of the house was dark as we entered, but the sound of chickens still squacked and clucked in the kitchen. "We keep the intercom turned on out at the gate," she explained, "and the chicken house is right next to the gate, so it also serves as a wolf-warning system. Hope it don't bother you---the rooster tends to crow a bit when he's had sex, and since there's one rooster to about 25 hens, he's got quite a bit of crowing to do."
"It's a wonder he has any strength left to crow with," I observed, and again went into the living room to mount the four steps that led to the landing which looked back into the kitchen. Only move the refrigerator that stood in the way, and there could be another four steps leading from the kitchen upstairs, as it certainly had been, but now the Great Circle route was necessary. Up another stairway behind this, I knew, was where John slept, and I could see light coming through the chinks and fantasized about waking up with a shout because of a nightmare and being consoled, and more, by John who had heard me from his room.
We said goodnight, and I went upstairs, undressed, and walked down through the house naked and unobserved to go again through the kitchen onto the back concrete plasticed-in porch, and then to the shower-john at the end of the house. She'd showed me the stalls before, saying I should leave my shoes in the hallway, and that there was always plenty of hot water. One of the areas was still wet from John's shower, and I went there, thinking that the water would be more quickly warm, and it came out hot almost as soon as I touched the handle. Again it was soft water, so there was a minimum of action to get a good lather, and to get that lather rinsed off. I wiped and slipped into my shoes, used the bathroom which was spotless, and turned off all the lights, as I had been told, on my way back to the nightlight above the---literally---squawk box reporting sex at the chicken house at the gate.
I decided to sleep without pajamas, since I hadn't brought them, and slipped between the covers, tired from the day, but excited about the next day. Here I heard the wind, blowing through the cracks which Earl was in the process of cotton-wooling up, and the plastic---was everything plastic?---flopped back and forth as the wind came and went. Lying on my stomach was something of a chore, even without a pillow, because the mattress was extremely sway-backed, so I lay on my back for awhile, looking at the light shining through the plasticed window.
That may have been my mistake. When I finally felt sleepy enough to turn back onto my stomach, I began to feel the small pricks from bits of the fiberglass which had broken and fallen onto the spread---which was over me, since the attic was cold. I itched and scratched at this, and then I sneezed tremendously: the cats! The realization was enough. I cursed my allergy and judged it to be psychosomatic and lay awake the rest of the night berating myself because I'd gotten this allergy to cat fur explicitly to make my life miserable. My lungs filled with phlegm, my nose stopped up, my eyes started itching, and I daren't scratch, for fear of embedding a fleck of fiberglass into my cornea.
The hours passed slowly, and I looked at the light outside the window and winced each time the cock crowed from triumph over sexual intercourse. Oh, that humans couldn't be more openly sexual, and I remembered the fantasy we once discussed in the office, where a person would have a visible token---like a flush, or a wet palm, for twenty-four hours after he'd had sex. We all agreed it would seriously hamper unnecessary taboos about sex. After awhile I suppose I fell asleep, because I don't remember the coming of the dawn, and when I woke there were voices from downstairs.
(Oh, another forget---Lucille also took me up to their trailer, where they slept, and showed me the large living room she thought we could use there, and showed me the little trailers scattered about the place where some of the other people would be sleeping. She promised me one of the better accommodations, telling me to tell her whom I wanted to sleep with, since she would be assigning the pairs to the better rooms.)
I dozed, getting up strength, and trying to breath through my stopped nose, until 8 am, when I judged it was time to get up. If the point of a marathon was to make a person lose sleep and quickly reveal their hang-ups, then I had a lovely start on the marathon, judging that I got little more than four hours sleep this night. Since I had to have another shower to rid me of the cat fur and fiberglass, and since they'd said we should go naked when there was reason to go naked, I didn't have to think very long before deciding to go to the shower, through the kitchen in which they were sitting, naked.
They were probably sitting there, anyway, stark staring mother bare-ass naked, too. So I flung my towel nonchalantly over my shoulder, slid on my shoes, and clumped down the stairs, cock swinging freely in the breeze. But Lucille and Earl were NOT naked, which gave me just the slightest jolt, as if they'd played a dirty trick on me, but neither did they take any particular note I was naked. There was no grand smile on Earl's face, welcoming me to the world of nudity; Lucille didn't come over to press a kiss on my forehead, floppy breasts slapping up against my thin chest. It simply didn't make an earthly bit of different to them, one way or the other.
I made some nasal remarks about my new allergy, and Lucille quickly jumped to my psychosomatic defense by saying that MANY people develop allergies later in life. I didn't know whether to be happy that I was like everyone else, or to be sad that I was like everyone else.
Somewhat disappointed to see that John wasn't going to share my shower, I washed again, and again used the bathroom, feeling truly free in that when I was finished drying or wiping myself, I was through with myself completely: no need to pull up or re-button or buckle or lace. My skin was all I had. Back through the kitchen, to be asked what I'd like for breakfast, and I waited until she suggested French toast, and pounced.
I went upstairs to hang my towel on a hanger to dry, but there was nothing more to do. Somehow, the idea of wandering around all day without clothes didn't appeal to me, so I dressed and went back downstairs---again there wasn't a flick of difference to the Hansens. Patty was up, clothed, and preparing breakfast, and Earl said he'd be out soon as he had some things to do, and again they chatted about how they took off to Florida when they felt like getting into some warmer weather, how they picked up a hitchhiker and ended up going completely out of their way for three days. It sounded like they had a good life, and there were also children, I seem to recall, who's gotten old enough to fend for themselves, so they had a good life.
The French toast was good, and afterwards I talked with Lucille about my bill. Like, who was going to pay for the coconut cream pie last night? "Don't worry about that," she said briskly, "I write everything down, and don't you worry about it, Or-EYE-on will pay for it for you; I'll just send them the bill, and they'll pay it. Won't they?" This last was an after-thought, and I hastened to say that they'd been in business for three years, and I didn't think they'd had any financial troubles.
"Only three years?" Lucille said with respect, "then they're younger than we are. Why didn't that Estelle say so?"
"I guess it wouldn't make much difference, except that you'll probably have no trouble getting the bill paid," I said, wondering if Aureon would have gotten a discount if Lucille had known it was a fledgling group.
Earl went out into the yard, and I wandered around the house, then saw how beautiful it was outside, so I dressed and strolled down the stairs---and again the white chair was at the end of the last step, so I didn't move it, as it must serve as a warning that the paved stairs end---looked again into the pool, somewhat warmed in the air, now that the sun was beating down on the plastic, and looked outside at the black-topped volleyball court with moldering plywood scoreboard, and then down to the pond, where the ducks that I frightened ran from their shelter under the tree into the water at the edge, breaking through the thin film of ice, and with the larger one in front acting as the icebreaker, paddling its feathery front onto the ice, then settling down to break a duck-sized piece of path from the ice.
Since the air was so clear, and everything smelled so good, I continued walking down the clearing to the bushes, and remembered with amazement that the trees and bushes do most of their work before winter, because the bright red tight buds were already poised on the ends of branches, waiting for the spring sun to soften and engorge them with green energy. The browns and tans and deep reds of the leaves and dried branches were almost psychedelically bright and variegated, and I looked at leaves and buds and branches as if they were the first souvenirs from another planet.
Continuing through the bushes, I came to the stone wall that Earl had mentioned before, on top of which was built a fence, down in places, and in one of those places I crossed the fence to the street, where I could see the signs on every other tree proclaiming this as private property, and indeed, when the foliage was up, the casual passing car would find it difficult to catch a glimpse of snatch or cock with this cover of bushery. I walked along to the end of the rock fence, where another property started, and then took the tractor path along a tiny bog, and the dogs from the next farm began to bark continuously, knowing that someone strange was within 100 yards of their domain. Then I was in back of the swimming pool again, and walked around that, marveling at the strength of the plastic to hold in five feet of earth in some places, heavy with richness and moisture, bulging out into the cold winter air.
My meditation! It was the perfect chance to meditate, so I went into the pool area, pulled a metal chair to a section of the concrete that was dry, and sat down, basking in the sun, keeping the time with my watch. After a few minutes Earl entered to skim the top of the pool, but he said nothing, since I'd told him about meditation the evening before, and he surely gathered that that's what I was doing. When I finished, I asked him if I could help him with anything, glad he was finished whacking the rugs as he had been earlier---and isn't THAT a memory from childhood?---but he said that I was a guest (which was why I asked, because he said the earliest guests had done much of the work, glad for a chance to get off their pallid and flabby rears and do some useful work with their hands and backs for a weekend), and that I should do whatever I wanted.
So I went back to the house to get my towel, and leave a sweater behind, and came back down to the pool and jumped into the water. It was truly an idyllic feeling, floating in the warm, clinging to a ball just big enough to fit comfortably under the arms and hold my head out of water without strain, and just let my body fall away below me, dangling down I didn't care where, hanging naturally and freely below the surface. All thoughts of my allergy were gone as my nose was perfectly clear and even my head felt good with the influx of the warm moisture. It was colder out of the water than in the water, and the towel still felt good, but the sun on the dry body soon burned through the coldness, and it got toasty warm.
"You can keep quite a suntan in here," said one of the fellows who'd come into the pool. He was the stockier, heavier one of the lot, with graying black hair and an eye which seemed more often than not attracted to my body, rather than to my face. I didn't volunteer to be terribly friendly, but soon he introduced himself as Mike and his paler, skinnier friend as Martin, and soon in through the door comes Ursula, a tall blond, platinum-bleached, with about three ounces of eye makeup crumbling off her eyelashes, upper and lower, and a truly picture-book body, with long tapering legs, large feminine hips, narrow waist, and up-tilted, fleshy, walk-wiggling tits.
She, as Martin, spoke with an accent, though hers tended toward the Scandinavian north, and his toward the Austrian south. They talked about nothing in particular, having known each other for a number of months, and when Ursula and Martin went outside to enjoy the aluminum-reflected sun in the yard, Mike told me he wasn't working, because he'd hurt his back on his job in the post office, had been awarded some sort of disability payments, and now had nothing to do but come down here for the day and loll in the pool, and keep up his suntan, which he insisted was possible through the plastic.
I played games with myself with the balls: seeing how many I could grab to my chest at once, seeing how many I could keep underwater at once, seeing how many I could stand on under my feet, how many to sit on, how to catch them when they drifted toward the deep end of the pool toward the water exit, how to avoid them when they came boiling up out of the water when I inadvertently released them from my feet or ass or knees. And that two kept my entire head out of the water, but one, merely one, was sufficient to keep me in a blissful stasis, while the water rotted the flesh from my fingertips and my lips turned blue from the cold, and I rocked in the warm womb of water.
Toward 12:30 I began to feel signs of hunger, and went inside, where Lucille rather grudgingly made me a roast beef sandwich, with milk, and we talked about food, and I told her about the Peak Experience part of the workshop, and how one of the foods I'd named was a hot fudge sundae, and she said she could make them. It was another of the small things which built up the wall of affection which supported our friendship through the terrible happenings of this and the following day.
When the scant lunch was over, I went down to the pool, but grew vaguely nauseous from too much weightlessness, so I dried and dressed, saying no to their volleyball offer---nudity was enough, sports was ridiculous. But I had lain in the sun for a time, and there was just nothing more to do down at the water.
Back up to the house about 2, and they had a number of travel books, and I read about the Lindblad tour to the Antarctic in an old copy of Venture, and read a number of nudity newsletters, and then went out to study the stage where "Barely Proper" was given to standing-room only audiences during the summer. That's where I had heard about this place, since they did advertise a get-acquainted weekend in a number of newspapers.
Then I'm tired of reading, so I'm back down to the pool about 3, and float around a bit more, and talk to Mike, and look at Ursula, and hear that they have a good group around here, and I wish more of them WERE around.
By 4 I'm back at the house, waiting for the first arrivals. Arnie is first, a Peter Lind Hayes type who has a rapport with cats, stroking them until they ache for another caress from him, and then Toni comes in, a short fat Jewish lady who looks like a shrunken grandmother. They're both therapists, and they begin talking in a technical jargon about the differences and benefits of a Freudian versus an action type therapy, and they try to exclude me from the conversation, but I won't be put down, asking questions and making observations, even though they may be stupid. But half the time I can't understand what they're saying, and it seems that therapy is like any other business---a bunch of people trying to impress their peers that they're actually far superior to them.
The conversation comes and goes, and soon it's getting dark, and no one else shows up, and Lucille says we can eat if we want to, so the three of us sit down and talk through the meal about the various ways of using LSD, I telling them about my three trips, Toni telling me about her therapist who kept her going for two years with a trip once a week, and about her patients who took trips twice a week for over three years. I opine that this is going too far, and she states she moved away from this doctor, because she didn't like the way he treated his patients. I said I didn't blame her, and that he sounded like some sort of nut. She said some of his techniques were definitely unorthodox, but some sort of professional reticence, or maybe she just wanted to be coaxed, prevented her from giving us the details.
Lucille is cooking the food---either pot roast or fish---and she saved the steak for Bindrim, even without asking him what he wanted, and he complained about the $1.45 steak in the truck on the way back. Patty was serving most of it, taking orders and carrying the food around with that blank look on her face, pushing her stomach before her, accentuated by the little apron she wore, that jutted out and, starched, hung there like a linen roof over the child below. But it was Lucille who was asking if we wanted coconut cream or pumpkin pie for dessert, and she forgot to ask me, and I told her I wanted to try her pumpkin, much as I liked her coconut cream.
She gave me a grim look as if I'd said the wrong thing, and I forgot about it until she brought in my dish with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce: my hot fudge sundae! I oohed and ahhed, and immediately my table partners disliked me, because I told them about the nice day I'd had here, getting the lay of the land and the pool and the rooms, before they'd even arrived. With their experience, I think they were annoyed at having anyone one up on them.
By now it was 6:30, and we were supposed to start at 7, but there was no sign of Bindrim. There were telephone calls back and forth to New York, and from the looks on Lucille's face, she was talking to Estelle again. We retired to the living room, and Betsy shows up, looking pretty and blond, like Marge Champion, with a Dave Gooneyguy for an escort, and I wonder what on earth they could possibly have between them: Betsy vivacious and all smiles and greetings for everyone there, commenting about their trip and the place, Dave moving sulkily, saying nothing, not opening his mouth, not cracking his lip ice to even smile at anything that was said. If he was keeping her, he must have awfully good taste, and be terribly rich into the bargain.
Next into the room, bustling about being late, are Pat and Natalie, and there are certainly going to be more than the three girls we'd heard there were going to be. Pat seems strange with her squinchy, pinched face, and Natalie looks enough like her to be a sister, except for her outgoingness and chirpy cheerfulness as she comes into the room. VERY quickly, however, she's dozing on the couch, saying she'd just come from another marathon, and she intended to get some sleep tonight. She popped in and out of the conversation when she thought she could baffle someone, and then dropped back into her quasi-sleep on the sofa, even putting her feet up, taking a place much needed by the filling room.
Dave and Mary married were next, Dave with that puffy constipated look on his face, eyes sunk into plump cheeks, made plumper by his toothy grin that seemed so forced. Mary looked just plain sick, her pale face tottering atop her thin body, and without makeup and her light blond hair, her eyes looked lashless and snaky, and her mouth was just a gap that opened when her chin moved away from her nose. She said she was tired, too---what a lively group we had---and she had a terrible headache, which may have explained why she moved like her eyes would fall out of her head if she made a quick move.
There wasn't much of a chance to talk to people, and they sort of gathered into groups, talking with whom they happened to sit next to. Since I'd been talking all day, and was beginning to feel a bit weary already of the wait for the leaders, I sat silently, letting people talk to me if they wished, but mainly scouting out what would be worth looking at when the clothes came off.
Pickings in that area were slim until the large group came into the room: Bernie, with his bell bottoms and strange round glasses looking like an escapee from the jail it happened he worked for, with his shifty eyes and even more shifty mouth, that seemed to masticate each word he spoke; and best of all Ralph B., and instantly I was sorry that I hadn't telephoned him to ask if he had a way from the city. (I was a bit put off by the fact that he seemed to have two females permanently attached to him: Florence M., the black-haired and -eyed photographer from the first Aureon Encounter who seemed so friendly and puppy-dog awkward with herself, and Karen, who was just large enough so that I didn't care to look at her too much at all.
Lucille had warned us that the group was going to include one of her steady nudists, but she could have warned us before Rachel hove into sight that if she stood alone at the end of the room, we might all founder when the foundations shifted and the house went under. She was enormous, huge, multi-chinned, stump-legged, and loosely-dressed, as if she were aching to get out of her clothes and treat us to yards of flesh, all hers, all ours if anyone would only ask for it.
John showed up somewhere along here, his kindly face under a blond crewcut reminding me of the Sergeant who used to drive me to USAR Signal meetings. His everyday good looks gave me the feeling I'd met him somewhere before, but his personality seemed to take me in, and it really didn't matter, he was just a cuddly guy, and of all the ones I saw at the beginning, I chose to sit next to him on the sofa and talk, hoping that if there were buddies coming out of the group, he'd be mine. And so far he was the best hope for a roommate I'd seen yet.
The only other familiar face, which I avoided when I could, was Ben R., and I almost knew that he would take up lots of time in his "I'm just a poor slob that needs help, and I'll shout the roof down to get it, watch" way. I'd vaguely hoped he wouldn't be able to make it. Anyway, his body wouldn't be terribly UNpleasant to look at. Jaap must have showed up about when the leaders showed up, because I didn't really see him until sides were chosen up for the orgy.
Finally, when I was climbing the wall, berating him, and hating him even before he entered, Paul Bindrim showed up, and started complaining about the directions to the place, the number of people who were there, the terrible weather, and the fact that he wasn't feeling good. When he found that the living room was going to be the session room, he immediately began to find fault with it: it was too small, there was too much furniture in it, there were too many windows, there wasn't enough light, and on and on and on.
Somewhere during this time, Lucille and Earl would come up to me with the expression on their face "How could a nice guy like you belong to a botched-up organization like this?" I tried to explain things to them, but indeed, to ME it seemed like a botched-up organization at this point. Florence was going around collecting money and signed releases from everyone, and she didn't seem to be having much luck recording the proceeds from either. Paul and Hal were off to eat, with those who hadn't eaten earlier, and they complained about the food, and the fact that the family perfectly well intended to stay in the kitchen while they were in the house.
Finally, about 9 pm, there was some degree of willingness to start, though Paul and Hal stood in the middle of the floor for an ungodly time, essentially saying that it wouldn't work. Nothing like good news to give everyone an optimistic feeling about the current marathon. Natalie was sleeping on the sofa, Mary was moaning about her headache, Dave was grinning so hard my jaw hurt, John was passively observing, as I was, Ben was holding forth about something or other, and Ralph and Karen were holding hands or something equally obscene with each other.
The first thing we had to do was clear all the furniture out of the room, and Earl beckoned me into the kitchen and told me to keep an eye on things, since I was the only one there besides himself that he trusted, and he let himself work with Paul, because he was afraid he might haul off and clobber the officious jerk. I couldn't say as I blamed him. Natalie was rousted off her sofa, though she made some attempt to keep it for herself, and the sofa-table came apart as everyone tried to lift it. Thankfully, I was out on the porch supervising---supervising!, no one wanted to touch anything, so I was moving everything---the activity, and Paul wanted to rip the television out of the wall into which it had been built. Earl descended on the room like a lanky God of Judgment and said that THAT would STAY. Paul agreed.
Cushions were brought down from the top room, pillows were taken from the sofas, sleeping bags and blankets were gotten from cars, and finally the eighteen of us were seated in a square circle while Paul told us what the evening was going to be about. Well, he talked and talked and talked, and we sat and sat and sat, and finally it was something like 10 pm, and more than a few people said it was about time to get started.
We would have to break into two groups, he said, because for his gimmicks to work there had to be fewer than 18 in the group, so he pointed to Bernie and Hal and said that each should pick a girl, then each girl should pick a guy, and thus form two groups. This, I thought, was a singularly poor way of doing it, because they would tend to be DISsimilar groups, and everything would be moving at different paces at different times. But I put that thought out of my mind, and concentrated on Bernie's group, since it seemed that if Hal was in the other group, Paul would have to be in that group. I was too absorbed to follow the chain of selection in the other group, but I watched with heart pounding as Bernie picked Flo, and naturally Flo picked Ralph who picked Karen.
By this time I was drilling holes into Karen with my eyes, cursing myself that I hadn't gotten closer to her during the pre-session chatting, hoping she'd pick me. I was looking always toward the group toward the fire, so that even if anyone (rationalization) looked toward me from the other group, I wouldn't seem to be available. Karen had to pick me! She looked around the room and settled on Jaap, and as soon as he joined the circle, it was obvious why---he was a doll. This was even MORE the group to be in, and I was wondering how I would change groups if I was so unfortunate to fall into the other abyss, into which were falling Ben and Toni and Arnie, though John was one of the crowning jewels of that group, as was Natalie, as I thought then.
Jaap looked around with his little-boy look and settled on Betsy, and it was amazing that she hadn't been chosen before this point. If I'd stared at Karen, hoping to be chosen, I must have looked like a chained dog, panting toward poor Betsy, hoping she'd look around the room before she chose, hoping she'd see the plea in my eyes. What a pity if the whole evening were ruined because I didn't get into that group---and what a group! Flo and Betsy for the girls were great, and each of the guys was the gem of the crop: Ralph and Jaap and Bernie. Come on, Betsy, PLEASE choose me!!
"You." Thank God. I think the smile on my face lit up the room, and I could have kissed her. Then I turn to choose and am faced with Rachel and Mary. Ohmigod, what a choice. But since Rachel is definitely the bottom of the barrel, assuming she cold fit into the barrel in the first place, I take Mary, merely hoping that she'll be mousily quiet through it all, and will not be a serious hindrance to the group. Her husband is about the last one unchosen, so she takes him, and he's not exactly a good addition, and I drop the quick idea to say that ONE of them should go into the other group, since they're married, but I look at Ralph and Karen billing and cooing on the floor, with Flo sort of scratching both their backs, and decide it's not worth mentioning. At least I got in to a good group, and though I realized that was saying quite a bit about me right there, nevertheless, I was happy at the choice.
Paul describes how we're to encounter the people in the group for the first time: for about twenty seconds, the first person goes to the second person, looks into their eyes. Then there's some physical motion: kiss them, kick them, tickle them, embrace them, ignore them. Only after that's happened is it permitted to say anything verbal. After that, the first person goes on to the third and fourth person, and then the second person can start with the third, and so on around the circle, so that in the middle, everyone is interfacing (a good term!) with someone else. Bernie doesn't want to start the circle around, saying something about himself to start with, and Flo begins. Flo and Karen and Betsy have some sort of nothing to say to me, and slowly pass by, and I'm ready to start on my person, who happens to be Dave married. I look into his infernal grin, and say that he seems to be uptight about something. He denies it. I can't really come out and say the grin looks strained, but I say it obliquely, and slide onto the next person, feeling icky from contact with him.
Jaap is next, and I look deep into his eyes, and felt like going in and kissing him, or something, and I say something like "You look strong, upright (courteous, loyal, brave, and true?), someone somebody could trust." And it seems for the rest of the session he tried to make me eat my words. Bernie was seated next, and I got these terrible wall-eyes through the glasses, and I ask if he can't take the glasses off, and he's so near-sighted, he has to come even closer when he does. I look, and detect a sort of a plea back there, and put my hands on his elbows, running them up to his shoulders, and go to the back of his neck.
There's a flurry of activity that I can't quite identify, but in the next instant we're firmly grasped in each other's arms, and he's moaning "Oh, OH," into my neck. I'm a bit dazed by the whole thing, but it seems at this point that he's SOME sort of homo, so I caress him as I feel like, thinking that this might work into some sort of session, indeed! Ralph is next, and I encounter two blocks of brown ice under bushy black eyebrows. I tell him of the resistance I see there, and I shake him a bit, but there's no lowering of the guard, and I tell him that, and then move on to the next person. Flo and I have a giggling match when I wrestle her down to the floor, and I say that she wears too much eye makeup---how's that for openers?
With Karen there's a sort of rapport, and I tell her how genuinely warm and friendly she looks, like a fuzzy cuddly animal sitting in her bulky sweater, with her hair all over her head, and bright eyes and perky face. We caress and laugh together, and I can hardly wait to get to Betsy, and I admire her openly, doing something silly like asking her if I may kiss her, and I do, but it's hardly sexual, and even somewhat less satisfying than I'd expected, but there's just a good feeling from her, and I feel good toward her, and she assures me the feeling is returned.
Mary, however, is a horror, and I feel repelled by that pale face and corded neck, those scrawny arms and that narrow-eyed look of suspicion and doubt, with fear and hatred lurking somewhere underneath. It's unkind to call her snake-like, but the few times she's laughed, and surprised me, she hasn't brought me to "her side" yet---in fact, I hope I'm NEVER on the "side" of someone like that. What a married life those two must have, I think.
Then it's time, as Paul describes a Peak Experience, for everyone to tell everyone about one of theirs. Ralph is the one who passes this time, and Bernie shocks me enormously by describing one so vaguely---as we're supposed to---that I'm sure he's telling about our encounter right then. He tells how frightened he was, and how this person whom he hardly knew was very friendly with him, doing something that he'd really been hoping he would do, yet also feared he would do. I felt sure it was me.
The first and most obvious Peak Experience that came to me was the feeling to being REBORN under LSD, and I described it as well as I could, realizing that what Paul said was true: the non-circumstantial feelings were very much the same. I had to resist the temptation he outlined: trying to "top" the next person. Mine sounded very much like others before me: Betsy's "Moon experiences," where once she was veiled by the moon, once alone with the moon, once hypnotized by the moon; Karen's mountain-top experience, which was experienced under pot, when she was at one with the world, and the married's experiences tended to be dull and commonplace, Dave's centering around when he got some sort of degree from some school, Mary's having something to do with a bargain, somewhere. I'm exaggerating, since I don't remember what they said, but it was something like that, an indication of my feelings of the deepest affection for the both of them: may they ROT!
When Paul instructed us to put on the details, my imagination told me I saw Bernie panic, but when it got to him, it turned out he was describing some other event in his life, something which seemed somehow made up, about being in college and someone having a bit of good luck, and how happy he was for him, and how they hugged, and he suddenly felt how good it was to be hugged by a good friend of his. I had no trouble telling the details of mine.
Then we were instructed to share others, if we had them, and I brought up the one at Lake Nahuel Huapi, and brought down my picture when we were permitted to go to the details, but I had the feeling that somehow the group didn't appreciate this touch. Before we got down to considering peak experiences, we were told to put all our material onto a pile, and tell a partner of our choice where things were. Betsy was chosen by Bernie, who moved faster than Jaap or I, and so I went to Jaap and claimed him. There was my record of Mahler's Second, my picture of Nahuel Huapi, and nothing more, because the whole thing suddenly seemed rather silly, and I put my other records and everything else off on a little stack on the landing, just behind the refrigerator.
Even at the first there was some animosity in the group, and it was probably Karen who put her hands into the mop atop her head and faced the marrieds with "You know, I don't know why, but I don't like you. It's not a nice thing to say, but we're not here to say nice things, and I don't like you." Their bland, narrow-eyed acceptance of this sort of news put them all into our bad graces, and from that point on it seemed to be us against them. They were the ones who were uptight, they were the ones that clinically oriented Ralph and Karen and Flo and Bernie attacked, that is, until Jaap came in for his share of the dung being heaped. There were some anger devices tried, and Mary was sent out of the room by three or four people when we were told to send out who we didn't like, and then tell the group why we didn't like them. In our group, it seemed to be perfectly obvious. I didn't incur anyone's wrath, though I'm not sure if that's so good or bad. I doubt if I would be chosen as the one people liked, either, and if there's anything I can't abide, it's not being noticed!
By the time midnight rolled around, we were all reasonably well disgusted with our group, and the other group seemed to be having the same trouble. Then Paul launched into a lengthy discussion about what he did and didn't expect in the pool, until I got so fed up with him talking, that I stood up and said "I'm going down to the pool, we can talk down there, does anyone want to go with me?" The group stared up at me dully, and though they seemed to agree with me, they didn't move.
He continued his instructions for minutes more, and I really had had it, and stood up again, and was pleased to see Karen and Flo and Bernie and Betsy stand up with me, ready to go down to the pool. When Paul looked over with his face hanging out at us, I said we were tired of listening to him talk, we were going down to the pool. I shortened his explanation by some fifteen minutes, I would judge, and I ran down to the pool feeling rather good about the whole thing.
Of course, I'd had an introduction to the pool earlier, so I was only too happy to jump in, leaving my glasses on, because I wanted to see who was getting into the pool with me. We'd all described our fears and hang-ups about getting undressed, and our group seemed to be unanimous that we were looking forward to it: we didn't want to sit around and TALK about it, we wanted to DO it, and that was the reason for our treasonous walk-out.
Ralph undressed slowly, down to his long black socks, and he had a nice hairy body with a beautiful length of cock hanging limply down from a nest of pubic hair which seemed to stretch to his navel, in beauteous form and shape. Bernie was somewhat less nice, though possessing definition that I really hadn't expected: he must do some sort of exercising. Jaap was a disappointment, a flabby ass and no definition, and I then figured he was somewhat older than I'd hoped, and had passed the slim bloom of his best years. Betsy also was very wide-hipped, and I realized what stretch marks looked like, those little zigzag sags pointing toward the exit of her five children. Karen was unpleasant, too. Having warned us of her fat ass, I didn't expect such a shock, but shocking it was, puffy like a heated marshmallow which had turned grimy yellowy tan in the heat of old age. Either she was fantastically out of shape, or, but I can't say I predicted she was into her thirties.
Her tits were reasonably unpleasant too, particularly when compared to the massiveness of her ass---or the assiness of her mass. But then all the females were under-endowed, except Rachel, and who needed it? Natalie was about the only one who looked vaguely special, as Ursula had looked, and I realized how frustrated an old married guy might get looking at all the Playboy balloons and going back to his wrinkled, withered spouse. There really HAS to be a better way for society to go other than marriage!!
Bernie came over to me in the water, and he also was wearing his glasses, which meant we couldn't frolic and splash or get splashed as some of the others, mainly Jaap and Flo, were doing. "Do you think we could try that hug again?" asked Bernie, and I was surely impressed by his boldness. If they didn't know about me before, they'll surely know about me now, and we hugged in the center of the pool, squeezing and groaning against each other, but his worries about getting a hard-on didn't come true, and as I hadn't particularly worried about it, nothing happened with me, either, but that it did feel good to have his body cuddled in mine.
When he though it was time to get down to business, after cursing out the shortcomings and pitfalls of the pool, Paul called us together and described the first of the pool techniques: the passing tunnel. One group lined up facing the other group, and one person from the end would lay back in the water, closing their eyes, and would be passed from arm to arm up the line, where the passers had the privilege of slapping, wetting, kissing, hugging, but not fondling, sucking, or jerking, though he didn't catalog these particular taboos, the person who was passing by.
"Just think, you can look at your heart's content at cocks and cunt, and it will be perfectly all right. OK?" Non-comprehension plagued me: that means the passed person has his eyes open, but do they pass at the level of the knees, so that they're looking up at the cocks and cunts? Oh, it dawned on me, the person being passed was on view: one could look at THEIR cock or cunt. Hopefully not cock AND cunt.
Though it sounded good in theory, in actuality there were so many things to keep in mind, it turned out stiff and mannered. The air was colder than the water, and when someone like Mary married came by, not only was she physically uptight because she was afraid of the water, and her elbows were regimentally stiff and square, her arms were rigid against her sides, and her face was screwed into such an attitude of fear and tension that it seemed ludicrous she could feel anything from the exercise other than stark panic. But what I wanted to mention about Mary wasn't her tenseness, which was her particular problem, but her cold. Her Gorgon's teats were rippled with gooseflesh, and the pale nipples were positively erect with the cold. She shivered as she passed, and we were reminded to keep their bodies underwater, but their heads above water.
Everyone had their own idea how this was to be done, and passed persons seemed to be alternately drowned and carried through the air. When someone like Rachel came along, someone like Toni would get a panicked look on their face and brace their arms for the weight, with the result that the body would be much too far out of the water. Then when she got to someone more confident, like Jaap, he would let her sink even too far into the water, so that water would slosh into her ears or even across into her eyes, and the person would raise their head in the panic of being drowned, or inhaling on a down-swing, and gulping up a good lungful of water.
So the first time, the passing was rigid, mannered, and choppy, and everyone went faster than they should have. People weren't rocked back and forth in the cradle of the deep, they were shunted from person to person like a cold potato, to get off to the end, where they were to be gently cradled and then put onto their feet.
Poor Mary went into some sort of catatonic state at that point, refusing to come out of her rigidity, and then making some sort of weird statements, like "I have to take the beans off the stove," which indicated she was off on some private trip of her own. The second time through, she wouldn't snap out of it, even with the holder gently whacking her cheeks, and she had to be taken out of the pool and wrapped in a towel until she could recover. It was disheartening to handle her, even at best, and at worst, she was terrifying.
Jaap made some sort of comment like "Now we'll duck him," to me, and though it was meant to be lovingly joking, I opened my eyes in terror, at least so I could see WHEN he would do it, to make sure I was exhaling when he did it, not inhaling. Toni sailed past with her hands up to her ears, as if she were holding on some sort of bathing cap, and from the lines about her head, it became obvious that she was wearing some sort of wig, which she had insisted on wearing into the pool.
When I was passed, I had seen the rigidity of the others, and resolved to be more relaxed, and was surprised to feel that I DID get a sensation from it: those hands underneath me, supporting me, passing me along---I didn't know whose they were, I didn't know who they belonged to, I didn't know WHAT SEX THEY WERE, and it was pleasant to feel someone slapping me and patting me, not knowing whether it was a guy or a gal, and NOT CARING. I'm sure I got this huge---nasty thoughts, now---GRIN on my face as I went down the tunnel, and was enjoying it thoroughly. It COULD be nice, and it could be nice for the passers, too, once they got used to it.
One of the more difficult things remained the rocking. The second time through Paul assured us we had the time, and we should give each one a longer trip. But if there were five pairs of hands underneath the body, whose hands were those which controlled the motion? How far forward was the body to go before being rocked back? Being rocked back, how far back would the person go? Necessarily not too far, because the other person would be coming down the line, and if there were speedy rockers at the beginning of the line, and slow rockers at the end of the line, there would be a gang-up in the middle, with sometimes only one person rocking one person, waiting for the slower ones to rid themselves of their burdens. If the slow rockers were at the start of the line, the ones further on, with no one, would begin to reevaluate their coldness with nothing to do, and reach out for the passed one, so that they could have something to do.
The second time I went through I thought I was always reaching the end: the trip was pleasant, but wasn't that the last, since they had almost stopped, so I opened my eyes, raised my head, and my feet dropped toward the bottom of the pool. But it wasn't the end: I was only halfway there. So I got into the relaxing position again, went for a few more moments, and THAT must be the end, so I open my eyes---etc---and it's still not the end. It was like my meditations: at a certain point I was more concerned about the END of the time than I was concerned about PASSING time---the same with vacations, too, when I reached the point of wanting to get back to New York, or going on vacations, when I thought of the number of hours before the flight, or on a deadline, or before the weekend, or in exercising---my GOD, was my whole life spent anticipating the END---even DEATH? That's something to think about NOW, though it didn't, properly speaking, occur to me in the nude workshop.
Finally I got to the end, and was prepared to stay there, but I was told to stand up, since the other person was coming through, and I had to be on my own two feet. The ending was difficult, too, since you were supposed to go off and recollect yourself in the care of one person. Those like Rachel wanted to be the end person all the time, and she would cuddle you, crooning, and then drop you when her services were needed for the next one. Or else pairs of people would be cluttering up the end, and there'd be no one in the tunnel.
Then too, as the far end would go through the tunnel, and the people out the end would take their place at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel would move toward the end, and many times in the middle of a pass, there would be frantic motions from the people at the end to "Move DOWN," and the startled passee would stiffen into apprehension as he felt himself being determinedly marched five or six paces from whence he came. It took marvelous self-control not to look about to see what the hell was going on at these points.
My third time through was a dream. Since everyone was beginning to pat and tweak and fondle---even Rachel was splashing water over the entire body, and sometimes not bothering to stop when she got to the cock---I thought to relax my arms in the water and even turn the hands out to brush and clasp those I was passing. It worked rather nicely, even though some contacts were not pleasant: they would jump back as if there were a snake in the water, just brushing their waists.
The moving about in the pool was a source of consternation because of the differing heights, also. What was comfortable for Jaap was drowning for Toni. What was comfortable for Toni was cold for Jaap, since he would be out of the water to the waist. I was only after a bit of time that I motioned that it would be better if the women were on one side, and the guys on another, though possibly that ruined the sexlessness of the hands, but at least it made the water more tolerable. Because people were visibly getting cold, and Paul was beginning to express concern about it, even calling a play period between passes so that people could roust around and be more active, warming up.
It was only after a bit of practice that I could take my eyes off the strained faces and concentrate on the bodies that were moving beneath me. Mary's cunt was thin and pinched as her face, looking very nude because of the lightness of her hair. Toni looked as if she shaved, or she just had a naturally crewcut bush. Bernie was small, and Ben, having said he was afraid of being called small, was also small, though of a thickness that promised more if he ever got it into a state of erection.
Ralph was getting more and more beautiful by the minute. We had all finally taken our glasses off, and his large eyes were framed by fantastically long lashes, particularly below, which made his eyes look even larger. His eyebrows were masterpieces of hair arrangement, and the curly black hair refused to be daunted by the water's weight, and remained curly even when his head was underwater. His skin coloring was the beautiful Italianate coloring that so attracted me to Frank Mungo and Azak, and there was a sun tan above the waist, which conjured up the beautiful picture of his working through the summer in a pair of blue jeans. For he must have worked, since his body was a marvel of symmetry and bulk, especially in the abdominal region, where there were cylindrical muscles from just under his rather small pectorals to the point where his body flesh disappeared into his pubic hairs, which were even more curly and lush than his head hairs.
All over, his hair arrangement was lovely, stopping midway up his chest in a nicely shaped line, running down the middle of his marvelous belly, spreading out at the crotch, heavily covering his legs, which were well-formed: not the too-thin legs of many Italians, not the bulky hunks of football players, but nicely chiseled, neatly defined shapes of long slim muscles. And his cock, ah his cock, lolled back and forth in the water, uncut, with the foreskin pulled far back enough, and loose enough, to show that it would come all the way back when erect. It was long and hose-like, and perfectly free to move about in its flexibility, long enough to bend and jostle at more than one point, so that there was a beautiful play and change to the cock as the waters washed over it. Almost as if he realized the effect he would have on his audience, his legs seemed ARRANGED in a graceful reclining pose, a supine Pieta figure floating past, face tranquil, and I wanted to bend down and take the floppy cock into my mouth and kiss that, but I knew what the rules were, and there was no need for my being thrown out of the place at this point, not when I could be looking at this cock for the next few hours.
Then there was another play period, and Bernie again came over to demand that I hug him: he seemed to accept it as his due. While he and I were together, as if in answer to my wishes, Ralph came up behind me and hugged me from behind, so that we three made a lovely sandwich, and I the amazed filling. Moans came louder from Bernie, and I felt that the whole world could be watching us, and I wouldn't care. Ralph started making some sort of contented sounds, and I felt the length of his cock pressed up against my back. We squeezed tightly together, arms straining, loving to feel the strains in the arms and chests, and then I moved out, saying that someone else should enjoy the middle, and I was on the outside and Bernie on the inside, head lolling about in the waves, mouth resting against a neck, a shoulder, once venturing up to my chin and cheek.
This could have gone on forever, and I loved the feel of Ralph's long body caressed in mine, and we hugged and wrestled in the pool, every so often breaking into laughter so that it wouldn't get too personal. Bernie began to get hard, and I, on reaction, started to harden also, but Ralph was so long and meaty it didn't matter if he hardened or not, it was always possible to identify his cock in the melee. We kept this up for a matter of minutes, and I resisted saying anything which may have stopped it, but we just couldn't continue indefinitely, so we broke up, looking at each other with eyes shining, and I cursed myself later for not taking it just one tiny step farther, to the point of SAYING how much I liked this feeling, how much I liked Ralph's body.