by Jeremy Reed
XZ looked away. He appeared neither bored nor disinterested, but simply centred in his own space. Donatien noted that XZ had a guru's coolness, and the sort of non-committal emotions that characterize pilots. He felt more and more certain that XZ was a planetary infiltrator.
'I would place more trust in a tele-existence,' said XZ. 'Why do you assume that physiology should occupy a purely local space? Post-human tele-operators would reach across solar systems, and so defy the concept of being localised by the body. Our cult is about light biology, and the expedients of travel through inner space.'
Donatien saw that he would never extract the motivating dynamic behind XZ's post-human theories. The man's intelligence and his apparent defection from physicality made it difficult for Donatien to confront him on any sympathetically shared plane. Donatien kept imagining that behind XZ's lenses was an implant video display monitor, on which were shown events happening on another star.
‘But we can't dispense with biology and remain human,' Donatien asserted, in an attempt to have XZ deliver an identity. ‘To my knowledge the immune system is going to wreak havoc on any foreign object you put into the body. Implants will surely be rejected in the process of mutating. And if you suppress the immune system in allowing for the implants, then isn't the body immediately open to viruses and bacteria? The likelihood of infections is going to be astronomical.'
XZ appeared mildly amused at Donatien's pragmatic trust in the body. He seemed to have assessed Donatien's ideas as belonging to another universe, but expressed no display of disdain or scepticism. He looked towards one of the library's high shelves, then moved his eyes back to Donatien, and said, 'you're still constrained by the physical. The experience of my small cult, or rather what happened to us on an isolated Pacific beach, was a transcendence of death without any physical effort. The energies that affected this transcendental state also worked to assist the body in overcoming its biological clock. More than that I can't disclose, and perhaps there are no language equivalents for this sort of experience.'
Donatien was impressed by the gentle tone in which XZ attempted to give an approximate account of his change-over, although he offered no clues as to how this post-evolutionary state was attained. Whatever had happened, he could see, was clearly so much a part of the man that it could never be separated off into language. It remained composite within him.
'I can follow you up to a point,' said Donatien, ‘but of course I can't enter into the quality of your experience. Mysticism is a subjective discipline. What you pursue as a cult is individual to your members.'
‘But it's also universal,' responded XZ. 'While I'm forbidden to state the exact nature of the experience that transformed both me and my eleven colleagues, we are confident that mankind is evolving towards a similar enlightenment. My work is to help sensitize global vibrations, so that the species as a whole arrive at the place at which I and my cult find ourselves. We can all achieve it — the migration towards hyperspace.'
Donatien realised that he had run into an impasse. To break XZ down would involve enumerating on his own cryonic formulae, by way of setting up a challenge, but he was unwilling to risk the proposition.
'Have you made the Pleasure Château your head-quarters?' he asked.
'It's a necessary modem for the present,' said XZ, 'for there are the beginnings of an alert to the new species. Or at least a sympathy that will accommodate its evolution.'
'And what are your interests in my château?' asked Donatien, in a tone that was uncompromisingly direct. 'I assume you came here out of curiosity.'
'I came to accompany Leanda and Nicole,' replied XZ. 'They are at a formative stage of development, and asked that I should accompany them to La Coste. They have come to acknowledge me as their teacher.'
'La Coste,' said Donatien, with a considerable pride, 'is an ancient establishment, and one in which mystic illumination is attained through extreme sexual practises. Do you not feel threatened here?'
XZ smiled. ‘Not in the least,' he said. 'I am always present and absent. To have undergone our particular initiation is to experience many different levels of consciousness at the same time. I'm both here and wherever I choose to be.'
Donatien sensed himself prickling at XZ's elusiveness. He found the man's lack of physical palpability impossible, and so too his evident asexuality. He could find no access to XZ's vulnerabilities, and in this respect regarded him as an alien. He felt estranged from him on every level, but could not help feeling that XZ genuinely carried within him the blueprint to a post-human species.
'I feel La Coste can offer you little,' he found himself saying. 'Tomorrow I shall marry my sister in the chapel, so as to bond our lineage. You will probably disapprove of such a ceremony, and particularly of the incestuous relationship I have been conducting with my sister for centuries. It is through sexual union that I have received the visions that have allowed Marciana and I to live as the deathless ones within the walls of our château. Tomorrow these rites will be consummated by marriage.'
XZ showed not the least sign of shock at Donatien's revelations, Instead he sat back deeper in his chair and sipped at a glass of water.
'We all have our own destinies,' he said. 'Mine is to help others achieve theirs through sensitised inner light. That and no more.'
Donatien allowed himself to enter the erotic reveries attendant on his forthcoming marriage. The most minute particulars of details pertaining to lingerie and dress should be observed, and he would outline his specifications to Nina that night. A pair of panties suitable to the union would have to be selected, so too a gown that would both eroticize and ceremonialize the occasion. Donatien intended the event to be an immemorial extravaganza, and slaves were to work all night in preparing the chapel for the ceremony. He cut himself free of these imaginings, and again made himself present to XZ.
'Will you attend our marriage?' he asked.
'I may be on another frequency at that time,' said XZ. ‘I’ve communications to make with other stations in the galaxy. And there are the disciplines I pursue on a daily level. We meditate and tune ourselves into the universe. As prototypes of the new species we have to work hard at maintaining the right energy levels. I will probably be in meditation at the time of your marriage.'
Donatien avoided being perceptibly ruffled by XZ’s imperturbable cool. He was beginning to regret having allowed XZ admission to La Coste, and was determined not to permit him entry to the castle's subterranean mysteries.
'You may not have conceived,' said XZ, 'that you and I are both part of the same genome. That we have split off in very different directions, and yet still come together at a specific point in time, is not without significance. We have something to learn from each other, and I'm confident that we will find a meeting place.'
'I'm not,' said Donatien abruptly. 'If your programme is one of escape velocity, then ours is one of immortalizing the sexual body. These walls at La Coste contain an encyclopaedic archive of sexual data. We are rooted in autumn. Our vine is the libido, rich with its pulsing fruit. My family dates back to the tenth century, to Louis de Sade, and is one of the oldest in Provence and the Comtat Venaissin. It was the child Bénézet who in the year 1177 miraculously lifted a stone so large that thirty men could not have moved it, and set it down on the river's bank where the first arch of a bridge was to be placed. He was instructed to do this by Jesus Christ. This bridge over the Rhône contains the Sade coat of arms on its first arch. I tell you this because of the aspect of building bridges. They demand the sort of foundations that you and I don't share. Their construction is a permanent thing. I believe our interests if they intersect occupy only a transient place in our respective lives. I am rooted in the Sade legend, and my status here is one of miracle.'
XZ continued to remain impervious to any emotive thrust on Donatien's part. 'It's not an issue of lineage or sex,' he maintained. 'As I advise my disciples, there's an occult ganglia to the unconscious. If the ESP sense ducts are opened, then various te
chniques of lambika yoga can contribute to astral sex. Where I think we differ is over a belief in a future for the body. My cult maintains that only through virtual or absent bodies will there be a future for the species. And that only through migration from the planetary body earth, will we develop as a race.'
Donatien appeared to have closed up. With considerable ostentation he took a bottle of champagne from a freezer next to his desk, tested the temperature with an appraising hand, then detonated the cork. A white plume of smoke escaped the bottle. He took out two glasses from a compartment in his desk, and fizzed a level of wine into each glass. He offered one to XZ, who predictably abstained from the invitation. Donatien lifted up his ticking glass, inhaled the bouquet, and savoured the vivacious fruits of his soil. His recommending smile told everything. He was totally contained by the approving moment. Donatien's sensuality lit his face as he continued to sip at his glass. He was like somebody reading the vocabulary of his vines and their rootedness in history.
XZ almost took the cue to leave, but remained unshakeably relaxed in his chair. Donatien could see that the man wasn't going anywhere, and had all the time in the world to be present in his dimension. He continued to place one silver boot over the other, and to stare off into space. Donatien poured himself another glass of champagne, and continued to treat XZ with a degree of aristocratic contempt for outsiders. He was additionally irritated by the knowledge that none of his projected hauteur made any least impression on XZ. He decided to bring the meeting to an end, and turned his back on XZ, hoping that the latter would rise and leave. But Donatien was conscious only of the continued silence that described XZ's presence, and of his persistence in staying seated in his chair.
'We don't seem to be communicating,' said XZ. ‘I’m somewhere, and you're somewhere else, and while I don't need your space, I feel you have need of knowing about mine. My cult is conditioned to enter a mystico-cyberspace; we're also yogis, adepts at pharmaceutical experimentation, and extraterrestrial surfers. But far more than that, for we will adapt to the future, we are the prototypes of a new race. I'm not saying that your species is obsolete, but that it will be in time, not withstanding your purchase on DNA. It's more a problem of fixity. You're circumscribed by place. No matter how long you live, you're fixed. We're fluent. In a year we will have a keypad that will allow us to communicate directly with a number of near planets. The push buttons will be implanted into the palm of the left hand, and will ho digitally operated. In time, spacecraft won't be necessary. We ourselves will negotiate the near planets.'
XZ stopped speaking, and looked away. Donatien watched as he took another blue capsule out of a star-shaped container, and swallowed the pill with water. XZ made no reference to this repeat of his earlier practice, and resumed his usual mode of absolute control.
Donatien returned to his chair and confronted XZ with his usual imperious demeanour. He was not making the least inroad on XZ's defences, and had come to a point where he realised the inefficacy of language to address extraterrestrial issues. Donation appeared contracted, as though he was settling into deep foundations, and in the process locating a security in his past. He had kept on preparing himself for a mental combat that WAN indefinitely postponed. He leant forward and took his weight on his elbows. Somewhere underground he could hear his menagerie of castle freaks dragging itself round in heavy chains. He could sense his underworld rising like a black sun in the castle's depths. He struggled with the impulse to go to his own and reclaim his constituency of the captive.
He faced XZ with inflexible scrutiny, and tried for a last time to manoeuvre into a position of superiority. Even in the attempt he could feel his combatant's resistance. Donatien could discover in XZ no interface between human and android. The man was missing the basics of communication, and had withdrawn to a planet in his head.
'I can see we will have to resume our conversation another time,' said Donatien, feeling his expectations zero to the nihil. 'We're finding no common point of agreement. We are both custodians of a knowledge we are unwilling to share.'
XZ continued staring into near or deep space. Donatien had the feeling that he couldn't care less about anything happening in his immediate precinct. He was situated somewhere else.
'If there's nothing my château can offer you by way of sensual pleasures, then I trust you will discover other diversions,' said Donatien by way of a concluding remark.
XZ sat for some moments contemplating his silver boots, then got up, and with no reference to Donatien, made his way out of the door.
Donatien sat a long time staring into abstract space. Every facet of his life jumped into view, and the enormity of the centuries through which he had lived crowded into his consciousness. He saw himself dignified and disgraced, rich and poor, exultant and dejected. He evaluated his place in time and his situation in the body, and trusted in the reality of all that he had known. He was certain that he wasn't living through an illusion, and that the narrative of his days was in its context a preparation for entry into ultimate vision. His marriage to Marciana would affirm that premise.
He thought of Marciana's body and the sacredness he attached to their sexual rites. He told himself that he had found monogamy only through incest, and that the mystic connotations attached to this pact were absolute. Donatien found himself reflecting on the stages of perversion that in turn led to redemption. He thought of how orgasm was a form of somatic ballistics, and that the heightening of it was the equivalent of ecstatic vision. He would sometimes pray on his knees with his cock powerfully fixed in Marciana's bottom. Donation felt that an alteration was occurring in his relationship with time. It wasn't that he felt threatened by mortality, it was more that he was conscious of a fixture existing in his apprehension of time itself. He was experiencing an accelerated movement within himself that thrilled him with a sense of adrenalized expectation. He considered how for centuries he had lived in a non-linear state of suspension, and that he had grown to be completely without anticipation of change. Now he felt as though he had entered into a time stream, and that the feeling had been activated by excitement at his upcoming marriage. Again he could hear the movements of his menagerie in the castle's subterranean interior, and quickly locking the door of his library, Donatien took a lift the twelve flights down to the château's dungeon.
Donatien had mobiled through to the orange-coated Jacques, and the latter was there to receive him at the sealed grid to the underworld. Jacques used a remote to open the grid, and together with Donatien he proceeded through a long cove-lit corridor to a door marked the House of the Six Blondes. As Donatien entered a scarlet and gilt room designed to resemble the parlour of a baroque bordello, so six women with extravagantly blonde hair, and all of them dressed in items of leopardskin clothing, got up from their chairs and bowed to the Marquis. Strewn all over the floor were hundreds of lipstick tubes, mascaras, eye-shadows, powder containers, and the whole spectrum of theatrical accoutrements that the girls used as a distraction from unmitigated ennui. They had constantly to make themselves up in case the Marquis should visit without warning, and should their looks appear to him unsatisfactory, then a severe Sadean whipping would ensue. Should the girls satisfy Donatien's criterion, then they would be rewarded by the introduction to their parlour of six sex starved schoolboys from the local village.
Donatien commanded the girls to present their bottoms, and he proceeded to check them for beauty spots. He liked at least one pencilled spot to exist in the slit, and preferably on the left hand side of the cheeks. He appeared delighted with his findings, and after scrutinising the minutiae of each girl's bottom, he reminded the girls of their station as sex-slaves. They existed, he said, for no other purpose than to provide pleasure, and the morphology of their buttocks was a commentary on their obedience to rank.
Donatien took up a number of pencils and sticks of make-up and began applying impromptu trompe-l'oeil flourishes to areas of the girls' buttocks. He regarded these six blonde kittens as a buttocks-harem d
esigned for his personal gratification, or as a diversion to the rampant schoolboys who were sometimes brought in to assuage his harem's frustration.
Having instructed Jacques to video the proceedings, Donatien went back to the corridor, unlocked a black wooden door, and went inside to find the schoolboys sweating over photographs of their intended conquests. The blondes had been photographed in all manner of compromising positions, and were dressed in lingerie and stockings. The schoolboys, who were forbidden to wank in the period of waiting, were so excited that they were visibly shaking. Donatien additionally aroused the boys by telling them that the girls were putting on silk stockings to enhance the sensuality of lovemaking. Donatien could see the impacted bulge in each of their jeans, and decided that it was the right moment to supplement their longing with aphrodisiacs. He gave each of the youths a number of sex-sweets, and then fished a little pair of black silk panties out of his pocket. He held the item up and assured them it had been worn by one of the blondes, and that he had just slipped it off her bottom. He went on to tell the libidinous pack that the girls would all be wearing see through panties moist with their urgent need.
When Donatien had aroused the boys to a point of no return, and could see that the aphrodisiacs were kicking into their systems, so he led them out of the room, down the corridor, and told them to wait outside the red and gilt door marked the House of the Six Blondes. Donatien went inside, saw that the girls were arranged in feline postures, concealed himself behind a wall that served as a two way mirror, and then had Jacques open the door with the exaggerated ceremony of a brothel keeper.
The six youths found themselves in an extravagantly baroque interior, with the girls arranged on silk cushions, their legs invitingly arched, and their tongues beckoning through red glossed lips.
The youths uniformly unzipped, struggled out of tight jeans, and with a detonative lust threw themselves on the waiting girls. One volcanic expectation was reciprocated by the other, and in a kicking flurry of long silk-stockinged legs, the blondes snaked their viperine bodies round the hard urgency of the demented youths. Donatien watched as the boys extracted from the blondes an unending series of raucously strangulated cries. It was the meeting of satyriasis and nymphomania. The girls were achieving orgasm with almost every elongated thrust from their desperately urgent partners. They were being pumped to a screaming surrender, and soon the boys were exchanging partners, and were jumping from one rapturously pleasured blonde to the next in a sticky orgiastic maelstrom of bodies.
