Under the Vulcania

by Maureen Freely

  Chapter Twelve

  The Chastity Beltway was a flight of stairs away from the Roman Baths. It consisted of twelve suites, arranged in a semicircle around a marble pool. This pool area was the only part of the Vulcanian labyrinth where women were not allowed to entertain beaux; it was therefore the place where clients who were still breastfeeding received visits from their babies. As Fiona walked in, two of these mothers were entering the pool for a dip with their six month olds. ‘After this morning, I’m beginning to wonder about the wisdom of valuing a penis for its length alone,’ one mother was saying to the other. ‘In the end, I think it’s the circumference that makes the experience worthwhile.’ ‘I don’t know,’ said the other as she arranged her infant on a float. ‘I’m more inclined to think that the most important factor is musculature.’

  Jacqui jumped up from her reclining chair when she saw Fiona. Shepherding her into her private suite at the far end of the semicircle, she said, ‘I’ve ordered lunch to be brought in here, because the pool is just too noisy.’ A young man with long black curls was already setting out two glasses of champagne and a bowl of nuts at the low, round table next to Jacqui’s private jacuzzi. ‘I’m going to step in here for another soak, if you don’t mind,’ Jacqui said, passing the manservant as if he weren’t even there. She threw off her robe.

  ‘Oh,’ said the manservant. ‘Don’t do that to me. I hurt enough already.’

  ‘That’s your problem, not mine,’ snapped Jacqui. ‘Now quit talking and do your job.’

  ‘But you’re just so beautiful!’

  ‘More to the point,’ Jacqui countered, ‘my friend and I are hungry. I ordered two Caesar salads to be brought up at one o’clock and here it is 1:15 already. Get cracking before I report you.’

  ‘I’ll only go if you promise me you’ll reconsider.’

  ‘I’ll do nothing of the sort,’ said Jacqui. ‘You disgust me.’

  Putting his hands on his chest, the manservant said, ‘Ouch. That was a body blow.’

  ‘I’ve warned you for the last time.’

  ‘OK, OK.’ He scurried out of the door marked ‘Service’.

  Jacqui helped herself to a handful of nuts. Nodding in the direction of the service door, she said to Fiona, ‘He’s pretty cute, isn’t he?’

  ‘You think so?’ Fiona said dubiously.

  ‘Sure do,’ said Jacqui.

  ‘Well, you could have fooled me.’

  ‘I suppose you’re referring to the banter. Well, that’s nothing. That’s just part of the package.’

  ‘And clearly the part of the package you enjoy the most,’ said Fiona.

  ‘You bet I do,’ said Jacqui. ‘I’ve got to get rid of my hostility somehow. You know what he’s done now?’ She was referring, of course, to the good-for-nothing married man who had just dropped her. ‘He wrote me a letter saying he’d appreciate it if I could arrange not to go to Parents’ Evening until the last half hour because he would feel uncomfortable if his wife and I found ourselves in the main room together. And do you know what the real joke is? His wife has been here all morning. She was actually on the rack! I saw her. And so ever since, I’ve been sitting here obsessing over what I’d like to do most – go down there and give her some real punishment and tell her what her husband’s been up to, or bide my time and tell HIM how SHE whiles away her daytime hours…’

  The wisest course would be to do neither,’ Fiona suggested.

  ‘You would say that, wouldn’t you? But the wisdom of it is another matter. I can’t see where your own famous discretion has got you.’

  ‘If you’re referring to the episode I think you’re referring to…’

  ‘It was hardly an episode, Fiona. I’m referring to the Young Apprentice.’

  ‘I’m over him.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Well, how about this? His birthday came and went without my even remembering. And that’s really something, when you think how obsessed I was.’

  ‘But don’t you feel like there’s a gap in your life?’

  ‘Really, I’ve been far too weak even to think about it.’

  ‘Which is exactly why that husband of yours keeps you weak.’

  ‘I know what you think, Jacqui, but I can’t go along with it. I really was close to dying.’

  ‘You really were made to believe you were close to dying.’

  ‘You don’t realize how much that affair ground me down. You keep saying that the attention was doing wonders for me, but that’s just because you were hoping it would be my first baby step out of my marriage. Actually, it did terrible damage. It was all take and no give on his part. All he wanted was to be mothered. If I said anything to him that didn’t fit the part he had cast for me, he simply didn’t hear it.’

  ‘It would have been easier, I suppose, if you hadn’t also been having to work with him.’

  ‘I think that from now on, I’ll steer clear of attachments and just use this place as and when needed.’

  ‘But where does that leave your soul, dear Fiona?’

  Before she could answer, there was a rap on the door. ‘Come in,’ said Jacqui, reverting to her imperial mode. In walked a new manservant. This one was a striking redhead wearing nothing but shorts and a pair of granny glasses. ‘Not you again!’ Jacqui complained.

  ‘I just thought I’d try one more time,’ said the redhead.

  ‘Well, guess what. You guessed wrong. Clear out of here, you piece of scum.’

  ‘You don’t know what this rejection is doing to me,’ said the redhead.

  ‘I don’t care what it’s doing to you.’

  After he had left, Fiona asked, ‘How many refusals did you buy for today?’

  ‘A baker’s dozen.’

  ‘Doesn’t it begin to get repetitious after a while?’

  ‘Not for me, it doesn’t. Do you know what the best part is? The way they cower when they back out of the room. The fact that they obey me. When I say no in real life, I know I’m stuck either for days of sulking, or at the very best, three quarters of an hour of trying to come up with an acceptable justification…’

  Chapter Thirteen

  After lunch, Jacqui managed to talk Fiona into going along with her to the Palace of Foreplay. It had looked appealing in the brochure, but the reality was smaller in scale than what Jacqui was expecting. The ferris wheel of bucking broncos was okay – but only just. If they wanted to call it a ferris wheel, they were bound to deflate the libido if all they provided was an apparatus incapable of rising more than thirty feet.

  The Hall of Mirrors was another misnomer, because it was not your own reflection you saw in the glass but the reflections of various beaux – all in ridiculous get-ups and all dancing to music that was not, in Jacqui’s opinion, quite loud enough to justify their exaggerated movements. She could, if she really stretched her imagination to its outer limits, just see that it might be exciting for some women to reach out for every sixth or seventh mirror to find that – lordy! – it was not a reflection at all this time but a real male prostitute! And, no, she didn’t have to shut her eyes to make the imaginative leap because she had proof positive in the pair right up ahead of them. These two women took extreme pleasure in goosing the poor bastards whenever they found them. One had a penchant for the armpits, the other for the groin. It was one of those scenarios that made you very, very glad you were not born a man.

  The Merry-Go-Vibrator was, she had to admit it, a relaxing, if also a somewhat dizzying, ride. It set her up nicely for the Moonlight on the Bayou. Without having been mechanically relaxed in advance, she doubted that she would have been able to withstand the two minutes of being kissed and fondled in the dark by an unseen boatmate. As it was, she emerged from the ersatz cave feeling titillated and craving more – which is why she decided to risk the Road to Damascus. This, as it turned out, was the one ride of any enduring value. You travelled down a tunnel on a conveyor belt while a host of disembodied hands rippled over your body. Were they real? Or m
echanical? It had to be an ingenious combination of the two – but there was a danger in allowing yourself to become too relaxed. Your judgement could follow. Had she been in her right mind, she would have gone straight back to the Beltway after reaching Damascus. Instead, she had let Fiona talk her into going along to the Casino, where she stupidly allowed herself to be strapped on to the roulette wheel, or, to be more precise, trapped inside 19 Red.

  To be even more precise, this contraption she now found herself confined to was not a wheel but something closer in shape to the cones you got in airport baggage reclaim halls. The straps – fitted around her torso as well as her wrists and ankles – were too tight, the spinning motion close to nauseating. As for the foam chips – while they did not seem to hurt their targets, they were too large not to provoke a reflex reaction whenever they came hurling in her direction.

  The muzzle was no consolation. After Fiona’s number (11 Black) came up and she was led off by an unremarkable beau to an adjoining room, Jacqui tried to take her muzzle off so that she could attract the attention of the so-called croupier and get herself off this infernal machine. But the muzzle wouldn’t budge.

  The enforced prolongation of the ride sent her blood pressure soaring. It seemed to her that she had contrived to get herself trapped in a metaphor for her life. Going around and around in circles, waiting for some asshole to pick her up… not only was she a hostage to whim and chance – she was fucking paying for it with her own hard-earned money! She began to growl with genuine fury, and when that didn’t work, she focused a silent but seething hatred on the lucky women whose numbers came up instead of hers. It was only gradually that she came to realize that the luckiest woman of them all – the one who was led off to a back room only to be returned to the wheel after a quarter of an hour for a repeat routine within five minutes, only to be released, serviced, restored to the wheel and released again before the half hour… was The Wife.

  What was she here for? Was the disputed party so different at home that this woman had to come here for her kicks? She longed to ask her.

  She decided she would ask her.

  Without necessarily revealing her own identity.

  But when?

  And how?

  The solution presented itself when The Wife came out of her third back-room session looking somewhat bow-legged and breathless. This time she headed not for the roulette wheel but for the Hard-On Café, which was located across the corridor. Not long afterwards, Jacqui’s number came up. She wrenched her arm out of the grasp of the beau who tried to claim her, yelling, ‘You have got to be joking!’ and rushed out of the door.

  She slowed her pace upon entering the café, then stopped altogether to take in this small, bizarrely furnished temple to the Phallus. There, in the centre, was a gross enlargement of that famous Hittite sculpture of the priapic god. And there, at the bar itself, was a row of smaller priapic figures serving as a soda fountain. The photographs on the walls took the same motif to the edge of obscenity and beyond. But most alarming were the chairs, which had penis-shaped vibrators built into the seats.

  Up and down they went, in rhythm to the loud disco music. Only one was occupied. Although she could only see her from the back, she knew this was the woman she was seeking. She took a deep breath and made her way across the room. For the first time since her arrival at the Vulcania, she felt like a huntress. Fuck all those men. They were just excuses. This was her prey for the day.

  For a few delicious seconds, Jacqui stood behind her gyrating form. Then, without the slightest premeditation, she reached over to a neighbouring table and picked up the phallic candle. She was about to hit her on the head with it, when suddenly The Wife swung around.

  Offering her hand, she said to Jacqui, ‘The Other Woman, I presume.’

  Jacqui took a step back. She was speechless.

  ‘Sit down,’ said The Wife. ‘I’ve been longing to meet you for ages. Let me offer you a drink. There are so many things I’ve been longing to ask you. And I’m sure the feeling is mutual.’

  Fiona, meanwhile, had involved herself in an elaborate game of strip poker – although now that she and her four playmates had lost all their clothes, the operative word had become suck. It had begun with the toes, moved up on the legs to the upper thighs, and had culminated in her lying across the legs of two of the beaux, performing fellatio on one while allowing the other to lick her breast and the two onlookers to masturbate.

  It was after she had serviced three out of four that she fell into a short sleep. When she woke up, only the unserviced fourth – the engaging redhead from lunch – remained in the room with her. He asked her if she was in the mood for a wrestle. Why not? she said, shrugging her shoulders. He led her into a trough eighteen inches deep with cubed red and green jelly. They threw each other around in this for five or ten minutes, and then retired to a cleansing jacuzzi, after which her playmate took her out to a platform over the main pool, where he tied them both together with an elaborate bungee rope. For the first few jumps, they skirted the surface of the water. Then, when the penis he had positioned between her legs had grown to its full size, he adjusted the rope so that their next jump plunged them so deep into the water that their feet bounced lightly against the pool floor.

  Next came the water slides, after which the redhead suggested a swing on the giant hammock that was suspended from the central dome over the main pool. Here they took turns tying each other up – two soft elastic bands to attach the wrists to one rod, and two to attach the legs to the opposite rod. Being a gentleman (or so she still thought), he let her go first. As she fondled his penis, she was hardly able to control her butterflies, but when she sat down on him, the sensation of fucking in midair made her come almost at once, and when her turn came to be tied up, she came before he even entered her. She was too absorbed in her own pleasure to notice that he had turned her over and was fucking her up the ass. The netting was wide enough for her breasts to poke through the holes. As she looked down into the pool so far below, she was sure that each new thrust would be the one to break the net and send them flying back to earth, but instead of fearing it, she simply wondered if, when they hit the water, the impact would separate them, or if they would hit the pool bottom still joined.

  ‘I have a better idea,’ said the redhead as they climbed down the rope ladder into the simulated jungle. ‘There’s a three-legged orgy going on in one of the private pools. Why don’t we join in?’ A three-legged orgy, he explained, was an orgy in which a couple tied two legs together and then saw what it could get up to with other couples. ‘And sometimes’, he said, after they had reached the designated private pool, ‘they also join wrists. Or tie their wrists to a pole.’ He began to experiment with the cords he had brought with them. Then, apparently for laughs, he tied not just her wrists to a column, but also her legs and her arms and her waist. Standing back, he wrinkled his nose and said, ‘I’m not sure about that colour. Let me see what other cords I can find lying around.’ Before she knew what was happening, he had left her alone. Five minutes passed. Ten. Fifteen. The lights dimmed. She shouted for help. She heard laughter, first faint and then louder, and faintly menacing. Then the laughter, and the light, faded away altogether.

  Chapter Fourteen

  There is nothing like a little darkness.

  As she stood there, peering into what looked to be a thick green fog, it came to her that she had wished this on herself. Not today, but years ago, when she was still a student, when she was working at that co-operative, picking watermelons. They had had little to do in the evenings. They had had to rely on their imaginations. Sometimes they had talked about movies they wished they were seeing, or countries they wished they were visiting or half the plot of a book that they took turns bringing to an alternative conclusion. Sometimes it was the meal they would have first when they got back to civilization. That night they had started with visions – not entirely flattering visions – of where they would all be in twenty years’ time, and then t
hey had moved on to the most perverse thing they could each imagine enjoying.

  There had been nine of them. Three couples who were, like herself, architectural students, and then there was the boy, technically but not yet spiritually a man, whom she had considered her best friend at the time, and with whom she had shared a house for the previous two years. He was a medical student, and his name as Raul. The last member of the party was Raul’s ne’er-do-well cousin, Bobby. The night she was remembering was the one she ended up going off with Bobby – this despite the fact that she was engaged to marry someone else. The involvement with Bobby had lasted just long enough to break her engagement. Although she had little goodwill for Bobby, she did at least have him to thank for sparing her from what would have been not just an unhappy marriage, but also a financially constrained one. Unhappily, her involvement with Bobby had also destroyed her friendship with Raul.

  During the two years he and Fiona had shared their flat, he, too, had been engaged to ‘someone else’ – Wilhelmina, a noble and fearless woman who worked with the Indians in Guatemala. Once he had armed himself with the necessary expertise, he, too, planned to join her in the struggle. Until then, he was meeting up with her for brief interludes at his family home in Mexico City whenever their schedules permitted.

  Because there was no question ever of his being unfaithful, he was, for the time they lived together, the perfect friend and escort for Fiona. She had confided in him as she confided in no woman – and so he knew that her engagement was more troubled than his, and therefore ought not to have been surprised when she responded to the attentions of his charming and untrustworthy cousin. But he had taken offence. On the evening in question, he had stood up at the campfire and denounced her as a whore.