by 26 Nights (Memoirs of a Contemporary Gentleman) [MF] (retail) (epub)
Chapter 18
QUITE EARLY ON IN MY PROGRESS TOWARD THE winning of my wager with Miss Greenglass, I had begun to make provisions—or at least to attempt to do so—against the time when I would be faced with those letters presenting the greatest challenge. I must admit that on the whole I had not had much success in this endeavor. Almost half my allotted six months had passed, and while I had less than half of the alphabet to go, that half was by far the more difficult. I had stored up one or two vague leads, and in my hour of need I recalled a newspaper clipping I had torn out and squirreled away. I dug it out and perused it again.
It was an advertisement from a small-circulation weekly paper specializing in left-wing politics and New Age arcana. It promoted the offerings of an establishment known as The Astral Plane, and it read as follows:
Visit the Astral Plane, servicing the Evolved and the Enlightened. Spiritual counselling. Channeling. Crystal arrangement. Body piercing. Meditation training. Witchcraft. By appointment only.
This was followed by an address, and then at the bottom of the ad was a very small photograph of a young woman, under which was the name: Quintana.
Whether this was a first or last name, or actually a name at all, was something I could only find out by investigation. Oddly, although the ad specified “by appointment only,” there was no phone number. How one was to make an appointment was not clear. I decided to risk just showing up.
The address was deep in what was once called the Lower East Side. I paid the cab driver, stepped around a couple of recumbent individuals taking their afternoon naps on the sidewalk, and entered the Astral Plane.
I was struck by the strong smell of incense and the faint sound of tinkling bells from somewhere deep in the pervasive gloom. The lighting consisted of a few candles scattered about on counters, which didn’t appear to serve any other purpose. I heard a faint rustling noise from somewhere, and then a young woman came through a curtain in the back wall.
Given the general dimness of the place, and the fuzziness of the photograph, I was not certain that this was the lady in the ad, but it seemed likely. She had the same long brown hair floating freely about her face. She wore a long, loose white garment and she was barefoot. As she came closer I could see that she wore no makeup whatever, but that fact seemed somehow to enhance, rather than detract from, the limpid beauty of her face. The loose covering hid most of her figure, but it couldn’t quite conceal the high thrust of an obviously unfettered bosom.
“Namas te,” the young lady said. “Welcome to the Astral Plane.”
“Thank you. Are you Quintana?”
“Yes,” she said. “I am Quintana.” Her voice was very low and soft, almost ethereal. There was something about her that made me feel disconcertingly awkward and intrusive.
“Forgive my coming with no appointment,” I said. “But there was no—”
“Oh, but I knew you were coming,” she said. “I received your emanation. I have been expecting you.”
“Is that right?” I said. The girl was lovely, but seemed also to be something of a kook. “Do you know my name too?”
She smiled softly. “Names are immaterial. It is your spirit I recognize.”
“But names are important too,” I said. “Yours, for instance. Quintana. It’s very unusual. Is it your real name?”
She shrugged. “A name is merely a convenience. An artificial symbol of outward identity. It means nothing.”
“It means something to me,” I said. “Is it your first name?”
“Please,” Quintana said. “You have come here because you are in need. I feel that. Let me help you. You are an earthy person with a spirit yearning to rise up into freedom. Have you tried chanting? Do you seek a spirit guide?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “I just—”
“No,” Quintana said. “No, your aura is more …” She began to circle around me, one hand raised up as though feeling my aura. “It is earthly, tangible … it cries out for a physical solution.”
“I think you’re right,” I said.
“A soul calling for release … perhaps a piercing of the body, allowing the spirit to escape from its prison …”
A piercing of the body was what I had in mind all right. But hers, not mine. “Thanks just the same,” I said.
“You came here seeking something,” Quintana said. “Tell me what it was, that I may best help you.”
“Actually I came to find out about your name,” I said. “I know it’s just an artificial symbol of outward identity, but—”
Quintana sighed, which did interesting things to her bosom. “You cannot solve your spiritual problems by avoidance,” she said. “Come with me.” I followed her. Behind the curtain was a smaller room, just as dim but cozier, with rugs and cushions scattered on the floor. “Please sit down,” she said. “We will have some herbal tea and I will consult the Tarot.” She motioned to a pile of cushions, and I sat down on them, not very comfortably. I wondered where the tea was coming from. Maybe it was an emanation.
Quintana gazed at me solemnly. “You have been looking at my breasts,” she said. “Would you like to see them?”
I blinked. “I certainly would.”
She opened the neck of her robe and slipped it off her shoulders, and she was naked to the waist. Her breasts were high and thrusting, set wide apart, with nipples the color of raspberries.
“You must transcend your absorption with the physical,” Quintana said. “The body is only a shell, a temporary structure, doomed to wither and perish. It is the soul that is immortal. I see your spirit yearning to soar beyond the material world. We must work to free that spirit. Have you ever meditated?”
I was meditating over her breasts at that moment. “Look,” I said, “you’re right. I’m a very physical person. Maybe the way to free my spirit is through physical means. If your temporary structure and mine got together, that might bring about a liberation of the spirit …”
Quintana was shaking her head. “You are merely expressing what you think you desire,” she said. “Not what is deep in your soul. It is the tyranny of the left-brain construct that leads you to see me as an erotic object. It is an illusion which only hinders your enlightenment.”
“Oh, really?” I said. “Then how come I have this erection? I guess my penis doesn’t know it’s a left-brain construct.”
Quintana didn’t seem fazed. “An erection is simply a manifestation of your earthbound fantasies. Your true essence yearns for transcendence—”
“No it doesn’t,” I said. “It yearns for you. It yearns to hold those lovely breasts of yours. It yearns to be inside you and feel your legs around my body and your hips moving under me. And before all that, it yearns to know your name. Your real name. If you really want to help me, that’s the best way to start.”
She shrugged. Her breasts bounced. My cock twitched. “My name is Quintana,” she said. “Just that. It is what it is. It is not what I am.”
“All right,” I said. “Fine.” If that was what she said her name was—I think that’s what she was saying—that was good enough for me, and it would have to be good enough for Miss Greenglass too. “Now about this erection …”
“You can will it away,” she said. “It is not real. Concentrate. Look deep inside yourself and you will discover that this fleshly desire is a mirage—”
I pulled down my zipper and let my stiff straining tool out into the open, figuring if she could show me her temporary shell, I could show her mine. “Does that look like a mirage?” I asked her. “An illusion? An artificial construct?”
For a moment I thought her eyes grew even larger. She didn’t move or say anything immediately, and as we sat there I began to feel a bit silly. But after a while she took a breath. “Perhaps …” she said softly, and paused. “There is a method—practiced by certain yoga adepts—of reaching enlightenment through … a—an aesthetic form of … of sexual contact.”
“Now we’re talking,” I said.
“You mus
t understand,” Quintana said. “This is a spiritual practice. It does not involve lust, or what you think of as earthly passion.”
“Oh, of course,” I said. “Certainly. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Undress,” she said, and she stood up and followed her own command. I did likewise, but my eyes were on her as she slid the robe the rest of the way off. She was naked, and she was magnificent. My erection grew even bigger.
Quintana pulled just one pillow out of the pile on the floor and sat me down on it, with my legs sort of half folded in front of me. Then she stepped close and lowered herself, facing me, till she was crouched above my lap. I reached to put my hands on her breasts, but she shook her head sharply. “No. Just be still. Think of nothing.”
That was easy to say, but it was very hard to do. It was even more difficult to keep my hands at my sides when her soft warm fingers made contact with my eager stiffness, holding it steady as she positioned herself over it.
This may have been a purely spiritual thing for her, but something about that spirit had made her moist and ready. I let out a hiss of pleasure as she gradually enveloped me in that soft tightness. “Hush,” she said. “Empty your mind of lust. Contemplate the joining of souls.” As she said this she was taking me deeper and deeper, until finally she was sitting on my thighs, and I was buried completely inside her marvelous body.
“Quintana …” I croaked. My breath was coming fast, my heart was racing and my hands were twitching to touch her somewhere, anywhere. In fact I couldn’t help brushing her smooth shapely thighs with my fingers—
“No,” she said again, lifting my hands away from her flesh. “You must be still.”
I don’t know how those Yogis did it. It was impossible for me just to sit there that way and do nothing, and yet neither my desire nor my erection seemed to be diminishing one bit. Quite the contrary. I had to do something. In what I hoped was a subtle way, I flexed my leg muscles, pushing my hips upward just slightly, feeling myself burrowing still deeper inside her. At the same time I felt what was evidently a reflexive contraction of her vagina around my long-suffering erection. Quintana’s mouth opened, undoubtedly to admonish me again, but instead the breath caught in her throat with a tiny gasp. This was encouraging, and I rocked a little harder, though still slowly.
“You must be still,” Qintana said, almost pleadingly. “You must not—”
“I can’t help it,” I said. “I feel the spirit, Quintana. I feel the god within. Do you feel it, Quintana?” And I rocked harder.
“Oh …” she said. “Oh, don’t … oh …” Her dark eyes, which had been gazing off serenely into the middle distance as though contemplating infinity, were now wide and slightly glazed-looking. Then suddenly she gave a kind of sobbing moan, and she was moving too, moving with me, her breasts quivering and her fine thighs flexing as she followed my rhythm.
“Yes …” she panted, gasping with each stroke. “Oh, yes … yes … do it!”
I put my hands on her then, on her smooth thighs and her flanks and then her breasts. I kneaded them lovingly, rubbing the nipples between my fingers, moving harder. Her head fell back and her mouth opened wide and she gave a great cry. “Oh, Jesus!” she shouted. And then her arms were around me, clutching me, pulling at me, pulling my body forward as she fell backward.
Somehow we managed to stay together as we toppled over, and then she was on her back and I was on top of her, still inside her, and Quintana raised her legs almost straight up into the air and spread them apart as far as they would go. “Fuck me!” she cried wildly. “Oh God, fuck me as hard as you can!”
I did my best. So did she. Her legs rose and wrapped themselves around me, squeezing me as tightly as any pair of legs has ever done, and her twisting body arched clear off the floor, convulsing over and over, while her stream of words melted into an incomprehensible babble, which soon rose to a shrill, keening shriek, and finally died away …
“You bastard,” Quintana said when she had recovered her breath. “You have interfered with my inner journey and hindered my spiritual progression. You’ve set back the process of my becoming a fully evolved being.”
“Have I done all that?” I said. “I’m sorry, but—”
“Do it again,” Quintana said.
Chapter 19
RELEASE ME THIS INSTANT, YOU MONSTER!” the woman said. Since I wasn’t even touching her—was in fact sitting halfway across the room from her—and since nothing was holding her or even keeping her from leaving if she wanted to, this demand seemed unwarranted. But by that time I was no longer surprised.
I sighed. “Rachel,” I said, “nothing is keeping you here. You can go any time you want. You said you wanted to discuss your husband’s securities, and—”
“Oh, I know!” Rachel said, in her most tragic tone. “I know you have my husband at your mercy, and that if I leave without succumbing to your monstrous demands you will break him like a child’s toy. Don’t you think I know that?”
“Come off it, Rachel,” I said wearily. “I don’t even know your husband. I don’t handle his business. I don’t know what this game is you’re playing, but I thought we were meeting because you wanted advice about investments, that’s all.”
That wasn’t quite true, of course. She had asked me about her husband’s investments, but I had invited her to my office because her name began with R. I’d met her at a dinner party and had been attracted by her tall, slender, provocative body and her dark-eyed, dark-haired handsomeness. I figured her for about twenty-seven. When I learned that her name was Rachel, of course, she looked even better.
I hadn’t intended to seduce her in the office, but there was always the possibility of taking her upstairs to my bedroom, or at least of making a future assignation. Some time ago I had determined to keep any sexual activity related to my wager with Miss Greenglass outside the office—though I no longer quite knew why. In any case, Miss Greenglass happened to be on vacation—and without her, my office routine, such as it was, had ground to a virtual halt, despite the fact that she had arranged for a temporary assistant to take her place. (The temporary’s name was Brenda, which took her out of the running for me—a fact of which I’m sure Miss Greenglass was aware when she chose her.)
When Rachel agreed to come to the office, I was pretty sure she knew what was in my mind and didn’t object. But what I didn’t know was that she was some kind of … well, let’s say she had a highly active imagination.
It had started the minute she had entered the office, looking gorgeous in a tight blue pullover sweater and an even tighter pair of dark slacks. She was mouth-watering, and she knew it. I was ready to take her upstairs at the earliest opportunity; but I wasn’t ready for what Rachel had in mind.
“All right, Steven,” she said at once. “You’ve got me here. Now what do I have to do?”
I blinked. “What?” I asked, puzzled. “You don’t have to do anything, Rachel. Come on in and sit down.”
“You don’t have to beat around the bush, Steven. I understand the situation quite clearly. I know that if I want to save my husband from ruin, I have to pay for it with my body. I’ve come to submit myself to your whims.”
I stared at her. “Now wait a minute—”
“I know I’ll be forced to degrade myself,” Rachel said. “That’s what you want, isn’t it, Steven? To have me debase myself before you. To make me crawl and grovel at your feet. To use me for your animal lust …”
“Hold it!” I said loudly. Then I took a deep breath. “Look, Rachel. Either you’re under a very large misapprehension here, or this is some kind of nutty mind game, but whatever it is, I’m not playing, all right? What about your husband? Does he know you’re here?”
“No,” Rachel said. “I’ve come to face my ordeal alone. A sacrificial offering.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said disgustedly. “Rachel, look—you’re a very attractive lady, and I won’t say I haven’t had ideas about taking you to bed. But not this way.
It’s just not my style. Now why don’t we just forget about this and go have a drink or something, okay?”
“I suppose the first thing you’ll want me to do,” Rachel said, “is take off my clothes.”
The thought sent a little tingle through me, but I fought it down. “Please, Rachel. I don’t want you to do anything. Why don’t you just go home?”
“Very well, Steven,” Rachel said. “I have no choice.” And crossing her arms in front of her, she took hold of the hem of her sweater and pulled it up. All the way up, and over her head, and off. She dropped it to the floor. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
Naturally I stared at her breasts. What else could I do? Her breasts, not large but quite full in proportion to her slender body, stood up beautifully, round and firm, and her nipples were hard. Obviously she was turned on by the little drama she was playing.
After letting me look for several long moments, Rachel brought her hands up to cover her breasts in a gesture of phony modesty. It was then that she demanded that I release her, and I replied as related above, hoping that she would go before it was too late.
With a little sigh, she let her arms fall away. “What’s the use?” she said tragically. “I know you won’t allow me any dignity. You enjoy shaming me like this.”
I took another deep breath, struggling with myself. “Rachel,” I growled. “You came here to do what I want, right? Okay, I’m giving you an order. You understand? An order.”
“You have complete power over me,” Rachel said. “I must obey your despicable commands.”
“Good. I want you to pick up your sweater and put it on. And then get the hell out of here. Is that clear enough?”
“I thought so,” Rachel said. “You have no pity. You force me to disrobe completely before you.” She opened a button at the front of her slacks.
“Stop,” I said desperately. “Damn it, stop. Please stop. For God’s sake, stop.”
