After Claude (19 page)

“Are you kidding? You think self-realization isn’t work? We’re a school. Every minute of our day is dedicated to expanding self-knowledge and achieving ultimate consciousness.”

“I mean, work for a living.”

“Living is our work. We study ourselves, we study each other, we question our every move, we record and memorize all interactions in order to escape the past and live fully in the immediate moment.”

“I see. How interesting. Do you do all this hard work in a big old sprawling farmhouse?”

“Not quite,” he said reluctantly. “Last year we acquired a motel. … Hey.” He laughed nervously under my skillful touch.

“How fabulous,” I exclaimed, thrilled to have a concrete description of the Institute. “I adore motels, all those color TV sets, and everything in the world a person needs practically built into the bed. Where is it located?”

“No more questions, baby, you’re a bad girl to let me talk so much. You’re such a groove to rap with, a soulmate,” he said helplessly. “But Victor has a rule, we’re not allowed to discuss the Institute with outsiders.”

“Just tell me where it is,” I persisted.

“Easy, baby, not so loud. We don’t wart to wake up the whole hotel. It’s in Vermont,” he admitted. “Enough about my scene. Let’s pay some attention to you.”

“Vermont! What a coincidence. That’s my favorite state in America. I saw it in a Hitchcock movie. God, it was magnificent, stole the picture. The plot was about this bum who’s buried there in the woods, and Shirley MacLaine, his wife, is looking for him, and she keeps tramping through the woods, and all you ever see are her dead husband’s feet sticking out of this fabulous foliage. It takes place in the fall, which is in a couple of weeks, when you stop to think about it. Vermont will be on fire, glorious: I bet I could stop smoking in a place like Vermont. Here, I figure the less you breathe, the safer you are. And the Institute, smack in the middle of my favorite state. Lucky, lucky Heidi, not to be dragged back to a slum like Twenty-third Street. I myself would be ready on a minute’s notice to leave this rat race and indulge my love of nature.”

“Shhhh,” Roger said. “People are trying to sleep. Come down here, baby, so we can talk without disturbing anyone.”

“Down on the floor?”

“Come on.” He pulled at my legs. “It will be relaxing for you to stretch out.”

The activity in Clarissa’s bed had exactly the same rhythm as the blood pumping in my ears.

“I’m really very relaxed, now that I’ve mastered this rocking horse.” I laughed.

He tugged at me. “Doctor’s orders.” He patted the floor next to him. “Lie down.”

I couldn’t think of any objections I might raise that Roger wouldn’t interpret as a personal insult, so I slipped off the chair and sat down beside him. He still wasn’t satisfied.

“No, no. Lie down. You’ve been sitting up all night.”

“Believe me, I’m used to it. Neither of my parents, both of whom are now dead, ever slept. Especially my mother. She offered a huge reward to anyone who could catch her sleeping, and if my memory serves me, no one ever collected.”

“Hey, relax.”

I stretched out, my eyes open, and found myself in a new universe of table legs and bottoms of beds; scattered there were records and magazines and empty bags and shoes and underwear.

“That’s better.” Roger sat beside me, with his legs crossed, his bare feet resting on his thighs. I could see the black soles of his feet as he gently played with his own toes.

“Sweet baby,” he said, “sitting up like a good little girl all night and not one complaint. Does that feel good? Are you comfortable?”

“Yes, Roger,” I said, and my eyes filled with tears. It felt too strange to talk, because I could hear the words vibrate in the back of my head, which was against the floor. The truth is my body hurt as if it were being broken on a medieval rack. Roger put his palm flat on my solar plexus and pressed.

I gasped with pain, because he had managed to find my sorest spot. All the aches in my arms and legs and heart seemed to radiate from that particular spot.

“Poor brave baby,” Roger murmured, “how can you breathe with that knot blocking your chest? It’s terrible, baby, you’re barely alive. What can I do for you? I have so little time. Damn it.” He seemed genuinely upset. “I knew you were in trouble, but this is murder. Turn over,” he said in the same dreary voice. “Let me check your back.”

I didn’t even think of protesting. Roger adjusted my arms and hands so that they cushioned my face. He pressed a place between my shoulder blades that was directly connected to the disaster area he had located in my chest and I screamed.

“This is no good, baby. You’re practically a cripple.” Something decisive happened to his voice. “I can’t allow it. I can’t leave you in this condition. I must do something, just for the time being. It can’t be much, but it will do some good till we can really fix you up.” He worked his fingers down my spine, and at each step of his journey he set off bolts of electricity that searched my body for hidden sites of pain. His fingers got to the belt of my jeans and stopped.

“Turn around slowly, don’t punish yourself any more than you need to. Right,” he said and helped roll me over on my back.

“Take off your T-shirt.”

“What?”

He hardly looked at me. “I can’t see what I’m doing with you stuffed into all those clothes.”

“You mean you want me to get undressed?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“But we’re not alone,” I blurted out, which wasn’t at all what I meant. It was that I could hear Clarissa and the musician softly urging each other to greater and greater efforts, and their quick panting was becoming mixed in with my breathing, and though I trusted Roger and knew he wanted to serve me, I was trembling with confusion.

“Of course we’re alone. Any time we’re together, we’ll always be alone.” He rubbed the spot that had caused me such agony, and miraculously I felt the pain disappearing and in its place an expanding pool began to fill with soothing warmth.

“Oh, Roger, that feels so nice.”

“I’m glad I’m not too late. You’ve been abused and neglected, dear child, but I think Daddy can make it better.”

“Couldn’t he do it through my shirt? I mean, that feels perfect.”

How could I get through Roger’s desire to heal me and communicate to him that though I appreciated what he was doing, we were not alone. We were only two in a world filled with degenerates.

Roger lifted his hand, and a hard sob shook out of me.

“I can’t blame you. A lovely girl like you must have her trust violated so often that finally you don’t dare trust any man. I’m sorry. I had no right to expect you to see me in another light. That’s why I despise those faggots who hide their hate behind lust, force sweet girls like you to close up in self-defense. We get their victims at the Institute all the time. Girls who have been so wounded, so betrayed, we can’t do anything to reach them. It’s over. They’re lost. Those are the hardest cases to send away., because I know the hell they’re being sent back to. Poor babies, poor lost babies.” He stroked my hair.

I tried to bargain. “If I take my clothes off, will you promise me I can get dressed any time I want? And you won’t get hurt or angry?”

“Sweetheart, you mustn’t do anything that you don’t feel completely easy about. I want you to relax, baby, you’re already at the breaking point. Don’t force anything.”

I had almost forgotten about Clarissa and the musician, until I heard them groaning each other’s names, over and over again, and then, there was a wonderful safe silence in the room. Roger, with his sublime tact, left me. Thank God. My bra looked as though I had wiped tables with it, and my panties didn’t exist. I put everything in a pile next to me and shoved my bra into a pocket. Roger came back into our circle of red light and arranged himself in his yoga position. Just as my trusting nature had anticipated, he was fully dressed. He held out a Pepperidge Farm bag to me and smiled his charming, ruined smile.

“Do you like chocolate-chip cookies?”

“Sure.” I took a few, wondering what I had been so nervous about. “They’re delicious.” I discovered I was starving.

Roger lit a joint and inhaled deeply. “Will you promise not to get uptight if I tell you something?” He handed me the joint, which I accepted, but swallowed a minimum of smoke.

“What?” I said.

“You have an extremely beautiful body. A real mature woman’s body. You’re a feast, my love.”

I couldn’t be sure if it was the reflection of the light or if Roger’s face was flushed. He brushed a sprinkling of crumbs off my chest and said in a thick voice, “Now I want you to lie down on your back, close your eyes, and let yourself think your favorite thoughts. The ones that send you to sleep.”

I did as I was told and was grateful to close my eyes so that Roger could not see into my thoughts, which were nothing less than a pornographic scenario starring me in my present position surrounded by a large cast of naked men with the most obscene intentions. In my private production I was blindfolded and probably tied down, as well as being a helpless captive; their wishes were my commands and none of them seemed to have the slightest respect for me. How different from Roger’s gentle and careful manner. He ran his fingers lightly over my skin, hardly touching me, but I shivered and felt goose bumps rise like welts all over my body.

“My beautiful girl. Allow me to make one more personal observation, and then to work.”

I allowed him.

“You have an incredible skin, a rare skin. So soft and iridescent in this light. Excuse me for sounding a bit dippy,” he laughed nervously, “but it reminds me of the skins the Old Masters painted. Those angels who seem to be lit from the inside. My voluptuous angel,” he bashfully mumbled. “Okay, enough of telling you what you already know. Now, let’s get serious.”

He took my hands and placed them, one on each breast.

“Just relax,” he said. I felt his hands rotating over my stomach, not lightly, but with a deep touch that found and outlined my intestines.

It provoked the most alarming effect of opening and spreading the muscles that kept my body sealed, and I tightened my hold on my breasts as though that would keep my guts from spilling out.

Roger, with his uncanny insight, anticipated my panic.

“Relax, angel. Don’t be afraid. It isn’t going to happen. I won’t let you lose control of your sweet body. The fear you’re feeling, that your insides are going to rush out, is just your blood finally feeding those starved nerves down here.”

He moved his hand down my pelvis. “Feel the blood pumping into your groin?”

“Yes, Roger.”

“Spread your legs, angel, not too much, just enough that you don’t interfere with your circulation.” He carefully parted my legs. His fingers concentrated high on the inside of my thighs.

“You’re terrific, angel. We have girls at the Institute who can’t let their pelvis come to life. Do you feel warm streamings going up into your body?”

“Yes, Roger. Roger?”

“What, angel?”

“My name is Harriet.”

“Harriet,” he repeated. I had the rare pleasure of enjoying the sound of my name.

“Roger?”

“Yes, Harriet.”

“When are you coming back for me?” It was the most natural thing to ask, lying there with my eyes tightly closed.

It must have been such a relief for him to finally hear those words that he couldn’t answer. He tightened his grasp on my thighs.

I forgot to wait for his answer because I was suddenly terrified that all these streamings he had mentioned were going to stream out of me, pouring hot waves of juice over his busy hands. I gasped to hold back the flood.

“Good,” he said, “perfect. I can hardly believe how swift, how full your responses are. Baby, you were born to give pleasure. Listen carefully. I want to teach you a few simple techniques you can do yourself, just until I get back. You have to learn to listen to your body, and to do that, you have to learn how to make it sing. Now take your nipples between three fingers, and very carefully, very slowly twist them, the way you would twist the petals off a bud.”

I was too embarrassed, not so much because of Roger, whom I trusted, but because my naked gentlemen were crowding in for a better view. Roger misread my reluctance.

“Should I show you what to do?”

“Oh, no. I understand, I promise, I’ll do that exercise alone, every day, while I wait for you to come for me.”

“No, no, Harriet, I want to explain the benefits it has on the rest of your system, and for that, you must do it here, with me watching.”

I shakily tried to comply.

“My wonderful, free baby.” He moved his hands up and under my hips and, with a circular motion, kneaded some muscles I never knew I had. I could no longer be sure if he was hurting me.

“Ohhh,” I said.

“I can’t believe you, Harriet. You’re too perfect. Those proud nipples standing up like they would feed the entire world. The nipples of a goddess.” He laughed softly. “I always believed, even when I was a kid, that the apple Eve gave to Adam was her luscious tit, no more luscious than yours, my love, and once he tasted her fruit, he was insatiable, haunted. He could never get enough. I wonder, what man could ever have enough of you? Don’t let me get off the track,” he said severely, more to himself than to me.

“Now tell me, baby, do you feel your whole chest swelling?”

‘‘Yes.”

“Is your face flushing?”

“Yes.”

“Do you feel as if your fingers are actually inside your body, inside your sweet pussy?”

“Yes,” I said faintly.

“Fantastic. Now remember, the nipples stimulate and vitalize your entire nervous system, from head to toe. It’s essential to your health that you keep those nerve paths functioning. Let me show you.”

He took my hand and lightly placed it on my damp pubic hairs. In my concentration I’d forgotten that Roger was watching all of me, and I became rigid with the naked consciousness of myself. He kept his hand on top of mine and serenely ignored my prudish behavior. He pressed my finger into my wet body.

“Keep it up with the left nipple,” he directed me. “Now, Harriet, I want you to observe how your body becomes one undifferentiated mass of feelings. It doesn’t know any more where your fingers are located. It’s beginning to free itself of its murderous fragmentation. It’s becoming a unity, a simple, palpitating diffusion of sensations. Go ahead, play with it, confuse it, show it some love. My beautiful free brave girl, it makes me so happy to watch you make yourself happy.”