Balustrade (6 page)

Swallowed whole.

Hilary glanced at Jack. “If that was the indoctrination,” she whispered, “so anti-climactic.”

“
Hugely,” he agreed.

A man chuckled behind them but when Hilary turned to acknowledge him, he shook his limp penis at her
. She scowled at the man who smiled back pleasantly, as though this were a perfectly reasonable greeting.

What are you in for, buddy?
She wondered. She’d seen that kind of behavior before, in street people, but never in someone who appeared to bathe. One thing is for certain, if you’re comfortable shaking your genitalia at a perfect stranger, guaranteed, that’s what’s wrong with your relationship.
It’s not them, buddy.

It’s you.

“Pervert,” she mouthed.

He chuckled some more, sparking in her a need to lunge for him, lay into him like a lazy employee. She had to stop herself from putting him in his place. But what was his place?
Probably best to ignore that kind of thing, particularly within Balustrade’s anything goes fuck all atmosphere. He could end up being a dick-shaking trendsetter.

             
Just then a shushing began at the front of the crowd closest to the balustrade, it grew in a wave until, counter-intuitively, everyone was shushing so loudly it drowned out any other possible sound.

             
Eventually, the cacophony died down just as a storm-front cast the courtyard in lavender shadow. Hilary stared into the roiling square of clouds, hot veins of lightning webbing through it, and wiped the first fat drop of rain from her cheek.

             
A jarring squeal issued from the darkened bottom of the wrought iron cage, like claws scrabbling against metal. Hilary staggered backward, glancing at Jack as she withdrew. His eyes were cast down, heavy-lidded like he hadn’t just slept like a baby. And not just him. The rest of the crowd was noticeably tamer.

             
Subdued.

             
She glanced down at the glass in her hand, half-empty. A raindrop rippled across the surface of the tea, sloshing the ice cubes lightly. If the drink were drugged, why wasn’t she experiencing the same lulling effect?

             
Another squelch screamed from the pit in the center of the room, pushing Hilary unconsciously backward, away from her husband and toward the wall.

The devil.

The word popped into her head in a voice not entirely her own. The sound of it was a memory and she was reminded of the horror of the dream, that ridiculous amalgam of their trip, of the contract. But still, something was coming.

             
An ashen smoke billowed from the cage, bisecting in its cross-hatching, thick, chunky. It didn’t smell like anything was on fire, rather a sweet stickiness filled the air, the scent of rotten fruits, third world cities. It spilled into the courtyard, a low-lying fog casting the participants in gray-scale, a strange charcoal sketch.

Shivers rolled through her, embarrassingly. She wasn’t this woman. She was perceptive. Intuitive. But never superstitious.
The only thing sinister about the place, she told herself, was everyone's seemingly wicked intent to get debaucherous.

It was like a calling, as though someone had poisoned the water with Spanish Fly or Viagra or whatever the female equivalent was called.
Hilary reached for Jack's hand, clenching it in a fear-addled vise.

Chantal was first to rise. And her presence was greeted by gasps and then applause, cheers. She wore the same
type of dress, severe and black, tight to her form, but she seemed more vibrant, her lips red and cheeks and décolletage flushed with her apparent arousal. She smiled broadly at each face she passed, reaching out to touch and let her fingers linger on cheeks, breasts, crotches.

“
Jesus,” Jack muttered and Hilary glanced at him to see his face flushed as well, and then noticed his robe tenting forward, open a bit where the fabric overlapped. Damn if he didn’t have an erection. Hilary reached out and covered it with her palm, flattening it. She heard him moan, slightly. Had he thought she'd done it as an advance rather than to cover his shame? The shame he should have felt, rather.

Chantal made her way to a small dais
and spoke briefly. “As the sun slowly sets, let’s take this opportunity to cleanse ourselves of inhibition, to rid ourselves of regret and humility. These are the barriers to restoration. Disrobe and take pleasure! This is your indoctrination! This is your journey!”

Robes began to fall,
staff and participant alike, even as lips found the hollows of throats and hands and genitals. Jack tugged at the tie on her robe, eyes heavy with lust, but Hilary slapped his hand away. She watched as he merely shrugged, tossing off his own vestment and walked naked into the throng.

Hilary licked her lips, stunned by the lack of hesitation.

She followed Jack’s naked form as he pressed through gaps in the wet bodies, his hands moving across breasts, buttocks, the smalls of backs, stiffened pricks and swollen vaginas, indiscriminately. There was a freedom to Jack’s movement to his boisterous machinations—grinding against this person, curling his tongue around the earlobe of the next—that Hilary, at once, admired and detested. It was foreign, unperturbed by convention.

It was against the rules, and she was, if she were being honest with herself, a stickler. Always had been.

She crimpled against the courtyard wall, unable to look away. Bodies now flattening into the low-lying fog of gray smoke, arms jutting, heads and shoulders wrenching upward in ecstasy. Thickets of bodies entwined like living vines. The pitter-patter of steady rain giving way to the moans and groans of sex, in all its forms.

Hilary couldn’t look away, even after losing Jack in the whirlwind of carnality. It dawned on her that they’d never discussed this potentiality. And yet, he’d had no problem
drifting into any number of positions and orientations. He seemed to lavish in the attentions of these strangers, their curious proddings, their anonymous throats.

It was as she pondered this, and her dull emotions around it—after all, she wasn’t sure she cared
, that feeling nagging at the back of her skull wasn’t jealousy, but rather apathy—that she saw Chantal sauntering toward her, sidestepping mounds of pumping hips, sweaty appendages woven together, writhing.

The woman snapped her fingers and several suggestives poked from the haze in unison, she pointed at a fair-haired man with even paler skin and said,
“Two chairs for me and Mrs. Carson-Bartleby. We need some comfort for our bonding.”

The man scuttled away,
naked save his boxers, through the passage into the office wing and returned hastily with one and then another lushly padded chair. Chantal lazed into one and gestured for Hilary to take the other.

“
Refill on your tea, darling?”

“
The drinks are drugged.” She said it matter-of-factly, as though it would be simply agreed to, as though Chantal would simply say, “Duh.”

Instead, the woman’s mouth curled into the
wryest smile. “That’s an unusual presumption, Hilary.”

“
As unusual as a room full of presumably sane people jumping off the sexual cliff?” She glanced across the storm of bodies.

Chantal laughed
—a loud boisterous sound that echoed in the courtyard. “It is a strange world we live in, Hilary. But this serves its purpose and I could have sworn I saw you enjoying it. Just a little bit. Right? Even just a smidge?”

Hilary ignored her.

The longer they stayed at Balustrade, the less convinced she was that the place had anything to do with healing relationships. After all, the entire focus seemed to be on sex...and while their shower had been unusually evocative, there was something questionable about a therapeutic practice that didn't place an importance on talking through the principal issues in a marriage. Hilary had been prepared for encounter groups. Primal screams. Rational-emotive behavioral exercises involving sand trays or clay sculpting or whatever it was that the shrinks were using these days to shake up couples gone stale.

All they'd need
to do is ask.

“
Was there going to be any focus on actually fixing our marriage?” she asked Chantal, finally.

The woman’s
lips curled into a bemused smile. “Is that what you really want?” she asked, but didn't wait for an answer. “Our consultation with Dr. Madrigal indicated that the commitment level to making dramatic changes was decidedly one-sided, in favor of poor Jack over there.” She flung a gesture in the direction of the smoke and, as if on cue, Jack rose from the mire, a pained look of ecstasy creasing his face.

Hilary sighed. She couldn’t say that she felt much of anything at the sight of her husband in the throes of passion. She shook her head, a
cquiescing.

“
There’s more to you than anyone knows, isn’t there?” Chantal drew a single crimson fingernail across the back of Hilary’s hand and across her wrist.

She pulled away, suddenly uncomfortable.
“If we’re not here to work on our relationship, then—”

Chantal finished her question,
“Then what are you here for?”

“
Right?”

“
This is an opportunity for self examination. You’re a powerful woman, Hilary. You manage a large number of employees in your work, correct?”

Hilary nodded.

“And, I understand, your processes and productivity are under a high level of scrutiny by the seniors in your firm?”

“
Yes?”

“
How do you manage the stress of that?”

“
Quite well.”

Chantal grinned broadly.
“Exactly.”

“
But what does that have to do with Balustrade?”

Nonchalantly, the woman shifted her hips up off the seat and scrunched her pencil skirt up her thighs before settling back and tossing one leg over the arm of the chair. Hilary caught a quick peek of satin before snapping her head in the other direction.

“These people. The participants. Your husband. They are burning off steam. They’re clearing all that space that’s filled with built-up need and old spunk, when they’re done, they’ll be more receptive to the work of intimacy.”

Chantal scanned the room, her fingernails scraping ever so lightly up one of her powdery white thighs, prodding beneath the band of her stockings as she bemused.
“Have you ever had a fantasy absorb your productivity? One that forced you to dwell on it so fervently that you were lost in it? Consumed?”

“
I…I don’t know,” Hilary said, squeezing her arms tight across her chest, her nipples stiffening under the pressure. “Have you?”

Chantal
imprisoned Hilary in a glance, in a scent lingering between them, all plums and primroses. “Always,” she said. “But we’re not talking about me.”

Hilary bit her lip.

Her hostess’s finger found the edge of her exposed panties and drifted, scratching the florid outline of her labia lightly.

“
Two men,” Hilary whispered, avoiding the sight.

Chantal chortled.
“One for your pussy and the other your…”

Hilary stared at her
. “You want me to say it?”

“
I want you to say it.”

“
My ass.”

“
Fantastic,” Chantal shifted in her seat, straightening her skirt. “That was progress. We can make that fantasy happen.”

Hilary shook her head.
“No. I don’t want it.”

“
But you do.” Chantal nodded urgently. “You very much do. And it’s exactly what you need.”

“
Not here.” Hilary’s mind went back to the dream, to the horrors prophesized by the fanatical mother—herself—and her breath caught in her throat. “No.”

She stood up abruptly, scanning the orgy for Jack and not seeing him, spun on her heels and ran for the stairwell.

“We’ll talk soon, yes?” Chantal called after her.

Hilary waved uncertainly and took the steps two at a time.

Hilary felt a hand drawing her backward. She swung around and came face to face—or chest—with Ludovic.

“
Hilary. Would you mind if we had a little sit-down to discuss your dissatisfaction with the treatment?”

“
Uh, what?”

Ludovic had already turned and entered the passage
that led back to the office wing. “Come come. Glynnis has informed me of your conversation and I wanted to have a chance to discuss it…in private.”

She followed him
, feet shuffling and glancing back over her shoulder, hoping someone had even a little blood warming their brains instead of their genitals. But no one even looked in her direction. He continued to talk as he walked, a light snapping on deeper in the tunnel every few steps, as though sensing his presence. Each column of light pooled rather than dispersed, little spots surrounded by inky impassable shadows.

“
Glynnis informs us that you had a negative reaction to the suggestive prior to the indoctrination. We hate to see that happen, but anytime a guest experiences discomfort, we find it to be an opportune time to tackle the underlying issues.”

He passed into a room on his left and moments later a column of light fell onto the floor in
to the heavily shaded hall. When Hilary peeked around the doorframe, Ludovic was already seated, his legs crossed and black wingtips shining by the light of the Tiffany-style lamp next to him. He gestured for her to take a seat on the nearby couch.

She shuffled in hesitant steps, totally aware that his eyes followed her every movement. His assessment was so total, she felt as though he'd stripped her naked, or perhaps even further than that, he was looking inside her, compiling measurements.

Despite the fear that trembled through her frame, Hilary could not deny the sensuality of the moment. A low hum surrounded them, a furnace, or a generator grinding a vibration through the floor, into the seats beneath them and Ludovic's voice carried in that same fashion, modulating through the air, in the cones of his intense gaze. “So.”

“
So?”

“
There's no elephant in the room, Hilary. We don't allow those. If I'm aware of an area that needs improvement then we're going to address that.”

“
Why do I suddenly feel like I've been called into the principal's office?”

“
Aw. Come now. It's not like that. We're all here to support you and Jack in achieving a greater intimacy, whether you stay together or not. You'll learn skills here that will help you to enjoy sex without all the hang-ups you're currently exhibiting.”

Hilary
's mouth dropped open. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“
Simply that we've noticed a degree of hesitancy that's indicative of a fear response.”

“
I'm not afraid.”

“
I think you are. Let's look at a few examples.” Suddenly Ludovic was holding and then pointing a remote control at a TV on the wall. Images of Hilary staring in horror at the orgy in the room they passed, at Glynnis and her notepad. “Do you dislike giving head, Hilary?”

He said the words matter-of-factly, with no regard for the shock value.

“I, uh. I. Well, you've caught me off guard, clearly. I certainly wasn't expecting the reality show blindsiding. Not sure it was helpful, either.” And was it just her, or did Ludovic uncross his legs to coincide with that statement? The fabric of his wool trousers was struggling against his crotch, and Hilary didn't suspect the man was even aroused. Just…big.

“
Are you going to answer my question?”

“
It’s ludicrous. I don’t love sucking dick, no. But I don’t hate it, either. I think that’s pretty normal.”

“
I think that’s a dispassionate answer, and that’s what’s problematic. Glynnis suggested you take your husband’s cock into your mouth, as a reciprocal expression of your lovemaking. And at that point, it would have been, correct. You’d just experienced a fantastic orgasm based on a previous suggestion given to Jack. A good turn deserves another, don’t you think?”

“
That wasn’t the issue.”

Ludovic leaned forward, setting his elbows on his knees and clasping his large hands together.
“Then what was?”

“
I’d just realized he’d called for a suggestion, after we’d agreed not to. That the…” she paused. “The experience in the bathroom—”

“
Call it what it was.”

“
What?”

“
Say, after Jack ate my pussy. Say, after he made me come.” A wicked grin settled on Ludovic’s full mouth. His eyes were playful.

A moment later, they heard a sharp clicking of heels on the stone floor.

“Chantal, is that you?” Ludovic asked, lifting his chin toward the door.

The woman
appeared in the doorway, leaning luxuriously against the frame, her eyes drifting from Ludovic to Hilary and back again. “Of course, darling. Who else would dare interrupt one of your sessions?”

The man smirked. His big hands stroked the leather
armrests, releasing a soft squelch reminiscent of a belt tightening. “You're always welcome. In fact, maybe you can be of assistance.”

Chantal sauntered into the room and stood beside the seated Ludovic, resting her delicate fingers on his shoulder.
“Anything, of course. I'm at our guest's service always.”

“
Perhaps,” Ludovic paused, those dark eyes pivoting to meet Hilary's. “You could help us with a slight problem.”

Chantal brightened noticeably. Grinning, she seemed to tighten her grip on the man.
“I'm intrigued!”

“
Hilary takes issue with fellatio. Or rather, she doesn't take issue, if you catch my play on words.”

“
Oh?” Chantal's face registered surprise. “You don't love it? Surely this is a mistake?”

Hilary
felt compelled to defend herself. “It's not that.”

“
So you do? You do love it? Love to take your man's prick in your mouth, feel him shiver uncontrollably, feel the power you have over him?”

“
Um.”

“
Hilary.” Ludovic shifted his hips forward, his legs spreading even wider and making his arousal apparent.

The crotch of his pants bowed upward dramatically, opening the thin pleats in the wool.
Hilary gasped, chewed at her cheek anxiously. But he continued, unaware, or in spite of her obvious discomfort.

“
Have you ever watched another woman pleasure a man's cock?”

She said nothing, but found that she was gripping the hem of her robe, pulling the short skirt of it over the bend of her knees.

Chantal ran her tongue languorously over her lips. “You really haven't? It's quite something, to detect all the nuances, to understand the power play.” She gazed down at Ludovic, her eyes meeting his and then drifting downward to the bulge in his pants.

“
Would you?” he asked, taking his eyes off Hilary for the first time since Chantal had shown up.

Chantal shrugged, nonchalantly and then
crossed the room, sauntering around the coffee table and bending over Hilary, her lips close to her ear. “His cock is fantastic.”

Hilary bit her lip. She had the distinct urge to dart from the room, but seemed held down by the unimaginable weight of curiosity.

Snatching the nearby pillow from the corner of the couch, Chantal tossed it between Ludovic's feet before standing, swiveling over to him, her hips pivoting like a burlesque dancer.

“
I see you're nearly hard, and I haven't even touched you.” Chantal leaned over him, clutching the arm of his chair with one hand and gripping the heavy parcel between his legs with the other. She winced, dramatically. “This...must be excruciatingly painful. I suspect it's been...in the works...for the
length
of your conversation with Hilary.”

The woman glanced in
Hilary’s direction, a wicked smile on her lips. “She is quite lovely and I can see why you would be so aroused, Ludo.”

The man sighed, his jaw shuddering.

Chantal returned her attention to the man, squatting then resting her knees gingerly on the pillow. She ran her hands up and down his outer thighs. Hilary watched as his cock struggled beneath the zippered yoke of his trousers, the bulge quivering, tenting to the point that Ludovic, or Ludo, as Chantal had called him winced in apparent pain. Chantal seemed to be pleased with this development.

“
Look at his face, Hilary,” she said, excitedly. “He's transformed from a powerful intelligent man into a wretched thing, a pitiful creature. It is commonly held belief that women can endure pain in larger quantities and with much more intensity than the male of the species. That's true of sickness, injury and this woeful state you see before you. Chantal straightened and slapped at Ludovic's bulge, brutally. He cried out, head turning away as though she might strike his face, too.

“
Don't,” Hilary muttered, but she didn't mean it.

Her pussy was
drenched with wont, her thighs pressed so tightly together sweat had begun to trickle down her legs. She debated crossing her legs but didn't think she'd be able to stop herself from shifting and rubbing them together. A subtlety that no doubt would be noticed by these two.

“
Shh,” Chantal coaxed. “I've teased him long enough. Now let's unveil.”

She unbuckled his belt, slipping the loose end through the loops slowly, brushing his sex with her wrists as she worked. Ludovic sighed
—no, not sighed, moaned in pleasure—with each swipe. The woman unbuttoned the waist of his trousers and slowly, with excruciating self-control, tugged the pull of Ludo's zipper up the rise of fabric, and back down the throbbing hillock until, suddenly, the flaps fell open and the wonder of his cock jutted from the vee of his pants.

Chantal had not been exag
gerating.

Ludovic's cock was unlike any Hilary had ever seen. Far bigger than Jack's with a slick of foreskin sheathing his engorged prick in a dense web of veins that both horrified
Hilary and excited her more than she was comfortable with. What might it feel like? She imagined the thin webbing of her thumb and found herself stroking it absently and then clasping her hands, to avoid the embarrassment of discovery.

Did she want what Chantal had? That kind of strength? She was undoubtedly skilled and forward without apology. She was certainly an expert lover. Melting Ludovic's cool exterior and turning him into a quivering boy.

The woman hovered over his cock, gripping it around its base and, trapping Hilary in her steely gaze, slipped her mouth over it, suckling the tip, sliding her tongue underneath the thin membrane of foreskin. She flicked the underside, nibbling at the loose flesh, pulling at the scruff gently with her teeth.

Hilary
stared. She was amazed at the skill at which the woman worked over the man's huge endowment. And all the while, Ludovic gripped the arms of his chair, his knuckles turning white, as Chantal took him as far as she could into her mouth and then when she hit the back of her throat, gagged slightly—the first sign that she was human, after all.

Chantal released his prick with a wet smack and grinned at Hilary.
“It's big,” she said, winking saucily.

“
No shit,” Hilary mumbled.

Chantal grinned all the more and took him deep again, pistoning her mouth up and down his slick, tumescent shaft.

Ludo cried out. “Yes! Yes, Chantal!”

At which, point Chantal, dick in mouth, made a point to glance knowingly at Hilary, as if to say,
“See? Watch this pussy squirm.”

Hilary
flinched, her eyes shot toward the open door, wondering if someone could have heard. But, then again, who would care? This scenario was likely playing out in every other room at Balustrade, possibly out in the hallways. She wasn’t sure how she’d missed the part in the discussion of the retreat that referred to it as a fuckfest. That probably would have stood out and, really, the logic of it perplexed her. 

B
ut, now, sitting there and watching Chantal and Ludovic, their passion for the act palpable, Hilary found herself wondering where Jack was at that moment. Was he waiting for her back in the room, dozing from the drugged tea?

As Chantal bobbed in Ludovic's lap, Hilary imagined greeting Jack similarly when she returned to their suite, waking him from a soft slumber with her mouth on his organ, feeling him harden in her mouth. Taking the kind of control that he usually asserted and turning it on its head, so to speak.

Wait. What? What the hell was happening to her?

Chantal’s sucking became more feverish and
Hilary found she could not look away, the woman slurped loudly, intentionally, murmuring her satisfaction in quick gasps of air, gripping Ludovic’s cock low, exposing his bulbous head fully and lapping him from balls to piss slit. He stroked the woman’s flaxen locks gently at first and then gripped a handful tightly pushing himself as far into her throat as his big cock would fit. Chantal gagged a bit but didn’t stop—though, in true dominant style, she reached up and flung his hand away from her hair. An act that only served to stoke the fire burning between Hilary’s legs.