Belonger (An erotic novel): Part One (44 page)

The flashing cadence of its eyes accelerated
slightly, and she slapped its nipple repeatedly, raising the
frequency of blinking to a steady pulse. She hit the left nipple
again and its arm waved at the same tempo. Ione got it to wave with
the other arm, snap its fingers, nod its head, tap its feet—even
wag its penis, which stiffened to a high inclination for this
purpose.

“
Heh.” She stared at it in
weary amusement.

Someone nearby drunkenly bellowed for another
drink, momentarily overcoming the cacophony of parties going strong
in Dean’s building and elsewhere on the hill. Slapping both nipples
at once, Ione restored the strange gnome to quiescence, wondering
why it was in the convertible.

She sighed and stepped back out into the
baffling complexity of the metropolitan soundscape, crankily
slamming the door to exercise a presumption that moderation had no
meaning on Dean’s hill. Adding a smothered curse to its ambience,
she trod back in to rejoin her friends, finally tired enough to
sleep through the noise.

In the morning, they
gathered
in the drummer’s
salon once again. The din issuing from his music
room was more intense than ever
.
Emma wearily explained that he
would be pitting himself against the champion musicians of the
City
that evening, vying
for a
patronage
at the Dowser’s Club
.

“
He’s
obsessed
,” she grumped. “Won’t shut up
about it.”

“
Is this the first time he’s
auditioned?” Mark asked.

“
No. And I think that’s why
he’s so jumpy about it. The Dowser’s place is the top joint. You
have to be one of the best drummers in town just to get a
chance.”

They
fell
silent as his percussion
momentarily overwhelm
ed the
apartment
. Ione cringed and
Emma helplessly channeled her lover’s unhappiness
with their situation, trying to fathom the concept of status, that
invisible gauge of entitlement that lurked about them like a
spiteful skulk, slamming doors everywhere they turned. It would
take a significant change in their status to secure a living space
that was safe and quiet, and she guessed Ione would be thinking of
nothing else at this point. As much as she liked Dean, Emma’s long
experience as a doyenne informed her that their social utility to
him was a real factor in his friendliness; his apartment door was
regularly assaulted by friends and neighbors looking to flirt with
his exotic new companions. The tall man’s reputation had risen
considerably since their arrival.

“
Dean said he could bring us
along as support crew tonight for his audition,” she mentioned,
wondering what might be involved. “He needs us there by noon to
help him set up, though.”

“
You go.
I think I’ll drive around a little more,
Ione
demurred. “Try to figure out
what’s next. He said I could use the convertible
again.
”

Mark nodded. “I’ll go with you. But we can
all meet up later at the Dowser’s Club to cheer him on,” he
reassured Emma.

Manassa drained a pallid
glass of apple juice. “I’m going to take a walk down by the park.
There’s a
bunch of fashion boutiques there.
Thought maybe I could
find some
better
cloth
es for us
.”

Ione measured their divergent plans, eyes
narrowed in calculation. Emma could tell she was uncomfortable with
the risk of splitting up, but there was no denying they needed more
traction in this strange new place, and their efforts to maneuver
as a group had brought them nothing but disaster so far.

“
Fine. But we need to be
fucking careful,” Ione emphasized. “After last night I don’t want
to risk any more encounters with skulks. They’re here. Some men are
obviously capable of ignoring whatever social force limits their
ambition in the City. They’re the same assholes we know from the
Lap, just hiding in plain sight here.”

Emma shrugged. “Dean said the really creepy
ones generally keep to the outer neighborhoods. Anywhere downtown
you’re safe. Just watch for mannermen and make sure you’re dressed
right.”

Ione started to speak again, but the Dowser’s
bucket clanged, quashing any possibility of dignified discourse for
the moment.

“
Oh, screw it all. Let’s
go,” she shouted to Mark and strode from the apartment, barely
pausing to receive Emma’s kiss.

Lightning

The Tent hummed with activity.

Deep within the laundry, its lowest and
broadest level, the Merkin paced about his former bedroom. This
once secret space was now invested by many dox of mannermen,
vigilantly stationed around the heated pool in which his great
round bed had once floated. A gnome had been recently hung to light
the area, haphazardly attired in jeans and a sweater found
nearby.

The strangely styled lingerie panties that
surfaced to confound him some time before had convinced the Merkin
to risk sending men down to investigate. They dove deep within the
canvas declivity to discover a tunnel leading down, flooded by a
breathable fluid that changed its direction of flow at dawn and
sunset. The mannermen journeyed far below the basin of
civilization, eventually emerging in a subterranean hot pool on the
other side of the world.

There they had witnessed a fantastic society
consummately devoted to female pleasures. Called the Lap by its
residents, it was a sight the Tent-bound Merkin was deeply
regretful he could not experience firsthand. There was fierce
resistance, but his men had taken control of the place, and many
women were sent back up the passage to the Tent, where they were
subsequently installed in one of his secret dormitories situated on
a higher level. He had interviewed some of them himself—from behind
a curtain—and while the intricate context of their underworld
culture had largely evaporated from comprehension, the Merkin still
learned many things, including the nature of their leadership.

These four extraordinary personalities had
eluded capture by fleeing to the forested surface above the Lap,
where they apparently vanished despite doubled and redoubled
efforts to find them. The Merkin wondered who had tipped them off
about the raid; it pointed to a spy in his own organization. He
wrung his hands for a while, then scheduled a permanent detail down
in the Lap, equipped with a huge quantity of soap to flood the
reservoir and its vast network of tributaries in case the leaders
were still hiding somewhere in the subterranean world. Finally, he
conveyed their descriptions to his mannermen patrolling the
City.

Now
he
was in a high state of excitement;
they had been seen on the streets! Mannermen stationed at a busy
thoroughfare near the park had reported encountering a group
answering to their description yesterday.

The Merkin was
desperate
to see
them
for
himself
after hearing the Lap slippers
describe the women,
particularly the
one called
Manassa
—
her
name
whispered like rain in his
imagination—a s
urpassingly beautiful
creature by every account
. She seemed both
a figure of authority and an object of infatuation, much as her
friend Emma and their tall leader, Ione.

B
ut
circumstances would have to be precisely manipulated to bring any
of them closer
. The Merkin dwelt in the
Tent, and they were out in the City
, hiding
in the hills controlled by the Dowser, effectively beyond the reach
of his minions for the time being.

He would have to be patient, and very
careful. Only the mannermen moved on their own cognizance between
the City and Tent, the rich inner existence of which urban dwellers
were not directly aware; it couldn’t be discerned from the outside
at all. But the Merkin knew the leaders of the Lap had unusual
powers of inference and intuition; if they made the connection
between his desires and their circumstances it would become far
more difficult to manipulate them. He decided he would try to
engage just Manassa for now, and only where he had total control of
context; he would bring her onto the stage.

It would not be difficult to pique her
interest. His lead performers, once chosen, would live quite
lavishly on a sprawling upper level of the Tent reserved for their
exclusive use, every conceivable desire accommodated by a horde of
personal servants. But he had to move quickly, before she was
established enough to have real status and its protections, and
before the other judges got to her group…

Five runners were
positioned
nearby,
feet planted
wide
and
backs arched steeply down,
hindquarters
deferentially presented for
his access,
vaginas waiting
patiently
for
purpose.
The Merkin
slipped fingers into
fleshy
twats
, inserted message capsules for
various functionaries in the City. When he was done he drew their
panties back up, smoothing soft linen on softer skin. With a
clearly enunciated destination and a firm swat each was sent
sprinting away, agents operating with an independence to which even
his mannermen couldn’t aspire. His runners were comparatively
unthreatening and possessed a physical allure that opened doors
barred to any man. And their near-nudity gave them close access to
the headquarters of the Dowser and Gnomon, where all went naked.
That was their only real limitation actually—they
had
to be kept minimally
attired or he lost them to the other judges.

When they were gone the Merkin hefted his
play script under one arm. He had writing to do. What he needed now
was a scene devised specifically for Manassa, carefully structured
to embrace and enfold her giant personality. He set out to find a
well-isolated place in the laundry where he could work in peace,
free from disruption.

In his long
rivalry
with the Gnomon
and Dowser, the Merkin had sought for a way to impose his culture
all the way to their bedrooms. The result was a
stylish but restrictive sartorial system that offered a way to
legitimize his authority over the most intimate affairs; rubber
sex.

Rubber sex
meant
gloves. These could
be textured to provide all kinds of stimulation, from delicate
patterns that delivered a sensitive genital caress to deep-ridged
contours designed to induce orgasm as authoritatively as
possible
. Some had special fingertips for
touching specific erogenous territories, others were flowlined to
effect a kind of stuttering resonance in the skin, and yet others
had dimpled protrusions to punish and overstimulate. Some were
simply very thick, multiplying the impact of a good spanking. Their
purposes were actually so varied they were often
color-coded by function.

Rubber sex also meant panties, which were
fitted on slippers with incorrigible habits of masturbation, or
where a carefully moderated interaction was desired. A woman in
rubber lingerie could be sensually manipulated by touch without
overstimulating her sexuality. The Merkin had observed the effect
of various gauges of material—thin rubber panties accentuated the
labia and offered enough mobility under the fingers to allow for
very nuanced and expressive stimulation, even cunnilingus. Heavier
panties generally secured a slipper from climax. And a woman could
be put in the very thickest variety as a form of education; the
confinement of the genitalia by such means produced an erotic
claustrophobia that would eventually reduce even the most
troublesome slipper to weeping humiliation, humbly begging for the
possibility of arousal.

Rubber sex also referred to textured phallic
sheathes designed to caress the vagina in a way mere flesh could
not. Many discerning women insisted their lovers use “rubbers”—no
matter how talented at copulation—because of their ability to
confer a stronger interior stimulation. Rubbers were also used to
limit a man’s pleasure, and were shaded in the Merkin’s system to
indicate a relative delay in climax. He sometimes had his male
auditioners fit with them to ensure their unfaltering performance
through any coitus that might arise on stage. The Merkin desired
the acceptance of the rubber more than any other fashion innovation
as it was the seed from which a dress code could be imposed
anywhere, from the site of deepest intimacy out to a whole
wardrobe, potentially granting him total control of the other
judges’ cultures.

Rubber sex was the perfect subtext for a
scene involving Manassa, and his needle blurred into motion as he
stitched the words and lines of a new piece of script…

SCENE: A number of female employees
uniformly garbed in stylish but unrevealing rubber-accented pink
and red dresses are stationed about a special clothing boutique.
They are organizing various wares arranged in low displays,
commenting on their presentation and organization, including
brassieres and panties, gloves, whips and belts, and a rack of
phallic rubber sheathes modeled on boldly angled
phalluses—everything in numerous sizes, colors and textures.