Trinity

Chapter 5: Paul

"And this Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,

Is immortal diamond..."

That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire, and of the Comfort of the Resurrection: Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889).

"You say you're leavin' - you'd better be sure.

These hard times will drive you from door to door..."

Chris Thomas King

NOTE: The darker impact of this chapter only becomes clear when read in conjunction with chapter 4. CAVEAT LECTOR! If any of you thought that last one was 'strange and twisted' then stay away from this one!

*

Amen, amen I say unto you, O my brothers and sisters, I took the plunge - but did not check the depth.

The first few days following that terrifying, supercharged weekend were pretty grim. I just couldn't sleep. I was perpetually canned. I could scarcely lie beside her at first. No, she didn't 'revolt' me - on the contrary, she was more luscious and magnetic than ever. But that was the problem. I was terrified, terrified of this 'Great Secret' she now shared with 'him', that she'd always be comparing me, evaluating me. I'd even less idea than before of what was going on behind those cool, crystal eyes. The tables had turned - she'd become lethal. She'd a psychosexual switchblade now, and wasn't afraid to use it.

I didn't know what to do. Then it was her of all people who suggested I ring up a student of mine I'd always fancied. Her name was Maria. Ela told me I could go ahead and fuck her if it would make me feel better - sex therapy, OK?. Then we'd be even, right?

This kid was really lovely and yes, I fancied her, and yes, I knew she liked me - we'd always really got on. But I wasn't even thinking of getting laid when I took Ela's hint and actually rang her up. I just wanted to talk.

She seemed delighted to hear from me.

"Hi there, I was sort of expecting a call from you sooner or later." A warm, deep contralto voice - seductive in a way I'd never heard her use before. But then you can't get away with that kind of thing in class, can you?

"Er...ah...you were?" I was taken aback - a bit blithery.

"Sure. What's up?"

"Er... look here...er... long time no see, right? Erm...ah...too long in fact. Er...I say...would you like to...er... come out with me for a drink?" Holy fuck! That was supposed to be a cool first-liner?

Slight pause.

"Yes, I'd like that very much." Yea, but then the Lord oft smileth upon the righteous.

So I told Ela I was going out on a 'date' with Maria. She froze, then asked me what the two of us were going to do. I couldn't resist taunting her, turning her own phrases against her, like 'just see how it goes', 'let things take their course' and so on. I was a bit of a bastard, but I was looking for a way out of hell. I left the building, head firmly fixed to the left, not wanting to catch even an accidental glimpse of... that place.

We met up at the bar next to the strip club where I'd been before with Ela and... and... and 'him'. She looked really gorgeous, the antithesis of Ela in some ways, raven-haired, very pale skin, delicately-boned, smoothly-proportioned face, black lipstick (which I'd never seen her use before) and black mascara that emphasized her large, hypnotic, almond-shaped brown eyes - just that hint of the exotic slant which Ela's had. They were similar in other ways too - tall, leggy, wide hips, cute buttocks (which I'd carefully noted the previous summer). She wore all black of course - this long, black woolen coat open at the front, her long, luscious, wavy black hair spilling over her shoulders and tumbling forwards. Black sweater, long black skirt, black boots underneath. A wide, tightly-bound, silver gorget around her neck, a silver ring glittering in one nostril - and several more along each of her ears.

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I was trying to work out what happens when you press black buttons on a black background and watch black lights light up. What follows is the anatomy of a seduction.

The first round. It didn't take me very long to open up. I told her Ela and I were having real bad problems. She'd had a fling, I said, and I'd been badly hurt.

"Oh no!" she said, very operatic and tragic, true to style, looking away for a moment. Then she put her hand on mine and squeezed it, looking back at me.

"Any chance of patching things up?"

"I dunno, not yet anyhow, not at the moment."

Her hand started caressing mine. It felt warm, relaxing, soothing. This excitement took hold of me, starting at the groin and spreading outwards. She was gazing at me intently with those deep, brown eyes. Dammit! I just wanted to break down and weep. But no, not here.

"Look, this isn't the place to talk about these kinda things," she said. "Wanna come back to my place? We can talk some more. Tell me all about it. And I've something nice to drink if you you want some more."

So who seduced who in the end? You work it out. If she seduced me, I was a very, very willing victim. The Lord, when He does act, acts in mysterious ways. I'd become the lowest form of animal life, I'd got to the bottom of the barrel, then suddenly this... this terrific beauty drops right into my lap.

She shared this large flat in a large, old-style Colonial house. When I entered her room I was amazed. There was this king-sized futon laid on the floor, covered in purple, in the middle of the room next to one wall. Above it there hung this great black pentacle thing - pointing downwards. Two large orange candles on foot-high silver stands were burning on either side of the bed. Shadows flickered on the walls and there was this really intense, pungent smell of incense - jasmine, I think it was. She liked Southern Comfort neat, and poured us both a nice, healthy shot.

"Wow!" I said. "The Lord's in His Holy Temple all right."

She gave me a sidelong glance.

"Depends which Lord." A slight twist of a smile.

But to tell the truth, we didn't waste much time. We took a sip of the old SC, then she threw off her coat and turned to face me. Her eyes seemed to glow with some sort of orange fire. It was the lighting - she'd a great sense of the SFX. I tossed my jacket away and advanced towards her. We took hold of each other and began kissing fiercely - yes, just like that, yes, my tongue finally got to penetrate those luscious lips I'd drooled over in class and get its first taste of her. Her tongue was like a constrictor, twisting around mine then moving about, exploring the interior of my mouth and pushing down towards my throat. I ran my hands through her hair, feeling the dome of her head, the curve of her neck. Her pheromones hit me. With the incense, her breath and all, I felt I was going to just melt. Then she suddenly disengaged and looked away from me.

"Oh shit! What's Ela going to feel like?"

O my brothers and sisters, what do you say to this kind of question? I mean, there's simply no set response you can dig up, is there? I got blithery again.

"Well...ah... I...I don't know honestly if she gives a damn." Then more confidently: "Er... she didn't seem to care much when I told her I was going out with you tonight."

She slowly spun her head around, tossing her hair back, then looked at me again, another half-smile on her lips. She came towards me, tilting her head up, eyes closed, lips apart and kissed me again, hungrily, like before. I reached under her sweater and T-shirt and ran my hands up and down her back. Warm, slender, rippling, with firm, flexing shoulder blades. I undid her bra strap and moved my hands around, pulling it off. Her breasts were smaller than Ela's, very firm and prominent. The nipples were hard. She seemed slightly, ever so slightly, androgynous. For me, androgynes are an erotic catastrophe - in the best sense. No problem - I just fall.

I began pulling off her sweater, T-shirt and bra. She was moaning dramatically all the time.

"Oh no, Paul, we can't. Please! Think of what we're doing to Ela. Please Paul, No!"

Trouble was, even as she was saying this her hand was also on my crotch, working away very, very skillfully. I felt I had some kind of ruddy great balloon down there. It bloody well hurt.

Even as I drew off the upper stuff, she'd already unfastened the skirt. It fell around her boots. She stepped out of it. Tiny black panties - almost a G-string really. Then in an instant she'd peeled and kicked off the boots, pulled down and stepped out of the panties. She obviously didn't want to waste time - as if she wanted me to fuck her before she changed her mind. I didn't so much 'peel off' my clothes as tore them off in a single movement, buttons flying. We were both naked, totally open and exposed to each other. Our sweat and pheromones, released from confinement, exploded into the air at once and this really racy, hot, intimate, carnal odor suffused the room. My cock went 'sproing', quivering to attention like a Marine. A long, pale, slender body confronted mine, with wide, delicate hips, cheeky, stabbing little tits, very red nipples and a dense black bush, yea verily, like unto the Cedars of Lebanon. Her clit stood out like a tiny cockette and her slender legs tapered down to long, delicious, strongly boned bare feet. Aha! - like Ela's - no toenail polish or paint. Coal-black waves of hair cascaded over her back and shoulders, flowing down and over her tits. There was a tattoo on her upper left thigh - a blue and red snake curling its way up towards her vagina, tongue flicking. My cock was so stiff it ached. Can cocks burst?

She spun around and I caught a brief glimpse of this other tattoo - a pentacle at the base of her spine. It was black and red, pointing downwards (like the one on the wall) towards the division of two small, firm buttocks - right down towards her asshole. Come on, just how deliciously obscene can you get? She unclicked and threw off the gorget, then stepped onto the bed and lay down in the middle of it in a single, flowing movement. I was on top of her in a flash.

What with the underlying tension and all, our first fuck was fast and furious - a consummation really, a matter of me shooting my load into her as quickly as possible so there'd be no turning back - so that it would be a fait accompli. I was drunk - not on booze, no way - on this pungent wave of pheromones that hit me as soon as our bodies came into contact. I was into her at once, clutching her buttocks and thrusting full tilt, deep as I could, both of us gasping into each other's mouths. She'd a tight grip and I felt my orgasm approach - a huge swelling thing that just got bigger and bigger. I took care to look directly into her eyes as the detonation hit, grunting and shouting her name. She was desperately holding her breath now, eyes wide open. Maria! Maria! Maria! Then I burst. It felt like the entire contents of my stomach flowed into hers. Weird! Her thighs were gripping me fiercely, almost crushing me, then she suddenly released them with an explosive, gasping breath. I felt her bare feet run down my legs. Our mouths met and we sucked away at each other hungrily as our bodies oscillated gently round and round. Consummation complete.

"God! You're a noisy one," she laughed as we lay there. My cock was still deep inside her vagina and I could still feel its rhythmic, sucking action.

"Did you come?" I asked after a decent interval.

"Fuck you! Of course I did. I just do it quietly - the neighbors, you know. I don't want them writing novels about my sex life - there's no library big enough to hold 'em. Why? Does Ela yell?"

I didn't want these questions.

"Well, yes, quite a bit actually."

"Well don't worry. Just 'cos I don't kick about all over the place yelling doesn't mean I don't have fucking good ones. If I'm not coming for any reason, you bet you'll fucking well be the first to know."

The second time was slow and steady. It was preceded by a full licking from me, delicious top to delicious toe, forehead, eyes, nose (lightly tonguing the nose ring and nostrils), mouth, ears (including rings), neck, breastbone, tits (lingering over those scarlet nipples) down to belly button and thence to vagina. There was a thin line of black hairs running from her belly-button down, gradually getting thicker as they ran into her black, pubic bush. My tongue then followed the curve of the blue-red snake up to those pink lips of her vagina, still dripping and sticky with my first load. Her clit stuck out, stiff and hard. I spent some time on it, sucking on it, savoring the taste. It was almost like doing a blowjob on a guy. She was gasping all the time - then suddenly came. I swear she ejaculated. Whatever it was, I didn't miss a drop. Then I buried my face in her dense bush, flicking my tongue between her labia and as deep as I could into her vagina, inhaling every whiff of our mixed carnality. As the finale to Act I, I did both legs, working from inner thighs to those luscious, richly-structured bare feet with their flowing tendons and bones. You know me by now, O my brothers and sisters. They got extra-loving attention. She giggled.

"You into feet, then?"

"Er... yes... sort of...er...quite a bit, actually."

"OK. Fine with me. You'll gettem all right."

Act II. She lay on her stomach while I worked my way over those cute buttocks, probing the cleft, stabbing between them with my tongue, right through to inner base, then all the way up her back, beginning with the tattoo, through her shoulder blades to my point of origin - her neck, with its softly tapering tufts of hair. Little squeals of delight all the time. Good, good. Amen I say unto you, where such fragrant ones are concerned, the tongue is oft mightier than the dick. She raised herself on her knees. She got a little more delicate fingerwork on the clit, a smooth rear entry, then I did the accordion thingy, playing both nipples with one hand and her clit like a flute with the other while our bodies engaged in a flowing steady rhythm: back-forth, back-forth, back-forth - easy does it now - then gradually quickened, faster, faster, FASTER! leading to AAAAAH! OH GOD! mutual blast-off and meltdown. We went stiff as a board for a moment, then groaned and tumbled forwards in a tangled heap. I'd forgotten everything. I focussed only on her and her alone. There was just the both of us stuck together like two dogs in a tie, one animal, me glued to her back and buttocks, two heads, hair flowing together, four bare feet entangled. I'd drowned my sorrows, not in booze, hallelujah, but in the flesh of the ... er... Dark Angel. Yes, that's it.

"You're my Dark Angel," I said, when we'd somehow finally managed to unplug.

She was lying on her back now. She stretched her arms out and grinned, twisting her long, slender body lasciviously.

"Yeah, right. And you're Vlad...er... you know...the Impaler."

About a couple of hour's sleep that night, just before dawn. We woke up, did a deliciously torrid, sweaty, clutchy, twisty, juicy, squelchy repeater, then had a very light, spartan breakfast - you know - cereal, juice (the fruity kind this time), sizzling bacon, eggs, kidneys, black pudding, sausages, baked beans, hash browns, toast, jam, a tank of coffee, several shots of Comfort and a couple of smokes each. Well? It had been a night of no small energy expenditure, O my brothers and sisters. I showered and left about 10.

"I kinda sensed some terrific new guy was going to come crashing into my life," she said as we gave each other a long, lingering, slobbery, very sticky, see-you-later kiss.

The next few days were spent in that intoxicated, ecstatic, stupefied state that is a result, not of booze or dope, but of something far, far better - first-time sex with a new lover. You know what I mean. The world seems brilliant, transfigured, and everyone and everything, no matter how banal or stupid, seems so bloody loveable and pregnant with meaning. You feel merged with the world.

When I got home that morning I felt well and truly fortified against Ela's hidden, psychosexual switchblade. But oh no I wasn't - not yet. That very day, for all my imagined strength, she managed to twist it in again - and real deep too. I had to dash back to the Angel for reinforcement. I got it, of course, plus newly copied keys to the house - and her room.

Ela was furious that I'd gone back for more, but what could I do? That blasted 'reserve' of hers. After all that had happened, rather than relaxing it with me, she'd turned it into a deadly weapon. Oh yes, yes, how right she was. How right it was she shouldn't be 'pressured' against her will to reveal something that had happened between 'him' and her. That was her goddamn right, wasn't it, as she kept insisting. Her 'right' to her own privacy, to her own life. Fine then, you bitch. Keep your bloody secrets. She scared the excrement out of me now. She now 'demanded' sex as a 'matrimonial right' - not as before - an expression of our mutual passion. But I was too bloody scared to do it. She had this card up her sleeve now, didn't she? She had 'The Raptor' as she now called him, giggling away. If I didn't 'perform' to her satisfaction - she'd hit me with you-know-what - the Big W - or something worse for all I knew.

"I so much want you to be mine again," I'd pleaded, "just as before."

But even then she just couldn't resist driving the switchblade in again, eyes off into the middle distance.

"That's just it. I was 'yours' - once," she said sadly. "But not now, not anymore. And it was you who 'gave me away', remember?"

My only defense against this vicious, self-righteous load of bollocks was the Angel. That's why I kept going back to her for more - in case you were wondering. Can you blame me, O my brothers and sisters? I was riding some fucking (sorry, fornicating) emotional yo-yo and I felt the string was going to break.

The yo-yo business was interrupted by the news that I'd got a short-term research grant to UCLA and Stanford. Starting now. Praise the Holy Name of Jesus! A break! I took off like a shot.

What follows is a bit of 'comic relief' - if you can stand it. Sorry, but I bloody well needed it, let me tell you.

I took the Greyhound, anxious to get a good look at the 'Great American Road Culture'. I got it all right. The whole thing was hilarious. As it turned out, it wasn't Jesus I should have praised, but the Angel Moroni.

As we moved across country the yo-yo thing took hold of me again. I'd come on the trip well stocked - that is, my coffee flask contained 'weak tea', don't you know? I was so delirious about the Angel - er...the Dark one, that is. Then I began swinging about. Ela? Maria? Ela? Maria? Golden Angel or Dark? My stomach stopped churning when the 'weak tea' plus the fantastic, shifting, unfamiliar landscapes persuaded me that I loved them all. Yes, the Raptor too, believe it or not. Yes, that was it: the solution was to get this really hot foursome on together and fuck each other to the seventh heaven. Then we'd all melt into one great four-headed, eight-legged body and all would be pardoned, all forgiven. This is what I call 'redemption mode' - the 'Body of Christ' thingy. If I got really depressed about the whole thing I'd enter 'martyr mode' - let them wound me, hurt me to the core of my being, but yea, by accepting their gift of pain, by forgiving them and drawing them unto myself - thereby shall I be glorified!

'Fucked up' just doesn't adequately describe my state of mind.

I was heavily into 'redemption mode' as we pulled into Salt Lake City, where I decided to take a stopover. I'd always wanted to take a good look at the organ in the Temple. Ela and I had always liked organ music (OK! Alright! Don't even say it!). I sobered up and boldly pushed my way into the Temple, telling all in my best House of Lords twang that I was a sinner seeking salvation. As it happened, I'd picked up a Dip. Theol. from the Sorbonne along the pathway of life and yea verily, I knew Scripture alright - the Book of Mormon included. All I wanted was a go on the organ (remember - the MUSIC thingy). I presented my credentials - told them who I was, where I was going and why, and they agreed to let me have a go on it on one condition - that I should be 'received' into the glorious company of the saved upon my return. So what did I say? Why, yea verily I said, yea, verily. The thing had a console like a Concord cockpit and I had terrific, very noisy fun. The whole Toccata and Fugue in D Minor - real heavy, full blast. That nearly brought on the Rapture all right. San Francisco had a narrow escape too. That damned 64-footer almost brought on The Big One.