Scene : Central City, America : The 22nd Century West
Saurus opened the door to the apartment. He could hear somebody panting somewhere inside. He stepped into the corridor, curious and slightly alarmed. Maybe Sadar or Abdan were doing some exercises. There was a burst of clattering sound, which sounded like someone hitting furniture. The panting came in gasps, and then a voice saying something unintelligible and repeating it, which could have been Abdan. There was a slapping sound. Saurus briefly wondered whether Abdan was being attacked. He had a sudden vision of the American police finding out about their activities, and beating Abdan for information. The thought of potential danger did not stop him opening the door to the lounge. The sight which he saw was one for which he was not at all prepared, although he had perhaps subliminally felt it as he walked down the corridor, without admitting his suspicions to himself. He had entered so fast he had not had time for thought.
Abdan was naked, kneeling forward on the settee, clutching the back of it with both arms. The panting however was Sadar's, for he was mounted behind a woman's outstretched buttocks. Saurus could only assume Sadar's erect penis must be somehow thrust into the woman's hindquarters and his hands were laid on her shapely hips. Sadar was sweating and shaking as he thrust himself in short jerks, in and out of the woman's behind. She was tall and slim, a tidy figure, with long brown hair, perhaps in her late thirties. Her right hand appeared to be clutching her own genitals.
What was his compatriot Abdan doing kneeling on the settee next to Sadar, as Sadar penetrated the woman? Saurus crept closer to see better. Now he could see. Abdan too was on top of a female figure. Another naked American woman, shorter and more fleshy than the other, was beneath him. She was stroking Abdan's bronzed torso, with both hands and her lips, as he penetrated her. Saurus' brain leapt to involuntary judgement. Abdan's woman had an attractive face. Her left hand gently stroked his compatriot Sadar's bronzed side as he engaged with his partner. Saurus could not see the face of the woman who carried Sadar, but if her body was anything to judge by he expected it to be attractive.
Saurus was a man of the world. He had seen many things with his own eyes, in the East as well as in the West. There were sinners in the East too. He knew only too well that most of us are sinners, but still follow the teachings of the Koran, the Bible , the Torah or whatever religious, spiritual or philosophic teachings we may subscribe to, and we may still serve Allah or God, depending on how we prefer to call him, or whatever. These were two servants of Allah who had done good work, or at least attempted good work, and even now served the purpose of the East, in trying to turn the West towards the East. They had been out here in this corrosive Western Society, trying to change it, and had fallen victim to its temptations.
He had seen intimations of this change in his compatriots since the day he had arrived in America. Sadar's long stay in the West, his refusal to return home had told him as much. Sadar had known he was a sinner, and had long before turned his back on his homeland. That was why he had refused to return home. He had thought he might be found out and punished, or would be told to stay in the East, when all he wanted was to live a debauched lifestyle in America. Sadar had worked on Abdan from the start of the young victim's tour, had probably taken him to all the wrong places and shown him all the wrong things. Finally he would have given him women to play with. The pure young man had been led astray. Then the gap between sexual adventure in private with women and in orgiastic company would have narrowed until Abdan had been persuaded to join Sadar in his evil ways, and the younger man had allowed the western devil to enter him.
Saurus had observed the signs but had not recognised them. He could never have imagined that the West could lure these men to such extreme acts of perversion. In the east orgies were a rare practice. Since the days of Moghul Emperors, Sultans and Rajas, and their harems, orgies were a thing of distant legend. The teachings of respected religions forbade such behaviour, although the wealthy and powerful had sometimes fallen victim to such temptations. In the recent century the return to a more fundamental interpretation of Islam in particular had created a moral climate in which even the powerful had to be concerned how they would be viewed by the people. Public accountability had finally become an important principle in the East. Hindu culture had continued to frown upon sexual promiscuity except in certain sanctioned outlets, which channelled sexual lusts. The perpetrators of orgiastic behaviour in the East were not allowed to engage openly in it, and, on occasion, could be made a public example of by imprisonment, whipping, dismemberment, and, on occasion, even death.
He could have accepted their behaviour if he had found his friends in individual privacy with these two women. Sexual desire was indeed natural. Some Eastern leaders and businessmen who could afford it had more than one wife, or took mistresses on occasion. Many men, and Saurus could include himself in this, viewed it as acceptable for men to occasionally have a sexual adventure, but not to degrade themselves by this sharing of what should remain private between a man and a woman.
The West was full of people who had lost all responsibility for family, for god, or for their wives. They did what they pleased, and the more gross the perversion the better. He had seen a lot since he had come here. Perhaps he was growing more immune to the sins around him. Any human being would start to believe it was normal when it was all around him.
He had never imagined he would see his Eastern colleagues behaving in the same way however and he would never have wished to see it, particularly from two friends. He felt sorrow because these had been his friends; until today he had thought they were his friends. Now he saw they had been pretending to him all the time, trying to soften him up gently to the ways of the West, pretending they were developing real networks and were converting people to the ideals of the East. In fact these 'conversions' had been little more than social clubs for people disaffected by their own lives and wanting to 'play' with something a bit different. Perhaps they were the best that could be done in the cultural situation here. Saurus felt like washing his hands of the whole task. The task was impossible. If even the instructors and officers of change could be so weak as Abdan and Sadar, then what hope was there for the instructees who came from this evil society.
Saurus had given up his mission, for the time being. He could see no clear way forward. All seemed hopeless. He saw that Sadar was a devoted sexual adventurer, projecting a mere pretence of loyalty to the homelands of the East, while enjoying his life of sexual licence here in the West. He had given the appearance of devotion to his duty, while Saurus had been new in Central City. As Saurus observed the depravity and perversion of the citizens he had become quite unshockable. Sadar must have thought that in time Saurus would become 'Westernised', as he had, with all the perversity that entailed. Not in time, for the shock of discovering the loyal colleague who he had thought was his friend, engaged in depraved communal sexual acts, in the midst of their own apartment. Saurus recoiled in shame and revulsion. How could such a man be a friend. How could he be a friend, who had disguised the true nature of his life for so long, inviting 'guests' around whenever he was not in residence, and pretending to be a zealot in their task of setting up the 'resistance' in America.
The groups Sadar had set up were a mere sham, or so he thought. In truth there was no 'resistance'. It was a mere fiction!
In his mental anguish Saurus wandered without purpose, eventually finding himself exhausted in the park. Unsure of what to do he rested on the park bench, eventually falling asleep.
Awaking to noise in the night he observed the rituals of late night revellers, an orgy in the park, on the grass, not far from him, and among the trees, not far to the right. They had probably selected the place, knowing that he might awake and would watch, the depraved Western devils. What else was there to do but watch. He had not been able to watch Sadar and Abdan, and so had angrily fled, trying to push those shameful activities out of his head, but these revellers were unknown to him. Unlike his erstwhile friends they had not betrayed him. They were complete strangers. He might as well observe them, for why should he leave this bench. He had come here first. He felt he had no home. Why should he not retain this place, which at this moment seemed like the only home he had.
