The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

We don’t just crash out. We take Cherry out with us, taking only very brief showers at Summers, get in Scarlet and drive out to the Beast. Cherry is almost delirious — semi-conscious part of the way. The three of us get her to Livia’s spacious bathroom in the pickup crib. No, we’re not kidnapping her, nor planning any more sexual hijinks. We want to, well, clean her. We provided the symbolism, but Cherry came up with the idea of shoving pie into her panties all on her own. This is not usually a big problem, but she got really intensive with the rubbing — and then I went all-in eating her out.

Mimi knows all about this — it’s something WAM fetishists get told by their community. You can’t get sweet things in the vagina itself — the labia is fine, but not inside. Bacterial vaginosis is not really anyone’s “just try it once” kind of thing. So we get Cherry back to the Beast, semi-conscious, and Livia helps wash her. She’s very meticulous, and has a variety of soft water jet shower heads intended for more prurient purposes but also quite useful for this.

Now, you may be wondering why I mention this — I don’t usually include details on weird hygiene stuff for obvious reasons. But there’s two really striking things here. First of all, Livia is really empathetic to Cherry here, being very calming and almost motherly — a sharp contrast from her earlier hard-edged disregard. The more notable, though, is that Cherry — previously too shy to withstand a wet t-shirt contest and some tasteless jibes — is totally at ease with this business, which is usually at least a bit humiliating for women. I stay there with her while Livia works on her you-know-what, and we just talk.

It’s a very mellow conversation. I think it’s about dance movie trivia, stuff about how Jennifer Beals and Patrick Swayze got ready for their famous roles and who they trained with. There’s also something about cats and their sense of smell, and how they tell when other cats are in heat, and I think it ties back to the Broadway play somehow — but I can’t for the life of me remember the details. Cherry is amazingly nonchalant — not talking to distract herself from something humiliating, but genuinely interested in a meandering romantic conversation while another lady tends to her hygiene.

I wonder if we really changed her, and if so how much and how deeply — and if it will all be for the better. We are all exhausted, though, so as soon as this urgent matter is dealt with we call her a cab and send her back to her hotel. I ride with her and make sure she gets there safe — then barely manage to get back to our own hotel myself after passing out for an hour and a half on a park bench, scaring the unholy fuck out of Mimi (and probably Livia too, not that she shows it). Chivalry, you know?

I wake up the next morning on Livia’s waterbed. She’s asleep beside me. I nudge her, pointing out we hadn’t set the alarm and it’s 10 AM. We take a shower together. It’s not sexual, though she does take the opportunity to tease me — now I’m the one with the sexy bruises and scratches.

“We can never do this again,” I say.

She laughs. “Again, seriously? A few bruises bother you that much?”

“No, no, not that. I mean... this schedule. Three shows in five days, and we’re attending Cherry’s wet t-shirt contest as well, and probably taking her home tonight to share. It’s great, but it’s just... too much.”

For a second, Livia seems ready with a quip, but then she pauses and considers. “We... won’t have to. We’ve made it. You know that, right? I mean, I can feel it in my gut.”

“I don’t follow.”

“We’ve crossed the Rubicon. The die is cast. We’re going big time. Friday is just wrap-up. It won’t be an Escalation. Yesterday... we touched people, Marc. We changed the world. We broke through the wall, got the message out. We’re invincible, now.”

Livia is weird sometimes. I forget that this is more than just fetish to her — it’s something ideological and visionary, almost transcendent. I don’t really know how to relate to that yet. “Yeah,” I say. “Maybe.”

“It’s already done,” she says, certain. “Word of mouth will spread. Two months from now, we’re underground celebrities. A year from now, we’re a household name. We did it. We really did it.”

She cackles madly, exultantly — like a supervillain. It’s funny, and scary, and not normal sexy shower behavior. “The world is ours, now. This is what is feels like — winning, I mean.”

“We all went off script last night. I don’t know if you noticed, but I —”

“Yeah. I noticed. It was hot. It helped me get off. I don’t think the audience did, though. You were pretty slick.”

“Oh, fuck, I need to talk to Mimi, make it clear that —”

Livia just giggles. “We all got our rocks off. Last night was... why we do this. And we helped Cherry and the NCSS girls.”

“Cherry did seem changed. She was really chill last night.”

“I may have given her a bit of a nudge to keep her in a calm and placid state, so she doesn’t start worrying about what she just did and gets a good night’s sleep.”

Interesting. I didn’t notice the covert hypnotism after the show at all — but I was also really exhausted. That’s not what’s at the forefront of my mind, though. “I’m not as sure about the Daughters. I’m a bit nervous about that. You said you could get several dozen guys to —”

“I did, didn’t I?” she beams innocently.

“Rather more than expected.”

“And it was hot, and also really funny, and scandalous. Everything we wanted, with the dials turned up to eleven. God, Marc — if we weren’t looking forward to Cherry tonight I’d bang you right now.”

“We need to think about the implications —”

“Friday first. Damage control comes after Spring Break. It’s part of the traditional spirit.”

I don’t argue any more. I watch her under the shower, and look forward to a rendezvous with her and Cherry.

We actually get a call from Cherry’s friend and wing-lady around eleven. She’s bailing on the wet t-shirt tomorrow, but will be in one on Saturday. I expected that, honestly. We physically and psychologically wore her out. She’ll need some time to process it all. I assure her Cherry can call us any time if she feels like talking, and we’ll get back to her. At least it sounds like she’s still positive about things and not bitter towards us after everything we did on stage with her.

I make breakfast, like I usually do. Mimi has been up for two hours before us, checking over the electronics. I manage to corner her briefly.

“Mimi,” I say. “I’m sorry about last night. Really being level here.”

She looks up, perplexed. “About what?”

Then she sees the look on my face. “Oh no, what’s wrong?!”

I blush. “I know that you’re a lesbian. I wasn’t trying to get away with anything or stretch limits. Honestly. I know I got you, uh, messy —”

“Oh, I love being... — oh, you mean that.”

“Yeah, that.”

She shrugs, and there’s no tension in her body language that isn’t a reflection of my own tension. “Don’t worry about it,” she says airily.

“Okay,” I say slowly.

Mimi hugs me tightly and warmly.

“Ohmigod, Marcie! Calm down!”

Oh, no, it’s spreading, I think in despair, but nicknames aren’t my primary concern at the moment.

Mimi continues gushing. “You decided to use the pies! And... and then Livia got pied, and I almost came right there! Right in the face! She looked so amazing! And then... then... you had me come over and pie Cherry, and then she took my hair and... wowie! Cherry tastes so... Ohmigod! It was seriously like the best night ever!”

I am reasonably sure this is the most chill a lesbian has been about a man ejaculating on her — anywhere, ever. There’s usually more revulsion and angry screaming and broken noses and sex crime charges — not that I know from personal experience, obviously; it’s all anecdotal.

So, I quietly exhale, grateful that Mimi seems in high spirits and I have not, in fact, destroyed a friendship I am increasingly coming to value highly. “She... she did taste great, didn’t she?”

Mimi does a playful fist-bump with me in response, affirming my question.

Livia secretes herself away in her prop rooms. Friday is a lighter show — the first and third Decans revolve around a dare wheel and the YBYB girls, and the second is going to be audience volunteers for hypnotic orgasms. It isn’t going to be another Escalation — I’m grateful for that in terms of pressure, but also in terms of stretching it out. I like being with the Trips. There are only twelve Escalations, and they’ve been spaced out by months before we went and did two in three days. Monday wasn’t originally a certain Escalation — I made it one by tricking and fucking Livia. The Gemini one, conversely... Livia has been planning that one for a while. So there isn’t a lot of rehearsal to do for Friday.

I stay in and have a quiet day. Mimi and I play Scrabble. I watch The Three Musketeers — one of my favorite films — on Livia’s waterbed, and Moonraker. It probably doesn’t surprise you that I love Bond films — I think every pickup artist has a soft spot for them — or that I prefer the campier ones. But while Holly Goodhead’s looks, charm and double entendres prove as enticing to me as they always have, I find myself left oddly maudlin after the dissonantly brutal scene where Corinne Dufour is mauled to death by dogs. Bond is always so cool, so casual, when one of his women dies. Did that detachment enhance his sex appeal? Livia would probably say so, depending on her mood. Five years ago, I might have agreed.

Now I wonder if I will ultimately have more, and prettier, women than Bond, on my weird journey with the Trips. I know that sounds ludicrously egotistical, but ignore that for now. I’m not thinking it like that. I have made it, and am living what every pickup artist dreams of. And none of my women are dead, and I try not to hurt any of them. I remember the Daughters’ shocked expressions, when the yogurt splattered across their face. Is that the same thing as the Bond girls dying? Does it make me cooler?

Livia does go out later in the evening — I believe she may have set up a second hookup with Juan and Wendy. I’m not sure why I’m not doing likewise — Molly told me Beckie’s interested, after all, and Emily certainly would be, and after the previous shows there are probably hundreds of other girls like them interested in me personally. I rationalize it as saving up sexual energy for Cherry — but in retrospect I think I needed some serene time not focused on my dick. And I genuinely am sore, and scratched in ways that might be difficult to explain on a first date. Two Escalations in three days is too much for any human body or human psyche.

I borrow a few of Livia’s pulp SF mags and read some stories, and fall asleep by nine PM. I dream about writhing girls covered with sticky red fluids being bisected by a guillotine blade, and cream splattered over angry women’s faces, and Livia with unnaturally long limbs and a distorted face, shouting like a martinet — or an exorcist — as her body collapses into the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

I see the male pulp magician from Livia’s gallery manipulate the romance novel heroine’s body with strings, like she’s a marionette. When I look back, the strings are pulled by RC toys, and I sit at the controls. Mimi loses layer after layer of clothing — the coveralls, the gown, the fashionista, the stripper, the pink latex getup, the full frontal... and then her skin. The strings flay her alive, leaving only skinless, glistening red musculature.

“Oh, thank you all,” the skinless thing says as it flops around. “Now I’m a real bimbo!”

I see Crowley’s Nuit and Harpocrates, the infinitesimally small point and the all-encompassing space, meet in transdimensional carnal union. I see topless girls melt into a writhing, screaming amalgam-mob, like that scene at the end of Brian Yuzna’s Society. I see Sandra Venturi wink at me playfully as rabid hounds tear her to pieces. I’m not sure if it’s a nightmare or a wet dream. It may be both.

In theory, I sleep from 9 PM to 6 AM. Four hours of that may have actually been restful. Then Mimi wakes me to cram prep-work for the upcoming show. I know Livia’s sense about us being celebrities is right on Friday morning. We have trouble making it to Summers. There’s a crowd packed all around the bar, stretching for close to a block. Everyone’s talking about Cherry, and me fucking Livia, and the Daughters, and Make Her Blush. Summers’ security goons have to escort us through a packed crowd. I can tell Livia’s a bit ragged, though she hides it well. It surprises me — especially after the Gemini Escalation, I have been thinking of her as nearly superhuman. Maybe she has limits after all.

Livia — in a tight but not overly revealing purple one-piece — struts out on the big stage in front of the pool at Summers, introduces herself and starts her stand-up patter. “You know, Jerry Falwell threatened to sue us for that last segment — you remember, when I talked about Jeri’s ‘inner Falwell’? He must have a massive legal masochism kink, stepping back into the ring so soon after the drubbing Larry Flynt gave him in ’88.

“Everybody here understands parody, right? The good Reverend Falwell never got sloshed and lost his virginity shaggin’ Mumsie in an outhouse — it’s just funny because, truth aside, he’s so obviously the sort of bloke who would bone his own family once you get him sufficiently shit-faced. Of course, Flynt was smart enough to make the offending ad pretty unbelievable, too, so we wouldn’t mistake it for fact — I mean, we all know if he wanted to be strictly realistic and scripturally accurate, Falwell woulda lost his cherry to Daddy in the outhouse! Thank God for the rod that corrects us and the staff that guides us! Truly His rod and His staff comfort me!

“As much as we’d like to be the next Hustler, though, we’ve got a busy schedule to keep — so we’ll have to let Larry-boy keep the Hero of America’s Freedoms title and pageant sash for now. He does look fetching prancing around starkers in it, anyway. Fortunately, we were able to settle out of court by agreeing to read a disclaimer he provided to us. Our dear Reverend Falwell wants us to inform you all that as a result of his strongly-held Christian convictions, he in no way practices, nor endorses the practice of, pre-marital sex, lascivious dancing, science, progress, rationality, fun or even sanity — and we will never mention him in association with any of those things ever again. Also, there is no evidence he is now nor ever was a member of the North American Man-Parrot Love Association. Just in case any of you were curious about that.

“As part of the agreement, we’re also required to apologize for endorsing sexual immorality and the corruption of America’s youth. So, uh, sorry about that! And with that formality out of the way, let’s get on with some more wanton debauchery and excessive over-sexualization of young women’s bodies! Hey, we said we’d apologize, not that we’d stop! Bring on the boobs!”

I strut out on stage at this point, clad in a ridiculous ensemble — power print swimming trunks, a garish Hawaiian shirt, winged sandals, a backwards orange baseball cap and novelty sunglasses. I wave to the audience in an overly-eager “that douchey, hyperactive party-dude from every house party ever” way. Livia looks me up and down, horrified. “Not exactly the kind of boob I was hoping for, but I guess we’ll run with it.”

That gets a laugh, though a lot of the jeering at me is disturbingly mean-spirited. As Livia segues into her trademark Rabbit from the hat bit, I strip off all the garish prop-clothes save for the swimming trunks, and slide on a pair of better sunglasses. The girls do seem to treasure their gifts a bit more, after Livia’s masturbation show last night. From here, it’s on to the results of the Make Her Blush contest. We — or rather, the phone survey company we’re working with on this — has tabulated the results and got them back to us on Friday morning. Now it just falls to us to announce them — and folks, I’m not going to lie, it’s a bit soul-crushing.

My predictions were that the male vote would split between Michelle/Lorenzo and Wendy/Juan, whereas the majority of the female vote would go Amanda/Alan, with the rest divided between Laura/Rick and Wendy/Juan. Livia predicted that Amanda/Alan would win, but thought that Wendy/Juan was the actual best. What actually happens, O Cynical Reader, I’m sure you can guess — Laura/Rick takes it in a landslide, with Michelle/Lorenzo and Beckie/George almost tied for second. Poor, amazing Juan and his psychedelic visions come in last. Well, at least he got Livia — she’s a heck of a consolation prize!

We also get a bit of loose gender breakdown, based on who chose to listen to the sexy Livia/Mimi audio and who was more interested in the suitors. Anyway, despite the crowd being 80% male voting was a roughly even gender split. Women strongly favored Laura/Rick, and they got a good chunk of the male vote too. We chose Laura as a viewer surrogate, so I guess we shouldn’t be disappointed by the results — but we both are. She got a lot of guys, too. I’m not sure. Maybe it’s an age bracket thing, with most of the crowd being collegiate and Laura/Rick being the youngest.

The thing both Livia and I miss in our mutual libidinous mania, though, is that the callers are predominantly romantics. Most people are — we live in a highly romantic age. For all that she collects ‘romance’ novels, Livia and I are both sensualists and pleasure-seekers. We underestimate how much the crowd wants actual romance, and in a very conventional format. It’s an odd thing for people who’ve just read a bunch of romance novels to miss, but there you go. We won’t clue into that for a good while yet.

On consideration, though, I think it was probably Amanda and Wendy who had the most social impact and brought real cultural staying power to the Trips. They were both pretty romantic with their partners, albeit in a less conventional way. My theory is that Wendy turned a lot of people on, including other contestants, but many were too uncomfortable to vote for her. Whereas the teeny-bopper crowds got social, talking about the contest, and then voted for the couple it was most comfortable to talk about, rather than the one that made their panties wet. But that’s just wild speculation on my part.

Regardless, I announce the results as they are, offer very warm congratulations to the winners and thank everyone who participated. Rick and Laura come up on stage, and we do a brief interview that’s as milquetoast as the pair are themselves. I see Lorenzo in the audience, and Alan, but they don’t come up and leave soon after hearing the results. Then it’s on to the main event!

We bring out our big debut prop: the Wheel of Debauchery. It will be the focal point of the revamped You Bet Your Bikini. The rules are like this: we ask the girls trivia questions, alternating between two teams. When they miss a question, they can choose to drop out of the game, take off their top, take off their bottoms or spin the wheel. The wheel is like any game show wheel, but it has four layers of tiles: green, yellow, orange and red.

The green tiles are sexy things women can do that don’t actually involve nudity — telling sexual fantasies, kissing another girl, rubbing a team-mate’s nipples through her swimsuit and so on. The yellow ones can involve nudity or fetishistic things like getting spanked, or selecting a volunteer from the audience to feel the contestant up. Orange dares involve lower-end sex acts — giving a full-contact lap dance, fingering, trying to get another contestant off. Lots of these seem to end with someone having a non-penetrative orgasm, or submitting to Livia’s racier hypnosis. The red dares, obviously, can involve outright fucking.

The tiles with the dares on are opaque, so contestants don’t see what’s on the table before spinning. Later, we have cryptic but suggestive names on the outside for each dare. Taking a green dare takes that tile off the wheel, exposing the yellow dare beneath it. And so forth, so we’d have to play for a while to actually get at the red dares. The girls get a hundred dollars for every question right. They can bow out at any time. If they bow out after getting a question right, they keep all the money. If they get it wrong, and refuse to take anything off or complete the dare they get, they lose any money they might have earned. Whichever team has the most contestants not bowed-out by the end wins a grand prize, which today is a thousand dollars. There are two teams — the Gold Team, made of the Surfer’s Paradise meter maids we flew in, and the Blue Team, made of Spring Breakers who volunteer.

I’m not going to describe the game in depth, because it doesn’t go too far — and it has some girls in it I can’t talk about in any detail in my memoir. The idea is to have the first Decan as a tease, and the meat of the contest as the third — but, well, you’ll see. There are some memorable highlights, though. I make eye contact with Whina (you remember our Gold Coast half-Maori squirter, right?), teasing her throughout the contest, but don’t go too far in the first Decan. There is some non-trivial tension in the Lauderdale team between girls intentionally answering questions wrong — eager to flaunt it, or to try the dare wheel — and their fellows who want to actually win the grand prize money.

Helen, one of the Blue Team girls, is to all appearances in the “win money” camp, and seems genuinely nervous about losing clothes. But I can see her Aura, and while her superficial motives in the game may or may not be authentic, she does have more carnal interests as well. We’ve been keeping an eye on Helen since the beginning of Spring Break, and have plans for her beyond just the YBYB game — which is really a sort of test run. When she finally botches a question, she starts playing with her top. Girls in the crowd, remembering what I did on Wednesday with Emily, start shouting for me to rip it off! I’m a bit horrified by this, but a lot of girls seem very enthusiastic about the idea of me helping other girls off with their clothing — unnecessary roughness included.

Helen covers herself protectively and looks intimidated. She’s faintly turned on by the notion, I can see in her Aura, but also way too shy and inhibited to want to actually do it. She chooses a dare-spin instead, and ends up having a female team-mate play with her nipples for thirty seconds under her bikini. Said teammate is very enthusiastic, and Helen blushes furiously, and I can see she is really getting aroused when I finally call time. I doubt she thinks of herself as gay or bi, but she is also clearly not completely above that form of temptation. Livia eventually throws in a house rule that girls can select a host to pull off their clothing instead of doing it themselves, which becomes quite popular.

We get through fifteen questions. One of the trying-to-lose girls goes full frontal — and for an amateur, she’s pretty nice. She enjoys her time on stage as well. Four of the ten girls get topless, and each is nice in her own way. We also get a few sexy dares in — one girl has to tell her favorite sexual fantasy, and (likely inspired by Make Her Blush) goes on a very detailed diatribe about what she’d like to do with her sexy tenth-grade math teacher. Two girls have to feed each other using their hands, while blindfolded, causing a re-enactment of 9½ Weeks which gets finger-licking good. Pun intended.

There are lots of girls I recognize in the audience — Brenda watches quietly, Lisette cheers to support the contestants and I see Roach and the Asian anarchist sharing an ice cream cone. Emily is the most notable, though, and she’s out of control. I honestly wonder if we should remove her, given how she tends to scream at things. I’m glad I didn’t hook up with her yesterday — it would have made this even weirder. I have no experience dealing with the crazier class of groupie up to this point, mind you.

The crowd is impatient. There are a lot of new men in here, who are hoping for a repeat of the mass orgasm hypnosis we did yesterday. I see bruises and black eyes, and hear that there was some fighting over who would get in. The crowd seems more unruly than at the past two shows. We cut off the first Decan early.

I talk to Livia backstage. “There’s a lot of guys who came hoping for an NCSS repeat,” I tell her.

She shrugs. “Too bad. We’re obviously not doing that again.”

“We should tell them that right away. Maybe some will leave.”

Livia shrugs again. “Sure. I don’t like this crowd as much as the last two ones anyway.”

She seems lower-energy today than on Wednesday, or at most of our shows. Mimi is super-chipper, though.

So I lead the second Decan. “Folks, in case any of you were wondering... we had a banana-eating contest get a bit out of control on Wednesday. We’re not doing a repeat today. If that’s all you came for, let me save you time — go home.”

The male crowd gets a bit surly at that, and damps the vibe a bit.

Livia eventually gets started with the second Decan routine — we’re going to select girls from the crowd for erotic hypnosis, and she’s going to get them off. It won’t be anything like Cherry, though — we need to show girls that we can also do this without everything we did to Cherry. We allude to the orgasmic bit, but the crowd spells it out rather more clearly. We have lots of volunteers to pick from. With my help, Livia chooses three girls — a cute collegiate with brown hair, an older lady who works as Summers security and has been nice getting us through the crowd, and a quite beautiful glamour girl, probably a stripper. We set them up on stage and begin the induction. It’s hard, with the raucous crowd shouting things. The trance is only light, but Livia uses the headphones and her amethyst, and manages to get each of them under.

We go through a normal comedy hypnosis routine. First we make them pretend to be dogs. We actually cut that short early, however, when a mean-looking biker starts shouting, “Yeah! Act like the bitches you are! Beg for it, hoes!”

We could have him tossed out, but it won’t matter — there are others like him. Livia hurries though the routine. Then she has them pretend they’re geese having a fight over a mate. Then they become stoners hopped up on LSD. Standard stuff for a comedy hypnotist. Then we get a bit racier. The girls dance for each other — not lap dances, per se, but sexy stripper dances. They don’t take anything off. Then Livia had them lay down on a large table. She tells them they are each going to visualize — but not name — the two celebrities they are most attracted to. These celebrities will be cooperating to give them a massage. Every time they find themselves staring at these masseurs, a piece of their clothing will fall off. Soon the massage begins to explore more intimate regions. Hands work at buttocks, tweak nipples, trace the lips of pussies. The masseurs are all naked now.

The security lady, wearing a tight cotton shirt with the Summers logo, starts showing visible pokies. I really like her actually. She had a warm, open candor when we talked to her earlier, and a sarcastic edge devoid of malice. I would have picked her over either the stripper or collegiate to take home, and she’s more than a decade older than me — probably just slightly over forty, with short crew-cut brunette hair.

The stripper has a damn fine body — fake D-cups, a trim tummy, long legs — but she’s also heavily tattooed and comes off a bit jaded. I’m not sure she’s really tranced — she might just be playing along for self-promotion. She rubs her hands along her body as Livia describes the masseurs doing — and manages to slide her top aside and her bottoms down a bit in so doing. I make a mental note to give her the chance to plug something later — it’s probably what she wants, and if she gets her nippies out that seems only fair.

The college girl is wearing a grey MIT halter top, jean shorts and a bikini bottom. She’s into the hypnosis. She does squirm and writhe, and her Aura is strong, but she also lacks any natural sensuality. She had been in the audience for Cherry’s show, though I don’t know that yet. My inner pervert is vaguely interested in how far up her top will slide, but I know I’d rather spend actual time with the security lady.

Livia does get her stride and manage to work the girls up. Suddenly, the massage tables are gone and they’re floating in a luminescent, misty void. They’re still being rubbed, and the pleasure is getting greater and greater. Five times greater! Ten times greater! But you cannot come yet! You will come only on her command! And she stretches it out. She does get the audience to laugh when she won’t let the three women come. I watch the collegiate arch her back. The shirt slides up, showing a hint of nipple, and the crowd cheers as the three girls come in unison. I give the stripper an opening to plug her show at the Candy Store, and the security lady escorts the other two offstage for a shower.

Then Livia does it again. I don’t watch as closely this time. Of the three volunteers, one is a prissy showgirl, one a rather plain but excited college girl and one an outright ugly college girl. Livia can’t trance the showgirl and she politely leaves the stage. The other two do get off, and I’m happy they get to enjoy that. I’m not focused on them, however. I stand closer to the front of the stage, assuming a dominant body language, and try to stare down potential hecklers in the crowd. There’s a meanness here today, a bitter rawness. Men are sexual competitors. We don’t really have to be, but our instincts lead us that way. The crowd doesn’t like me.

The audience on Monday and Wednesday had been mellow. Even after the mass orgasm, the guys were embarrassed and sheepish but not angry or sour. But between then and today, something darker percolated. Maybe the alpha guys were angry that every dude in Summers got equal pleasure — like someone raided their secret stash. Maybe the guys who couldn’t get laid normally went home and crashed emotionally, feeling dirty and lonely, and nursed their bitterness. Maybe the closeted gay guys watched men around them get off, and felt a desperate need to compensate for their shame with cruelty and harshness. Maybe it was all three. I don’t know — I haven’t really put a lot of thought into male psychology. It’s not that interesting to me, for obvious reasons.

Finally we get to the bit that we’re all looking forward to. Livia glances at me to confirm, and I nod — we’ve already scouted and hooked our marks, and they look like they’re feeling randy.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Livia tells the audience. “We have time for one more induction! This is a slightly different routine, and it’s a bit naughtier. We call this bit The Bribe — you’ll see why shortly. I can’t say you won’t feel a wee bit taken advantage of at the end, but we’re not going to have you do anything too obscene or inappropriate while in trance. And, as always, you’ll have a lot of fun — and what you get might be a fair bit more intense than the previous volunteers today got. So which ladies in the audience are feeling brave?”

We get a lot of hands being raised — often hesitantly and meekly, but still raised. I glance out around the crowd and confirm my suspicions — that there would be an order of magnitude more if the the male crowd was more mellow. The interest from the girls is still there, but the angry undertone replacing the carnal undertone from Monday and Wednesday is making them more hesitant. Still, the volunteers we really want — the duo I hand-picked — have their hands (hesitantly) up.

We bring Helen and Emma up on stage. Helen is a slightly plump, petite dirty blonde with B-cup breasts, a round face and a very cute smile. She changed out of her YBYB-requisite bikini during the intermission and is currently wearing a loose powder blue shirt and tight white shorts with a matching blue dot-pattern — not as brazen as the many bikini girls, but pretty sexy in her own way. Her hair is straight and short, and bangs hang over the left side of her face when she shakes her head. Her pokies are still slightly visible after her erotic nipple rub during the YBYB round.

Emma is apparently Helen’s best friend; they drove to Lauderdale from SCLU together. Emma is clearly the extrovert of the two — I suspect she talked Helen into joining YBYB after we made the offer. Emma’s tall — almost six feet — and bustier than Helen. She’s cute — slender and a bit gawky, always grinning and laughing, with curly, wild chestnut hair and big, wide brown eyes that made her look constantly amazed or excited.

She’s dressed in an eye-searing explosion of neon colors: white sneakers, yellow socks, cyan leg-warmers, metallic green shorts, magenta headband and Scrunchie, pink flame-patterned frames to her novelty sunglasses, pink wrist-warmers and a tight tank top patterned with multi-colored triangles splashed over a white background. Her bra-straps are crimson. She radiates enthusiasm and energy — there’s a sexual undercurrent there, but I think the “wild story to tell” element will probably rank above the actual sexual pleasure in her memory of today. If I actually knew what is about to go down, of course, well... we chose an incredible volunteer. Boy, will Emma leave with a story to tell!

So Helen and Emma swear the Sexy Scandal Spectacular oath, and Emma seems incredibly hyped about it — she isn’t just a willing victim, she’s an enthusiastic victim to the point of nervous giddiness. Livia takes out her amethyst and begins the induction. The crowd is a bit calmer. I think Emma’s attire adds a bit of much-needed frivolity to the proceedings, and deflates some of the tension. Both girls seem at least mildly suggestible, and get in trance quickly. Livia has them lie side by side on a single table, and hold each others’ hands.

She starts the same massage scenario she used with the other six girls, but it’s a little bit different this time. The two girls are best friends, and are together, and have decided to visit an adult massage parlor for ladies on a lark after hearing about it from a friend. This... my cock may be informing my perception of reality here, but I can at least imagine Emma trying to talk Helen into doing that in real life. Regardless, they both get set on a large massage table and four extremely attractive masseuses whose gender Livia is careful to never specify or imply begin to give the two girls a massage. Livia’s smooth, authoritative voice narrates it getting more and more sensual, and the girls both sigh warmly.

Livia gets quite explicitly descriptive here. She tells the girls how much desire they feel. She describes the hands stroking every part of the body. Emma and Helen clasp each other’s hands tighter, and Livia describes them doing the same in the hypnotic fantasy — meeting each other’s gaze, blushing, giggling, looking away... but not letting go of their best friend’s hand. The masseuses slide hands over breasts, tweaking sensitive nipples. That bit makes Helen gasp and arch her back quite pleasingly — and, as her loose shirt stretches tighter, informs me and the audience alike that she didn’t wear a bra today. Nice!

The masseuses eventually start to work between the girls’ legs, tracing the outlines of their pussy lips with exploratory fingers. The girls seem to really like that. Imaginary fingers eventually enter quite real vaginas and produce equally real gasps and moans. The audience cheers — the first cheer we’ve got from them today that feels genuinely good-spirited, though the girls have to lead it. And as the phantom massage artists work them, Livia tells Emma and Helen that they feel aroused, that they feel overwhelming and all-consuming sexual pleasure... but they may not come! They can not reach climax unless she permits it, unless she makes it available to them! She’s really clear on this.

The massage artists keep up their sensual work. Hands grasp firm buttocks, running over them with massage oil. I wish Emma would roll over in real life — her shorts are tight and she has a nice bubble butt. This doesn’t happen, though. Eventually tongues come into play. The girls on the table in real life are writhing and moaning. I can see wetness around Emma’s groin thanks to her tight shorts, and when she squirms and spreads her legs we also get a really great camel toe. I can’t see these kind of visual signs with Helen — but reading her Aura, well... wild, wet and willing may be a cliché phrase, but it’s one of my favorite cliches for a reason!

Livia gets the girls really worked up and just keeps them there, on the edge. I think she is fully successful in preventing them from orgasming without having her permission, which shows an impressive degree of control over their autonomic functions with her hypnosis. Livia, Mimi and I all enjoy watching them, and are all equally culpable for ignoring the sounds from inside the Summers’ lounge area. I am vaguely aware that there’s some kind of altercation happening in there — I hear shattering glass, splintering wood and punches landing — but all I think is that I hope the noise doesn’t disrupt the act, and a bit of sympathy for the friendly security lady we met.

We finally get to the climax, after keeping Emma and Helen on the edge of a righteous orgasm for close to thirty minutes. And boy, does she drop a bombshell on these two girls. “Ladies, in just a second, I’m going to snap my fingers in front of your faces. When I do so you’re going to come fully back to conscious awareness. You will remember where you are, who the people around you are and why you came here with a crystal clarity. You will have your full normal rational judgement and ability to make decisions. However, none of the raw wellspring of lust we’ve tapped into just now will fade — you will still feel very horny, and feel the pressure built up inside you like you are on the edge of something absolutely amazing.

“You will also be subject to a post-hypnotic suggestion, which you will have full conscious awareness of all the details of. This suggestion will only function today, and only on Summers’ stage in full view of the audience. If you choose to trigger this suggestion, you are going to have the most mind-blazingly intense orgasm you have ever had in your entire life. You will experience a hyper-sensory acuity, as if all your senses were magnified tenfold — but only positive, pleasurable sensations will be so magnified. And this orgasm will last for a full five minutes, per the nice digital clock on our camera bridge above your heads.

“If you want to trigger the suggestion, this is what you need to do. First, you will need to strip down to your underwear on stage. Then, you will need to take the maple syrup we give you, and you will need to coat every inch of your skin with it. Then you will need to make out with another girl for a full thirty seconds. With tongue, and with passion. Do you understand? If so, say so.”

“I understand,” both girls reply robotically, in unison.

So Livia holds a hand directly above each girl’s face and snaps both sets of fingers in unison. Eyes pop sharply open. The girls glance at each other. The giggle nervously, and abruptly release each others’ hands.

“Oh my god,” Emma says. “Oh my god. Oh my god.”

“You... you utter cunt,” Helen says, staring daggers at Livia. But for all the venom, she can’t keep a trace of awe and admiration out of her tone as well.

“Possum, you took the oath,” Livia tells her. “Our games are always naughtier than they first appear in the rear-view mirror. You were warned.”

I help the two girls stand up off the table. They stand very close to each other but conspicuously don’t touch. They try to whisper to each other, but they’re both excited and aroused, and my mike projects their voices to the audience.

“Helen,” Emma says, “I... I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really want to do this. It was... I mean, the hypnosis was amazing. I want to... you know. I want to finish.”

“Oh my god, Emma!” Helen hisses in desperation, much louder than she intended to. “I’m not wearing a bra today!”

That gets a big cheer from even today’s surly crowd. It at least seems to put the men in better spirits, with more camaraderie and less of a violent undercurrent. Neither of us see fit to remind her of the bikini top she wore during YBYB.

“Oh, hon, don’t worry,” Livia tells Helen.

“You mean I can keep my shirt on?” she asks.

“Is your shirt underwear?” Livia asks back.

“Um... no?”

“Then no, you can’t. But if you do go through with this, I promise you’ll be very popular — and we do have a very special song prepared for just this kind of eventuality, to help comfort and support our brave, perky young volunteers.”

Livia makes a hand gesture to Mimi, who cues up the recording. It’s a rousing rendition of the traditional North English chant used to encourage pub strippers and random girls to show off their goodies: Get yer tits out, get yer tits out, get yer tits out for the lads! I wonder if Livia recorded it from the same pub where she filmed the Capricorn Escalation.

Helen blushes furiously. Helen and Emma exchange a long, meaningful stare. The song sounds really mean — and in some contexts it can be — but our volunteers are in high, and highly horny, spirits. They’re taking it well, as encouragement to do something they want rather than bullying. Remember, we know Helen and Emma. We recruited Helen for YBYB right at the start of Spring Break, and had a chance to do background checks and get to know them a bit. The song is also important as an excuse — we don’t want to out these girls, and if anyone wonders if they’re gay or bi, well, they can just say they did it for the lads! It’s Spring Break, right?

Helen strips off her loose, opaque shirt in one swift, decisive motion. “Let’s do this!”

The two girls clasp each other’s shoulders, jump up and down and scream maniacally at each other. After she teased us with them during the first Decan, it’s really a treat to see Helen’s B-cups fully exposed. They’re not perfect model tits — they’re what people sometimes crassly call fried egg tits — but they’re really exciting to me, and to at least a portion of the audience, regardless.

One thing I wish more women understood about men: our ability to fantasize about and be aroused by a centerfold-perfect body does not diminish our ability to fantasize about or be aroused by an imperfect body, at least if it’s attached to a cute, excited or enthusiastic girl. It’s one fantasy of many, not an exclusionary standard. Anyway, Helen’s tits do have wonderfully distinct dark brown nipples which stand out against her otherwise quite pale skin, and are hard, and have a quite distinct texture with visible goosebumps. Yum!

Emma strips rapidly. She doesn’t take everything off, keeping the legwarmers, headband, armlets, Scrunchie and... actually a bunch of other miscellaneous, tiny accessories. Man, this girl wears a lot of baubles. I wonder if I should warn her to protect all this crap from the syrup — but she doesn’t look like the kind of lady who will be overly exercised by needing another shopping trip. The shirt and shorts go away, though, so we get a look at everything we’re really interested in — she’s got lacy, faintly sheer green panties paired with a fashionable low-cut crimson bra.

I’m wondering if she’s colorblind or just likes being the center of attention and doesn’t care overly much what the nature of the attention actually is. Then again... she might just be being fashionable by today’s standards. Fashion has gotten weird over the last decade. I guess I’m not really in a good position to complain, though, given my own penchant for the pseudo-Victorian look.

Livia quickly hands two full, open bottles of Aunt Jemima maple syrup to the girls and they pour them all over themselves as the English chant loops, clearly running on adrenaline. They rub each other in preference to covering themselves, and they do a fairly thorough job overall. The syrup looks wonderful running down Emma’s pressed-up cleavage. Then Helen unhooks Emma’s bra. “If I have to get ’em out, it’s only fair that you do too!”

So not only do we get to see Helen’s hard nipples — Emma’s dangly, pale C-cups and their tiny nipples are exposed too. Even better, Helen rubs syrup all over Emma’s tits with her hands, pushing them around and feeling her friend up. Wow! Emma then returns the favor, covering Helen’s chest with circular stroking motions that really stimulate Helen’s hard nipples. Helen gasps and writhes. I don’t think she realizes how overtly sexual she’s being — and I’m not about to tell her!

I can get a feeling of the dynamic between the two. Emma is the (relatively) cool, extroverted friend who hopes to bring Helen out of her shell. Helen is an introvert and a pervert, with a stronger Aura. She attached to Emma on purpose, welcoming her efforts and support in getting her to do things she doesn’t have the courage to do on her own.

She wants the wild life, wants to be a party girl just like Emma — but she also wants Emma. She has wanted Emma for months now, maybe even for years. And now they’re topless in their panties, on our stage, rubbing maple syrup all over each other and getting ready to make out, and I’m standing a yard away from them as an excuse that all of this is Definitely Not Gay™. I’ll need to keep a close eye on them. God, I love my life!

The girls realize how they’re touching each other and abruptly stop. Helen breaks the tension by rubbing syrup all over Emma’s face. They giggle ferociously and have a playful slap fight, getting the sticky fluid on each other’s faces and in each other’s hair — and slinging tendrils of it at me as well; one lodges in my chest hair and just hovers there. The ladies are both playful and jiggly, subtly flirty and very hot. Finally, they look each other in the eye. They put their hands on each other’s shoulders. Rivulets of syrup run down the curves of glistening bodies. The lads’ chant finally fades out, being replaced with Debbie Harry’s French Kissin’ in the USA.

“Well,” Emma says, “if we don’t actually go through with this, we’re going to look pretty stupid with our norks out and stuff.”

“Yeah,” Helen agrees. Both girls are clearly nervous as well as turned on.

In other circumstances, Livia would give both girls time to get comfortable with each other — but today, neither of us wants asshole hecklers to shout out things that will spoil the show. “You know,” Livia suggests, “if you’re feeling nervous, you could use the porn star kissing trick I showed Cherry yesterday.”

The girls’ mouths come close to each other. Auras flare. I can see that Emma really wants her orgasm, and Helen really wants her Emma. (To be fair, Emma is definitely starting to get interested in Helen as well.)

I wish I could say it’s a quiet moment and the crowd is awed into silence. It almost entirely is — but some absolute douchebag in the back has to shout out, “Hurry up and dyke it out already; I’m getting bored!”

That almost ruins things, but I think the girls are two wrapped up in their own thoughts to notice. Now, Livia is a pure and innocent angel, and I am sure that when she brought up the porn star kissing she only meant for the girls to recall the advice she had given Cherry — and not the specific manner in which Cherry had ignored it. But the latter must be the more vivid memory in Helen’s mind, as she completely ignores all of Livia’s careful guidance on porn star kissing in exactly the same way that Cherry did. And thankfully, a massive roar of support from the majority of the girls and boys in the audience alike drowns out whatever the hecklers might have to say about this.

My god, this is amazing. Hot lips coated with sticky syrup lock in a passionate French Kiss. Tongues explore the mouths of long-desired partners. The girls clasp hands around each other’s waists and crush their bodies against one another. Warmth is shared, and temperatures rise. Breasts crush against breasts in that most delightful way you’ve no doubt seen in photos from adult magazines. And yes, it goes on for exactly thirty seconds before the bodies suddenly stiffen as if shocked by electricity. The lips break apart, but the tight embrace gets even tighter, the girls clutching each other rigidly.

“Oh, god, I’m coming!” Emma says.

“Me too!”

The digital timer starts right on cue. Five minutes, ladies — enjoy them!

“This is so... so... so...”

“Hold me. Hold me tight. I love it when you hold me.”

They’re whispering to each other, heads beside one another. I mute the mike after they announce they’re coming, just in case anything they say might contradict the defense that this is all “for the lads”.

Emma crushes Helen against her, clutching her like a life raft in turbulent waters. Helen’s hands start to stray downward, finally reaching past the small of her back and running over the syrup-coated cheeks of Emma’s rounded aerobics-girl bubble butt. Emma gasps. “Oh, Helen!”

The two girls look each other in the eyes. They just stare at each other in raw lust for a few seconds as they experience the prolonged orgasm together. Then their lips clench again as they kiss passionately and messily. Helen squeezes Emma’s plump ass hard and lecherously. Emma doesn’t seem to mind. I wonder how far this is going to go, and at what point I should politely whisper to the girls that they are still in front of a crowd. But I don’t want to do that. I really want to see anything they are willing to do with each other — and I suspect that might go further than I initially thought. The temptation is overwhelming. (Both ladies are quite out by the time I write this, if you’re curious. You’ll hear more about them in later books.)

It’s actually Emma who first slides a hand between Helen’s legs, from behind, inside her syrup-slicked white panties. I guess it makes sense that the extroverted one would make the first sexual move. I’m going to say something. I think. Maybe. In a few more seconds, after I watch more droplets of delicious syrup roll down the backs of delicious bodies. But suddenly the choice is taken out of my hands.

Unfortunately for us, there’s a rather rowdy and unwelcome guest who also thinks the syrup-coated co-eds look — or rather, smell — irresistibly delicious. His name is Victor the Rasslin’ Bear, and he enters the scene in exactly the same manner the Kool-Aid Man has become famous for using. Now, I am a city boy, and if one wanted to be uncharitable I could perhaps fairly be called effete. When the outer wall of Summers explodes into wood, asbestos and plaster flinders, it’s the first time in my life I’ve actually seen anything larger than a small toy explode. It’s also the first time I’ve ever seen a live bear, as I’m not one to express much interest in either nature hikes or zoos.

We know, in a back-of-the-mind kind of way, that bear wrestling is one of the things Summers does. We heard about it. We saw pictures. It did not occur to any of us that the bear would be on-site during one of our shows. If I had taken time to check schedules, though, I could have clearly seen that there was going to be bear wrestling later this evening, after we wrap up at 5 PM. That might also have been a factor in the meaner, more macho crowd, come to think of it.

Everyone freezes. Victor roars, and stands in the upright posture bears are known to use when they want to appear threatening. I know he’s declawed, but his muzzle is hanging around his neck rather than on his mouth. I’m utterly, starkly terrified, unable to reason. A lifetime of training sexual and social confidence does not prepare one for actual life-threatening danger — they’re very different things. And then something happens that shatters my resolve even more than I would have thought possible.

Livia screams like a girl. It isn’t even a damsel in distress scream, it’s just total panic and hysteria. Now, much like me, she’s a city-slicker — no experience with either explosions or wild animals, and a bit effete and decadent. Real traditional gender values, too, even if she likes to take on traditionally masculine roles like the tuxedo-clad pulp magician at times for kink purposes. So there’s no reason she wouldn’t fold like a house of cards in this situation.

But, you have to understand, O Scornful Reader: at this point in my life she’s like unto a goddess to me — always magnetic in her charisma and alluring in her beauty, sometimes enticing in her flirtation, sometimes disquieting in her coldness and occasionally (as in her brief but hyper-dominant ‘exorcism’ of Cherry on Wednesday) even outright terrifying in her fury. Regardless, she is always larger than life, and never pathetic. If Livia has panicked, how can I possibly stay calm?

But there’s a simple, primal thought that rouses me to action and clarity regardless of my crumbling morale. Men protect women — it’s a visceral and powerful instinct intrinsic to our natures, and this is one of those times when it’s quite valuable. The thing that breaks through my paralysis is the sound of Emma and Helen gasping in pleasure.

Even in the middle of the goddamn bear attack, they are still tranced and enraptured by the prolonged orgasm. (Three minutes left, a glance at the digital clock told me.) Dear god, how strong really is Livia’s hypnosis, if they stay in trance during this?! There’s an unmuzzled bear on the loose, and there are two mostly naked co-eds on stage, covered in maple syrup and helpless in a hypnotic trance, and I am responsible for this! So I can’t let them down.

I sweep up both girls in my arms. They are still clutching each other, and that helps. I look at the edge of the stage, and the rim of the pool. About one yard down, five yards horizontal. I... think I can make that. Maybe? I have no idea. I am certainly fit and a bit muscular, but it’s all aesthetic rather than truly athletic. I really have no idea how far I can jump. But I run, driven by adrenaline, and leap.

I push the girls ahead of me in midair. They will clearly make the pool. The water will both break the trance and wash the syrup off, and then they will be no higher priority targets than anyone else. Let the fucking bear eat the fucking jocks and bikers that keep running down our girls! No, a calm part of my mind realizes. I don’t want anyone to die, even them. And then impact with the water knocks all introspection and sensibility from my mind.

I regain awareness perhaps ten precious seconds later. Everything is pink. I can see clouds of pink flowing around me, like the deep crimson Tincture Livia created falling into the clear liquid of the KinkyTingle bottles. No, not Tincture and massage oil, I realize — blood flowing into water. I got the girls in, but I only... almost made the pool myself. I can feel the pain clearly now, and becoming aware of it makes it all but paralyzing again. My shin struck the edge of the pool and there’s blood flowing out of it. So much blood, so very much blood, like something out of a shark movie.

I’m aware of another explosion, crashing, Victor roaring, sparks flying everywhere. I don’t see it at the time, but Mimi lifts cables to trip Victor, and he gets tangled in them, and then he tears down our whole metal camera bridge. I look around. I see Emma drag Helen into the waiting arms of some strong-looking men. They get pulled out and rushed to safety — or, at least, out of my perception. Victor tears free of the cables, though, and runs toward the edge of the stage. I swim out, more pulling myself along a buoy-cable running though the pool than actually swimming with my pulsing leg. I’ve made it a good ten yards into the pool before a thought occurs to me. Wait, can bears swim? I think they can. There are white bears up north that catch fish in rivers, aren’t there?

Victor finally sort of rolls off the edge of the stage and waddles into the pool. And roars. He does that a lot, I realize in retrospect as I write this. Probably all those years of wrestling while muzzled led him to build up an instinct for gratuitous roaring. Anyway, as it turns out, bears do in fact swim really good. At speeds of up to 50 kph, as a matter of fact. My ignorance hasn’t fucked me any more than I already was, though — with my leg torn up it’s not like I would make it any further on land.

Victor looms over me and roars. I despair more than panic. Maybe some martyr complex comes to the fore. I think that if Victor eats me, Helen and Emma will at least be safe. I wonder then if Livia is okay. I look around. I want to see her before I die. Yes, there she is, okay, clinging to the lady from Summers’ security like a life raft. Then she, too, leaves my field of vision. Victor obscures it entirely. I close my eyes, remembering that I have lived an incredibly, unbelievably awesome life and make peace with the fact that I am about to die.

But this is not to be. Victor is perhaps two yards from me when an enticing object hovers in midair in front of him — an open bottle of maple syrup. It isn’t floating, I realize slowly — just dangling, hanging from an invisible thread fixed to a RC helicopter five yards above it. But its scent is strong, and it’s right in Victor’s face. When he turns to look at it, batting it with his paw, I take a deep breath and dive down, deeper into the water. I watch Victor’s hindquarters turn and move away, back toward the edge of the pool. When I resurface, Victor is climbing out of the pool. I see Mimi at the copter controls on the now-burning stage, which is tilting eastward and wobbling as part of its support collapses under the weight of the sundered camera-bridge.

It’s going to be alright, I think. Mimi can bait Victor, keep leading him about the pool until the Summers bear-keeper gets here. Where is he, anyway? (He is actually unconscious in Summers lounge at the time, I will learn later, floored by an errant haymaker — so totally not Summers’ fault.)

And then something amazing happens, spectacular in the sheer and unmitigable scale of assholishness it represents. The crowd is moving away from the pool and stage as rapidly as possible, at this point — but one figure resists this general trend. He has something to prove. A muscular but somewhat paunchy shirtless man in jeans and grey-black stubble, he’s a local darts champion, sex pest and sleazebag. He does demonstrate his considerable skill at throwing things, however, by hucking a full can of beer directly at Mimi’s RC copter. He hits it, and takes it out of the sky in a spray of sparks and beer. As the copter is directly above Victor, some of that beer ends up in his eyes, and he howls in rage. The bottle of maple syrup falls into the pool with a loud plop, along with the smoking remains of the copter. The scent trail is gone. Victor looks around in confusion, then focuses back on me. “Hahaha! Fuck you, Fag Patrol!”

(If you’re wondering what human being could be capable of this cosmically transcendent apex of douchebaggery, his name is Ronald Ephraim “Wild Ron” Cargandier, and at the time I write this he’s currently trying to run a roofing business in Tallahassee after his third bankruptcy. And he’s said he’s very sorry about that “little incident” all those years back, and asked if I could please not include his name in my manuscript. Why yes, I can be petty — at least when the matter at hand is an attempted murder!)

Anyway, I am near the edge of the pool again by this time. Victor is a good distance away, but this is the part where I learn that bears can actually swim really fast. I feel his jaw snap at my leg. And then, suddenly, a bolt of salvation from the sky! A bolt clad in pink and purple latex, with giant tacky hearts over equally giant tits. Oh, holy shit, Mimi, no! Get out of here!

But she doesn’t. She leaps from the stage, doing pretty much the same jump I did, and lands squarely on Victor. And she’s on his back now, that hard to reach spot where he can’t claw her or bite her, and she wraps an arm around his massive neck in a technical lock. Now, I doubt anyone can choke out a bear — too much fur and fat and muscle there — and definitely not a slight-framed young lady. But the bear has no fur or fat or muscle on his face, and from her position she delivers one brutal face-punch after another. Victor rolls around in the water, trying to dislodge her, but he can’t. Gradually, he stops moving. We gave her an origin story, a weird part of my mind opines, just like a superhero.

Mimi is in a bind. If the bear sinks, she has to let him out of her hold or sink with him. But there’s nothing I can do to help with that, and getting in the fracas is just going to make it worse. So I let the helping hands pull me out of the pool. It’s only seconds later that I see Mimi emerge as well. I glance back. Victor is floating face-down in the pool. He’s not sinking. Got some body fat, I guess.

Events fade and grow dim in my memory at this point. I get loaded into an ambulance. I don’t think they gave me anything for my leg wound, but after the adrenaline crashes I get woozy anyway. I fall asleep, and this time it is the dreamless, catatonic sleep of physical and emotional exhaustion.

I awake at Holy Cross Health very early Saturday morning. I manage to get a nurse to give me some info. I also see it on the news. Livia and Mimi are fine. I have a deep cut and lost some blood, and a slight concussion, but I’m mostly intact. The nurse says I’ll be walking on Sunday. No tendons severed. I had a transfusion, apparently. Great — I have a common blood type, and Mimi and Livia know it. There was a bear attack at Summers. I see it reported in the local news. The bar is closed for the foreseeable future. I’m not too worried for them — it’s the second-last day of Spring Break, and they made an absolute killing this year.

The local news channel reports it in a very skewed way, and mixes in the coverage of the bear attack with what I can only call innuendo about what went down on Monday and Wednesday. They’re talking about it as public masturbation, I guess. I’m initially outraged at the yellow journalism — trying to tie together the Gemini Escalation and Victor.

Then I realize there might actually be a link. On Wednesday, a relatively nice and chill crowd of guys got their rocks off through Livia’s hypnotism. On Friday, a different crowd, harder and meaner, shows up for whatever reason — but probably one related to Wednesday. There’s some kind of a fight inside Summers. The bear gets out. Shit goes down.

A pleasant blonde nurse gives me the skinny. She knows our show, heard about it on the local grapevine. She suggests I say my leg is more serious than it is, that I should stay another night at the hospital. I’m apparently under arrest when I leave. Charges include public indecency, disorderly conduct, negligent manslaughter, inciting a riot and operating an aerial vehicle without a license. And, if I had any doubt that the charges are just a wee bit trumped-up, that goes away when I learn Mimi’s getting charged with animal cruelty! There was a human stampede at Summers, as the crowd tried to flee Victor. Several people ended up with broken bones. Nobody died, thankfully. Someone easily could have.

The nurse explains that this is normal for Fort Lauderdale. Spring Break drives the economy, but the locals are really sharply divided over whether they like it or not. Local news tends to pander to that. I get the impression I could probably finangle some “tender loving care” out of the nurse if I did stay an extra night at the hospital, but I don’t want to. I ask her how I really am. I’ve got a row of stitches. There will be a small scar, and I need to keep the leg bandages on for the next several days. I can walk with a crutch, but it will mend better if I avoid that. Don’t stress the leg for the next few days. Well, how soon can I engage in strenuous activities that don’t actively involve it? As soon as I feel up to it, she tells me with a wink.

I should go. I need to see Mimi and Livia. I go downstairs, charge my hospital bill to the Trips’ expense account and speak to the arresting officers. They’re actually reasonably nice. I ask if they can drive me down to the Beast. The Trips already own a wheelchair, from when Mimi tore a tendon in that bumper car. So the kind officers let me grab that, and also put on some decent clothes. Then it’s down to Broward County Jail. The cops there are not as nice. The Sheriff of the County actually meets me there. I’m under detailed investigation, apparently, and shouldn’t leave Lauderdale for a week. They take a lengthy statement, which they then categorically disbelieve.

The cops have chips on their shoulders, I can tell that — but I don’t blame them. My narrative of the bear attack sounds pretty self-aggrandizing when I actually repeat it, and when I get into what Mimi did it just starts sounding insane. I tell them everything about Friday, leaving out only the bit about Helen and Emma getting topless. I decline to answer any questions about Monday or Wednesday. Nothing illegal or deleterious to public order took place at those shows, I state, and as a magic show they must accept that we need to protect the secrets of our trade. So I get taken to the actual interrogation room and put under the hot lights. No, seriously, like on Miami Vice. It’s surreal.

An elderly sergeant quizzes me about the Trips’ involvement with Satanic cult activity. I have to fill out a special printed-out form with check boxes affirming that I have never knelt before a goat altar, been to a graveyard orgy, visited the Kremlin, witnessed a ritual human sacrifice or played Dungeons and Dragons. I’m a Methodist, Ma’am, we don’t go in for those kinds of rituals. Contradicts the Wesleyan theology.

Is Methodism a subversive cult? Does it promote anarchism, espionage or polygamy? Does it cause autism? No, it’s a fairly mainstream Christian denomination. Look it up, you goddamn loons! They want to know if Livia is able to alter memories. That’s an unusually specific question. I don’t know, I tell them. Ask her. Does she erase memories of ritual Satanic child abuse? Raucous laughter is the most credible response to give to that question, so that’s what I use. My interrogators finally just collapse in on themselves, realizing they’re turning into parody cops off the set of the Aykroyd Dragnet remake. Confidence, my friends! It’s for more than just macking!

It finally clicks with me. The cops already know we have some kind of impunity. Livia must have called someone right after being arrested. They’re social conservatives, and from Florida, and they’ve imagined reasons for our impunity that are rather more colorful than the truth. In a moment of sad irony, though, I realize they’re not that far off. We did once have a powerful pedophile as a patron. It sounds so sinister, until you remember that he never actually touched a child in his life, and Livia might be part of the reason he had such a record. And he’s been dead for years. The rest of our guardian angels are just garden-variety dirty old men.

I finally wind up in a jail cell. Isn’t there some cliché that you haven’t “done” Spring Break unless you wind up in a jail cell? Well... here we are. The officers are kind enough to toss me in the same one Livia and Mimi are in. The girls have their own cell — anything less would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. They were also given a jacket and blanket to cover their skimpy costumes, which is good — even if they do look to have been confiscated from a male hobo. People in the cells opposite us are not friendly. It’s more of the same, the mean crowd from Summers. The three of us cluster together and whisper quietly.

“Aren’t we supposed to be immune to this?” Mimi asks, drawing the jacket more tightly around herself to cover her latex costume.

“We are,” Livia tells her. “They don’t distribute lists of people so protected to Podunk hick Sheriffs. That would be just a wee bit conspicuous. But I made a call, and we’ll be out of here in a few days.”

“Public indecency is a cool charge to be immune to,” I opine. “Negligent manslaughter not so much. There was a stampede. People got hurt. I’m okay with cops arresting any suspicious people on the site. We didn’t actually do anything. It will get sorted.”

Mimi nods uncertainly, looking vulnerable. I feel an intense surge of gratitude toward her, mixed in with a protective impulse. As I ease myself down beside the girls, I almost reach over to pat Mimi’s head, just like Livia did back at Remedial — but I stifle the impulse. I want to see her feel that intense burst of contentment, but it would be pretty inappropriate and invasive to her relationship with Livia for anyone else to try that. Besides, I doubt it would work for other people anyway — Livia’s triggers tend to be careful and specific.

“Someone has definitely earned herself a head-pat,” I tell Livia. “She saved my life, and Helen and Emma’s as well.”

“Not here,” Mimi protests.

Livia just leans over and kisses her on the shoulder instead. “You did great, baby. Thank you, now and always.”

Livia fills me in. There was a brawl inside Summers. It did involve us, but only indirectly. Bunch of jealousy and homophobia between thugs. People wanted to wrestle the bear, prove their masculinity. Handler says no. Crowd’s mean. Handler gets his clock punched. Severe concussion, apparently. Untrained Summers staff try to deal with the bear at the same time a brawl is breaking out. There’s a stabbing. Biker gangs are suspected. Shit goes down. Livia got the skinny from our friendly Summers security lady, who got it from her coworkers. What a mess.

Of all people, Cherry shows up to post our bail only a few hours later, looking very chic in tweed formal-wear. Ten thousand dollars — nice sum. Well, she’s got rich family. I hope she doesn’t have to answer to anybody over this. (We will pay her back within days.) She drives us to collect Scarlet, which is a bit banged up on the exterior — but thankfully the immeasurably valuable interior is unharmed.

Summers has suffered damages. Substantial ones. It looks frankly post-apocalyptic. But they’ve also made headlines and a big profit. I hope they’re good, but I’ve got other priorities right now. Cherry drives us to the Great Beast. We are so thankful, all three of us! We will pay the money back really soon! She doesn’t care. There is one little thing we could do, though...

“There’s obviously not going to be a wet t-shirt contest at Summers, but there’s one at noon on Sunday at the Candy Store, on the last day of Spring Break. Would you be there to cheer for me?”

We sure would, Cherry. We sure would.