Blood Test

I searched for something to stand on, saw only the sundial. It was solid stone, far too heavy to carry. Roots had wrapped themselves around the base. By rocking it back and forth I was able to free it from its earthly mooring. Laboriously I rolled it to the window, hoisted myself up, and peeked in through folds of brocade.

The huge domed room was brightly lit, the biblical murals vivid to the point of vulgarity. Matthias sat in its center, cross-legged and naked, on a padded mat. His long body was as thin as a fakir’s, soft and pale. Other mats ringed the periphery of the cathedral. Cultists squatted on them, fully garbed, men to the left, women to the right.

The pine table that had been at the center of the room during my first visit was pushed back behind the guru. One of the men — the black-bearded giant from the vineyard — stood by it. Several red porcelain bowls sat on the table. I wondered what was in them.

Matthias meditated.

The flock waited silently and patiently as their shepherd retreated into an internal world, eyes closed, palms pressed together. He swayed and hummed and his penis began to harden, tilting upward. The others gazed at the tumescing organ as if it were sacred. When he was fully erect he opened his eyes and stood.

Stroking himself, he regarded his followers with authoritarian smugness.

“Let the Touch begin!” he thundered in a deep metallic voice.

A woman rose, fortyish, pudgy, and fair. She walked daintily to the table. Blackbeard inserted a golden straw into one of the bowls. The woman stooped and put her nose to it, sniffed hard and inhaled the powder up into her sinuses.

The cocaine must have been high-quality. It took effect quickly. She swooned and grinned, broke into a giggle and did a little dancelike shuffle.

“Magdalene,” called Matthias.

She walked to him, undid her clothes and stood naked before her master. Her body was pink and plump, the buttocks marbled and stippled. She knelt and took him in her mouth, licking, nibbling, breasts bobbling with each movement. Matthias rocked on his heels, gritting his teeth with pleasure. She serviced him as the others watched until he pushed her head away and gestured for her to go.

She rose, walked to the left side of the cathedral and stood in front of the men, arms at her sides, completely at ease.

Matthias spoke the name “Luther.”

A short man, bald and stooped, with a full gray beard, stood and disrobed. Upon command he went to the table, received a giant snootful of coke from the giant. Another stage direction from Matthias led him and the chubby woman to the center of the room. She dropped to her knees, teased him hard and lay down on her back. The bald man mounted her and they copulated frantically.

The next woman to dip into the snow and kneel before the guru was tall, bony, and Spanish-looking. She was paired with a heavily built, bespectacled, florid man who looked like he’d been an accountant in a former life. He had an unusually small penis and the angular woman seemed to swallow it whole as she worked energetically to arouse him. Soon the two of them joined the first couple in the horizontal dance on the cathedral floor.

The third woman was Delilah. Her body was freakishly youthful, lithe, and firm. Matthias kept her with him longer than the first two and had four other women join in. They ministered to him like drones servicing a queen bee. Finally he released them and assigned them partners.

In the course of twenty minutes a fortune in coke had been consumed, with no letup in sight. I saw people go back for seconds and thirds, all in response to commands from Matthias. When one bowl was depleted the giant simply shoved his straw into another.

The padded mats held a writhing mass of wriggling bodies. The scene was sexual without being sensual, depressingly lacking in spontaneity, a mindless ritual, codified, choreographed, and based on the whims of one megalomaniac. A nod from Matthias and the cultists tumbled and thrust. The crook of an eyebrow and they heaved and moaned. I couldn’t help being reminded of the maggots blindly burrowing through the meat in Garland Swope’s greenhouse.

A roar rose from the cultists. Matthias had spurted. Women scurried to lick him clean. He lay back, sated, but their attentions made him hard again and the action resumed.

I’d seen enough. Climbing down from the sundial, I walked quietly to the gate. The two sentries were approaching from the right, brown-bearded, grim-faced, and goose-stepping in rhythm. I stepped back into the shadows until they had passed. When they’d turned the corner I sprinted out of the courtyard and raced to the iron-banded front door. Pulling it open a crack I peeked through and found the entrance unguarded. From behind the doors of the sanctuary came sounds of muffled bleating and the rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh.