Quiver

Dee turned and smiled, all four bottles were open, with two tabs of ecstasy dissolving in each. “Me? Landscape gardener and general maverick.” He took a swig of champagne and handed a bottle to Sandra, who had produced ten plastic cups with little red Santas printed on the sides.

Jodie spoke for Quin. “And this is…I don’t know, because he’s deaf, but he’s awfully sweet.”

Katherine turned and rapidly signed to Quin, who replied: Q-U-I-N. Quin. Jodie pronounced his name aloud, the word hanging like shy fruit before the others, who warmed to this smiling, gawky man nodding wildly at them.

Humphrey raised his cup. “I think we should make a toast. To confined spaces and the promiscuity of bats.” And they all drank deeply, for the heat had made them thirsty.

Twenty minutes later the elevator still hasn’t moved. Katherine is feeling relaxed—very relaxed. She leans against the elevator wall and contemplates taking her clothes off. The air, although warm, is not stale, as a slight breeze drifts down from the open panel in the ceiling. Everyone seems to be in an unusually friendly mood. Katherine puts this down to the psychology of being trapped. She vaguely remembers reading that situations such as this can be powerful bonding experiences. Did the article mention whether it would be a strong aphrodisiac? She turns to Sandra to ask her, only to discover that Quin is massaging Sandra’s legs, his long hands deftly working oil into her shapely calves.

“It’s the massage oil I bought for Brian. I thought it might be fun to try it,” Sandra says, and giggles. Katherine laughs back. It seems perfectly natural that Sandra should let a total stranger massage her legs with her husband’s Christmas present. Katherine takes off her silk blouse and sits there in her lace bra. Karl hardly notices. He seems too caught up in describing the inherent sensuality of Mozart to Deidre. A standard seduction trick of his, this would normally have irritated her, but now she is just amused and pleased for him. The image of Deidre with her hair wild in the throes of an orgasm actually seems mildly erotic to Katherine. In fact she is even finding the styrofoam ceiling erotic.

Humphrey sits opposite her in a corner. She can barely make out his eyes, but she can feel them on her flesh, like probing fingers. She likes knowing that he finds her attractive. She runs one hand down her breast, baring a nipple for a second. No one is watching except him, but he doesn’t move. She wants him fiercely, wants him to touch her, to show her the cock she’d seen the outline of so clearly before.

Reflected in the metal surface behind Humphrey are Jerome and Dee. They have been avidly talking about the problems of the Chicago Bulls, as if to reassert their masculinity. Dee’s hand is on Jerome’s thigh and has been traveling further and further afield as he describes in vivid detail the sporting injuries of Michael Jordan. Jerome is erect. Very slowly, almost imperceptibly, Dee unzips the fly and pulls out Jerome’s member, the head of it hidden by his palm.

“Great player despite the injuries, you’ve got to admit,” Jerome murmurs with his eyes closed, enjoying Dee’s caress. Dee glances around the lift. In the flickering candlelight he can just make out Karl massaging Deidre’s breasts, while Quin appears to be masturbating Sandra as she kisses Jodie passionately. Humphrey has his head up Katherine’s skirt as she stands spread-eagled against one of the walls, while Stacey, flushed and excited, fumbles with Jock’s Super-8 camera.

“Hope that has a light sensor in it,” Dee says to her, before dropping his head onto Jerome’s crotch and swallowing the whole length of his penis. The piped music shifts slightly to the mating song of the great humpbacked whale; ten versions of the same plaintive set of notes, the hit tune of 1986; ten adaptations by ten lonely male whales who were at the time circling the Atlantic.

The mechanics, working some thirty feet above the lift, notice a sudden lull in the conversation and laughter that has been floating up the elevator shaft.

“Party must be over,” mutters one of them.

“Either that or the bonking’s started,” his mate jokes, preoccupied with the mechanics of the job, both of them resenting a crisis call on Christmas Eve.

Back in the elevator the candle is almost out and the low red emergency light transforms the scene into a Bacchanal orgy of splayed limbs, hair and breasts, all reflected back a thousand times in the silver walls. Deidre had decided an hour ago that the whole experience was a dream. She did in fact feel as if she was functioning in the past tense, which made the outrageousness of her behavior so much more acceptable to herself. She was, at present, crouched on all fours, like the wolf bitch that nursed Romulus and Remus. Karl lay beneath her sucking at her breasts. The strange part was that none of this felt the slightest bit decadent; it just felt incredibly natural. There was nothing in her mind except the extraordinary tingling of pleasure extending down from one nipple directly to her clitoris. Karl sighed and ran his tongue down her belly. Her rich odor excited him greatly, and he thought he might come there and then, his erect cock lying rigid and unattended against his own belly. He rolled his eyes backward and could just make out Katherine. The artist was sucking her off under her skirts.

Humphrey emerged flushed, and slid up her standing figure. He kissed her, pushing her breasts up hard in his large hands. Karl found himself wanting to see Katherine come with this man. It was as if the man’s body was an extension of Karl’s, as if it were he kissing her deeply with the taste of her sex flavoring both their mouths. Meanwhile, in the center of the floor lay Sandra. She felt architecturally magnificent, as if she had become some wonderfully designed building by Gaudi. Quin was kneeling over her, running his cock up the inside of her thigh and then thrusting in. Her legs were pinned over her shoulders and held by the ankles by Jodie, whose cunt hovered above Sandra’s face. Fascinated, Sandra spread the lips of the younger woman’s sex—the turf of blond hair over the pubis, the inner lips reddening as Sandra ran a finger around the edge and plunged into the moisture inside. She could see Jodie’s thighs quivering in pleasure as she ran her other hand under the buttocks, one finger slipping into the anus, which tightened around her. She pulled the sex to her mouth, surprised by her own mounting excitement, as if this erect clit was her own. Splitting her farther and spreading the outer lips, she could feel Jodie’s mounting orgasm under her tongue. Quin watched Sandra’s mouth suck and lick the sex of the smaller woman, close to coming himself.

Jerome clutched Dee’s hair, pushing him down farther onto his cock

. This was different—Dee was rough in the way Jerome liked to be touched. As a man, he knew the pleasure spots to probe and tongue. Dee’s ass moved in rhythm with his bobbing head, moving provocatively close to Jerome. He had never fucked a man, but here, in this crimson dream, with the dissembled figures mirrored back, he wanted to be both the taker and the taken. Before him, her legs splayed across a woman’s face, her back arched in pleasure, knelt Jodie. She was not thinking of anything except her swollen cunt and the lips that tugged on it. Suddenly, impulsively, Jerome leaned across and kissed her flushed face, thrusting his tongue deep into her sweet mouth. She lifted her arms, whispering “Please, please,” and placed his hands over her breasts. Still kissing her, he pulled Dee’s face away from his cock and turned him around. Gripping his buttocks hard he plunged into Dee’s asshole. Both his tongue and his cock were circled by tight heat.

Stacey was having trouble focusing the video camera. It wasn’t so much her lack of technical expertise as much as her mounting excitement at the images of entwined legs, arms and genitals. At such close range they filled the screen in a kind of pornographic montage. There was no choice—she was on fire. She steadied the camera with one hand, while the other slid down into her underpants and wrapped itself around her slippery sex.

The entangled bodies rose and heaved, breathing together, each registering the moans and panting of the person nearest, each infected by the other’s excitement. Dee was the first to start; screaming in pleasure he climaxed, waving his arms around wildly. The vibrations of his cry penetrated Quin, whose low groans reached a shrill crescendo as, convulsing wildly, he came in Sandra. Then, like a pack of cards, they all collapsed in orgasm, the women shrieking in unison like a demented flock of rutting bats.

At the pinnacle of the cacophony the elevator shuddered, then dropped into an abrupt free fall. Pleasure became horror, as arms clutched each other, some praying silently while others clung noisily to life screaming as the elevator continued to fall. Finally it came to a sudden jolting halt and, silently, as if deferring to a greater wisdom, the doors slid open, revealing the disheveled orgy to a group of anxiously waiting spouses and friends.