Arcadia Pt. 01

At the end there was muted applause which, Olivia had advised beforehand, was not a critique of my performance. The aesthetic tenet of the Arcadia Club was a sort of detached, abstract decadence. Displays of passion were considered gauche except when flesh joined with flesh. But there was a second part to the ceremony, the raison d'être of the Arcadians. Olivia tied a blindfold around my head. It was a black satin sash which conformed so well to the contours of my cheekbones that it shut out every scintilla of light and I could not even raise my eyelids. It felt deliciously cool after my exertion. She bound my wrists behind my back, with a silk rope like Richard had used on Rachel, not very taut. She asked me to kneel, and I heard the shuffling of feet as people moved in a circle about me. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder, and fingers at my throat. A chain was attached to my choker and lightly pulled upwards, to get me to stand up, then tugged so I followed its lead to the sex chamber.

I had no say in who claimed this first possession of my body, nor in how it was decided. I sensed that the room was empty but for the two of us, and I still didn't know who it was holding my leash. He untied my wrists. Then, with his hands rather than words, he made me lie on my tummy on one of the large cushions. I cringed, fearing that the penetration might be anal (which I've never liked). But I decided to stick it out (so to speak), not wanting to breach tradition, and relaxed when I felt his penis probing the portal of my vagina. He pushed his hands between my chest and the cushion, raising me off it, kneading my breasts, tickling and squeezing my nipples. He nibbled my neck and pulled at my hair with his teeth.

Because I'm small and appear more fragile than I actually am, I was apprehensive that he might hold back. I needn't have been concerned. But that was the end of the foreplay, such as it was.

I lifted my body to get onto my hands and knees and spread my thighs, a difficult posture to maintain atop the squishy cushion. I became unsteady and began to quiver as he nuzzled my clitoris. He eased himself a little way in and out maybe a dozen times until I was wet, flushed and starting to moan. Then he lunged and pushed into me, so deep and so hard that I expelled a gasp and a groan, long and loud. Soon I lost strength in my arms and sank back down, first resting on my forearms with my face buried in the cushion, then completely prone. He came down with me, continuing to thrust. He was big and fit snugly within me, but in this position my cleft was tighter and his pounding was like that of a velvet hammer. He lifted me up again, with his arms around my waist. This put pressure on my insides, raising the intensity to almost unbearable heights. I still had no idea who was inside me.

And it was strange, as he tensed up in that climactic moment when he spurted into me and I felt the warmth flowing from his body to mine, that I was sharing the most intimate moment a woman can have with a man I did not know -- submitting and gifting myself to him, letting him fill me with his seed and make my body his domain. But there was something about this that was enrapturing, as if morality and custom and expectation had been transcended, and I had become a willing captive in a world of raw sensation, of undiluted, unrefined eroticism.

When he finally withdrew from me, I lay sweating and panting face-down on the cushion. I thought we were finished, but he turned me onto my back and this time came in by the front entrance. At the end we were both exhausted. He could have moved on to other positions, but instead he lay on top of me, still inside me, his body pressing down on mine. All throughout I had remained passive, not inert but content to be the vessel for his desire. We hadn't spoken a word; but there was a connection that went beyond physical coupling. By consenting to being chosen by an anonymous man, I had made the invitation, welcoming him into my body. Now, with the pressure of his weight making me breathless, for the first time I stroked his back, and to my astonishment I realized I was feeling the fabric of his shirt. I wondered if he'd taken his trousers completely off, or left them straddling his ankles.

I softly pulled upwards on his shirt. He got the message and raised himself off me. Before we rejoined the party, he bound my wrists behind my back once more. Outside the chamber, my hands were immediately untied and my blindfold removed. Emily and a few of the other women embraced me. I'm glad no one said "Welcome to the club."

Looking about, seeing so many pairs of eyes focused on me, I was tempted to ask "Did I pass the audition?" I resisted the urge.

I never found out for certain who the man was; he had immediately disappeared into the crowd; and I wasn't told (although I have a notion). He hadn't used a condom. I'd suspected that would be the case before the evening, when my application for admission to the Arcadians included a medical certificate with an all-clear. I also had to nominate a male partner (and chose Richard) to bring along. So at the time I had asked "Is this a swingers' club?" And Olivia's answer was intriguingly vague. "We commit ourselves to experience all pleasures without attachments."

I passed around the room, virtually in a daze, until I settled into a group of half a dozen women. It was strange, when I think about it, because we were discussing second- and third-wave feminism while reposing nude on luscious cushions like harem girls. And as if to complete the picture, three men approached, and we looked at each other with surfeited resignation. One the men was Jonathan. He tapped me on the shoulder. I rose to my feet and he attached his chain to my choker. He also summoned Amelia. The other men also chose two women each, and the six of us went to the sex chamber.

One of the ottoman couches was available. (I was pleased that Jonathan picked it, because there were also a footstool and a cushion vacant.) A female attendant was brushing it down, and I wondered who had last used it. Jonathan asked Amy and me to sit and blindfold each other, then lie on our backs in opposite directions. The couch was large enough for us to recline side-by-side with our thighs opened, but our feet were on the carpet. I felt Amy's hand touching mine and I clasped it.

Jonathan surprised me, in a good way. As I braced to be penetrated, instead I felt the tickle of a feather on my lips, my cheeks, my breasts, my belly, my labia. My skin tingled with goosebumps. Then I felt Amy's thighs press gently against my head as she spread her legs to make room for Jonathan. The couch began to heave and the girl began to moan. Her fingers tightened around mine. I turned my face away. It was surreal to be lying there, immobile and sightless, with this rumbusticating happening right beside my head. I could hear with utmost clarity all of the weird and wonderful sounds I discovered the body makes during sex -- the queefing, the squelching, the slapping, the slurping. It wasn't very romantic, but it was breathtaking in its intimate intensity.

Amy sighed and her legs went limp, so I parted my knees and waited. Jonathan was taking a breather, caressing my crease to prepare me; but I was already totally, perfectly aroused. I wanted him, needed him -- Jonathan of all people -- inside me. He must have been kneeling on the floor. As he pushed into me, he leaned forward to kiss me, not on the lips but my blindfold. His hands slid under my thighs and lifted my feet off the floor until my knees squeezed his chest. It was exhilarating, invigorating, intoxicating. I wanted it to go on forever, and I didn't hold back with my shrieks of ecstasy. I must have screamed in his ear. When it ended I felt embarrassed, and I'm ashamed to say that this was because it was to Jonathan that I surrendered my body and lost control.

Yet I had misjudged him, at least in some ways. (I should have taken in that his invitation to join the Arcadians preceded mine.) In any case, when he led us back outside and removed the chains from our collars, he did so without any fuss, instead with tact and dignity.

The night went on, but for me there were no more excursions to the smaller chamber. However, there was to be one more quirk in this remarkable soirée of sex. At exactly midnight the quartet played gentle music and we slow-danced in our original couples. Yet I knew it would not be ordinary when I felt Richard's hand between my crotch and his. He undid his trouser fly and smoothly implanted his penis in me. Thus did we dance. (I was expecting something outré to happen, so I wasn't shocked; and I had been wet down there for most of the evening, so the insertion wasn't difficult.) Despite a little chafing from the teeth of the zipper, it was not a great challenge keeping him inside me, because we hardly moved from one spot, turning in a small circle. His legs were astride mine, so his thighs squeezed mine, making it a tight fit. But even though he had to bend a bit at the knees, I had to stand on my tiptoes and my leg muscles began to ache. (It was easier for the women in high heels and the taller ones like Olivia.)

Our movements had the inevitable effect. Richard managed to control himself until the music climaxed with a jubilant crescendo. Thereupon, with a loud sigh, he spilled into me. All around the room, the bare bodies pressed against bespoke wool, cashmere and silk tensed and shuddered briefly, then loosened. In concordance, the music mellowed and subsided.

Olivia crowned the event with a final note of singular strangeness, when she announced "Don't worry about the carpet," and I realized that many of us were dripping onto it.

After that, things petered out. By about one o'clock perhaps a third of the guests had departed and the rest of us were winding down with liqueurs and late-night cocktails. I was lolling on one of the ottomans talking to Emily and a couple of other women when one of the men came up to us. He was intense-looking, dark-haired and dark-eyed, with an aristocratic, recherché style that seemed slightly effete. I had seen him throughout the evening, of course, but had not spoken to him. He introduced himself as Justin with a courtly bow and held out his hand, which I felt tempted to kiss but shook instead. He took mine and stroked it with his other hand. It was the classic flirting gesture, and I knew an offer was about to be made. I glanced at Emily who smiled and nodded. I heard her thoughts.

"You won't be going home tonight."