The Blue Orchid Program

Lucien not only made her aware of those walls, but also showed her how easy he found it to pierce or surmount them, and thereby find a secret and hidden Claire within.

Of course, sex or intimacy of any kind with Lucien had been utterly out of the question as far as Claire had been concerned. She was simply not that kind of woman. But then came Roger's death, and after the initial trauma and upset were over, there was nothing really to stop Claire other than the common decency and respect she felt was due Roger's memory. But the more she thought about that, the more she decided she owed Roger's memory about as much common decency and respect as he'd shown her throughout their marriage, and so Claire decided that as long as she and Lucien were scrupulously discreet, there was nothing really to stop them.

And scrupulously discreet they were, the secrecy of their plans striking Claire as being deliciously subversive and doing much to put her into an unusually daring and (for her) wicked mindset. Everything about that night was clear in her mind, but what really stood out now—what she was fixated on--was that moment in the elevator when, locked together in a deep, romantic kiss, Lucien slid his hand into her hair at the back of her head and pulled her head back, shocking her and making her gasp before his mouth came down on hers again with a kiss of such passion, desire, and raw emotion that she was momentarily shocked.

She'd had no experience of Lucien. She'd never so much as kissed him before that night. She'd had no sex with any man for 20 years. What was he doing?

No one had ever kissed her like this. It was like a movie kiss, a kiss she might see on TV, dramatic and over-the-top. She'd always figured those kisses were just nonsense, hyped-up Hollywood excess—acting. Real people didn't kiss like that. Not real grown-up people like the ones she knew: pawing at each other and tearing at each other's clothes, attacking each other like living cannibals.

But apparently no one had told Lucien that and he wasn't done with her. He pulled her head back further until she was forced to let go of her embrace and lean back in an extreme arch, exposing her upper body and thrusting her tits out whereupon Lucien caught one nipple in his open mouth and sucked it right through blouse and bra, with such force and avidity that she felt it in her toes, felt it in her pussy and in the pit of her stomach, like some insidious, molten heat. And suddenly she realized that he was serious and that this was something new.

This was something from one of her dreams, one of her fantasies, where dark, faceless men ravished her body and tormented her flesh and did wild and savage things to her, things she could never discern or see for sure, but could feel through her desperate excitement and need for this savagery. But those were fantasies, just like the Hollywood kisses; they were things foggy and unclear and not truly real. They were certainly nothing that she'd ever encountered in real life or would probably ever encounter: things that probably didn't exist.

And yet now she was here, and Lucien was doing those things to her, totally breaking through her shields and protective barriers and summoning up the incandescent heat or her dreams, and Claire had no idea how to respond or what to do. Surely she was too old for this, too serious and reserved. She'd been ready to meet him as the Claire she knew, politely romantic, caring, in charge and in control. But that version of Claire that she'd always been able to hold up in front of her like a shield and a barrier was burning up and melting under Lucien's savage, impassioned onslaught, and she wasn't sure what to do.

His lips went from her breast back to her mouth, where he found her lips slack with confusion and uncertainty and quickly overran her defenses. He pulled her body against his then slammed them both against the elevator wall and shoved his hand down between her legs and grabbed her sex, squeezing it through her clothes as he kissed her.

"Lucien, stop it! What are you doing? Stop it!"

That was too much for Claire. It was crude, disrespectful.

But he didn't stop. He had his left arm around her shoulders, her right arm trapped against his body. Now he managed to grab her other arm as well, and hold it in the same hand that encircled her shoulders, leaving her essentially defenseless with both arms pinned behind her, her back arched and breasts vulnerable and thrust out tight against her blouse. He ravaged her tits with his right hand, squeezing and massaging, plucking at her nipples beneath her blouse and bra, pushing her boobs roughly around on her chest in a manner like he was playing with her as he kissed her again with a fierce passion that took her breath away and silenced all protest.

And now at last she understood, or at least her body did. Her body understood on a physiological level, a level of feeling and emotion that went way deeper than the brittle shell of her persona, the person she knew and recognized as Claire, and she felt rather than realized the dark, powerful, irresistible emotions that seemed to come bubbling out of her: her needs, her hungers, her desires.

She collapsed against him, mewling softly into his kiss, overcome by a force inside her she just could not understand: a force that demanded her surrender and submission and utter capitulation. This force came streaming out of her like a liquid shadow or a spirit arisen, and like a dim ghost or dark indistinct runner it was suddenly pursuing her, and even though she didn't move she felt it gaining on her and gaining on her until finally it passed over her in a rush of thrilling darkness and grabbed hold of her as it passed and pulled her along with it. And just like that it laid claim to her and claimed her body and then claimed her entire being. She stopped fighting and stopped refusing and she pressed back at him, as trapped as she was, pushed back and offered her body to him and urged him to take it, because nothing had ever felt this good or so wildly exciting and right.

He grabbed her breast again like that, possessive and selfish, using her, and this time a moaning gasp burst from her lips and her body reacted, arcing and pushing her tits out, presenting them for more of his rough abuse, seeking it. His roughness set something off in her she'd never felt before, and she wanted more. It was rude, selfish, and she wanted more.

The elevator stopped at their floor and the doors opened. But not ready to break their clinch he pushed his foot into the track and kept it there as the door tried to close and hit his foot and bounced open, tried to close and hit his foot and bounced open, and he kept her there like that till he was sure she understood. Then he released her and they staggered down the hallway and made it to their room.

Their first bout of love-making was beautiful but conventional, the passion throttled back by his need to respect her for this, their first time. The sex wonderful and satisfying but didn't give her what she wanted now, which was the return of that black phantom pulling her out of herself and setting her free, the feel of his own lust and desire making her open and molten.

But later that night, awakening from their post-coital sleep in the dim, early hours of the morning, his attitude changed. His kisses, his touch, became more aggressive and demanding. He somehow took command of her, as if her body and tender affections weren't enough for him anymore and he wanted something more. He held her wrists down, touched and teased her and wouldn't let her respond. He somehow maneuvered her onto her knees, into a position Claire had never allowed because it had always seemed too bestial and degrading when Roger had suggested it. But now she hardly had time to think, let alone argue or object, and his physical desire was ratcheted to a new level, thrillingly obscene and compelling. He got her into position and again grabbed her hair and pulled her head up and any objection she might have had just stuck in her throat, no match for the weird unfamiliar thrill she felt inside.

He used her, fucking into her like she was a common trollop, slamming into her from behind as she knelt with her ass up and face pressed into the bed in a position she had never assumed and with a force and possessiveness she had never imagined, let alone experienced.

She was shocked at first, horrified, and yet the pleasure she took from his savage treatment was its own reward and didn't seem to give a damn about her sense of outrage. It took up residence inside her where it glowed like a lamp, proof that she still had the ability to rouse a man to such acts of erotic passion and outrage. He'd grabbed her wrists and held her arms behind her and had his way with her, and despite her middle-of-the-night fogginess and her shock at being so violated, it was without doubt the best sex she'd ever had, raw and impassioned and real. She'd clung to him as orgasm took her body once and then again, almost against her will, the first orgasms she'd ever had from simple coitus.

This was an entirely new conception of sex, like nothing she'd ever known with Roger. In bed, Lucien treated her as if she was a different person, an object of pleasure unknown even to herself, and he reached beneath the Claire she knew to find fresh new earth and rivers of feeling, and for Claire, it felt something like being truly naked and exposed for the first time in her life. It frightened her and she loved it. And at the end, after the climaxes and the shuddering releases, the way he reached for her and folded her into his arms in a cherishing embrace totally overcame what traces of fear and uncertainty remained. In that one night she came to trust him implicitly.

And so when he proposed going ahead and booking her stay at the Hotel Pavane, Niecy at once came forward and offered to pay for it and Claire could hardly refuse. It had already been settled that what Claire most desperately needed at this point was a re-launch: a total make-over physically, mentally, spiritually, and—it went without saying—sexually. She was facing the second half of her life, and she couldn't do it with same old Claire. And somehow it became dogma between Lucien and Niecy that such a change could only be accomplished at the Pavane. Exactly why that was and how this change was to be accomplished was never really discussed, and Claire never really asked.

II.A. The Journey

And so Mme. Claire Albemarle Arisette, following her bellman and his antique luggage cart to her room, somewhere in the maze of the sprawling and recondite Hotel Pavane, through the sumptuous but shadowy lobby to one of the banks of curiously-placed elevators of varying designs and eras, then up a floor, down a corridor, past a gallery, a reading room smelling of prepared food, more corridors, sitting rooms, past stairs, passages, more elevators... The labyrinthine nature of the place and clash of styles from different eras and periods is at first puzzling, then annoying, absurd, and finally comical. The chaos is no doubt deliberate, intended to confuse and disorient the guests while giving them the impression of another world, one as deep and convoluted as their own desires. But once aware of that, its experience is almost comical.

"My, this is a confusing place," she tells her bellman as she follows him. "I wonder that I shall ever find my way back out."

He looks back at her and smiles. "That's intentional, of course. Whenever they add on to the hotel, they just slap it on and add to the confusion. They could renovate and make things more straightforward, but they want you to feel that the hotel is a maze that just goes on and on, and that you're forever lost inside it. But you'll find your way to whatever you need easily enough, I guarantee. Or it will find you."

The bellman's name is Paul, and he's hardly more than a boy, though clearly a boy poised at the very edge of manhood, with a sureness and confidence to his moves that show none of that awkward gangliness so common in boys of his age. He's lean but well-built, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist: a swimmer's body, Claire imagines, of the type that so much appeals to her in her secret thoughts, and one that manages to convey that lazy young strength, even through the confines of that quaint old-fashioned bellboy's uniform.

She admires his grace, and is thankful that he doesn't try to fill the silence with awkward small talk. His silence is much sexier, and allows her the opportunity of pursuing her own salacious imaginings. The smile he occasionally gives her is open and charming, and seems so totally devoid of any trace of a leer or salacious intent that for an alarming moment she wonders if he might be gay, or even—perish the thought!— one of those rare young gods of such Apollonian beauty that he's too much a narcissist to even be interested in others at all.

Which is suddenly not the case for Claire, who finds that, whatever their rationale, this labyrinthine architecture and the long, disorienting trek to her room has the definite effect of dispelling all that unpleasant nervousness and anxiety she'd felt back at check-in. She now feels totally disoriented but not in an especially bad way, more like imbued with the atmosphere of the hotel: a maze, a tangled plexus of human wants and desires, without sense, without end.

She feels not like her usual self, but perhaps something like a younger version? A version that was still aware of a future and of possibilities before she got caught up in satisfying the needs of others, and lost sight of herself down some particular hallway.

Lucien had specifically picked out the clothes he wanted her to wear for her arrival at the Pavane, telling her that this would be a moment of great symbolic significance, too important to be left to Claire's mere fashion whims.

She understood this on one level and agreed, having no desire to begin a hoped-for new life in the clothes of her old self. But the clothes he'd chosen puzzled her. He'd selected a simple black skirt, slim but not snug, shorter than anything she would have chosen for herself but not especially daring, and clearly intended to show off her legs in their gray nylons; legs, he informed her, which were still remarkably fine. Naturally busty, on top she wore a casual but very feminine gauzy black blouse patterned in large pink and red roses, her modesty insured by an elegant fringed shawl. And because the cut and drape of her clothes suggested the Paris of the '40's and because the Hotel Pavane demanded a certain bit of drama, he topped off the ensemble with an iconic 40's style pill box hat with a stylish retro-contemporary face veil.

"Oh, Lucien!" she'd complained. "The veil is too much. People will stare."

"Not where you're going," he said. "At the Pavane, women dress to express their inner nature."

"And this is my inner nature? This is who you think I am?"

"That veil that suggests secrecy while being too sheer to truly hide anything?" he'd asked with a knowing smile. "Yes. I think that's a fairly good approximation of who you are. Veils of that era were always about attracting attention, and attracting attention is so unlike the old Claire that nobody will recognize you in one."

"As to who you really are," he said. "Well, that's what we're at the Pavane to find out, isn't it?"

Lucien was a hair-dresser by trade, with two shops and a very high-end trade, He had a fine eye for female beauty, and a creative and uncanny imagination for style. He'd been standing behind her at her mirror and had gathered her hair behind her head as he regarded her face with a critical eye.

Claire had been wearing no makeup at the time, and was painfully aware of the fine lines and other signs of age on her face. His gaze was brutal, yet at the same time something in Claire just melted when he treated her like this, manipulated and designed her and made her into what he wanted.

"We'll want some earrings," he mused. "Gold and rather plain. Simple. We'll let your outfit express your age, but not as age, do you see? Rather as style."

The final touch had been the gorgeously wicked leather corset he'd found for her, set with rows of silken laces which, he assured her, were meant to be used. "You tighten these, and these, to cinch in the waist and exaggerate the hips and bust. No bra, the lace cups with be enough. But it must be tight. The corset is the tray you serve yourself on, Claire. Make it a good one."

In the end it was an outfit of some genius, both chic and warmly alluring, part fashion, part costume, and part advertisement, and exhibiting both Claire's essential dignity as well as her new willingness to explore. And now, as she accompanied her luggage through the halls of the hotel, it was having an effect on her, arousing her. Rather than dwell on the libidinous notions that were increasingly assaulting her, she turned her attention to her companion.

"How long have you worked here, Paul?" she asked him in a most respectable manner.

"At the hotel, Madame? Or in this wing?"

"Wing?"

He smiled. "The hotel is organized into wings, so we can group our guests according to their desires and preferences. Years ago, as I understand, the wings were actual areas in the hotel, but as it expanded, they became merely a way of organizing guests according to their particular needs and wants."

"Oh? And what wing am I in?"

As if on cue, Paul stopped the cart before a door, took out a key and opened the solid-sounding lock, then stepped into the room, holding the door for her. "Your suite, Madame," he said.

Claire stepped into the suite, and Paul added: "As for your wing? That information's usually confidential, for select staff use only, but I don't mind telling you that you're in M wing, Madame, which is my own personal favorite. and I hope you won't take it the wrong way when I tell you that M is for "Mature," and that I work here by request, as these are the guests I most enjoy serving."

He pulled two bags from the trolley and added, "Present company most definitely included."

He gave her a smile that left no doubt as to what he was suggesting, yet also conveyed such obvious pleasure and open admiration that she felt a iteral thrill in the pit of her stomach. She stepped past him, caught up in a sudden rush of pride and embarrassment. She was no stranger to a gentlemen's lewd intentions, whether conveyed as coy flattery or as flagrant proposition, but it had been more years now than she liked to think about, and never had she experienced one that came with such simple directness.

Nor, she realized, one that was so eminently plausible.

Because again, as she stepped into the suite she was hit by actuality of her present circumstances: where she was, why she was there, what she wanted now, and how she was going to get it.

"Remember," Lucien had told her. "You're not just going for a week's vacation. You're registering for an immersive role-play experience, which means most of the people you'll encounter are in on the game and playing too, so pay attention. You'll be in play from the moment you register, so be on your guard. And, most importantly, see that you make the best use of every situation.

"You'll be in play from the moment you register...

Fool that she was, despite her idle fantasizing about him, she'd never imagined that Paul might be part of her game. But now there was no doubt, and it was up to her to initiate action and she realized she had no idea of how to proceed.

Paul was walking around, talking about the room, showing her where the light switches were and the call buttons, explaining how the television and telephone worked. Claire stood in the bedroom by where Paul had placed her bags with no idea of how to proceed or what to do next.