Chapter 19: Lauderdale Dreaming

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 9 1/2 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.