Chapter 2

The evening went even better than Susie had hoped, Brian moodily silent, drinking beer as he watched the TV ball game, then going off to bed and a dead sleep. During the night he erected once, jabbed at her behind but apparently fell asleep again.

In the morning she got him off to work and sat drinking her coffee, smoking a cigarette, and wondering. She felt trapped. If she had a job, made some money to be proud of but she was a house slave, hating the master of her life.

Do something! Something new!

With sudden decision she butted out the cigarette and rose, strode out the kitchen door.

She paused a moment in her yard, gazing at the overgrown hedges about the monstrosity old house next door, at the chicken- wire fence which morning glories grew, at the lattice gate beside the fence. She moved slowly toward the gate, unsure now, afraid she would be disappointed in the new neighbors. But what else had she? Every other woman on the block had a job.

She opened the gate and stepped inside. The new people had certainly been busy.

The overgrown yard was neatly mowed, and flower strips planted against the house. Out back a vegetable garden showed new green shoots. All very tidy.

She climbed steps to the roofed back porch and at the screen kitchen door called in, "Hello! I'm Susie from next door!"

She heard a girl's voice. "Come on in, Susie!"

Entering, Susie found a darkish kitchen with antique equipment, except for a big new automatic washer. A girl was about to dump an armload of wash into it. She had glossy, dark straight hair cut in bangs, and eyes like black velvet. She smiled dazzlingly over the mass of clothing at Susie.

"I'm Rita," she said.

Then she spilled the clothing in and Susie's eyes went round, for Rita's housework costume consisted of a South Seas sarong from waist to mid-thigh, yellow and orange flowers on a blue background. Otherwise she was naked, and came toward Susie with big white breasts wobbling and tossing about.

Rita seized Susie's hands and pressed them warmly in greeting. Then, seeing Susie's blush and her open-mouthed gaping, she laughed.

She said, "You're shocked by my bare boobies, Susie? Well, it's summer. Hot weather. And I'm on a South Seas kick, reading all about Polynesia, learning to dance the hula and play the ukulele, and how to cook fish with bananas. So I wear a sarong like the Hawaiians did before the missionaries got at them, just hip down and hooray for bare tits!"

Susie surprised herself by giggling.

Rita said, "You don't mind? I mean, we're a nutty bunch, the six of us, and we do things different. I don't want to offend you."

The notion of recreating the South Seas here in suburbia appealed to Susie. Why shouldn't Rita do this? It was her house. But she was a bit shocked, especially since Rita's breasts were so big, the dark crowns enormous. Hard to avoid looking at them. And what about the men at the house? They were such luscious boobs.

She asked, "But don't the fellows just pant stare?"

"Only when I hula," Rita said, and started to, raising her arms and clapping her hands rhythmically above her head while her hips began gyrating and her breasts, wow, they practically seemed to revolve! Rita added, "Doing this, a girl can get very quickly fucked, you know."

Her eyes twinkled so impishly that Susie burst out laughing.

Seeing this, Rita stopped dancing and threw her arms about Susie, hugged her, crying, "Susie, how you laugh! I believe you should be one of us. Love and laughter are what we care about. Welcome to the Zoo, which some call the Pageant, though my husband Howard says it's Howard's Horny Haven."

Susie felt a burst of affection toward her new friend, and returned her hug.

She was delighted with the Zoo, the Pageant, Howard's Horny Haven.

But never had she blushed so furiously, as though her cheeks and throat were on fire.

Rita started the washing machine while filling Susie in on the denizens of the house. Her husband, Howard, invented things. Nick was an artist, and his wife, Gwen, was deep into yoga. The third couple, Phil and Willa, were not married. She worked as a secretary. Phil had quit his job to inner-search homosexual tendencies that Rita thought non-existent.

As she spoke, the bare-breasted Rita's hand caressed Susie's, and vined up her arms.

These affectionate gestures warmed Susie's heart, for she had always been one to hold friends' hands, be they men or women, when in deep conversation.

Still, when Rita hugged her, squeezing a hot, bare breast to hers, she blushed. Well, she thought, I'm just not used to it!

"Now for the guided tour," Rita said.

She took Susie first to the dining room, which contained a round table lacquered Chinese red, green chairs, a yellow highboy and abstract paintings in exploding colors. Despite the shading of the porch roof, the room dazzled the eyes.

"Now the yoga parlor, Susie."

This was darkish, paneled in natural wood, with a couple of posters and no furniture except a wood platform raised a foot on which a girl sat in what Rita explained was called lotus-seat position, cross-legged, her thighs winged out at right angles and her feet intertwined. Her hair was bound up in a white snood held by a red-jeweled clip above her forehead. She sat chin-high and straight-backed, the position cruelly painful in Susie's view, yet her hands, on her knees, thumbs and forefingers forming circles, looked completely relaxed, her face serene. It was a lovely, flat-cheeked face, hazel-eyed, with a speck of red paint in the middle of her forehead.

The girl was nude. More than nude, for her pubic hair was shaven off.

"Gwen, you're busy?" Rita asked.

Eyes that had been fixed on the facing wall turned slowly to Rita. She smiled, a very gentle smile.

She said, "No, darling. I'm only at the second level."

Then Rita astonished Susie by bending down over the nude Gwen and kissing her on the mouth.

Susie gasped on seeing that their mouths were open, pink tongues twining about each other.

Rita straightened, said, "This is Susie."

Gwen's placid gaze washed slowly up Susie from feet to face.

"Hello," she murmured.

Rita said, "Susie, the rule of the house is that we kiss if we haven't seen each other for some hours, and of course on meeting people."

"My goodness," Susie said, eyes and mouth round. She had never kissed a girl on the mouth but good taste said when in Rome do as the Romans, so she bent down to Gwen, whose face turned up, smiling, and Susie held her breath and kissed her.

A dainty tongue-tip slid into her mouth.

The sensation so startled her that she licked the girl's tongue without realizing what she was doing, and when she straightened she felt stunned, saw stars spinning in the darkish room.

The wall posters had come into focus. There were two, in garish colors, mostly dark red and blue. One showed a man in lotus-seat position. He had a Buddha smile and a vaguely Oriental look about him. But more important, from between his crossed legs rose a penis of elephantine dimension.

Gwen said, "He is the Nepalese Virile Buddha, and she is a Sikkanese Siva."

The Siva was the other poster, a woman with impossibly globular breasts concealing her torso, and a round, red vaginal opening the size of her head.

Gwen added, "On the higher levels, these gods can be quite nicely mimicked."

Susie had a hunch what she meant. She slipped a glance at Gwen's hairless crotch and saw her split spread wide open, the mouth of her vagina a gaping red ring.

Flushing up to the roots of her hair she looked quickly away.

"Susie, I will instruct you in yoga, if you wish," Gwen said.

Susie gulped. "That's terribly kind of you."

"It is my Karma."

Before Susie could decipher this, Rita had taken her arm and was leading her to the next room, leaving Gwen to her meditation.