CHANCE GIM sat at the desk in his home office and looked down at the long list of names, phone numbers and personal data. He had numbered them. One hundred and eleven. All women. The youngest, eighteen, the oldest, twenty-six. All proportionately built. Carefully weeded from an even longer list of three hundred and eighty two.

Like fruit, he thought, you gals are ripe and ready, oh so fucking ready, to be added to the lovelies I already have. All I have to do is give you my song and dance and you'll jump from the tree right into my basket. Ha ha.

Yessiree, old Chance now had the pick of the crop. But it wasn't always like that, so easy, so sweet and easy. Oh, no, not at all. For, prior to his fantastic plan anyway, he even had trouble getting near a babe, let alone having her do his every sexual wish. Like sucking his cock and fucking him. Willingly. And in front of two other guys, no less. And come back for more! Again and again.

At twenty-five, Chance looked younger than his years, but the years had not been kind. Far from it. He was a loser when it came to the ladies. Christ, he once said to his image in the bathroom mirror, I couldn't get laid in a cathouse with a fist full of hundred dollar bills! It was true, he couldn't.

For how many females are out there, who would want to fuck a cadaver? A ghostly white, even vampire white, cadaver, at that. One dressed all in black, the cadaver's favorite color, who reminded anyone with even one good eye of a funeral parlor director, or an evil looking mortician.

Or Lurch of The Addam's Family fame. A long and lanky Lurch, for Chance displayed his ghostly pallor on a 6' 5" frame. And he always, but always, covered the frame in black denim trousers and black knit shirts. Is it any wonder that women immediately thought of him as weird, strange, and downright warped looking? A freak, a loner, a loser. All in black. And ghastly white.

It didn't help his chances with women, not in the least, that he was well off financially by inheritance, owned his own home, same inheritance, drove a brand new car and could wine and dine them in the finest of restaurants. Chance never got the chance to go beyond the first meeting. His looks and demeanor saw to that.

It wasn't two years after he had graduated high school that his widowed mother died and left everything, the big old house and a quarter of a million dollars, to her only child. And left him a lonely hole in his heart the size of Kansas. This, coupled with his general failures with women, had him feeling so lonely, so out of it all, and so depressed he even considered suicide.

But, and in spite of it all, one could say, Chance was, as his mother was, a fighter. He had watched her cope with her husband's sudden death and the almost failure of his real estate company because of dad no longer being at the helm.

Instead of caving in and folding up her weeping tent, she fought back. In less than three months, she had not only turned the company around, it had one of the best years in its thirty-year history. "Son, make lemonade!" was her war cry.

So Chance took his lemon of a life and squeezed it. All he needed, he reasoned, was a plan. A plan that would change things and make them better. One that would rescue him from his doldrums and turn things around, just as momma had done with a failing firm. All it would take was time. And, given his now rosy financial picture, he had plenty of that commodity...

IN TIME, a very short time, a plan did emerge. He called it Plan A even though he had no Plan B at the time. Perhaps, he reasoned, I won't need a Plan B!

Plan A popped out in the form of an ad in the personals column of the local newspaper:

SWM (A Leo!), Financially secure, 20, 6'5" 170#, black hair, green eyes, seeks female for one-on-one relationship. Yeah, I like long walks and cozy dinners for two, but I also dig weird music, strange movies, and kinky novels. If I sound like your bag of tricks, contact me at: BOX 12462.

He received six responses to Plan A. And dated all six, even the two overweight ones, but only once. None of them, not a one, wanted a second date. One date was sufficient, thank you, Lurch. Why don't you go and tend to a grave someplace. OK?

Plan A, it seemed, sucked big time. Chance considered running the ad again, giving it a fair chance to work, so to speak, but gave up on the idea. He didn't have the heart to go through the bullshit again.

What I need now, he pondered, is a Plan B. But he had no Plan B in mind. So he took to staying in the house and reading. Perhaps a Plan B would be sparked by something in a book, some phrase, some idea. But the only books he found in the big bookcase of his father's den were of the boring kind to him.

Business books, ho hum, accounting books, yawn, real estate books, bleh, not one with even a glimmer of fiction or general interest in it. He couldn't see a Plan B emerging from this conglomeration of ho hums, yawns, and blehs. But his momma was still in the background, inspiring him.

He looked at the bookcase and said, out loud to the air around him,

"C'mon, you fucking lemons, get your dumb, lazy asses off the shelf! You're going into cold storage in the basement." And they did, not even caring that more exciting reading matter would soon replace them.

When the lemony books had all been stored away, Chance looked at the now empty bookcase. It reminded him of a shell, an empty shell. Very much like him. What it needed, like Chance, was filling up. And fill it up, he sure did, and in one helluva hurry.

One quick trip to Samuel's Used Books store was all it took. "Sam," he told the proprietor. "Here's a hundred bucks. Box me up some of your best twenty-five cent books, would ya?"

Sam, being quick with basic math, said, "You want I should pick out four hundred books for you? Just like that? You don't want to pick them out for yourself? You want me to do it for you? Just like that?"

"Yeah, Sam, just like that. Just don't throw in any ones that are so friggin' ratty, they'll draw flies, OK?" It was OK by Sam. A hundred bucks doesn't walk in every day of the week, that's for sure. Especially when it throws in an extra twenty just to deliver them. All twenty-odd cartons.

When the books had been ensconced in their new bookcase home, Chance gave them the once over. Sam had, sure as shit, been truly eclectic in his picks. There was "The Poetry of Robert Frost." And one called "America in Pictures." Also included was "Adventures in Literature," a book Chance saw as having some possibilities for exposing a Plan B.

There were also books on politics, government, gardening, and basic homemaking. And one by a Wendell Wilkie, called "One World," that Chance thought might hold promise. At least until he read into the book a bit. Wilkie had been, ho hum, a Republican presidential candidate, yawn, in the last century, bleh!

Stifling a yawn, Chance picked out two to get him started in his quest for Plan B: "Forty Years of Murder" by Keith Simpson, a retired British medical examiner. Just like Quincy, Chance reckoned. And "The New Ager's Biography of Aleister Crowley," including, it said, many passages from Crowley's "Magick in Theory and Practice!"

Chance set fire to some logs in the fireplace, fixed a gin and tonic, and settled in cozily for some good old-fashioned reading. He started on Simpson's book first, but threw in the towel halfway through. Yeah, Simpson was as good an M.E. as old Quincy, maybe better even, but who the fuck cares?

The book on Crowley was a totally different matter. Crowley, it appeared, had also been a bit of a loner, and an outsider. An oddball to most folks. One with weird ideas of the world. But, to Crowley, these weird ideas of his was the way the world should be, and had to be, in his vision, anyway.

Some called Crowley a genius. Others called him the king of depravity. But, Chance thought, at least they called him something. Crowley was also known as a poet, a mage, a prophet, and as a man who was well versed in all things odd or occult. Yoga, Freemasonry, Witchcraft, Black Magic, and others of this ilk were in his bailiwick. He was also seen as the most notorious magician of the last century, or any century for that matter.

One particular quote by Crowley, among the many the book offered, grabbed Chance and made him think, really think:

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." Aleister Crowley.

Shit, thought Chance, this guy even created a new law! Do whatever the fuck you want, Jack! I like this Crowley guy. He had class!

Crowley's catchword, it appeared to Chance, was "Thelema." Which was somehow linked to something called The Golden Dawn. It was rough reading, very rough reading, but he did come away with a few things.

He read how Crowley had created a tradition known as Thelema, leading to the Thelemites, which was, and is, a spiritual or religious system centered on ideas of freedom and personal growth.

But, when Chance read that OTO stands for Ordo Templi Orientis (Order of the Eastern Temple), a magical order that leans heavily on Thelemic principles, Chance skipped ahead a lot. A whole lot. Paragraphs and pages fell by the wayside. In rapid order. The Golden Dawn, poor thing, never got a chance to come up.

When he read about neophytes entering the paths of evil, and something about Konx om Pax, and "The thinkable is false, then? (Once more!) Yea, but equally it is true." and some crap about avoiding the "Scylla of Ay and the Charybdis of Nay by the Straights of No-meaning," Chance got lost real quick like and started paragraph and page hopping again.

When he read that Crowley had compared Londoners to empty-headed Athenians, he could relate. Chance had more than a few empty-headed Athenians in his life; they were all around him, Londoners or otherwise. They seemed everywhere, the annoying, pesky fools.

After reading such things as, "The manifestation of Nuit," and, "It is revealed by Aiwass the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat..." and, "The Khabs is in the Khu, not the Khu in the Khabs," Chance felt a wee bit Khu-Khu and ready to call a Khab and go home! Nuit to this shit, he thought. But he stuck in there and mixed himself another drink...

HOWEVER, soon after picking up his reading thread, with items swimming around in his head such as, "The Call of the First Aethyr," and "Goetia of the Lemegeton," he'd had it. Up to here. But he saw a potential in it all. A helluva potential.

Plan B had arrived and was staring at him from the horizon of his mind: He would start his own Crowley-like group of magic seeking individuals and, to be sure, they would all be females.

Except, he quickly figured out, for two other males, his two friends, if you could call them that, to give his magic group a little yin and yang balance.

Plus, he reasoned, if he couldn't comprehend the shit, the average chick couldn't, sure as hell, either. Lordy, he thought excitedly, I would be the teacher and they would be my... willing pupils. Very willing pupils. Oh, yeah, I like that. Thank you Plan B. You look so much more promising than Plan A.

For, in his reading on Crowley and the black arts of magic, Chance glommed on another particular phrase:

"Sex is a serious road to magical power and a gateway to theunconscious mind."

To Chance, this translated easily into: Sex! Magic! Power! House! Mind! Ergo, women! Ergo, slave women! Ergo, sex slave women! In his house! All he had to do to make it a reality was fuck with their minds. Which, he now firmly believed, would lead to fucking with their bodies. And their mouths! And, lordy, perhaps even an ass hole or two tossed in willy-nilly.

Another passage he perused concerned Crowley's attitude toward women. He felt women had no magical powers of their own. The men had it all. One women, a practicing witch, was actually quoted as saying:

"The only way a woman can get the power that lives within men, is to swallow their sperm! The life-giving magical sperm that comes from the shaft of life. Or by taking this magical elixir into her vaginal sheath."

Holy shit! Thought Chance, Holy fucking shit! Crowley, you were a real fucking genius! Take my sperm, honey, and feel the magic in you!

The incredible possibilities he now had crawling all over his brain seemed not only hopeful, and certainly doable, but endless and beautifully simple. As long as one had an imagination. And Chance knew, if nothing else, he sure had that little needful thing.

Thus, with excitement oozing out of every pore, he immediately started on a design plan for a room. A room where it would all take place. The magical room. Of suck and fuck. Where women would swallow magical sperm and ask for seconds, please...

A THOUGHT POPPED UP. He would use the windowless basement room. It was very large and perfect for the job he had in mind. True, it would have to be cleaned, emptied of clutter, and the walls, floor, and ceiling painted, but it had wonderfully rough cobblestone walls. Just like in a castle. Or a dungeon! He could picture the flickering light of the candles playing on the old stones. It was, to Chance, now sounding simply delicious.

Black! It had to be all black, his favorite color. Walls. Floor. Ceiling. And low lighting. Yeah! Candles! Only candles. Too dark? Wait and see. A dimmable overhead track-lighting source would be a snap to add. And, he just now thought of it, a rebirthing tub! Made of rough-hewn wood for a back-to-nature effect. Caulked to hold water. Warm water. Body temperature water. He quickly sketched out the tub.

Its dimension would be 2' x 3' x 6.' Coffin like. He liked that aspect. He then sketched the plan for the rough-hewn wooden table. A fuck table.

Dimensions: Just wide enough to hold a woman's back! Oh, make it wide enough so she can rest her arms. This width would make it look different from your everyday household table. It would look magical.

Height? Cock height! For all that stand up fucking. But he foresaw a small problem. He was 6'5" tall, Ben was 5' 10" and Jerry, 5' 8." An adjustable top! But no electric. Too modern. A hand crank setup. Piece of cake. He could build it. The thought that perhaps a bed would be easier to do crossed his mind, but he threw that out. Too obvious. Too horny-bachelor like. Too much like... like... a bedroom.

And, ho ho, he thought, it needs a sperm-swallowing area. Think! Aha! A platform! A round one. Wood. Rough looking wood. Like the tub and the fuck table.

Dimensions? A diameter just large enough to hold four people, three men and woman. 5'? 6'? He'd have to figure it out later, but six, as a guess, seemed the most promising. Height? Low. 6" off the floor seemed ideal.

And a camera! A hidden one, of course. Allowing him and his cronies to review the actual proceedings at their later leisure. A training film, if you will. But why only one? Four! One capturing the inside of the tub. Another, the sperm-eating arena. With two aimed at the fuck table, taking two different angles. Oh, what fun!

Wait! A fifth, to capture her walking naked around the tub! Yeah! I'll have her walk around the tub a few times before getting into it. Give us boys a good look. Four times? No, five sounds better, much better. With instructions to walk slowly! Maybe not? Too lecherous sounding? Weigh this aspect.

How, he thought, is the best way to get Ben and Jerry involved without them thinking it's just another of my oddball ideas? While mulling this over, he made a quick note: Black robes, men's and women's sizes. With those kooky hooded cowls. Designs on them? No. Keep it simple. Black simple.

He solved the Ben and Jerry problem by deciding to wait until the room had been completed. This would telegraph his seriousness. And, if these doltish Athenians didn't bite, well, fuck 'em, he'd find two others easily enough.

Ben and Jerry not only bit, they swallowed the idea, hook, line, and sinker. Neither of them was in the chick magnet arena. And the way that Chance laid it all out for them, showing them his now copious notes on the subject, together with the all black, magical room, with 30 candles aglow, how could they resist? It had vast potential. Even Jerry, the dimmest of the trio, could appreciate that little tidbit.

Chance had even figured out how to go about getting the magic-seeking females. An ad in the personals of the local newspaper:

If you're a female, 18-28, who wants to put real Magick into your life, join us now! Expand your mind and your power. Be a better you! We have a few (limited) openings for select new initiates. Contact Aether, High Priest of The Black Arts Magicians. Box 34213.

And thus, Chance Gim's Black Arts Magic plan quickly went from his fertile mind to a firm reality. He was now, today, known to a cadre of willing servants, consisting of two loyal men and twelve loyal women, as Aether, High Priest of the Black Arts Magicians of Coventry. With Coventry being an imaginary place of the mind and not any actual location he had in mind.

He had simply chosen the name because it reminded him of London, and those empty-headed London-Athenian fools. That, and it had the word coven in it.

Chance had built the tub, which he named the Thelema Tub, himself. From 1" x 4" planks of cheap oak lumber. When finished, it measured 2' x 3' x 6' and looked as boxy as a pine box coffin. He then caulked the tub's interior to make it waterproof.

The overall effect looked more than just homemade, it looked sloppily homemade. Chance had slathered on the caulking and it was heavier in some places than in others, and bumpy here, smooth there. And the light color of the caulking stood out starkly against the dark wood's rough surface, magnifying the errors immensely. He had planned it this way, in keeping with a back to nature look.

As long as it did the job it was intended to do. To hold water. And, in a room lit only by candles, it had a mysterious, magical aura to it. The mystical, magical, Thelema Tub. The other pieces of odd furniture were built next. You listening, Crowley... ?

HE NAMED his little, soon to be group of magic-seeking followers, The Magickers of Coventry, in spite of Ben, the loyalest of his two loyal males, recently saying, "Still sounds like a fucking small town basketball team to me! Schmucks, 6, Magickers, 2."

Although Chance didn't say it, he thought: Piss and whiskey, you

Athenian-headed dolt! What the fuck do you know about it all, anyway? You schmuck. You loyal fucking schmuck. Kiss my High Priest's ass.

What he did say, was, "I have my reasons, Ben. Now, go and prepare the tub, we have our thirteenth woman's baptismal rite tonight. Her name, if that matters at all, and in case you forgot, is Yolanda. Sounds kinda magical, don't it? But, old shit, what really counts is she has great tits and a bodacious ass!" Chance knew exactly what to say to motivate the faithful Ben. "And get Jerry to help."

Thirteenth! A lucky number... ?

WHILE Ben and Jerry got the old baptismal tub prepared, Chance remembered his first female follower of the Coventry Magickers, Margaret, or Maggie. He called her Magic in honor of her being his first faithful female follower and because it fit her name.

She didn't know this fact, her being first, and he wasn't about to enlighten her. That was one of the good things about being the High Priest; he didn't have to tell anyone shit about shit. He only had to tell them what he felt they would eat up in their bullshit quest for those mysterious magical powers. Just the way he did at Margaret's first get to know us meeting with him.

Their second meeting was more pointed. The introduction to the black robe. The nudeness beneath the robe. The black room and candles. Give her just a small taste. Some mumbo-jumbo incantations. A handful of odd sounding names, such as Nuit, Thelema, and the Khu's and the Khab's crap. A mantra was also spoken, in unison, and very somberly:

"Ommmm! Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Ommmm!"

The third meeting was the swearing-in phase. Where the woman, and the role-playing initiates, Ben and Jerry, would be sworn to secrecy... on "pain of death..." should they ever reveal to the outsiders, the profaners, exactly what went on in this magical room of the Coventry Black Arts Magickers.

It was all cleverly geared to bind the woman to the cause, to the magic, to the power, and, to be sure, her fellow practitioners. Without her smelling a male rat at the same time.

It was, to the woman, quite heady stuff, highly charged and exciting. Just like being on a movie set and playing a part. Without, however, being aware of the cameras. Just as Chance had planned it would be. That clever, clever, naughty boy. And by now, the three magicians had it down to a science.

The fourth get-together for Magic Margaret was the Thelema Tub bit. Where anyone could be reborn, any female that is, much like old Grisabella, the Glamour Cat, who gets a new lease on life in Cats, the musical. But with a foot of warm, body temp water thrown in.

Ah, Margaret! How great she was! How sweet it was, too. And how easy it had all gone. In just three meetings with her new High Priesto, there she was, standing naked, willingly, in front of him and his two minions, Ben, and the weak link, Jerry. Momma, it was all they could do not to gawk and drool all over themselves. And, just a few feet away, the Thelema Tub holding a foot of water.

Ben and Jerry played their roles of initiates very well. Geared to get her used to the idea of being in the same room, and naked, with the three men. Each man would be asked, in turn, with Ben being first, "Are you ready to be baptized and reborn, my faithful follower of Thelema?"

Ben would say, quite somberly, "Yes I am, my High Priest." Then Ben would be told to remove his black robe and, and it should be said, he played his acting part to a tee. He darted his eyes about as if nervous, coughed a few times, then slowly, as if slightly, but only slightly, mind you, looked a whit embarrassed. Needless to say, all four people in the room were naked under their individual robes.

Ben, naked before the other three robed people, with his semi-hard erection in plain view, even in the candle-lit room, was given the instruction to walk around the wooden Thelema Tub. Very slowly and exactly five times before getting in and sitting down in the nearly one foot of warm water.

There was a reason for the five times tub walk-around. It gave the boys a good, long look at the female initiate when it was her turn. And it afforded them, and the camera, many and variously enticing angles. It also gave Chance the opportunity to judge her willingness, or reluctance, at having to walk naked in front of the three men. He would then know just how much schmooze he had to lay on her in order to get her to the suck and fuck session.

Margaret went next. Same words spoken, same answer. She was a good little faithful follower. When she popped her black robe up over the top of her head, the boys almost lost it.

Ben stared, bug-eyed, his tongue hanging out, his saliva beyond his control. Jerry gasped, quite audibly, startling everyone in the room but himself. And the High Priest almost whistled, and surely would have if he hadn't had the presence of mind to bite his tongue really hard. For Margaret, Maggie, Magic was mind-blowing, fucking gorgeous!

And Chance estimated that the little minx knew it. She had taken, in his opinion, more time than necessary to let the robe fall to the floor. It had just hung there; her hands in it, over her head, letting the boys get a good feast of her body. Chance thought: Oh, yeah, Magic, you're an exhibitionist, for sure. And, she was.

She did her five times around the tub as professionally enticing as any strip-tease artist could execute. Slowly. Sensuously. Cat like, almost. On tippy-toes, her breasts wobbling slightly to and fro seductively, with her ass cheeks grinding rhythmically together, she walked as if upon a stage.

Seeing this, Chance had the fleeting idea in his mind that he could order her to get on her knees before him, right here, right now, and grab his cock and suck away, but...

But the good stuff, the fun stuff, the suck and swallow and fuck stuff, would have to wait for a future lesson. Chance knew not to rush matters. Gain their trust would play out better in the long haul. Get their loyalty firmly set. Make them, in essence, come to you, willingly and with both eyes wide open. No illusion involved. Thus, the first such bathing tub bullshit of the Magickers of Coventry merely ended with a stare, a gasp, and an almost whistle.

Later, mild reprimands went to Ben and Jerry from the magical High Priest named Aether to behave more coolly, you empty-headed Athenian troglodytes. And they did, in the future. For they now believed in the wisdom of their High Priest...

LATER, when the boys reviewed the film of Margaret, they were overjoyed. There was Maggie, naked, and in living color, walking around and stepping into the Thelema Tub. The track lighting had done a good job, too. Every detail of Margaret was shown in crystal clarity. Right down to some small, blond hairs on her areolas, and the unshaven bush on her pussy.

And Chance had added a new trick to the cameras. They would zoom in whenever they caught a glimpse of Chance's ring. A chip inside the ring accomplished that bit of magic. The close-up of her face and breasts, when she was seated in the tub, was absolutely first class, and priceless.

All Chance had to do to make it happen, was to place his ringed hand on one of her shoulders so the camera could spot it. Of course he mumbled a few pieces of magical bullshit at the same time, to allay her suspicions. And, to cancel the camera's tracking ability, all he had to do was turn his ring around. Simple as a dimple.

Most of his mumbo-jumbo crap came from disjointed snippets right out of the book, but he was not beneath making up a few as things went along. "Har des kabab, Nuit is among us! Let us praiseth and raiseth her powers! The Khu are with the Khabs! Let them seeth the light, those who canst yet see! See, my child. See! Thelema is with us!"

He would then reach a hand into the tub, scoop up some water, and splash it on her chest, baptizing her. And making those wet T-shirt contests seem quite pale by comparison.

Chance had planned on giving Margaret two, perhaps three more bullshit sessions, but upon viewing the tapes, and having had observed her in action, he decided she was ready to take the suck and swallow plunge. Hell, he thought, if it fucks up, it fucks up. Gotta learn somehow.

To this end, he called her and told her he was mailing her the next sacred part of her initiations. She said, quite excitedly, she couldn't wait. We'll see, he thought, we'll see, Magic, old gal.

He mailed her a six-page treatise he had printed out. It was titled, "Learning and Knowing The Art of Sexual Magick! As Practiced by the Faithful Minions of Nuit and Hecate!" He had written the entire piece himself, with a lift here and there from Crowley and a few blurbs from other books. And, but of course, the quote from the woman who said sperm possessed magic was featured prominently, in bright blue ink. At the bottom of each page, all six, neatly centered, and also in blue ink, was:

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." Aleister Crowley.

Then Chance waited, with bated breath, for sure. A week later, with all the boys figuring she had chickened out, and Chance blaming himself for rushing matters, she called. When Chance realized it was she, with a hello from him and a cheery hi from her, he felt his heart stop. And his breathing with it. But she opened with:

"My High Priest, as one of your faithful minions, I am ready for my next lesson. If you will but set a date, I will... " He had her!

Un-fucking-believable! Now he had to make sure it was suck and swallow time. With an erection beginning to form in his trousers, he said, "My most faithful follower, Margaret, you must first answer some questions. All right?"

"Yes, my High Priest."

"Good. Now, tell me, my child, have you read the entire Thelemic monograph I sent you? All six pages?"

"Oh, yes, my High Priest, all of it." Good girl, Magic.

"And are you now ready to receive the magical elixir, as mentioned in the monograph, from the staff of life?" He held his breath. She hesitated...

"Yes, My High Priest, I am." Her words sounded raspy. He now had a full hardon, as did the two cronies, who were listening to the speakerphone. He decided to make sure, damn sure, that she would do them, too.

"And, Magic, my dear, if you read it carefully, you know you must receive three such elixirs for the magic to take place. You do understand that, don't you? Are prepared to receive?" Again he waited, his heart and breathing at a halt. However, this time she didn't even hesitate.