Chapter 1

The first annual gathering of the Order of the Love Monk had an immense, ominous shadow cast over it threatening not only the possibility of ever having a second, but having the first happen, except that virtually all the first initiates, those who were involved in the earliest orgies who had sustained their interest beyond them and most of the secondary initiates who embraced the philosophy via gatherings throughout the US the first initiates had created, in New York City, San Francisco, the Twin Cities, and Chicago along with Montreal, Vancouver and of course Thunder Bay where the annual event was being hosted in Andy's mansion, were in attendance, but despite the totality of members there, the creator, the namesake of the Order, its heart and soul and mind, was not in attendance. That is to say, his body was there, Joseph's heart was beating and his breathing continued, but in all other ways he was absent.

No one was sure of what these seizures were, though a few experts had their opinions. When one of Sadey's psychoanalysts, her third and last, though each one of them had been a benefit to Sadey's sanity, after a few weeks she sensed their weaknesses, a combination of a narrow methodology and their all too manly attraction to her, admittedly aided by her powers of seduction, Sadey having decided Joseph's instinctual methods were far cheaper and far more effective, when she told the last one about Joseph's strange and worrisome seizures, he wanted to bring Joseph in for sessions, and when Joseph was interviewed by the headshrinker during their only session, Joseph's description made the doctor decide it was a form of narcolepsy, and insisted Joseph reside in an asylum to be tested. Neither Joseph nor Sadey ever saw the doctor or any other psychotherapist again.

Sarah's first experience with the frightening comas was during her third visit to Montreal while on Spring Break from Northwestern, spending a week with Joseph editing his second book, a marathon of collaboration with little sleep and lots of sex with him alone and with him and various combinations of his roommates and friends and with an orgy capping off the successful visit ending with the longest cosmic orgasm she had ever experienced; every orgy she experienced with Joseph improved on the last. It was during the middle of the week and they had not slept more than a couple of hours at a time in the three days she had been with him when SHE and Natty and Joseph all seemed to decide at once they were going to do some heroin. Aware of the presence of the drug from her first visit during the summer before when Natty was still in the Twin Cities and SHE was still using every third day or so before weaning herself from it except for the occasional fix with Joseph and even less occasionally with Natty, SHE retreated into the bathroom before being asked by Joseph to shoot up in front of Sarah who watched the ceremony and transformation with fascination, Sarah actually participated with Natty and Joseph her second time through and like Joseph had gotten sick but ended up enjoying the numbing, almost hallucinatory effect, so she was eager to try it again. Finding an unexpected energy from the narcotic, the three of them went out walking and club hopping, having a fun, pain free time and taking a break from the intense brain activity she and Joseph had been relentlessly pursuing. At the end of the night, the three of them made love, luxuriating in the excess of flesh, none of them climaxing for over an hour, the drug desensitizing them, but eventually everyone but Joseph enjoyed a long orgasm, so with SHE armed with her strap on dildo sliding it into Joseph's anus, and the rest of the women kissing and fondling him everywhere while he was fucking Karen who had avoided the drug addled roommates until she couldn't stand it and needed to be fucked and through Joseph's tongue and fingers along with his cock and her fingers was quickly rising to her own finish, Joseph exploding into Karen sending Karen over the precipice as well. When everyone separated from Joseph, he was out. After a couple of minutes, the theory that he had passed out from his orgasm went by the wayside. "Oh shit, not again," said SHE, who began stroking Joseph's head while Natty kneeled and held his hand, whispering into his ear. An upset Karen explained about his infrequent but worrisome absences, telling Sarah he would recover eventually. Having none of the passive hope, Sarah called the ambulance, which arrived in less than twenty minute with Joseph still not recovered. By the time the paramedics arrived, the women had cleaned him with wash cloths and dressed him. They followed the truck to the hospital in SHE's car, SHE seething with anger at Sarah for taking Joseph away from their soothing strokes and whispers, insisting Sarah's rescue would make things worse, deepening the wedge between their already strained relationship, Sarah's cheerleader optimism and SHE's punk rock nihilism were opposites that didn't attract, and while there was a mutual respect, SHE for Sarah's intelligence and business acumen and Sarah for SHE's intense creativity and charisma, nothing could alleviate the cringing brought by Sarah's buoyant attitude and the feeling Sarah had that SHE was a terrible influence and a misguided choice for Joseph.

Awakening from the darkness and the realm of arbitrary images, a sort of dreamscape shaped by shadows, the strangeness of the surroundings took a moment to synthesize into meaning, but the very alien nature of it was what brought Joseph to consciousness, and it was soon obvious he was in an ambulance. "Excusez-moi, je suis okay. Vous ne me croissez pas, mais c'est vrai. Ou est-ce que les femmes?" "Suivez nous," the tall thin dark haired male paramedic leaning over Joseph explained. "Quand est-ce que nous arrivons à l'hôpital?" "Deux minutes," said the pretty petite blonde looking sad but smiling. "We understand English just fine by the way." "When we stop at the hospital, would you mind waiting a moment so I could talk to my friends?" After a pause, the woman nodded. "By then I should be able to walk just fine, so you could escort me to admitting if it's necessary after I have my little talk. I've never been in this situation so I don't really know what I'm expected to do. What I'd like to do is leave, but that probably won't happen. I have some important business to finish with one of those women, so I'm hoping I can be done with this as quickly as possible." Shrugging, the blonde explained it wasn't up to her. Joseph nodded.

Though still strapped to the gurney, the paramedics were kind enough to pause before sending him into the emergency room. Sarah led all but SHE to him, apologizing and crying. Telling her it was probably a good idea, that maybe the doctors could find out what was wrong, he then asked where SHE was, and after being told she was fuming in her car, he asked Natty to have her call Sadey to find out if any of her clients are hospital administrators or board members and if there was, have them get him out of the situation. As soon as he was unstrapped to transfer him to another gurney he sat up and stepped off, a little unsteady, but hiding his weakness as much as possible. Trying his best not to cause a scene, he pointed to a wheelchair and the orderly shrugged and let him sit, then pushed him into admitting, the ladies following. While being processed, trying to be as discouraging a patient as possible, no insurance, no money, etc, SHE and Natty finally arrived, SHE immediately using the phone to call her dad, a major contributor to the hospital, setting the ball rolling. Within minutes an administrator arrived and guided Joseph and the ladies to a conference room, the slightly disheveled paunchy balding but handsome man apologizing, but Joseph waved it off. "Sarah was worried about me and called the ambulance, so there's really no one to blame. I don't have time to be poked and prodded right now, but I would like my problem looked into. I'm basically fine, but I tend to conk out every once in a while and my friends here are concerned, and even if I'm less so, I don't mind being tested. What do you think?"

"We can do some blood tests now and you can talk to an internist once the results are in next week. Do you have headaches? No. Okay, that's good, but we still should do an x-ray of your brain and perhaps an MRI. If you don't mind me saying so, it could be psychological and we have an excellent resident psychiatrist."

"I've been there, but if nothing is found, I guess I could give it another try. Should I set up an appointment?"

"I'll take care of that. When would be good?"

"Next week I should be free, especially before noon. Do you need my information?"

"The admitting nurse has that. Follow me. You ladies need to stay here. Could I get you some refreshments?"

"I don't think you have anything strong enough," said SHE.

"Coffee would be nice with some cream and sugar," said Karen.

"Good. Someone will be in with them in a couple minutes. Make yourselves at home. Excuse us."

The administrator led Joseph to an examining room and found a doctor quicker than Joseph had ever experienced in his limited visits to a hospital. The doctor didn't have the best bedside manner, but he was thorough, giving Joseph a quick checkup in which he noticed the puncture mark of the earlier heroin fix.

"Does this have anything to do with your passing out?" asked the doctor.

"I was breathing fine and I didn't turn blue, so no, I don't think so."

Nodding, the doctor thankfully didn't dwell on the subject. "Take this down the hall to the right," he said, handing Joseph a form with several checkmarks on it. "Take a left at the next hall and you'll see some seats immediately to your right. Hand the form to the nurse and take a seat."

Despite drawing no conclusions from the blood tests or the MRI or the pulmonary exercises, though each expert had their opinions, some unseen growth in the heart or spine or brain or some unfound toxin in the blood caused such things as stroke and tissue degeneration and pressures on the spine or the throat or the brain, Sarah's overreaction did bring an important person into Joseph's life, the life of the Order and especially to Sadey. A neurosurgeon examined the image of Joseph's brain and was surprised by the unusually large size of his prefrontal cortex. One of the few professionals not to jump to conclusions, luckily for Joseph because the man would be opening up his head and cutting, he did have a colleague, a neuroscientist who he contacted anytime a unique aspect of the brain was found, though usually that meant atrophy of the right or left hemisphere. Dr. Raul Schneider was amazed by his colleague's discovery and immediately contacted Joseph.

Being the last of a long line of experts, Joseph was skeptical about the interview, not that he wished to avoid it. The series of tests and interviews and their negligible results might have taxed the patience of anyone, but Joseph was a meditative man as well as a seeker of knowledge constantly interested in what was new to him, which, being a healthy young man was everything involved with medicine. The technology fascinated him, especially the newest machinery to scan his insides, the ones involved with looking inside his skull were the most interesting, and the idea of studying in the field of medicine came up in his thoughts, though realizing the expenditure of time would be a great sacrifice to his philosophical and practical studies of expanding and organizing the work of the Order, at the same time he wondered if a greater knowledge of practical medicine wedded to his spiritual quest might synthesize into a formidable power of diagnosis and cure, which generated the exciting new possibility of developing a book solely on that subject.

Though reticent to be too hopeful, even before Joseph actually met Dr Schneider, when he and Raul were setting up the appointment and the place in which to meet was a matter of discussion, Raul not wanting the encounter to happen in the cold confines of his clinic, Joseph's skepticism was already decaying, having met the other experts solely in their places of operation. As it turned out the doctor's professional base was located blocks away from Sadey's apartment, and when Raul agreed to meet there, Joseph had a difficult time subduing his laughter, imagining the doctor's first view of the huge black satin covered round bed, the apartment's unavoidable centerpiece and wondering whether the doctor would freak out and hide his reaction but hurry the interview or would be amused and even respond to the thick sexual aura of Sadey's home and business. As it turned out, much to the betterment of everyone at the meeting, it was the latter.

The early hour of the scheduled meeting, a Monday morning, was a good excuse to spend the night at Sadey's where she and Joseph enjoyed the intimacy of a long bath and hours of cuddling and loving. Sadey having had an especially busy weekend was not interested in filling any of her orifices with another cock, even Joseph's beautiful and loving one, but she succumbed to her need to fully embrace her lover. During their cuddling there were moments of fondling and cumming without intercourse, but in the last moments of their marathon of intimacy when they were working each other to another frenzied fondling episode, she pushed him onto his back and guided his cock inside and didn't so much ride him as hugged him tight and kissed him as they rocked together, his cock staying deep but still giving both of them thrilling friction from its subtle movement as well as the contact of pubic bones until, several minutes later, their mouths separated to give room for their fast and deep breaths, they groaned out their orgasms, eyes shut, concentrating on the surge of bliss until the throbs subsided and their eyes opened, staring happily into their lover's eyes, then closed and their hot lips touched softly before Sadey relaxed, her head resting on Joseph shoulder, and with Joseph's half hard cock remaining inside Sadey's juicy pussy, they slept.

The buzzer sent a beautiful, naked and shocked Sadey flying off of Joseph, racing to the intercom and, hearing Dr Schneider's name, buzzed him into the building. Since she was five stories up, there was a little time to prepare, at least enough for Joseph to throw on his clothes. Sadey wrapped herself in her beautiful kimono robe, black silk with a large twisting green and red dragon which Joseph had bought for her when they visited Carol in Vancouver a couple months before, actually a "business trip" for Sadey and therefore for Joseph, but they managed to spend as much time as they could with his first girlfriend who soon bonded with Sadey, a sisterly love except when they were sharing Joseph's penis, a bond Joseph thought might happen because the shy, pretty innocence of "Dawn" was similar to Carol's character, but they seemed to get along well even when Sadey was her regular hard self.

By the time the doctor knocked on the door, Sadey had the coffee brewing and had set out some bread, cheese and butter at the small dining table by the window and near the bed. Joseph was in the toilet relieving himself through his morning woody. A relaxed, well fucked, statuesque, disheveled, perfectly beautiful Sadey without makeup and naked except for the robe that draped her sensual, perfect curves and improved on nakedness, tilted her head a little as she greeted the man an inch shorter than her so their eyes were even, her blue/green eyes locking onto his hazel eyes and discovering honesty, kindness and intelligence felt a spark electrify her heart. The spark was shared by Dr Schneider, who broke the stare, looking down not to study the woman's perfect body, that would come later, but to avoid the eyes, embarrassed by his attraction, a soulful rather than sexual attraction, also to come later, for a woman who was obviously the lover of his interviewee. Sadey smiled at his reddening balding pate, his fine blond curly hair receding back a couple inches from his forehead, and said, "Joseph and I are lovers, Dr Schneider, but we're not exclusive. I'm Sadey. This is my apartment. Come on in."

Still a little embarrassed, Dr Schneider lifted his head smiling, returning contact with her eyes quickly and entered her apartment when she stepped aside. "Call me Raul," he said, turning to face her.

"Cool name. Welcome to my home. Joseph will be out in a minute. I'd give you a tour, but this is pretty much it," she said, waving her hand across the space where her enormous bed sat unmade and stained, though the blackness hid any discoloration, but the odor of love still hovered around the bed and around Sadey, standing near enough for him to smell her lusty natural perfume, mixed with Joseph's tangy sweetness, and he found himself getting hard from the unexpected multitude of erotic sensory signals. "Sit at the table. Help yourself to the bread. Would you like some coffee?"