The others gazed at the tumescing organ as if
it were sacred. When he was fully erect he opened
his eyes and stood.
286 j-onathan Kellerman
Stroking himself, he regarded ‘his followers with :
authoritarian smugness.
“Let the Touch begin!” he thundered in a deep
metallic voice.
A woman rose, fortyish, pudgy, and fair. She
walked daintily to the table. Blackbeard inserted a
golden straw into one of the bowls. The woman
.ped and put her nose to it, sniffed hard and
aled the powder up into her sinuses.
The cocaine must have been high-quality. It took
effect quickly. She swooned and grinned, broke into
a giggle and did a little dancelike shuffle.
“Magdalene,” called M atthias.
She walked to him, undid her clothes and stood
naked before her master. Her body was pink and
plump, the buttocks marbled and stippled. She knelt
and took him in her mouth, licking, nibbling, breasts
bbbling with each movement. Matthias rocked on
his heels, gritting his teeth with pleasure She serviced
him as the others watched until he pushed
her head away and gestured for her to go.
She rose, walked to the left side of the cathedral
and stood in front of the men, arms at her sides,
completely at ease.
Matthias spoke the name “Luther.”
A short man, bald and stooped, with a full gray
beard, stood and disrobed. Upon command he went
to the table, received a giant snootful of coke from
the giant. Another’ stage direction from Matthias
led him and the chubby woman to the center of the
room. She dropped to her knees, teased him hard
and lay down on her back. The bald man mounted
her and they copulated frantically.
The next woman to dip into the snow and kneel
before the guru was tall, bony, and Spanish-looking.
BLOOD TEST
287
. She was paired with a heavdy built, bespectacled,
.florid man who looked like he’d been an accountant
in a former life. He had an unusually small penis
and the angular woman seemed to swallow it whole
as she worked energetically to arouse him. Soon the
two of them joined the first couple in the horizontal
dance on the cathedral floor.
The third woman was Delilah. Her body was
freakishly youthful, lithe, and firm. Matthias kept
her with him longer than the first two and ‘had four
other women join in. They ministered to him like
drones servicing a queen bee. Finally he released
them and assigned them partners.
In the course of twenty minutes a fortune in coke
had been consumed, with no letup in sight. [ saw
people go back for seconds and thirds, all in response
to commands from Matthias. When one bowl
was depleted the giant simply shoved his straw
into another.
The padded mats held a writhing mass of wriggling
bodies. The scene was sexual without being
sensual, depressingly lacking in spontaneity, a mindless
ritual, codified, choreographed, and based on
the whims of one megalomaniac. A nod from Mat-thias
and the cultists tumbled and thrust. JThe crook
of-an eyebrow and they heaved and moaned. I
couldn’t help being reminded of the maggots blindly
burrowing through the meat in Garland Swope’s
greenhouse.
A roar rose from the cultists. Matthias had
spurted. Women scurried ‘to lick him clean. He lay
back, sated, but their attentions made him hard
again and the action resumed.
I’d seen ehough. Climbing down from the sundial,
I walked quietly to the gate. The two sentries
were-approaching from the right, brown-bearded,
grim-faced, and goose-gteppingin rhythm. I stepped -back
into the shadows until they had passed. When
they’d turned the corner I sprinted out of the courtyard
and raced to the iron-banded front door. Pulling
it open a crack I peeked through and found the
entrance unguarded. From behind the-doors of the
sanctuary came sounds of muffled bleating and the
rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh.
To the left was the dead end punctuated by Mat-thias’s
office. I ran to the right, nearly tripping
over a potted palm in my haste. The corridor was
empty and white. 1 felt as conspicuous as a roach on
a refrigerator. If discovered, Iwas a dead man: I’d
seen the coke cache, I had no idea how long the