When the young man had fitted out to his satisfaction the former convent or former monastery, so he told his visitors not only on the evening when he first talked of taking legal action against the Catholic Church but on many an evening afterwards, and when each of the smaller apartments on the first floor had been occupied by a high-class call-girl, then would begin the series of events for the sake of which the building had been bought and fitted out. On every Friday and every Saturday evening, the owner of the building of several storeys would arrange for the celebration in the chapel of the building of a Black Mass, that is to say, an obscene travesty of the Catholic Mass. Whenever he discussed this matter, the young man who lived in the upstairs flat would state that the chief character was the best qualified of all the young men in the flat to be the celebrant of the Black Mass. As the celebrant, he would wear only a chasuble of the style known as Roman, which would scarcely hide his nakedness. The young man from the upstairs flat would be the altar-server or acolyte and would wear only a lace-edged surplice reaching to his waist. The congregation would consist of all the other residents of the building of several storeys, each of them naked beneath the habit of a nun or of a priest. At a certain point during the Black Mass, the celebrant would reach into the tabernacle and would take out a croissant and a bottle of expensive wine. The so-called priest’s communion would consist of the celebrant’s buttering and eating the croissant and swigging often from the bottle. Soon afterwards, the congregation would be invited into the sanctuary not to receive communion but to take part in a banquet. (Food and drink would have been waiting on tables near by.) Towards the end of the banquet, a plentiful supply of comfortable cushions would be spread around the sanctuary, on the steps of the altar, and on the altar itself, in front of the tabernacle. Then would follow what the young man from the upstairs flat called a sex-orgy.
After the young man of the upstairs flat had first disclosed his plans for the Black Mass in the building of several storeys, it became the custom on every Friday and Saturday evening for all of the young persons gathered in the upstairs flat, including the young woman who lived there, to spend some or another part of each evening in discussing how they might spend one or another Friday or Saturday evening in the building of several storeys after the young man of the upstairs flat had bought the building and had fitted it out to his liking. The discussions at first were simple. The young man of the upstairs flat owned a copy each of several issues of the American magazine Playboy, which had recently been allowed into Australia after having been previously a prohibited import. All of the persons gathered in the upstairs flat would look at one after another illustration of a bare-breasted young woman from the magazines and would cast votes in order to decide whether or not the young woman should spend some time as a guest in the building of several storeys. The young woman of the upstairs flat was interested in dance and music and would describe some of the items that she would later choreograph, as she put it, for performance by herself and other naked young women during banquets. The chief character tried to amuse the others by reading to them parodies he had composed of prayers from the Mass. In each parody words such as God, angels, and sacrifice were replaced by words such as Lucifer, devils, and farce. However, few of the persons in the flat knew anything about Catholic doctrine and liturgy, and the parodies aroused little interest. The only means that the chief character found for amusing the others in the upstairs flat was his performing a brief mime in which he took the role of a priest first turning from the altar towards his congregation with his head bowed and his eyes closed, then seeming to notice that something was amiss, and finally looking aghast. (The chief character never held back from discussing with the other persons in the upstairs flat the details of the banquets and the orgies in the building of several storeys, but he was never able to imagine himself as taking part in an orgy. Whenever the chapel of the building of several storeys appeared as an image in his mind, it was always fitted with a so-called side-chapel, a sort of alcove with a few pews to one side of the altar. If an orgy seemed about to begin, he would slip unnoticed into the front pew of the side-chapel and would there masturbate quietly while he watched the goings-on in the sanctuary.)
In time, discussions about the building of several storeys became more detailed. Someone proposed that banquets and orgies should be filmed. This proposal led to plans for a library of films to be set up in the building together with a cinema where the residents could gather on quiet evenings to watch memorable scenes from past orgies. Someone then suggested the setting up of a film-unit which would not only record notable events in the building of several storeys but would produce short feature-films with contents grossly obscene: what would be called, twenty and more years later, porn movies. Mention of a library led also to discussion of books — obscene books, of course — and a plan for sending one of the residents of the building of several storeys by ship to Europe for the purpose of buying and smuggling back into Australia some of the most outrageous of the books reputed to be available in France or Sweden. Failing that, the chief character could be allotted a quiet suite in a remote part of an upper storey, could be provided with a baize-topped desk, a shaded lamp, and the latest electric typewriter, and could be urged to write short stories or novels with contents so foul that the works could never be published but would be circulated as bound typescripts among the persons who lived in or visited the house of several storeys.
After a few weeks of the sort of discussion mentioned in the previous paragraph, the persons in the upstairs flat began to talk less about sexual gratification and more about the indulgence of some of their less urgent passions. Perhaps they had begun to ask themselves how they might spend the uneventful mornings and afternoons between the riotous evenings in the chapel. Perhaps the young men, knowing that they would never again want for sexual relief, were pleased to discover in themselves yearnings for more subtle and lasting pleasures. For whatever reason, the young men in the upstairs flat came around to discussing such projects as the setting up of a large room given over to the display of football memorabilia. After the young man of the upstairs flat had reassured the other young men that money would be no object in the fitting-out of the building of several storeys, he who cherished old football-cards and autographed pictures of premiership teams had taken to setting out in an imagined upstairs hall row after row of glass display-cases, each containing part of a valuable collection inherited from his grandfather. One young man loved to play poker. He was to be provided with a luxuriously appointed gaming room where he could spend whole days with like-minded persons, betting on the fall of costly, hand-painted cards. It was expected that many of the high-class call-girls would find their way to the gaming-room and that their presence, fashionably dressed, would give a stimulating piquancy to the atmosphere among the card-tables. A young man with simpler interests wanted to be provided with numerous large glass tanks, properly heated and aerated, so that he could stock them with rare tropical fish. This man assured the others in the upstairs flat that nothing would be more likely to rest them and restore them after a strenuous night of banqueting and sensuality than to wander through an indoor aquarium, admiring the changeable colours of gliding or darting fish or the swaying of green water-plants in limpid water behind sturdy glass.