Banks of colored spotlights flashed on and bathed the deck in mottled patches of red and purple and green and orange and blue and yellow. People rubbed their eyes and sat up. The blushing young couple from Flushing stood up and Sean and Andrea got a look at them. The girl was perhaps twenty, with a slender, slightly sway-backed figure and a pretty, innocent-looking face framed by a pixie haircut. She wasn't much taller than five-three but her legs, encased in tightly-fitting faded jeans, were exceptionally long. Her husband, was baby-faced behind his wire-rimmed glasses, shy in manner, about six feet tall, slender, with a carefully groomed head of dirty-blond collar-length hair. As they turned to watch the Guru descending from his crow's nest on a scary-looking metal ladder she poked him and whispered loudly, "I don't know whether I'm going to like this, whatever it is."
From then on things moved with the speed of light. Mei Ling and the black woman who'd been with her at Folk City supervised the distribution of countless pots of finger-paint of every imaginable color. The Guru's professional wrestler-types circulated through the crowd placing ash-cans full of beer on ice everywhere. Sean, and Andrea made the acquaintance of Mindy and Josh Rudolph, 20 and 22 respectively, of Main Street, Flushing, and together they listened to the Guru's final speech of the night, which he delivered from a podium in front of the swimming pool.
"I take it you have all grasped the idea of the essence of the essence of the idea, which is related to the paint. Also to your bodies, onto which the paint is to be applied by anyone who happens to come by and apply it. Now anybody who came on this cruise to get rid of hangups that might be hanging them up right now should do something about it, which would consist of either running for cover or standing around watching-until you get nailed anyhow-or painting a picture of the aforementioned hangups on someone else's body. The last is naturally the best, because it ties in with the ridiculousness of the human condition and therefore completely to be sneezed at. But if you think you'd blow your nose trying to force the issue, then go back to your cabin and wait for the horse that comes before the cart, which will be the systematic un-hanging sessions starting tomorrow. Tonight it's assumed that we're out here on a boat all by ourselves with no mommy or daddy or cop or priest or president and we're in a democracy here, which means that everyone's just as silly and bent out of shape as everyone else. The trick is to make out that you're sillier than anyone else. You might look on it as an act. It's not the real you that's getting your dork painted purple with green polka-dots, it's just some actor in a play that you happen to be playing the part of that actor in. Now that's all gratuitous assumption, but of course what isn't in the long run, so the idea is to make the long run short and vice versa. Get it?" He finished his oration by pouring a pot of chartreuse paint over his head and doing a back-flip into the swimming pool.
About half the people on the deck-mostly older ones-ran for cover.
Joints began circulating through the remainder from some unknown source.
Mei Ling and the black woman started tearing off each other's clothes. Virginia Vagina and the Princess appeared with their cohorts and streaked through the crowd, naked tits flopping, buns jouncing, whooping and screeching and mooning people and getting paint sloshed on their asses for their trouble.
Mindy Rudolph tried to break away and get to her cabin but her husband wasn't having any of it. He doused her with a bucket of lemon-yellow and started tickling her.
Joanna and Andrea fell on Sean and in a second he was naked, thrashing around while they tried to paint his dick purple with green polka-dots. John stuffed a cigar-sized joint into his mouth and he quieted down. Joe Lee, who'd disappeared for a while, returned in the company of an Amazon they'd seen earlier in a pair of pink hot-pants and matching halter. She was gorgeous, stacked, but also about six-two. Joe set her on John. She picked him up from behind and held him while Joe, with the help of a bleached-blonde middle-aged lady who appeared from nowhere dressed in what looked like three layers of mauve saran wrap, depantsed him. The lady promptly divested herself of what there was of her outfit and sat on John's face. He had a quick snack while she painted dainty little circles around his navel. Virginia Vagina pranced up and sat down on his dick, amusing herself by dabbing little flower-like blotches on the middle aged lady's long, swinging tits as she humped.
The wide-eyed young poet who'd thought his verse sounded like Walt Whitman's came upon their party while wandering through the crowd in search of sex. He timidly began unbuttoning Andrea's blouse as she and Joanna put the finishing touches on Sean's dick. Andrea noticed him and stuck out her tongue. He staggered back and she leapt up at him. She wrestled him to the deck, ripped off her blouse, and stuck a tit in his mouth. He lay there sucking in ecstatic bewilderment while Joanna relieved him of his clothing. "What's say?" she asked. "Want to do this one yellow with red polka-dots?"
Mindy Rudolph, half laughing and half crying and generally confused, fought her husband as he tore at her blouse and yelled, "It was your idea to come on this cruise, not mine, so why don't you just do what the Guru says? You could use some enlightenment!" Sean watched with some interest as Josh succeeded in getting her blouse off and freeing her pertly upswept breasts. They bobbled high on her chest as she fought for breath and tried to cover them.
"I want to go back to the cabin!" she shouted. "I want to… "
Suddenly she stopped and stared up toward the bow. The Guru was winding his way toward her, traces of chartreuse paint in his hair. He was good and naked, and someone had painted fuzzy brown fishes and scaly-looking golden bears on his chest and thighs. His lower legs, from the toe-tips to the calves, were painted to look as if he was wearing a gaudy pair of unmatched knee socks, one blue and silver, the other orange and black.
Josh let Mindy go and she just sat numbly clutching the remnants of her blouse to her chest. The Guru affected a hesitation-step and drew up before her. He frowned contemplatively. "I have sensed a number of unserene vibrations coming from this area." He took no notice of John, whose head was still wedged between the middle-aged lady's ass cheeks and whose dick was still the sole possession of Virginia Vagina, nor of any of the others. Mindy was too stunned to do anything.
"I see," the Guru intoned with dignity, "that you think you do not want to expose yourself at this little… tea party, and yet you also think you do. But you think that you should think that you don't. This is what we call a conflict, which is resolved in the following manner. Watch closely." He stuck his right hand into a nearby pot of shocking pink, grabbed his ear-lobe with it, drew his left hand up into his left armpit and began flapping like a chicken. He hopped around pulling his ear lobe. "Squalk! Bawk bawk bawk! Heebie-jeebie fartstorm! Bawk bawk!"
Mindy couldn't help herself. Nobody could. She burst out laughing. Gales of laughter swept across the deck like waves in a high storm.
"There's one more thing," the Guru said. He stopped abruptly and walked over to her. He dipped his dick into the shocking pink, relieved her of what was left of her blouse, placed her hands at her sides, and contemplated her breasts as she sat star-struck before him. "You will notice the paintbrush's only bristle stiffening as the artist contemplates your tits." His cock jumped to attention. "Now. What is needed is a circle here… " He grabbed his cock and drew a circle around her right nipple. "And a square here." The square around the left nipple was a little lop-sided but that didn't bother him. "In a few seconds, these configurations will cause your nipples to become erect." He started to turn away, then changed his mind. "Aha! You see? It's happening already." Mindy's nipples were puffing up to huge buds that reddened visibly. "That indicates that more action is to be taken."