* * *
Afterward, I went under the shower again; the cold water beat against my face, which I pictured prematurely aged, worn out, wearied by desire. When I emerged I saw, beyond the sauna and the labyrinth, a room that I hadn’t noticed before: behind a large glass wall, standing in the half-light, half a dozen naked men were intertwined. I watched them for a while, then joined them, and this time no one tried to push me away. I was very quickly pulled in by the press of bodies, hands ran over my body and massaged my buttocks, moist fingers came to knead my anus, stubbly faces pressed their lips against mine, mouths sucked then painfully bit my nipples, my own hands, gropingly, found stiff members and stroked them, the smell of rancid sweat and flesh intoxicated me and I was losing my bearings, I found myself on my knees, a cock pressed into the back of my throat, another rubbing against my cheek, a third beating against my forehead, powerful, dominating grips held my hair and neck and directed my head, members knocked against my rounded lips and pressed against my palate, half suffocating me, they finally withdrew and a pair of hairy buttocks took their place, pressed against my face, I stuck out my tongue and absorbed the acrid, bitter taste of the anus, another tongue, greedily, was doing the same with mine, boring into it as several hands spread my buttocks, little by little I found myself pressed to the ground, an arm or a foot wedged my neck there and my ass was pulled up for a first member to come plant into it, I grunted under the pressure of the arm and was rewarded by having my head lifted up for another cock to bury in my mouth, both members moved in and out inside me, quartering me and filling me with a white fire that shot right through me, making me tremble with pleasure so strongly that hands had to support me so I wouldn’t collapse, the man behind me was forcing my ass held almost vertically with large thudding strokes, finally he stiffened completely, overcome by pleasure, his cock quivered as it emptied itself and then, before it had even gone limp, withdrew all of a sudden, dragging behind it the flaccid latex of the condom full of sperm, another immediately took its place and everything started over again, in my mouth as well one member followed another, I had lost all notion of time, a man came abruptly on my face and the sperm, sticky, covered my eyes and lips, I wiped it off as well as I could and blinked to unstick the eyelids, I was surrounded by fragments of bodies, hands, thighs, hairy or else clean-shaven and tattooed, thick cocks, erect with their foreskins pulled back, I closed my eyes and gave in to all these members that kneaded me, pierced me, opened me even wider, my body seemed impossibly rounded, enlarged like a corolla swollen with sap, arched also by the discharges of pleasure that tensed it to the breaking point before suddenly letting it go, instantly resuming their increasing pulsations, it overwhelmed my senses and exhausted my muscles that trembled more than ever, I opened my eyes, the glass wall, near me, vaguely reflected the intermingling of bodies, I could make out nothing with precision except asses, superimposed and shining like moons, behind the window too there was a figure, I opened my eyes wide to discern it better, it was a little child, a blond boy with a pointy face, completely naked, who was watching us through the glass wall with his eyes wide open, his lips stubborn, obstinate. I froze, the face too remained immobile, around me the throng of bodies staggered, grunted, panted; a diffuse uneasiness filled me, quickly detaching me from my own body. What was this boy doing here? I wondered. Wasn’t admittance to this establishment forbidden to minors? The boy, silent and willful, kept staring at me, and I tried to free myself from the man who was brutally penetrating me, but his hands gripped my hips and held me pitilessly riveted to his member which went in and out at a frantic pace, I pushed him away in vain, the little boy never took his eyes off us, panic submerged me and I struggled even more, other hands came to twist my arms and pin my shoulders again to the ground, a foot crushed my head against the tiles as the limb withdrew all of a sudden to splatter my ass with cum, already another was taking its place to come delight in me, then I closed my eyes, instantly erasing both the little boy and the organs surrounding me, and I surrendered to the storm of flesh, my body as if torn away from itself, splashing everything around it before being carried away by a black, raging sea.
* * *
When I opened my eyes again I was alone, lying on the tiled floor. I turned onto my back and instinctively covered my parts with my hands, as if to protect them from blows that didn’t come. Streaks of sperm were drying on my skin, smearing my face, my hair. I thought of the young man in the hammock, abandoned to himself; I too, now, must have looked just as overcome. But my mind couldn’t manage to detach itself from my body, bruised, racked, weighted down. I hadn’t come yet and I feebly tried to jerk off, but my member refused to harden and I finally got up and went to shower. I remained for a long while under the stream of water, my legs still trembling, my limbs shattered with fatigue, I let my head and neck roll under the stream which little by little rinsed off all the filth stuck to my skin and warmed my muscles. Finally I turned off the water and headed for the stairway. My towel had disappeared and I was walking naked, still dripping. On my way, I passed several men, they didn’t pay the slightest attention to me and there was no way of knowing if they had been part of those who had used me or not. I felt only a vague curiosity about it, almost abstract, amused even. At the bar, I asked for a towel, dried myself and wrapped it around my hips, then ordered a gin and tonic which I went to sip on a mock leather sofa, facing a television screen where pornographic scenes were playing with the sound turned off. The images, changing but repetitive, flashed before my gaze, which, at times, absentmindedly focused on them, but immediately it would shift away, nothing caught it, it had become as indifferent to the series of swollen cocks penetrating series of round, white asses as to the large photographs of expanses of tall grass, shining on a golden ground, which covered the wall behind the bar. Aside from the bartender, there was almost no one left, near me a man was drinking a soda and tugging in boredom on his sex while staring at the screen with a glum, empty gaze, I finished my cocktail, got up, and returned to the locker room. My body was still vibrating, overtaxed by sensations but always avid, I vaguely hoped to meet the young man with the pierced nipples, the one who had bought me a drink when I arrived, I wanted to offer him one in turn and then greedily caress his sleek, beautiful body, but there was no one and I took my clothes out of the locker, put them on, and headed for the door. It opened easily and as soon as I passed through it I began running again. The effort invigorated my exacerbated muscles, I felt them relax and rediscover their natural, orderly sense of balance which propelled me with an even stride, neither too slow nor too fast, timed to the breathing that whistled between my lips. In the half-darkness that reigned here, I guessed at more than saw the walls of the hallway, they seemed to be curving and I regularly had to adjust my course so as not to collide with one, at times darker parts seemed to indicate a junction or even a kind of crypt, I ignored them and ran with my head empty, not thinking of anything, happy with the easy deployment of my body, which adjusted quite naturally to the unfolding of this space whose end could not be guessed, I felt like a child free of all constraint and didn’t worry about anything, here and there my fingers gaily beat against the walls, for fun as much as to ensure my orientation, and this is how they encountered a kind of metal projection, a door handle it seemed, on which I leaned and pushed, opening a door through which I passed without slowing down, in a supple bound. My sneakers crunched in the snow and I stopped. A man passed in front of me, leading a horse by a tether, followed by two men carrying a cooking pot, their frozen breath hung suspended in the frigid air that cut through the thin cloth of my tracksuit. I shivered and rubbed my arms. A little further on, under a large beech tree with bare, grey branches, a group of men were crowded around a fire. I approached, my feet sinking into the fresh snow; one of the men noticed me and called out to me: “Well now, sir! You’ll catch cold like that. Come change.” He led me toward a little hut where I found in a rough wardrobe made of boards everything I needed: pants of solid brown material and a turtleneck sweater, which I pulled on over my tracksuit, an officer’s jacket with golden buttons, leather boots, and a long, thick, high-collared coat, with heavy folds that beat against my calves. There was also a fur hat and a close-fitting pair of white gloves, which I put on and buttoned with a remarkable feeling of satisfaction. The soldier was waiting for me at the door: “Don’t forget this,” he said, handing me a riding crop and a leather holster that contained a heavy long-barreled pistol with a rounded butt made of polished wood. Snow was starting to fall, a drift of flakes light as air that danced gaily and melted at the slightest contact. I fastened the holster to the belt of my jacket as I followed the soldier to the fire. Other men had come join the first group, they all wore a uniform similar to mine; when they saw me approach they stood to attention, clicked their heels, and saluted me. Several of them were wearing a heavy, wrought metal cross around their neck; I took my own out of my jacket pocket and placed it around my neck too, softly caressing the metal with my fingers before lifting my head up toward a naked man, hanged by a single foot to a branch of the beech, his grey skin lacerated with blows and gashes. “This one?”—“A spy, sir. He was prowling around the horses, we gave him a good lesson.” I nodded and approached the blaze. A man slid over a folding stool on which I sat, another handed me a tin spoon and a steaming bowl filled with red beans. I was very hungry and I cheerfully devoured the dish, it lacked salt but that didn’t matter, I swallowed the last spoonful and scraped the bowl. I was now completely warmed up, the fire was pleasantly roasting my feet and thighs, a few snowflakes stuck for an instant to my sleeves before melting and I contemplated them with pleasure. I belched and drank some water. “Have the horses saddled,” I ordered as I got up. “We’re leaving.” Immediately, the men began to bustle about. Above the fire, the hanged man swayed gently, held in place by a thinner branch impaled in his anus. A soldier came up to me and saluted: “What about the prisoners, sir?” I thought about it for an instant: “Shoot them.”—“The women too?”—“The women too.” I headed in long strides for the enclosure. A man was leading toward me a handsome bay horse, whose nostrils exhaled spirals of steam that mixed with snowflakes, falling thicker and thicker. I took the tether from the soldier’s hands, patted the animal’s neck, checked the girth, and hauled myself onto the saddle, where I settled to watch the preparations. In my jacket pocket I found a cigar case; I lit one and drew on it, immediately the puffs of tobacco brought me a sensation of serenity, light and almost joyful like the snow filling the sky. Around me, men were coming and going, lining up the horses, striking the tents; further on, some soldiers were escorting a small group of men and women, most of them dressed in rags. Having reached a copse of pine trees, they forced them to kneel in the snow. Then a soldier pointed his rifle, aimed at a neck, and pressed the trigger; the man flew forward in a sudden spurt of blood; already the soldier was moving on to the next one and adjusting his weapon. Men on horseback came and joined me. One of them handed me a spear, with the handle made of polished ash and a long, sharp, thin blade shaped like a leaf; I grasped it joyfully, hefting it and then placing it across my knees. When everything was ready I took a last puff on the cigar, threw the butt into the snow and brandished the spear to give the signal for departure. My horse pawed the ground and I guided it with my heels, slipping the spear under my arm and grasping the reins with my free hand. Around me the column was getting underway, moving alongside the trees, skirting round the bodies of the condemned which lay face to the ground in the reddened snow, their limbs akimbo like broken dolls. A little further on, we joined an intersecting path and I set my horse trotting, hooves flew in the virgin snow, spears struck the branches and rained sprays of snow, needles, and pinecones on us, I laughed and my men laughed with me, filled with joy by this impromptu evening race through the woods. Further on opened up vast snowy fields, striped with the brown of tilled earth, we crossed them without slowing down, the snow was no longer falling, the sky was veering grey and growing darker, little by little the clouds unraveled, spilling over the tranquility of the countryside the white light of the full moon. Finally night settled in and I slowed the horses down to a walk. We moved through fields to the jangling of harnesses and spurs, the snorts of the horses, the muted sound of dozens of hooves in the snow, wrapped in the rich smells of frozen earth, leather, gun oil, horse sweat, and manure. The moon now illuminated everything, we could clearly make out the white and undulating expanses interspersed with little woods, slightly darker masses scattered here and there under the bluish vault of the nighttime sky. In the distance lights were shining, and without a word I headed the column toward them. Little by little, the forms of a great building took shape in front of us, nestled in trees and surrounded by outbuildings, an isolated manor like so many still left in these lands. A dog, alerted by our approach, began barking, followed by another, more lights came on and we heard brief shouts and the sound of doors. With a gesture of my spear, I sent two groups of men to flank the house as I continued to advance at a walk, followed by the bulk of the troop. Having reached the large gate of the enclosure, built of strong metal-trimmed wood, I knocked on it with my spear and cried: “Open up!” The dogs were barking louder, no one answered. “Open up! Open up or I’ll burn everything down!” Finally a voice made itself heard: “Who goes there?”—“Open up, in