“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Yes. I think it’s that serious. And the Company thinks it’s that serious. You’re a very fortunate young man to have the Company decide to help you. Be at the Institute at nine o’c1ock Saturday, Archer. For the Company's sake—and for the sake of your career.”
The interview was at a close. Archer thanked Mr. Holdkumb and left his office. When he’d gone, E. Z. called his wife, Neva, and filled her in on what had transpired.
“Well, that’s all very well,” Neva replied when E.Z. had finished, “but my instinct tells me it would still be a good idea to put a female onto Archer to reactivate his sex urge.”
“Your instinct, hmm?” E. Z. had a large respect for his wife’s instinct. In the past it had pointed the way to many a waterhole. “What did you have in mind, my dear?”
“This Saturday encounter group to which Archer’s going -- would it be possible for you to get another person into it ?”
“I imagine I could pull the necessary strings.”
“Good. That might be just the right atmosphere for Archer to meet this young lady I know—relaxed, informal, you know. I’ve already spoken to her about Archer’s problem and she’s agreed to cooperate. She’s positively intrigued by it. It’s a challenge to her, you know. So if you can arrange for her to be a member of the encounter group . . . ”
“I’ll arrange it,” E. Z. decided. “Tell her to be at the Hussalin Institute at nine o’clock on Saturday.”
“What sort of clothes should she bring?” Mrs. Holdlcumb asked her husband.
“Huh? What does that matter?”
“You’re not a woman, my dear. If you were, you’d know that it matters.”
“Well, Pm damned if I know. Just clothes, I guess . . . ”
But E. Z. Holdkumb was wrong about that!
Just how wrong, Archer found out not long after he arrived at the Institute at nine o’clock Saturday morning. When he got there he inquired for Dr. Baariasol and was directed to a room on the third floor of the Institute. But Dr. Baariasol had been detained and Archer sat down to wait for him there.
Curious, Archer looked around him at the room. It was quite large and sparsely furnished. An oversize desk and swivel chair stood in front of the windows at the far side of the room. The only thing on the desk was a recorder and a stack of tapes. Plain off-white drapes were drawn across the window and the room was lit by muted fluorescents.
The walls were also painted off-white, not a sterile color, but a passive one. Along the wall across from Archer about ten mattresses were lined up, each abutting the next one. The mattresses were also off-white.
In one corner of the room was a large bathroom sink. In the other corner stood a toilet. Both matched the color of the walls. Only the desk and chair and tape recorder-—all metallic--were different in hue. There were no pictures on the wall no decorations of any kind in the room.
“Mr. Hornsby?” A man entered, greeted Archer, and closed the door behind him.
Archers jaw dropped. Except for rimless spectacles, the man was completely nude. Archer gulped. “I’m Mr. Hornsby,” he admitted.
“Glad you could make it.” The naked man held out his hand. “I’m Dr. Baariasol.”
Dr. Baariasol was very tall and skinny. Archer shook his hand and made a conscious effort to keep his eyes focused upward, at his face. It wasn’t easy. Dr. Baariasol was the most naked man Archer had ever seen.
“This is your first time, isn’t it?” Dr. Baariasol said. Archer nodded; “Are you shocked by my appearance?” Dr. Baariasol’s small blue eyes blinked rapidly at Archer.
“Well . . . surprised.”
“That’s normal.” The doctor’s voice was overly hearty. It was meant to be reassuring, but he was too reedy a man to carry off such a deep, sonorous tone. “Very normal indeed. Now about my nudity,” he continued. “Don’t let it bother you. It won’t seem so alarming after you’ve taken off all of your own clothes.”
“I don’t think-—” Archer started to protest, but he was interrupted by the entrance of a yery fat young woman with enormous breasts. Like the doctor, she was completely naked. Archer looked from her to the doctor, back to her and back to the doctor again.
“You’ll forgive me for not introducing you,” Dr. Baariasol said. “But we don’t use names here. You see, names are artificial. They’re barriers of formality between people. Our aim is to lower the barriers.”
The door opened again and a small man, dark-skinned and Italian-looking, entered. Like the doctor and the fat girl, he too was naked. He nodded to the doctor, glanced at Archer, and then riveted his eyes to the fat girl's behemoth breasts. She fluttered her eyelids at him. and her plump face broke into a Cupid’s-bow smile supported by three dimpling chins.
Archer followed her eyes as they traveled from the hairline moustache down the small and slender -- but well-muscled -- body to the groin. The penis nestled there was the smallest Archer had ever seen. This despite the fact that it was erect. Both in size, shape, and—yes, deadliness -- it looked like a small-caliber bullet.
“If you’ll go through that door”—Dr. Baariasol was addressing Archer-—“You’ll find a locker room to your left. You can undress there and leave your clothes in one of the lockers. The attendant will hold the key for you.”
The Company knew what it was doing, Archer reminded himself. He followed the doctor’s instructions. When he returned, hands clasped in front of him fig-leaf style like a little boy trying to get the teacher's permission to leave the room, he saw that two more naked people were in the room. Behind him la nude, redheaded girl entered.
The doctor nodded to her and crossed over to the door. “All here,” he called to somebody out in the hall.
“Check,” a voice called back. A few seconds later there was the sound of the door being locked from the outside.
Dr. Baariasol seated himself behind his desk and surveyed the group with a benignity that was alarming in its intensity—alarming to Archer, anyway. “Now, none of us know each other,” he began. “And there will be no introductions. Two among us are new to the procedures followed by encounter groups at the Hussalin Institute. I shan’t reveal who they are. They will make themselves known when the feelings indicate the desirability of doing so. The door has been locked and will not be opened until midnight Sunday, a few minutes less than thirty-nine hours from now. Because of the period involved, this is known as a modified marathon encounter. No one will be permitted to leave until midnight Sunday. Meals will be sent in at periodic intervals.”
“Soon, I hope!” the fat girl interrupted. “I’m starving.”
“The first will be delivered in about three hours,” Dr. Baariasol told her. He ignored her groan and continued. “We will eat in this room, wash here, sleep here as the desire for sleep comes upon any of us, and defecate here.”
“You mean right there!” Archer pointed at the toilet. “In front of everybody?”
“Whatsammatta, ya bashful?” the Italian man asked. “I guess we all know who one new boy is now,” he added, pointing his finger at Archer derogatorily. “It’s Bashful over there.”
Thus Archer received his name for the duration of the encounter. Later, he didn’t feel so put-down by it when he saw how the others were labeled. The under-endowed Italian -- who turned out to be a genuine, real-life Mafioso -- was tagged “Little Gat.” And the overweight girl was more affectionately dubbed “Fat Tits.”
“To get things rolling,” the doctor was saying now, “I think we should go around the room and each of us tell something about himself or herself. You start it off.” He nodded to the girl seated on the mattress nearest him.
Archer took a good look at her for the first time. She was trimly built, everything in proportion, nicely put together. Her legs were shapely, her hips and breasts average. The most unusual thing about her figure was that the nipples of her breasts were very long and very red and looked very hard. Her face, framed by shoulder-length blonde hair, was pretty. But now, with the attention of the group on her, its soft lines had grown harsh with either fright, or embarrassment, or both.