Free Belonger (An erotic novel): Part One by Daniel Six Page A

manipulate the interpretation
of performances that ranged from competent but predictable to
crowd-rousing chaos.
    The stage was presently decorated in the
fashion of a pleasure salon. A sultry vermillion glow rained on an
assemblage of furniture and accessories suitable to such a place.
Ranged about a thick, cherry-colored rug at the center were
low-profile couches that wouldn’t obstruct the view from any
angle—a constant consideration for theater-in-the-round, where the
audience lay in every direction.
    Some of the night’s
auditioners were entering the scene now, flirtatious women edging shyly from vestibules
situated under the upswept bowl of seats radiating from the stage.
There were nearly a dox of them, garbed in gorgeous, ankle-length
dresses of varied colors. Each bore a giant marble in her palm
matching the hue of her ensemble.
    The Merkin smoothed the fringe at his chin,
cleared his throat inaudibly and spoke. Throw gnomes stationed
around him amplified his voice to issue grandly down onto the stage
and out to the theater beyond.
     
    “ Some know why
    Yet can not speak
    Secrets dwell
    In every well
    But who will hide
    And who will seek?”
     
    It was his custom to recite an extemporaneous
poem before every theater exercise to prepare his wit for the quick
maneuvering that was often required. He continued in a more formal
tone.
    “ To a revel have a small
party of women come. Mingling in mutual solicitation, they proceed
to trade baubles with one another, hiding them in the feminine
vault. No couples are formed.”
    He watched in satisfaction as the auditioners
harkened to his singular voice, effecting his desire with an
obvious relief to be doing something intentional in front of the
crowd.
    Whispering sultry provocations, their hands
and lips met in mutual discovery. Marbles winked in the soft
ambience of red gnome glow. A dress was raised on a shy brunette
and the Merkin watched as her panties were delicately fingered open
by an aggressive woman garbed in pink, who slid a matching bauble
down to her cleft, eased it inside with a murmur and a kiss.
    The skirt fell back into place, and an
imposing slipper resplendent in green braced a compact woman, put
her arms around the wide-eyed creature and won her intimacy,
filling her vagina with an emerald orb and lovingly rubbing the
lips to seal the possession.
    Soon the women were lifting hems and drawing
panties to a convivial rhythm, fulfilling the initiatory conditions
for hide-and-seek. The Merkin watched baubles come and go from
slipper to slipper, winking hues tracing circuits of desire
impossible to comprehend even from his lofty vantage. Before long a
kind of equilibrium was reached and the slippers caroused in
satisfied relation to one another now, each bearing another woman’s
marble, ordered by a hierarchy invisible from without. The Merkin
heard an anticipatory rustle from the audience and judged the
moment right to proceed. The performers would quickly become
stage-frightened if he allowed the context of their participation
to falter. Unlike any other form of employment, acting required a
completely abstract interface to its field of influence.
    “ The women take their
places at random on the couches and prepare for the consideration
of men,” he intoned. They quickly complied,
settling their dresses decorously on the cushions and primping
elegant coiffures.
    The Merkin watched as three imposingly suited
men entered the stage on cue and took places on the circular rug in
the center. They exhibited an intent masculinity, boldly surveyed
the women ranged around the salon, eyes lowered and legs demurely
crossed now.
    “ The men caucus to
determine the first subject of interest and the order of
solicitation. Each is then granted a turn to seduce her by
discipline or delight till she yields her secret to one of them. No
stimulation to climax occurs.”
    There was a low consultation among the men as
they gestured from one woman to another, debating