Chapter 30 Scorching Heat
Scorching Heat
As soon as we walk past all the offices full of people having intimate encounters and step out of the long hallway, we’re greeted by darkness.
After a moment, the colorful lights pulse on, but they’re not very bright. It’s just enough to see clouds of fake fog everywhere and to realize we’re standing in a space the size of a classroom. This “Scorching Heat” room is not nearly as big as the “Warm Climate” room on the other side.
Then the lights pulse off. Darkness. The music makes our skin vibrate.
Fatima, Twyla, Oscar, and I only move when the lights are on, so there’s a lot of rhythmic starting and stopping. We take a few steps forward, stop, a few more, stop.
Our eyes start to adjust to the environment.
On both sides of us, we see unmasked men in suits, obviously jacked, presumably security guards, keeping watch.
They stare straight ahead, their faces blank, their hands behind their backs.
It’s as if they’re paying attention to nothing, but I get the feeling they know everything that’s going on.
You wouldn’t want to mess with them, unless you like the idea of getting your skull cracked open.
In front of us is a long antique table. On one side of the table is a pile of different kinds of condoms. On the other is a pile of plastic tubes with some kind of liquid in them.
Oscar grabs a tube and holds it up to his face.
He says, over the loud music, “Lube!”
Because the fog shows no sign of thinning out, Fatima and Twyla lead me and Oscar, by the hand, to the right, so that we can use the wall to guide our way around. This way, we don’t have to wait for the lights to come on to move. We can circle the whole room in the light or the dark.
Both Fatima and Twyla say something, but they can’t be heard over the sound of the pounding EDM. Oscar and I shrug at each other.
Because the fog seems to get pumped in a timed cycle, for a moment a little bit of it seems to dissipate.
And when it does—and as if the naked bodies we just saw in those offices and the condoms and lube weren’t enough of a clue—it becomes clear what Perpetual Sunset is about and what one hundred dollars gets you.
We can’t move further along the wall because there are dozens of people in front of us, all in various states of undress. Some have all their clothes on, some just have underwear, some are topless, some are completely naked. All of them wear their masks though.
Because there are so many bodies in front of us and because I can only see them for the split second that the lights are on and because the lights are so dim and because there’s fog floating around, I only get quick flashes of flesh: a bicep, a breast, a butt cheek, balls.
This flurry of images seems to accelerate whatever the alcohol is doing to me. The room tilts and then tilts again.
On the rare occasion that I drink, I spend like the entire night nursing a couple beers. I never just down a whole shot of whiskey like I just did. Not only do I feel funny physically, I’m finding it increasingly difficult to think clearly.
Oscar doesn’t normally do shots either. His face is getting flushed.
“Damn, bro,” Oscar says to me, “there’s titties everywhere!”
As my brain takes in more visual information, I’m beginning to see a bigger picture of what’s going on in here. I see couples (from what I can tell, heterosexual), interacting with each other, one-on-one, all upright on their feet.
Some couples hold each other in an embrace (tender, loving), some massage each other’s shoulders (gentle, sensual), some caress various body parts (breasts, asses), some lick (necks, chests), some kiss (mouths open, tongues deep).
Some are dry-humping against the wall (fabric against fabric), some are having vaginal sex (varying thrusting speeds), some are doing it in the butt (slow, careful).
It’s a lot to process. It’s like scrolling through a pervy version of Instagram at an incredibly rapid speed. Images flying at me so fast that before I can really understand what I’m looking at it gets replaced by another one.
Oscar looks at me, his mouth wide open. “I have no words.”
We continue on, navigating through the maze of bodies, limbs brushing against us.
A shirtless man with curly hair on his chest places a hand on Fatima’s elbow. She looks him up and down as best she can in the dimness. She makes a decision—she casually shakes her head “no.” He respectfully nods at her and walks away.
This happens several more times to both Fatima and Twyla. They get propositioned by different kinds of men via elbow, and they decline with a head shake. It’s all very business-like, all perfectly polite.
In one corner, I get a quick glimpse of a naked woman, standing, sandwiched between two naked men.
Lights on: one guy thrusts from the front.
Darkness. Lights on: the other guy thrusts from the back.
Darkness. Lights on: the woman’s face is directed towards the ceiling, her mouth open, as she releases an ecstatic moan that we can’t hear because of the music.
Oscar’s eyes practically pop out of their sockets.
A masked guy with short blond hair, who is fully dressed and watching the three-way from the side, unzips his jeans, whips out his cock, and starts stroking it as he watches. His pubes are neatly trimmed.
Twyla lets go of Oscar’s hand and walks up to the blond guy. She whispers into his ear. He nods. She drops to her knees and starts blowing him. Apparently, she just wants to give him a little preview because just as he really starts to get into it, Twyla gets up and rejoins our group.
Twyla leans toward Oscar to give him a kiss.
He jerks his head away from her. “Nah, girl, I ain’t about that. You got dick on your mouth.”
“Ugh.” Twyla rolls her eyes. “You’re so close-minded.”
“Nah,” says Oscar. “That’s just kind of gay though.”
“That’s not gay.” Twyla points. “Now that’s gay.”
Behind Oscar are eleven completely naked athletic-looking guys.
Even with their masks on, I can tell they’re all twentysomething and handsome, like brothers at some hot fraternity.
One guy is on his knees, and he’s blowing the ten other guys that are standing around him in a semicircle.
He’s fully erect while doing so. He sucks on each guy’s dick one by one, clockwise, using the on-off rhythm of the lights to determine how much time each guy gets.
Every time the lights pulse on, his mouth is on a different dick.
Oscar looks surprised and disturbed by this. “Yo, Hunter, I didn’t sign up for this!”
Twyla turns to me. “What’d he call you?”
“He called me Nash,” I immediately say.
“That’s not what it sounded like.”
I point to the ceiling. “The music is really loud!”
Suddenly, we hear some kind of commotion behind us.
When we turn around, we see the two security guards dragging a masked man away from a woman. The man is wearing a shirt and tie and no pants. The woman is wearing a miniskirt, but she is topless. Her perky breasts point straight in front of her.
The man yells, “Let me go!”
“You agreed to the rules!” screams the first security guard.
The second guard asserts, “The first rule is Consent!”
The woman says, “You kissed me without asking, you asshole!”
“Well, you shouldn’t have your tits hanging out like that!”
The first guard says, “You did not ask for consent!”
The second guard pulls out a police nightstick that was hanging from the back of his pants. He raises it in the air and slams it against the back of the man’s knees. He buckles and screams in pain.
The first guard balls a huge fist and wallops the man square in the face.
Oscar and I both flinch.
Oscar says, “Oh, shit!”
Fatima says to him, “Don’t worry. That happens every once in a while. That’s why you have to follow the rules.”
The guards pull the man, who is now unconscious, his dick shriveled, out of the room. Two new security guards enter and continue to monitor what’s going on.
The fog thins out some more. We see, in the middle of the room, mounds of blankets and pillows covering the floor. On top of the blankets and pillows are dozens of people—again, in various states of undress and at various levels of intimacy, from light petting to screaming sex.
Fatima and Twyla make their way to the middle of the mound and lie down. They start making out and rubbing their bodies against each other. They turn to another couple, a naked man and woman who are having sex missionary-style.
Fatima yells something at them. The man and woman nod and roll towards Fatima and Twyla. The couple hungrily crawls on top of the two girls.
Oscar shakes his head in disbelief. “Yo, this might be too intense for me.”
The alcohol continues to work on my body, and I feel my level of physical coordination beginning to drop.
At this point, I’m racking my brain. I’m trying to remember why I’m here.
I have a mission, an objective, a goal. But this whole night is becoming a blur.
Damn, why do I have to be such a lightweight when it comes to alcohol?
Why did I drink in the first place? Where am I?
I grab onto Oscar’s shoulder to hold myself up.
Oscar says, “You okay, bro?”
“Just a little dizzy.”
“It was just one drink. You should be feeling good, not dizzy.”
“It’s been so long since I drank last, so it’s really having an effect on me.”
A girl in her early twenties with long brown hair, extremely fit, walks up to us. She’s wearing a short, tight, white dress and high red heels. Pearls hang around her neck. A mask covers her angular, symmetrical face. I see her blue eyes, the color of the deep sea, through the slits.
Oscar checks her out carefully and can’t help but lick his lips.
“Good evening, boys,” she says, in a heavy Russian accent. “Do you two want Olympic skiing?”
Whatever my mission is tonight, apparently Oscar has forgotten all about it too—because instead of getting us back on track, he places all of his attention on this stranger standing before us.
He enthusiastically nods at her. “Girl, I want whatever it is you have.”
“Oscar,” I say, “we’re supposed to be doing something else.”
But it’s too late. Oscar is already following the woman towards the hallway, towards the dark offices where anything goes.