“But not the primary ones. See for yourself. I’m perfectly covered in that area, and so I’m well within the norms. Why don’t you look at me? You can be so absurd at times, Joe.” Since she insisted on it, he stared at her waist. His eyes travelled as far as her thighs. He had to admit it: she was decently enough clad there. She looked nude, but she wasn’t. Cunning, he thought. Provocative. He wondered how she got the sprayon outfit off. Maybe she would show him that, too, before the night was out. Her lean body held a powerful attraction for him. Unlike Helaine, whose leanness was the result of erosion and general haggardness, Judith’s body was perfect in its lithe, slim elegance. Quellen would gladly have walked out right now with her.
But there was the ceremony to endure.
The members of this communion group assembled themselves on the rim of the carpeted pit. Brose Cashdan, as the host, produced a shining metallic bowl in which reposed a doughy mass about the size of a man’s head. This, Quellen knew, was the substance of the love feast: an indigestible algae product with emetic properties. Adapted, no doubt, to suit Mrs Galuber’s galactose deficit.
Cashdan said, “Dr Galuber has kindly consented to be our first celebrant this evening.”
The lights were dimmed. Galuber took the gleaming bowl from Cashdan and rested it on his knees. Then, solemnly, he broke loose a fistful of the dough and crammed it into his mouth. He began to chew.
There were many cults. Quellen was no joiner, but even he had now and then been drawn into their ceremonies, generally through the urging of Judith. She drifted everywhere in her search for spiritual fulfilment—from frood to frood, from cult to cult. Quellen suspected that she had frequented the proscribed cults, perhaps even the outlawed Flaming Bess religion. He could picture Judith dancing naked—no flimflam of sprayon to cover her shame—while a grovelling pyrotic kindled an extrasensory blaze and raging voices railed for the overthrow of the High Government. Pyrotics had actually assassinated several Class One leaders a generation ago. The cult still endured.
Mainly, though, the cults were more innocent things—revolting, perhaps, but not criminal. Such as this one, in which the chewing of the cud somehow led to a feeling of interpersonal harmony. Cashdan was intoning a digestive litany of some sort. Galuber was still stuffing resilient dough into his mouth. How much could that capacious belly hold? Jennifer Galuber was watching her husband with pride. The frood continued to devour. His face was transfigured, the eyes virtually sightless. Jennifer glowed. Her bare body seemed even more huge as she took vicarious pleasure from her husband’s importance.
They were all chanting, now. Even Judith. Low, serious sounds of spirituality came from them.
She nudged him. “You too,” she whispered.
“I don’t know the words.”
“Just drone along then.”
He shrugged. Galuber had ingested nearly every scrap of dough in the bowl. Surely his stomach was painfully distended, now. That stuff was like rubber. The emetic it contained worked on a critical-mass basis; once you had enough of the stuff in your gut, the peristalsis reflex was triggered and the sacred regurgitation began.
Judith, beside Quellen, was begging to be admitted into the realms of Oneness. Nirvana through upchucking, Quellen thought coldly. How could it be? What am I doing here? The chant rebounded from the glass walls and deafened him. In a subtle antiphony currents of sound were sweeping round and round the room. He could not avoid swaying in rhythm. His lips moved. He would have joined in, if only he knew the words. He found himself humming tunelessly. Cashdan, still leading the ceremony, stepped up his volume. His voice was a fine, thick, black basso, with plenty of intensity to it.
Galuber sat motionless in the centre of the pit. His eyes were closed. His hands were clasped on his abdomen. His face was flushed. He alone was in stasis in the midst of this swaying, chanting congregation. Quellen forced himself to stay aloof, observing. He watched the rhythmic side-to-side motions of Jennifer Galuber’s offensively large breasts. He watched Judith’s fine-boned face turn radiant with some inner ecstasy. A sexless young man with slicked-down maroon hair was jerking as though he had hold of a high-voltage wire. Around the room, the mysterious passion of social regurgitation was taking hold.
Dr Galuber began to vomit, now.
The frood regurgitated with quiet dignity. His thick lips parted, and lumps of dough burst forth into the bowl. Sweat beaded his flushed face; there was effort in any kind of reverse peristalsis, even when the medulla was lulled, as it was by the drug within the dough. Yet he performed his function in the rite nobly. The bowl was filled.
It was passed around.
Hands clutched at moist dough. Take and eat, take and eat; here is the body, the authentic substance of the group. Join in the Oneness. Brose Cashdan was eating. Jennifer Galuber ate. Judith tranquilly accepted her portion. Quellen found a wet doughy mass in his hand.
Take. Eat.
Be objective. This is Oneness. His hand rose trembling towards his lips. He felt Judith’s thigh warm against his own, beside him. Take and eat. Take and eat. Galuber lay prostrate in the pit, transfixed with ecstasy.
Quellen ate.
He chewed lustily, not allowing himself to hesitate. The particular property of the indigestible substance was that it could be digested upon contact with saliva following immersion in the alimentary tract. One swallowing wasn’t enough; Galuber had merely prepared it for their intake. Quellen swallowed. Oddly, he felt no queasiness. He had eaten ants, raw whelks, sea urchins, other exotic delicacies, and had not even been granted a chance of a spiritual experience in the bargain. Why hesitate at this?
The other communicants were weeping in joy. Tears glistened on Judith’s sprayon garment. Quellen still felt deplorably objective about the universe. He had not joined the mystic communion after all, dutifully though he had observed the rite. He waited patiently for the ecstasy to pass from the others.
Judith whispered to him, “Will you celebrate the next round?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Joe—”
“Please. I came, didn’t I? I’m participating. Don’t ask me to be the star.”
“It’s customary for strangers to the group to—”
“I know. Not me. Someone else can have the honour.”
She looked reproachfully at him. Quellen realized that he had failed her. Tonight had been some sort of a test, and he had nearly passed. Nearly.
Brose Cashdan had produced a second mass of ritual dough. Without a word, Jennifer Galuber accepted the bowl and began to stuff herself. The frood, exhausted by his efforts, sat slumped wearily beside her, hardly watching. The rite proceeded as had the first. Quellen took part as before, without ever becoming involved in the action.
Afterward, Brose Cashdan approached Quellen and said softly, “Would you care to lead us in our next communion?”
“I’m sorry,” said Quellen. “I really can’t. I’ve got to leave soon.”
“I regret that. We had hoped you’d participate to the fullest.” Cashdan smiled dreamily and handed the bowl to someone else.
Quellen tugged at Judith’s wrist and drew her to one side. “Come home with me,” he whispered urgently.
“How can you think of sex here?”
“You aren’t dressed chastely, you know. You’ve had two communions. Will you leave with me?”
“No,” she said firmly.
“If I wait until the next communion is over?”
“No. Not then. You’ll have to take communion yourself, as a celebrant, and mean it. Otherwise I’d feel no kinship to you later. Honestly, Joe, how can I give myself to a man I don’t relate to? It would be so utterly mechanical—it would harm us both.”