Read Online Contours of Darkness by Marco Vassi - Free Book Online Page B

sought to swallow one another's mouth and their lungs like bellows sucked the air from their chests and discharged it through their nostrils, leaving them cemented by the force of the single vacuum they had become.
    Externally, there was no movement; their hands were still, their eyes closed. All the force born of their contact was inside the bubble created by the intensity of exchange. And to an outside observer, their separation would have seemed violently abrupt. They just burst apart, stood back a foot and stared wildly at the mystery they had helped to create, already propelled back into context, but still trailing a wake of strangeness. And then they clung to one another tightly, like people who had jumped at the last minute from a car that had gone on to plummet over the edge of a steep precipice. They found no comfort in one another's arms, only the imperative to push on further into the void.
    Aaron lay on the couch and pondered the question of self-honesty. He had read almost a dozen books on LSD and felt prepared for the experience that was about to begin. And yet knew that no amount of intellectual prestructuring could contain an episode the very purpose of which was to transcend the limitations of the conscious mind. Given the circumstances under which he took the drug, the paramount issue in his mind was his relationship with Cynthia.
    They could be fucking on the kitchen floor right now,' he thought. 'And I'm not even interested in going in to find out.'
    Foremost among his ruminations was the understanding that there was no way to keep Cynthia from having sex with Conrad without continuing to sacrifice a great deal of his autonomy. She would be faithful, but only at a price, the price he had been paying for three years, serving as the reservoir she went to to fulfil all her needs. They were together as often, as much, as a parent and a small child, and more than once he had reasoned that they were playing out childhood patterns upon one another. He blocked out the details of the movie which starred Cynthia, cunt agape, slobbering into Conrad's mouth. There was something about her, more than with any other woman he had been with, that made her nakedness seem precious. When he fucked her and slipped his hand between her buttocks, the crack slimy with her secretions, it was unthinkable that another man should know that, or that she could let herself be touched in that way by anyone but him. And because it was impossible to acknowledge, he could let himself enjoy the fantasies of her in that role. But with his most erotic daydreams about to materialise, perhaps in his own house, he pulled the plug on his interior projector. He wondered whether the acid would force him to face what he now so easily put aside, and whether it would push him into areas of disclosure that were even more volatile, those parts of him that wanted to be rid of Cynthia, to have her gone and not acting as a constant drain and distraction, compounding his basic confusion. It occurred to him that under the influence of the drug he might even be moved to tell her of his excursions.
    His thoughts sped back to a night several weeks earlier when Cynthia had gone to spend the night with a friend. He had found himself walking towards the bay, through the black neighbourhood, when the sound of jazz hit his ear, and he stopped to listen to the cool, sweet, wise music dance through the salt air. On impulse he went into the place, a long narrow room with a bar, a stage, and two dozen round tables. He waited until his eyes adjusted to the dim light, nodded to the bartender, and went to sit by the wall, ordering a bourbon and spring water when the waitress came by. Three musicians played, a piano, a bass, and drums. They operated like people who knew one another and their world so well, who had come to such a thorough acceptance of life, that they need pay no heed to where their playing led them. They spun out run after run with no rehearsal, no