Date: Thu, 25 May 2023 23:22:26 +0000
From: edward_sellon <edward_sellon@protonmail.com>
Subject: Wisdom: Chapter III - A Walk in the Sun

Adult/Youth, Incest, Pedophilia

This story contains depictions and/or descriptions of sexual activity
between adults and minors. If it is not legal to read this sort of material
in your locality, you object to this sort of material and/or you are under
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Chapter III - A Walk in the Sun

Emerging with Yanni into the bright golden and still rather brisk morning,
I saw that, as we began moving up the sidewalk and then turned east onto
the broad avenue, the earlier stillness of the village had been thoroughly
supplanted by the bustle of a considerable gaggle of children of all ages
and also some adults. All wore -- the females around their torsos and the
males round their necks -- the ubiquitous chains with the engraved
pendants, the varying colors of the chains confirming my conclusion of the
day before, that they were the indicators of an age classification
system. I noted the younger children wore bronze chains, like the one I had
seen around Sweet's neck, while the older children wore silver chains, like
the ones I had seen worn by Emma and Martin. The adults wore golden
chains. A platinum chain encircled Yanni's neck, however, like the one I
had seen gracing his sister Lina's muscled abdomen. Curiously, other than
Yanni, the chains of only a few of the adults were adorned by gemstones
while the chains of what seemed like most of the kids sported rubies and
sapphires and diamonds. I made a mental note to ask Yanni what it all
meant.

The adults and children all wore variants of the yellow garments that
signified the day, the adults more often cleaving to the common uniform of
bikini bottoms and feet sheathed by low-cut athletic socks and light
footwear such as sandals or canvas sneakers. Some wore jackets to ward off
the morning chill but others, like Yanni and me, braved the crispness and
went topless, erect nipples to be seen on every chest.

Among the youngsters, though, a more eclectic variety prevailed with regard
to the bronzing of their flesh as well as the garments they were
wearing. Most had donned some sort of yellow article to encase their young
genitals, but their selections were decidedly skimpier. A good number of
the boys wore micro-pouch thong-back bikinis that barely concealed their
nether regions and left nothing about their hard young asses to the
imagination. In some cases, their young cocks were erect enough to cause
the pouches to noticeably rise and detach from their bodies. Some of the
boys paired their bikinis with thigh-high panty hose of varying shades of
yellow and varying grades of sheerness or athletic socks of equal length,
and, rather than sandals or sneakers, their feet were shod with hiking
boots.

One honey-blonde boy, whom I guessed was around thirteen years of age,
sported an impressive, circumcised penis that, even though it was mostly
flaccid, had to be at least six inches long. His prick hung low, its glans
pushing his pouch down and out to reveal most of his thick shaft and
pristine balls. His muscled legs were wrapped in a pair of thigh-high black
and yellow-striped socks that I thought were quite striking, at least while
he was wearing them, and, on his feet, he wore golden khaki hiking boots,
threaded with red laces, which sheathed his legs up to just below his
knees.

My mouth watered at the sight of him, but I quickly turned away, though his
image was indelibly burned into my memory. My eyes darted toward Yanni but,
for the moment, he was more concerned with exchanging greetings with the
crowd than paying attention to me. I breathed an inward sigh of relief. I
suddenly wasn't in the mood to hear Yanni once again express his belief
that I wasn't just some observer, neutral or not, but that I might find
myself more at home here than I cared to admit. I did realize my senses
were under such a constant assault, though, that I was having trouble
organizing my thoughts.

The girls were just as daringly imaginative. Some were garbed simply, but
were still outrageously alluring, wearing variants of micro-bikini bottoms
like the one I had on. Others wore short shorts made of denim or spandex,
some of the latter in brilliant metallic shades, all riding low on their
hips, and some cut so high that all of their asses were revealed. The short
shorts ranged in size from short to ultra to micro to super micro. Some of
the girls combined bikini bottoms with the shorts, the side straps of the
bikinis rising from the top of the low-cut shorts to ride high on their
hips. Like the boys, some of them wore hose or long socks and, on their
feet, some wore the usual sandals or sneakers while others wore glossy
ballet slippers.

Seeing all this, I allowed myself a small smile. Whatever pretensions to
paradise this place maintains, I thought, it shares at least a little
something with the outside world: the youthful stabs at individuality and
self-discovery manifested in the ceaseless fashion show that was forever a
hallmark of growing up. It was only then I noticed that, amidst the
variety, the one article all of the kids had in common was a pair of knee
pads shielding the hinges of their legs. Something else to ask Yanni, I
thought.

It was plainly a happy and healthy group, all of them moving east toward
the Main House, chattering and laughing, some of the children horsing
around. I was irresistibly struck by how unashamed all of them seemed. Here
they were, nonchalantly strolling in states of brazen display, some of them
visibly aroused, some of them blithely fondling their own genitals as they
walked, and yet, somehow, nothing seemed amiss, even to a square from the
outside world like me. The morning was bright and cool, a new day was at
hand, and these kids seemed as carefree and suffused with youthful promise
as kids anywhere, perhaps even more so.

Considering the flock of youths passing before me, I thought of what I had
seen of Sweet the day before: his easy nudity, his unabashed arousal, his
joyous indulgence in sex, all amid a thoroughly merry disposition, engaging
personality and delighted meeting with life. Coming here had seemed to do
no harm to the boy once named Marco. I knew I couldn't judge the whole
place based on the little I had seen of one child, of course, but here was
a herd that seemed no different, that appeared just as contented, just as
gratified by the small moments of living as they surely must have been
exalted by the undoubted myriad pleasures their young bodies had already
experienced and enjoyed.

Everyone in the crowd, adults and children alike, seemed to know Yanni,
waving and wishing him a good morning. Some of the kids, the boys and the
girls, came up to him, hugging and kissing him, some even playfully licking
his nipples, grabbing at his genitals or squeezing his buttocks. Yanni
returned all the hugs and gropes and some of the kisses lingered, his
tongue swirling in the mouths of several boys and girls. As I watched him
consort with the kids, knowing he had likely had sex with each and every
one of them, I noted that most if not all of the boys wore their hair long,
down to their shoulders and lower, and some secured their tresses in ways
and with colorfully gilded hair ties one might expect to be more
appropriate for girls.

Ever the gentleman, Yanni introduced me to everyone who accosted him,
telling them my name and describing me as a visitor, a personal guest of
the Master. To a person, all of them greeted me with genuine warmth and
wished me a happy stay. Upon hearing the mention of the Master and my
so-far tenuous association with him, some of the children regarded me with
wide-eyed awe while timidly offering their hands, as if the mere utterance
of their god was enough to straiten them into a state of reverent
wonder. The occasional childish shyness aside, however, I was amazed at how
polite and well-spoken all of them were, nothing like the sullen mumbling
brats I had encountered in the outside world.

Meeting them all slowed our progress and another pack of youths following
us on the avenue caught up. Amid a renewed bout of embraces, fondles and
smooches, Yanni introduced me to all of them as well, my eyes falling on
one beautiful half-naked child after another. At the tail end of this ruck
was a young boy whom I guessed couldn't be any older than ten. He was
thoroughly lovely, the large bright brown eyes and full lips of his elfin
face topped by a thick shock of dark auburn hair that draped over a side of
his forehead and fell over the tops his ears. His flesh was only lightly
browned, and his lissome figure displayed tantalizing hints of the athletic
musculature that lay in his future. The relatively conservative cut of his
hair left no doubt he was a boy, but his choice of garments provoked mighty
doubt about which sex he preferred. The bronze chain, adorned with a couple
of diamonds and a number of sapphires, was about his neck. Encircling his
waist was an embroidered neon yellow garter belt made of transparent
tulle. Studded with shiny golden buckles and snaps, the garter belt was
attached to a matching pair of hose that sheathed his slender but sinewy
legs. On his feet, he wore a pair of full-soled yellow satin ballet
flats. He wore no panties and his slim uncircumcised young cock, at least
four or five inches in length, stood at attention, proudly jutting out from
his body. The sight of him, his beauty and his scandalous outfit, astounded
me but I quickly set my face, not wanting to give off the slightest hint
that what was typical in this world was throwing me for a loop or suddenly
had my pussy dripping.

Yanni, of course, introduced me to the boy, whose name was Miles. His easy
smile lit his eyes and face, and he was as courteous and charming as the
other children I had met. As we shook hands, I think I did my best to keep
my eyes on his face and off his exquisite cock, the two of us exchanging
pleasantries in the manner of a mundane meeting rather than the encounter
of a topless woman and visibly aroused boy. Yanni mentioned that Miles was
the grandson of the town mayor, which caused the boy to lower his head a
bit, a slight blush creeping up his cheeks. Miles apparently didn't care to
have that modest bit of status mentioned, but Yanni smiled and playfully
tousled the boy's hair, whisking away his moment of discomfort. After a few
moments of amiable small talk, Miles moved on, mine and Yanni's eyes
falling on his pretty ass. While gazing at the boy's bottom, Yanni gave me
a fleeting glimpse of the core of his nature, absentmindedly running his
tongue over his upper lip and giving his cock a squeeze, the organ
hardening within the confines of his bikini bottoms.

Has Yanni's cock been inside that boy's ass? I wondered. I quickly
concluded it had to have been. Just as I had no doubt that he had likely
had sex with most, if not all, of the children we had already encountered,
why not the adorable Miles as well? I was tempted to ask him but thought
such a question could wait for another time, that there were more important
mysteries to solve for now. I couldn't help thinking of what Yanni had
shared yesterday and earlier today, though, about once being the Master's
Chief Boy Lover and bringing for his enjoyment boys Yanni had already
seduced. If Yanni had fucked all those boys then, why would it be any
different now? Any boys that Yanni was fucking, as Sweet had so happily
said, surely had to be boys the Master was fucking as well. And very
charming, very fetching Miles had to be one of them.

As we resumed walking, I reached out and touched one of Yanni's arms,
gesturing with my head at Miles. "Yanni, is androgyny encouraged here?" I
asked.

Yanni looked at me and then again gazed up at the avenue at Miles, who was
now several dozen feet away. "I can see why you or anyone else from the
outside world might think that," he answered, turning back to me. "And, for
once, you wouldn't be wrong. But, for someone who lives here, I think they
would just say we encourage boys to be like boys and girls to be like
girls, but that doesn't mean boys shouldn't be in touch with their feminine
side or that girls shouldn't be in touch with their masculine side, and
however they want to express that is absolutely fine. For example" -- he,
too, indicated Miles with a slight gesture of his head -- "if a boy wants
to feel and be sexy by wearing girl clothes, like a garter belt or panties
or hose, no one here is going to think that odd or strange or call him
names or make fun or anything like that. And if a girl wants to wear what
are typically thought of as boy clothes, that's fine too. Here, all that's
normal. Just like boys sharing love with each other and girls sharing love
with each other is normal, as normal as boys and girls sharing love with
each other or kids sharing love with adults."

Yanni thought a moment. "When I was a kid and living in the Master's
house," he added, "he loved all of us, all his lovers, being naked or
sexy. He didn't have many rules, but one was that we always had to be naked
or sexy because it was natural, the way all of us are meant to live, and
just made it easier for the love to be shared, just like I told you
yesterday. There was even this big closet that was filled with just sexy
stuff." He spread his hands to indicate the immensity of the bygone
closet. "Whatever you can think of that's sexy to wear, you could have
found it in that closet. Any one of us could go in there and put together
sexy outfits to wear and, when he came home, whoever did the best job was
usually the first one of us he fucked. But it was always left up to us. You
could go in there or not go in there. You could be naked all the time if
you wanted. Lina, for example, never went in there. I mean, not unless the
Master was taking pictures of her for one of his photo sets. Otherwise, she
just preferred always being naked."

The mention of Lina got me thinking. She had told me something of what it
had been like to live in the Master's house during what I then thought were
his salad days as a pedophile and child pornographer, and now Yanni was
relating further details of that same era. What had it been like, I
wondered, to see her running around naked when she was a girl barely into
double digits? I tried to picture the panoply of debauchery in my head but,
despite my skills as a writer who often leapt to the most terrible
conclusions about my fellow human beings and their works, my imagination on
this occasion was somewhat beggared. A house full of children, some naked
while others lolled in their selections of salacious gear, all waiting for
the return of their benefactor, their protector, their exploiter, all their
silky tight young holes at his disposal at any moment he cared to
choose. It was horrible; it was monstrous; it was undeniably fascinating
and titillating. I marveled, realizing that the Master's private den of
iniquity had somehow flowered, like a thickening wisteria slowly squeezing
the life out of a tree, into a creed, an ethos, a way of life, a whole
world.

"Anyway," Yanni continued, "the Master was so right, and the way we lived
then is the way all of us live here now. There's no inhibition or shame
here. All of us live naked or sexy and we can share love whenever we
want. Like I said, the Master had only a few rules at his place but every
one of us knew those rules had to be obeyed. The Master was never a tough
guy about his rules; he never gave orders or yelled or anything like
that. Heck, I can't even remember too many times when he raised his
voice. But now, here, one of the rules everybody follows is the same as one
of the ones he insisted on then: that love is the most important thing in
life, and it's meant to be shared, and it doesn't matter who you are or who
you're with or where you happen to be or what you're doing or whatever's
going on around you. If you want to love yourself or want to love with
others, you just do it and that's that. It's that simple -- and that
important. Love is all. Love is the truth."

I was again beguiled and actually rather moved, not solely by Yanni's
obvious and consistent belief, but also by the audacious implications of
what he had just said. The Master's villainy, sexual and otherwise, had led
to nothing less than the creation of a world where the all-powerful notions
of body-negative sexual repression propagated by the great monotheistic
religions of the last few millennia had, at last, been overthrown. A world
where nudity wasn't anodyne, like at some silly nudist camp with its
hypocritical pretensions to naturism, but deliberately paired with
eroticism, where sex was openly and unashamedly enjoyed, not only between
adults, but between adults and children and among the children as well. A
world where no thought was given to the squelching of the innate sexuality
of children, but rather, where they grew up without inhibitions or shame
about their bodies, and the natural, spontaneous reactions of their young
bodies to sights and touches were encouraged, even celebrated.

It struck me then that what the Master and his followers were attempting
was a return to a mythical state of nature, a re-enchantment of existence;
a world of nude fairies and sprites, of necromancers casting spells and
sorceresses concocting potions, of elves gliding unseen through enchanted
woods, and hobbits hiding in the underbrush; of naked bodies, in all
innocence, writhing together in mystical bowers dappled by the light of the
sun and glow of the moon. Was such a world possible? I wondered. How could
anything get done if everyone spent all their time sucking and fucking? In
order for civilization to simply exist, wasn't it necessary for everyone to
mope about in a perpetual miserable funk? And yet, here I was, under the
very firmament, immediately after the filling of the void and peopling of
the earth. Was this place the garden humanity had longed for? In that
moment, I felt, for the first time, pangs of admiration for the Master: for
his audacity, his remarkable accomplishment, for a vision that was far
beyond the capacity of any ordinary hood. Had he discovered the way past
the flaming sword of Uriel? Strangely, though, that same moment did not
cause me to wonder why I might feel that way, why, rather than recoiling, I
was actually mulling the virtues of the Master, his band of votaries and
their deviant cult. Why was I able to take at least one small step beyond
the nimbus of certainty that enveloped everyone and had been drilled into
me since the possession of my first jot of understanding? Why was I able to
see, without yet really seeing, some glimmer of the truth of which Yanni
had admonished?

Another lot of happy chattering children overtook us and there were yet
more greetings and hugs and kisses and introductions. The last child
introduced to me was a very pretty young girl named Emilia, who couldn't
have been any older than eight or nine. She had chestnut hair that fell to
the top of her back and was tied in a ponytail by a blue ribbon. She was
flat chested, but her nipples were decidedly erect, two puffy protrusions
that noticeably rose from her tanned flesh. She had a small birthmark on
the right side of her sharp jaw, a sinewy slender body and long legs. Other
than the yellow flat T-strap sandals on her feet, she wore only a pair of
yellow thong bikini bottoms fastened by blue bows at its sides that matched
the ribbon in her hair. Even before Yanni introduced us, I noticed her big
brown eyes fixed on me with a piercing stare, and her thin lips set in
something that, on her young face, resembled determination.

As Emilia and I shook hands, her somewhat unsettling stare never wavered
and, without taking her eyes from me, she asked Yanni: "Will you be sharing
love with her, Yanni?"

Yanni laughed. "I hope so, Emilia," he replied, turning to me with a
smile. "I hope so."

Emilia was living proof of my musings about the children here. She lowered
her eyes to brazenly regard my body. "You're really pretty," she finally
said.

I was briefly at a loss for words with this strange child, who, I suddenly
realized, was likely not regarded as strange in this place. "Thank you,
Emilia," I finally managed to say. "You're very pretty too." It was only
then I noticed the bronze chain around her muscled belly bore six diamonds
and several rubies.

Emilia ignored my compliment, openly staring at my breasts. "If you share
love with Yanni, will you let me know so I can join the love?" she
inquired.

I was completely nonplussed and had no idea how to reply. Seeing the state
to which this young girl had reduced me, Yanni saved the moment. "Well,
we'll see, Emilia," he said. "She comes from a place where they don't share
love as easily as we do, especially with young ones, so it's not as natural
for her."

Emilia seemed to easily accept Yanni's explanation. "Oh," she replied
simply, finally turning to look at him. She thought a moment and then
added: "Yes, we learn about those places in school. It's a shame they don't
share love when they feel the need. People who live in those places must be
very unhappy." She turned back to me. "Well, I hope you and I share love."
She then plunged one of her hands down into her bikini bottoms and utterly
unselfconsciously, without the slightest shred of inhibition, unmistakably
sent some of her finger into her juvenile slit. The hand quickly emerged,
and she held it up to me, her fingers noticeably moistened. "You see!" she
declared. "You make me really wet."

Emilia's hand hovered for a few moments, long enough for me to detect the
slight aroma of her juices, a whiff of freshness that, while faint, I
somehow found momentarily bewitching. I was then at a thorough loss for
words, afraid even to move, marveling that a girl so young could produce
such copious spendings and wondering if she was holding up her hand as some
sort of invitation. But before I could summon myself to do or say anything,
Emilia drew back her hand, stuck the fingers in her mouth and wiped them
clean with her tongue.

Emilia stared at my breasts again. "I hope I get breasts like yours when
I'm older," she said. "They're, like, perfect for your body and you've got
really sexy areolas." She suddenly dialed down the power of her stare and
raised a hand to wave at me and then Yanni. "Anyway," she said brightly,
"goodbye!" She skipped off, now resembling a young girl from my world
despite her state of undress, the cheeks of her trim little bottom jiggling
amid the strand of yellow fabric that disappeared into the crack of her
ass.

Smiling again, Yanni turned to me. "Well, it looks like someone's got a
crush on you," he said.

I watched Emilia scamper off while a corner of my mind considered the
possibilities of her unmistakable invitation, tumbling over and over like a
house sliding down the side of a hill in the midst of an earthquake. I
fought off alluring visions of Emilia and I naked in a bed, our tongues
busy at play in each other's folds, her young body resting against mine as
her mouth hungrily devoured my breasts. I had no idea what to say to
Yanni's undeniable observation and so, in an instant, decided, amid my
consternation, to try to turn the situation around on him.

I looked at him with a hard stare and asked the question I had earlier
decided not to ask. "Have you had sex with her?"

Yanni detected the sudden change in my demeanor but simply nodded. "Yes,
many times," he answered easily. "The last time I fucked her" -- he thought
a moment -- "must have been about a week ago. She lives with her parents a
few blocks away from my house, so she's always coming over to hang out with
Pop and Sweet. She's got a bit of a crush on Pop, you know. And I don't
wonder why. Pop is lovely in every way: his face, his body, his cock, his
personality. Anyway, I came home and there they all were, the three of
them, sharing love on one of the loungers of our pool deck. Pop was fucking
her while she was sucking Sweet's cock. They asked me to join the love and
I did. I fucked Pop's ass while he fucked Emilia, and we all got into a
really good rhythm, and, after Pop came, he pulled out of her pussy and
then I put my cock inside her and fucked her too, and then Sweet came in
her mouth, and then she and I shared Sweet's come in deep kisses while I
kept on fucking her, and finally she came, and I came with her. And then,
even though I was still coming, I pulled out of her pussy, and all three of
them licked my cock and ate up my jizz, sharing it with each other and me
in kisses. It was very beautiful. And then she stayed over for dinner."

Yanni's account, which I suspected he had rendered in a very detailed
fashion to bedevil me, had me picturing the four of them romping with utter
abandon: three hard cocks spewing load after load of cum, all to the
delight of a little girl who was as eagerly licentious as her afternoon
lovers. I was aroused but also incredulous. "You managed," I asked in an
accusing tone while gesturing at his penis, "to get that cock into her?"

Yanni nodded again, "Emilia is eight," he explained, "but she's tall for
her age. But most girls that age or older can be fully fucked, depending on
their size and the size of the cock. You just have to be gentle and go slow
so they can have their pussies trained and enjoy the love, especially if
it's their first time or the first few times after their pussy cherries are
popped. In fact, girls as young as five or even four can be fucked. You
just have to know *how* to fuck them. I explained all this to you
before. The Master was the one that taught me, and it was the Master's dad
that taught him. He started fucking my sister Rola, for example, when she
was eight, and, back then, I used to see him fucking her all the time, not
to mention other girls that were younger, some a lot younger."

I shook my head in what I told myself was revolted wonder and fell
silent. Yanni was quiet as well, acutely sensing, as he always did, my
mood. He simply knew I was suddenly, inexplicably, seething and my mind was
swirling with outraged questions. He would be ready to honestly answer each
and every one of them when they were posed. We slowly walked on, the latest
crowd moving beyond us.

I gave way entirely to the curiosity I had promised myself to hold at bay
until some other more opportune time. "So, if you've fucked her," I finally
said, "I'm guessing the Master's fucked her too." I took a few deep
breaths. "He's fucked her, hasn't he, that little girl?" I spat. "And you
too, you sick fuck! How could you? How could all of you?"

Yanni stopped and turned to look at me and I looked up at him. "No one has
ever forced Emilia to do anything," he said. "She's been enjoying love with
her parents since she was born, and with her younger brother and sister
since they were born. She's enjoyed love with many others here at
Philo-Sophia, with adults and other children, her teachers, and the
Master. And everything she's seen and done, everything she's experienced
and been taught, all the love she's shared, has been her choice."

"But that's not possible!" I said fiercely. "Children can't consent, not to
sex!"

"That's another lie *your* society has told you. Children are sexual
beings, just like adults, sometimes even more so. They *can* consent
because they know their own bodies, and having sex, enjoying love, helps
them know their own minds, allows them to fully realize all the
capabilities and talents they've been given and might develop; brings them,
finally, to a full realization of themselves as human beings. Their
sexuality doesn't magically switch on at eighteen or some other arbitrary
age. Their bodies are filled with powerful erotic energy when they're
young, very young, even from the time they're born, and here that isn't
suppressed in any way. They're allowed, encouraged, to express their
sexuality openly, lovingly and safely.

"Now Emilia" -- he gestured up the road in the direction Emilia had gone --
"just happens to be a very sexual child, even by our standards. Her father
popped the cherry in her pussy when she was four and the cherry in her ass
when she turned eight, which was his right as her father, her first lover,
the person who, along with her mother, is the first in her life with the
responsibility to teach her about love and how love is made real by sex. We
don't have any silly notions about children being unequal to adults,
especially their parents; about some sort of imaginary power differential
that keeps children from experiencing the pleasure and knowledge their own
bodies can give them. Emilia may only be an eight-year-old girl to you, but
here she's already a woman, with the knowledge and the right to do with her
body whatever she pleases. She can fuck or not fuck, love or not love; it's
always up to her -- and that's true of everybody here."

Yanni's voice was suddenly jacketed by a firmly defiant tone. "And, yes,
Emilia's been the Master's lover many times, invited to participate in his
afternoon orgies and spending the night in his bed, sometimes by herself
and sometimes with others. The Master himself has told me that he thinks
she has a great deal of natural sexual talent, that her pussy is very sweet
for a girl so young, and he loves the feel of her pussy and asshole around
his cock -- and I feel the same way. That time I told you about, when she
visited and we all shared love by the pool and then she stayed for dinner,
*she* was the one who asked me to join the love she was sharing with Pop
and Sweet, *she* was the one who asked me to fuck her after Pop came, and
*she* was the one who asked me to make her come while I was fucking
her. And then, after we all had dinner, she and Pop got into a sixty-nine
on the living room floor and she was on top, and *she* was the one who
asked me to fuck her ass while she ate Pop's cock and balls and Pop ate out
her pussy -- and I did. I fucked her ass and fucked it hard, and the harder
I pounded her, *she* was the one who asked me to fuck her harder
still. Every time I've fucked her -- and the first time I fucked her she
was five years old -- I've totally enjoyed it and I know she's totally
loved being fucked by me. And I don't say that to brag or anything like
that. I say it simply because it's the truth. The love Emilia and I have
shared, alone or with others, has always been good. And that last time when
she was over at our place, when we were all sharing love on the pool deck,
we shared the love, freely and openly, under the sun while our neighbors
were in their backyards and looking on, if they weren't sharing love
themselves. Because, here, seeing things like that, doing things like that,
is just natural. And Emilia and I will share love again -- many, many more
times."

Yanni sighed. "And I'd appreciate you not taking things out on me when you
get mad," he added. "I know all this is strange and terrible for you -- or
at least that's what you say. If you want to get mad about it, whether you
get mad at us or yourself, that's fine. But don't take it out on me,
someone who likes you and cares about you. You may think I'm a horrible
monster, but that doesn't change the fact that you and I are friends, even
if you don't like to admit it."

Yanni had cowed me, and I lowered my head. "I'm sorry," I said, actually
apologizing to this child fucker I liked so much. "I should be more
detached; that's what a good reporter does anyway. I just" -- I paused a
moment, unsure how to phrase what I wanted to say -- "can't get my head
around what you're telling me, that a child that young can be so eagerly
and willingly sexual."

Yanni softened then, a small smile on his face. "No worries," he said. "We
won't ever mention it again." His smile faded a bit. "But trust me when I
say it's true," he added. "When I was Chief Boy Lover, long before we got
*this* compound going, I saw it all the time. Every one of the Master's
lovers, the ones that lived in his house and the ones that didn't,
willingly came back for more of his love, all of them wanting so bad to
learn everything he could teach them. The ones that lived with him were
always so happy and excited when he came home, including me and my sisters,
all of us always ready to give him anything he wanted because we knew he
would always give us so much in return. And the ones that didn't live
there, well, you should have seen them, the way they would just rip off all
their clothes as soon as they stepped inside his place. Every bit of shame
they might have once felt about being naked and openly sharing love had
melted away -- and that was the Master's doing, the result of his love and
his teachings.

"And I see it to this day, even more so now that we live here, in this
place, thousands of us now, where we can all be naked and sexy all the
time. It's so beautiful when a child is allowed to express their intrinsic
sexual nature, which is the truest thing about all human beings; when they
can join others in love without any fear or worry. In a lot of ways,
Emilia's like any little girl anywhere, still exploring, still learning,
still finding out about herself and all that life has to offer. But she's
also very special, a member of the first generation born in
Philo-Sophia. She doesn't know anything but here, a world where she can
love and be loved -- always. Her kind will help to put the change in
motion."

What the fuck could I say to any of that? I sighed and we resumed
walking. I was actually feeling a bit ashamed I had tried to put Yanni in a
corner by making a moral judgment rather than just observing and
listening. I sought a way to banish the momentary awkwardness between us.

"Is everyone heading for the Main House?" I asked.

Yanni nodded. "Most of them, yeah," he replied. "They start serving
breakfast at five."

"Everyone eats at the Main House?"

"Well, yes and no," Yanni said. "You see, when we first came here, there
wasn't much other than the Main House. Elysium didn't exist then so most of
the people that were here -- and there were a few hundred of us then -- had
to live in these tents called yurts."

Knowing what a yurt was, I nodded.

"You should have seen this place then," Yanni continued, sweeping his left
arm over and behind me to indicate the space occupied by the town we were
leaving behind. "What's now Elysium was filled with those yurts, as far as
the eye could see." He paused a moment. "But it wasn't *so* bad. The yurts
were pretty spacious; some were big enough for whole families, and they had
electricity and air conditioning for the summer, though the summers here
are usually pretty mild. But they didn't have kitchens or running water or
toilets, so we had to set up communal showers and port-a-potties." He
laughed. "As many yurts as there were, there were about as many
port-a-potties. And, in the mornings and evenings, you could always see a
long line of people, adults and kids, waiting to take a shower. But, at
least in one way, that was never too much of a problem since nudity is no
big deal here, and people, especially families, would often shower
together. We did have to make a rule that no sex was allowed in the showers
whenever there was a crowd of people waiting." He laughed again.

I caught Yanni's mention of the mild summers and the fact that summer was
not now, a small clue as to where in the world we might be, likely
somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere. In spite of myself, I chuckled over
his mention of the bygone rule prohibiting sex in the showers. "Now *that*
must have been a hardship," I said.

Yanni laughed yet again. "Yeah," he said with a smile. "Well, anyway, while
all that was going on, everybody that was here took their meals at the Main
House. There's a big ballroom there that doubles as a dining hall. It's the
same space we use for big ceremonies, like the start of the Grand Orgies."
He gestured in the direction of the Main House. "You'll see it soon when we
get there."

Despite all I was learning about this world, a mundane thought snuck into
my head at that moment. They hold the Grand Orgies there? I thought. Geez,
before they start serving food there, I hope they clean that ballroom
within an inch of its life.

"Anyway," Yanni continued, "eventually the town got built, and it's still
being built, and people moved into their houses and offices and set up
their shops, and the yurts started coming down, and more people came, and
we built the Academy and the residence halls, and everything else. And now
people can eat in their own homes and the kids can eat at the dining hall
at the Academy, and there are even a few eateries and restaurants in the
town. But the Master kept up the tradition of serving three meals a day at
the Main House and a lot of people still go, especially the people who were
here at the beginning." He paused a moment, thinking. "I mean, people were
really glad when they could finally move out of the yurts and into a proper
house but everyone that was here then, when we started out and there was
next to nothing, look back and are really proud, you know, proud of all
that hard work and all we've accomplished so far, and the meals at the Main
House were a part of all that, part of everything we shared then and still
share now.

"And I know the Master and Maya feel the same way because so many people
coming to the Main House every day is like a daily reminder that we're a
community, and, more than that, a family. All of us, the men and women, the
boys and girls, a family, loving and strong."

Yanni fell silent then, obviously considering his own words while I did the
same. He made it seem as if the denizens of this world had, in a remote
corner of some vast frontier, carved a town out of the wilderness that was
destined to grow into a mighty metropolis, like the settlers who had
traversed the American West and found themselves on the distant shore of an
unknown continent. But then I kicked myself, remembering that history
already contained tales just as compelling and oddly spectacular. Hadn't
the Pilgrims crossed an ocean and laid the foundation for a nation that
would someday bestride the world? Hadn't the Mormons crossed a desert and
founded a city on a great salt flat that was the center of a quasi-empire
to this day? As for Yanni's regard for the significance of the meals shared
at the Master's lair, I couldn't resist, perhaps a bit uncharitably,
thinking that there had been communal dining halls at places like
Jonestown, Rajneeshpuram and Mount Carmel.

The sidewalk ended and we left the blocks of houses behind, approaching a
long grove of oaks. The great overhanging branches of the trees blanketed
the avenue ahead, golden rays of the morning sun slanting through gaps in
the leafy canopy to dapple the black asphalt road with little patches of
yellow light. As we approached the alameda, there was a sign by the side of
the road that read: "You are now leaving Elysium. *Amas. Semper amare*."

"Love," I whispered. "Always love." I turned to Yanni. "I still find it
hard to believe what you told me yesterday: that there are over twenty
thousand people living in the town."

Yanni regarded me with a small knowing smile. "And more arriving
practically every day," he retorted with obvious pride. "The world is full
of pedos, even if people don't want to admit it. And this place will be a
haven for them, for all of them, until the rest of the world comes to its
senses." He turned his head to look up the road. "In the meantime, there
are about as many people here as there might be in any sleepy small town."

"I'm sure the town is anything but sleepy," I retorted with a small snort.

Yanni laughed.

"Where did they all come from?"

"Some have been with us for a long time," Yanni answered. "The first
compound -- that's what we call it now, anyway -- was a trailer park the
Master owned with his father. It was pretty run down when they bought it,
but the Master fixed it up. Back then, some of the people that lived there
lived there year-round and others lived there part of the year; you know,
snowbirds that came down during the tourist season. There were already some
pedos living at the trailer park when they bought the place and the Master
got to know them all. He let them know he would protect them, help them if
they got into trouble, and that they could trust him. He shared some of his
child lovers with some of them and they shared their lovers with him. They
got first crack at the kiddy porn the Master was making. Anyway, one
friendship led to another, word got around, and more and more pedos moved
in, all sorts of people, and that was the real beginning of Elysium."

Yanni's explanation was very interesting and revealing, to be sure, at
least as far as it went. I stored it away, a foundation for future
questions. "But that can't account for the thousands that live here now," I
asserted.

"No, you're right," Yanni replied. "By the time we moved into the second
compound, the Master had set up a system to keep track of pedos getting
arrested all over the world and it wasn't long before that database was
huge. There were all sorts of people in there: men and women, some of them
famous -- or infamous, I'd guess you'd say. There were people from all
walks of life: bankers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, soldiers, even
cops. We'd get in touch with them and offer to help them out, and the smart
ones accepted our help."

"How did you help?"

"If they needed help with their cases, we'd pay for their lawyers and try
to get them the best deal possible. If they had to go to prison, we'd look
after them while they were inside, sending them money for commissary,
trying to make sure they were treated fairly and didn't get abused. It used
to be pretty bad for pedos inside, but as more and more of them got sent up
things actually got better simply because so many of them were doing
time. Anyway, we'd help after they got out too, providing them with
stipends, helping them find places to live, getting them jobs."

The capacity of this place and its inhabitants to amaze me seemed to be
limitless. A global network devoted to helping and protecting pedophiles, I
thought, all seemingly in the service of a long-range plan of astounding
intricacy and depth. Who could have imagined such a thing? What sort of
minds could have conceived such an idea? Still, I admitted to myself, it
was no wonder the denizens worshipped the Master as a savior and his inner
circle styled itself as something royal, even holy. Flabbergasted yet
again, I asked: "How was all this help arranged?"

"I can't tell you that," Yanni replied. "What I can tell you is that the
database is now maintained by Lina's people as part of their intelligence
operation. Some of that info goes to a charity organization that's run by
Peaches and Dawn, who are also Goddesses. You'll meet them soon. But if you
want to know more, you'll have to ask them."

I felt a sudden pang of frustration. I knew Lina wouldn't tell me shit, and
I remembered Yanni mentioning Peaches and Dawn the day before as the
Master's first chief girl lovers, during a time in the distant past. They
were obviously grown women now, still important cogs in the Master's
sinister organization. I wondered how amiable they would be to telling me
of their doings. Knowing I couldn't learn anything more for the moment, I
simply nodded. "Okay," I simply said. "But how did all these people end up
here?"

"We found this island, bought it, and the Master and Maya started fixing it
up; renovating the Main House; building new buildings, like the Studio
complex; establishing Elysium and the Academy; and just creating all that
you see around you." He spread his arms to indicate the entirety of our
surroundings. "Anyway, at the same time, they started getting in touch with
a lot of the people we had helped over the years." He looked me in the eye
and added: "Don't ask me how and why they picked the people they picked
because they didn't share that with me. They worked with Lina and Peaches
and Dawn on that. And don't ask me how they got in touch because I won't
tell you."

At the mention of an island, my eyebrows involuntarily arched. So, *we
were* on an island. I remembered Yanni had mentioned that the evening
before. It has to be a large island, I thought, and there couldn't be many
of such a size on the planet, at least ones that were privately owned. That
tidbit of important information was decidedly mollifying. "Okay," I replied
equably with a small smile. "No worries." I pondered what he had shared for
a few moments and then asked: "So all the people they did pick, I assume,
had a hand in helping create this place."

"That's right," Yanni admitted. "They first got in touch with architects,
engineers, city planners, construction people, landscapers, and all the
other kinds of people they knew Philo-Sophia would need. They chose well
because everyone they contacted was eager to get involved, to become a part
of what the Master and Maya envisioned, to build a community *and* become
practitioners of our new faith." He paused a moment. "All of them played a
role in building this place and the work is still going on. That's why when
I tell you we have a community here, a family, I'm not exaggerating."

I regarded Yanni but said nothing in reply. I couldn't dispute anything he
had said. In residence for less than a day, my eyes had, continued
astonishment notwithstanding, already confirmed all he had just
uttered. What I saw around me was far more than a band of perverts
scrabbling in the shadows. I saw a breathing, living society, nothing less
than a civilization, nascent but vibrant, a modern-day *umma*, the strength
of which was, as exemplified by the town we had just left behind,
undeniably waxing. I gently shook my head in wonderment and took a deep
breath. I had thought to expose a gaggle of child pornographers; a prolific
gaggle, to be sure, but nothing more. I simply had not considered that,
despite the stories I had heard, I might encounter a veritable nation-state
of pedophiliac true believers that, like the wild-eyed fanatics that burst
out of Arabia in the 7th Century, had the whole world in mind.

The crowd had moved well ahead of us, distant on the now quiet road. A
cool, sweet breeze blew through, rustling the leaves overhead while birds
sang their ode to the morning. The cloying saltiness of the nearby ocean
was on the wind, and I inhaled a deep draught of it into my lungs. A group
of stragglers, four young girls gabbing and giggling, walked past us, all
of them smiling and waving at Yanni.

As Yanni waved back at them, I took note of their bronze belly chains. I
turned to him and asked: "What's the significance of the belly chains and
necklaces, Yanni, especially those gemstones?"

"Everybody wears them, except for the Master and the striplings. When kids
turn eight, they get a bronze chain that they wear until they're
thirteen. Then they get a silver chain and finally a gold chain when they
turn eighteen. The gemstones signify how many times someone has been the
Master's lover."

That, too, was interesting. Just a few minutes before, Yanni had gone on
about the equality, sexual and otherwise, between the adults and children
in this realm and yet here he was describing a system that classified all
by age. The manner in which he related this apparently important feature of
his world, though, indicated to me the dichotomy was lost on him. As for
the gemstones, I automatically concluded they were yet another subtle way
the Master asserted control over his followers, especially the
youngsters. But I didn't want to spark any more unpleasantness so, rather
than point out the contradiction, merely said: "I'm guessing the boys get
the sapphires and the girls get the rubies."

"That's right," Yanni said, nodding. "They get a stone every time they're
chosen to be the Master's lover for his afternoon meditation or for the
night. Once they're picked ten times, they get a diamond."

I studied Yanni's platinum chain and the long lines of diamonds on either
side of the pendant bearing his engraved name.

"Why is your chain platinum?" I asked. "And I noticed Lina's chain was
platinum a well."

"Platinum chains are worn by members of the Holy Family," Yanni explained.

I then tried counting the diamonds on Yanni's necklace, estimating there
were two dozen or more, even my inexpert eye telling me they were all
genuine and hence worth a small fortune.

Yanni caught me looking. "I've got thirty diamonds on my necklace but
they're just for show," he said. "If I wore stones for every time the
Master and I have shared love, I wouldn't be able to move." He laughed.

I sighed. "I noticed there were four diamonds on Emilia's belly chain," I
said. "So that means she's been the Master's lover over forty times, that
he's fucked her who knows how many times."

Yanni nodded. "That's right," he said. "But remember, she got her first
chain only this year, so it records only the number of times she's been
with the Master since she turned eight. She shared love with Master many,
many times before that. In fact, she was four the first time the Master
fucked her, not too long after her father popped her pussy cherry."

We left it at that. I regarded him for a few moments and, while flicking
one of my own earlobes, then asked: "What do the earrings signify, Yanni? I
noticed Lina wore earrings identical to yours as well."

"The same thing as the platinum chains," Yanni explained. "Earrings like
mine are worn only by members of the Holy Family."

"But I noticed those girls on the plane -- what were their names?" I
thought a moment and remembered. "Lisa and Susan, they wore earrings like
yours but without the topazes and the prongs were yellow gold, not white
gold."

Yanni smiled. "Wow, you do notice everything, don't you?" he said. "I guess
that's what makes you a good reporter." He paused a moment and then
explained: "Lisa and Susan were wearing the earrings that are given to all
the members of the Master's household. They're a part of his family too,
just not a part of the Holy Family."

"But everyone here is a member of the Master's family, you said," I
retorted.

"In a very real way, yes," Yanni said. "This compound's only been around a
few years, but we've already accomplished so much. Like I said, everyone
who's here -- the people who were here at the beginning and the people who
came later -- has played some part in helping the Master and Maya building
all you see around you. So, in that way and a lot of other ways, we *are* a
family, all of us. And we all share love the way a family should."

I regarded him again. "What do *you* do here, Yanni?" I asked.

Yanni looked down at me and then down at the ground. "I'm the assistant
deputy chief of staff for operations," he replied, a bit
sheepishly. "That's my fancy title anyway. The Master and Maya set up the
organizational chart, but, basically, I help run everything the Master
does."

"What's the everything?"

Yanni considered a moment, either because he was thinking of how to phrase
his answer or of what to reveal. I had no doubt, though, he would be
completely honest with me. "I primarily oversee operations outside the
compound, like the sex clubs, the titty bars, the distribution of the kiddy
porn, the kiddy whorehouses, and the Rangers and the Scouts."

Well, that was a mouthful, I thought, and led to a slew of new questions as
we walked, now largely alone om the road under the trees. "The sex clubs?"
I asked. "The titty bars?"

Yanni nodded. "Back when the Master was still heavy into being a doper," he
began, "he needed a way to launder all the money he was making and one of
the ways he did that was by buying a strip club. He fixed it up and it
started making big money right away. Titty bars are a cash business, after
all. Anyway, the place made so much money, he bought another one, and then
another, and more until he had a whole chain of them across the country,
and in Canada and Mexico too. He was making so much money from the clubs
that he began to see the potential of being in just the sex business, and
that's when he started slowly getting out of dealing drugs." He paused a
moment, thinking. "A lot of the girl lovers that were with him then ended
up working as strippers at his clubs when they got older, so he took care
of them that way. All of them made big money, and some of them went into
adult porn or even the movies, and some of those girls became big
stars. Diamond, Gem's mother, she started working as a stripper at his
first club when she was fifteen and, eventually, she became chief stripper
and then the manager of the place."

Judging by the tone of Yanni's voice, one might have thought he was he was
talking about someone ascending to the head of a great corporation rather
than a teenage girl rising to the management of a titty bar, but I had
already seen many times over that in this world black was white and down
was up. "And the sex clubs?" I asked.

Yanni shrugged. "When he started hitting it big with the strip clubs," he
answered, "the Master realized there was money to be made with sex
clubs. He sort of started from scratch there, even though he knew a lot of
people who were swingers because he was one too. Anyway, he found a place,
an old nightclub. He re-modeled it, did it up real nice, top-notch all the
way, and then he opened, and it was a success from the start. You should've
seen the crowd that first night. Anyway, it was just like the titty bars:
one led to another and soon he had a chain of them all over, not just all
over the country, and in Canada and Mexico, but in Asia, Europe and South
America too. And that led to him financing bigger and more elaborate
places, like swinger hotels and sex resorts."

"What's the name of some of those places?" I asked, not just for the sake
of my snooping but also because I was genuinely curious. I had wallowed in
the swinging lifestyle since my teens and, at that moment, wondered if I
had partied at an establishment owned by the Master.

Yanni merely smiled at me, however, letting me know we had come to the end
of that subject.

"And the kiddy porn?"

"I'm not going to tell you any details about the distribution. All I can
talk about is what the Master puts out, but you know a lot about that
already."

How the fuck did Yanni know what I knew about? I wondered. It was yet
another confirmation they had me checked out six ways from Sunday. "Okay,"
I said, "tell me about that."

"We usually put out eight videos a month; nearly a hundred videos every
year -- and the photo sets that go with them. There's a featured boy and
girl every month who get their own videos. We call them the Andromeda of
the month and the Ganymede of the month. Then there's a boy girl video, a
gay boy video, a gay girl video, and a group sex video. This month, the
group sex video is that boy orgy video I was telling you about, the one
that Pop is in."

"That's six videos," I observed. "What about the other two? You said there
were eight a month."

"The other two vids are the monthly storybooks and specials."

"What are those?"

"The Storybook series are short-subject vids. They tell stories, about five
or six episodes per video, and each episode is usually, like, six to
fifteen minutes long. And the Special series are full-length movies, though
sometimes instead of making a movie -- you know, like with characters, a
script and a story -- we make a movie using footage shot during the Grand
Orgies. The vid you saw yesterday, for example, the one of the last
Summerfinding Orgy, was our May Special, though the version you saw was a
compilation of the raw footage before final editing, not the actual vid
that went out to the customers."

"Earlier you said the Master came up with all or nearly all the ideas for
the videos. Were the Storybook and Special vids the ones you were talking
about?"

Yanni nodded. "He not only comes up with the ideas," he said, "but he
writes a lot of them, at least the treatment, and, even if he doesn't
direct them, he edits a lot of them."

"And all this happens at the Studio?" I asked.

Yanni nodded again. "That's right," he said. "We've got a soundstage and
sets and everything over there. It's like Hollywood for kiddy porn. But
sometimes there are exterior shoots at various spots on the island, and
sometimes even location shoots off the island."

"When do I get to visit the Studio," I asked as lightly as I could muster,
"see the Master at work, see where his magic happens?"

Yanni smiled. "When he tells me he's ready for you," he replied simply. "He
might never tell me he's ready, but we'll see."

I was quiet for a few moments and then asked: "And what about the child
prostitution?"

"You already know a lot about that," Yanni replied. "Those places are
called Club Serenus. I know you never got inside one, but they're all very
swanky, like a big-time nightclub or restaurant. There are locations all
over the world, and the kids that work in them come from all over the
world. They work as wait staff, servers, bartenders, you name it; as
entertainers, dancers and singers and whatnot, and, yeah, they provide
sexual services to the members. They're trained in everything the club
might require, including sex. We have all of the managers of each location
keep a careful eye out for the best of the kids that work in them, the
smartest and the ones that are the best at sex, because those kids are
usually selected to be brought here, to live at the Guest House and
eventually live on the compound and become students at the Academy."

I again thought of Lisa and Susan, the fraternal twin sisters I had met on
the plane the day before and who had brought me the superb
Cosmopolitan. For the first time, I wondered about them. Where had they
come from? When they spoke, I had detected no hint of an accent of any kind
(but then the same was true of Sweet and every other child I had heard
along the way). How had they become part of the Master's world? Had they,
before becoming members of the Master's so-called family, done their time
in one of the clubs?

"Can anyone patronize Serenus?"

Yanni shook his head. "You already know the answer to that," he said. "The
clientele in every city is restricted to a very select and always very rich
few. New clients are gotten strictly through referrals from existing
clients, and they're checked out thoroughly before they're allowed to
become a member. We have shifting locations in over a hundred cities now
and you'd be surprised who visits. I mean, really powerful and connected
people."

"Why would I be surprised?" I asked. "I mean, hit me with some names."

Yanni laughed. "You know I won't," he said. "But big people, some of them
famous celebrities, big businessman, congressmen, senators, governors. Some
of them are big-time hypocrites, talking shit about how much they love
Jesus and hate sin, and how they're so against sex and gay and trans people
and pedophiles while they fuck kids on the down low."

"And, I presume, the Master's got this dirt on all of them?"

Yanni nodded. "If the Master ever goes down," he said, "the rest of the
world goes down with him. I've heard him say it might be worth the
sacrifice, to show the rest of the world how truly natural it is to want to
have sex with children and actually have sex with them, and, because it's
forbidden right now, only the rich and powerful get to enjoy the privilege
of knowing the pure love of children while everybody else is brainwashed
into believing it's a bad thing."

"That's because it *is* a bad thing," I retorted.

Yanni smiled. "Your friend, the big-time investment banker, doesn't think
so," he said. "And you certainly didn't tell *him* that when you were
trying to get information out of him."

I stopped in my tracks, knowing there was only one question to ask. "What
have you done to him?" I asked, fearing the answer.

Yanni looked at me. "Nothing," he said. "Absolutely nothing -- so far." He
held up his right hand then and crossed his fingers over his chest, saying:
"Cross my heart and hope to die. When you showed up and started making
trouble, I was the first to get the word and it actually wasn't too
difficult to figure out who was telling you stuff. The Master knows him, or
knew him, and he says he always knew the guy envied him -- and hated him
because he envied him. Besides, that guy's got enough troubles right
now. Anyway, normally, we wouldn't have hesitated. Lina wants him dead and
even picked two of her Guardians to do the job, but the Master told her not
to send them out. He said he doesn't want him harmed -- for your sake." He
paused a moment. "But he's being watched, and that decision could change."

I knew Yanni was being honest with me. As always, he inspired an odd sense
of trust. But I was taken aback, thinking how they could have deduced my
source -- and freshly appreciating the stakes of this story. What Lina had
told me the day before wasn't a threat, but a promise. If whatever I did
posed any threat to them, it wasn't just my life on the line but also that
of the man whose loose lips had led me here. I hated him, sure, but I
didn't want him dead. I had to tread carefully -- and had to balance on a
knife edge whatever I wrote in future.

In an attempt to soothe my sudden pensiveness, Yanni said: "Don't
worry. Nothing's going to happen. I know you're too smart to let anything
happen."

I couldn't tell if that was reassurance or a veiled threat. Telling myself
I knew Yanni, at least a bit, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but I
couldn't help but worry. Sure, the banker was an arrogant fuck who smugly
believed his wealth and connections had carried him beyond the reach of
human justice, but he had, after a fashion, trusted me and now his life
hung by a thread. There was no way to get word to him now, and, even if I
saw him again after I left the island -- presuming I left the island --
Yanni and the rest of the Master's people would surely know.

I took a deep breath and exhaled, absentmindedly resuming the walk, Yanni
beside me. "Now I'm thinking this isn't worth it," I said. "Maybe I" -- I
paused a moment, hardly believing what I was about to say -- "shouldn't
have gone after this story."

Yanni considered what I said and replied: "You are who you are. I don't
think anyone or anything could've stopped you. That's why you let him fuck
you; to find out what he knew."

I turned my head to regard Yanni, but his face was placidly neutral. Was
there anything this pack of sick fucks didn't know? And yet I knew he
wasn't judging me, merely stating a fact. I had let the banker put his
pedophile cock in my pussy and ass a bunch of times, and, in return, he had
babbled a wealth of information, not all I had wanted to know, for sure,
but enough to keep me and the story going. Men were such weaklings, always
thinking with their little heads. "Yeah," I said. "I let him fuck me."

"The Master admires you," Yanni stated.

That bowled me over. "He admires *me*?" I exclaimed in disbelief.

Yanni nodded. "He says you don't do anything half-ass, that you're willing
to do anything to get what you want, and that kind of determination should
be admired."

I let that sink in as we kept walking. The sick fuck admired me! I
thought. Why? Did my all-consuming ambition mirror his own? I sighed and,
wanting to shift the subject, asked: "Who or what are the Rangers? You
mentioned them earlier."

"Those are the elite sacred prostitutes, who live here on the compound. We
arrange expeditions to major events through the year and the Rangers go to
work. Just one trip can bring in millions of dollars over a few days. I
usually go out with the Rangers, supervise every expedition, and there's
one out right now at the NBA Finals, but the Master asked me to stay behind
this time because of your visit." He stopped a moment, thinking. "I'm
actually glad he did," he added. "I wasn't looking forward to visiting
Detroit."

"And you condone that?" I asked flatly.

"I don't disapprove, if that's what you're asking," Yanni replied. "I was
actually the one who organized the first expedition, to the Super Bowl
about twelve or thirteen years ago, when I was only seventeen. We brought
in over twelve million dollars just from that first trip, all in cash. I
remember the Master was so proud of me. And the kids were glad to do it,
just like they are now." He looked at me and added: "What you don't seem to
get is what Lina told you yesterday: that everyone here, including all the
kids, are devoted to the Master. They willingly do what needs to be done to
keep the compound going, to keep our world safe. Every bit helps accomplish
what the Master has planned, and there's no judgment here about any of
it. In fact, the Rangers are admired. Maya says that they and their work
*are* sacred, because they do so much to advance our faith. *I* called them
elite because they are. As young as they are, their sexual training and
talents are unmatched. In a way, they're about as important as the
Guardians or the elite models.

"You may think what we have going is a cult -- and maybe it is, in a way --
but that doesn't change the fact that everyone here is willing to do
anything, even die, for the Master, because they know he wants to bring the
truth to everyone, even the ones who are willingly blind. And if there are
people willing to pay big bucks to have sex with our Rangers, that's just
more proof how natural that desire is -- and what people are willing to do
to make that desire a reality."

I wasn't about to bring an argument to bear on Yanni's circular logic, the
spinning reasonableness of his twisted thought. I merely kept quiet and
considered what he had said.

"Still," Yanni added, "the Master has thought about ending the expeditions
and disbanding the Rangers. The kiddy porn and everything else is bringing
in so much money that he says we won't really miss the money the Rangers
bring in if we end the expeditions. And then we can re-assign the Rangers
to being full-time models. But Lina is against the idea. She says the
Rangers bring in a lot of valuable intelligence, so the issue is up in the
air right now."

"How much does the kiddy porn bring in?" I asked.

Yanni shrugged. "You should ask my sister Rola about that," he replied. "I
mean, I have an idea, but she's the one who handles the numbers. She knows
to a penny everything we make from every operation."

I filed away that tidbit, knowing I would soon see Rola in any case. "Tell
me more about the Goddesses," I said.

Yanni considered a moment. "Well, there's Maya," he began. "Like I told
you, she's the Master's oldest child and his Chief Wife. She's the chief of
staff here. She oversees everything on the compound and outside it. She was
the one who started and put together our faith. I remember her saying then
she just knew the Master was a prophet, that he was sent to begin the
process that will heal our species and lead to true salvation -- in this
life and on this planet, not in any mythical afterlife. Anyway, like I said
before, the faith she created was so beautiful, so sexual, we all went
along. So, the Master may be our god, but she's the High Priestess. She
officiates over the Grand Orgies and the high rituals. Just like everybody
calls the Master the Master, most everybody, especially the kids, call Maya
the Mistress."

I nodded. "You mentioned your other sister. Rola."

"Yeah, like I said, she's in charge of all the money. She always had a head
for numbers, so the Master sent her to school to become an accountant."

"But didn't you tell me she gave birth to Chad when she was just thirteen?"

"Yeah," Yanni said, "but that didn't stop her from going to school. We're a
family and we all look after each other. All of us helped raise Chad and
all the other kids the Master had or adopted or who were living at our
place." He looked over at me and, detecting my desire for a fuller version
of the story, added: "When Rola was twelve and Lina was fourteen, Rola
became the Master's Chief Girl Lover because it was around that time that
Lina and a few of the Master's other girl lovers, including Tiffany,
started putting together the squad of kids who became the first Guardians,
and the Master felt that Lina shouldn't have to do both jobs. The Master
was still a doper then, but it was Lina who came up with the idea of using
kids not just as lookouts, but also as guards and intelligence agents, and
as a way of dealing with the Master's competitors and enemies, and then she
made it all happen. I mean, she had some help but, for the most part, it
was all her."

"You mean using them as killers?" I interjected in a slightly accusatory
tone.

"Yeah," Yanni admitted. "It was around that time that a bunch of shit went
down, like Caesar getting killed, and we had to figure out a way to deal
with the situation, and, like I said, it was Lina who put the idea in
action, and it was an idea that worked really well, and, well, you can
guess the rest."

"Lina and her people took care of the people that killed Caesar?"

Yanni shook his head. "I'm not going to tell you about that. You can ask
Lina or Maya and if they decide to tell you, fine."

I nodded. "Okay," I said. "But can you at least tell me what happened with
Rola?"

"Well, the Master got Rola pregnant with Chad, like, just a few months
after she became Chief Girl Lover. It wasn't a planned pregnancy; it just
happened. The Master hates wearing rubbers; he didn't then, and he doesn't
now, but, because he's so good at fucking, especially with kids, he was
always really good at sensing just when he had to pull out before he
came. But I guess that one time he fucked Rola some of those little
swimmers made it into her pussy and got through. Anyway, I remember how
surprised the Master was, how surprised all of us were, and, for a little
while, he was unsure about what to do and we were all sort of worried about
what would happen." He laughed.

"What was he uncertain about?" I asked.

"Rola's status, for one," Yanni replied. "He had just appointed her Chief
Girl Lover and there was so much other shit going on, and, in the middle of
all that, he suddenly had another kid on the way. But his being unsure
about things didn't last long. He talked things over with Rola and
eventually everything worked out."

"What did *you* think at the time?" I asked.

Yanni shrugged. "I think part of what went on with him then was he had
never really thought of himself as a father before," he said, "not even
after Maya or her sisters or Tiffany was born. I mean, he was only thirteen
when Maya was born, so they weren't that far apart in age, and, for the
first eight years of her life, before she came to live with him, she was
mostly raised by Parvati and her grandparents. So, he and Maya were always
more lovers than father and daughter, just like him and Gem now, and, as
for Tiffany, since nobody ever tried to figure out who her father was, she
was just, you know, part of the family, one of the Master's girl
lovers. Anyway, when Rola told him she was pregnant, it was one of the few
times I've ever seen him uncertain about something."

Yanni thought about what he had said for a few moments and then loosed an
audible exhalation. "I think too he never before felt he had to *act* like
a father," he said. "Despite all the kids he had made and all the kids he
was fucking and all the kids that were living with him at the time, he
always thought of them as lovers, not as sons or daughters, even though I
knew a lot of *them* thought of him as their father, even more than their
own actual fathers. Well, at least the ones who had fathers or who knew
their fathers. I know that was true of me and Lina and Rola. But Rola
getting pregnant finally forced him to accept he was going to become a
father for real, that he was going to have a big part in actually raising a
kid, because there was no uncertainty, you know?" He regarded me for a few
moments before continuing. "I mean, unlike the situation with Tiffany, no
one doubted he was the father of Rola's baby."

"There was never any talk of abortion or giving up the baby for adoption?"

Yanni shook his head. "No, never," he said. "None of us ever thought that
would be a possibility. Even then, all of us knew the love inside him
wouldn't ever let him even think about that. But, up until that time, I
don't think he had ever planned on or even thought about having kids of his
own with anyone but Parvati and Maya, despite the questions about
Tiffany. I don't know why. Maybe it was because he was a hood, the life he
was leading, you know? Anyway, like I said, he thought about it for a day
or two, and then he and Rola talked, and everything was okay again. The
tension just disappeared. In fact, whatever the Master and Rola shared, the
two of them were all happy about it. He loves Chad so much and he's really
proud of him."

"You never asked the Master or Rola what they talked about?" I asked.

Yanni shook his head. "No," he replied. "Neither of them ever told me -- or
anyone else, as far as I know -- and, since Rola never told me, I figured
it wasn't my place to ask. Heck, she never even told Lina, and the two of
them talk about everything -- at least most of the time. I was just glad
everything worked out, and everybody else felt the same way."

Yanni paused a moment. "Anyway, the Master never felt that uncertainty
again," he added, as if to assure me of something, though I couldn't begin
to guess what, and wouldn't know until sometime later.

Yanni chuckled. "Heck, now it's the opposite," he said. "He's always happy
to hear he's got another baby on the way." He thought some more, then
turned to me, lowering his voice to something of a conspiratorial
whisper. "I mean, you know, Maya is his wife and Gem is his favorite,
everybody knows that, but Chad is his only son. Well, his only son so far."

Yanni was quiet a moment, then turned to me again and, a touch of
excitement animating his voice, added: "Someday Chad will be the Master and
Gem will be the Mistress. The Master says he'll retire and just spend the
rest of his life sucking and fucking." He laughed. "Not that that would be
any different from what he does now. But I guess he means he would give up
being our god and all his other responsibilities. He said he would be like
Tiberius, but I've never asked him who that was."

"Tiberius was a Roman emperor who retired to the island of Capri," I
explained. "When he retired, he took with him a bunch of young boys and
girls and spent the rest of his life having sex with them -- at least until
he was murdered by his nephew Caligula, who became the next emperor."

"Oh, yeah?" Yanni said. "That's cool. I mean the having sex with all those
kids part, not the getting murdered part."

"So, what ended up happening with Rola and the Master and Chad?" I asked.

"Well, when Rola got pregnant, she had to give up being Chief Girl Lover,
at least after a while, so she could take care of Chad, but before she gave
it up, she was the one who set up the system we have today. She's always
been super organized."

"How so?"

"Well, before Rola became Chief Girl Lover, things were pretty loose,"
Yanni answered. "The Master seduced kids, the Chief Boy and Girl Lovers
seduced kids, and the groups of kids who worked with the Chief Lovers
seduced kids, so everything was sort of catch-as-catch-can, which led to
problems, especially when it came time to schedule a kid to meet the Master
for the first time -- you know, when it was a kid he hadn't seduced
himself. And, back then, the Master usually chose at random, sometimes at
the last minute, which kid or kids would spend the night with him, and so
that meant he ended up fucking some kids more often than he fucked others,
and Rola knew that could lead to problems too. So, she made things more
formal, set up an actual organization that operated in an established way
and kept to a schedule. Each of the Chief Lovers appointed a deputy who
helped them run things, and below the deputies were the assistant deputy
lovers, each of whom was responsible for seducing and preparing the kids in
a particular age group. When an assistant deputy lover thought a kid was
ready to meet the Master, the kid was brought to Rola first so she could
judge for herself if the kid was truly ready."

I recalled something Yanni had mentioned earlier that day about his own
exploits as Chief Boy Lover: that he had seduced boys in the Master's name,
had had sex with all of them before ultimately offering them up to his
adult pedophile lover. I mustered a piercing stare in order to regard
him. "You mean they were brought to Rola in order to have sex with her
before they were brought to the Master to have sex with him," I stated.

The knives hurled by my unforgiving expression had as little effect on
Yanni as bullets bouncing off a superhero. "That's right," he said with a
broad smile on his face as he turned to me. "Rola felt any kid who had a
chance to be with the Master should be prepared and talented enough to be
in his bed, to receive his love and give him their love in return. She
thought that doing things that way increased the chance that if a kid made
it as far as being with the Master, then that kid already had a good chance
of becoming a member of our family, and maybe also come to live with us at
the Marina House, and she was right. It also worked with the Master's
schedule; it gave him the time to do his business and fuck as many kids as
he wanted without anybody getting bummed out about it."

"How did it do that?"

"Rola kept track of who he fucked and when," Yanni explained, "and that way
she knew how and who to schedule. I mean, she always talked to him about
the schedule, so she never scheduled anyone without his approval, which is
the way it's done to this day. But sometimes he had his moods, you know,
just like he does now. He'd fuck a kid and want to fuck that same kid the
next day, or for a bunch of days in a row. And, sometimes, he'd think of a
kid when he was out and running around, doing whatever, and he'd call the
house and tell Rola he wanted that kid or kids waiting for him when he got
home. A lot of times when he got that way, it was Maya or Lina he'd ask to
be ready for him. But usually, when he got home, Rola had everything set up
for him, so he'd orgy with the chosen kids in the afternoon, and then, at
night, he knew in advance which and how many kids were going to be in his
bed, usually the ones who had loved him best in the afternoon."

"How did that system keep his lovers from getting bummed out? It sounds to
me like he still played favorites."

Yanni nodded. "Yeah," he agreed. "But Rola figured out how to work that
too. She assigned certain days of the week to the boys, certain days of the
week to the girls, other days of the week to mixed groups of boys and
girls, and Sunday was the always the day we had a family orgy, where
everybody loved everybody. Sunday is what we call White now."

Remembering his earlier explanation of how the Master had bent time to his
will, I simply nodded.

"Anyway," Yanni continued, "that way, everybody got a chance to share love
with the Master on a pretty regular basis, either during the afternoon
orgies and/or during the nights, and, besides all that, there were days he
would take off and there were the holidays, when he'd be home all day,
naked and hard, and sucking and fucking all over and around the house
pretty much every minute of the day with whoever he wanted to love at any
given time."

Yanni spoke of his younger sister's designs with a bright-eyed and happy
pride, which, beyond their long and regular indulgence in incest, made it
obvious how much he loved her. I simply shook my head in wonder, thinking
how a young girl, as Rola had been then, could devise such a diabolically
efficient system. I couldn't help but think that whatever twisted ends she
served then and now, Rola must be an extraordinary person. "And that system
worked?" I asked.

Yanni nodded. "Yeah," he said. "It worked so well that that's the way
things are done to this day."

"What did the Master think of that plan when Rola suggested it to him?"

"He saw the sense of it right away," Yanni replied. "It got rid of any
complications and confusion, and it gave him more time each day to take
care of his business as well as share love. He didn't have to spend so much
of his time hunting for kids and seducing them. Anyway, by that time, new
kids were coming into our family from several sources, and not just all the
seductions. But the lovers were still bringing him new kids, nearly all the
time, and Rola planned everything every step of the way. But he did tell
me, later on, that he missed the spontaneity of the way things were done
before. He loved just going out and spotting kids, meeting them on his own,
persuading them to come back to his place, and seducing them. He said every
seduction was like a test of his powers, that every kid is different and so
every seduction is different, that each one had its own unique discoveries
and surprises. Some seductions took only a few minutes while others took
weeks, but he was always patient. He's always said a true pedo is patient,
and that the length of a seduction isn't often an indicator of the eventual
quality of the child lover. His dad taught him that lesson and his own
experiences confirmed the truth of it."

"He's an expert, no doubt," I retorted dryly. My riposte masked a darkly
suffusing fascination, and not just because of the insidious intricacy of
it all. But, once again not wanting to stumble onto a sticky strand of
Yanni's spiderweb of revelations, I simply filed it away, reasoning I would
pump him and anyone else (maybe including the Master) for more later on.

"You were Chief Boy Lover at the time, right?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"How did you feel about all the changes Rola made? I mean, they affected
the way you operated too, didn't they?"

"Yeah," Yanni agreed with a small shake of his head. "But I saw the sense
of it too. Like I said, Rola is really organized. She's my younger sister,
but she sort of taught me how to be organized too. I was a lot more
devil-may-care about things back then."

I smiled at that. Liking Yanni as I did, I couldn't help but wonder how the
passage of years had matured him. Now, he was one of the major movers in
the operation of a vast criminal empire, one of the stewards of a
burgeoning pedophiliac cult, and yet so bawdily and sunnily charming that I
could hardly imagine a more lissome, alluringly carefree soul, even when
picturing him as a boy. I found myself wishing I had known him then.

"And Lina really appreciated it as well," Yanni added, "because when Rola
finally gave up being Chief Girl Lover -- when she was, like, in her
seventh or eighth month -- and Lina had to go back to doing that as well as
running the Guardians, Rola left her a system that ran pretty much
automatically. Officially, Lina was Chief Girl Lover, and, officially, she
was Chief Girl Lover longer than anybody else, until she was seventeen, but
she pretty much let Diamond run things on a daily basis, and things ran so
smooth that Diamond kept at it even after *she* got pregnant with Gem."

Yanni paused a moment, thinking. "Anyway, Chad was born, and Rola was
pretty busy being a new mother, but, like I said before, she always had
this head for numbers, so she started to help the Master keep his
businesses and books straight, keeping track of all the money he was making
from dope and other stuff, and she was so good at that that, later on, the
Master sent her to college, and she got degrees in accounting and
taxes. When Lina gave up being Chief Girl Lover, Anna took over and Lina
just concentrated on running the Guardians, and she's been doing that ever
since. After Anna, Chloe was Chief Girl Lover and now it's Gem." He thought
a moment and added: "I guess that makes all of them Goddesses too."

I shook my head in wonder. "Fucking amazing," I said. "Who'll ever believe
it?" I spent a few moments mulling over all Yanni had so far revealed,
realizing there was still so much more to come. "Who else?"

"Well, I told you a bit about Diamond," Yanni said. "She's Gem's mother."

I nodded.

Yanni shrugged. "Well, she was one of the Master's girl lovers and he got
her pregnant too, about six months after he got Rola pregnant, and she had
Gem when she was twelve. I think that pregnancy was accidental too, but, by
that time, the Master had already gotten used to the idea of being a real
father, and so he was really happy when Diamond told him she was pregnant."
He smiled at the memory. "It was like he knew even before Gem was born that
she was going to be a really special kid."

The seeming placidity underlying what Yanni had just said was blemished by
the slightest of ripples, and by now our rapport had waxed to the point
that I felt the rolling quiver wash over and past my mind. "That situation
with Diamond and Gem wasn't as happy as you make out, was it?" I said.

Yanni sighed, a heavy sigh. "A lot of stuff went down during that time," he
said.

"Was that the other part you mentioned when you were talking about what
went on with Rola and Chad?" I asked.

Yanni merely nodded.

"What was it that went down?"

"A lot of stuff that the Master was afraid would happen," Yanni
replied. "And that's all I'm going to say about that. If you want to know
more, ask Diamond."

"Okay," I agreed. "Can you tell me more about Diamond anyway?"

"Well, Gem was born about six months after Chad," Yanni explained. "Diamond
was never officially Chief Girl Lover, but she was Lina's Deputy Chief Girl
Lover, and because Lina was always so busy -- you know, being Chief Girl
Lover, at least officially, and running the Guardians -- Diamond took on a
lot of her work as Chief Girl Lover. That was part of how a lot of the shit
that was going down then got worked out. Besides, Diamond and the Master
were always really close. In the old days, when the Master's day was done
and he came home, she would bathe him every night, and that's how the
Angels got started because when Diamond got older and had more
responsibilities, she trained the boys and girls who took over that job
from her, and those kids became the first body servants and
handmaidens. But when Diamond was still doing it, you could walk into his
bathroom practically every night and see her and the Master fucking in his
big bathtub.

"Anyway, I guess that's one of the reasons the Master's even closer to
Gem. Well, you know how fathers are about their daughters. All of us could
tell he fell in love with her as soon as she was born. I remember walking
into his bedroom a bunch of times back then and seeing Diamond in his bed
nursing Gem and pumping the Master's cock at the same time. And when the
Master came, they fed the cum to Gem and she ate it all up. So, you could
say her father's cum was the second thing she ever tasted."

Yanni paused a moment, thinking, then added: "Anyway, about two years after
Gem was born, the Master got Diamond pregnant again -- that time it was no
accident -- and she had his daughter Jewel. Then, like I told you, when she
was fifteen, Diamond went to work as a stripper in one of the Master's
clubs, and, by the time she was eighteen, she was running the
place. Eventually, she was running all the strip clubs and she's been doing
that since the time we all moved to this compound."

"This compound? This is the third one, right?"

Yanni nodded. "That's right," he replied. "There were two compounds before
this one."

"Really?"

Yanni nodded again. "Yeah," he said. "Like I said before, the first
compound was a big trailer park owned by the Master and his dad."

A small smirk bowed my lips, and, in a teasing tone, I said: "A trailer
park?"

Yanni looked over at me and nodded yet again while noting my amusement with
a smile. "Yeah," he replied amidst a brief chortle. "Don't laugh. The place
was huge, like a little city, and it was pretty upscale for a trailer part,
at least later on. It was right next to the ocean, and had its own marina,
and a park, a swimming pool, and even a miniature golf course. Like I said,
a lot of the trailers were owned by these snowbirds -- you know, people who
come down only for the winter -- so the place seemed empty for a good part
of the year, but I'd say close to half the trailers were occupied by people
who lived there all year round."

"What was the place called?"

"Neptune's Kingdom," Yanni replied affably.

"Neptune's Kingdom," I repeated, savoring another clue. "And Maya was his
Amphitrite."

Yanni didn't get the reference. "Huh?"

"Nothing," I muttered, then turned to look at him. "Tell me more."

Yanni was silent for a few moments, another smile coming to his lips as he
sank into the shallows of pleasant memories. "Well," he said," the Master
and his dad bought the place to use it for one of their money laundering
fronts, but it made good money on its own. His dad, so far as I know, never
bothered to visit, but the Master moved there to run the place and he lived
there most of the time."

I couldn't resist teasing Yanni again. "He lived in one of the trailers?" I
asked. "I hope it was a double wide."

My jibe caused Yanni to snicker. "No, wiseguy," he retorted. "There was
this big old house on the property, on top of this little hill, and it
overlooked the marina. It had been there since long before the trailer
park; it was built back in the twenties, I think. Anyway, the Master had it
fixed up, and he put in this big swimming pool and pool houses, and he had
the whole house surrounded by this big, tall wall" -- he raised his arms to
indicate the height and immensity of the wall -- "so no one could see
in. And, in front of the house, down the hill, there was this big empty
lot." He swept his left arm through the air in front of him to indicate the
size of the lot. "The people that owned the trailer park before were going
to use the lot to build more trailers, and I'm pretty sure they were going
to demolish the old house, but they ran out of money or something like
that, so that's why they sold the whole place. Anyway, the Master had the
lot dug up and landscaped and turned it into this big tropical garden. It
was really beautiful. It had these paths and streams with little bridges
over them, and ponds that were deep enough for swimming, and one of the
ponds had a waterfall. And there were these little clearings where you
could just lie down and enjoy the sun and the breeze and make love. It was
close to the ocean so there was always a breeze. You could just lie back
and listen to the breeze blowing through the palm trees. I'd go there a lot
just to relax. It was so nice me and sometimes a bunch of the Master's
lovers would camp out there and spend the night. But a lot of the times I
went there was just to share love -- with the Master or some of the other
kids. Anyway, the Master had a wall built to surround the garden as well."

"And all of you lived in the big house?" I asked.

"Yanni nodded. "Yeah, most of us," he said. "It was called the Marina
House, and it had a lot of rooms. I mean, it wasn't as big as the Main
House here on the island" -- he gestured in the direction we were heading,
toward the great granite bulk of the Master's mansion -- "but it was
definitely the biggest place all of us had lived in up to that time.

"Growing up there was fun. We had the run of the place, and we could do
pretty much whatever we wanted. The Master never had too many rules. One
was we had to be naked or sexy, like I told you before, and the other was
we always had to pick up after ourselves. And that was pretty much it. I
mean, we all had to help out with the chores, but nobody ever complained
too much about that. Some of us, like Gio and Jackie, helped the Master out
with his pics and vids. And we all had to go to school. The Master always
said if we were going to live with him, we weren't going to be allowed to
dick around, that we all had to go to school. So, Esme would drop us off
every morning at school in this bus we had and pick us up every afternoon.

"But, when we were at the house, we could just be naked and do whatever --
or do nothing. But there was always something to do -- and I don't just
mean sharing love. There was a game room and there was tons to do just in
there. There was an air hockey table and foosball and skee-ball, pinball
machines, and all the big-time video games. There was even one of those
claw machines -- you know, where you move around the claw to scoop up a
prize." He raised a hand and scrunched the fingers to indicate the
configuration of a metallic claw. "There was the swimming pool and a
library full of the Master's books. Lina used to spend a lot of time in
there. And there was a big TV room; I remember the Master used to call it
the `serenity room.' And the fridge was always full of food, and there were
always snacks and soft drinks, even though the Master wasn't too big on
salt and sugar. And there was this big freezer where we used to keep meat
and ice cream and popsicles. We used to go through a ton of those on hot
days and there were a lot of those `cause the summers were always long. And
pretty much every week, especially during the summers when school was out,
we'd have cookouts; burgers, hot dogs, steaks, ribs, you name it."

As Yanni described the opulent prison in which he had been raised, I
resisted the urge to allow my smug certainty to bring a snide smile to my
face. The younger Master had obviously gone all out to keep his child
lovers narcotized. What youngster could have resisted such a seeming
paradise, even if their innocence had been the price? I found it
interesting that the Master had, amidst all the pleasures he must have
surely enjoyed with all those children, insisted his charges attend
school. Why? Had it been a tactic to avoid the scrutiny of the authorities,
or had he been genuinely concerned for their edification? I admit that had
me confused. In the time since, the Master had created his own world and
was now largely beyond the reach of any justice. He could do as he
liked. Yet Yanni had told me a school existed here, had ardently contended
the Master was not an exploiter, but an educator, among other things, and
that a love of wisdom animated his motives. Was there some truth to what
Yanni insisted was the bottomless well of love the Master bore? I quickly
swatted that thought away.

"Who didn't live at the house?" I asked.

"Well," Yanni said, "some of the Master's lovers back then lived in the
trailer park and spent a lot of time at his place, but they didn't actually
live in the house. And some didn't live in the trailer park at all. But, as
time passed, more and more of his lovers lived at the house. But Peaches
and Dawn and Dakota had their own place."

I again knew Yanni was holding something back. I had detected something
under the surface of how he had before said that children came to the
Master from "several sources" and I had the same sense now that he was
saying more and more children had come to live with the Master over time. I
could barely begin to guess what that something was. For the time being,
though, I wanted no more unpleasantness between us, so I put a leash on my
usual reportorial aggressiveness and let it slide, knowing I'd later ask
him or someone else in some other fashion about the topic. I merely
narrowed my eyes and said: "You mentioned them. Peaches and Dawn and
Dakota, I mean. They're all Goddesses too, right? Where did they live?"

Yanni nodded again. "That's right," he replied. "You see, even by that
time, the Master was busy with a lot of stuff so, even though he lived at
the house at the trailer park, he put Peaches and Dawn in charge of the
place on a day-to-day basis. Back then, they were getting out of high
school, but they'd been with him for a long time, since nearly the
beginning, really. They were his first Chief Girl Lovers, even before the
job officially existed, and they helped him make his kiddy porn, his first
legendary photo sets. Anyway, the Master trusted the two of them to do a
good job, so they and Dakota lived in a house in the Little Compound."

At the mention of the Master's salad days as a child pornographer, I was
tempted to go off on a tangent but quickly decided to stick to the subject
at hand, once again reasoning I could always ask after that altogether
arousing topic at a later time, maybe even later today when I encountered
the so-called Goddesses.

"What was the Little Compound?" I asked. "And who is Dakota? I remember you
mentioned her, so I'm guessing she's one of the Goddesses too."

Yanni nodded yet again. "Yeah, she's one of the Goddesses," he
affirmed. "She's Dawn's younger sister."

Yanni paused for a few moments then, thinking on how to formulate the
remainder of his response. Watching him, I couldn't help but feeling
touched how sincere he was about explaining himself, his so-called family,
this place and the sordid history that had led to this walk and our
conversation. I wondered about that. Were his meticulous explanations an
effort to turn my head, to not only increase my understanding but also to
gain my sympathy and even acceptance? If that's the case, I thought then,
he's got another thing coming. Still, I did note his mention of long
summers, which narrowed my speculation regarding where the Master had
gotten his start.

"There was this wide avenue that led through the center of the whole
trailer park," Yanni said, "and ended at this cul-de-sac. And at the
cul-de-sac there was this little park, and in the park there was this hall
people could rent -- I guess it was like a community center too but there
were never any community meetings -- and there was a swimming pool too, and
a snack bar. Anyway, I'm telling you all this `cause on the far side of the
swimming pool there was this fence that had a gate, and the gate led to a
path, and the path led through this little wooded area to the Little
Compound, which was a group of houses at the bottom of the hill -- real
houses, not trailers, all done in a Japanese style. The Master was always
big on Japanese culture and design and whatnot. Anyway, the houses were
really pretty. And the houses were surrounded by their own wall, so nobody
on the outside, anybody who lived in the trailer park and happened to go
back there, could see inside. Anyway, that's why we called it the Little
Compound, because of the wall.

"I found this out this out even before I knew the Master `cause there was
this big mailbox at the community center where people left checks to pay
their rent and their fees or drop off complaints and suggestions, and my
mom used to send me up to the mailbox every month to drop off our rent
check -- when she was still paying the rent, that is. Anyway, I guess I
wandered back there one day, and I saw there were two gates in the wall,
one for people and one for cars. And next to each gate was this little box
with a keypad, so you could enter the codes to open the gates. But I didn't
know the codes until later."

The memory of the bygone compound caused Yanni's lips to bow into a small
smile. He began using his hands to augment the rest of his
description. "Anyway," he continued, "there were five houses in the Little
Compound, like a little neighborhood. There was a swimming pool in there
too, that everybody who lived in the houses could use. Peaches and Dawn and
Dakota lived in one of the houses, and another was reserved for the Master
to use whenever he was seducing a potential new young lover. Kids he or the
lovers had seduced, or that had come to him in other ways from other
sources, lived in the other three houses until he thought they were ready
to move up the hill to the big house, sort of like the system we have now
with the Guest House. You remember you saw the Guest House yesterday?"

I nodded, considering with a not misplaced awe the diabolical mechanism
that had been conceived and instituted years ago to slake the Master's
lust, an operation that had only waxed with the passage of time. He had
once only seduced the children of some distant city; now he routinely slept
with children brought to him from all over the globe. "And that system
worked, even back then?" I asked.

Yanni nodded. "Yeah," he replied. "Like I said, the Master trusted Peaches
and Dawn, so they were responsible for supervising the kids that lived in
the Little Compound as well as running the trailer park, and they could be
pretty strict. Just like at the Marina House, the kids were responsible for
keeping the houses neat and clean, and the pool area too, and mowing the
lawn and stuff like that. Everybody had chores and everybody had to go to
school. If a kid caused too much trouble, they'd chuck him or her back out
onto the street. But that didn't happen often, and, even when it did, a lot
of those kids came back, and they got straightened out."

Straightened out? I thought. I was tempted to laugh but kept a cover on my
cynical mirth. Still, my eyes narrowed again, and I closely studied Yanni's
usually expressive face, which seemed to be oddly neutral as he explained
the particulars of the past. There was something missing here but I still
couldn't divine what that might be. "And if a kid graduated from the Little
Compound?" I asked, once again making air quotes with my fingers.

"They'd move up to the big house and officially become part of the Master's
family," Yanni replied. "They become one of his lovers and one of his kiddy
porn models." He turned his head to regard me a few moments and then
resumed his description. "At the back end of the wall that surrounded the
Little Compound, after you passed through the pool area, there was another
gate, and that led into the tropical garden. Like I told you, there were
these paths in the garden and one of the paths led up to the big house."

"And that's the house where you and your sisters grew up?" I asked,
guessing at the source of his earlier smile.

"Yeah," Yanni said, nodding again. "Me, my mom and my sisters lived in the
trailer park before the Master and his dad bought the place, and it was
pretty run down in those days, scuzzy even, full of these low-rent drug
dealers and chicks turning tricks out of their trailers and whatnot. The
Master got rid of those people, and then, like I said, he fixed the place
up and re-developed the marina, and started attracting the snowbirds to
lease and buy. The only people he let stay -- and I didn't find out about
this until later -- were the pedos. The place was full of pedos. I think
there must have been at least one pedo on every block."

Yanni laughed. "I asked the Master about that later and told me that, even
then, he sort of felt the need, without really knowing why, to create a
place where pedos like himself could feel safe and valued." He paused a
moment. "And he did help them out, like I told you. Whenever any of them
got in trouble, he'd bail them out and help pay their legal bills, and, if
any of them had to do time, he made sure to do his best to look after them
while they were inside and look after their places while they were away. Of
course, back then, penalties were lighter for molesters -- well, the people
society calls molesters, anyway." He paused again, thinking for a
moment. "I remember Maya and I talked about all that once, and she said
that was like a sign; that, even then, long before he became the Master,
when he was just a hood and didn't even know what he was destined to
become, he was already helping his people, already doing his part to
protect and spread the truth."

Listening to Yanni's recollection of the early years of the beneficence of
his prophet, I regarded him with a skeptical expression, but he was staring
straight ahead, too lost in his reminiscence to notice my undisguised
dubiousness. "Did you know then that the Master was a pedo?" I asked.

Yanni shook his head. "Not then," he replied, "though I saw things that
added up later. There were always kids, some that I knew lived in the
trailer park and some that didn't, passing through the gate that led into
the Little Compound. We'd see them punch in the code that unlocked the gate
and we'd wonder how they knew the code. And sometimes we'd see the Master
driving around on his motorcycle or in his car -- he had this big Lincoln
Continental then -- with a kid or two or more riding with him, and then
he'd drive through the car gate and disappear inside. Only later did I find
out that what I was seeing was him with kids he was going to start seducing
or already seducing or kids that were already his child lovers."

Yanni again paused a moment, again thinking. "You know," he finally said,
"the Master teaches that all kids are different and true pedos know to
seduce different kids in different ways and at different speeds. A pedo
always has to pay careful attention to the kid he's seducing and move at
*that* kid's pace. For example, I think I said before the Master's told me
he seduced some kids in minutes, but others took weeks. But he was always
patient. The Master says that a true pedo is always patient. A true pedo
appreciates that every kid is different, and that the length of a seduction
is hardly ever an indicator of the eventual quality of a young lover."

I nodded. "Yes, you did say that before," I said. "I defer to his
judgment. As *I* said before, no doubt he's an expert."

Yanni seemed not to detect the renewed mild scoff of my tone, but simply
continued relating his rose-hued assessment of the Master's long-ago
adventures. "Anyway," he continued, "he'd park his bike or his car on the
driveway of the Little Compound and with kids he was seducing he'd take
them inside the house that was reserved just for him, and he'd do his
magic. Like I said, sometimes it didn't take long, but sometimes it took a
few hours or a few visits. However long it took, I've never heard he ever
failed. The Master's told me that, when he was seducing kids, convincing a
kid to come back to his place was always most of the battle. And with kids
that were already his lovers, he'd go in to talk to Peaches and Dawn, about
business or whatnot, and then they'd all get naked and fuck. Or they'd get
naked and share love at the pool or go into the garden. Like I said, there
were all these little clearings in the garden where he and his lovers could
suck and fuck; under the palm trees, feeling the sun on their bodies and
the breeze from the ocean too." He paused yet again, his eyes noticeably
coruscating while another smile crossed his lips as his mind recalled the
forbidden pleasures that were had in that debauched tropical garden. "It
was very beautiful," he added. "The Master, even then, loved doing it
outdoors."

"And there was no fear of being seen?" I asked.

"No," Yanni said with a shake of his head while once again trying to paint
a picture with his hands. "The whole area was very private, sort of a
smaller version of this island, I guess." He laughed. "I still remember how
we used to run naked through the garden, our cocks hard while we chased
each other, and then, after we caught each other, we'd just fall onto the
grass and share love, sometimes for hours. Just me and him and sometimes a
bunch of us. So, so beautiful."

I regarded him. "Practice for paradise," I remarked, a detectable note of
sarcasm in my voice.

Yanni got the hint that time but merely regarded me with a wry
smile. "Yeah," he replied simply. "Just that."

"From what you told me last night, though," I observed, "you and your
sisters weren't exactly graduates of that system."

Yanni's face scrunched. "Yes and no," he replied. "Even though we lived in
the trailer park, the Master met us and seduced in sort of a different
way. He met our mom first, seduced her, and that led him to us. Well, my
sisters first and then to me."

"So, how did you eventually find out about all that was going on?" I asked.

Yanni shrugged. "When I became one of his lovers," he replied, "especially
after I became his Chief Boy Lover. Not a day went by where we didn't fuck
at least once, usually a lot more times than once, and a lot of times we
fucked" -- he licked his lips lasciviously -- "we fucked outdoors. He was
that way with my sisters too."

"And how did your sisters become his lovers?" I asked.

Now it was Yanni's turn to narrow his eyes. "You already know about that,"
he said.

Yanni was right, of course. He and Lina had already told me a great deal
about how they had entered the Master's world just a few short years after
its genesis. I was a good enough reporter, however, to know it paid to ask
questions more than once. More often than not, the stories people told
changed or new details came to the fore, and that's what I was hoping to
elicit. At that moment, though, only a very small corner of my mind was
allowing the admittance that their accounts had powerfully aroused me, had
left me a sodden heap the night before, and a writhing jumble of wantonness
earlier this morning. "I know," I replied. "I was just wondering if there
was any more to the story."

Yanni shook his head. "Nothing too important," he said. "Our dad
disappeared. None of us know where he is -- or care." His voice assumed a
distinctly disdainful tone. "He was always sort of fucking useless when he
*was* around. He was always out of work. Whenever he did have a job, he
always lost it. Later on, I realized he was just a bum; he didn't want to
work, not even to support his wife and family. He never kept any promises,
always had a story." He paused a moment and then his voice softened. "Our
mom supported us -- mostly. They used to argue a lot, about money, I guess,
and him always being out of work. But he never hit her; at least he wasn't
that type of guy. But one day he just left and never came back, and I guess
that killed something in our mom. She was never the same. I guess, despite
all his flaws, she really loved him. Anyway, that's when she started
getting into crack, and it was around that same time that the Master took
over the trailer park. But instead of chasing her out, he let her stay,
even though she lost *her* job when she started hitting the pipe and
couldn't pay the rent."

"Why was that?"

Yanni looked over at me and smiled. "I know you're expecting me to say it
was because he was a great guy," he said, "a great humanitarian, and he was
so full of love and he felt sorry for her and her kids, and bullshit like
that."

I returned his smile. "I wasn't expecting that at all," I said teasingly
while giving in to the sudden urge to take his hand in mine and gently tug
on his arm.

Yanni chuckled while squeezing my hand. "Well, the truth is he just wanted
her," he said. "My mom was hot before the crack completely ruined her. She
was really pretty, and she had this great set of tits and a fantastic ass,
just a great body. When I think about her now, how good she looked,
especially when she wore tight jeans that showed off her ass, I can't
understand why our dad left her. I mean, wherever he ended up, he couldn't
have done better than her."

Yanni paused a moment, thinking. "Knowing what I know now," he said
vehemently, "I just wish I had gotten to fuck my mom, to love her the way
she deserved to be loved. If I had known then what the Master taught me
later, I would have fucked her morning, noon and night, and made real our
love as mother and son, and maybe that would have saved her." He paused
again, still turning over in his mind the choices and courses of years
past. "And I know Lina and Rola feel the same way. Lina has this picture of
our mom when she was young. She's in a bikini on a beach, showing off her
smokin' body. Lina keeps it in a frame in her room at the cathedral and
she's told me she jerks off to it a lot. Anyway, Lina looks a lot like she
did, though Lina's thinner and our mom's hair wasn't as dark as hers is."

I considered those last utterances, trying to picture the woman Yanni was
remembering. There seemed to be no trace of sadness in his voice, only a
wistful recollection of someone as they once had been. His raw comments
about his own mother's figure, his confession of an incestuous desire borne
by him and his sisters for the woman who had birthed them, barely
registered with me at that moment. By now, having dwelt in this depraved
realm for less than a day, I was becoming used to -- or so I told myself --
hearing about the most morally corrupt wants and practices as if someone
were making observations regarding the weather. Besides, I had my own
thoughts about incest, which, as deeply interred as they were, weren't
necessarily condemnatory. Only later did I stop to mull the totality of his
remarks and my blasé reaction to the same, once again realizing,
with a start, how my involvement with this story was either transforming me
or, as Yanni never tired of stating, simply allowing me to admit I was
someone I had always been destined to become, a believer in their perverted
truth.

As Yanni spoke, though, I was more mindful of his mother: who she had once
been, what she had once looked like, and how the tragedy of her addiction
had engulfed her, leaving her children in the clutches of the Master, who
had made them his creatures, among the pillars of his pedophile
paradise. How different might they have been if she hadn't succumbed to
narcotics? I wondered. What sort of lives would they have led if but for a
cruel twist of fate? When Lina considered her own life, as Yanni had told
me last night, was this what she thought about?

I wasn't completely contemplative, however. When I heard Yanni mention his
mother had imparted her countenance to Lina, I was suddenly quietly crazed
to see his mother for myself, my pussy releasing a slow but steady drip as
I thought how to get my hands on that photo of her in a bikini.

"We all knew the Master was fucking her," Yanni continued, "because he
spent a lot of nights at our place, and we would walk into her room in the
morning and he'd be there, lying in her bed naked, his cock out, and she'd
be sleeping naked beside him, her pussy and her asshole full of his cum. Or
we'd walk in, and he'd actually be fucking her or eating her out or
whatever. I remember one time I walked in, and he was not only fucking her
doggy-style, but pissing in her pussy, and then he pulled out and bent down
and drank his own piss out of her cunt, and then she turned around and laid
back on the bed and he got top of her, and they shared his piss in these
deep kisses. I think I was only ten then, so I hardly understood what I was
seeing, but I remember it got me so hard my cock was aching."

Yanni paused yet again. "Even then," he continued, "I remember me and my
sisters talking about that, about how shameless he was, and about how
shameless he made our mom. Before she knew him, we weren't often naked in
front of one another. Our mom and our dad both came from conservative
Lebanese families, after all. But after the Master came into our lives,
pretty much everything changed. When he wasn't fucking her, he'd walk
around our place naked like it was the most natural thing in the
world. We'd see his cock get hard and he'd watch porn on our TV, including
kiddy porn, and he'd just jack off in front of us. He'd fuck our mom in
every room of our place whether we were around or not. He didn't care if we
saw, and sometimes he smiled at us as he fucked her, and, after a while,
our mom didn't seem to care either. At first, we didn't know what to do, or
if we should do anything, so, after a while, I guess mostly because our mom
was okay with it, we all got used to it.

"It was only later we understood that a lot of the times his cock got hard
was because he was looking at us, thinking about having sex with us. But
back then, he always came to our place; we never ended up at the Little
Compound or went up to the big house. So, we didn't know then what a big
pedo he was, that he already had a harem of boy and girl lovers, and that
he was heavy into making kiddy porn. So, he could afford to be patient
where we were concerned. When it came to us, my sisters and me, he just
bided his time. Despite all we saw and all he did in front of us, he never
once made a move on any of us. I think he knew even then that, eventually,
all of us, one way or another, would become his lovers."

"If he was around so much," I asked, "why did you end up in the streets?"

Yanni shrugged. "Like I said, the Master was letting us live rent-free, and
he gave our mom money too," he answered. "But her habit got worse and
worse, and, eventually, she was spending all the money he gave her on the
rock. She was getting high all the time, and she pretty much stopped
eating, until finally she just skin and bones. Her hair---" He stopped
abruptly, taking a deep breath while pursing his lips, a swallow roiling
the flesh of his throat. "She had such beautiful hair, all long and curly,
down to the middle of her back, but it all went stringy because she stopped
washing. Her skin was pale; it felt like paper. Her teeth started falling
out, and she started pissing and shitting herself, so she smelled bad all
the time." A lone tear gathered at the corner of one of his eyes, but he
quickly wiped it away.

At a loss to know what to do or say, I simply looked at Yanni and again
reached for his hand, squeezing it. He squeezed back.

"Anyway," Yanni continued, "the Master argued with her. We heard them. He
tried to get her off the pipe, threatened to kill her dealers, and
sometimes she listened to him, but she never stayed off for long. So, after
a while, he stopped coming around as often and, when he did, it was mostly
to check on us. I didn't want to ask him to take care of us -- I guess I
was too proud to do that -- so that's why I hit the streets.

"I made some good money for a while. Like I told you, the trailer park was
filled with pedos, and a lot of them were willing to pay to fuck me, so I
brought all that money home, and that kept us going for a while. But
whatever money my mom found, she spent on crack. So, I had to make even
more money, and I started to hang out at this rock garden that was next to
a big public library that was close to the trailer park. It was a nice
place, actually, sort of like the Master's garden at the trailer park but
not as big or as nice. There were these paths cut through coral rock, and
this stream ran through the garden, and there were these little bridges in
a Caribbean motif that let you walk over various parts of the stream. And,
like the Master's garden, it had all these secluded corners, and was a
hangout for gay guys and pedos, and I was always getting hit on whenever I
went in there. So, I started going there to make money and pretty soon I
was sucking, like, ten or more cocks a day."

"Is that how you got in trouble?" I asked.

Yanni nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I met this guy in the rock garden. A big
older guy, good looking. We went into this little clearing, and I sucked
him, and I got him off real good. He came in buckets. Then he sucked me,
made *me* come, swallowed all my jizz, and then he bent me over, and licked
my asshole before putting his cock inside me. He had a pretty good-sized
cock, I remember, and it was a pretty good fuck, but, when it was all over,
he pulled out a twenty and that was it, that was all he was gonna pay me. I
told him I deserved at least a hundred for a suck and fuck job, and the
fucker actually laughed at me and threw the twenty in my face. I got so mad
I shoved him, and he fell on his ass, and dropped his wallet. I snatched up
the twenty and the wallet, and just ran. I knew he wasn't going to catch me
so, after a while, I stopped running, and took all the money out of the
wallet. The guy was loaded. There was, like, over five hundred dollars in
the wallet. I ran home, gave most of the money to Lina, told her to hide it
real good so our mom wouldn't find it, and then went back out. That very
night, the cops picked me up and took me to juvie. That fucker I blew
actually reported me, saying I had mugged him. I mean, can you believe it?
A little twelve-year-old shit like me, mugging a big guy like him? Anyway,
nobody wanted to listen to my side of the story, that we had sucked and
fucked, so I went up in front of the judge, and he put me in juvie for six
months, and it was while I was inside that my mom sold Lina and Rola to the
Master, and they went to live with him in the big house."

"And when you got out, you went to live with him too."

Yanni nodded. "That's right."

"Your mom never came for you?" I asked. "How did she end up?"

Yanni shook his head. "She OD'd about a year later," he said. "We used to
go down to her trailer to check on her. It was Lina who found her. She'd
been dead about three days. The place smelled awful."

In spite of my hard-bitten self, my eyes teared up at hearing that, and I
regarded Yanni, my beloved kid-fucker friend, with an expression of sadness
and sympathy. He avoided my gaze, looking down at his feet as we walked. I
had finally detected in his voice, as he told me of his mother's demise, a
small note of regret amidst a practiced matter-of-factness. The years had
done their work, I thought, salving the deep wounds and allowing him to
recall such a great trial without displaying too much of the intensely felt
emotions that were such a hallmark of his personality.

"Anyway," Yanni added in a low voice, "the Master paid for her funeral. It
was him, me, Lina and Rola at the service and at the cemetery. No one else
came. He bought a big headstone, but we never went back to visit the
grave."

"Why not?"

"What for? She hadn't been our mom for a long time when she died."

"What was her name?" I asked softly.

"Hawa," Yanni replied, his voice barely more than a whisper.

"Hawa," I repeated under my breath, thinking that was appropriate. I
recognized the name as the Arabic version of Eve, the mother of all
life. If their mother had done only that, given her children life, I
thought, that had to be enough. Whatever her failings, her gift of life had
led to this moment, to the two of us stirring memories while walking down
this shrouded path, and that had to mean something, somehow. I wasn't
normally so spiritually contemplative, more often believing that, if there
was a God, he didn't give a shit about scrabbling humanity, but, in that
moment, at least for Yanni's sake, I was.

We walked in silence for a while, and then, unable to resist the
imperatives of my mission, I asked: "So, there was a second compound?"

Deep in thought, Yanni started a bit and then turned to me. "Hmmm?" he
grunted softly before fully comprehending my question. "Oh, yeah, um, there
was another compound before this one, a big house -- a mansion, really --
on a big piece of property right on the ocean. There were a bunch of little
cottages on the property too. But, as big it was, we outgrew it pretty
quickly. There were simply too many kids joining the family then. And none
of us liked it too much anyway. The house was too modern, sort of
sterile. But then the Master and Maya found this island. What's now called
the Main House was already here; it was built, like, over a hundred years
ago, but nobody had lived in it for a long time, so it was in pretty bad
shape. They fixed it up and expanded it. And they built more
buildings. They built Elysium, like I told you, and they built the
hospital, the school and its residence halls, and the Studio, and just made
a lot of improvements, and we all started moving in. It's so far taken four
years and a lot of money, and we're still not finished."

I considered all the bits of information Yanni had related. The first
compound had been a large trailer park equipped with a marina overlooking
an ocean, obviously located somewhere in the United States. His comments
about the snowbirds and description of the Master's tropical garden also
made plain it was located in a tropical zone, and that further narrowed the
possibilities. Such a place couldn't be too difficult to find, I thought,
even if it was likely owned by some company that would lead to a string of
other companies situated in mailboxes all over the planet.

Hawaii? Puerto Rico? No, the image of pasty snowbirds winging their way
south at the onset of every winter brought only one place to mind. It had
to be Florida. I was sure of it. Somewhere in the Sunshine State, that
bleached and broiled haven for confidence tricksters and dopers and
fraudsters of all sorts, there was a trailer park populated by pedophiles,
and where, in a large house and secluded garden, the Master had romped with
scores of naked children. The second compound, the modernist mansion by the
sea, was likely also somewhere in Florida, I pictured a concrete and glass
monstrosity derivative of Mies van der Rohe or Frank Lloyd Wright, its
windows lit by the sun as they coldly stared down at the churning ocean.

As for the island, I didn't yet know its exact dimensions, but could tell
it was rather large, at least several miles wide and more miles long. The
island alone must have cost tens of millions of dollars to buy, and the
improvements and construction probably cost tens of millions more. There
had to be way to track down the purchase of the island as well as records
of all the renovation and improvements afterward. There surely can't be
that many private islands that large on the planet, I thought, much less
one that came equipped with such a massive old house. I would make
discovering exactly where all those places were my first order of business
after I left, I promised myself. For the time being, though, I would file
away what Yanni had said, and, not wanting him to think I was spending too
much time thinking about this, again shifted the subject a bit.

"So, we were talking about Diamond," I said. "Is that what she does now,
run all the titty bars?"

Yanni seemed not to take note of the change of topic. "She's in charge of
all of them, yeah," he replied. "Officially, I'm her boss, but I pretty
much let her alone to do her thing. She knows her job better than anybody
and she always brings in great numbers. She also supervises the wardrobe
staff at the Studio, so she keeps an office there, but doing that is sort
of like a hobby for her. She doesn't want to spend time away from the
compound, the way Peaches and Dawn do, but she likes to keep busy -- and be
near Gem. She runs around all day, talking on her phone, sending e-mails,
and a bunch of kids help her at the Studio." He thought a moment and then,
with obvious admiration for Diamond's skills at multi-tasking, added:
"There's this huge storage room at the Studio full of" -- he spread his
arms wide -- "just all kinds of costumes and sexy stuff, and Diamond and
her people decide what gets worn -- and what gets taken off -- in every
photo shoot and vid. She's consults on every project, so she works very
closely with Anna and Gem."

"Gem, her daughter, who is Chief Girl Lover now?" I asked.

Yanni nodded.

"And Anna who used to be Chief Girl Lover?"

Yanni nodded again.

"Why? What is it that Anna does now?"

"Anna's in charge of the Creative Department," Yanni explained, "which is
the fancy name for the Studio." He laughed. "I guess you could say she's
like a producer. She oversees every photo and video shoot. She puts
together the budgets and the schedules, and just makes sure everything at
the Studio runs right."

"And Gem? How is she involved with what Anna does?"

"Anna keeps Gem up to date on the production schedule because one of Gem's
jobs as Chief Girl Lover is to suggest to the Master and Anna which girls
should get picked to be in the photo and video shoots. Then she's
responsible for making sure the girls that are picked are on time for
wardrobe -- if they're actually wearing anything for the shoot, that is --
and make-up and shooting. So, she pretty much spends every morning at the
Studio with the Master and Anna and her mom or, if the shoot is at a
location, she's there too."

I took it all in, the intricacy of this world the Master had created. For a
moment, I found myself admiring him. *Who the fuck was he?* What sort of
determination and strength had he had to have had to have brought all this
into being? I thought. What was the totality of the twisted vision that had
animated him -- and moved him even now? How had it formed? I kept hearing
he had been a doper several notches above a street-level dealer. He had
been a smut merchant, a whoremonger, a pedophile extraordinaire, a swinger,
and a killer, the living embodiment of a Thomas De Quincey essay. He had a
head for business, it was plain, but how had that led to the creation of a
veritable world, the inspiration of a messianic reverence in thousands of
people, especially all the children I had so far seen? Was he possessed by
some brutal charisma, like a latter-day Rasputin? Or was it more refined, a
new edition of someone like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh? Did his knowledge of
and talent for subtle control stem from an education? If so, why had he
chosen to live life as a criminal, to indulge rather than resist his
passion for fucking kids? Had this age of reason wreaked no impact on him,
no trapping of civilization gotten any purchase? Was he some sort of
undiscovered sociopath? Or was he simply an auto-didact, a hood who had
consumed books, and, like Joey Gallo getting sprung from Sing Sing, come
out the other side of his nature armed with knowledge and thus more
dangerous than before?

Was I staring into the heart of darkness here or was it the Master staring
out from the abyss into the savage jungle that had pretenses to
civilization? I mentally slapped myself then, coming out of the haze that
had me thinking, if only for a few moments, that the Master merited
anything resembling approbation rather than scorn, and that he might indeed
be any kind of prophet.

I sighed and simply asked: "Anyone else?"

"There's Peaches and Dawn," Yanni said.

"Oh, yes, you mentioned them," I said. Slightly amused, I couldn't resist a
smirk and added: "Peaches?"

Yanni grinned. "Well, that's what everyone calls her," he said. "Her real
name is Judith. Peaches is a nickname the Master gave her a long time ago
when they became lovers. He told her her pussy tasted like peaches, so
that's what he started calling her and the name stuck. But Dawn and Dakota
still call her Judy. She and Dawn have been friends since they were little
girls, so they're like sisters. The Master seduced Peaches when she was
nine and he was thirteen, and then he got her to bring Dawn to meet him,
and he and Peaches seduced Dawn, and then Dawn brought over her sister
Dakota, who was seven. All three of them have been with the Master ever
since, since, like, before the beginning. Peaches and Dawn were sort of
like his first Chief Girl Lovers, though nobody called them that
then. Anyway, they're his Chief Scouts now."

I briefly mulled over a part of what Yanni had just said. This was at least
the third or fourth time I had heard of someone assuming a new name based
on the Master's literal sexual tastes. Yanni's boy lover Sweet bore his
name because of the flavor of his semen, and his other boy lover Pop had
earned his sobriquet because of the strength of his ejaculations. There was
also on the compound a boy named Silk who had gotten his name due to the
Master's assessment of the texture of his penis. And now I was hearing that
Peaches, one of the Master's first child lovers, was called so due to his
judgment of her preteen vaginal spendings. The man isn't just a living god,
I thought, re-naming the days of Creation, but also his own Adam, naming
the beasts of the field and birds of the air. From before the beginning, he
had lived his life according to his own diktat and now was the undisputed
absolute ruler of this realm. Did he have any limits at all, and, if he
did, were the constraints imposed from somewhere beyond him or were they
all of his own making? It was a question, I knew, that could be explored,
at least from one direction, when I finally met Peaches and Pop and
Silk. For the moment, I focused on the matters at hand.

"What does that mean?" I asked. "His chief scouts?"

"Well, that's we call them," Yanni explained. "Peaches and Dawn run what we
call the Procurement Department. When they got out of high school, the
Master had them both go to college to get trained to get jobs where they
would work with kids all the time, and they helped build the network we
have now."

"What sort of network?" I asked.

"Peaches and Dawn have people and connections all over the world: with
charities, with orphanages, with social workers, and on and on. Their
network spots kids who might be candidates to be assigned to work in one of
the Club Serenus locations and also brought here to the compound. So, they
travel a lot. They're away a lot of the time, but they usually come back to
spend long weekends on the compound. They're here today. You'll meet them
when we get to the Main House."

My ears pricked up. "What sort of jobs did they get?" I asked.

Yanni smiled. "I'm not going to tell you," he said. "You can ask Peaches
and Dawn, and if they tell you, fine, but my guess is they won't."

I returned Yanni's smile and sighed again. "Okay," I said. "But when you
say they have connections, what exactly does that mean?"

"I'm not going to tell you about that either," Yanni replied, "at least not
in detail. All I can say is that they have people everywhere and those
people know people all over the world, even in little villages in places
you probably never heard of; people whose job it is to deal with children
or who can get their hands on children. When they deal with legit people,
they do it through an NGO that operates globally, an NGO that helps
children. But not always. Sometimes, they deal with people who are not so
nice, people who buy and sell kids. With people like that, they've got
deals cooking all the time, sometimes for one or two kids, but sometimes
for a bunch of kids that are sold at auction."

Yanni's understandable reticence aside, those last bits were quite a bit of
news. "Auctions!" I exclaimed. "When and where are these auctions?"

"That's something else I can't tell you too much about," Yanni said. "But
there are auctions held at various times of the year in places all over the
world, including the U.S. If you've got the connections, like Peaches and
Dawn have, then you know who to talk to and where to go."

"Well, what about this NGO?" I retorted. "It helps children? You mean it
turns them into little whores or brings them here so they can get dicked by
the Master and appear in his kiddy porn. That's what you mean by help,
right?"

For a moment, it seemed Yanni was tempted to, in response to my scornful
sarcasm, deliver a more expansive explanation but, if that was the case, he
quickly thought better of it. "Yeah," he said simply but dismissively. "I
meant just that."

I kicked myself. Get a hold of yourself, stupid, I thought. Whatever you're
feeling, stop being so judgmental and just let him talk, and draw him out
when necessary. Don't be so censorious that he starts to shut down. In the
next moment, I wondered if I was being the occasional harpy because my
condemnation was sincere or if I was being twinged by guilt due to my
efforts to manipulate Yanni into spilling as much as he could. Why should I
feel guilty? I thought ruefully. This is what I do for a living. I didn't
admit to myself that I might be feeling guilty because I genuinely liked
Yanni and was mightily resisting his assessments of myself and my purpose
here.

"Well, what about this NGO?" I asked. "What's the name of it?"

"Fuck off," Yanni said gently. "You *know* I'm not going to tell you that."

"Okay," I said with yet another sigh. "You know I had to ask."

I was grateful for a few moments of quiet as we approached the end of the
alameda. Just beyond the canopy of the trees, I saw the avenue broadened
into a circle of asphalt, at the center of which was a circular patch of
grass from which grew one stout oak, its crown shading the circle and the
base of its trunk surrounded by a black wrought-iron bench.

Drawing closer to the circle, I heard a sound to my right and turned my
head to see, in a small clearing formed by a shallow depression just a few
feet from edge of the road, young Miles and an older girl. The girl, who
looked to be twelve or thirteen years old, was raven haired, her tresses
shiny in the light of the morning and falling like a flowing bowl to her
neck. Her flesh seemed as white as Carrara marble, glowing against the
darkness of not only her hair but also the black eye shadow that coated the
lids of her closed eyes, and black lipstick that daubed her full mouth. Her
head was moving up and down, but from what I could see of her face amid the
coursing waves of her hair, she was pretty, and her body was lean, long and
athletic. In violation of the orthodoxy of the day, she wore a pair of
black bikini bottoms, and, on her feet, a pair of black Chuck Taylor
low-rise sneakers. As I caught sight of her, her long arms were braced
against the trunk of a tree, the nails of her fingers also painted
black. Her body was bent forward, and her bikini bottoms had been moved
aside. Her legs were spread apart, and her feet were firmly planted in the
leaf-strewn earth to accommodate Miles, who was vigorously fucking her from
behind.

Thoroughly immersed in their passion, the two youngsters were lost to the
world. Amid her breaths and moans, the girl kept her eyes closed, never
opening them once that I saw. Her budding breasts, topped by kohl-painted
areolas, had to be at least an A cup, bouncing with every stroke Miles
delivered, his cock flashing in and out of her young cunt like a flying
piston. A head taller than Miles, she gave as good as she got, slamming her
ass back against the boy's torso, meeting every one of his thrusts into her
body as if she was striving to take command of the fuck. Belying his
feminine beauty and whatever questions were provoked by his garments, Miles
grappled with her, pounding her pussy with a savage determination. His
hands clutched her pale flanks as he fucked her, deep savage grunts
emerging from his throat with every stroke. Unlike the girl, he opened his
eyes from time to time as they rutted, staring in seeming wonder down at
her ass or up the length of her back toward the rear of her head. His gaze
was reserved only for her, however; he never noticed our presence just a
few feet away.

There was no subtlety to the fuck, just youthful carnal power. They crashed
against each other, the muscles of their legs and torsos visibly straining,
the slapping of their bodies dimly echoing in the otherwise quiet
forest. The girl's moans suddenly waxed to a high pitch as she raised her
head and threw it back, her black lips parted, and eyes still shut tight as
she came. Miles soon joined the girl in orgasm, his thrusts coming to a
halt, and his own eyes closing as he raised his face to the branches above,
his body suddenly still amid trembles that roiled the silken flesh of his
chest, arms, abdomen and torso. His come was obviously suffusing his whole
body, and, as the orgasm did its work, he left the whole length of his
young cock inside the girl, coating the walls of her twat with his cream.

Coming down from their erotic high, the two children, their chests heaving,
took a few minutes to catch their breaths. The girl's head dropped between
her outstretched arms; her closed eyes pointed at the roots of the tree
lacing through the ground. Miles stayed behind the girl, his hand still at
her sides, his cock still in her pussy. I thought for sure he would soon
pull out and I would see his beautiful young cock softening but dripping
with juice and cum, and the girl's pussy slit welling up with the mixture
of her spendings and his spunk.

A part of me gave thought to hurriedly moving on, to allowing the two
youths their privacy, but I was fixed to the spot where I stood. The sight
had me riveted. I could hardly believe two youngsters could summon and
bring to bear such fervid wanton lust. What I've seen so far of this place,
I then thought in an instant, means a sight like this is not only *not*
remarkable but probably commonplace. So, I stayed where I was, my eyes
fastened on the girl and boy to see what would happen next. When their
bodies parted and they looked about and saw us, I told myself, I would make
myself, my moral certainty already crumbling, ready for whatever happened.

But then, amazingly, renewed by a second wind, the boy and girl, without a
word being spoken, simply resumed their fucking. Deep blasts of air escaped
their mouths as they once again began moving against one another. They
started slow, quivering from each stoke as their sensitized genitals sent
electric charges through their young bodies. But within a few minutes, the
previously seen blazing pace had been re-attained, their bodies battering
toward another climax.

My mind and body were in a tumult over what I was seeing, my pussy flowing
from such a brazen display of seemingly inexhaustible feral energy,
indulged by two children no less. My mouth hanging open, it was only then I
turned to Yanni. The last few minutes nearly had me forgetting he was with
me.

Yanni's eyes were sparkling, a large smile on his face as he took in the
sight of the lecherous youths. He turned his head and smiled down at me,
then nudged me, a gesture of his head letting me know it was time to move
on. As reluctant as I was to go, I offered no resistance, retreating from
the edge of the clearing and following him as we again set off down the
road, the sounds of keening moaning and determined grunting gradually
fading behind us. We had walked several feet before either of us dared to
say anything.

We came to the circular iron bench at the center of the circle of
asphalt. The two of us shaded by the thick branches of the oak, Yanni bade
me sit on the bench. "Let's take a load off," he said.

I sat and he sat next to me, turning his body slightly to regard me. Only
then did I realize that my immersion in our conversation and all I had so
far seen had made me unaware we had walked several miles from the
cottage. I reached down to loosen my sandals, rub my feet, and then looked
over at Yanni.

"Well, that was quite something, wasn't it?" Yanni said, a big smile on his
face. "I wondered why Miles' cock was so stiff. Now we know. He was meeting
someone."

"You know everyone here," I retorted in an almost accusatory tone. "Who was
she?"

Yanni laughed. "Her name is Algaia," he said simply.

Algaia, I thought. The name of the oldest of the Three Graces, daughters of
Zeus who bestowed all that was most beneficent and pleasurable in mortal
society. Algaia was thought to embody beauty and elegance. Along with her
younger sisters Euphrosyne and Thalia, they, among all their blessings,
graced festivals and organized dances. Well, I thought, there was nothing
elegant about the fuck we just saw, but, as much I hate to admit it, there
was a decidedly savage beauty. The name was oddly appropriate for a young
girl growing up in a place like this.

"Why was she dressed and made-up the way she was?" I asked. "Isn't today
Yellow?"

"Yes, it is," Yanni agreed. "But no one *has to* wear yellow or any other
color that signifies a particular day. We do it as a reminder that all of
us are part of something, something bigger and more important than any one
of us, and also to honor the Master, who made all of this possible." He
paused a moment. "As for Algaia and her sisters, well, they definitely
march to their own drummer, just like their dad. They're all goth. But no
one minds. Here, everyone is free to be whoever and whatever they want to
be."

I considered that for a moment. So, even this loopy cult had its square
pegs, but if Yanni was to be believed, they were tolerated, even
celebrated. Certainly, young Miles, who was attired, if such a word could
be used, in yellow, but was himself a bit of an outlier, had shown no
reluctance while coupling with the mysterious Algaia. The Master is wise, I
thought. In his divine realm, he allows a space for iconoclasts, at least
as long as, I was sure, they didn't stray too far from the fold. Whatever
her coating, the fact that a young teen girl like Algaia was so vigorously
having sex with a ten-year-old boy dressed in garter belt and hose meant
that she, and whoever had raised her, had to be believers in the prevailing
pedophile creed.

"Who is her dad?" I asked.

"Steven," Yanni replied. "He and his daughters all live at the Main
House. He's in charge of the Master's archives, the last of the originals."

Yanni said the last in such a way that my eyes narrowed, my mind on the
alert for yet another nugget that would lead to a rich vein of
revelation. "What does all that mean?" I asked.

Yanni shrugged. "Steven and the Master have known each other since they
were kids," he explained. "He and his older brother Gary were lovers with
the Master back when" -- he stopped to think for a moment -- "gosh, back
before even the beginning, back when the Master wasn't even a pedophile. I
mean, the Master had already had sex with a bunch of adults, like his dad,
and he had had sex with other kids, but he hadn't begun seducing younger
kids yet. Anyway, his best friend then was Caesar, and he was the one who
got the Master together with Gary and Steven. They were making it with
their grandfather, so they were already into sex, and all of them became
lovers."

"How old were all of them then?"

Yanni shrugged again. "I don't know," he said.

"You know very well," I asserted in a teasingly friendly tone. "Tell me."

"The Master must have been around eleven," Yanni said. "Gary was his same
age, so Steven must have been around nine."

"So, what is it that Steven does now that he rates living in the Main House
with his daughters?"

"Steven was always heavy into computers," Yanni explained, "even before
they were a thing. Back in the old days, even before my sisters and me came
to live with the Master, he was the one who put everything the Master was
doing on computers. He taught himself. Whatever he doesn't know about
computers isn't worth knowing. He trained Mark, his nephew, who runs
technology for the whole compound. So, everybody calls Steven
Wizard. Anyway, now he looks after all of the Master's records. It's all
digitized now, stored on these huge servers in the basement of the Main
House, and linked to servers in other parts of the world in case the
servers here ever fail."

I was fascinated, instantly wondering if I would be allowed to see and
access that establishment. "What's on there?" I asked. "On those servers, I
mean."

"Everything," Yanni said. "Everything the Master's done for the last thirty
years, since before the beginning. His business, his deals, his money, all
the goods he has on everyone, and all the porn he's collected and made,
including the kiddy porn. Every kid he's ever loved is on there. Not just
the stuff that he and then his people made to sell, but his private
collections, stuff that he made just for himself, and the stuff made by his
grandfather and his dad, stuff going back to before the Master was even
born."

That explained something I had come across the day before when searching
through the database in the SUV while on the way to the airport. I had seen
entries for items from the 1940s and the decades immediately
thereafter. Knowing the Master was not ancient, I had briefly wondered
about that before wallowing in the videos from more recent times. Now that
mystery was solved. The Master's ardor to chronicle his exploits in
pictures and video was, like his passion for children, in the blood, handed
down from his father and grandfather and who knew from who else further
back? I was determined to discover and see more, but that, I knew, could
wait.

"You said Steven was the `last of the originals,'" I asked. "What did that
mean?"

Yanni's face blanched a bit. "I can't tell you too much about that," he
said.

I sighed. "Well, tell me what you can," I replied.

"When the Master became a biker," Yanni began, "he already had his own
crew, all the guys he had known since he was a kid, like Caesar and Gary
and Steven. We call them the originals. They helped lay the foundation for
everything that came after."

"You told me Caesar got killed," I said. "Are you saying the rest of them
got killed too?"

Yanni simply nodded.

"Is that why you haven't mentioned Steven's brother Gary," I asked, "at
least in the present tense? He was one of the ones that got killed?"

Yanni nodded again. And that was that. I knew him well enough by now to
know when he had come to a stopping point. But I had to lob one last
question.

"Is there anything else you can tell me about all that? I mean, how and why
they all got killed?"

Yanni shook his head. "No," he said. "All I can say is their getting killed
is what led to the founding of the Guardians."

Now I was really chomping at the bit. The ever-menacing, ever-present
Guardians. Lina's people, who loved her like a goddess and revered the
Master with a fanatical devotion. So, somehow, in the undoubted welter of
blood that had seen the liquidation of the Master's original cohort, Lina
had played at least some small role. What was it? I wondered. Was that
event, beyond the little she had shared with me the day before, one of the
fundaments of who she was now? Was there anyone here who would tell me? Or
was it one of the mysteries that lay at the heart of the creation of every
religion, ignored, rarely acknowledged, the whole truth forever known only
to a select few?

"So, can you at least tell me how many daughters Steven has?" I asked.

Yanni nodded. "Three," he said.

"I presume he fucks them all," I said flatly.

Yanni nodded. "Of course," he said. "Steven's a pretty reclusive guy, but
he's a good father. He shares love with his daughters the way a father
should."

"Let me guess," I said. "Algaia's sisters are named Euphrosyne and Thalia."

Yanni's face lit up in delighted confusion. "Yes, that's right," he
said. "How did you know?"

My mind was aswirl with questions, some of which nagged at me more than
others, so, for the moment, I was not in the mood to explain something else
to Yanni. Oh, read a book! I thought ungratefully, and then chastised
myself in the next moment. Here Yanni was patiently explaining as much as
he could, and I was miffed because he didn't immediately disgorge all I
wanted to know. There are secrets everywhere, I thought, wherever one
turns. How could I blame him for guarding the ones that necessarily existed
here?

"A lucky guess," I retorted.

I could tell Yanni knew my deduction was nothing of the kind but, as usual,
he sensed my mood and kept quiet.

"How old are they?" I asked.

"Algaia is twelve," Yanni replied. "But she'll turn thirteen in about a
month or so. Euphrosyne is ten and Thalia is nine."

"I'm sure you've fucked all three of them," I said.

Yanni nodded.

"And the Master's fucked all of them too," I stated.

Yanni nodded again.

I thought then of the statues I had seen of the Three Graces, one unearthed
from ancient Rome, now at the Metropolitan in New York; the other carved by
Antonio Canova in the early nineteenth century, once the property of
Empress Josephine, but now residing at the Victoria and Albert Museum in
London. Both had taken my breath away but the one in London, hewn from
blinding white marble, I had found particularly arresting. The sisters
stood nude, embracing, on the verge of a transport of passion, obviously
reveling in each other as much as in the pleasures and virtues they
bestowed on men. The oldest, Algaia, had her arms around the other two
while the sister to her left had her hand on her right breast and the
sister to her right reached out to place a hand on the shoulder of the
sister across, as if to draw her in for a kiss. Handmaidens to Aphrodite,
one couldn't help but conclude they were not just sisters, but lovers. What
was it like, I had wondered, to eat the cunt of a demigoddess? I had bought
photos of the statue at the gift shop, and, that night in my hotel room,
frigged myself silly while looking at them. I never had a sister but knew
that had I had one I wouldn't have resisted seducing her. What was it like
to so rapturously surrender to incest? Already knowing at least part of the
answer, I wondered if this was the place to discover, like a statue brought
forth from the past, the other facets of the riddle. When Steven's
daughters made love with one another, as they surely did, was the forbidden
mystery commonplace to them, not even sparking a thought beyond the
pleasure they shared, or, as young as they were, was it still heavy with
all the awe and majesty of adoration? Was it here I would finally savor the
taste of divine pussy?

"Well, the morning's getting on," Yanni suddenly said, slapping the tops of
his legs. "Let's get going. We don't have too much more to go." He stood
up.

I nodded, reached down to secure my sandals and rose from the bench. At the
end of the road, we emerged from under the blanket laid by the limbs of the
old oak, our eyes adjusting to the waxing light of the rising morning
sun. We were at the edge of a vast green meadow, which was overlooked from
a distance by the great granite bulk of the Main House, sitting atop a hill
at the other end of the viridescent swath. Lit by the light of the
gathering day, the dew on the grass shone like a carpet of dully gleaming
gems. The moist blades beneath our feet muttered softly as we trudged on.

I turned my head to our left and saw on a small hill a few dozen feet away
a group of several dozen naked youths practicing yoga against the glare of
the rising sun. The teenagers of the group seemed to be setting the pace,
moving into asana after asana as the younger children followed suit, all
their bare bodies glowing gold and red as they shifted from downward dog to
plank to sun salutation to warrior pose and so on. As they moved, I could
see the cocks of some of the boys were rock hard, sticking straight out
from their young bodies.

Yanni saw where I was looking and said: "That's the Page and Squire Hall
yoga class. They always get up early to practice before breakfast."

We walked on across the great meadow and, as we came to the top of a small
rise, a circular copse of fir trees came into view. Within its confines, a
medium brown wooden ziggurat was rising above of the tops of the wood. Even
from a distance, I could see the structure consisted of thousands of wooden
pallets such as one might find in any warehouse, which were being stacked
in layers by a seeming platoon of people. The tree blocked my view of the
lower levels of the ziggurat, but I could see figures stationed on the
middle levels as they were handed pallets coming from below and then
passing them on to others at higher levels until those at the top installed
the pallets to form an ever-narrowing tower, the top of which I estimated
had to be at least fifty feet or more from the ground.

We arrived at the beginning of a gravel path set in the grass that seemed
to lead directly to the copse, and, as the small pebbles beneath our feet
crunched with each of our steps, I gestured in the direction of the wood,
asking, not without a touch of wonder in my voice: "What is that, Yanni?"

"That's the Wood of the Great Altar," Yanni replied.

"And what's that they're building?"

"That's for the bonfire," Yanni stated simply.

"The bonfire?"

"Yellow night is orgy night," Yanni explained. "At eight tonight, Lucifer,
the great bell in the Main House tower, will be struck; then the drums at
the Great Altar will sound, and the bonfire will be lit. Pretty much
everyone on the compound will come to the wood. Maya will perform a service
at the Great Altar, and sometimes the Master is there too. Then the orgies
will begin. Everyone all over the island will be sucking and fucking, all
of us just sharing love. The biggest orgy will be at the wood, before the
Great Altar, thousands of bodies around the bonfire and under the moon and
stars. And when the orgy really gets going, Maya and the Master, if he's at
the wood too, will lead a group of chosen children, usually a dozen or two,
from the wood back to Paradise."

"And what's Paradise?"

"That's what we call a certain room just past the entrance to the Master's
apartments at the Main House. There's a permanent kiddy orgy there. On any
day, at any hour, you can go there and find at least a few kids naked and
sharing love with each other. Any kid is free to join that orgy whenever
they want, but there are usually more kids there when the Master is known
to actually be in his apartments because everyone knows that when he *is*
around, he looks in on the orgy from time to time, and sometimes picks kids
he sees there to join him in his bedchamber. But on Yellow night, the orgy
at Paradise is a lot bigger, and the Master and Maya preside over it
personally. They watch and join in, and eventually pick some of the kids to
spend the night with them in the Master's Bedchamber."

My mind reeling once again, I managed to ask: "And this happens every
week?"

Yanni nodded. "The orgy will last most of the night," he added. "For the
Grand Orgies, especially the ones that last more than a day, like Ostara
that happened a few months ago or the Midsummer Orgy that's coming up, we
try to keep the bonfire going for however long the orgy lasts. There's a
big warehouse in Elysium where we store all the wood for the fires, and
more is coming in all the time. Rola tells me we spend a shitload on
it. Anyway, for the regular Yellow night orgies, when they're fucked out,
people sleep at the wood, unless it starts raining. Or they go home and
come back the next morning."

I took note of Yanni's mention of Ostara, a pagan holiday. The holy
festivals and rituals of this world had obviously been inspired by ancient
heathen practices, something I presumed was largely Maya's doing. "Why do
they come back?" I asked. "To continue the orgy?"

Yanni shook his head. "No," he said. "Like I told you before, White, what
you call Sunday, is the day of worship. So, if you left the wood the night
before, you come back for the morning worship service. Maya performs that
as well and the Master is *always* there for it. But when you've spent the
night in an orgy, your body is going to be covered by cum, piss and pussy
juice. And if you've spent the night in an orgy at the wood your body is
going to be covered by soot too from the bonfire. So, right before the
service, everybody is ritually washed by the Acolytes and then the service
happens. Then everybody goes home to enjoy a day of love with their
families."

"So, Sunday is like incest day?" I teased.

Smiling, Yanni met my jibe with good humor. "Yep," he replied. "White is
devoted to families sharing love, doing everything that's natural and
beautiful."

"Where do *you* spend White?" I asked.

"At the Citadel," Yanni replied in a tone that betrayed a smidge of
annoyance, as if I should have already deduced the answer from what he had
so far told me.

"What's the Citadel?" I asked.

"That's what we call the Master's apartments," Yanni explained. "I'm a part
of the Holy Family, after all. After the service, we all have breakfast
together, even Lina. And then we all go upstairs to the Master's Bedchamber
and spend the day loving, like a family should."

As we talked, the gravel path had led us to the edge of the copse, a gap in
the ring of trees adorned by a tall, elaborately carved wooden arch gilded
by wildflowers and colorful burlap drapery. The path also ringed the copse,
leading to our left and our right, away from the inviting arch.

It seemed Yanni was leading me left, around the copse rather than through
it, so, my curiosity supremely piqued, I exclaimed: "Can't we see inside?"

Yanni turned back to me and thought a moment before replying. "Sure," he
agreed. "But not for too long. The Goddesses will be waiting."

Briefly wondering at his seeming reluctance, I smiled at hm. "Okay," I
said. "I just wanna see."

"Come back tonight," Yanni said with a smile, "and you'll see a lot more."

I returned his smile. "I'll consider it," I said. "I'm sure you'll do your
best to lead me down the wrong path."

Yanni laughed. "It seems to me you're doing your best to do that on your
own," he said.

We plunged into the wood. As we walked through the gap, I looked up through
the unencumbered rafters of the arch, guessing that the peaks of the
stately fir trees towered thirty or more feet above us. Traversing the wood
itself must have been a journey of about fifty feet before it opened onto a
vast circular space that was akin to a natural arena, the size and simple
beauty of which caused a small gasp to escape from my throat.

"This is the Wood of the Great Altar," Yanni said softly and reverently,
looking around in a contemplative wonder that matched my own, as if he was
seeing the space for the first time despite obviously having been here many
times before. "This is where love is made real."

"What it must have taken to build this," I said in wonderment.

Yanni nodded. "The meadow was here when the Master bought the island," he
said. "Maya thought up the idea for the wood and designed it, but to build
it the Master had to bring in all these trees and have them planted. You
should have seen the size of the trucks that carried them in. Anyway,
they've grown quite a bit since then. Rola told me all of this" -- he
spread his arms to take in the wood -- "cost big bucks to create."

"How much?"

Yanni shrugged. "Millions," he said, and then fell silent for a few
moments. "And, to think, it's all only temporary."

"Why only temporary?"

"Eventually," Yanni replied, "when the new Guardian headquarters in Elysium
is finished, the Yellow night orgies and worship services will be moved to
the plaza at the cathedral. Most of the compound's administrative
departments will be moved there too. I don't know if the Grand Orgies will
be moved there; that decision hasn't been made yet." He paused a moment and
when he spoke again, his tone was decidedly wistful. "All of this will
become a park. Personally, I like it here. I can't imagine a better place
to worship. But the plaza is even bigger than the wood, though it's a
longer trip to get there." He shrugged. "I don't know. I guess all the
details will get worked out."

"You mentioned this cathedral last night," I observed. "Is it a real
cathedral?"

Yanni looked at me and nodded. "Oh, yeah," he said. "It was built, like, a
few hundred years ago. It's *huge*." He spread his hands to indicate the
immensity of the cathedral. "There's this cliff at the northern end of the
island and the cathedral was built right into it, right into the
rock. There used to be a whole big operation here, a bishop and priests and
a whole bunch of Indians. They farmed the land. The whole northern half of
the island used to be one big farm, and the Master says we'll make it that
way again. Anyway, the cathedral was empty for a long, long time. We've
been here for a few years now and we still haven't explored all of it."

That tidbit of history told me a lot, particularly the mention of
Indians. We had to be somewhere in the vicinity of South America, which
meant the island was likely somewhere in the South Atlantic or South
Pacific. I knew next to nothing, however, about the history of the Catholic
Church in the Americas, nor about Latin American history in general, so the
rest of what Yanni had mentioned was a mystery to me.

Yanni fell silent again, looking about the wood like a supplicant paying
his first visit to a fabled house of worship. Whatever the magnificence of
the cathedral, I couldn't help but agree with him that it couldn't compare
to the beauty of the wood. I joined him in looking about. A few feet before
us, on the gravel path that led farther into the arena, were twin
rectangular baptistries of immense size cut into the earth. Wooden canopies
carved in the manner of the arch at the entrance of the wood shielded the
baptistries from the sky. Wide notches in the stone rims of the baptistries
fronted steps that descended into the clear water, from which rose the
faint scents of various oils. My nose detected rose, sandalwood and vetiver
as well as others I couldn't name. As we walked past the baptistries, I
presumed it was here the ritual washing occurred.

"This is the where the worshippers are washed before the service," Yanni
said, his voice breaking into my thoughts, confirming what I had been
thinking. "They descend into the holy water" -- he indicated the notches
set in the rims of the baptistries -- "and they're washed by the Acolytes,
their bodies restored after a night of love, and then they come out and
other Acolytes dry them, and then they walk over to sit and wait for the
service -- in the same place where they were sucking and fucking the night
before." He indicated the area beyond the baptistries.

Four great quadrants of black rubber matting set into the earth formed a
vast circle. At the center of the circle was a large clearing from which
rose the wooden ziggurat. The circle itself was surrounded by a ring of
metal firepits, identical to the ones I had yesterday seen on the road
leading to the front of the Main House, which were set on slabs of charcoal
gray slate, their bowls blackened and scorched from repeated use.

We stepped into the circle and walked across the width of one of the
quadrants, the rubber giving gently beneath our feet. As we walked, looking
about while slowly approaching the central clearing, I couldn't help but
think of how similar rubber matting covered the floors of playgrounds all
over the planet, children jumping and running and stumbling over the
yielding surface, but here were employed for a decidedly more depraved
purpose: naked young bodies undulating and writhing in forbidden pleasure.

Again breaking into my thoughts, as if always reading my mind, Yanni, as we
walked, spread his hands to take in the rest of the great circle, softly
and solemnly saying: "People bring blankets and pillows as well as
refreshments and little snacks, and they spend the night: loving and being
loved, moving together, sharing all of themselves; parents loving their
children and their children loving them back; families loving other
families; adults loving children, and children loving each other, bodies
all gold and yellow in the light of the fires, the moon and stars shining
down, the Acolytes walking about, always ready with flavored lotions and
lube and sex toys wherever they might be needed. It's always so
beautiful. Everyone loves and then they sleep, the wood just covered in
naked bodies until the sun rises. It's the way things were meant to be, the
way we were all meant to live."

I regarded Yanni, but said nothing, knowing he believed with every fiber of
his being all he had just uttered. I couldn't help but admit to myself that
all he had just described made for a compelling picture, and, at least for
once, doubt crept in. Who was to say my conception of civilization, the
civilization that had bred and shaped me, was the valid one? There was no
god, after all, no divine law, only the one planet known on which a spoor
of life had taken hold and then the silent, yawning, surrounding, uncaring
universe. Who was to say this was bad or immoral or wrong, when humans were
just as imperfect as any civilization they were bound to create? Here,
whatever my thoughts on or reaction to the place, there seemed to be
nothing but love and peace, rather than, in the world I had come from,
constant business for polemologists. Wasn't this place, this compound of
unrestrained licentiousness, more in keeping with whatever passed for
natural law, a ceaseless worship of nature through the constant congress of
bodies, no matter what age the bodies happened to be?

While looking at Yanni, I wondered, the sudden questions gnawing at me, but
I stayed silent and simply walked on. Whatever the case, I had no doubt I
would return here tonight to see the spectacle for myself, the mass of
bodies in a great storm of copulation by the light of the fires. I
anticipated what I would witness and felt my juices flow, moistening the
crotch of my bikini bottoms.

We came to the edge of the central clearing and saw a group of men and
teenaged boys at work, a line of them handing over the wooden pallets from
trucks parked beyond the circle and then upwards to others stationed at the
ascending levels of the ziggurat. As always, all of them seemed to know
Yanni. They waved and some said hello, a few shouting down from the upper
levels of the wooden tower. Yanni smiled and returned all their greetings.

I noticed some of the boys looking at me with undisguised lust, their cocks
hardening in their bikini bottoms. I fought off the instinct to blush and
silently surrendered to feeling flattered. As we moved closer to the
ziggurat, I tilted my head upwards to gaze at its peak and marveled that
within a few hours this impressive structure would be engulfed in flame.

"When the bonfire is lit," I asked, still looking up at the top of the
ziggurat, "won't the fire threaten the trees?"

"Just before the fire is lit," Yanni explained, "we bring in a big fire
engine. It sprays down the trees, the Great Altar and the whole circle, and
it stands by just to make sure nothing bad happens. The fire throws off
sparks, sure, but we've never had a problem. Sometimes the sparks fall on
the people and leave little burns, but no one minds. A little pain always
enhances the pleasure. We call them orgy kisses."

I nodded, lowered my head to take in the vastness of the desiccated circle
and saw at my feet the remnants of what had obviously been a predecessor to
the blaze that was to be kindled tonight, a great crumble of blackened and
bleached slats. I poked at the charred mass with a sandaled foot, a bit of
black powder staining my toes. I lowered my leg, the parched ground softly
crunching beneath my feet as my nose detected a heavy trace of the acrid
sweetness of the bygone flames.

"What is this from," I asked.

"That's left over from the last few orgies," Yanni replied simply. Seeing
the slight confusion in my eyes, he, with a small chuckle, added: "We
usually plan to have the Grand Orgies and Yellow night orgies here at the
wood, sometimes at West Beach, but the weather doesn't always
cooperate. So, sometimes, when we have an orgy, we put up a big canopy and
hold it at the outdoor swimming pool at the Main House, like we did with
the Summerfinding Orgy this year, or we just move everything indoors to the
dining hall. When that happens, we don't light a bonfire. The Yule Orgy,
for instance, is rarely held outdoors because it's almost always raining
during that time of year."

We resumed walking, making our way through the central clearing and back
onto the rubber matting, heading toward the Great Altar itself. "What was
that one for?" I asked, gesturing back at the pile of lumber we were
leaving in our wake.

"The Master's Birthday Orgy," Yanni replied. "That happened just about a
week ago now."

A scrap of something Yanni had said the day before slithered through my
mind. "Didn't you say something happened at that orgy -- what was it? --
that somebody became lovers with someone else?'

Yanni nodded. "Gem and Leah became lovers," he said.

"How does that work? I asked. "I mean, what does that mean, that they
became lovers? I was under the impression everyone here was everyone else's
lover."

"Everybody here can share love with whomever they want whenever they want,"
Yanni said. "But they can also declare that someone else is special to
them, that they have a lover, someone they love and cherish above all
others. It's only natural to want to have someone who loves you best, who
knows your heart and mind better than anyone else. And, if they want, they
can let everybody else know through our newspaper, and they can also let
the Master know and he'll announce it at the beginning of the next Grand
Orgy. So, that's what Gem and Leah did."

Yanni paused a few moments as we walked on, traversing the rubber matting
on our way to a grassy expanse before the Great Altar. "Gem and Leah were
raised together, so they're as close as sisters," he continued. "But not
too long ago they started spending a lot more time together, sharing love
and whatnot. I mean, a lot more, even for them. So, they decided to become
lovers, and they started living together, and they let the Master announce
it right before the beginning of his birthday orgy. It was sort of like a
present to him because they knew it would make him happy. It sort of
surprised everybody else, though."

I could hardly believe how eager I suddenly was, giddily sharing compound
gossip with Yanni. "Why did it come as a surprise?" I asked. "They were
raised together as sisters, you said, so I'm guessing that, in this world,
that probably means they spent their whole lives having sex with each other
-- and with their father the Master."

"It wasn't that," Yanni explained. "It's just that Gem and Jessica were
really into each other. When Gem was appointed Chief Girl Lover, she made
Jessica her deputy. But Jessica has always been together with Ashley, and I
think the Master saw that that whole situation could be a problem. He's
never said so, at least not to me, but I think that's why he got Jessica
pregnant, and then did the same with Ashley: so they could have their
babies around the same time and stay lovers."

I hit him with a jaundiced eye. "So, your perfect world isn't beyond
jealousy or manipulation?" I said.

"One, I never said our world was perfect," Yanni replied equably. "What I
said is that we live the way human beings were meant to live, but we're
still human beings, with all the flaws and imperfections of human
beings. Was there jealousy? I actually don't think so. All the girls are
very mature. But the Master wanted to do what he could *before* there was
any kind of problem. He wants everybody to be happy, especially the people
in his own family. As it is, as much as Jessica loves Ashley, *I* get the
sense a part of her wishes she and Gem were officially lovers." He regarded
me. "And what's wrong with manipulation? The Master is like any father
looking over his family, trying to make sure problems get nipped in the bud
before they become bigger problems. Besides, the man was a hood, was always
a pedophile, and now he's a prophet. He's an expert at manipulation."

"Yesterday and today, you said -- about yourself, about everyone here,
especially the kids -- that the choices all of you have made all came about
because of your own free will. Now you're admitting that it was all
manipulation on the part of the Master."

"I don't see any contradiction," Yanni asserted. "Yes, everything that
happened -- to me, to everybody else here -- happened as a result of our
own free will, but that doesn't mean the Master didn't guide us, that he
didn't guide *me* when I made *my* choice. *And it was my choice*. I told
you: he was honest from the start, with me, with all of us. He never
tricked me or tried to sell me some bullshit story. As soon as *I* met him,
I knew what he was -- and so did my sisters. I mean, that time I came to
his door after I got out of juvie, his cock got hard as soon as he saw me,
and then I saw him fucking my sisters, so I obviously had no doubt about
who and what he was, and what he wanted from me. But I *wanted* to make it
with him, and when he asked me to give him my love I did it because *I*
wanted to -- so much. If you want to call that manipulation, fine -- and
maybe it was. Maybe he's smarter than all of us. But I *know* the choice
was mine. Was it a choice *he* wanted me to make? Yeah." Suddenly as
insistent as any true believer, he poked at his own bare chest while
adding: "But it was still *my* choice. I *chose* to love him and then chose
to accept his love. And I've never regretted a bit of it."

The obvious depth of his belief deterred me from further arguing the
point. I wanted no more undue unpleasantness between us, and I reasoned
trying to convince him otherwise would be as useful as trying to sell
sausages in a mosque at prayer time. "Okay," I said, once again not so
subtly shifting the subject. "But let me get this straight: Gem is
Diamond's daughter and Jessica is Maya's daughter?'

Yanni nodded.

"How did their mothers feel about that that situation between their
daughters and the Master's involvement?"

"I think they were both happy that the Master handled it so well, with such
skill nobody ended up getting hurt. But, knowing him the way they do, they
probably didn't expect anything less."

"It didn't bother them that he manipulated the whole thing, that he ended
up getting not one but two young girls pregnant?"

"No, of course not," Yanni insisted, swatting away the concern implicit in
my question with a dismissive scrunch of his face. "None of them wanted
what was going between Gem and Jessica to cause any hurt, especially to
Ashley. And, besides, the Master has always intended to impregnate all his
daughters, including the adopted ones. It's just that his getting Ashley
pregnant came as a bit of a surprise. If he was going to put a baby in her,
we all expected that to happen later, especially since Ashley was a cadet,
and she and Lina were into each other."

There was another scrap of information to store in my head; I wouldn't dare
set it down on paper or in my computer while I was here. There had to be
records chronicling all those births. A thorough search might uncover birth
certificates, immunization records, school enrollments, maybe even adoption
papers that would lead me to the real identities of this collection of
pederasts.

In an attempt to conceal my thoughts, I asked: "What are cadets?"

"That's what we call the kids who go to the Guardian School."

I was amazed yet again. "You mean there's another school here besides the
-- what did you call it? -- the Academy?"

Yanni nodded. "When kids turn thirteen," he explained, "they graduate from
Page Hall and go on to Squire Hall. But some apply to go to the Guardian
School. The special ones, the ones with a lot of potential, get *invited*
to attend the Guardian School. But whether their application is accepted,
or they get invited, it's considered an honor to be admitted. It's a tough
program and some kids drop out. Anyway, to stick it out, you have to study
and work for five years before you graduate and become a full-fledged
Guardian." He paused a moment. "Ashley was *very* special. She wanted to be
a Guardian from the time she was little. She worshipped Lina. And she
studied and trained for a long time to get ready. So, an exception was made
for her, and she was admitted to the school when she was only eleven. Lina
looked after her and Ashley became one of her assistants. And then they
became lovers, at least unofficially."

I hadn't yet met Ashley and so had no idea what she looked like. But if she
had been admitted to the ranks of the Guardians at the age of eleven, she
undoubtedly had to have had a chiseled body, muscles rippling over a boyish
frame like that of a world-class gymnast. An image of Lina in bed with such
a young girl, both of them naked, their tongues roaming over each other's
marmoreal flesh, suddenly rocketed to the top of my brain and my pussy
juiced once again. Oh, how I so wanted to be at the center of such a
tableau.

Before I could restrain myself, I posed my next question with a tad too
much fervency, which, as soon as the words tumbled out of my mouth, I hoped
Yanni wouldn't detect or at least ignore. "How did Lina take it?" I
asked. "I mean, the Master getting Ashley pregnant?"

"Fine, I guess," Yanni replied, suddenly frowning and obviously considering
how the episode had impacted his sister. "I mean, I don't know. I know Lina
cares a lot for Ashley and misses her. When they were living together, she
didn't have other people, other cadets, in her bed. Now she sleeps with a
bunch of cadets practically every night, Martin and Emma most often." He
paused a moment, thinking, then said: "I guess she's lonely." He sighed. "I
guess maybe she's the only one who got hurt. But I don't know. I mean, I
know she talked to the Master about everything, but not to me; not to me or
Rola."

I detected the hurt in Yanni's voice and reached out to give him a pat on
an arm. He smiled at me and, in spite of myself, I smiled back.

We came to the end of the sea of black rubber, crossed a wide expanse of
grass and finally arrived at the Great Altar, which was a large
metal-canopied stage, akin to something that fronted a crowd at an outdoor
music festival. It was an impressive structure, especially when one
considered that its intricate aluminum skeleton, like everything else about
the sacred wood, had been brought, at obviously great expense, to this
secluded island.

I estimated the enveloping canopy rose to a height of over twenty feet. The
front rim of its surface was adorned by a line of black flags, the pennants
fluttering in the breeze, all bearing the image, in silver, of a stylized
poplar tree. I wondered if that representation, like the stars and stripes,
was the symbol of this depraved republic. The underside of the canopy was
studded with a thicket of lights and festooned with multicolored
streamers. The stage itself had to be about one hundred thirty feet wide
and over fifty feet deep. At the flanks of the stage were two gargantuan
LED display screens that towered nearly as high as the canopy. Whatever
happened on the stage was obviously seen in great detail and living color
by the crowd below.

As I looked up at the canopy, I saw, hanging from a central beam amid the
array of lights, an elaborately forged, elongated mammoth metal orb, the
top half of its black integument perforated at regular intervals by
rectangular apertures. "What the fuck is that?" I whispered in amazement.

Yanni heard me. "That's the Great Censer," he said. "Before the orgy, it'll
be filled with all sorts of incense, tons of it. Then the incense will be
lit, and the censer lowered, and then it'll swing back and forth over the
stage during the ceremony and then for the rest of the night. So much smoke
comes out of it that it fills the stage and sometimes the whole wood." He
spread his arms to indicate the entirety of the tree-lined arena. "If the
wind blows right, you can smell the incense all over the island, especially
in Elysium, and if you're in the wood the smell can be so strong it'll make
you loopy, like you're in a trance."

"Fucking amazing!" I whispered while still looking up at the censer,
detecting amid the crisscrossing beams of aluminum the mechanism that
would, at the desired moment, lower it toward the stage and then set it
swinging, its pungently intoxicating exhalations doing their part to waft
away every last bit of inhibition and restraint.

Yanni and I rounded the stage, passing behind the black bulk of one of the
display screens and climbed a flight of metal stairs that led to the
stage. We halted at the top, observing the bustle of activity on the black
metal deck that augured, like the ziggurat in the distance, the spectacle
that was to happen tonight.

At the rear of the stage, hanging against its back wall, was a great black
banner which sported a large white pentagram ringed by a circle. An
identical pentagram had been etched into the metal deck near the bow of the
stage. A few feet in front of us, near the front of the stage but to the
right of its center, a teenage boy and girl, presumably Acolytes, stood at
the top of a wide portable metal staircase which was parked against the rim
of a Brobdingnagian metal firepit. A much larger brother to the firepits
that surrounded the circle of worship below, it rested on a veritable
monolith of dark gray slate. The boy was emptying sacks of a white granular
substance into the firepit while the girl poured a clear liquid from
plastic containers onto the gritty mass. A line of their companions,
children of various ages, handed over the sacks and containers from a great
pile on the stage, and, as the contents were dumped into the firepit, the
empties were handed back down.

"That's the Great Cauldron," Yanni said, indicating the giant
firepit. "That's where Maya will light the ceremonial flame."

My nose began to catch the unmistakable odor of rubbing alcohol. "What's
that they're putting into the pit?" I asked.

"A combination of salts," Yanni replied. "They soak it with alcohol and let
it dry, and then, just before everything gets going tonight, they soak it
again. At the beginning of the ceremony, an Acolyte will hand Maya a torch
and she'll throw it into the cauldron. The flame will rise, and then, as
the ceremony goes on, Maya will throw herbs into the flame and recite the
incantation."

"What's the incantation like?"

Yanni shrugged. "I can't do it as well as Maya," he replied, a bit
sheepishly, "and I can never remember it all. Besides, when you're here
tonight, you'll hear Maya do it from top to bottom. He paused a
moment. "But it can get really exciting, even hypnotic. Maya chants and the
whole crowd gets into it, and chants in return. It can really make you feel
like you're part of something, something a whole lot bigger than just
yourself."

I held my tongue, not saying that the something bigger was a mass of
pederasts. As we watched the group of youths minister to the firepit,
another group of Acolytes appeared on the stage lugging stacks of
rubber-sheathed exercise mats. They laid the mats on the stage, covering
the pentagram etched into the deck, and then began attaching the mats to
one another, forming a vast quilt. That construct was covered with a
gargantuan blanket, the corners of which had grommets that were secured to
cleats built into the deck of the stage. The Acolytes then salted the whole
affair with dozens of pillows of varying colors and sizes, and I
immediately guessed the space, situated directly over the malign power of
the pentagram, was to be used for an orgy within the orgy, most likely,
judging by all I so far knew of this place, a mass of naked and smooth
young bodies.

"When the incantation is done," Yanni explained, the children chosen to go
to Paradise for the orgy with the Master and Maya enter the stage. They'll
be dressed in these lovely outfits of white gossamer, and when they're hit
by the lights of the stage" -- hand indicated the lights overhead and then
the footlights -- "you can see everything, all their cocks and
pussies. It's really very beautiful."

Yanni had divined my thoughts once again. Is there anything this sick
fucker can't figure out about me? I thought.

As Yanni spoke, however, I regarded him, thinking that his explanation and
obvious fondness for the memories it evoked did more to reveal his true
pedophile nature than anything I had yet seen or heard him say. Well, I had
to discount seeing him have sex with a preteen boy aboard an airplane, and
seeing him have sex with several boys in a video, but what he was uttering
was pretty revealing nonetheless. Still, while he went on, I couldn't help
but once again think of how sick *I* had to be when I admitted to myself
how much I liked this kiddy-fucker psycho, even while he waxed rhapsodic
about the sight of naked boys and girls. What the fuck was wrong with me?

"Then the children will perform a ritual dance," Yanni continued, "one
they've been practicing the whole week. Two of the children will have been
named lord and lady of the orgy. By the time dance ends, the white gossamer
will have been cast aside and they're all naked, and the lord and lady will
fuck, usually in a standing position at the front of the stage. When
they're about to come, two other children will approach them bearing cups
-- we call them cupbearers, obviously -- and the boy cupbearer will collect
the cum of the lord as he comes, and the girl cupbearer will collect the
juices of the lady as she comes. If the lord and lady piss while they come,
so much the better; that's considered a double blessing for the
orgy. Anyway, then Maya approaches with a large chalice, and the cupbearers
pour what they've collected into the chalice, and then, in front of the
whole congregation, Maya will drink the love juices, and that's the signal
for the orgy to begin. The people down there will start the orgy" -- he
indicated the great black circle below -- "and the children up here will
orgy." He indicated the pillow-bedecked mats assembled over the now unseen
pentagram. "Then, after a while, when the orgy is going strong, Maya will
lead the children from the stage back to the Main House, to Paradise, and
she and the Master will preside over the orgy there until they're ready to
take the children into his bedchamber for a night of love."

I could hardly take in what Yanni was saying, my mind once again reeling
from the intricate depravity of this place. Whatever one might think or
regard as one's convictions, the ritualized debauchery to be found here had
to give one pause. Was what went on here any different from any other
religion, any other form of slapping a saddle on the minds of men? When
Joseph Smith, an inveterate con man, had cooked up a religion by claiming
he had been divinely directed to find golden plates that pointed a new way
to the truth, golden plates that were the source of new holy writ, but
later conveniently disappeared; when he ensconced himself in a room and
then emerged to say God had commanded plural marriage, was it any different
from the crock of shit the Master was trying to sell? Probably not. But
this was the first religion I knew of that raised to high devoutness the
act of fucking kids.

You had to hand it to him, I thought. The Master, a prophet just as
fraudulent, but even more devious than those who had come before him, had
definitely come up with a whole new angle, one that worked out best for
him. For sure.

We walked onto the stage, and, as always, everyone knew Yanni and Yanni
knew everyone. As he exchanged greetings and occasionally introduced me to
that one or this one, we moved across the length of the deck, which was
adorned with large black metal multi-tiered candle racks, the waxy stalks
varying in thickness and length, from squat votives to thick pillars nine
to twelve inches in length to slender tapers well over a foot long. I noted
that the candle racks on the right side of the stage all bore white candles
while the racks on the far side of the stage bore black candles,
momentarily wondering over the significance. Amid the candle racks were
great wicker baskets, as wide as a hammock and tall as a man is high,
stuffed with all manner of wildflowers, arrangements of chicories,
cornflowers, daisies, marigolds, poppies and more, assailing one's eyes
with their riots of color. There were also set here and there on the deck
large brass incense burners, each about chest high, their perforated tops
spiked with hundreds of incense sticks, waiting to be lit but already
redolent, my nose twitching from the smell of frankincense, jasmine,
lavender and sandalwood. The bellies of the burners had been forged to
display images of dozens of bodies writhing in frenzied copulation.

Despite the sight of the obscene burners, though, my eyes were drawn to the
center of the stage, the area between the now concealed pentagram on the
deck and the pentagram on the banner fixed to the rear wall. Just behind
the waxing heap of pillows, a group of a dozen sweating, well-muscled boys
and girls in their late teens were muscling into place a collection of
Taiko drums. Five black okedo-daiko drums, adorned by red roping, were set
in a straight line several feet behind the area reserved for the kiddy
orgy. Beyond the first line of drums, six chu-daiko drums, their cowhide
heads two feet across and their barrels thirty inches in height, were
arranged in a gently sloping curve, set on a tilt on large wooden
stands. Further beyond, at the rearmost of the stage, a large, raised
platform bearing an enormous wooden stand awaited a monster Odaiko drum,
which hovered just above the stand, its barrel wrapped in padded canvas
bands, gently swaying as its young minders, with shouts and commands,
supervised it being lowered into place. An undeniable work of art, its
drumhead measured nine feet across, and, as it softly thudded into place
and the canvas bands fell away, an array of lights was switched on, its
barrel of lacquered Zelkova elm gleaming like a great ligneous mirror.

Awed by the beauty of the drum, my mouth fell open a bit as I studied its
details: the creamy whiteness of the drumhead, the enormous black nails
that fixed the cowhide to the barrel, and the eddies and whorls of the
highly polished wood. Though I'd been told stories of such drums, I had
never before seen them in person, much less heard them played. Knowing the
drums were to be struck with a frenzy matching the sexual congress that was
to take place on the stage and arena below, I was suddenly if only briefly
more excited at the prospect of hearing the drums given voice than seeing
the oceanic tangle of undulating bodies.

Yanni noticed my fascination. "Tonight, Lucifer will be struck eight
times," he said, "and then the drums will sound, and the fires will be lit,
which are the signals for people to start coming to the wood. The bonfire
can be seen from every part of the island and the drums can be heard all
over too. And they'll be played throughout the ceremony, throughout the
incantation, and then throughout the union of the lord and lady, and the
imbibement of the sacred juices by the High Priestess, and finally signal
the beginning of the orgy itself."

"It must be something," I admitted in a loud whisper, nearly overwhelmed
not just by the drums but by the entirety of this beehive and its immoral
purpose.

"It is," Yanni agreed, gesturing at the youngsters managing the placement
of the great drum. "You'll hear them play. The Master sent them to Japan to
learn how. But I can't describe it to you; you have to see it for
yourself. The drums, the flames, the smoke, the smells, the words, and then
the sex. It's magic."

For once, I had no doubt, and felt no appetite to express any sort of
dubiousness. Though I was certain Yanni's description was beggared by the
actual spectacle, it gave me enough of an idea to believe that whatever
happened in the wood that night would be an extravaganza that beat down any
Catholic mass, any stem-winding revival and surely anything I'd ever sat
through in a synagogue.

I couldn't resist a little bit of teasing, though. I turned to Yanni, a wry
smile on my face. "Boy," I said, "for a non-believer, you sure seem taken
by all this mumbo-jumbo."

Yanni laughed. "Yeah, I guess so," he admitted.

"Why?"

Yanni shrugged. "People need something to believe in," he said. "Wanting to
believe in something is a part of us. At least, I think so. The Master once
told me about an article he once read, that some scientists believe there's
what they call a god gene, something inside our bodies that makes us want
to believe -- in something, anything." He shrugged again. "I mean, I don't
know if that's true. But if it *is* true, it's not enough to just want to
believe; people need a *way* to believe. When Maya set out to create our
faith, she realized that from the start -- and the Master too. I remember
once hearing him say that one of the reasons the Catholic church lasted so
long was because their mass was so beautiful and so meaningful, a way to
keep the believers fascinated by the beauty of worship."

I teased Yanni again. "So, everyone here tonight is just a sucker, a rube
for the Master to fleece," I said, saying it perhaps more sharply than I
meant to.

"Don't be such a bitch," Yanni retorted in his usually good-natured way. "I
didn't say anything about anybody getting rooked; the Master only said that
about Catholics. Here, the belief is genuine, just like I guess it was with
Catholics. I know the belief is genuine because I see it every day. As for
me, I'll admit, like I told you before, I don't know if there's a god or
any kind of higher power. I believe in me, and I believe in the Master, and
I believe in love, and the truth of love, and that's reality." He paused a
moment, thinking. "But if I were to believe in something, it would be
this." He looked around, his eyes taking in all of the sacred wood. "And I
have to hand it to Maya; what she's created is beautiful. If anyone wants
to believe, this is the way to get them to do it." He smiled at me. "And,
like I said, whatever brings anyone to the truth is a good thing."

I returned his smile and chuckled, shaking my head. "I think you give
yourself too little credit," I said. "You're more of a zealot than you
know."

Yanni laughed again. "Maybe," he admitted. "But I'll probably say the same
thing about you one day."

He had me there, so I shut up. Smiling at me, he led me the rest of the way
across the stage. We passed groups of boys and girls shoving huge speakers
into place, and, as we made our way through the darkened backstage area,
passed large collections of musical instruments, and saw a group of
youngsters flipping the switches and pulling the levers of a control panel
that regulated the lighting and sound system. We traversed the length of
some corridors, passing a number of compartments, and eventually arrived at
another flight of metal stairs. We descended and found ourselves on another
grassy expanse at the aft of the stage. We walked to the line of firs,
entered a gap in the trees, passed under an arch identical to the one that
had ushered us into the wood, and then emerged onto the great meadow.

We walked on, drawing closer to the Main House, the ground beginning to
crest as we approached a slab of stone steps. We heard peacocks cawing as
we arrived on the steps, a wide bank of gray granite, then ascended to a
terrace shrouded by blue wisteria trees and smelling of frangipani. The
trees, surrounded by beds of sweet alyssum, grew out of square patches cut
into the deck of the terrace, and the abundance of sweet-smelling blossoms
further bolstered my suspicion the island had to be located in some
tropical zone, but, of course, I couldn't be completely sure. There were
stone benches adjacent to some of the trees, their backs carved into
elaborate representations of copulating couples.

As we walked past one of the benches, we heard a low moan emanating from
within a thick cluster of multicolored sweet peas. Upon hearing the moan,
Yanni grinned and put a finger to his lips, signaling me to be
quiet. Leading the way, he stepped up to the bench, and, while on his knees
on the seat of the bench, leaned against its back. I joined him. He grinned
slyly at me and then very carefully parted the vines, revealing a small
clearing under the spreading branches of the tree.

Within the clearing, a lone young girl, lying naked on a bed of
lily-of-the-valley, was masturbating. She was pale and pretty, her head
topped by a bowl-cut auburn mane that fell to her shoulders, her full lips
as pink as the areolas of her small breasts and lips of her cunt. Her
abdomen was six small hills of hard muscle. The bronze chain around her
belly, bedecked with a number of rubies and at least one diamond I could
see, indicated she was twelve or younger, but judging by her breasts and
the near-pristine state of her quim, I guessed not much younger. Only a
tiny sprig of light brown hair adorned her pussy mound. Her yellow bikini
bottom was bunched around one of the slender ankles of her long
legs. Intent on her onanism, her eyes were closed, the fingers of one hand
vigorously at work on her snatch, the index finger rubbing her rosy clit
while the others spread the blushing lips below. The fingers of her other
hand were splayed over one of her breasts, the index finger flicking a
stiff salmon-colored nipple. Seeing her, I couldn't help but think she made
a very compelling picture and whatever had her touching herself had to be
as enthralling because, as her young body writhed from her own
ministrations, she was oblivious to our presence.

Yanni softly touched my shoulder, then signaled we ought to retreat,
leaving the girl to her pleasure. He gently allowed the vines to move back
into place and we quietly backed away from the bench, walking a few feet
before he spoke. "Well," he said, "that was pretty."

Inwardly, I agreed. The scene had reminded me of something Balthus might
paint, or David Hamilton might photograph. The girl alone was a work of
art. I was loath to admit that, though. "Who was she?" I simply asked.

"Her name is Radha," Yanni said with a smile," and I bet I know who she was
thinking of."

"Who?"

"Her lover Serena," Yanni said. "She got admitted to the Guardian School,
so now she's one of Lina's people, and she's away on a mission now, so
Radha must be missing her, especially since they don't have much time left
before fall, when Serena moves to the Guardian School and Radha moves to
Squire Hall."

"A mission?" I said. "What kind of mission?"

Yanni laughed. "You know I can't tell you that," he said. "You can ask
Lina, but she won't tell you either."

I flared suddenly, once again giving way to judgment. Looking back, I don't
know why. Perhaps it was due to some stubborn cleavage to an idea of what
constituted a proper childhood, but, as soon as the words fell out my
mouth, I regretted them. I didn't want another unpleasant moment between
Yanni and I. "It's bad enough you fuck these kids," I spat. "But I can
hardly believe you send them out to kill."

Yanni looked at me, and, once again, seemed to know where I was at. A small
smile bowed his lips. Damn his acute perception! I thought.

"They do it willingly," Yanni said softly, seemingly unperturbed by my
sudden flash of moral certainty. "We don't tell them any fairy stories
about the world. We don't lie to them about anything, including the power
of their own bodies. In most cases, they already know a lot of the truth,
having lived it in all sorts of horrible ways before coming here. And we
don't lie to them about what it takes to defend everything they're given,
everything all of us have here. We let them be children in every way
possible, but we trust them with what I guess you think of as adult
knowledge -- and sometimes adult responsibilities." He paused a
moment. "And they understand; understand it all. Just because they're kids
doesn't mean they don't have any brains. Our being honest with them and
trusting them makes them a lot more mature, even at younger ages, than the
kids in your world."

I couldn't dispute that. All I had seen so far had been a confirmation of
what Yanni was saying. Was sex that transformative to a young life? Did the
flowering of the libidos of the children here actually lead them to attain
new heights in body and mind that were at best rarefied among the youths of
the outside world? Were they, on the one hand, full of love while also
capable of dispassionately meting out the Master's justice? Did they
possess such an unsettling strength? Were they the paladins of a new age?

"When there's a mission that needs doing outside the compound," Yanni
continued, "you should see how eagerly the Guardians accept the job once
they're chosen. It's considered an honor. And I know what you're thinking."
His expression was suddenly one of exasperated dismissiveness. "It's not
because they want to get away. It's because they want to do their part to
protect the Master and all he's built, built for all of us. They want to
make whatever contribution they can to preserving Philo-Sophia."

"I actually wasn't thinking that," I retorted sincerely.

If there was anything I had so far appreciated about this place, it was
exactly that everyone here was as fervent in their belief as the Muslim
firebrands who strapped explosives to their bodies, and that Lina's
Guardians were the vanguard of that fanaticism, the wall of living flesh
that would gladly tumble down onto the razor-sharp points of a thousand
spears for the sake of their beloved Master and his holy mission.

Yanni seemed mollified. "Well, it's like I said before," he
said. "Everybody here is willing to do anything to protect the Master and
everything we've all built together. You can get on your high horse, but
that doesn't change the fact that sending the Guardians to handle something
tricky is very effective. It's not often that someone with enemies will
expect that a kid will be sent to do the job on him." He fell silent a few
moments, thinking. "And I'll tell you something else, just so you
know. Sending kids out to do that kind of work is something that happens
very rarely. There are adult Guardians, after all, and you can't be a
full-fledged Guardian unless you're very skilled -- at all sorts of
things. When kids go out on missions, it's usually to do something more
mundane, like reconnaissance or infiltration. When a kid is sent to do wet
work it's because there's no other way to get the job done, and then the
kid has to be very, very good."

"So, is it mundane work Serena was sent out to do?" I asked.

Apologetic now, Yanni shook his head and spread his hands. "I truly don't
know," he said. "And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. There's simply no
reason for me to know. But I'm pretty sure that's the case. One, Lina isn't
stupid, and that's true of all her people. Like I said, there's no way
they'd send a kid out on a dangerous mission, like killing somebody, unless
that kid was already very skilled. Two, Serena isn't even a cadet
yet. She's a graduate of the Guardian program at Page Hall, yes, but she
won't enter the actual Guardian School until the fall, like I said
before. So, being chosen for a mission this early means she somehow fit
into the mission profile. To do what, I don't know, but *my guess* is it's
something mundane, meant more for initial training than anything
serious. As promising as Serena may be, right now she has no real training
and no skills, not like what she'll undergo when she actually starts at the
Guardian School. And, besides, no one her age is naturally that good."

Good at killing, I thought. I mused Yanni was talking like the merciless
head of an espionage cabal, which was perhaps not too far off the mark. I
kept quiet, though, considering what he was saying.

"But I get where you're coming from," Yanni said. "It always tears Lina up
when she has to send her people out on a mission, especially the younger
ones. In the old days, she used to do a lot of that work herself. But as
the Guardians got bigger and bigger, it was hard for her, at first, to
delegate stuff, and, in a way, it still is. She doesn't get much sleep when
something like that is going on. So, she spends her free time exercising or
shooting her guns or having sex, so she won't have to think about it too
much. She worries until everybody she's sent out comes back safe and
sound."

I so wanted to ask more questions about Lina, her past and her command
responsibilities, but thought better of evincing, even in a small way, my
intense attraction to Yanni's sister. "Why did you say Radha and Serena
don't have much time left together?" I merely asked.

"Well, they do and they don't," Yanni said, then paused to organize his
thoughts. "You see, when a kid turns eight and they enter Page Hall,
they're assigned a companion, someone older who shows them the ropes and
looks after them. After a while, though, they're expected to find a lover,
someone their own age who'll be closest to them, someone with whom they can
share everything. And that's what Radha and Serena have been to each
other. But in the fall, like I said, Radha will be going to Squire Hall,
and Serena will be at the Guardian School, so they'll be apart. Officially,
they'll still be lovers, at least for a while, but no one will be surprised
if either or both of them" -- he paused again, considering the right phrase
-- "find other lovers."

"Girl lovers or boy lovers?" I asked.

"That's up to them," Yanni replied. "Everybody here is pretty much bi,
which is only natural, anyway. But some people swing more one way than the
other way. For instance, I love women and girls, but I'm more into men and
boys."

"I never would have guessed," I said with a teasing smile.

Yanni laughed. "Wiseguy," he said. "Anyway, nobody *has to* find a new
lover. In fact, when it comes to a situation like the one Radha and Serena
are in, they can decide they want to stay together even while they're
living and studying apart. But, you know, people change and grow,
especially if what they're experiencing is different, and being in the
Guardian School is a lot different than being in Squire Hall. So, nobody
would hold it against them if they took new lovers or didn't take any
lovers at all. I mean, even if they do find new lovers, Radha and Serena
will always be close; they've already shared too much not to be. But
whether they find new lovers or not, eventually, for our world to grow and
stay strong, it's pretty certain someday they'll have babies. And that'll
happen if they stay together, find new lovers or even if they're single."

"How does that work?" I asked.

Yanni shrugged. "When a girl or a woman is ready," he said, "she can have a
baby. If she has a female lover or more than one lover or even if she's
single, she can choose a boy or a man to impregnate her. She and her lover
or lovers will raise the child, but the male who impregnated her has the
right to be in the child's life, especially if he's one of her
lovers. That's something that's strongly encouraged here. Happy and strong
families aren't just something we talk about, like in the outside
world. Here, being part of a family really means something."

"I don't doubt it," I said dryly, "especially since being in a family here
means indulging in incest."

Recognizing what I said for a mild jab, Yanni merely smiled. "That's
right," he agreed.

Despite my pose of dubiousness, I considered the polyamorous dynamic Yanni
had described, and grudgingly admitted to myself it sounded more sensible
than the often hypocritical and miserable monogamy that was the prevailing
ethos of my world, which, if my own sexual adventures were any guide, I had
never held in high regard in any case. For the moment, though, my
increasingly wafer-thin bias won out. I wasn't about to concede agreement
on this point or any other. I was the not-so-dispassionate reporter, after
all.

"More children to add to the life and love of the compound," I said
sarcastically.

Yanni was amused. The bastard could tell my heart wasn't in it. "That's
right," he said again.

We walked a bit more and came to the rear verandah of a rectangular granite
and wood block of a house set into the terrace. "This is the Pool House,"
Yanni said. "The Main House's outdoor swimming pool is just past here."

As we ascended some steps to round the clean, sharp lines of the Pool
House, the outdoor swimming pool came into view. I stared open-mouthed at
its magnificence. I had seen it on the video of the Summerfinding Orgy, of
course, but seeing it in person was altogether different, like looking at
pictures of the Taj Mahal before finally making the trip to Agra. The pool
itself was Olympic-sized, its sides banked by dozens of chaise longues of
various sizes. Behind the longues were a line of cube-shaped cabanas topped
by two-tiered, white-painted steel roofs. Lamps hung from the ceilings of
the cabanas and clear, bulb-shaped lights hung from just within the bottom
rim of their rooves. The side walls were a transparent netting sheathed by
white polyester curtains softly muttering under the influence of the
morning breeze. The curtains of some of the cabanas had been drawn aside,
secured to corner pillars by loops, allowing me to see each cabana was
equipped with a few cushioned white rattan chairs, and a matching hamper
and shelf unit. On the shelves were stacks of fluffy towels, containers of
baby oil, cocoa butter, flavored and scented lotions, lube, and baskets
filled with all manner of sex toys. Dominating each cabana was a king-sized
bed garnished with a plush comforter and a dozen or more overstuffed
pillows. All within the cabanas rested on large water-absorbent carpets.

Behind the platoon of longues and cabanas at either side of the pool were
long, tall walls of bleached gray granite festooned with silvery chrome
shower heads. Set into the walls below the shower heads, at about the
height of an adult's chest, were chrome, single-handle shower volume
control valves, below which blocks of the wall protruded to serve as
shelves. Over a hundred feet away, crowning a flight of steps at the head
of the pool, was an enormous open-air loggia, its white columns supporting
a flat roof over which flowed a sheet of water, a waterfall that cascaded
down into the pool with an oddly soothing roar.

A slight gasp was drawn from me by the splendor of it all, but that gasp
died in my throat as we descended some steps at the side of the Pool House
and set foot on the pool deck. As I turned my head to my right, my eyes
fell first on an immense circular whirlpool bath set into the center of the
near end of the swimming pool. My head then rose to face the front of the
Pool House, a flight of three steps leading to a wide porch backed by tall
glass doors that looked into a living room equipped with a gargantuan
wall-mounted TV monitor. The living room was flanked on one side by a
kitchen and on the other by a bedroom dominated by a massive bed. But what
immediately arrested my attention and strangled my gasp were the three
naked young girls having sex on a large chaise longue situated at the
center of the recessed porch of the Pool House, one of whom was Emilia.

Yanni grinned and said: "Well, I guess they decided to skip breakfast and
eat each other."

The three girls had thrown aside their bikini bottoms, which were lying
scattered on the deck beside the chaise longue. The sex they were sharing
was decidedly energetic, the three of them writhing with abandon. Emilia
was at the left end of the threesome. Their bodies were covered in a thin
sheen of sweat; it was obvious they'd been going at it for quite a while
already. The curly red-haired girl at the right end, her belly encircled by
a silver chain, was locked in a deep kiss with the brown-haired girl in the
middle, whose own silver chain indicated she was also thirteen or
older. While they kissed, the red-haired girl fondled the left breast of
the brown-haired girl while her other hand was buried between her own legs,
vigorously teasing her clit.

Yet it was eight-year-old Emilia who was in charge. She was setting the
pace by straddling the right leg of the brown-haired girl, her bald pussy
grinding into the flesh of the girl's thigh while she bent over to bring
her mouth to bear on the girl's right breast, her tongue roving over the
hardened nipple while the fist of her right hand was completely submerged
in the girl's oozing cunt. The two older girls seemed to move in rhythm to
the dance of Emilia's tongue, the undulations of her torso and pumping of
her fist.

A loud moan rose from the mouth of the brown-haired girl in the middle as
she came, her juices spurting out over Emilia's fist, coating her lower arm
in a luster brightened by the rays of the morning sun. Emilia's mouth
detached from the girl's breast as she, with a loud moist squelch, withdrew
her fist from the girl's quim. Leaving a large puddle of her own sap on the
girl's thigh, Emilia rose to her knees while she and the red-haired girl
shifted the middle girl, who was obviously still recovering from her
shattering orgasm, into lying across the width of the longue. The red head
straddled the brunette, her mouth and tongue diving into the pussy of the
girl on the bottom while she lowered her own dripping snatch onto the
girl's waiting lips. As the two teenagers began their sixty-nine, Emilia
moved to the plump ass of the red head, her hands spreading the cheeks
before her tongue speared deep inside the girl's asshole. As Emilia ate
deeply and well from the red head's rosette, she kept one hand on the older
girl's ass while her other hand snaked down to her own pristine
twat. Slightly muffled by the ass cheeks in which her face was buried, the
moans elicited from Emilia by her own fingers rose from her throat to join
with the keens of the other two girls.

I marveled at how eagerly and skillfully Emilia ate the older girl's
ass. It was plain this eight-year-old moppet was more adept at sex than
most adults far beyond her age. I was transfixed by the sight of these
three young girls reveling in thoroughly wanton lust. I couldn't turn away,
and, truth be told, didn't want to. I felt my own juices again begin to
flow; the sticky sweet moistness elicited by my arousal seeping into the
crotch of my already-dampened bikini bottoms.

The sight of such compelling depravity had me rooted. I was slightly
startled when Yanni stepped close to me and whispered in my ear. "I told
you Emilia was talented," he said. "Some people say that when Gem retires
from being Chief Girl Lover, Emilia will be her successor."

The pleasure the three girls were sharing crested to orgasm, cries and
whimpers rising to howls and shrieks, juices spraying from the cunts of the
two older girls as the red head fell away from the brunette and collapsed
onto the surface of the longue, now drenched with sweat and vaginal
juice. As she tipped over, her ass came away from Emilia's face. The
eight-year-old got to her feet, her trim little ass facing me. The two
other girls, as obviously spent as they were, made a game attempt to rally,
rising to their knees to apply their tongues to Emilia's hairless
pussy. Emilia threw her head back and ground her twat into the mouths of
her two lovers, her slim torso pumping back and forth in rhythm with the
ministrations of the twisting tongues of the older girls.

Despite my best efforts, my earlier promise to be as blasé as
possible about whatever I saw here, I was absolutely amazed,
dumbstruck. Emilia was putting on a master class, all right. I had proudly,
if not always openly, considered myself something of a libertine before
coming to this place, but this little girl, only eight years old, was
putting me to shame. It wasn't just her obvious skill and imaginativeness
that was astounding, but also her seemingly effortless stamina. Though
covered in sweat, she didn't seem to flag at all, easily moving from one
depraved act to another. I would have been wasted after the first come, not
to mention the three or four I had already seen each of the girls
enjoy. And we stumbled across them when they had already been going at it
for a while! I thought.

Emilia opened her bladder and began forcefully pissing on the two other
girls, her urine, yellow and pungent, splashing against and cascading down
the faces of her lovers. The two girls squealed with delight and eagerly
lapped up Emilia's offering, rivulets of what they weren't able to drink
coursing down their jaws and over their throats and down to their chests as
their tongues continued to spear out to lick Emilia's clit and pussy
lips. Though younger than the other girls by several years, it was plain
this was Emilia's game, and she was thoroughly enjoying every bit of it.

A movement at the corner of an eye turned my head and I saw Yanni, his eyes
glazed with lust as he watched the girls. He had pushed down the front of
his bikini bottoms, and his cock was fully erect, firmly grasped by the
fingers of one hand as he pumped himself to orgasm. As Emilia loosed her
stream of piss, a jagged moan escaped his mouth, and he shot his load,
several ropes of pearly white jism bursting forth from his glans to arch
across the deck of the Pool House porch, trails of his seed landing on the
polished wooden floor.

I so wanted to masturbate as well, to simply stick my hands in my bikini
bottoms and furiously frig myself to a quick but shatteringly intense
come. In that moment, I actually wanted many things. I wanted to go to
Yanni and take his lovely, moistened cock in my mouth, to taste his cum,
swallow down every drop that was left, and, before the sensations of the
first climax were done, use my mouth to bring him to a second orgasm. He
hadn't been lying the night before when he said he came a lot. I couldn't
remember ever seeing a man (and I had been with many men) come as copiously
as he had just now. I wanted to wrap my arms around his neck and my legs
around his torso and have him fuck me right there, our bodies pounding
against one another while the girls watched, perhaps letting them know they
didn't have the monopoly on sexual abandon. And I wanted to go to the
girls, slide my lips all over Emilia's tapering back and gorgeous little
ass while I reached out to the other two and the four of us fell into a
pile of exploring fingers and tongues and writhing limbs. But I, hero and
coward both, resisted, the carapace of my civilization proving, at least at
that moment, too adamantine to crack.

Yanni's moan at the moment of his climax finally caused the girls to notice
our presence. Emilia was the first to speak. "Yanni!" she declared. "Isn't
it pretty? We were on our way to breakfast when we just decided to
love. Come join us!" Noticing me then, Emilia turned to face me. "Please!"
she said. "Join us! I so want to share love with you, pretty lady!"

The two other girls, their hair matted by sweat and faces still bedewed by
Emilia's urine, nodded vigorously. "Yes, do!" they said in unison. "Please
join us!" They stared at me with undisguised lust, the brunette reaching
down to her pussy to brazenly masturbate while looking at me.

My mouth fell open, but nothing came out. I had no idea what to say or what
to do. Had they been adults, I wouldn't have hesitated. I would have
grabbed Yanni's cock and pulled him along behind me before diving us into
that pile of inviting flesh. But they were children! Weren't they?
Beautiful, naked, outrageously alluring and sexual children, yes, but still
children. I momentarily closed my eyes and felt my head tremble from the
sudden assault of the choices that confronted me. I have to get better at
handling moments like this, I thought, especially since they seem to happen
with some regularity in this place.

As I re-opened my eyes, Yanni saved me once again, slipping his softening
cock back into his bikini bottoms and then approaching the girls. He kissed
Emilia on the mouth, softly and tenderly, while she wrapped her arms around
his neck. He pulled away from her to bend down to kiss the other two
girls. As their tongues met and Yanni reached out to fondle their young
breasts and knead their erect nipples, it was obvious he wasn't a stranger
to any of their bodies.

Yanni stood up. "Babies," he said, "I would love to, and I think all of you
know I normally would, but we" -- he gestured in my direction -- "have an
appointment for breakfast. The Goddesses are waiting for us."

At the mention of the Goddesses, the eyes of all the girls widened. Even
thoroughly debauched Emilia seemed impressed. "Oh," she said, a prominent
note of disappointment in her voice and a longing in her big brown eyes as
she looked at me.

"Babies," Yanni said to the girls, "what you shared was so beautiful. We'll
have to love very soon -- all of us." A large wet spot on the front of his
bikini bottoms now, Yanni turned from the girls, walked over to me, and
took me by a hand, beginning to lead me away. "Love, babies!" he called
back to them. "Always love!"

"Love!" they cried in return, repeating the mantra. "Always love!"

As Yanni and I walked away, I turned to glance back at the girls, and saw
Emilia, on her hands and knees as she descended into a renewed tangle of
arms and legs, looking at me, her eyes on my retreating ass and then
shifting upward to stare at my face. I blushed and quickly turned away,
willing myself to banish from my mind the thought that such a beautiful
little girl lusted after me and would likely, if I ever succumbed to her
lust, give me pleasures I had never before imagined.

"Who were they?" I asked Yanni as we walked on.

Yanni smiled. "My, you're curious," he said.

"It's my job to be curious," I whispered in slightly fierce retort.

Yanni kept on smiling, an irritatingly knowing smile. "The red-haired girl
is Bronwyn, and the brunette is Paloma," he said. "They're both
thirteen. They were lovers at Page Hall, and they're still lovers now that
they're heading into Squire Hall. Bronwyn was brought to the compound a few
years ago, when she was five. Peaches found her in an orphanage in
Ireland. She's been one of the elite models since she was nine. Paloma was
brought to the compound in the same group that included Leah."

"Gem's lover Leah?" I asked.

Yanni nodded. "That's right," he said. "It was Imara who brought them. They
were both four years old then and that was when the Master first fucked
them. Like Leah, Paloma became one of the Master's adopted daughters, so
she's a member of the Holy Family." He thought a moment. "Though I guess
you could say Leah is doubly a member of the Holy Family since she's Gem's
lover and she attends the family brunch every White and the family orgy
afterward." His face briefly scrunched into an expression of
dismissiveness, and he shrugged. "Well, anyway, because Paloma is one of
the Master's daughters, he'll put babies in her someday. When she's not in
school, she spends a lot of time at the Greenhouse." He gestured toward the
north, presumably in the direction of the greenhouse he had mentioned. "She
likes to grow things."

My head turned at the mention of a new name. "Who's Imara?" I asked.

Yanni thought how to answer. "That's a long story," he finally said, "and I
don't know how much you wanna hear."

"Tell me everything," I said eagerly.

"I'm trying to remember how the Master and Imara are related," Yanni
said. "It's a little bit complicated." He thought a few moments more and
then resumed, speaking slowly while gesturing with a finger to pick out the
details. "Imara's father is the Master's grandfather, and her mother was a
young girl the Master's grandfather lived with and was fucking. I forget
her name. Angela, Angelique? I don't know; something like that. Anyway, the
Master's grandfather had three children with this girl, two sons and then
Imara, so that would make Imara the Master's half-aunt. I think that's
right. Anyway, she may be the Master's aunt, but she's younger than he is,
like four years younger, I think." A sudden flash of realization
hit. "Yeah, that's right. I remember now. The Master was the one who popped
Imara's pussy cherry when she was eleven, and he was fifteen at the time."

"There's gotta be a story about that," I remarked.

Yanni laughed. "Yeah," he said. "it's a pretty hot story too. I can tell
you about that whenever you want."

"I'll remember that promise," I said with a smile.

Yanni grinned. "I know you will," he said. "Anyway, Imara grew up like the
Master, in a family that lived naked and shared love all the time. The
Master's said that the way his grandfather and father lived inspired a lot
of what he did later on. Anyway, when Imara's father died, she took over
his businesses and this big ranch where their family lived. All of that is
in another country, by the way. And don't bother asking me where because
I'm not going to tell you. Anyway, Imara had children with her father
before he died, and then with both of her brothers, six kids in all. Her
two daughters, Isa and Katie, live here on the compound. They're adopted
daughters of the Master too, so they're also members of the Holy
Family. You'll meet them.

"Anyway, in addition to her own kids, Imara has access to a lot of children
where she lives and she adopts" -- he crooked his fingers to make quotation
marks -- "a lot of them, and they live at her place just like the kids who
live here, naked and sharing love, helping to keep her place running. The
best of them she sends to us in groups a few times a year. That's how
Paloma and Leah came here.

"Imara's a partner in some of the Master's businesses, like the kiddy porn
and elite sacred prostitutes and some of the Club Serenus locations, so she
not only takes a cut of those businesses, but also a percentage of what
each kid she sends earns, whether that kid is a model or works in one of
the Club Serenus locations. She comes to visit us here a few times a
year. I don't know if you'll get to meet her, though. We don't expect her
again until the fall." He regarded me, considered a thought for a moment,
and then added: "Too bad, really."

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Because I know she'd love you," Yanni stated. "You're just her type -- at
least when it comes to other women. She'd love your curly black hair and
your tight bod, especially your tits and your great ass."

I blinked in slightly surprised annoyance at hearing that: Yanni's
assessment of what another woman would find alluring about me. I quickly
calmed down, though, once again realizing the way he talked was a
reflection of the way he had been raised, the life he had so far lived and
the world he lived in now. And, truth be told, a small part of me (okay,
not so small) was flattered by his evaluation of my pulchritude.

"Oh?" I said, suddenly equable. "Wouldn't Imara and I have the opportunity
to talk about art or books or current events?"

Yanni smiled. "Don't be mad," he said, once again maddeningly detecting my
mood and its sudden willed shift. "She'd think you were hot, is all, just
like I do. And she'd probably make it her mission to make you come over and
over. I mean, all of us love to fuck, but Imara is something else. I've
seen her suck and fuck for hours. One time, during a Grand Orgy, she was up
for four straight days making it with men and women and boys and girls and
dogs and horses, and she just kept on going. Her skin was sticky from all
the cum and juices and piss on her body. I mean, there was so much dried
cum on her that it was peeling off her body, like, you know, when you get a
sunburn, and then, a few days later, you can peel your skin off?"

Amazed, I nodded dumbly.

Yanni nodded in return. "Anyway," he continued, "finally, she just took a
shower, and then had a cat nap, and then she was at it again for another
three days. The Master says she's one of the most sexual persons he's ever
known, even when she was a kid herself -- and that's saying something since
the Master has known some real freaks, himself included." He paused a
moment and then added: "It was Imara who introduced the Master to golden
showers, scat and bestiality when he was fifteen and she was *only* eleven
years old."

I marveled once again, resisting the impulse to shake my head. Hearing
about Imara overwhelmed me, knocked me flat. How could a woman -- how could
anyone? -- possess such sexual stamina? Seven days of non-stop sex with
adults and children and animals? How had she lived through it? I couldn't
imagine approaching, much less replicating, such a feat. It would damn sure
waste me, I thought. And to hear she would be attracted to me, that she
would lunge at me like an army heaving itself toward an enemy capitol, that
she would batter down my defenses until I was a quivering mass under the
onslaught of her fingers, lips and tongue, had me wondering if I could
survive her.

Once, during a depraved sojourn on the French Riviera, I had known a
Parisian chef who originally hailed from the Ivory Coast. Slender and tall,
his glowing obsidian flesh had encased an athletic physique much like
Yanni's. He had sported an eleven-inch cock, and, upon first seeing his
organ, I almost recoiled from the fear of what it might do to me. Yet, a
far larger part of me was overwhelmingly curious and aroused, and, after
our first coupling, I was eagerly allowing him in all my holes; our many
fucks always proved to be very welcome mind-scramblers.

But here, I thought, sex wasn't just some taboo adventure; it was something
that brought one to the edge of existence, that truly teetered between Eros
and Thanatos, taking one to the shrouded vale between life and death. Maybe
that's the way it should be, I thought. Perhaps sex should be, at its best,
a yearning for the sweet release of death while simultaneously a sweaty,
sticky and altogether vibrant affirmation of life. I had read once that the
feudal Japanese regarded the moment of orgasm, what they called the "clouds
and the rain," as the moment when men were closest to the gods. I began to
see what those old samurai were talking about, and how, in this place, that
ideal was lived every day, particularly by sexual athletes like Emilia and
Imara -- as well as Imara's nephew the Master. I had thought myself a
libertine of the first order, but here, in this place, I was an amateur, a
rube, a hayseed bested by eight-year-old girls, by women and girls who had
children with their fathers, brothers and sons.

I once again mentally slapped myself, booting such thoughts from my mind
until I could properly sort them. While fighting off a headache, I took a
deep breath.

"What did you mean when you said Bronwyn and Paloma are still lovers even
though they're heading into Squire Hall?" I asked, yet again shifting the
subject. I prided myself om a logical mind that could sift through bullshit
and often caught people in contradictions and lies. But here I had to keep
dancing to stop myself from falling, maybe willingly, into this welter of
depravity. "Did you mean they've declared their intention to remain
lovers?"

Yanni shook his head. "No," he said. "I just meant they face the same
choice that Radha and Serena face, though in a different way. Bronwyn and
Paloma declared for each other when they were nine and they've been
together ever since, and now they're both going into Squire Hall, but
they'll still be together instead of being apart. But they're growing
up. Chances are they'll stay together, I think, but they can always share
love with whoever they want -- and people do change as they get older. So,
who really knows what will happen? They might stay together, they might
not, and, when they're ready to have babies, either one of them or both of
them, they'll have to pick someone to put the seed in them. But who knows
when that will happen? If it does happen, it could happen tomorrow, or next
year, or years from now. Whatever happens, it's up to them. Whatever
decision they make is theirs alone."

I nodded in genuine understanding. I couldn't help but think Yanni was
describing a very enlightened social dynamic. Allowances were made for the
vicissitudes of childhood, but the children were expected to develop and
exercise the discipline and maturity to make good choices, not just for
themselves, but also for the community that had nurtured and reared
them. They weren't belittled or ignored or simply warehoused in schools
where they were taught next to nothing, as was typically the case in my
world, but actually respected and trusted.

I slapped myself yet again. Respected and trusted? I shouted at
myself. They run around naked and have sex with each other at the drop of a
hat! They're used to make child pornography and are the victims of the
depraved lusts of a pack of pedophiles, all under the cover of some
half-baked religion cooked up by the Master and his daughter/wife and their
confederates! No, the evidence presented by my eyes, of an island full of
confident and strong and happily lustful children who were cherished and
loved, had to be false, had to be discounted.

My own experiences and supposedly open mind notwithstanding, I was yet
unable to break free of a lifetime of notions, to extract myself from years
of pain, so, rather than confront any of that at that moment, I shifted the
subject once again. "You said Bronwyn is an elite model," I said. "I've
heard you use that phrase a few times now. What does it mean to be an elite
model?"

"A kid can become a model pretty much the same way they can become a
Guardian," Yanni replied. "Announcements are made about upcoming photo sets
and vids in our newspaper, and any kid can apply to be in them. You'd
probably be surprised how many kids do apply. Just like being a Guardian,
it's considered an honor, but unlike being a Guardian, there's also a bit
of stardom and glamor that goes with it. Some kids, the really beautiful
ones or the ones that are really talented, get invited to appear. Anyway,
however a kid becomes a part of a production, some of them are asked to
keep appearing, so their compound duty is working at the Studio. And some
of *those* kids become very popular with our customers, and those are the
elite models, the ones whose photo sets and vids bring in the most
money. Bronwyn, for example, was Top Girl Model for a few years, from the
time she was nine, but for the last year or so Leah has been Top Girl
Model."

"What do you mean when you say talented?" I asked. "You mean sexually
talented?"

"Yeah," Yanni said, nodding. "All the kids here are taught love from the
time they're five. Their love instructors at the Academy are constantly
evaluating their skills, and the best ones are considered for inclusion in
a production. Part of the duties of the Chief Boy and Girl Lover is going
over the grade reports of the love instructors, so they can decide who'll
be invited to participate in the Master's afternoon orgies and be his
nightly lovers as well as appear in the productions at the Studio. For the
work at the Studio, they meet with Anna to go over the upcoming projects,
evaluate the candidates, and decide who'll appear in what."

"How much do they bring in?"

Yanni shrugged. "Again," he said, you'll have to ask Rola about exact
figures, but the Master mentioned to me not too long ago that Leah's vids
are nearly ten percent of the kiddy porn operation's gross right now."

I nodded. "What's compound duty?"

"A lot of the kids who live here -- at least the ones who don't get jobs
with the town or work for their family businesses -- have jobs that help
keep the Master's organization and the Main House running. When a kid turns
eight and enters Page Hall, he or she is expected to get a job or perform
compound duty, something that contributes to the life of Philo-Sophia, and
they do that every day except White, usually in the afternoons after
school. The job could be anything, like gardening or maintenance or working
in an office or working in a family business. Like Paloma, for
instance. She always liked growing things, so she got a job at the
Greenhouse, and she's been doing that ever since. But if a kid has compound
duty or works for the town, there's always a chance for promotion or, if
they're talented at something, re-assignment to a more appropriate
job. And, when they get older, there are courses they can take and
apprenticeships to prep them for some future permanent job, if that's what
they want. For more complex jobs, Philo-Sophia will pay for college and
advanced degrees if that's necessary, like what happened with my sister
Rola." He paused a moment, thinking. "The Guardians and the models have
sort of a different schedule, though, because their jobs are so
important. They work longer hours and go to school in the afternoon. The
Academy has teachers stationed at the Studio and at the cathedral to teach
them."

"When they work their jobs," I asked, "do the kids get paid for their work
or are they like little slaves? And what about the adults at their
permanent jobs? Do they get paid?"

"We don't have slaves here!" Yanni shot back with an undisguised
exasperation. "I've told you over and over everyone here is a part of
Philo-Sophia and everyone is valued, not just for the love they can share,
but for *all* they can contribute throughout their lives to everything we
are and everything we're trying to build and do."

"Okay, okay," I said, spreading my hands in supplication. "What do I know?
I'm the one asking the questions, remember?"

Yanni was instantly soothed. I had to admit I liked that about him, among
many other things. He seemed incapable of sustaining anger or harboring
grudges, which was unlike most people I had encountered. From the moment
I'd met him, I had felt comfortable with him, had simply known he would
share with me every bit of himself, and would reveal whatever he could
about this cockeyed realm, that whatever precautions he had to take while
talking to me were undertaken with a reluctance that was imposed from
without. There were no agendas between us, just a simple sharing during
which I found myself breathing in deep, sweet draughts of air that filled
my lungs and lulled the anxieties that constantly afflicted me. His
affection for me, in turn, was palpable, and, despite his stated desire to
have sex with me, I also knew that his warmth sprang not just from his cock
but from his innate self, all of which was a welcome change from my having
to be constantly on guard in the wicked world I usually inhabited.

In that moment, I admitted to myself Yanni had been right about one thing
when offering his assessments about me: having known each other less than a
day, we were friends, true friends, which was a state I'd rarely enjoyed in
this life. I would miss him deeply when I left the island, presuming I did
leave. Yet, regarding him then, I still couldn't completely square my
incontestable fondness for him with everything I knew him to be: an
unrepentant pedophile, a supervisor of a vast criminal empire, and a pillar
of a veritable theocracy of twisted depravity.

Thinking about all that, my pussy began to drip yet again. Was all of that,
as well as his generosity and kindness and sweet nature, part of why I
liked him? I wondered. Was I, in my own way, as evil as he? Had he been
right about the rest? Had I come home? My eyes glanced down at his lovely
cock, now concealed by his yellow bikini bottoms, but its glans and shaft
clearly outlined as they pressed against the golden fabric, and I thought
that if he offered it to me again, I might indeed find the opportunity too
overpowering to resist.

"You're right, I'm sorry," Yanni said with a nod while reaching out to
lightly caress my shoulder. "Well, in answer to your question, yes,
everybody is paid. There's not much need for money here, though, since --
for right now, anyway -- nearly everything is provided, and all the
salaries, for the kids and the adults, are banked, and people can access
their money anytime, like if they want to buy things for their houses or
for themselves." He smiled lewdly. "Buy sex toys and stuff like that. I
think you've seen we don't have much need for clothes."

The salacious smile still on Yanni's face, he suddenly pirouetted, brazenly
displaying his lean but muscular body, his protuberant genitals and the
hardness of his exquisite buttocks. As he came to the end of his twirl, he
stopped and thought a moment. "But people can always buy their own sexy
stuff to wear," he added, "either online or at a few stores in
town. Everyone here is pretty much a freak, and I don't mean just when it
comes to kids."

I laughed. Here I was ruminating on how much intimacy had grown between us
in so short a time and he pulled one of his little capers. He was
insufferable and I loved him for that. I reached up with a hand, lightly
caressed a side of his face, raised myself up onto my toes and kissed his
cheek. "You're the limit," I whispered with obvious feeling.

As my lips came away from his cheek, Yanni regarded me and then returned my
kiss, his lips meeting mine ever so softly, like the brush of a butterfly's
wings. A moment passed between us and had he taken things just a bit
further, I had no doubt I would have soon been on my knees, pulling down
his bikini bottoms and eagerly gobbling down his cock before begging him to
spear my sex with his organ. But then, strangely, he pulled away, not even
the length of a hand between us, and regarded me again. "I love you too,"
he said, caressing my face and then running a hand through my curly black
tresses.

We resumed walking and he took my hand in his. I wasn't at all disappointed
or offended. I knew what had stayed him, and was sort of glad of it,
finding myself looking forward to what I, despite my earlier declaration of
being solely about business while here, was now certain lay in our future:
a moment of such overpowering passion that would render me a liar. I had
always been very sexual, even when I'd been a young girl, and I knew my
friendship with Yanni included the desire to have sex with him. As he
himself had said, we weren't *in love*, but we did love one another. Amid
all that I couldn't yet bear to brook, I could admit that much to myself as
well as that, having seen him naked and having sex (with a young boy, no
less!), I wanted our bodies to come together in a sweat-soaked animal
congress, the two of us grappling while his penis sank to its hilt in my
flowing cunt.

Indeed, I wanted more. Would Lina ever join us? I wondered. Would I someday
find myself tasting her juices while Yanni's cock filled my mouth, or
better yet, feasting on her perfect pink twat while Yanni fucked me doggy
style, his cock greased by my pussy before he plunged it into my asshole?
And then, like the approach of a dark bank of clouds over the horizon, I
momentarily considered the rest of what Yanni had predicted. Would I, while
I was here, have sex with the Master? Would I, despite my protestations,
eagerly give my body to his? Would I willingly deliver my innermost self,
my very soul, to his holy pedophile cock?

Such a consideration was too much for my poor little mind to withstand at
that moment, and so I was all business again. "So, what happens with all
their wages?" I asked.

I detected a sudden wariness on Yanni's part. "I told you," he said
quickly. "It gets banked."

"Yes, but where? Some place other than here?"

Yanni pursed his lips, considering his answer for a moment. It struck me he
was pondering just how much detail to provide. "No, not someplace else," he
finally replied, deliberately uttering each word, and then, with a slight
rush, he added: "We have our own bank."

Those last words caused my head to snap around and regard Yanni in a new
spasm of amazement, but, before I could blurt a new set of questions, he
went on, seeming to want to pummel me into silence with a fresh gusher of
information before I could organize my thoughts to pose questions that
would further explore the implications of what he had just revealed.

"Everybody here, as soon as they start working," Yanni said, "whether they
work for the compound or the town or themselves, not only earns a salary,
but also contributes part of their salary to an investment fund in which
everybody has a share. The kids are taught in school about finance: money
and saving and investing, and, when they get old enough, they can make
their own decisions about what they want to do with their own money. And if
anyone ever decides they want to leave the compound, for example, they'll
leave with *at least* a considerable amount of cash. But no one's ever
left." He said the last a little proudly.

Yanni hadn't put me off. While taking in all he was explaining, a portion
of my brain was devoted to formulating questions. "You said you had your
own bank, though," I said. "What does that mean?"

Yanni briefly glanced at me and pursed his lips again, plainly uncertain
about how much he should tell me. "Just that," he replied while staring
ahead. "Years ago, when the Master started to become a big-time doper,
there was so much cash coming in he needed a way to handle all that money."

"You said that before," I retorted, an amused smile crossing my face. "But
what you mean is he needed a way to wash his money."

My smile and the light fashion in which I had tossed my retort seemed to
put Yanni more at ease, and, with a small smile of his own bowing his lips,
he said: "Yeah, well, that too."

"So, how did that situation lead to what we're talking about?" I asked,
persisting.

"Well, like a lot of dopers, he bought businesses so he could launder his
money. Like I told you before, the trailer park was one of the businesses
he bought, and the titty bars and the sex clubs, and other businesses as
well."

I nodded but stayed silent, the blinking of my eyes and the suddenly sweet
expression on my face daring Yanni to expand on his answer.

"Well," Yanni continued, "one of the other businesses was a small local
bank that was about to go bust, and soon enough, most or all of the money
he earned, from his legitimate and illegitimate businesses, was flowing
through there. I mean, it was a legit bank, licensed and everything;
regular people had their money in there. But, once the Master took it over,
it was a gangsta bank as well. He and his dad, and later Rola, were always
really careful about how they managed that whole deal, setting up front
companies all over the country, and then all over the world, and those
front companies would deposit their money, the Master's money, in the
bank. After a while, other dopers and hoods the Master knew or got to know
made arrangements with him to have their money deposited there as well, and
the bank got richer and richer and bigger and bigger."

"And the authorities never cottoned on to any of this?" I asked.

Yanni shook his head. "No," he said. "Like I said, the Master knew what he
was doing, and everything was hidden really well, not just his business,
but the business of the other hoods he allowed to put their money there,
and later he taught Rola all he knew. I mean, there were routine audits
from time to time, but nothing ever came of them because, despite all the
dirty money, the bank was really well run. Like always, the Master picked
good people and let them do their thing, and everybody, not just the hoods
but the people who ran the bank, were all making so much money it was no
problem for them to look the other way." He turned to me then, loosed his
hand from mine, spread his arms and added: "But don't ask me any details
about any of that. I don't know the details because there's no reason for
me to know. The only people who know everything, especially since the
Master's dad retired, are the Master and Rola, and I think by now Rola
knows more than anybody, *including* the Master."

I tried to mollify Yanni yet again. "His dad retired from being a hood?" I
teased.

A wry smile on his face, Yanni emitted a small snort. "Wiseguy," he chided
gently. "Yeah, he retired from being a hood."

"Okay," I said agreeably. "I'll ask Rola."

A narrowing of his eyes, yet another pursing of his lips and a click of his
tongue made plain Yanni's skepticism regarding that course of
action. "She's not gonna tell you anything about any of that, dopey," he
declared.

"There's no harm in asking," I replied breezily. "All she can do is say
no." I paused a moment and then asked: "But you still haven't told me how
all that led to what we're talking about."

"Oh," Yanni said. "Well, like I said, the bank got bigger and bigger, and
it's still around. The bank is how the Master got really rich. I mean, like
billions of dollars rich." He paused a moment, thinking, then added: "And
powerful."

"How so?" I asked.

"The bank always took a cut of everything. If you were a hood and put your
money there, then you had to allow the bank to structure your deposits in
such a way that they didn't attract any unwanted attention, and the bank
charged for that. In time, those kinds of depositors didn't just put their
money in the bank; they started going to the bank for financing and for
investment, and the bank, like any other bank, charged for that too. And
the more money that was made, by everybody, the more others of that same
sort of customer came to the bank for the same services."

I was astounded yet again. "Do you mean to say," I asked, "that the Master
is a financier of the criminal underworld?"

"More than that," Yanni replied, again shaking his head. "The bank finances
deals of all kinds all over the world, some of them worth tens of billions
of dollars. It puts people together, puts their organizations together, and
it earns a finder's fee for that; it provides financing, taking a
percentage of all the business it creates, and then launders the profits
through investments in anything you might imagine, taking a cut of that
too. The bank operates pretty much everywhere now and does business with
all kinds of people."

"What kind of people?"

Yanni shrugged. "Arms dealers, billionaires, big-time dopers and hoods,
terrorists, rogue governments," he said. "I'm not gonna tell you any more
than that. Let's just say all kinds of people who are up to all sorts of
shit." He regarded me. "And the bank knows everything about them -- or at
least knows everything about their money, which is the same thing, I
suppose."

"What's the name of this financial colossus?"

"I'm not gonna tell you that either, but you can find that out easily
enough, and, when you do, you'll be surprised. It's a pretty well-known
company. It advertises on TV and everything. You've probably got one of
their credit cards in your wallet." He paused a moment and then added:
"Once, the Master and I were talking about business -- I forget about what,
exactly -- and I asked him how he felt about all that, about how big the
bank had gotten and how it did business with all these hoods all over the
world, some really vicious and crazy people. And he said: `Yanni, the world
is the street.' And that I understood."

I pondered the implications of all Yanni had just said and a pit opened up
in my innards. I was now more than amazed or astounded. I was staggered,
ready to admit that the Master, if he wasn't an actual god, was certainly a
Jungian archetype of crime, a figure that made Arthur Conan Doyle's
Dr. Moriarty seem like a cheap grifter and put Bond villains to
shame. Though he wasn't threatening global destruction for his own crazed
ends, he had risen, by the dint of his efforts and wiles, to wend his way
into the most dangerous councils, an umbilical of cash that snaked its way
into the simmering cauldron in which the planet was perpetually boiling.

Yanni, in telling me about the bank, truly hadn't revealed much, but, after
all I had heard and seen, I simply knew that what he had shared was just
the crown of a massive and relentless iceberg. The Master's reach extended
everywhere and to everyone; he had a finger in every unholy pie. Knowing
this brutal and savage world as I did, I was certain he lay in bed not just
with children, but also with the most exalted pooh-bahs and dreaded
combines. They used him as he used them. But what none of them suspected or
at least seriously considered was that he had amassed his riches and hidden
power not just to impenetrably shield himself from ever-pliable human
justice, and the designs of associates and competitors, but to literally
re-make the world in his image.

I had before considered the possible victory of the world the Master had
created but had assuaged my admittedly ambivalent apprehension over such a
possibility by also considering the ancient and not-so-ancient forces that
would be arrayed against such a triumph. But now I realized with a sudden
flash that the Master himself was a cog (how big a cog, I was determined to
discover) among the powers that unwittingly stood in the way of his
thoroughgoing revolution. All that I was seeing and hearing, all that had
so far been built, was part of a plan conceived long ago and now long in
its gestation, but still not fully birthed. The Master aimed at nothing
less than bringing down the world around him, not with stolen nuclear
weapons or silly glass globes bearing a deadly pathogen, but through its
own manifold failings, its hopelessly tangled Gordian Knot of avarice and
hatreds and impunities, and all the calamities and disasters that sprang
from those poisoned coils. At the end, even if the Master didn't truly
believe himself to be a god, he would become one. In the new beginning, he
would be the creator, his holy pedophile cock filling the pussies and
assholes of children forever and forever. Amen.

I felt a sudden shiver. The utter diabolical monstrousness of such a plan!
I thought. What a fiendish genius! I couldn't yet deduce the conception or
evolution of the Master's design nor all its surely innumerable facets, but
I was, in that sudden instant, certain of its existence. None of this was
an accident. Not one bit of it had been left to chance; all that lay around
me was the product of an infernal vision. My pussy began to drip again. Was
it possible? Could he succeed?

Damn near stupefied, I turned to Yanni. I had no intention of asking him
anything about my sudden insight. Perhaps I underestimated him, but, as
certain as I was a plan existed, I was also certain Yanni at best had only
a dim awareness of it. How did I know this? At that moment, I couldn't
say. But I was certain that as obviously valuable as Yanni was to the grand
design, there was, as Yanni himself had observed, no reason to burden him
with the function of all its spinning gears. No, all the answers likely lay
with a very small group of people: the Master, of course, and his
daughter/wife Maya, and Yanni's sister Rola, maybe Lina as well, and,
someday, with young Gem.

I was abruptly animated by a renewed determination. I *would* interview
them all, learning all they knew. I didn't yet know how I would get past
their expected wariness, but with the confidence that seized me at my best
moments, I felt sure I would, and then pen a work that would sink the world
in its own filth. No one would be able to look away. My cunt sap was really
flowing now, and worried that Yanni's sensitive nose would detect the aroma
of my arousal and wonder over its source, I strove to contain my
excitement.

"So, then," I began, trying to recapture the casualness I had earlier
fostered, "what sort of presence does the bank have here on the island?"

"There's a branch office here on the island, and, like any bank anywhere,
it's wired into the international financial system. All the money the
people here earn is banked there, and whenever and however they want to use
that money, they go there like people anywhere would go to the bank to do
whatever. But no one has to carry cash because we have an electronic
payment system."

I shook my head in wonderment. "You mentioned an investment fund before," I
asked. "How much is in this investment fund? Or is that another question I
should ask Rola?"

"Yeah, you should," Yanni said, waving off my question, "`cause her office
manages all of that. She told me once, though, that the investment fund has
many, many billions of dollars under management."

I was poleaxed, my mouth falling open in astonishment. Trying to maintain
control, I quickly shut my mouth and resisted the urge to shake my head
while contemplating such an enormous fortune, a mountain of money that
could buy anything and anyone -- and throw up a magic shield impenetrable
to nearly every force the outside world might bring to bear. I lowered the
boil of my questions to simply consider all Yanni had just said. What had
occurred to me the day before as well as just a few moments before, that
this wasn't just some crazy cult, had been thoroughly reified. This place
was nothing less than an alternate stab at civilization, a living,
breathing Walden II with naked children and open-air orgies thrown into the
bargain. I wondered if B.F. Skinner would approve and then thought Aldous
Huxley might. Orgy-porgy, indeed!

Who would believe such a crazy fucking story? I thought, once again
despairing over the reception my tale might meet. Who would believe that a
biker princeling, a mid-level dope dealer who fucked kids and produced
kiddy porn for a hobby, along with his gaggle of motley hangers-on, had
achieved all this? This place wasn't a mere haven, a retreat for a
collection of sickos, but a veritable alternative to the prevailing way of
life. I'd never been much of a fan of early twenty-first century
civilization, but it was all I knew. The Master's world had to be destroyed
if all that existed was going to survive. What he had created posed that
much of a challenge, I suddenly realized. He put pikers like Sun Myung Moon
and L. Ron Hubbard to shame. He was a Gore Vidal novel come to life.

The world outside was such a shithole, such a compromised, crowded, filthy,
murderous, ruinous cloacal mess, constantly verging on self-destruction or
outright collapse, that I wondered who might not choose an existence that
seemed like paradise in comparison. Embodied in this world, the Master's
vision was so complete, so thoroughgoing, that I wondered who might not
willingly dispense with the staid and stagnant morality of so-called
civilization -- which damn near everyone knew was a sham, anyway -- in
order to live naked and free, cum and juices flowing amid the congress of
bodies shining in the glow of great bonfires. No, it couldn't be allowed,
it had to be stamped out, wiped from existence. Like Carthage, it had to be
razed for all time, its ground salted so nothing here would ever grow
again. But who would lend me credence? I was certain to be as reviled as
Cassandra, as discounted as a latter-day Madwoman of Chaillot.

We were halfway across the length of the pool, and, at the center of the
line of cabanas, stopped before one that was rather larger than the others,
an open-air salon unto itself. The carpet on its floor was a riot of
multicolored medallions woven into a vast field of burgundy and a bordering
band of dark navy. At the rear of the cabana was a large white rattan
sectional sofa, small white pillows dotting its white sponge cushions. Set
between the arms of the sofa was a matching table. Curiously (or not so
curiously), there was no bed, but, in the area before the furniture, there
was a rolling hurst of many pillows of all sorts, which was no doubt where
the congress of bodies usually transpired. I was certainly looking into the
cabana reserved for the Master, nothing less than a royal enclosure. What
was that line from Plutarch? I thought. After smashing the Persian Empire
and putting its Great King Darius to flight, Alexander had entered the
plenipotent's tent, descended into its bath, and amazed by its opulence,
had reportedly said: "This, it seems, is royalty."

While I peered into the playpen of this realm's king of kings, a cry from
behind us turned our heads back to the three girls, still romping on the
chaise longue on the front porch of the Pool House. In the distance, we
could see Bronwyn and Paloma once again in a sixty-nine. But this time
Bronwyn was on her back, her arms wrapped around Paloma's ass and her legs
bent, obscuring Paloma's head as the brunette feasted on the red head's
cunt. As Paloma ate, she was on her elbows and knees, her hands grasping
the backs of Bronwyn's upper legs while the red head, her head between
Paloma's legs, devoured her lover's pussy in turn. Behind them, little
Emilia, now wearing a strap-on dildo, its black straps hanging a bit
loosely on her slim frame, was fucking Paloma, delivering with loud grunts
thrusts so determined and powerful that I was once again left marveling she
was only eight years old. From where we stood, though, I couldn't tell if
her strokes were plunging into Paloma's twat or asshole.

"They're still going at it," I remarked. "They're going to miss breakfast
if they don't quit soon."

"No, they won't," Yanni said in a soft voice that was underlain by a
seriousness that caused me to turn my head to regard him. "Here," he
continued," love always comes first. That's why you've seen what you've
seen and why you're seeing what you're seeing now. No matter who you are or
where you are, you can love; whether that means you're going to love
yourself or share love with someone else, you can love. No one else who
happens to be around will think it bad or rude or say anything mean. In
fact, they'll probably watch and play with themselves and maybe get invited
to join the love -- or just go about their business. Whatever. Here, love
is that common and also that special. There's no reason for fear or
restraint or shame. Nothing has to be hidden. Whenever you're in the mood
or feel the need, just love." He gestured in the direction of the
copulating girls. "What you're seeing now could have happened anywhere: at
home, at school, anywhere. And they can go at it as long as they
like. They'll never get in trouble for sharing love. And when they're done,
they can go to the dining hall" -- he gestured up at the Main House -- "and
ask to be fed, and they'll be fed. As long as they don't neglect whatever
responsibilities they might have -- to themselves, to others, to
Philo-Sophia -- no one will ever stop them from sharing love whenever and
however they want, for as long as they want."

Yanni had described this dynamic before, but this time his voice had been
low and even throughout, suffused, I could tell, with the depth of his
belief. What could I say to any of that? I regarded him. "Love," I
whispered. "Always love."

Yanni smiled at me. "That's right," he said.

We turned, crossed what remained of the vast length of the pool, walking
past the waterfall and up the first of the long flight of steps leading up
to the Main House to find ourselves adjacent to one of the front columns of
the loggia, a massive coach light affixed to its front. I looked inside the
loggia as we passed and saw there was a well-stocked bar at its near end
and a black wooden sofa, chairs and table at its far end. At the rear of
its center was a large fireplace before which was a gigantic plush black
carpet dotted with pillows that lay on a floor of burnt-orange terracotta
tiles. Resting on the carpet while occupying the center of the loggia was a
large, black-curtained cabana that contained a king-sized bed which sported
its own collection of overstuffed pillows. Past the cabana, near the front
edge of the loggia and facing the sheet of water falling into the pool, was
a large chaise longue. It was instantly apparent to me that the loggia and
its accoutrements were, like the huge white cabana on the pool deck, yet
another place reserved for the Master to enjoy his wicked pleasures.

It was only after looking at the longue for a few moments, however, that I
realized it must be the very one I had seen in the video of the
Summerfinding Orgy. It was on that spot, I thought, that the Master had
lain while his own daughter Gem had ridden his face and his kiddy porn
model Bella had ridden his cock.

What must it have been like, I couldn't help wondering, to have been here
on that rainy night, to see the Master's muscular body moving in erotic
rhythm with two preteen girls while surrounded by the gleaming and writhing
bodies of other children, all of them lost to sexual rapture? Where would I
have been? What would I have been doing? While watching the video in the
SUV, I had masturbated like mad while sitting on and soaking the front
bench seat. I pictured myself completely naked doing the same in the
loggia, my eyes glittering evilly and my mouth hanging open as my head
turned from one iniquitous tableau to another. I saw myself sitting on the
couch at the far end of the loggia, my legs spread and my cunt exposed, one
hand squeezing a breast while the other furiously kneaded my clit and the
lips of my flowing pussy. Eventually, my eyes would fall on the Master
rutting with his daughter and the other little girl, his tongue busy in a
pristine preteen snatch while his cock drove in and out of another juvenile
twat. I saw myself tipping my head back, gritting my teeth, my chest
heaving as my fingers coaxed an ever-intensifying swell of sensation, my
whole body trembling as I came. My splayed vagina would spray the table,
the room, the whole universe with my juices. And, as I came down from the
smashing climax, I would collapse back onto the couch, turning my head in
an attempt to see through the sheet of falling water, to see if Lina,
having her pussy and asshole eaten at the head of the pool by two young
girls, had looked up at all to notice me as I orgasmed.

I forced my mind to pull away from such musings and we moved past the
loggia. We ascended the long flight of coral-mottled stone steps to a vast
verandah at the rear of the Main House. The verandah was occupied here and
there by groupings of off-white outdoor furniture that fashionably matched
the weather-bleached granite of this part of the structure. We crossed the
verandah to arrive at bank of towering glass doors topped by arched
windows. A quick glance through the glass gave me a hint of the immensity
of the ballroom, now occupied by a multitude of children and teenagers and
adults sitting at long tables while eating their breakfasts. The buzz of
conversation and laughter could be heard through the glass. At the center
of the bank of doors, affixed to the stone exterior, was a large gray metal
shelf unit, its compartments filled with sandals and sneakers. Yanni began
removing his sneakers, placing them in an empty compartment, and I followed
suit.

As we placed our footwear in the slots, something I had noted occurred to
me. "Yanni," I said, "I've noticed that almost everyone here wears those
little athletic socks. Why is that?"

"The Master read that warm feet make for better orgasms," Yanni
replied. "Apparently, studies have shown that when feet are cold, people
come quicker and their comes aren't as good. So, that's why pretty much
everybody here wears those socks, to keep their feetsies warm when love
happens. No one *has* to wear them, but pretty much everybody does."

"Just because the Master read something somewhere?" I retorted, shaking my
head slightly and clicking my teeth.

"The Master spends a lot of his time fucking and making his art, but he
reads a lot too, especially about sex," Yanni said, the usually ariose
quality of his voice bearing a slight edge.

I guessed my little comment had touched a nerve. I couldn't detect any
defensiveness on Yanni's part, but there was a definite, sudden need to
explain one of the many aspects of his living god.

"Because the Master reads so much," Yanni added, "I remember Maya once said
he knows a lot about some things and at least a little about everything
else. I've been with him a long time, and, like anybody else, he's made
mistakes here and there, but he's really smart and he usually makes the
right decisions, which is more than you can say about a lot of people. He's
wise too. I mean, I've gone to him with my problems all my life, all of us
have, and he always knows just what to do. Because he's a pedophile and all
that, *you* may not think much of him, not that you know much so far, but,
as far as I'm concerned, he's the most impressive, the most remarkable
person I've ever known."

I laughed. "You probably won't be surprised to hear I'm not surprised to
hear you say that," I said.

Yanni returned my laugh. "No, I guess not," he said. "But, yeah, the Master
reads a lot about sex. He says mastery of anything worthwhile is a
never-ending process, and if there's one thing the Master deserves to be
called the Master it's sex. No one else I've ever known can fuck, can love,
like him. His holy cock can take you places you've never been before, and
you'll want to go back to again and again. And everybody here feels the
same way. So, yeah, everybody tends to listen when he shares something he's
learned or expresses and opinion, whether it's about sex or whatever else."

Yanni was beginning to repeat himself, but I didn't want to say that, so I
merely smiled. "Did he bring tablets down from a mountain?" I teased,
gesturing at a peak miles distant that dominated the southern end of the
island.

Yanni grinned and laughed again. "Fuck off," he said. "Make fun now, but
you'll see."

I laughed along with Yanni, but my cynical self didn't allow me to admit I
was more impressed and sympathetic than I let on. If I had observed one
thing during my time on this earth it was that most people didn't know what
the fuck they were doing. It didn't matter who they were or what they
did. Bankers, cops, doctors, lawyers, journalists, judges, politicians,
teachers; if they weren't hoods, they were invariably losers and sad
sacks. They were all too distracted, too worried, too lazy, too blasted,
too hardened to care about anything other than themselves -- and oftentimes
couldn't muster the energy or the sense to do even that. Tragedy, death and
stupid criminal waste were always the result, quiet desperation crushing
everyone in sight amid the unending series of calamities. It was no wonder
people worshipped athletes. However monstrous they might be in private, at
least they knew what to do on the field.

So, moms got smoked and kids went hungry. Schools didn't teach and the
dummies they produced swung nightsticks in the streets or had their faces
smashed in jail cells. Doctors sawed off the wrong limbs, lawyers sold
themselves like whores, politicians promised the moon to idiot voters while
lining their pockets, and scribblers like me dropped barrels of ink writing
about it all. I was no exception, I knew. I could write; I could tell a
good story. I could even say, if I was being charitable, that my work had,
for brief moments, occasionally shone a light on very small dark corners of
the world. But why? To do my part to bring to life the First Amendment? To
make the world a better place? What a sick fucking joke! I had done it all
in the service of my ambition, my infernal career -- the only thing I had
going, really -- all in the hope of someday laughing my hard-bitten ass off
while I was handed prizes and cashed in for rubbing everyone else's face in
shit.

Compared to where I came from, this crazy place worked. The Master was no
god; was, by my lights, more deeply flawed and thoroughly evil than anyone
I had ever before encountered or heard of, and yet he, unlike the rest of
the bumbling mass, simply seemed to know what he was doing. He had so far
survived and flourished, had even, it could be said, triumphed. He had
created a horror show, to be sure, but one couldn't deny that what Yanni
believed and babbled about was, in rather terrifying ways, bolstered by
identifiable truths. The Master had willed a world into being, created his
own heaven and earth, and surely by *his* lights, it was all good. His
verbal droppings were regarded as holy writ. His creatures believed in him
body and soul, and, somewhere upstairs, on the eve of the seventh day, he
rested.

Yanni opened one of the doors and waved me through, following behind as he
pulled the door closed, the tall pane of glass reverberating in its wooden
frame as the bolt clicked home. As we entered the gargantuan ballroom, my
ears detected a slight shift in the hum of conversation, a descent to
lower, hushed tones, and patches of abrupt silence here and there. While
some pointed, most did not turn their heads. The implicit politeness in the
lack of the crowd's response to my sudden presence might have made one
almost believe I was a regular denizen, but my stupefaction was touched by
a shade of paranoia, and I was certain I was the fresh topic of
conversation at every table.

In an instant, the assessment gathered by my ears was, at least with regard
to some of the patrons, supplanted by the evidence provided by my eyes. As
I scanned the room, I saw a number of the habitues openly having sex. At
the table directly in front of us, one boy, whose silver chain told me he
was in his early teens, was on his feet energetically fucking a younger boy
up the ass. The long brown hair of the older boy was divided into two
sections, tied into pigtails on either side of his head, the tresses
secured by hair ties gilded by glittering yellow plastic marbles. In
addition to his transparently sheer yellow panties, the front of which was
lowered to allow his cock access to the younger boy's ass, he wore sheer
yellow hose on his legs that rose to his upper thighs. The younger boy, his
eyes closed and mouth parted in obvious pleasure, braced himself against
the side of the long table, his hands gripping its edge as the links of his
bronze chain softly sang, and the tight pristine flesh of his buttocks
jiggled with every stroke. His own yellow panties, the top of which was
adorned by a lacy filigree, had been pulled down from his ass to his
thighs, the satiny material stretching with every downstroke and
contracting with every upstroke delivered by the older boy. As they fucked,
the younger boy's exposed cock, hard and jutting, repeatedly bobbed toward
and then away from the table.

To our left, a few tables away, another boy whose silver chain indicated he
was in his early teens was fucking a girl who was around his same age. She
sat on the end of a table, her bare ass flat against its surface and her
legs akimbo, feet flying everywhere, as the boy's torso pumped back and
forth, his hard young cock sliding in and out of her lightly haired
pussy. Slightly farther away, I saw two girls, both flat chested and whose
bronze chains indicated they were certainly no older than eleven or twelve,
lying on a love seat situated in the space between two of the glass doors,
eating each other out in a very energetic sixty-nine. And, farther toward
the other end of the dining hall, I saw a slender raven-haired woman, her
willowy waist encircled by a golden chain, sitting at the end of one of the
benches while a preteen boy and preteen girl licked and sucked her fully
erect cock.

In spite of myself, I did a double take. What the fuck? I thought. Was
there no end to the catalogue of depravities in this place? I tried to seem
nonchalant, but my eyes couldn't help but stray to the perversions all
around, particularly the trans woman who was so plainly enjoying the
sensations imparted by the tongues of the two children. Her eyes closed and
head thrown back in pleasure, she caressed the heads of the children as
they savored her curved but bulging organ.

Yanni had moved away a bit, greeting the people he knew, which, of course,
was everyone, really. Seeing I had lagged and the sights that suddenly had
me rooted, he came back to me. "I told you," he whispered. Love always
comes first. No matter what they're doing or where they are or how many
others are around, everybody here can share love whenever they
want. There's no fear, there's no guilt, there's no shame -- only love."

"Always love," I again whispered in reply.

Yanni smiled and repeated the mantra. "That's right," he said. "Always
love."

I looked around again and saw he wasn't exaggerating. While more of the
regulars were concentrating on their meals than not, I saw many caresses
and kisses and fondles exchanged, none seeming to elicit much attention
beyond those sharing the gestures. In this world, sex truly was as natural
as breathing. My eyes were drawn back to the sylphlike trans woman, who was
now grasping her cock, pumping its stout length while the boy and girl, on
their knees and their mouths opened, waited for the gift of her semen.

Yanni saw where I was looking. "That's Amanda, but everybody calls her
Mandy," he said. "She's one of the love instructors at the Academy and one
of the proctors at Page Hall."

I turned to Yanni. "Love instructors," I queried. "You mentioned that
before."

Yanni nodded. "We believe sex, the sharing of love, is fundamental to
living, really living," he said. "It's as essential as eating well or
getting good sleep. It's as important as learning to count or learning to
read. So, like I said before, all the kids here are instructed in sex, in
the sharing of love, from the time they're five years old until they're
eighteen, at least one hour a day for six days out of the week. It's as big
a part of the school curriculum as English or history or mathematics." He
smiled. "By now, you oughta know we encourage practice, as much practice as
possible so everybody can achieve their own level of mastery."

"Brave new world," I whispered as I watched Mandy's jism erupt onto the
faces and into the mouths of the boy and girl.

"What?" Yanni asked.

"It's a novel about the world in the future," I explained. "It foresees
something like this."

"Really?" Yanni exclaimed, a bit surprised. "That's another book I'll have
to read." He regarded me. "You read a lot, don't you?"

I smiled at him. "I used to," I replied a bit wearily. "Then I became a
reporter and got more used to telling stories than reading them."

Yanni puzzled over my remark and then dismissed it. "Okay, well," he said,
"follow me."

As Yanni began to move, I reached out and touched one of his arms, bringing
him to a halt. I subtly indicated the two boys fucking at the table
nearby. He observed the two boys, the pace of their fuck obviously
accelerating toward climax as we watched. The older boy, his pigtails
bouncing as he delivered his strokes, pumped his hips harder and faster
while the younger boy lifted his ass and forcefully shoved it against the
gyrating torso of his lover.

"You know everyone here," I whispered to Yanni while indicating the boys
with an arch of my eyebrows. "Who are they?"

Yanni opened his mouth to reply, but, as he did so, the rutting boys
popped. The younger boy, now stroking his own cock, shot across the width
of the table, at least a few of his spurts striking the face of a young
teen girl sitting at the other side. Her conversation with another girl
sitting next to her interrupted by the sudden blast of boyish cum, the girl
started a bit, her body jumping slightly from where she sat, but then, with
a smile, she simply wiped the streaks of splooge from her face with a
finger, which she casually popped into her mouth. "Mmm," I heard her say
with a low moan. "Tasty." The girl next to her also smiled and leaned over
to lick from her face the few streaks of semen her friend (or lover?)
hadn't collected with her finger.

The strokes of the older boy shortened and then stopped, the sides of his
buttocks collapsing into shallow bowls of flesh as he exploded in the
younger boy's ass. He took several deep breaths, his chest and abdomen
rising and falling as his orgasm crested and then began to subside. Drawing
back his hips, his long and now thoroughly moistened cock, having wilted
only a bit, slid out of the younger boy's asshole. The older boy then
crouched, and, his cock still dangling, applied his mouth to the younger
boy's rosette, and began sucking and slurping his own cum out of the
orifice. After only a few moments, the older boy detached his mouth from
the asshole and rose to his full height. The younger boy turned around, and
the two of them embraced and began kissing, their tongues grappling as they
exchanged the flavors of the ass-infused spunk. Their mouths parted and
then it was the turn of the younger boy to crouch so he could take into his
mouth the white-coated cock of his lover. As the younger boy tongued and
sucked the older boy's penis, he grabbed at the sheer yellow panties,
lowering them further so the fingers of one of his hands could caress his
lover's balls while his other hand firmly pressed itself into the flesh of
the older boy's ass.

While smiling at the sight, Yanni spoke. "The older boy is named Drew," he
finally said, "and the younger boy is named Ethan, but everyone calls him
Syrup."

"Let me guess," I said. "The Master gave him that name."

"Sort of," Yanni affirmed. "The Master said that Ethan's cum was thick and
creamy, like syrup on pancakes, so Ethan picked that name for himself." He
gestured at the boys with a subtle shake of his head. "You saw how much cum
he shot, and how much Carey and Imogene liked it."

I nodded. I considered the two girls, who, after consuming the cum that had
come their way, had returned to their breakfast conversation as if getting
splashed with boy jizz was nothing remarkable. As for Ethan, or Syrup, he
had indeed, despite being an obviously young boy, shot an impressive load.

"How old is he?" I asked.

"Nine," Yanni replied. "Drew is twelve."

I suddenly thought of Sweet, of the copious load of cum I had seen that
lovely eleven-year-old boy shoot into Yanni's mouth the day before. Was
every boy here a ravenous and relentless satyr? I thought. Was every girl
an insatiable and incessant nymph? Trained from the age of five in the
sexual arts! I marveled. It was no wonder how, even before the havoc of
puberty, the children here were sybaritic virtuosos. The boys ejaculated
like racehorses and the girls flowed like raging rivers. Sex, in all its
practices and possibilities, was not a furtive and frighteningly perplexing
mystery, something hidden and rarely discussed that nonetheless wrought a
barely comprehensible madness, but simply a vital part of life -- of
living, as Yanni had said -- that was open to and shared by all.

Another jot of doubt spotted my thoughts. Before coming here, a part of me
had wondered whether I would find a legion of terrified and wary children,
so thoroughly pummeled into an existence of sexual exploitation and slavery
that approaching them would be like corralling skittish geese and eliciting
anything would be like pulling nails from old timbers. Yet, after the
passage of less than twenty-four hours, the evidence provided by my eyes
had blown that expectation to hell. The children here were undeniably
happy, polite, well-fed, well-spoken and well-adjusted, even educated, a
far cry from the state of affairs in my own world.

I considered I might be passing through a Potemkin village, that I was the
lone spectator of an elaborate comedy that kept the truth under wraps. But
I instinctively knew that wasn't so. My association with Yanni alone
convinced me there was no artifice afoot. After years of dealing with hoods
and tricksters of all sorts, some occupying the most exalted positions in
the land, I could spot a liar. Yanni was many things, to be sure, most
prominently a sick fuck pedophile zealot, but he was no liar, and neither,
I was beginning to realize, was anyone else here.

Was there indeed something to what Yanni had so fervently maintained? I
thought. Was everything I was seeing, which I had been conditioned to
believe was so depraved and evil, the way we were truly meant to live? Was
it natural? Was it beautiful? Was I the one actually living in darkness,
futilely grasping at the shadows on the wall of the cave? At that moment, I
found myself hoping Yanni was right, that all I knew and believed was
nothing but a castle built from sand, slowly sinking into the shore as the
irresistibly onrushing waves did their work. I found myself so wanting to
believe, so I could accept, without guilt or shame, the prospect of finding
myself in a tangle of young arms and legs, young cocks throbbing and
shooting in my holes while young tongues licked every inch of my body, and
young pussies poured their freshness into my eager and busy mouth. What
bliss that had to be! I thought. Such innocently unrestrained joy! I closed
my eyes and willed those thoughts away.

The sudden intrusion of Yanni's voice did a better job of whisking away my
musings, and what he said indicated that, at least for once, he wasn't
again reading my mind. "Drew is Syrup's companion at Page Hall," he
said. "But Syrup and Timur, a boy Syrup's age, declared for each other at
the Walpurgisnacht Orgy last spring, so they're lovers now and they'll be
sharing a room when the new school year begins."

"I presume Timur isn't here now," I said.

"No," Yanni replied. "Timur is at the Studio this morning. He's one of the
boys in the orgy video that features Pop."

"I presume Drew has a lover," I said.

Yanni nodded. "Yes," he said. "Drew's lover is Rifaat, who is Timur's older
brother, but he was chosen to be one of the Master's lovers last night, so
he's upstairs at the Master's apartments right now." He pointed up at the
ceiling of the ballroom to indicate the lofty eyrie of the Master.

I once again gestured at the boys with my eyebrows. "Are they dressed
similarly because they're companions?" I asked.

"Yes and no," Yanni said. "I mean, it's often the case when a kid arrives
at Page Hall and is assigned a companion to show them the ropes, he or she
will emulate that companion. But, in Drew and Syrup's case, they're both
members of the Ladyboys."

I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. "What are the Ladyboys?" I asked.

"They're one of the boy fraternities at Page Hall," Yanni answered. "Like
most everyone else, the boys in that fraternity wear whatever color the day
happens to be, but they go in for feminine attire, like panties and hose
and such." He again subtly gestured at the two boys, who were still moving
together, Drew now vigorously fucking Syrup's mouth while the fingers of
Syrup's left hand speared in and out of Drew's asshole.

I might have kept on standing there, watching Drew and Syrup, but Yanni's
voice again intruded, bringing me out of my trance.

"Miles is a member of the Ladyboys too," Yanni said. "And so is Pop. But
Miles lives with his mom and granddad, not at Page Hall. And Pop lives with
me."

Miles, I thought, that lovely boy we had encountered earlier today and had
seen fucking the mysterious Algaia. Well, that explained his attire and
told me he wasn't that much of an outlier, after all. I turned back to
Yanni. "Tell me about the fraternities," I said.

For the first time, I saw Yanni display a hint of apprehension. "Gladly,"
he said in reply. "But the morning's getting on and the Goddesses are
waiting. I'll tell you all about the fraternities -- and the sororities --
another time."

Yanni touched my arm, silently beckoning me onward. I simply nodded at him,
and we finally turned away, proceeding to an end of the ballroom where
there was a cold bar and a hot bar. The former was equipped with metal tubs
of cereal and a vast array of fruit while the latter featured, in its own
metal tubs, steaming piles of cream of wheat, grits, oatmeal and scrambled
eggs. Slightly beyond was a long table draped by a white cloth, bearing at
its center a magnificent arrangement of flowers in a great vase. The table
was piled high with pyramids of bagels, biscuits, bread and muffins on
silver platters as well as a great bowl filled with a small mountain of
hard-boiled eggs. There were slabs of butter, pots of jam and orange
marmalade, and great metal urns that dispensed coffee, milk, orange and
vegetable juice, and cold and hot water. While there was a considerable
selection of teas in their little bags, I saw no refined sugar, though
there was a bowl of sliced lemons.

At the end of the ballroom was a large pass-through below which was a long
table where trays, flatware, plates and cups were gotten, and where eggs
were made to order as well as bacon, sausages, flapjacks and waffles were
being served. To our right, next to the pass-through, was a large
blackboard affixed to the wall on which the day's menu items had been
written with multi-colored chalk, some of the items accompanied by
skillfully drawn cartoon renditions of the dishes. That day's lunch was to
be varieties of soup and a garden salad along with a selection of paninis,
and the main course at dinner was boeuf bourguignon with vegetable
risotto. Studying the menu, I shook my head in wonder. No institutional
slop was being ladled out here. If the Master's world ever suffers revolt,
I thought, it certainly won't be over the food.

Further on from the great blackboard and the pass-through was a set of
commercial kitchen doors, both of them constantly swinging as kids of
various ages, wearing long white aprons over their yellow bikini bottoms,
shuttled back and forth between the kitchen within and serving areas
without, bringing out platters and tubs loaded with food and taking back
the empties. Yanni led me to the kitchen doors, the two of us briefly
navigating our way through the squad of bustling stewards until we found
ourselves in a huge restaurant-grade kitchen. The place was an industrial
beehive, an attractive, thirtyish brunette woman shouting commands in
English and German at a group of chefs and small army of servers. Wearing a
short toque on her head, an apron around her curvaceous body and rubber
clogs on her feet, it was plain she was the unchallenged monarch of this
domain.

"That's Beata," Yanni informed me. "She's in charge of food service. She's
actually really nice, but she gets crazy at mealtimes, and she hates people
being in her kitchen who don't belong here." He nudged me gently. "C'mon,
let's go before she notices us. We'll take the long way around."

Leaving Beata's shouts behind, our feet sinking into the heavy-duty black
rubber mat covering the floor of the kitchen, we headed toward its quieter
rear and then passed through a vast pantry, emerging into a long corridor
that led to a private dining room, the entrance to which was manned by two
Guardians, a boy and girl who appeared to be about fifteen or sixteen.

"This is Evan and Rachel," Yanni said to me as we approached the
long-haired, heavily armed teenagers who were crowned with tactical comms
headsets. "They're in charge of Maya's security."

Despite his youth, Evan already stood at Yanni's height. His chestnut brown
hair, secured into a ponytail, fell around a handsome face. Like Yanni, his
body was lean but muscular, and the bulge contained by his black leather
briefs, its six- or seven-inch length stretching from his crotch to the
center of where a leg met his torso, provided a hint of a hard young cock
nearly as formidable. A few inches shorter than Evan, Rachel's honey-blonde
mane was also tied into a ponytail. She was blue-eyed and pretty. Her
breasts were small, no more than A-cups, which might give one the
impression she was younger than her years, but the rest of her body --
arms, abs and legs -- was an athletic, sinewy mass of muscle. Whatever the
difference in height between the boy and girl, it was Rachel who I found
the more daunting.

My eyes briefly lingered on Rachel's face, something about her striking me
as familiar. In an instant, it came to me. She was one of the two girls I
had seen eating Lina in the video of the Summerfinding Orgy. She had been
on her knees in the water of the shallow end of the pool, her hands at the
sides of Lina's upper legs while her mouth and tongue avidly explored her
commandant's cunt. I momentarily felt a pang of envy, thinking this teenage
girl undoubtedly knew very well the flavors of Lina's pussy.

As Yanni introduced Evan and Rachel to me, they merely nodded, but stood
back, signaling we were to be allowed through. As we passed into the dining
room, I heard Rachel say into her headset: "Ida Tarbell is with the
Goddesses. I repeat, Ida Tarbell is with the Goddesses." No doubt Lina was
listening because the next words out of Rachel's mouth were: "Copy that."

Yanni and I found ourselves at the end of a long dark wood table, which was
bare of cloth or service, and surrounded by twenty or more high-backed
chairs. It was adorned only by an enormous silver urn stuffed with a
striking arrangement of multi-colored flowers. Yanni led me around and past
the long oaken slab, and we passed through another entryway to arrive at a
large but still cozy breakfast nook.

As we entered, the wall to our right, which was covered by obviously
expensive wallpaper featuring a forest lake scene, was dominated by a
carved oak sideboard with wrought iron accents that even my inexpert eye
told me had to be an antique likely several centuries old. Our heads turned
to the left, and we saw a large circular oak table set before a curved
picture window that allowed a view of the length of the southern half of
the island, the white-speckled blue of the ocean beyond. At the center of
the window, one could see the peak of the tallest mountain at the island's
southern tip, its summit lancing up into the sky like the great bared tooth
of a dragon. The light in the room flowed from an identical picture window
facing east, through which one could see the row of tall cypresses on
either side of the long road I had traversed the evening before, its length
eventually lost under the thick canopy of forest, the green of which
ultimately gave way to the roiling cobalt of the sea.

A group of six women, bare chested and wearing the ubiquitous yellow bikini
bottoms, sat around the circular table, talking and laughing in low tones
as we entered. One of the women was cradling an infant, which was quietly
suckling at one of her breasts. Noticing our presence, the women fell
silent as their heads turned to gaze at us -- at me -- and then the
Master's wives, the Goddesses, rose as one to offer their greetings.