Balustrade by Mark Henry Page B

she withdrew. His eyes were cast down, heavy-lidded like he hadn’t just slept like a baby. And not just him. The rest of the crowd was noticeably tamer.
                  Subdued.
                  She glanced down at the glass in her hand, half-empty. A raindrop rippled across the surface of the tea, sloshing the ice cubes lightly. If the drink were drugged, why wasn’t she experiencing the same lulling effect?
                  Another squelch screamed from the pit in the center of the room, pushing Hilary unconsciously backward, away from her husband and toward the wall.
    The devil.
    The word popped into her head in a voice not entirely her own. The sound of it was a memory and she was reminded of the horror of the dream, that ridiculous amalgam of their trip, of the contract. But still, something was coming.
                  An ashen smoke billowed from the cage, bisecting in its cross-hatching, thick, chunky. It didn’t smell like anything was on fire, rather a sweet stickiness filled the air, the scent of rotten fruits, third world cities. It spilled into the courtyard, a low-lying fog casting the participants in gray-scale, a strange charcoal sketch.
    Shivers rolled through her, embarrassingly. She wasn’t this woman. She was perceptive. Intuitive. But never superstitious. The only thing sinister about the place, she told herself, was everyone's seemingly wicked intent to get debaucherous.
    It was like a calling, as though someone had poisoned the water with Spanish Fly or Viagra or whatever the female equivalent was called. Hilary reached for Jack's hand, clenching it in a fear-addled vise.
    Chantal was first to rise. And her presence was greeted by gasps and then applause, cheers. She wore the same type of dress, severe and black, tight to her form, but she seemed more vibrant, her lips red and cheeks and décolletage flushed with her apparent arousal. She smiled broadly at each face she passed, reaching out to touch and let her fingers linger on cheeks, breasts, crotches.
    “ Jesus,” Jack muttered and Hilary glanced at him to see his face flushed as well, and then noticed his robe tenting forward, open a bit where the fabric overlapped. Damn if he didn’t have an erection. Hilary reached out and covered it with her palm, flattening it. She heard him moan, slightly. Had he thought she'd done it as an advance rather than to cover his shame? The shame he should have felt, rather.
    Chantal made her way to a small dais and spoke briefly. “As the sun slowly sets, let’s take this opportunity to cleanse ourselves of inhibition, to rid ourselves of regret and humility. These are the barriers to restoration. Disrobe and take pleasure! This is your indoctrination! This is your journey!”
    Robes began to fall, staff and participant alike, even as lips found the hollows of throats and hands and genitals. Jack tugged at the tie on her robe, eyes heavy with lust, but Hilary slapped his hand away. She watched as he merely shrugged, tossing off his own vestment and walked naked into the throng.
    Hilary licked her lips, stunned by the lack of hesitation.
    She followed Jack’s naked form as he pressed through gaps in the wet bodies, his hands moving across breasts, buttocks, the smalls of backs, stiffened pricks and swollen vaginas, indiscriminately. There was a freedom to Jack’s movement to his boisterous machinations—grinding against this person, curling his tongue around the earlobe of the next—that Hilary, at once, admired and detested. It was foreign, unperturbed by convention.
    It was against the rules, and she was, if she were being honest with herself, a stickler. Always had been.
    She crimpled against the courtyard wall, unable to look away. Bodies now flattening into the low-lying fog of gray smoke, arms jutting, heads and shoulders wrenching upward in ecstasy. Thickets of bodies entwined like living vines. The pitter-patter of steady rain giving way to the moans