silently into my eyes and I feel a tightness and weakness in the chest.
He is getting stiff and so am I, the feeling of weakness now like death in the throat as we both are fully erect. Silver spots boil in front of my eyes and I have a feeling of squeezing into his nuts and cock as I lie on the pallet and Dink fucks me.
Afterwards we lie down side by side. He is talking in his clear grave young voice. I have rarely seen him smile and there is something very sad and remote about him like a faint sign or signal from a distant star.
'Middletown isn't like the town where you came from. There are no Mrs. Nortons sniffing around for the scent of whiskey and sin. We do not allow people like her in Middletown. To an outsider, Middletown is just a pretty little place, stone houses along a clear river. Nice friendly folk. But strangers don't stay unless we can adjust them to our ways. For those who must remain outside there is no land for sale and no work.
'Middletown is run by a magical brotherhood. You will hear about white and black lodges, the right-hand path and the left-hand path. Believe me, there is no such sharp line. However, the Middletown Brothers would not allow themselves to be placed in a position where they would need to use the usual methods of black magic. Once you achieve body control you don't need that.
'There is no formal initiation into the Brotherhood. Initiation comes through dream guides. At the age of fourteen, when I began to have dreams that culminated in ejaculation, I decided to learn control of the sexual energy. If I could achieve orgasm at will in the waking state, I could do the same in dreams and control my dreams instead of being controlled by them.
'To accomplish sexual control, I abstained from masturbation. In order to achieve orgasm, it is simply necessary to relive a previous orgasm. So while awake, I would endeavor to project myself into sexual dreams, which I was now having several times a week. It was some months before I acquired sufficient concentration to get results.
'One day I was lying naked on my bed, feeling a warm spring wind on my body and watching leaf shadows dance on the wall. I ran through a sex dream like reciting my ABCs when suddenly silver spots boiled in front of my eyes and I experienced a feeling of weakness in the chest—the dying feeling—and I am slipping into my self in the dream and go off.
'Having brought sexual energy under control I now had the key to body control. Errors, fumbles, and ineptitudes are caused by uncontrolled sexual energy which then lays one open to any sort of psychic or physical attack. I went on to bring speech under control, to be used when I want it, not yammering in my ear at all times or twisting tunes and jingles in my brain.
'I used the same method of projecting myself into a time when my mind seemed empty of words. This I would do while walking in the woods or paddling on the lake. Once again, I waited some time for results. One day as I was paddling on the lake and about to put out fishlines, I felt the weakness in my chest, silver spots appeared in front of my eyes with a vertiginous sensation of being sucked into a vast empty space where words do not exist.'
*
My time is divided between the library and the gun shop. The library is well stocked with books on weapons, fortifications, shipbuilding, and navigation and has also a large number of maps indicating the number of Spanish troops stationed in different locations, the nature of fortification, and the Spanish sea routes with approximate times when they are in use.
It often happens that quite practical inventions are for some reason not developed. Here are plans for a repeating gun with a number of barrels rotating by means of a hand-turned crank. A repeating gun is one of my dreams but first there is some basic improvement required in the gun itself.
Hans and I, wearing only shorts, are reading the same book, our knees touching. Here are plans for a grenade—simply a metal sphere filled with powder ignited by a fuse, and a mortar that shoots large grenades for a considerable distance. I feel a sudden quickening of interest and a prickling sensation in the back of my neck. Hans seems equally affected. He is breathing through his teeth, eyes boring into the paper as if he were studying an erotic drawing.
We look at each other and stand up, our shorts sticking out at the crotch. We strip our shorts and Hans grins and brings his finger up in three jerks. I prop the book against the wall on the far side of the desk and bend over a chair. As Hans fucks me, the drawings seem to come alive belching red fire and just as I go off, Chinese children set off a string of
