Renewal

I
t seemed to Charles Moreland that it had been a long, long time since he had had a woman. He was hungry for one, but despite his persuasive speech, his lameness handicapped his chances of being able to overtake a lone woman and “have his way” with her. 
	This did not deter his wishing, nor his frequenting such a hangout for the local misfits as “The Club,” otherwise registered with the authorities as  “Adam’s Eden.” In this place almost anything, save murder, overt rape or lack of funds was permitted, almost encouraged. The proprietor did not mind that his place of business enjoyed a dismal repute, nor that the low-brows of many surrounding locales made it their home away from home. As long as money flowed from the customer side of the bar into his cash drawer all was well.
	On the particular evening which began Charles’ renaissance, the place was fairly quiet. There were no screaming arguments, only a few sloppy drunks and  few druggies in evidence. No weapons were visible. An untypical slow evening. 
	“Adam,” for so the proprietor wished to be known although all his clientele knew well that was not  his name, actually came from behind the bar to sit with Charles as the latter nursed his tall drink and mused on his sorrows. 
	“Chuck?” a name by which Charles hated to be addressed, “What seems to be the matter, ol’ man?” Another term which Charles abhorred.
	Charles raised bloodshot eyes to the man, if such he could be called.
	“Adam, I am distraught. There is no cure for my trouble in these distilled waters, not even in your scintillating conversational presence. Ah, but were you a bit more charming, a mite more appealing to the eye, Adam, old sod, I might appreciate you to a fair degree. In short, good barman that you are, you are not a pretty woman.”
	“Oh? How do you know, Chuck?”
	“Adam, the thought that comes to mind is — would be, I should say, were it remotely possible that you are of the sex...I cannot say ‘fair,’ for such an adjective to describe what I have ever been able to see of you, you poor sod, in the poor excuse for illumination with which you flood the place, would be a most grievous misuse of the language which we occasionally speak —. 
	“In short, old master of the house, were you of the female persuasion, I should be more than surprised, I would be shocked, d’you hear me, shocked!”
	“Now, look, Chuck, there’s no need to come on like that. Yes, I keep the lights low, more for the clients than for myself, as you well know.” 
	The proprietor’s voice changed subtly, and something about the very presence made Charles look more closely at this shadow...within which he began to perceive a face, a slender neck and the upper part of a female...yes, female...attractively nude...torso!
	“Chuck, trade is slow, the help can take care of the bar. Shall we take a little stroll?” went on the apparition in more dulcet tones. 
	Charles felt a strong inclination to go along with this ploy, whatever it might be, if only to satisfy his growing curiosity.
	“My dear old sod...lady — if what I dimly perceive can possibly be true, against all the odds — I shall accompany you to my doom...but stay! I shall require yet another beaker of this distilled pig-swill which you purvey disguised under the much sullied name of gin...or is it vodka today?... ere I set forth on this perilous venture.”
	“Do you want to come, or not, Chuck?” The words were harsh, the tone not, rather sweet in fact.
	“Ah, sweet lips that summon me to...what I know not, but I come, I come with the bated breath of pleasures unknown, yet anticipated ere this night be o’er.”
	“Sweets, cut the bull-crap and let’s go...if you have the nerve...you po-et!” That was an epithet in Adam’s vocabulary as  Charles well knew, delivered in the same low, contralto tones..
	“Aye, I come. Barmaid, once more fill the flowing bowl, that I may go to my...pleasure more happily.”
	“Oh, I think you’ll be happy...before the night’s over, Charles. Come.”
	Charles, tall drink in hand with chunks of  ice (an ice-pick was a handy weapon) clinking against the silver sides of the vessel — Charles had not been far off the mark with his “flowing bowl” — followed after the somewhat shorter, indistinct form of  “Adam” through a doorway that Charles had never before seen, and ascended a short flight of stairs in almost total darkness...to what Charles perceived as a landing perhaps a half-story higher than the bar. Charles, by no means drunk with the alleged alcohol he had earlier consumed, nor as yet bereft of his senses, took another sip of his drink and looked about as best he could. There was, where he now stood, a dimness, not exactly light, but less dark than the stairway.
	To his quickly suppressed shock — he had tensed a bit — Charles felt his clothing begin to evaporate...could it be? Certainly he experienced an increasing sense of nakedness which had begun at his waist, moved slowly but inexorably up his belly and lower chest, down across his lower belly and privates. As the feeling of nakedness passed his penis, that began to stiffen, and Charles thought he could feel a hand, or fingers, stroking him softly, thus encouraging the erection. 
	“Uhm...? I can’t see you...Adam, is it?”
	“Do not be afraid, Charles. I said you’d be happy, did I not, Charles?”  
	“Ye-es. Th-that voice...I don’t believe you are Adam, are you? And if those fingers are yours, oh mystery voice, I know you are not Adam...or at least you’re not male.”
	“How very perceptive of you, Charles,” laughed the voice. “No, but perhaps I am Adam’s... better half?”
	“Uhm,” Charles managed to get out, his throat for the moment constricted, “d’you mean...Eve?”
	“Oh, no. D’you not know of Adam’s other mate, Charles. I thought you erudite!”
	“Ah...yes, I know of another ‘wife’ Adam may have had...or who may have had Adam...indeed, of considerable repute she was, not so?”
	“Yes. You do nicely, Charles. I think you finally deserve to be happy...you were so sad when I saw you below stairs. But...I must give you a choice...’Adam’s choice,” I believe it was once called.”
	Charles’ penis had swollen to monstrous proportions, far longer and thicker than he had ever experienced, yet he was responding  more sensuously to the slow, light strokes than he had dreamed his body capable of responding to any stimulation again. His hips were slowly and pleasantly gyrating in syncopation with those strokes. He desperately did not want this...whatever “this” was...to end, yet his mind told him that he was courting, if not actually about to experience, extreme danger.
	“Adam...no, that’s not right, it’s...”
	“...the name we do not mention, Charles!”
	“Uhm, yes, of course. Ooh, that was...ni-ice.”
Charles’ body jerked and shook as a wave of pleasure such as he had never known passed through from his throbbing penis to his soggy mind.
	“Do you want to return...down the stairs, Charles?” murmured the voice, the stroking lighter and more tantalizing than before.
	The thought that “down the stairs” was not what the voice had started to say crossed Charles’ mind, and for an instant he really, really desperately wanted to break free and run screaming down those stairs...could they be found?...but his body refused, no longer entirely under his control.
	His mind reluctantly, his tongue willingly, gave the word, “N...no, I abide what you...have for me, nameless one.”
	“Come, then, Charles, lonely one.”
	Charles thought he had moved to the bed...he believed it to be a bed...and felt himself grasped powerfully yet very, very comfortably by arms and legs, what felt to him like thighs around his hips, his penis, now throbbing with almost unbearable anticipation, slowly entering a wet aperture that what was left of his fading conscious mind told himself might be a human vagina.
	Charles  felt a pumping sensation, realised that his body was performing coitus without his volition, yet he began to enjoy the feeling and returned, as best he could, the embrace with the shifting shape he thought to be under...over...around...him.
	His mouth was opened by a smooth, warm, slippery, muscled object he took to be a tongue. It tasted momentarily like a tongue, then he no longer cared. He could feel less and less of what he had once philosophically defined as “the essential me — Charles,” while “the bod’” wrestled joyfully with the shape’s members, no longer wondering with what he was so gleefully entangled.
	There came a time of which all that had been Charles remembered was the ultimate bliss, ultimate attainment. Then there was a clouded period, the entity passive for an indefinite time.
	“Ah, pretty one, you have been happy, have you not?” came a voce...perhaps just a...mental tickle? in the entity’s mind. The shape standing at the bedside whispered,.  
	“Now you will be happy all the time. Set forth on your journey, and we shall meet again.”
	Charlene gathered herself, rose from the bed, found herself already clothed in close-fitting gown, nylons, shoes. The high heels made no noise as she moved to the doorway.
	“Through that doorway lies your future. Go, now, and enjoy...working...for me...”
	She was back in the bar. Charlene accepted a young fellow’s hesitant invitation and moved to his table with his other friends. The group was gay, young, bent on sexual conquest or submission before the night was out. None was drunk, not even tipsy, while their minds concentrated on their hopes and fears for this evening. 
	Charlene was more than willing to oblige when the young man who had invited her to join the party proposed that she and he adjourn to another place. 
	Charlene would return alone. 
	Another soul to serve the ever hungry Adam’s . . . wife?