by J. Levy
The dream was surrounded by a purple cloak, whispering in the warm night breeze. Mary and Devon were lying on a bed of fallen leaves, soft and fragrant beneath them. Mary wore a translucent gown, made of palest blue gossamer. It trailed along her limbs, softly against her silken skin, draping lanquidly along her body, covering her glistening pink toenails. Devon lay beside her, in a short tunic made from the fallen leaves of the oak tree. It skimmed her bottom and as she leaned forward, her small breasts jutted defiantly from the confines of the leaves. She sat astride Mary’s feet and slowly began to move the gossamer up over her legs. Mary trembled slightly as the gossamer began to glisten between her legs. Devon placed her palm on top of the wet place, feeling the soft, moist mound beneath, then lowered her head, catching the gossamer in her teeth, lifting it away, all the way to the place she craved, to lose herself inside the sweet softness between the top of Mary’s legs, her hair falling in a silken black cloud across the soft lips as Mary’s breath fought in her throat as she whispered Devon’s name. Devon did not stop at the sacred place, she wanted to wait a little longer. First she needed to feel Mary’s swollen, white breasts inside her mouth. She pulled the gossamer higher, until she saw them rising. Gasping at Mary’s sheer beauty, Devon gazed upon a waist as slender as bamboo and two majestic soft tits, with nipples the palest shade of a milky coffee. She took one gently between her teeth, her lips wet with longing as she felt Mary’s nipple blossom and harden inside her mouth. She had never felt anything like this, it was an explosion of her mind, a fiery longing in her heart, a throbbing of her loins…
Devon awoke abruptly to the muffled sound of her silent scream. Sweat had formed in a pool upon her chest and she clutched at her face, her shoulders, her lank hair that was dripping on her forehead.
This was not who she was! Not what she wanted! She had chosen her path long ago. She did not want to be with a woman. She needed men. Men. Only men. She had spent too many years finding who she was to go back. Hadn’t she? Hadn’t she?!
*
Edie and The Others
Four aged men sat in a worn, weathered clutch in the corner of the lounge. They were a variety of the same age. Creased faces, folded skin, eyes lost somewhere in the back of their brains. They did the same thing every day, sitting in a musty huddle, drinking tepid tea, slouched in their chairs, their bones too old and weak to hold them up for very long. One of them, the one with the filthy yellow shirt, had a European accent. Austrian perhaps? German? Edie had always thought he was an escaped Nazi. His name was Heini and he had an evil laugh. She thought that was a bit of a giveaway. Edie disliked being in the same room as him, he made her nervous. Bernie sat beside him. He never spoke. Just listening and licking his lips. His mouth was always dry and he licked it with his thick, furry tongue all day long, but his lips never stayed wet for more than a moment, remaining crusty, like his brain. Like the solid remains of too many dinners gone awry, dripping onto his shirt, hardening there, until being washed away months later. Harold was the whisperer. His white head was bent over his concave chest, his hair grew in withered clumps in a circle around his head and tufts of grey hair stuck straight out of his ears, bolting defiantly at a ninety degree angle to his body. Harold rarely showed his face, always sitting with his back to the room and when he turned around to shuffle out, he covered his face with a washed out, tattered blue handkerchief. Gus was the youngest. In his mid eighties, he had been wearing the same pink shirt since he had arrived seven years ago. The attendants had it washed once a month and although the pink was faded and the cuffs threadbare, Gus refused to wear anything else, his screams vibrating all the way to the front gate if anyone dared to suggest an alternative form of attire. Every day was the same. Heini would pull a little black book with its worn cover and yellowing pages from his trouser pocket and read Mae West quotes aloud, whilst Bernie, Harold and Gus would laugh obligingly at every one, never seeming to tire of hearing the same thing day after week after month after year. Their laughter was fresh every day, that being the only thing about them that was fresh. Perhaps, deep in the recesses of their tired minds, they really believed they had life in their peckers. Had the ability to get it up and get it on, like they had when they had been young and handsome and unafraid. When women had craved them and they felt as if they ruled the world. They had loved good women and lived through wars. Fought for their country, for the rights of their fellow countrymen. The Constitution had been written with men like them in mind. Now, these four strong, vibrant men had been reduced to a foggy huddle.
Edie tried to force herself into her daydream, slipping eagerly away from the mundane present, back to her glorious past.
Edie & Mary
It was late in the day after a sticky, humid afternoon and the lounge’s usual sickly smell hung in the air. Beside the slightly open window, Edie sat in her favorite chair, the aged leather burgundy one with the thick, wide arms, the one that gave her a view of the gardens. The grass was overgrown and yellowing, having been bathed in a heavily heated blanket through the summer, as pink and purple flowers still nudged their way through the undergrowth seeking the sunshine. Georgia and Alabama had been particularly generous that summer, having clogged the northern parts of Florida with their relentlessly steamy cast offs, as Edie searched the skies through the heated haze, looking for clues, for anything that would give her a sign from John.
Heini, Bernie, Harold and Gus were still in one corner, having interrupted her thoughts all afternoon and now Walt and Oscar had come in, after their treatment, scratching at each other, pulling on their few tufts of hair while Fay looked on crying and whining and stamping her feet. A usual scenario, but a disturbing one nonetheless for those who hadn’t yet witnessed it.
‘Get away, get away!’ squealed Walt, as Oscar tried tearing at his arms with thin, weakened ones of his own. Oscar kept picking at him, probing, until Walt slapped him back, right across his florid cheek.
‘Oweee!’ shrieked Oscar, promptly bursting into tears. Fay spat at both of them and shuffled off to sit on the edge of the beige tiled, non-working fireplace. As she sat there she kept on spitting into her hand and wiping it down the front of her pajamas. Spit and wipe. Spit and wipe. The caretakers ignored her, knowing that if they wiped it up she would only do it more. Heini, Bernie, Harold and Gus had all slumped into sleep, as they did about this time every day. Bernie’s mouth remained dry as he soundlessly slept. Heini dribbled as he muttered in his sleep, one eye twitching crazily. Edie knew, she just knew that he was reliving his time in the camps and that one day he would say something in his sleep that would give him away. How she waited for that day, when they would haul that Nazi away and throw away the key. Gus lay in a shriveled heap, his face buried silently in his chest.
Edie’s thoughts traveled crazily away from her mind, as she clutched and grabbed at them, trying desperately to make them stay. This time it worked and she was back in her past!
Back at a dance, dressed in lavender silk chiffon with ribbons in her hair, a band playing sweet melodies, only this time there was another girl there and she looked just like her! She was dressed differently, not from that beautiful bygone era, but she was calling to her. Who was she? She didn’t know her name, she wasn’t calling her Edie, it was something else, a name that sounded familiar, maybe it was someone she knew in the past? Edie’s thoughts began to dissipate once again and soon she would be jolted back to the present and the heartache of the home. Her memories were fading fast, her lavender dress disintegrating and the music dying away, but that girl was still there, calling to her, calling that familiar name. Edie fought to keep her eyes tightly shut, remain in the past, seduced by a memory, but her eyes slowly, reluctantly opened and she was there, in front of her, the girl from the dream. Who was she, this stranger, interrupting her thoughts? She knelt down beside Edie’s chair, murmuring the name that began to sound more familiar to Edie. The girl had eyes the color of sweet violets in the rain and her lips trembled as Mary placed her hand on Edie�
�s and whispered the name again.
‘Mama. Oh Mama, I’m home.
*
Mr. Birdman
He had been found in a pale, deathly heap outside the school, his stiff, thin body slumped beside the tree. He must have been there all night they said. Dead. All night. From a heart attack it seemed. His shoulder was bruised, probably from the fall against the tree. His right hip too. Dead and alone. All night long. Would anybody miss him? Why would anybody miss him? He had spent his life tormenting kids. Teaching them history, filling their minds with stories of Vikings and warriors, of Henry VIII and his band of merry wives. Torture at The Tower. Princes locked away. Recounting beheading. Slashed bodies. Disease that stole lives. Bubonic plague. The Fire of London. Filling their heads with torrid tales of the past, then raping their minds as he terrified them with what would be done to them if they told a soul. Never tell a single soul what he did to them. Unlike the historical tyrants, Birdman would never leave a telltale sign. Mr. Birdman. Beady Birdman. Evil. Despised. Dead.
They carried him away and from the windows of the school, pupils watched, swallowing hard, their apples of Adam bulging through their throats as they realized they would never have to succumb to anything vile ever again. They were free. Their bodies and their minds would now be left in peace to grow and flourish naturally. And one day, these kids would find love on their own and want to love another person with their bodies and their minds. Chosen by them, for reasons that were pure and right.
Birdman had been clipped, leaving them free to fly.
*
Adrian
‘Hi baby, you OK, I miss you?’ Adrian smiled into the cell phone as he stood on the edge of a pavement in West Hollywood on a sunshine smiley, picture perfect afternoon.
Jezzy heart began to pound, the way it always did when she thought about him or heard his bewitching voice. What was that? Love? Or fear? She wasn’t scared of him hurting her. Just of what he could do to her mind. What he had already done.
‘When will you be back?’ Shit! What a stupid, needy thing to say. What was wrong with her? She was lying on the sofa, having demolished a huge take away tub of daal and aloo gobi, she had a Kit-Kat and a Coke ready to accompany her through a Sky-Plus version of Marty and she was longing to wallow in the safe simplicity of Ernest Borgnine’s genius portrayal of a gentle butcher.
‘I’m leaving this weekend, be back on Sunday,’ smiled Adrian into the phone, knowing the effect he had on Jezzy and longing to be back in her arms, where it was safe. Where he was safe. From himself.
Jezzy was glad he was coming back soon. At least she might get a better idea of how she felt if she could see him. Feel him.
‘I can’t wait Adrian,’ she said softly, not knowing whether she meant it as needing him or as a catalyst for breaking up.
‘Neither can I baby.’ He was watching a boy at the crosswalk, he was around eighteen with hairless shiny limbs, a tight ass and glossy peroxide hair that fell across one eye. They smiled slyly at each other and the boy entered the Boy Bar, wiggling his butt in Adrian’s direction. Sweat formed across his forehead. Effects of the sun? Or his innermost desires?
Without an inkling of what was going on six thousand miles away, Jezzy was innocently thinking that maybe Adrian was the real thing, but didn’t want to share the positivity of this feeling with him. Not yet. Not until she felt completely sure, all of the time.
‘I’ll jump on the Heathrow Express to Paddington and be with you in time for a late breakfast,’ Adrian said, breaking into her thoughts and disbanding with his own.
‘I’ll make you something nice, I’ll get croissants from Euphorium and salami and smelly cheese!’
Adrian laughed heartily and sucked on his top lip. Was he getting a kick out of Jezzy or just from the feeling that maybe she could save him from himself? He knew he loved her, that he should love her, but was that enough?
‘Really Ade, I want to see you so much.’
‘I know baby, me too. See you Sunday.’
Jezzy hit the red button on her phone and the play button on her remote. As she entered the black and white butcher’s shop where Marty worked, she had an eerie sensation that her life was beginning to end. *
Adrian
Adrian smiled to himself, the translucent rays of the early afternoon Californian sun casting flecks of light in the darkening gloom behind his eyes, then turned and walked down a side alleyway between the Boy Bar and a bicycle shop. He leaned up against the wall between two large recycle bins and wanked up against the one just for plastic.
*
Jezzy & Frankie
Early evening on a Thursday and the park was bright and swarming with tourists. You could tell they were tourists by the way they were dressed, with cameras slung across shoulders hunched from trailing the sights all day and the permanent quizzical, astonished looks upon their faces. Londoners looked down, tourists looked up. Accents and languages were never a giveaway, as very few people living in London were actually English. It used to amaze both girls, when they first came to live in the capital, how few English accents there were in relation to how many people lived here. London was a great city. Ancient and new, bold and beautiful, anachronistic and hi-tech. All things, all at once, all of the time. Jezzy always thought London to be a stubborn city, likening it to a zaftig lady with a brazen personality. London was like a woman with PMS, thundery one moment, sunny and serene the next. That’s how it was now, like the latter, on this hot, succulent evening.
Jezzy and Frankie had met in the park after work. Jezzy, waiting on a peeling, wooden bench, held up a bag with two punnets of Chinese food filled with steaming noodles, tofu and soy sauce. Frankie had supplied two regular Cokes and two Cadbury’s Flakes. She had managed to leave work earlier than usual as Sam’s mother was taking him to an early violin concert at Cadogan Hall. Sam was dreading it. He told Frankie that violins reminded him of a scary, screechy movie. She was seeing Manny later that evening, as he had spent the day meeting colleagues at Cheapside in the City.
‘Adrian will be back soon,’ Jezzy stuck a forkful of noodles into her mouth.
‘Manny leaves on Saturday, he stayed longer than he was going to and now I don’t know what to do.’ Frankie shoved a piece of tofu into each cheek. She looked like a beautiful chipmunk and it made Jezzy smile.
‘I don’t know what to do either. They come and they go and every time they do they take a little piece of our minds with them,’ sighed Jezzy.
‘You’re so dramatic.’
‘You would be too if you didn’t know what to do!’
‘I don’t know what to do! I wish I’d never spent the night with him.’ Frankie looked momentarily glum.
Jezzy swallowed too many noodles at once and spluttered, ’are you crazy?!’
Frankie looked up at the sky, squinting at a flock of seagulls, probably on a day trip from Brighton, soaring across the sun. ‘He’s amazing, but I think I moved too fast.’
Jezzy began to laugh. ‘Are you kidding? The guy flew halfway across the world to see you. I’m sure he was bargaining for more than a peck on the cheek.’
‘Adrian’s flying in to see you too,’ Frankie pointed out.
Jezzy shrugged, pushing a stray noodle into her mouth, ‘Adrian and I have a history and he is not flying here specifically to see me, he lives between here The States.’ She knew that Frankie knew this, but felt she had to reiterate.
‘That’s true,’ admitted Frankie as she began to pull open her Flake wrapper.
Jezzy watched her, and slipping back in time said. ‘Do you remember when you could literally unwrap the wrapper of a Flake?’
‘I do,’ smiled Frankie, ‘you could just twist open the top and slowly peel it down. Pulling it down was so much sexier than pulling it apart.’
Jezzy had bitten her Flake and it crumbled around her lips. ‘I always wanted to be like a Flake Girl on TV, being able to relish each moment without a care on the world.'
‘Me too,’ mumbled
Frankie through chocolate crumbs, ‘but at least we get a little escapism every time we indulge.’
They finished their Flakes, abandoning themselves to its decadence, fleetingly suspending their thoughts to revel in a momentary chocolate fantasy.
‘I don’t know if I want to marry Adrian or dump him and it’s killing me.’
‘Don’t you love him?’
‘I do. I think I do. Or maybe I think it’s meant to be. I just don’t know!’ Jezzy was in turmoil.
‘Fate?’ asked Frankie.
‘Shit,’ sighed Jezzy.
The sun began to slide down the sky, entering a pool of shimmering red and gold. The two friends gazed pensively upwards, between elaborate Victorian houses and teenage glass buildings.
‘Don’t look directly at the sun,’ murmured Jezzy.
‘In case it hurts?’ enquired Frankie, somewhat sardonically.
Jezzy smiled. They had an unspoken understanding, having been friends since they were thirteen. Men could hurt them, emotionally, verbally. Feelings could be trodden on, driven down. Therapy had never helped. Not really. It was just too exhausting. So surely something as beautiful and natural as basking in the sun could never hurt a girl. Could it?
Frankie was silent for a few moments more. ‘All I know is that we spend years, decades, searching for the right guy and then these men who seem as though they’re right for us come along and we torment ourselves with too many questions. Why can’t it just be easy?’
‘All I know,’ sighed Jezzy, flecks of orange shining in her eyes, courtesy of the sun, ‘is that I never used to question things so much before I saw Mr. Cruickshank. Too much time and money spent with that weirdo mind doctor.’
‘Same with me,’ agreed Frankie. ‘Miss Patterson totally ruined my normal thinking process, she constantly tried to drag me back to the past, insisting that I look for bad stuff that I never believed was really there and now everything’s always so convoluted.’