A caravan, yes. I was doing well. I smiled with languorous joy at doing so well.
And modified, different. No usual caravan bed, no two-person modular convertible. Such words in the drift: two-person modular convertible! Amazing. This was lower, sturdier, heavier. Higher than a futon, lower than granny’s single. I laughed at that. Granny’s single. Things had been taken out, put in. Gemma had been busy.
Gemma, yes. It pushed through. Gemma doing it! Amazing, inconceivable. Gemma in the swing, by the house, in the Exchange. Gemma in the car. Dreamy and wonderful. Dream crazy normal. Falling down. I giggled at it, at the possibility, knew back there, in there, somewhere, that I shouldn’t be finding it so delightful. But it was. Delight spiked with terror. The clown had fallen too.
I tried to get off the bed again, fell back reeling, swimming, getting nowhere. But rewarded just the same. Rewarded with a dim yellow glow through the long window at the far end. A little sun—no, it had to be a torch or a lantern. I lay back, curious, fascinated, with worry pushing through.
Gemma. Or not.
Someone was coming. I could see the glow, could hear twigs snapping and crunching as someone approached.
Now I’d know. Now we’d have it. Dreams went like this, turned like this. The dread came on. No surprises. I didn’t want surprises. No more.
There was the scrape of a key in a lock to my right, a latch being lifted. I knew the sounds from a thousand keys, a thousand locks and latches. A door opened, long and narrow like a coffin lid, too narrow, and a long narrow figure rose up, stepped up into the cramped interior, brought light and terror in an instant.
It was a clown, a black clown, spidery, hairless, as gaunt as a scarecrow, a hideous black mannequin stepping in behind a tiny sun.
The dream had turned. I yelled, arched up and tried to flee.
The figure filled the space, leaned across, set the lantern on a ledge. It turned its face as it did so, turned its slim black form, its breasts.
A succubus, a demon woman painted as one. But another clown! Lon Chaney was right. It was midnight, probably well after, and here/now/this! Nothing was more frightening.
Gemma! Had to be. It resolved in seconds, in a rush of conviction, terror and panic that forced through the dream walls, unlike anything I’d known. Wake up, wake up, wake up!
The demon stayed. The flawed, dark Gemma stayed.
Or not Gemma.
Zoe!
Hah! This was Zoe! Had to be. Dark twin. Gemma couldn’t be. Not this. The white clown had fallen.
My heart tried to tear free of my chest, just like in the song. It was drumming, pounding, thundering through the last of the night, leaping into my skull and back, seeking somewhere to hide. I tried to swim, twist, pull away, desperate to avoid. That was everything. No touch. Black and long and lean. Don’t let her touch. White had been bad enough.
She leaned over, filled the world, placed slender dark spider arms either side and looked down, smiling inside the smile, the painted smile, no teeth showing. No teeth to spoil the effect. Smiling the same double smile.
A human face painted a stark, antique white. A true mouth lost in the huge black clown grin that reached from below her nostrils to the tip of her chin, swept up onto her cheeks, swoosh, drawn into spikes of darkness cleaving her face in a grimace, so manic, slash, slash. Eyes inside eyes, glittering from inside twin black stars whose lowest, outer spikes were dark hooks curving down to the points of her smile. Slash, slash, slash. So sharp. So dark.
Make-up again. All make-up, yes. No—but yes! It was Gemma in there, locked, trapped in there. It seemed. Someone like her?
I catalogued the dream, just as we’re told to, noticed that her hair was tucked away inside a black bathing-cap this time, that her spidery black skin was a long-sleeved leotard and tights, black, all black, with black gloves. Just paint and costume, but how could you override clown dread? I catalogued, inventoried, did all I could, but when she leaned down close, opened like that, what chance? What chance mind and reason? What hope of turning the dream?
‘No use calling out, little one,’ she whispered, seemed to, might have. There was drumming in the way, the pounding ache of the dread drum.
A catalogue was the only defence. I could smell greasepaint, the rubber of her cap, other fragrances, rich and wild, herbs and flowers. She’d prepared herself.
‘Gemma –’
She clamped a hand over my mouth, smooth and hard. ‘Good, yes! Gemma. Always who it is.’ The voice was a whisper, giving nothing. ‘Never forget! Gemma.’ She brought up the glittering spike of a scalpel in her other hand. ‘This is her tooth. Her one tooth.’
She took her hand away, stood back, whipped aside the blanket.
I yelled, fearing what she intended, tried to get to the light, explode out to the little sun. No chance. None. She filled the light. Manta, spider, she blocked the sun with her terrible face and her single tooth and the white clown gone.
She was up then and over, kneeling astride, pinning me, then moving down. I barely knew what she was doing till my penis was in her mouth.
My fault! My fault! I’d been erect. She had seen.
The old song came. Dreams hold old songs ready, bits of everything.
Sex and fear, sex and fear
Nature’s fool when death is near.
I’d imagined this at some time, exactly this. The clown mouth there. Believed I had. Vagina dentata. Now I watched me taken into the hideous gape, watched as mouth inside mouth took it, gave it, took it, gave, snatched it back into the warm wet rictus. Watched as eyes inside eyes, stars within stars, scorned, dared, defied, gave, snatched back into the hot wet. Mine, mine now, mine, mine!
I yelled, must have. And responded, too, thickening.
She was up, over, astride again. She had her tooth, her scalpel ready. It caught the light, bright and hard, as she brought it up, pulled out her own black belly, drew it right out over me, and slowly cut herself open. No, cut the leotard at the crotch, revealed the stark new mouth, glinting by lamplight. Then settled, leant forward so arms were beside shoulders, and settled, swallowed, snatched me into her, pinned me with her legs, her hard black feet.
Smiling all the while, both mouths, all mouths, grinning inside grimace, no teeth showing now, none biting, working thighs and buttocks. She leant near, brought her terrible, merciful, double smile down, set it inches above, drooled spittle onto my face, did it again and again, let it glisten, spin into thread and fall. Spinning over prey. Loving spider.
I must have yelled, must have spoken: none of it mattered, nothing remained in words and sounds. Neither of us heard.
She had been told to chew her food a thousand times. She worked and worked at it, good demon girl, kept thighs loose, legs locked tight. Her hard black feet dug in, squeaked with the effort, black hi-tops against wood.
It never occurred to me that she would come. I did, an astonishing, wrenching first, a surprising second, a reluctant, palimpsest third, and she never made an end. She kept drooling and humming and heaving. Then she became sharper, heavier, faster, trembling at the edges, arms akimbo. Her thighs locked hard, her sneakers cut in, squeaking; her drooling came with a gibbering edge, cut with little cries.
She heaved into orgasm, bucking, head thrown back, yelling with the burn.
Then settled, mad carnival heart pounding on mine, synchronising, double drums in the night. All I knew was that her face was turned away, bless her, that the clownface was away from mine. It left me with the drums. With the spider drums and not the face. No smile inside the smile. No smile. Just night. Night inside night.
CHAPTER 19
I woke one, two, three hours later, I couldn’t tell, still on the bed in the caravan but no longer restrained, if that had ever happened. I threw off the blanket, clambered off the bed to stand in the cool air.
No dizziness, no dreaminess now, none of the drugged, hallucinatory wildness or uncertainty. It was a new world, everything vivid and clear. I stood naked in t
he confined space, exploring the edges of the bed. Proving everything.
The restraints were gone. The lantern had been taken; but the growing light through the long window at the end showed it was nearly dawn.
All so easy. So easy to trick someone, create unreality.
I went to the door, felt clothing on the floor with my foot, reached down and grabbed what was there.
Not my clothes, nothing of mine. Female things, a light chenille house-robe, a pair of fluffy bedroom scuffs.
I actually laughed. All this drama, this terror; now milady’s boudoir things casually left behind. My spider had a sense of the absurd. Of course. My dream clowns. Either of two. Both. Zoe and Gemma.
The caravan was real, the special bed, standing naked in the new day.
Zoe had been real. All of it. Put it in your report, officer. The offence? Why, the usual. Raped by a black clown, of course. After the white clown had fallen. Make sure you’ve got that straight. The black ones are the worst.
I pushed the door open, looked out on the cool grey of a forest dawn before the day’s heat began, stepped out on grass and bracken damp with dew. The dark trunks of gums stretched away. The air felt wonderful. Smelled wonderful. I was vividly alive.
I moved out, treading carefully, making it mine.
The caravan was in the middle of a forest glade, set on a rise, with the land sweeping away towards the sunrise.
If it had been Gemma, then the drama was done.
But if it had been Zoe? If the white clown had fallen. Then Gemma was at her flat, wherever that was from here. She’d had the wine too. I had to know.
I stayed at the caravan long enough to check the bed, the floor and the wall cupboards. There was nothing. No tooth. No spider trace. I put on the scuffs and the chenille robe, all an intense cliché pink, and headed down the slope, soon came to a barbed wire fence and a dirt road beyond.
This would be a sight.
I headed along the road, robe flaring, penis swinging in the cool air. I was like the victim of some buck’s night prank, or a lover brusquely evicted after a careless remark, or—Carlo would approve!—a clown satyr heading home after a wild night’s hunting.
Finally a truck appeared in its rooster tail of dust. I held the robe closed and waved. I told the driver—Mac Salter, he said his name was—my sorry tale (the eviction) and let him drive me twenty-four kilometres into Kyogle. He was going through there anyway, he said. The caravan had been off Allers Road in Backmede. I noted every turn, every street name. I meant to go back.
With a parting remark: ‘Pink’s definitely not your colour, Dave!’, Mac Salter dropped me in front of the house at 14B Rastin Street and was gracious enough not to wait. I hurried to Gemma’s door and knocked.
Nothing. No sound. But the night had been real, that other part of it. My clothes and car keys were possibly in there too.
I tried the handle, found it locked. A quick glance around and I threw myself at the door, once, then a second time. No luck. The Powder-Puff Avenger. The Hot Pink Nemesis. I’d never done this before, forced a door. I tried again, and this time it slammed back. I entered, quickly closed it behind me. Let the neighbours wonder; let them look out and doubt. All was still again.
Nothing in the living room or the kitchen, but soft sounds from the bedroom.
Gemma was there, spreadeagled on her bed, still in white, still hideously made up, arms and legs pulled wide and cuffed to the sides of the bed as mine had been, a big piece of white surgical tape over her mouth, but painted with a huge red clown grin.
At least the crotch of her tights hadn’t been cut. The spider had spared her that.
But she’d pissed herself. After all these hours, little wonder.
She arched up, seeing me, just as I must have done in the caravan. She roared behind the tape and pulled at the cuffs, furious, raging at me.
She thought I had done this to her!
Despite the spiking clown fear, I hurried over, began freeing her hands.
‘The robe’s courtesy of your sister. I spent the night chained to a bed in a caravan over at Backmede. She did this.’
The fury went out of her, vanished just like that. She knew.
I tended to her feet while she peeled off the tape.
‘That fucking bitch!’ she said, as she swung off the bed then hurried to the bathroom. Just the three words.
‘Zoe?’ I said it because I had to be sure, needed Gemma to say it, confirm it. Name that spider.
Gemma didn’t answer. I heard the toilet go, heard water in the sink, heard the shower run. She needed to be away.
I went out to the kitchen, set the jug going for coffee, all the while fighting arousal, unexpected and real, all part of the terrible intimacy, finding her like that, smelling her piss, seeing the incredible fury. She’d been doubly exposed, needed to blame. White clown but victim too. Hunter hunted. Pre-empted. It had to be intense: the shame, the embarrassment, fitting back in.
There was no sign of my clothes or car keys. I’d been undressed elsewhere. I returned to the bedroom, to Gemma’s wardrobe, found a big enough shirt, some baggy shorts that fitted with the top buttons left undone.
Time was needed. Distance. Routines and chores, re-choosing. But how to know? The shower was running. No more words. Give her that.
I left a cup of coffee on the table beside my empty one—This is for you—symbol talk, and a few busy chore words written on a scrap of paper.
I need to check the caravan at Backmede. Talk later.
Then I went out into the day, spent precious minutes unwiring the spare ignition key from under the left passenger door, then drove back to Starbreak Fell.
There’d be time, chances, both of us rebuilding. Gemma backing off from the fury and certainty, me from accusing. You were the white clown! That part of it. Wait and see how she deals. We all need stories, words to step behind. Let her find the best ones. Let me.
Turning onto Edenville Road, I knew where my clothes would be. I stopped at the house long enough to get the spare house key, newly hidden behind a bonsai, to dress properly and fetch my camera, then drive back to the high point of the road. I hurried up the slope to the forest, pushed through to the tower and the scarecrow cross.
They were there: jeans hanging by the belt from the vertical join, shirt spread across the skeletal pole arms, tails stirring in the light breeze, shoes and socks stuck on the ends as impromptu hands, underpants on the upright where a head would be; some joke in that. I photographed the display, realising once again that photos would prove nothing. But they would be for me. I would have the proof.
Stripping the stulos was easier than I expected. They were my things. This was completion. It never even reached quarter-clown. Go figure.
Then I drove out to Backmede, reached Allers Road. The day was warming up by the time I found the hilltop and the forested slope. The barbed wire fence was much easier to negotiate in jeans and work boots than scuffs, chenille house robe and so much bare skin. I made quick time of it.
The caravan sat like a faded blue egg amid the gums. Getting it in place would have taken some doing. It was easier to imagine that it had been parked there years ago and that the trees had grown up around it. I took more pictures, keeping it real the only way I could.
The narrow door was unlocked, the interior deserted and quiet, a close, dusty space completely at odds with the nightmare chamber of six or seven hours before. The bed was still there, low and sturdy but able to be dismantled. It would be gone later, I was certain. This was an in-between time.
For once I wished I did have a mobile and that I could call someone, anyone, who could come and verify what was here. Alternatively I could wait. Someone would come by eventually, though for the first time I realised that I might be under surveillance, and that no-one would approach till I had gone. Only the camera kept it real, and I took photo after photo to anchor myself.
I searched everywhere: the wall cupboards, the floors, the ground outside, but fo
und nothing. The homestead for the property was nearby, I could always ask there; though I already knew what I’d find. The caravan had been there for ages; some old squatter had lived there years back. It was why Zoe had chosen it.
So how strong was she? How had she carried me up the hillside? Who had helped?
Maybe there’d been a four-wheel drive and she’d crossed the property right to the forest’s edge. Maybe there had been others helping to carry me, helping to restrain Gemma.
The usual cast of characters came to mind: Carlo, Raina and the rest.
I closed the narrow door and returned to the car.
As I drove back to Starbreak Fell, the paranoia only intensified. Were they tracking me now, watching what I did, fitting me into their schemes and staying in touch by mobile? I felt alone but trapped.
Being at the house only made it worse. Though it was bright daylight I no longer felt safe. Zoe knew this land. She came and went as she pleased, seemed to be able to arrange anything she wanted. Everyone was hiding her presence, pretending she never existed.
Around midday all the emotion turned on me. The shock, the fear brought the inevitable exhaustion. I napped for an hour after lunch, surprising myself that I could, and woke with a start around 1:15, fearing what new thing might have happened at Starbreak Fell while I was away from it in sleep.
At 1:42 I phoned Gemma, but there was no answer. Of course there wouldn’t be. She was out in the world, wiping away memories, dulling raw edges. I considered trying to find her, driving out to check the swing at Sellen Road, checking the pubs in town. She’d need comforting too. But where to look? Where to find her among all the parts and connections I had no knowledge of?
Dejected, desperate, I phoned Carlo and Raina, but there was no answer there either, just Raina’s warm, ever-polite voice on the answering machine, a ghost of the comfort I needed. The world had deserted me. I was tempted to try the Catleys, but resisted being so needy.
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