by Vina Jackson
‘They’re like mini David Beckhams, but younger,’ Alissa remarked, staring at them unashamedly over the dinner table. ‘Only with no Posh Spice to get in the way.’
I hadn’t seen any of them glance in her direction for a moment longer than etiquette allowed, but I didn’t doubt for a second that at least one, or possibly all eight, would end up in her bed at some point. What Alissa wanted, she got. And to be fair to her, they hadn’t made eyes at anyone else, either. In fact, they lacked any sense of sexuality at all.
Lauralynn took charge of all the arrangements, organising the necessary equipment, food and drink supplies. She was visibly in her element, bossing us around and barking orders, reminding us to wear appropriate clothing and footwear, which Alissa had to be reminded of repeatedly.
And so we set off at dawn before the day’s heat had fully extended its sticky fingers in our direction. Lauralynn had a map in hand, although I was puzzled as to how one could navigate through a landscape of just sand, dunes, and occasional arroyos. We would trek for a few hours until we reached the area she had highlighted for the picnic, she announced.
‘There are wonderful rock formations in the vicinity,’ she informed us. ‘A bunch of caves to explore. And enough shade to keep us cool under the midday sun …’ She chuckled.
Unsurprisingly, most of us in the group were quite unfit when it came to desert walking. Running or cycling on London’s mostly dead flat roads in cool weather or performing acrobatics on the spot was a completely different matter to treading for hours through the Nevada desert. We moved haltingly on through the hard sands of the desert without ever seeming to make much progress towards any fixed point ahead we focused on. Lauralynn and Viggo led our mini-expedition from the front, a sharp contrast between their advancing silhouettes, Lauralynn square-shouldered and amazon-like, steady, unrelenting, her pace metronomic while Viggo’s gait was a touch effeminate, swaying, thin like a matchstick and dwarfed by her determination, but somehow keeping up with her without expending any visible energy.
Antony, Alissa, the eight blonds and I followed some paces back, our gazes mechanically fixed on the steady horizon of their colour-matched backsides as they energetically marched on, hoping against hope their pace would eventually become less relentless, which it never did. I didn’t know about my walking companions, but I’d quickly switched off and moved on through a daze, impervious to the savage beauty of the landscapes we were travelling amongst.
I wore a floppy, formless canvas hat that I’d salvaged from one of the Ball’s box of props, as did many of the other walkers. Viggo sported a tightly-bound bandanna which barely contained his untamed mop of hair and Antony, who hadn’t thought to bring any trekking clothes in his small, minimally packed suitcase had been forced to borrow a baseball cap from the front desk staff which didn’t suit him in the slightest, advertising a brand of mountaineering gear he was never likely to wear even in the best of circumstances.
Pummelled by the sun, we all maintained a strained silence as we progressed, trying to keep up with Lauralynn as we ventured deeper into the desert and maybe unwisely trusted in her innate sense of direction.
Lauralynn finally stopped in the shadow of a group of immense boulders, and promptly stuffed her backpack full of water bottles into a dark fissure in the rocks to shelter it from the midday sun and, as we caught up with her, suggested we do the same. We obediently followed her instructions.
To our left lay an arroyo, a dry creek through which water might have intermittently flowed in other seasons, its stream bed right now just a wash of sand and dust. To our right, behind the boulders, was an enormous wall of rock rising like a wide monolith into the sky.
We paused for breath. Had we been expecting an oasis of sorts?
‘Is this it?’ Alissa asked. Of all of us, she was the one who appeared to be in the most discomfort, her features red and puffy and cupid lips drier than dry, as she passed her tongue over them over and over in a vain attempt to revive their customary moistness. She had even given up trying to flirt with the blonds, who appeared entirely disinterested in anyone besides themselves and each other, and hadn’t spoken a word to the rest of us throughout the entire journey.
We sat in the shadow of the rock, dwarfed by the vastness of the blue desert sky, like dots in a landscape, performing fleas seeking for a way out of a wide open labyrinth which lacked walls and boundaries and was, as a result, even more devious a prison.
I was fast becoming exasperated by the whole idea of this silly excursion into the wilderness and simmering inside at my own foolishness in accepting its challenge and Lauralynn’s foolhardy proposal to embark on this most useless of expeditions. As far as the picnic was concerned, I could as easily have munched on sandwiches and fruit back at the base in total comfort, laid back in the air-conditioned atmosphere of the Grand Desert Inn’s dining room or my own top floor bedroom there. Looking around at the faces of my companions, I knew I was far from the only one entertaining such an irritable mood. I badly wanted a shower, the contact of water across my body, my dry skin.
I hunted for the apple I had earlier desultorily packed away in my rucksack and pulled it out and bit avidly into it, enjoying the blissfully sweet juices released in the process, allowing them to filter down my throat and spread a thread of relief. To my left, Alissa had slipped off her checked man’s shirt and was down to her sports bra, momentarily seeking relief from the heat and the discomfort of the soaked-through material for the likely brief time we would be sitting in relative shade. Others were eating too, biscuits, chocolate and energy bars, drinking parsimoniously, not knowing how much longer we might remain in the desert, trying to parcel out their water so it lasted.
Lauralynn was climbing one of the squat boulders, her long legs extending in each direction like a spider’s limbs. She reached the top and pulled herself up.
‘Perfect,’ she said, and clambered down.
We all looked at her.
‘This is the place,’ she confirmed. She had long discarded her map.
I followed the direction of her gaze. Two hundred yards or so beyond the tall set of boulders my eyes were attracted by a shadowy patch of ground, where the uniform red colour of the desert appeared to have made way for a more subtle patchwork of pastel colours, as if the sun above had not been allowed to inflict its baking wounds in full. Apart from a few isolated tree stumps at the periphery of the area, there was no apparent reason for this anomaly.
‘What is it?’ I asked Lauralynn.
‘The magic spot,’ she said.
There was a sparkle of excitement in her green eyes. Viggo shuffled up to her and took hold of her hand, as if this place was a secret only he and Lauralynn had previously known about and that they were ready to reveal to us common mortals.
I heard Alissa behind me snort impatiently.
‘What sort of crap is this?’ she asked Lauralynn.
‘Oh fine,’ Lauralynn replied. ‘Spoilsport. It’s not so much magic, as the way in. I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to find it.’
‘You brought us all the way out here and you were worried that you wouldn’t be able to find the right spot?’ Alissa hissed.
‘Yes, exactly,’ Lauralynn told her. ‘But I did find it, so there’s no need to get excited.’
Alissa did look as though she was going to explode, either that or throw what remained of her apple core at Lauralynn’s head.
‘Just in time, too,’ Lauralynn added, pointing up. We all lifted our heads skywards. The previously bright blue, cloudless horizon had turned into a blanket of impossible colours, a vivid kaleidoscope of purple, pink, red and orange like a threatening early sunset. The air felt heavy, pregnant with something. Rain? Wind? It was beautiful and terrible at the same time. Sharp gusts coming from several directions at once blew sharp pinpricks of sand onto our bare legs and faces. And I was certain the temperature had become eve
n hotter. We could have baked loaves of bread on the hot rocks.
Lauralynn retrieved her rucksack without saying another word and began to walk towards the blurred area of pastel colours ahead of us. I looked forward, and then up again, and blinked. The strange storm in the sky was like a mirror image of the ground that Lauralynn was now treading on, and I had an urge to run forward and stop her from walking across it. Her form shimmered. It was probably just heat haze but looked uncannily like a science fiction movie portal into another dimension. Alissa was the next to follow after her though obviously reluctantly. She paused with each step, lifted her face and stared at the sky and then hurried after Lauralynn again.
I went next.
None of us spoke, rendered silent by the tension of what was unfolding, of what each of us imagined might happen next if we stayed out in the open. So much about the Ball and the shadowy Network in wait behind it, for the past few weeks, had been characterised by things that shouldn’t be, elements that bordered on the supernatural or the impossible. The way they knew us, understood our abilities better than we could, the hieroglyphic tattoos on Aurelia’s body that came alive and disappeared seemingly of their own volition. Bizarre weather patterns and unreal landscapes were just another part of the strange series of happenings that somehow I, and no doubt the others, had brushed away to the back of our minds, but the sense of wonder was always present. I’d long suspected that Lauralynn’s involvement with the Ball was more than she had ever admitted to and I hoped, some time soon, she would let the cat out of the bag and reveal everything that she knew.
Lauralynn and Alissa ambled through what the tall cellist had described as a magic area, and continued walking to the solid wall of rock that stood behind it, and ran for some way across the sands. As I neared, I noticed that the wall wasn’t as flat as it appeared in the distance but rather was decorated with jagged shards and points and crevices, all in the same deep, rust red.
It had begun to rain, just a few gentle spits, and the droplets merged with the dust in the air and coated our skin with streaks of orange. The blonds had all long ago removed their shirts, and the ochre and flame-coloured smears that striped their skin gave them the appearance of tigers, all streaks and muscle.
When we had all finally congregated in the same place, none of us any the wiser as to where we were headed next, Lauralynn beckoned us to follow her again and then apparently disappeared into the wall. Alissa stood stock still for a moment, let out a yelp of surprise and then disappeared after her.
Gingerly, I stepped closer, but was not pulled into a supernatural vortex leading to another realm as I had half expected, but instead discovered that what appeared to be a thin crack from a foot or so away was on closer inspection, in fact a deep fissure, wide enough for a person to step through. The opening led to a short tunnel, and I held my breath for a few short moments of total darkness as I stumbled through, wishing desperately that I had waited for Antony to catch up before entering.
‘Ouch!’ Alissa cried, as I knocked into her at the exit. ‘Watch where you’re going.’
‘Don’t stand right by the end then,’ I muttered back.
I looked around, and then understood why she had stopped dead the moment she’d come out into the light.
We had emerged into a large, high-ceilinged cavern, surrounded on all sides and above by the same rust red rock. The floor was totally smooth, apparently ground down by the weight of a million footsteps. In the centre was a huge pool of water, so clear that the bottom was plainly visible and the basin might have appeared empty, if it were not for the liquid sheen of the water’s surface.
‘Shit,’ Antony said, as he stepped through the tunnel behind me. ‘This place is amazing.’ He removed his baseball cap and flicked his fingers through his fringe. I was tempted to take the cap away from him and lose it amongst the rocks.
Alissa snaked one hand behind her back, popped the hooks on her sports bra and then hung it from a rock. She stared into the water, topless, as though wondering whether some kind of creature might be lurking, invisible, in the crystalline water. Her heavy, gravity-defying breasts glistened with sweat and cut a clean line across her body, the only visible part of her that was not streaked with dust, like two majestic jelly moulds that had been turned out onto a table.
A sharp pop sound echoed through the chamber as all eight of the blonds unbuttoned their shorts in unison and dropped them to their feet. They had surrounded the pool and stood totally nude at equidistance apart, the symmetry of their clock-like circle broken by Alissa who had now removed her khakis and underwear but was still making up her mind whether to jump in or not.
Idly I admired the bodies of the young men. They were beautiful. They lacked the striking curves that Alissa possessed, of course; they were like the low lands in contrast to her collection of hills and valleys in motion, but the fluidity in the movement of their limbs and the juxtaposition between the softness of their skin and the hardness of the muscles that ran beneath it was startlingly attractive. I could not look at them without being aroused. They possessed the confidence of a group of wild cats lounging by a water hole, relaxed in the knowledge that they were too strong, too fast, to even bother to look around and check for predators.
Alissa cleared her throat. She hadn’t taken so much as a glance at the boys’ cocks dangling between their legs, large and inviting. They were half erect. Their bodies seemed to be in a permanent state of semi-arousal, although their minds never seemed to follow suit, and they were all pierced. A slim bar, about the thickness of a drinking straw ran through the glans. Affixed to either end of the bar was a jewel that I could not quite identify from a distance. It was creamy white, and from afar had the appearance of a just-formed droplet of come. A pearl?
‘You can get in,’ Lauralynn called. ‘It’s perfectly safe.’ She was smirking, and I suspected had delayed giving us that instruction so she could perve at the naked bodies standing pool-side. It wasn’t like the blonds to be nervy. Probably, they hadn’t gotten in yet because they were enjoying being looked at.
‘What is this place?’ Antony asked her. I began undressing, something of a struggle since the heat, sweat and dust accumulated on my clothing made it near impossible to pull off. Antony stepped behind me as he talked and helped me to unhook my bra. As soon as my breasts were free, he caressed my nipples, as though leaving them naked and unmolested was an impossibility. Lauralynn’s smirk grew wider and she openly stared at my chest as she responded to him.
‘A network of caves, no more than that.’ She waved her arm around her. ‘It was considered as a possible location for the Ball but the planning group decided against it. Health and Safety and all that.’ Her last words were muffled as she used her T-shirt to wipe her face as she spoke.
I chortled.
‘Health and Safety? Really? I didn’t think the Ball would worry about such mundane details.’
The zipper on my shorts was caught, and Lauralynn stepped forward to help me with it. She stood closer than she needed to for the purpose and her bare breasts brushed against mine. My nipples hardened instantly.
‘Ahh,’ she said, changing the subject. ‘Summer, you sure have great tits.’
‘Thanks,’ I replied, drily.
‘She does,’ Antony agreed. He had moved away from me and was examining the cavern in more detail. ‘Great acoustics in here …’ he said.
‘I know,’ Viggo nodded. ‘It’s a shame to let the place waste, without a show.’ He was sitting on a rock waiting for Lauralynn, seemingly not discomfited in the slightest by the sharp edges that must be poking into his slim frame.
‘Too many unmapped pools,’ Lauralynn explained, ‘and the ceiling isn’t structurally sound enough to rig up the aerial acts. I know it all seems unreal,’ she continued, ‘but there’s a whole bunch of terribly dull stuff going on behind every magical moment. An accountant for every acrobat.’
‘Don’t ruin it for her,’ Viggo interrupted. ‘Stagecraft isn’t stagecraft when you know where the strings are.’
‘You’re right,’ Lauralynn deferred, in a rare moment of submission. Usually she liked to have the last word.
She squeezed my breasts again and stepped away.
‘Why don’t you two explore,’ she said, pointing towards the far side of the cavern. ‘There’s more pools through there. So long as you can hear us, you won’t get into trouble.’
‘And I’ll make sure you can hear her, at least,’ Viggo quipped.
The others were already in the pool, and the sound of their splashing made me long to dive in and feel the cool water against my skin.
Antony moved towards the passage that Lauralynn had pointed out. He too had stripped off, and was now wearing nothing but his hiking boots, like a caricature from a male strip tease show. I stifled a giggle, and ran forward to slap his buttocks.
‘God you have a lovely arse,’ I told him. He smiled, and took my hand, and we stepped through a natural arch in the rock wall and arrived together in another, much smaller room, this one peppered with pools with a stream running through them.
‘You’re filthy,’ he said, wiping some of the rusty sand from my side. ‘Get in.’
We kissed in the water, warming our bodies again with the heat of each other as soon as we had cooled off.
A sweet madness descended, its sounds echoing from chamber to chamber, cave to cave.
By the time we were released from the magic of the cave and all reunited and gingerly made our way to the exit, dusk was falling on the desert, fantastic clouds circling the outlines of the faraway mountains, the sand cooling under our feet, a gentle breeze taking flight and becalming our ardent skin.