“Since … taking stock … no way out … won’t be able to pick me up for months … off the freighter routes … payload to spare their fuel … too late … eaten in three days … hardly feel the fingers … my right leg’s useless. Can’t get warm.
“… monitoring equipment’s automatic. It’s so far from home … too far … heard things aren’t so good there, anyway.
“… wind sounds very strange … tugs at the buildings, sounds as though … some sort of singing …
“Wait! Wait! I can hear a voice … coming from outside … it’s not the wind. Definitely a voice … shouting across the …
“It’s her! It’s Lor … she’s calling me. She’s out …
“But she can’t be. It can’t be her … she’s not … she died, so far away … far away …
“No, I know … how she’s done it. I know …
“The ice. The ice! She’s used it … she’s come back through the ice. That’s it! Good girl! Clever … You see, Ruth, just like her mother … just like you, even …
“… a viewing port in the door. I’ve got to try and see …
“Yes. She’s … Standing in the snow … looks just the same. Just like when …
“Oh, it’s cruel that you’re such a distance from us … only you were here … all together again … we …
“I wish you could see her, Ruth. I really wish …
“Listen … my love, can you hear her …? If only you had some way to reach …
“… voice is different. Must be the cold. Ice crystals forming on her tongue, making her … breath freezing by now …
“She’ll freeze out there … I can save her this time. Save her!
“I’ve got to go now … outside. She’s calling. I’ve got to go to … She’s outside. She’s calling … outside …”
MISTAKEN MEMORY
The grey September sky swept by slowly overhead and a fine mist lay on my clothes from the thin, weak rain.
I was alone on the street as the lights came on, beaming down on the shining grim pavements. Stuffing my hands into my coat pockets I wished I was home already. The new job was acceptable but the district in which the office lay was not.
There seemed to be hardly any facilities in this area of the city and the narrow streets were endless. When a corner presented itself, along with the possibility of a fresh vista, an opening out of the closed landscape, my hopes were always raised slightly. Inevitably they were dashed when more long grey streets, stretching away in every direction, presented themselves to my gaze.
The one break in the monotony as I made my way to the nearest bus stop was a small shop that was always closed and had heavy curtains drawn across its windows. Nothing was visible within, of course, and there was no name above the door. The only identification was a wooden sign over the entrance that showed a painting of a pig done in thick oils. In this light – which was the only light I ever saw it in – it was impossible to tell whether it was an old and venerable firm specialising in farming law or a chic new media firm that made a virtue of performing nebulous tasks.
I often stopped on my long journey to the bus stop, which was still a good 10 minutes away, to gaze up at the sign. I also often made myself a promise to return here on my day off and see the sign in daylight. Inevitably I always had something better to do when the time came to keep my promise.
As I resumed my journey home another unexpected break in the monotony presented itself. On the other side of the road two figures had appeared, presumably from one of the many doors as there was no cross street or turning for a good few hundred yards.
The two were both male and dressed in a similarly shabby fashion with dark coats and threadbare trousers. They seemed pathetic, sinister and comic all at the same time. The pair made me feel very glad that I was heading to my own home and able to get in off the streets.
The air of oddity that the two gave off was added to when the shorter man, who had been talking away indistinctly but animatedly to his taller companion, lurched suddenly sideways. His movement was accompanied by the teeth-jarring crack of old bones as one of his knees gave way; his progress groundwards was halted by the other man, who literally dragged him back onto his feet by hauling at his coat. For some seconds the man dangled in the other’s grip like an old marionette waiting to be put back in its box, the rain glistening on his hairless head in the lamplight. His companion’s sour look made the man regain his tattered composure as quickly as possible.
Having witnessed the impromptu show I felt too troubled to laugh inwardly or even smile as I hurried on. The pair were almost level with me now and showed signs of crossing the road. I looked away quickly before turning my head back almost at once; one of them had looked at the shop and was fumbling in his pocket. Perhaps they were the owners … or the caretakers. It was entirely possible that if I hung around I might learn something about the mysterious emporium. I have rarely found anything as gratifying as having my curiosity satisfied.
I halted my progress, shuffled and coughed, then bent to tie my already perfectly well tied shoelace. The men had now crossed the road and were without doubt headed towards the shop. The shorter kept up his stream of words as the taller of the two busied himself with finding the key. If the shop was theirs, trade was obviously poor, judging by their clothes; the shorter man had a tear in the obviously ripe cloth at the back of his coat where the other had rescued him from his fall.
The few snatches of the conversation that I could catch without turning my head and making my eavesdropping obvious seemed to refer to better days and a popular relative’s colourful life. The man was insistent in his remarks, as if demanding that his companion confirm his views and opinions, validating his memories of his youth.
There was a faint air of menace as I saw, from the very corner of my eye, the taller man turn from the door and draw himself up to his full, considerable height as he shuffled closer to his companion.
The shorter man kept up his torrent of recollections and demands, never seeming to run dry of words. There was something vaguely unpleasant about his reminiscences.
It wasn’t until the second figure finally spoke that I scrambled to my feet, breaking into a run.
The man’s high, grating voice contradicted his companion: “No, no, Craven. Your memory is playing tricks on you. It was his eyes that Uncle Anouilh used to keep in that glass overnight.”
TOKEN BLONDE
His sweat trickled into his mouth. The half-burnt flavour of it woke him quickly. He grimaced at the unpleasant tang and wondered if Musel did that to you; made your sweat taste like someone had overcooked it.
Tomos rolled out of bed and knelt on the floor, appraising the situation. He felt like it would be OK if he stood up but he wasn’t going to be caught out again. He reached out and gripped a piece of furniture to steady himself as he rose. He stretched his arms. They seemed fine.
As he stood in the bathroom, emptying the night’s accumulated fluid into the toilet, he noticed that his urine had the same stink as his sweat. Strange, he thought. He made a mental note to ask Lise when he saw her later. She was the expert. In fact, he’d only been using Musel since he’d known her. Two weeks now.
Lise. Now there she was – his token blonde. He’d mentioned … well, OK, boasted about … her to Randall, who always said you had to have a token blonde in your fuck structure. But then Randall’s fuck structure seemed to change on a daily basis while his own changed at a more sedate pace.
Lise was currently at the top of Tomos’ fuck structure. He saw it as a pyramid. At the bottom were two redheads that he’d known for some time – one petite, the other more hefty for variety. Then on the next level up was the brunette who worked for a large banking corporation and who thought he was in something similar. Right. She was always slightly sweaty, it seemed. Tomos liked that; he imagined it was because she was always aroused around him. It was true she always seemed wet and ready for sex but maybe it was just her metabolism.
But at t
he top was Lise. No doubt about it. She was smart, sleek and clever, but in an unobtrusive way. She had a great way with clothes and always seemed to know which skin skirt to wear to get him hard without even trying. And blonde. Almost supernaturally blonde. She had her own money and plenty of it. She was a buyer for a fashion channel in the next city but one, so he mostly saw her at weekends. And tonight was Friday night.
The women probably all had fuck structures of their own but Tomos didn’t want to know. He didn’t ask; they didn’t ask. It worked.
He flipped open his screen to see how his funds were mounting up. He smiled as the numbers in the credit column steadily clicked up. His illegal sex tab business was lucrative and easy. And what business was it of the authorities if people wanted to sell their sexual personas on the open market? Sheer hypocrisy – after all, they didn’t bother too much about organ sales or brain re-tracking … and they were much more dangerous, in the long run. He was just a small businessman supplying a growing market. Small, but getting bigger every day. And with Lise’s help …
The Musel added a hell of an edge to everything. Once he started to feed it to his regular customers their sex tab transference experiences would go into orbit. They’d be hooked on it. And they could only get it from him. Sex and drugs, the perfect mix, the perfect business, he thought.
Yeah, even Randall must be eating his heart out. He’d love to take a crack at Lise. He’d love to have the corner on a new product that was obviously going to be huge. Poor small-time Randall.
He’d met Randall in the street. Three years ago. Tomos had stopped to compliment him on his haircut, though he actually thought it made him look like a fool and he wanted to see if he could rile the man by feigning admiration. At first he wasn’t sure if Randall was too stupid to know he was being humiliated or just too unconcerned to let it show. Tomos had been impressed by Randall’s grace under such withering fire and they’d spent the rest of the afternoon in a nearby bar. When they emerged that night, they’d been firm friends.
Randall still had the same stupid haircut but now it didn’t matter.
Tomos’s Randall reverie was broken by the sound of his doorbell. That should be Lise but he checked his pistol was nuzzled against his hip, where it should be. Better to be sure than not, he thought. He headed across his excessively expensive carpet towards the door. His apartment was small but extortionately priced and he’d ploughed a lot of his profits into the place. He could tell Lise was impressed the first time she saw it.
He swung open the heavy door and feasted his eyes on the exquisite blonde standing there. “Hello. I ache all over,” she breathed.
Taking her bags from her, Tomos ushered her to the sofa before pouring her a glass of chilled wine. He drank her in while she downed her first glass. “Mmmm. That feels a lot better,” she said.
“It’s good to see you, babe.”
She smiled at him, raising her glass. “Likewise, mister.”
“Bad journey?”
“Fucking appalling!” Then, noticing he wasn’t holding a glass: “Aren’t you joining me?”
Tomos shook his head. “Nah. I prefer this.” He slid an open packet of Musel out of his top pocket.
She put down her glass, stood and walked across to him. She tried to take the packet from him but he stood to meet her, dropping the packet onto a side table.
“Where do you get this stuff? It’s not just illegal … it’s invisible! No fucker I know even knows what it is! Who’s your connection, for Christ’s sake?”
She lowered her eyes. “Just be content that I have a connection, OK? Let’s leave it at that.”
He considered for a moment before answering. “But I don’t want to leave it at that.”
She faced him squarely. Her blue eyes held him fast. “Look, Tomos, I can’t tell you. It’s as simple as that. If I did tell you … tell anyone … then my source would be finished. This is more dangerous than you can imagine.”
He felt a chill run through him. “But you’re not in any danger, are you? Tell me you’re OK.”
“I’ll be fine – just so long as I keep things to myself.” She reached out and put her hand on the side of his face, gently. “OK?’
He nodded. He felt like a small boy who had been reprimanded but he didn’t care. As long as she was going to be OK. He didn’t want to lose her.
“So let’s see it.”
She lifted the case onto the table and clicked it open. Several neat rows of small blue packets lay against the expensive leather. He knew that inside each one would be a dozen small, crystalline flakes of Musel. Paradise that you simply let melt under your tongue. Heightened perceptions, lowered anxieties, enhanced physical co-ordination and, as far as he could tell, no down side. Perfection.
Tomos reached out and picked up a packet from the first row. It felt so light that it could have been empty. He knew how full it was and tore it open. “Hey!” protested Lise.
“What?”
“That’s for our customers. Don’t you have any of your own left? How much of that stuff are you using?”
Tomos grinned at her. “Just want to test the quality is all.”
She scowled at him. “You’ve used up what I’ve given you already, haven’t you?”
He shrugged, offering her the open packet as an apology and an invitation.
She shook her head vigorously.
“Why not?” he asked.
“I don’t use it – it’s for sale, remember?!”
“Just a little, to test the quality.” He raised the packet towards her.
“No.”
“But why don’t you use it? It’s fucking amazing.”
“As Marcus Aurelius said: ‘The human soul degrades itself when it is overpowered by pleasure or pain’.”
Tomos looked puzzled. “Marcus who?”
“Aurelius.”
“Who the hell is he?”
“He was a Roman emperor and philosopher.”
“Well, what the fuck’s he got to do with anything?”
“He hasn’t got anything to do with it, but his philosophy has.” She arched an eyebrow at him: “Think about it.”
Tomos hated her with his eyes. He wasn’t keen on being humiliated by her, especially when she tried to show off her superior education. As Lise trotted over to the bed, Tomos laid plans for an enjoyable revenge later in the evening.
Tomos let his eyes roam down her back to the smooth curves of her rear as she sat on the end of the bed flicking from channel to channel on the big screen. She was obviously hoping to fall into one of the endless re-runs of Transsexual Hospital or Neighborhood Slaughter.
He let his hand trace the smooth line, making her arch away from him slightly. “Hey, we’ve got work to do, remember?”
He sighed, feigning impatience. “Then why are you watching TV?”
“It’ll make good background noise. Cover our conversation if anyone happens to be listening.” She let the screen stop on the latest edition of Bodypart Buyout and turned to him. “You ought to take a more professional approach.”
His only reply was to reach out and touch her thigh beneath her skirt. She moved it slightly away. He took this as a challenge and pulled her towards him suddenly, kissing her long and hard. She didn’t resist.
“Well … is that a gun in your pocket or are you just feigning interest?” she laughed, when they had finally disengaged.
He hated that. Her laughing. Sex wasn’t something to joke about. For Tomos it was a very serious business. He had thought on a previous occasion that she only did it to make him angry – maybe it made him a better lover for her. He didn’t really care about that, he just hated it.
“Shut up.” He kissed her, again. This time he made sure she had no doubt of his intentions, pushing aside any possibility of smart-ass remarks.
Deftly, he slid her out of her clothes as she gave little moans of assent, watching him all the while.
Once she was naked, he quickly slipped off his own clothes and
joined her on the bed.
He slid his lips across her skin, stopping at her right nipple to flick his tongue around its edge. He concentrated on the area where her skin tone changed before sucking the bud itself into his mouth. He held it with his lips and insistently pressed the nub against his teeth with his tongue, rolling it back and forth. Lise bucked slightly. She sighed heavily and pressed herself against him, wanting more.
She pulled at him, rolling him to one side and onto his back so she could mount him.
She slid around his girth until they were locked together. Her half sigh, half grunt signalled that she’d taken the first step on her road to pleasure. As he grabbed two handfuls of blonde hair and pulled her down on top of him, Tomos knew things were going his way.
He rolled on top of her and relished her throaty gasps as he pushed himself into her, making sure his whole length was as deep in her as he could go. She slithered around under him, using his hardness. Unwilling to sacrifice his own pleasure, Tomos began to withdraw. Sensing what was coming next, Lise dug her nails deep into the tops of his thighs. “No, … no … no,” she whispered, half pleading and half threatening, moving her embedded nails in his flesh to underline her need.
With one swift, selfish movement he was free. The only price was a stinging pain in both his thighs where her nails had dug in, drawing blood. She glared at him, knowing what was coming next.
Tomos knew she hated it but it really was the most important thing to him. He offered to go down on her in return. Hell, he was only too happy to eat her out but she refused. In fact, she didn’t seem to like the idea at all. This puzzled him because most women he’d known had loved it, couldn’t get enough of it.
She looked apprehensive as he moved into position, resting the tip of his penis against her lips. For a few seconds she hesitated. Then, as if resigned to playing a part, she opened her mouth and nuzzled her lips against him, her tongue softly beginning to move over him. He gasped sharply as the exquisite sensation cut through to the core of his senses, washing him away on a tide of pleasure.
Songs From Spider Street Page 12