28.
-This is far enough, April said, tapping Scamander on the back of the head.
The old fool had been blundering on as if he were going to his own funeral. Which after all, he ha ha was. Scamander turned round slowly, his eyes half closed. He was shaking with such vigor that the effort of turning nearly toppled him. No, no, no. His head was throbbing with a monotonous mantra. Why were they here? Why was no one else here? Why were there no policemen, no nightwatchmen? He paid his taxes. No, no, no.
-Okay, back up into the trees some more. Fine. I’d offer you a cigarette but we don’t want to overdo this now do we? All right. Now, if you’d be so kind as to kneel.
Scamander was swaying from side to side. April watched him, lifting one eyebrow. The rolling of his eyes was getting to her. What nauseating cowardice. He’d be having some sort of sickmaking accident next.
-KNEEL, Katzenjammer!
Scamander croaked and stammered.
-Nuh-nuh-kneel? Wha-wha-why? Why should I nuh-nuh-kneel? Whawhawhafor?
-So I can shoot you in the head, stupid. So you won’t have so far to fall.
-I duh-duh-don’t want to kneeeeel!
-You have to! I’m certainly not going to kneel. That would be kind of silly, wouldn’t it?
-Why does ee-ee-either of us have to nuh-nuh …
-Why am I having this conversation with you? April hissed.
-now kneel down right now or I’ll kick your fucking stupid teeth in and I’ll stomp on your stupid fucking nose and I’ll gouge out your stupid bloody fucking ….!
-I say! What’s going on here? Is that you, Professor Katzenjammer?
Scamander turned and looked towards the tall figure striding moonlit towards them.
-Polonius? Scamander gasped, a sprig of saliva spattering the air in welcome.
Then, trembling and croaking he sank slowly to his knees, arms outstretched before him like Saul struck blind on the road to dreary Damascus. April watched, lowering her revolver in harmony with his descent.
-Thanks, she said to Polonius.
-your presence has effected what no threat of violence could.
She gestured towards the genuflecting and weeping Professor as Polonius stood looking from one to the other of them. His face was calm and smiling and, April considered, rather frightening.
-Good heavens! Is that a gun? he asked, pointing at April’s hand.
-Yes, it certainly is. Would you like to hold it?
She offered it to him, barrel first.
-Oh my, no! Polonius said, taking a step back, his smile opening and closing with a spastic intensity.
Scamander, finally lowering his arms, began to sob, rocking back and forth.
-What have you done to him? Who are you? Polonius asked, peering at April with reptilian sincerity.
-That’s none of your fucking business. I’m the one that’s asking the questions, so who the hell are you?
-My name’s Polonius, Polonius happily replied, extending his hand in greeting.
April stared down at the large quivering palm and closed her eyes.
-Oh go away, she said.
-Suh-suh-so glad ….. so glad duh-duh …. gug sorry gug …. Never shrash …. Gribwimplegugwee …
Scamander, still sobbing, was now trying to retch forth a greeting of his own.
-Shut up, April snarled.
-Go shombee if …. ever never couldn’t wouldn’t no ….
Scamander rocked on, sobbing and spitting.
-Stop it! Stop it right now or I’m going to scream! April yelled, stamping her foot.
Scamander turned his tear drenched face to her and continued to moan, imploring her with the tortured eyes of a disemboweled fawnlet.
-You asked for it, April said.
Lifting the revolver she fired it into the trees just beyond Scamander. The shot echoed back towards them and a dislodged branch clattered into the dark undergrowth. Polonius smiled on in regret, bladder on fire. Scamander writhed about flat on his back, rattling and coughing.
-What the fuck! exclaimed a woman’s voice from the direction of the trees.
-Tippy! cried out Polonius, staring over the convulsive professor.
The pain in his bladder had suddenly subsided, replaced by another darker pressure.
-Oh bloody Christ! April howled, staring wildly about her.
-that does it! Where? Where is she?
Thirty yards away, the white figure of a woman stepped towards them from the darkness of the trees, followed shortly by the figure of a man. This last came forward awkwardly, hands at his groin like a penalized soccer player. April stared. Was it Tippy? It did look a bit like her, same height, same lovely shape. No, it couldn’t be. Good God, it was …
-I’m sorry, Polonius said, addressing the new arrival.
-for a moment I thought you were someone I knew.
Scamander meanwhile had scrambled himself into a crouch and was also staring wide-eyed at the emergent couple. He started, lost his balance, and sat down on the grass.
-Cecilia! Farotitius! he cried.
The couple stared at each other.
-Godfrey?
-Carla?
Recognition descended like mustard gas as the five stared round at one another.
-Polonius!
-Farotitius!
-Scamander!
-Ms. Hallalise!
-Cecily!
Jesus Christ, April thought to herself. Every bullet will have to count now.
29.
-Now? Apollo asked.
-Now, Venus replied, and vanished.
Apollo crushed the last beer can in his hands and plunged after his sister.
30.
Tippy lay in the soft shadows of her bed, barged and murmuring with languid movement. Lightly she fingered the moist pips of her nipples, sucked bloodblue. Undercover of the bedclothes, Eliot flourished his head between her lifted knees in loving exploration of her third passage. Tippy’s breath came in slow regular expirations, the rhythm dictated by her husband’s fingers, tongue, and cock. Their two bodies were drenched in the smell and moisture of the other, the sheets clinging with the pale velvet glue of sex. A colored moth bounced lightly from eyelid to eyelid. Tippy sat up.
-What was that? she whispered, turning towards the bedroom window.
With a rustle the bedclothes were flung back and her husband’s face appeared, shining and wet, and framed by her parted thighs.
-I’m afraid I can’t … Eliot began, blinking blue eyes up at her.
Tippy smiled, reached to the bedside table and passed him his glasses. He slid up next to her, one arm around her waist, the other supporting her slender shoulders. They peered towards the window.
-How odd, he murmured.
The sun had been down for hours but now a rosy light could be seen pulsing through the parted curtains. The light seemed to be swaying with an aquatic, lilting motion. Not as with the reflected illumination of some distant fire or explosion but with a movement altogether different, not of the world of day or night.
-What is it? Tippy asked, turning her cheek to her husband’s caress.
-I’ve no idea. It seems to be coming from the park. It’s rather lovely though, wouldn’t you say?
-Oh yes. But strange.
As Tippy watched the subdued dancing of the rose aureole, she once more grew conscious of her body and that of her husband, pressed length to length behind her. She lay back in his arms and grazed her hand, barely gliding over his right nipple. His breath was warm, excited. Tippy moved her hand to his shoulder and forced him gently onto his back. She crouched over him, leaning on her elbows, her knees dipping in at the waist. As her lips touched his she reached her hand down to his stiff penis and tilting it ever so slightly, slid down, down till she had grooved him up to the hard root. When she felt the tiny pricklings of his hair at her tenderskinned anus she released his mouth and slowly straightened her back. Then, gripping her husband with her quim, Tippy began to ride.
31.
In the park all was still. The gallery of five, though aware for an instant of an alteration of light and an overwhelming sensation of being engulfed in a womb-red whirling fog, were aware no longer. They stood in a rough half-circle, gazing at this newest arrival. Venus stood before them, one hand on her hip, the other pressed slim-fingered to her smiling lips. She looked in their faces. Polonius, April, Farotitius, Scamander, Cecily.
-Darlings, she began, we’ve little time to waste, so no cowering or running away or demanding of explanations please. Brother dear, are you with us?
-Here I am, Apollo replied, stepping from the shadows behind the five.
Flinging a crushed beer can into the bushes he sauntered over to his sister. The faces swiveled in mechanical unison.
-Now, Venus said, dropping her voice a melodious octave, listen.
Ah, Apollo thought, here she goes. In a moment we’ll have background music. Something tasteful like “The Testicles of Uranus”. A sudden trill of icy notes raised the hairs on his neck. Turning he saw the two nymphs, shadowed at the base of a nearby elm. Spolia at her harpsichord and Opima at the glockenspiel. He turned back to his sister.
-A FEVERISH GIRL, IN A ROBE OF WATER, OPENS AND CLOSES,
BLOSSOMING LIKE A FLEUR JAPONAISE. HER GAME IS ONE OF
MAKE BELIEVE. SHE IMAGINES AN ARBOR OF SOFT GRASSES.
RED FESCUE, FESTUCA OVINA, BLUE FYLKING, PUCCINELLA,
RUSSIAN TIMOTHY, MEADOW FOXTAILS. THE ROBE OF SOFT
GRASS SWAYS UPON HER GLEAMING SKIN, SPONGING THE
FRAGRANT BEADS OF SWEAT ALL ALONG THE COMPLICITOUS SKIN ….
Apollo smiled, watching the passive faces of his sister’s enchanted audience. She’s so full of shit. Still, she gets results. If he squinted hard enough he could just make out what it was that they were seeing. His incomparable sister, no longer clad in jean-jacket and tight, wrinkled jeans, but transformed, green-eyed invincible Goddess of Fucking. She was nude except for a triangle of thirteen rubies, loosely bound together, dangling before her pubis and fastened round her hips by a single spider’s thread. A string of thirteen pearls hung down along the cleft of her ass. Her breasts were bare but obscured from view by the permanent flight about her upper body of a dozen translucent and bloodied butterflies. He blinked and she was restored to jeans and sabered tee-shirt. Her voice droned on:
-FRAIL LEPIDOPTEROUS PETALS BETWEEN TWIN GULFS OF
SLEEP. GOLDEN CARESSING WINGS STIR ONLY DUST, THEIR
DECIDUOUS GRACE POWERLESS TO PREVENT OUR PENETRATION OF THEIR CORAL SEX. THE TOPAZ WATERS OF
THAT GAZE, THE ROAR OF SLEEPLESS SEAS UPON HER LIPS.
SHE LOSES HER BALANCE ON A FOOTHOLD OF WATER AND
AIR, AT NIGHT, AMID THE DARK GROVES OF THE SEA ……
THE DARK GROVES LIGHTENING TO RELEASE ……..
AN OCEAN OF BIRDS!
The fucking “Bird-Vision” again, sighed Apollo, squinting once more at his sister. Venus was swaying where she stood, her arms curving and crossing the air in a parody of some faintly recollected Cretan bull-dance. And about her arms, her head, her shoulders and her feet hovered two-dozen or so birds, miniatures of velvet and glass, but alive, very alive. Storm petrel, red-faced cormorant, glaucus-winged gull, ancient murrelet, black-legged kittiwake, horned puffin, harlequin duck, uncommon goldeneye, king eider, sharp-shinned hawk, gryfalcon, blood-breasted merganser, violet-green swallow, water pipit, bohemian waxwing, fox sparrow, snow bunting, mongolian plover, parasitic jaeger, pale-footed shearwater, sakhalin nightingale. Apollo glanced behind him. Spolia and Opima were taking a break, flirting their long tresses into each others’ faces and giggling. In any event there was little point in attempting to compete with the deafening birdsong his sister had inaugurated. He looked at Venus. Her face was a mask of pale intensity, eyes burning, lips parted in a half-smile, voice husked soft and low as she finished her spell.
-IN THE BLACKOUT OF LOVE ANOTHER LOVE STIRS. A DRIFT
OF MIST ABOUT A FLOWER. ICE, SHATTERING IN SUNLIGHT.
CAPTIVE DOVES LOOSED THROUGH THE SQUALOR OF A
BLACKENED SKY. BLOOD WARMS THE FROZEN VEINS AS
THOUGH THIS BODY WERE THE CENTER OF THE WORLD.
LOOK! …. Look! ….. look ….
Apollo widened his eyes, letting the birds fade. Venus had thrown back her shoulders, sending Bertrand Russell shivering down her front. Slowly, she let her arms descend. Unzipping her jeans she wriggled her hips till they were free and uncovered herself from navel to knees. From under her jacket Apollo saw the white half-moon of her lovely ass. She slid her right hand between her legs, the triangle of shadows swallowing her middle finger. A melody in the key of F minor rose like a spray of perfume over his shoulder. Venus began to thrust, gentling her hips to the center of her patient hand. Apollo took several steps back, his eyes still on his masturbating sister. Then he saw what the others saw. A golden-haired naked twelve-year old squatted before them. Lifting his fingers to his mouth he sucked, letting the spittle drip between his fingers. He touched his fingers to his right nipple, smoothing them over and over till his chest glistened with damp trails, like the silvered snot of a snail. As he moistened himself his small prick stiffened, lifting its redness along the inside of his thigh and rose, slender blue-veined column. Taking hold of himself the boy began to caress his shaft. His movements were slow and delicate as though he were consoling a wounded, hostile pet. He would pause now and then, releasing himself and touching tentative fingers to his prick’s raw and scarlet cap. He would then resume his petting, quickening the ride of his encircling fingers until his whole body quivered in its rhythm. Apollo looked up towards the night’s distant ceiling. Pinprick stars quivered white and blue, hinting at an ocean of flame surging beyond the moth-eaten silk of the black sky. When he looked back the air was fluted, a mirror of water undulating the image of the boy. The boy’s head was thrown back, his legs spread wide, his small balls bobbing as he fisted his cock with both hands. Behind him stood a bearded man, his naked darkness framing the pale skin of the young boy. His own cock loomed above the boy’s head, risen in stout sympathy. Taking him by the shoulders he lowered him gently forward, until the boy’s forehead touched the ground, golden hair streaming in the grass. The boy stretched out his arms on either side of his head, his pale rear lifted high in the air. The bearded man crouched down behind him, reaching one hand between the boy’s legs to resume the jerking of his prick. With his other hand he steadied the boy’s waist and after brushing his beard lightly over his back he buried his face in the boy’s buttocks. The boy began to whimper, turning his head from side to side and rotating his backside as the bearded man’s cheeks puffed and collapsed, his mouth sucking at the boy’s anus. His spine trembling, the boy gave a stifled cry as a gush of semen shot over his chest and face. The air blurred like touched water and the boy was no longer a boy. The man rose to his feet, beard glistering and sparkling. Brushing her hair from her eyes the blond girl turned to face him, still on her knees. As he stepped towards her she opened her mouth to receive him, lips pouting full as the head of his cock disappeared inside her. She took hold of him by the buttocks, her long fingernails tracing and scoring the tight muscles. He placed his hands upon her moving head, moaning a benediction as a thin rivulet of blood sprang along his flank, running between her fingers. Twining her hair in his hands he began to lift himself to her, blood speckling the grass around his feet as he thrust himself in and out of the girl’s mouth. After a final laceration of her nails she took her mouth away and grabbing hold of his hands she swooned onto her back, drawing him down to his knees. As he crouched over her she raised her legs above his head, straddling his shoulders. With her hands supporting her lower back she lifted herself to him and began to rub her pussy against his chest. She closed her eyes, her lips forming a sleeping child’s smile. She moaned once, then twice, as his hands grasped her by the ass to press her more tightly to him. Apollo glanced towards the elm tree. The harpsichord sat deserted. He looked back to the entangled bodies of the two girls. He could no longer see the blond girl’s face, hidden now by the moving buttocks of a new apparition. A dark-skinned girl was smoothing her hair slowly back and forth across the blond girl’s thighs. After a moment she brought her mouth to the girl’s slit, tongue stretching to the dark rose. Her lips closed upon the soft flower, kissing and caressing the folds of moist skin. Her tongue flicked and strafed, going soft as she licked a slow circle. She paused at the zenith of the outer labia to suck and nibble, teeth like small pearls against the soaking scarlet, tongue stiffening then to plunge and replunge into the dark goblet. Apollo watched as the girls fucked, tongues like lizards about the velvet grooves. Suddenly the dark girl lifted her head, furrowing her brow in seeming agony as a shudder took hold of her thighs. She lifted her ass and Apollo caught a glimpse of the other girl’s spittle-drenched face. The dark girl groaned into the other’s thighs, straining to a kiss even as she came. A moment later the blond girl shuddered and began to cry out as her companion slid her head to one side, a spattering of cream whitening her tongue and lips. A sound of shattering glass shook through the tops of the swaying trees, outlined in darkness. Apollo looked up as one by one the starry pinpricks flared and faded. And it was no longer the blond girl but his sister steepling up the stuttering scale of a loud, lavish orgasm.
32.
Apollo leaned forward and studied the faces of the hushed audience. Each wore the same expression of drugged and idiot serenity, lips parted with the cool restful peace of the well-fucked. Scamander darted his tongue to catch a tear which had run down his cheek. Apollo moved quietly behind April, taking the revolver from her hand. She was oblivious. The gun slipped through his fingers, a blueblack stream of dust. Venus gave a deep sigh and zipped up her jeans. She lifted her fingers to her nostrils and smiled. The spell was cast. She walked towards them and pausing before each one, kissed them lightly on the mouth. Then, drawing April by the hand she stepped back. Her eyes were black and fierce, made the more intense by the stillness of her calm face. She looked from Farotitius to Scamander and back again and lifted her hand in benign dismissal. Her eyes widened to pale blue as she turned from Polonius to Cecily and back to Polonius. They too received her blessing and farewell. Apollo watched the couples go. The two men walked away slowly, in the direction of the gate through which April had herded the older man just a short time before. They walked arm in arm, and Farotitius inclined his head to Scamander’s ear. Scamander nodded and they quickened their step. Polonius and Cecily walked towards the trees, neither one touching. Polonius no longer needed to urinate nor was he desperate for a cup of Mouton Viole espresso. As he walked along he stole a glance at the side of the woman’s face. Not Tippy, but almost. She was, he realized, much closer to the dream Tippy than the other, real one, much more like the custard-stained, love-drenched woman he had spent each night with, the last few months. Polonius slid his hand in his pants pocket and touched the ache of his erection. He could not remember her name. That was okay. He would ask her, afterwards. For her part Cecily’s silence was lynx-like. There would be much to celebrate in the cathedral of sheltering trees. When both couples had disappeared from sight Venus turned her green eyes on April. Putting her arms around the woman’s waist Venus pressed her lips to April’s throat. Instantly the two women were enveloped in a sheath of orange flame which flared to a white roaring and vanished. From the patch of singed grass where they had been standing rose a plume of smoke, giving off the scent of lime and come and roses as it ascended lazily to dissipate in the night air.
33.
Apollo turned and walked toward the elm tree. The harpsichord was gone. At the base of the tree Apollo spied a pair of Opima’s ribbons. He picked them up and held them to his face. Stuffing them in his pocket, he sighed. He had hoped to end the evening between little Opima’s thighs but Spolia had clearly beaten him to it.
-Evening, sir.
Apollo started. Beside him stood a tall man in a greasy raincoat and grey homburg.
-Good evening, Apollo replied. Lehman, isn’t it?
-Yes, that’s the name.
He spoke with the slight accent of an exiled Islander.
-So, did you see everything? Apollo asked.
-Indeed I did. I habitually walk abroad at night though rarely to this neighborhood. I fancy it was instinct brought me here tonight.
-Ah, yes, Apollo politely agreed. ‘Instinct.’
Lehman coughed, running a bony hand over a week’s growth of stubble.
-But tell me, he said, squinting one eye at Apollo.
-the Professor, he looked like a burnt-out piece of death tonight. Do you expect he’ll stay with that lad?
-Oh, Apollo smiled, who can say? The young man though, he had a brief taste of something else this evening. I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes after a bit of skirt one of these days.
Lehman frowned and nodded.
-The Professor’s a silly old ass, he said.
-but still, every man deserves a farewell fuck I’d say.
Apollo considered the wisdom of Lehman’s words.
-Well then, he asked, and what are your plans for the remainder of your mortal life?
Lehman waved a hand wildly.
-I’m leaving! Yes! I’m cutting clean out. I’m bound for Tahiti within the week.
He grimaced as though he had just said he was bound for the seventh circle of Hell. Apollo tried to imagine Lehman in repose before a tropical sunset, palm trees murmuring overhead. Instead he saw him standing on a pier, dirty raincoat sustained behind him by a sea breeze, or striding long-legged in front of the shoreline hotels, seeing all with his squinting eye, anorexic Caliban amid the gay tourists.
-What about your clients? What about the work you did for Judah Salazar? I would have thought he paid well for your services.
-Ah, Salazar. Yes, he pays well. Very well. But, you see, I’m a professional man, always have been, even when there’s been shit on my socks. There’s some things I will not do. And that Salazar, he’s an odd bird, a fancy sort of monster really. The Professor’s been on to me for a week now about Salazar’s latest interest.
Lehman shuddred.
-And what might his latest interest be?
Lehman turned and narrowed one eye.
-Corpserapers! Can you believe it? Corpserapers. Now I’ve snapped my share of cold ones during my time, but never with nefarious acts being committed on ‘em. I daresay I’ve no inclination to begin now.
-Yes, well …. Apollo shrugged sympathetically.
Lehman lifted his hand abruptly and started off. A few steps on he turned back to Apollo.
-That dark-haired girl, the one the Professor had me do a job on, was she consumed then? By the Goddess, I mean?
-Yes, Apollo smiled.
-in more ways than one.
He winked at Lehman’s departing back.
After leaving the park, Apollo turned down a street towards the campus. A beer or two and then a bit of sleep. Aurora would wake him, regular as clockwork. He paused to light a cigarette and then walked on, humming to himself.
-There was a young stud from Olympus …….