Katy's Loss

Book 1: 'What's Your Problem?' Trilogy

Maxwell Winshire

Seedwood Publishing

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2022 Maxwell Winshire

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: max@maxwellwinshire.com.

First paperback edition September 2022

ISBN: 978-1-7399589-5-4 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-1-7399589-4-7 (eBook)

Seedwood Publishing

www.maxwellwinshire.com

I feel that, in a sense, the writer knows nothing any longer. He has no moral stance. He oﬀers the reader the contents of his own head, a set of options and imaginative alternatives. His role is that of the scientist, whether on safari or in his laboratory, faced with an unknown terrain or subject. All he can do is to devise various hypotheses and test them against the facts.

J.G. Ballard, 1995

No art was made. Newspapers became thin and disappeared because there was no more criticism. There was nothing to gossip about. Schools closed because learning got in the way of patriotism. No one could experiment, for that was the way of the devil. There was no theory. No academia. No debate teams. No ‘Jeopardy.’”

Karen Finley
“It’s only art” from “High Risk”
Ed. Scholder and Silverberg 1991

I am one, my liege,
whom the vile blows and buﬀets of the world
Hath so incens’d that I am reckless
what I do to spite the world.

Second Murderer
Macbeth, William Shakespeare

Three contestants, three counsellors

Forfeits, Prizes,

What’s your Problem ?

We’ll ‘make ‘em sane’,

But who’s to blame?

W.y.P? Presents conundrums.

THE M.S.C. TO SUE OVER EXPLOITATIVE T.V. SHOW

Extract from ‘The Daily Tribune’ on Saturday 2nd July 2084

“The newly merged broadcasting watchdog, The Media Standards Commission, (formerly The Broadcasting Standards Commission, Independent Television Commission and Advertising Standards Authority) announced yesterday that it is to take unprecedented legal action in a civil suit against the TV Presenter and Co-Producer, Mr Christopher Carotte and Seedwood Productions, in response to the overwhelming public outcry against ‘What’s YOUR Problem?’ the television show which they produced and was broadcast live on PSC Cable.

“Mr Carotte was unavailable for comment, but his solicitor, Mr Geoffrey Hall, read a brief statement accusing the M.S.C. of a ‘scandalous and libelous publicity stunt’, and claimed his client was being used as ‘scapegoat for a whole wealth of adult entertainment shows currently being broadcast on terrestrial, satellite and cable channels.’ Further, contrary to recent participants’ allegations he asserted, ‘all volunteers on the show in question were fully aware of the rules and subsequent rewards and consequences and submitted to these of their own free will. They were offered immediate medical attention both on site and in a private clinic nearby. And their utmost wellbeing, both mental and physical, was given the highest priority at all times.’

“Jerry Zinger, the controversial equivalent U.S. People T.V. Show host offered little consolation to Mr Carotte. ‘He deserves everything that’s coming to him ... The kid simply went too far.’ However, he didn’t reserve blame for Mr Carotte alone. ‘How that show ever got the green light in the first place is a mystery to me’.

“GNN Cable has been quick to distance itself from the broadcast stating that they were ‘not responsible for the Production of the broadcast, which was the sole property of Seedwood Productions and PSC unequivocally deny any involvement in the editorial function of the show whose content they were misled into believing would adhere to their strict code of ethics for live broadcasting based on decency and trust’.

“Christopher Carotte, formerly a DJ on local radio known as ‘The Wolfman’, first became involved with Seedwood Productions in ... ”

Chapter 1

Another Openin’, Another Show ...

Searchlights swept around Wembley Arena like the lights of a police helicopter searching for a missing suspect in the packed stalls. The timpani drum of the orchestra thumped the ground like a giant trotting rhinoceros heading towards its prey and a chorus of violins soared to get away as the incidental WyP? theme music neared its climax and the sexy high-kicking dancers, so unlike her, left the stage.

Katy sat perfectly still in her stark cool white cell backstage, her beautiful sensitive brown eyes dizzily staring up at the Alice in Wonderland monitor ready to swallow her up with its inferno like display. She was terrified of going on like in another beauty pageant and being in front of, judged by, all those people again and everyone seeing everything outside. Except worse here was the terrible fear of everyone seeing everything inside and learning the truth about her. Sweating as her heart raced, she felt a tiny wet trickle drop off her back and tickle the coffee-coloured skin of her behind and rubbed her hand between the top of her legs, unselfconsciously like a child, to stop them shaking. Katy was alone with less than ninety minutes to learn if that would be everything. Where was Chris?

Pyrotechnics whizzed, fizzed and crackled from the heavens of the auditorium almost blinding the cameras with their spectacle, giant candelabras of cascading electric waterfalls showered the audience in the darkness while they watched a multi-magnified voyage through the brain like a space ship speeding through the milky way on the large cinema screen.

Backstage in his dressing-room, Chris stood in front of the mirror on the door, “Who’s the man? You’re the man! I said who? You! Who? You! You’re the man!” Squaring his jaw in profile, fists raised, “Poker face!” When there was a knock at the door and the confidence suddenly fell from his face and he whispered to himself, ‘Just don’t fuck up for Mary’s sake - remember Coughlin - don’t fuck up!’ Before saying nervously, “Come in?”

Marathon walking through labyrinthine corridors on his rocking piston hips the AFM (Assistant Floor Manager) hugging his clipboard, urgently bustled his way to the cells: Past the short queue outside make-up; past an angry nun on his right banging on the Cola dispensing machine beside the overflowing bin’s little metal feet littered with squashed crisp packets and twisted wrinkled snack wrappers.

Katy squeezed her knees together harder, and twirled the gold heart-shaped locket—just the two of us—around her neck with a finger distractedly watching the vast audience in the arena on the monitor, before sharply looking down to concentrate on her shoes. They were lovely, lovely shoes; her very best.

The Assistant Floor Manager (AFM) dodged around the Prop man carefully steering a trolley with a giant erect dildo sticking up on it—like it was some fragile tower of a wedding cake—straight down the middle of the corridor, past the Green Room, past the dressing rooms on his right each labelled below a star of the show’s logo, ‘Captain Stanislav Boglosovic’, ‘Sister Mary Elizabeth Xavier’, ‘Odin Folie’ and ‘Dr Jacqui McThorn’ and on past the two giant armed security guards playing cards beside the gleaming red Ferrari by the stage Garage Doors and finally passed the group of writers still waggling fingers and waving scripts at each other in a room on his left before clambering down the metal stairs.

“Nine, eight, seven,” the Proddir (Producer/Director) counted down into the microphone, in front of a rectangular block of ten by six monitors in the Gallery. “Six, five ... ”

The AFM suddenly bounded through the floppy transparent fish tail double doors of the isolation ward. The nurses sitting outside the cells marked ‘Katy’, ‘Tony’ and ‘Matt’ stopped reading and looked up at the sudden intrusion.

“We’re ready for the first contestant now!” Katy heard the AFM pant breathlessly outside. “Let’s go!” And she suddenly realised it meant there were others and maybe she wouldn’t have to be the first and maybe ... She heard the uneven short sharp swishes of air through her nostrils getting faster, then stop, as she heard the key twist in a lock.

The personal assistant straightened a spike of stray green hair on Chris’ head as he checked his tie by the stage entrance, hopping from side to side in his gaudy orange suit on the raised improvised trampoline-like ramp passage to the centre Stage entrance, stretching the plastic seal of the diagonal striped black and yellow hazard safety tape, humming, as if this wasn’t his first, ‘Another openin’, another show’ ...

Katy heard a cell door slam and steps receding and her shoulders slumped with a mixture of relief that it wasn’t her turn but also frustration, tapping her heals on the cell floor, and struggling to catch her breathing again, lost inside her like a tiny kitten trying to pull a boot over with the shoelace between its teeth.

“And now,” Trevor, the Announcer, concluded, “the man himself, the inimitable, the unlegendary ...” He took a deep breath big enough to climax, “the infamous, Mis-ter Christ-o-pher Caaaaaa-rot!”

The audience erupted, jumping out of their seats and exploding with cheers and applause like a volcano overflowing with bubbling lava in wave after wave of glowing red-hot admiration, or so it sounded to Chris, as he stepped through the letter ‘O’; the seventh of the seventeen ten-foot-high bubble-font letters in a semi-circle spelling, ‘What’s YOUR Problem?’ at the back of the centre stage and onto the two thousand square feet circular set to face the audience.

There were two separate spherical stages of a similar size to his left and right, attached by descending and ascending railed steps, respectively, but these were not lit like the centre stage by the heavy hanging stage lights that followed Chris as, with a huge grin, he jauntily walked across the stage to his mark. “Good evening! Good evening! Please, you’re too kind, it’s too much!” He twisted his smile ironically. “More! Stop! More! Stop! More?”

“Car-rot, Car-rot, Car-rot ... ” They chanted.

Chris could see the warm-up man in the stalls below, beside the orchestra, twinkling the neon messaged lights to the same effect but that didn’t quell the effect they had on his rising ego. You’re the man, remember, you’re the man, Chris. Poker face!

“Thank you, pleasy pleasy-please-please stop. Not!” The audience giggled into their seats as Chris addressed Camera three, with the little red light on, directly.” Good evening, thank-YOU and Well-CUM to ‘What’s your problem?’ The only counselling show that shares its care, and shaves them bare!” He grinned, Katy thought, with that mischievous and ironic, supposedly post-modern, smile of his as if to show he-knew-they-knew-he-knew we’ve all been there before, but how could he?

“And, well, shit! I shouldn’t have said that, who cares! Have we got a show for you tonight? I’m telling you,” he read from the autocue,” hold on for the ride of your life, hell on earth has arrived, it says here, and we have the Ultimate Psychiatrists Couch for the Ladies and for the gentlemen, the Ultimate Close-Up Sexy-sexy,” he rolled his hips in a slow wide arc to wolf whistles, “Sexpectacular: The W.Y.P. Sex Ritual! Yes—a mouthful in more ways than one—no, yes, no, thank you.” He did that ironic smiley thing again, Katy noticed, waiting for the applause to settle.

“It’s very simple, even for me!” he winked, putting one hand in his trouser pocket and casually leaning on the leg on the same side, “in a moment we’re going to meet three contestants who all have one hell of a serious psycho-sexual problem-which will make your problems look like pleasures, and your pleasures look like problems! Meanwhile, over there,” he pointed to the opposite blackened Porn stage on his right, “we’ll be demonstrating live simultaneously how sex SHOULD be done! All you have to do is compare to work out—like a whodunnit or I guess whydunnit, why not—what psychosexual problem our contestants have in hell over here!” He pointed to the blackened circular Contestant stage on his left. “You’ll also get a clue or two and a little help from my friends—our volunteer amateur Counsellors! So get your notepads out and a pen ready as we get ready for the greatest gladiatorial battle of,” he touched his head, chest, crotch and slapped his own bum as he said, “hearts, minds, cocks and fannies, you’ve ever seen! If there’s a line, I’ll cross it! This will change your life and the way you look at others forever!” He raised his eyebrows to the heavens with a proud gleeful sparkle in his eyes, trying not to think about the money riding on this. “Who’s our first brave contestant, Trev?”

Katy’s eyelids lifted as if to accommodate the full screen on her eyeballs, squeezing her thighs tighter together, while Mathew Meaks fought to compose himself behind the ersatz stage entrance wall feeling as if he was going to throw up any second. The nurse stroked his arm. “You’re not a good man, Mathew, remember that, that’s all. You’re not a good man. Now, get ready.”

Chapter 2

The accuracy of laying that One Key-Stone

At home in the darkness of his library, Judge Sir George Prickles was busy at his computer ignoring the background glow of the show on the screen from his set in the corner of the room flashing like a lighthouse warning of an impending cliff’s edge and droning on interminably like a fog horn, “Car-rot, Car-rot, Car-rot.”

Death fascinated the Judge. The memo he was finishing for his brothers concerned the most famous dead man of all. His whole life had been involved with death, one way or another. He was surrounded by volumes of judicial reviews, and several he’d participated in; Appeals from murderers to be freed or from victims’ families for murderers to be jailed, but he wasn’t interested in the living, only in the dead person at the centre of their protestations.

Death arrived in so many fanciful forms with multiple malevolent motivations; hanging, stabbing, gunshot, poisoning, suffocation due to jealousy, envy, greed, debt, hate even love. And the combinations of forms and motivations were endlessly interesting. He enjoyed surreptitiously feeling the gun involved, or the jacket the victim was wearing when they were produced in evidence at his bench. He wanted to touch death. Plastic bags were so noisome.

He especially enjoyed reading the words of the dead; Suicide notes were fun, dead victims’ diaries were better and even Stephen Templar’s book had a special poignancy in view of the events that had followed. But the words had to be fact. The Law was fact. He wasn’t at all interested in Crime Novels. Fiction left him cold. He wanted to be warmed by truth and re-invigorated by the fragility of mortality.

History was a passion, where it was fact. The subject of his memo: Jesus Christ. A subject he secretly and paranoically had guarded against ever discussing in public.

His eyes drifted upwards along the shadowy stroboscopic outline of the tall bookcases, ‘ … Inconceivably … ’ past the first-storey balcony and ‘ … Extraordinarily … ’ high into the second storey of bookcases, like staring ‘ … Surpassingly … ’ high into the unlit dome of St Peter’s, until his eyes ‘ … Inspiritedly … ’ saw only the unbound infinite darkness, while he ‘ … Meritoriously … ’ contemplated the precise word to use in his Memorandum: ‘ … Superabundantly … Pre-eminently … Superlatively … Sexpectacular? No!’ He looked at the TV set to see the gormless host rotating his hips. “The WyP? Sex Ritual! Yes, a mouthful in more ways than one - no, yes, no, thank you!” A close-up of Chris’ face leered at the Judge and his bifocals dropped down his nose. It had to be some futile irreverent joke surely?

He rubbed his tired eyes. He was so thoroughly absorbed in his memorandum he had been unaware of time passing. He had been working since breakfast, obsessed, as if these hours were his last before he went to the Grand Lodge Above, certain he’d be finished before the show started.

“In a moment we’re going to meet three contestants who all have one hell of a serious psychosexual problem ... ”

Forget the show. The problem was trying to write up his notes with the authority they deserved. All the words he’d considered above were superfluous for the sentence he wanted to write, but the exact word was … irritatingly close, like trying to grab a fly in mid-air, and having to wait for it to land before you had it. It would come … and letting the fly think he had forgotten about him, while his subconscious followed its every move, he let his mind drift …

One word; One stone. The greatest Cathedrals in the world, all built between … (he checked his memory to keep it active) … 1100AD and 1400AD, yes, all depended on how accurately the cornerstone was placed; The Craft; using square, level and plumb rule. Such breathtaking miracles of architecture were produced on the accuracy of laying that one key-stone. And so mote it be with the mind, and so mote it be with behaviour; each attention to the detail of every one word, thought, spoken or read, made the human being, like the awe-inspiring Cathedrals, Great, too. Where was the morality there, he thought, pithily staring at the show now; where was the concern for Greatness?

Chris slapped his body, “heart, minds, cocks and fannies you’ve ever seen! If there’s a line, I’ll cross it! This will ... ”

Had the young man no morals? Young people, even students these days, had been given so many freedoms they hung themselves with greed for money, drink, drugs and sex. There were no moral boundaries. They talked about creative freedom but their contribution to society whether they were young copywriters, playwrights, songwriters, directors or poets was more often than not an excuse for immorality and irresponsibility. Society had a choice: standards or anarchy?

The Art of Censorship, come to think of it, was an antient practice—even the Bible was censored to exclude the apocryphal New Testament and gnostic gospels, he remembered—and one which he, in all modesty, practiced frequently.

In May 1992 he had exerted his ‘moral influence on society’ to force the BBC to ban a pop song called ‘Chill out’ by a strange group called ‘Johnny Goes to Bollywood’ because it contained references to ejaculation. Although it irritatingly still reached number one, he had nonetheless tried. In October 1994 he had exerted his moral influence on society to force the committee of the BFI to refuse a license for the independent film, ‘Hidden Kisses’ unless the director cut the lesbian scenes involving the imitation of oral sex. The cuts went unnoticed by the public, obviously, and the movie rightly bombed anyway. In January 1997 he exerted his moral influence on society on the publishers to ban the novel, ironically called ‘Change’, by Alistair McOwen because he refused to edit out references to ritualised black magic involving rape. It duly sunk as a pitiful self-publishing endeavor.

Only intention distinguished between the legitimate use of sex in the media and porn, as only intention similarly differentiated between manslaughter and murder. Judgement was often walking a fine line and one had to listen carefully to their conscience. He didn’t concur with censorship, for example, when it excluded himself from access to information at the bench. One had to ask whether the instigator was attempting to pervert the course of justice or being honest, whether the artist was trying to empower or demean the audience, inform society or corrupt it? Murder caused physical death to one but depravity and immorality caused spiritual death to an untold many.

Young audiences may legitimately wonder why the media presented them with bland or anodyne messages and complain, but how much thought had they given to the moral responsibility and authority of the media? Indeed, authorities, way above their limited understandings of power were by necessity, secretly and morally at work, to protect society. Societies like his own cherished brotherhood.

He suddenly felt a presence over his right shoulder and, paranoid that anyone might be reading his memo, quickly turned. He searched the shadows between the bookshelves and then the door and tall French windows but there was no one there. His passion for public censorship went hand in hand with his overriding passion for his own personal secrecy but this job would just have to wait. He got up and went to sit in front of the TV in the corner.

This show had been advertised in all the media, ‘warnings’ placed in newspapers beneath the TV listings columns indicating that it actively sought to be controversial, he had no choice but to tune in. It was asking itself to be held up as an example of immoral behaviour and what society should accept. However inadvertently, it was therefore a morality show, the Judge laughed at the thought: a triple X morality show! And they didn’t even realise it!

His other duty as Secretary of the Broadcasting Standards Commission demanded his full and immediate attention right now.

He turned the volume up on the set with his remote to listen more closely to every word; “Who’s our first brave contestant, Trev?” Ignoring the meaningless glowing statistics above the picture, settling his back comfortably into the armchair and watching Chris smiling so proudly and blissfully unaware, like a hawk his prey.

Chapter 3

Like being bullied from the inside

It was almost magical to the studio audience watching innocently from their seats in the Arena. A trick of the lights. But the air seemed to visibly shimmer in waves on the stage in the heat of the studio lights like in the desert making objects seem softer and colours richer on the ersatz counters, walls and floor around Chris.

Warmer and more homely than a manger as if surrounded by constellations of piquant stars above them in a clear night sky rather than vagaries of monitor lights. Distant, outside, like Gods in the universe, ever-present, with a sense of immediacy, looking down on this small cross-section of stage and snatch of time, each member of the audience feeling like they were the only one watching, yet warm and secure in the proximity of others. Each uniquely in-on-the-joke, more special than the Television audience at home because they were here, behind the cameras and it was all happening before them without any editing or directorial interference. Each of them feeling they chose what they saw, and what they saw was open to their own unique interpretation.

So when they all heard the orchestra play the WyP? theme, and all saw Camera 3 quickly pull out of a close up on Chris on the hanging monitors in front of them placed around the Arena and the tiny cameraman swing around to the right following a tiny Chris as he left front centre stage and walk towards the rostrum back left stage, dwarfed by the giant ‘B’ behind him, to welcome the first contestant, each one had the feeling of seeing it slightly differently. They all did. Each as excited as a child unwrapping their own Christmas present or at the stroke before midnight on New Year’s Eve as Chris prepared to welcome the first contestant and the announcer’s booming voice filled the auditorium:

“A thirty-three-year-old former primary schoolteacher from St. Anne’s Primary School in Masswell Hill, North London ... ”

Spotlights lit a huge life-size photo of a very handsome young man at the Stage Entrance, back centre stage. A can of beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other the naked figure with the long red Jesus hair and beard had his knees clenched together and was drunkenly laughing at his disappearing penis trick. Backstage Katy was shocked by his nakedness on the monitor, knowing it was aimed at her, and the sight of only a triangle of ginger pubic hair between his well-defined pecs and heavy muscular thighs, squeezing hers together further still.

“Whose clue symptom is that he suffers from inappropriate verbal outbursts in the classroom! Fuck off kids! So what do you think his psychosexual problem could be? Please give a warm WyP? welcome to our first contestant, as we meet the sensational, the gorgeous, the hunk of a pin-up and emotionally confused Mis-ster … Ma-phew Meaks!”

Matt’s head suddenly tore through the head on the photo and his legs kicked between the photographic legs of his picture, splitting them in two as if to reveal what he’d been hiding and Katy quickly covered her eyes with one hand. He pushed himself through the gap, fully dressed in a black biker jacket, white T-shirt and denim jeans and, ironically appeared more embarrassed now, staring at the audience like layers and layers of pupils from a hundred school assemblies cheering behind the glare of the bright spotlights.

Chris raised his hands in applause too as Matt strode self-consciously to the Counter painted in yellow marble, with ‘What’s your problem?’ emblazoned across it in green and silver and the caption below him on the T.V. screen read Paranoid? Tourette’s? Egoist? Insecure? What’s your prejudice?

“Welcome to the show, Matt.” Chris shook his hand warmly. Matt wasn’t sure if Chris liked him that much or was just pretending. If you trust people too much, they can only let you down, we’re only human after all. “Now yours is an unusual story. You were born in the poor working-class district of Grungetown in Middlesborough, it says here,” Chris checked the card and Matt briefly appraised the giant ‘T’ behind him on his left and the vertiginous audience beyond the invasive Cameras at the front, making him feel giddy, and he quickly looked back.

“Then you got a degree in English from Reading University, really? I got two degrees last year in Manchester—it was bloody freezing! I know, I know! Then you attended Raspberry Hill college in London to qualify as a primary school teacher?”

First there is a mountain then there is no mountain then there is ... “That’s right.”

“Your parents must have been very proud. Are they in the audience tonight?”

“No. My mum has mobility issues, she's at home.”

"Hi Matt's mum at home!" Chris winked at the camera, before smiling back at the card. “And then you taught at St. Anne’s RC primary school in Masswell Hill for three years but something went a bit awry?”

Matt creased his forehead further in a self-flagellating frown trying to ignore the maddening song still playing in the back of his mind: Then there is! First there is a mountain ... meaninglessly repeating itself like a mantra ... there is no mountain ... as if the voice was trying to tell him something ... Then there is!

“Shut up!” Please?

“Mathew?”

First there is a mountain ... He squeezed his eyes shut and then there was just a high ringing tone and he let out a breath of relief. “Sorry?”

“So, what happened? Why did you quit teaching?”

“I just wanted to get out of it.” Matt shrugged one shoulder, shifting his weight to the opposite foot, hands on the counter, wholly unaware of the wolf-whistles and the effect his beauty was having on the girls and ladies in the audience, irregardless of his replies.

“Why? If you don’t mind me asking. What was wrong?”

Matt scratched his eyebrow with his yellow stained finger, changing foot again. He knew his silence was a statement as loud as any verbal answer and he knew he had one of those faces that subtly contorted to his thoughts like a typographical map of his mind, if not that the terrain now showing resembled a hazardous mountain cliff, but he didn’t know how to reply without lying to God. “Nothing.”

“But why, Matt? Come on, nobody’s listening, they’re all probably asleep by now waiting for you.” Chris smiled at the audience to hide his rising panic that the first contestant would freeze up on him and then the whole show would go down the pan and him with it. “Please, we just want a little clue from you to help us solve this little psychosexual problem of yours, Matt. What was wrong?”

Matt’s eyes took on an embarrassed distant look, trying to think and searching the giggling audience one way dizzily, and then stopping on the torn photo at the Stage entrance the other way.

There was no escape.

He closed his eyes to try and think, his own breathing louder in his ears. And then only the haircuts of the eight-year-old pupils were visible behind their books as he sat on the desk gazing out the window, as if transfixed by what might lie beyond.

“What does fi-lo- … fi-lo-sof …”

“Hand?” Matt reminded the boy and he dutifully raised his hand. Matt ambled up off the desk to squat beside him. “Show me.” The boy pointed to the word.

“Philosophy,” Matt thought for a moment,” is a subject … like Mathematics … about thinking, OK?”

“But you think in Mathematics, sir.”

“Yes,” Matt hesitated, often caught unawares by the freshness of the way kids think. “But it is a subject about thinking about thinking … I mean ideas, dreams … ?”

“Like guessing the answers, sir?”

“Exactly! You’re a genius.” Matt smiled. “Class, Hitesh will be taking over the teaching of the class.” The pupils giggled; They were so easy to please and giving.

“When I’ve finished!” Matt stood up and walked around the room making sure the pupils returned to reading quietly. He heard the scraping of chairs, muffled chatter and the high-pitched voice of Ms Baker, the Deputy Head, next-door trying to control them.

He was proud of his own classroom control. These silences provided rare opportunities for reflection; teaching was the only job in the world where you could almost see yourself sitting there in the small chair, and all the mistakes you made as a pupil; you couldn’t really help wanting to help when you saw that, even if you didn’t have any particular inclination to teach.

He stared at their paintings on the walls; the mounted medieval history project work: horses and knights, King Arthur; The Dark Ages. And then out the window again. How many teaching years would he be reliving the Dark Ages? He was already an old man in their eyes. Another forty years? Becky would be …

And in the next instant images flashed through his head so fast his face crumpled under the impact, his eyes scrunched tight and he saw himself standing there in the doorway of Becky’s room, while Jo was in bed, and in the darkness, he was urinating on the rug beside Becky’s cot and Jo walked in and suddenly screamed and I didn’t even know I was and I’m so, “SORRY AND I DIDN’T MEAN TO, YOU KNOW THAT, I WAS … STOP IT, MUM! FOR GOD’S SAKE IT WAS AN ACCIDENT AND …”

Matt opened his eyes and all the pupils were looking at him. He knew from their faces something was wrong. He felt the heat in his cheeks. “Did you hear the bell? No. So go on,” he swallowed. “Carry on reading.”

Their frightened little faces lowered and he saw one little boy’s eyes watering as he pretended to read. But why? Matt asked himself.

What did I say? I said, ‘Stop it!’ That’s all. No, you screamed Stop it, the Deputy Head would say, and it isn’t the first time. But I’m a good teacher, I would say to her, everyone loses their temper once in a while and it doesn’t happen often, because, I wouldn’t say, you’ve only caught me once or twice, I wouldn’t say, and I can’t help it, I wouldn’t say, and I don’t even know what I said, I wouldn’t say, but she would say they’re only eight years old, they’re children, Matt, and I would say, but it isn’t my fault, it’s like … Like being bullied from the inside … But only if she found out it had happened again, but how would she? I didn’t shout, I only said ‘Stop it’, I could have been warning a pupil who was about to have an accident, that would be reasonable, wouldn’t it?

Matt felt his belly tighten and he closed his eyes; he didn’t say Mum, did he? Her bloody accident! And he had to stop thinking like this or else…

Matt didn’t hear the door. Ms Baker opened it and saw Matt standing there with his hands clamped over his long red hair, the pupils reading silently and the little boy crying. Even above the noise in her own classroom she had heard Matt’s screams.

“Mr Meaks … excuse me, Mr Meaks? Mister Meaks?”

Matt slowly turned to the Deputy Head and opened his mouth to speak but froze; What could he say? As usual, he didn’t even know what had happened.

“Pretty pretty please tell me why?” Chris pulled on his green hair and the audience laughed.

Matt suddenly stared directly at him. “I just ... couldn’t handle the job.”

Even Chris was taken aback by the intensity of his eyes. “Just like that?”

Backstage, Katy’s concentration was interrupted by the sound of footsteps and then that same key twist in the lock. She suddenly felt all fragile again, but her cell door didn’t open and instead, this time as the footsteps receded, she thought she heard the mingled yell of a young girl swearing as she was led away.

“I just had to get out of it.” Matt repeated more urgently.

“OK, OK. It says here you’ve been unemployed for the last three years but you keep yourself busy singing and playing the guitar in a band and write your own songs?”

Matt swallowed to wet his dry pallet. “I used to, yeah.” There was no point in mentioning he’d had to hock his guitar to pay the bills.

“We had a lot of letters from the unemployed applying for the show, as you can imagine,” Chris raised his eyebrows in an aside to the audience, “but yours stood out, Matt. No, it did. Mick Jagger or what? Why don’t you read it out to us.”

Matt took out a folded piece of paper from his back pocket, scratched the back of his head, and as he began reading it appeared for all to see on the arena scoreboard at the back of the contestant stage opposite; handwriting mechanically vertical with no fancy accentuation of letters:

“Dear Chris,

If I beat all the other contestants and won a lot of money on WyP? I wouldn’t need to stand in a long queue of taxpayers at the Post Office looking at me like a parasite, and watching the teller avert his gaze, as he pushes the cash that I haven’t earnt under the glass to me. I wouldn’t need to feel so guilty when I put the notes into my back pocket in front of ... everyone and pull them out again meaninglessly at the supermarket check-out in front of a cashier who knows it’s not my money and hands me the goods like charity. I wouldn’t be so excited at the tobacco stand near the exit as I purchase a full 12.5g bag of hand-rolling tobacco, after having rolled dirty butts for three days, and a lottery scratchcard. I wouldn’t spend the long walk back home with the shopping bags trying to avoid being recognised by local former pupils, parents and staff driving past in their cars. I wouldn’t open the front door, and walk down a shared anonymous landing past nosy listening neighbours to the door of my bedsit. I wouldn’t sit down on my bed and slowly and delicately scratch off the first number, daydream all morning, slowly scratch of the second, daydream all afternoon, and with the luck of two matching numbers, spend the rest of the evening imagining precisely how I’m going to spend it, and leave the third number unscratched to give me something to look forward to when I go to bed. I wouldn’t go up to the off-license after surgically scratching the third number away too early—when I can’t hold back any longer—and with it all my escape plans, to purchase my ration of three cans of the strongest lager available to get me out the only other way I can imagine. I wouldn’t waste the night regretting everything I’ve ever done wrong and drinking the cruel-tasting-treacle-stuff to forget, only to find the reality of the four-boring-bare walls of my cell facing me in the morning, worse. I wouldn’t have to. I wouldn’t HAVE to!

But what would I do instead? Je sais pas ce que je ne sais pas. (I don’t know what I don’t know).

It’s hard to change when you’ve forgotten anything different but at least God would know I’d tried when it’s my turn.

Love, Mathew Meaks.”

The audience clapped warmly and sympathetically, but Mathew thought they were only patronising him. Life was like trying to work your way out of a hedged maze that kept growing taller and taller as you grew older until the path was in total darkness and you couldn’t work out where you began or where you were going and every turning looked the same. You just kept walking.

“Well, you’ve done more than try this time, Matt-my-mate, you’re here, hasn’t he ladies?” There were more wolf whistles and another round of applause. “So, what you want is a bit of je ne sais quoi, in other words,” Chris faked a terrible French accent, “yo wont wot yo doh not know wot?”

The audience laughed and applauded it seemed to Matt simply because it was laughing and applauding. Not for him.

Backstage watching the Stage Manager’s monitor now, an eighteen-year-old boy dwarfed by the two side-armed hefty security guards waiting for a cue didn’t clap, looking at Mathew like some wet faggot of a teacher, who couldn’t even handle that!

“I just want to get out of this.” Mathew looked down.

“They say the first step in solving a problem, Matt, is to admit you’ve got one so you’ve come to the right place. Now I’d like to introduce you to a very special lady who I think will be able to help our audience with a few psychological clues, Trev?”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer began, “will you please give a warm welcome to our resident Psychiatrist, the delightful, the sophisticated, the stunningly intelligent and perceptive, Dr Jacqui McThorn!”

Chapter 4

The unknown is always the worst

The orchestra played the theme from a popular American hospital TV drama and Dr Jacqui suddenly appeared from stage entrance right by the purple curtain in an elegant ochre blue suit, pinched tight around her miniscule waist and cut above the knee to reveal her fine porcelain dolls legs, and made her way to a podium on stage-centre-left beside Chris as clinically as if she was a doctor crossing a ward without a glance at the patient.

Chris kissed her on both cheeks.

“Welcome to the show, doc. Can anybody help us with poor Matt, here? He’s desperate!”

Matt looked up in alarm.

“Good evening, Chris, I conducted a routine mental state examination of Mr Meaks to assess his behaviour, thought, perception and other standard psychological indicators to reveal some clues about what his problem might be.”

“Obviously the results of your enquiries are private and confidential,” Chris teased, “so for the studio audience and our viewers at home ... What?!” He sniggered at the audience’s gasp, “it’s only a moral obligation for chrissakes! It’s not technically illegal—as if we would do something like that, Matt—We are trying to help this man, after all.” Chris held his right elbow across his chest and indicated with his right arm out. “Sorry doc, you were saying?”

“It depends on the patient, but Mr Meaks isn’t quite sure whether he’s got the problem or society has the problem with him, I think?” She raised a quizzical Schoolmistressy eyebrow at Matt.

Matt looked directly back at her, surprised by the change of tone in her voice. She was like a different person to the reassuring and non-judgmental Doctor he’d confided in at the interview. Had she been playing a game with him? It didn’t make sense until he heard Chris say ‘so what did you manage to find out?’ and he heard her say ‘these are my findings’ like painful kicks below the belt as she summarised the following results that appeared on the big cinema sized screen at the back of the circular Contestant Stage opposite:

Full Name: Mathew Robert Alexander Meaks

Date/Time of Birth: 25.07.2051 / 10.17 a.m.

Star sign: Leo

Occupation: Unemployed (Ex- Schoolteacher)

Appearance and “behaviour”: Handsome, well dressed and well kempt, collaborative, shy, pleasant young man. Good rapport, good eye contact, though “quite guarded and reluctant to speak without probing.” Faint traces of facial scarring reminiscent of acute episode of acne in adolescence “though great lips.” Nicotine stained right fore and index fingers.

Affect: Reactive.

Mood: Subjectively and objectively euthymic.

Speech: Spontaneous, coherent and rational. Normal volume, rate and flow.

“Thought”: Admitted to ‘thinking too much’ before doing things, and explained that he “didn’t trust his ‘instinct’ and needed reassurance from ‘careful consideration’ first.” Began to ruminate over recent psychosocial stressors (examples omitted) and attached spiritual meanings.

Denied homicidal ideation but described some history of suicidal ideation: ‘It often feels good just to think about it when I can’t sleep, that’s all.’ Very interested in Jesus and the bible recently and periodically ‘in phases’.

“Perception”: Described seeing “spontaneous initially uncontrollable and unpleasant images of past ‘sins’ at random intervals” (once/twice a day for at least the past two years) accompanied by making an ‘autonomous-reflex like’ brief outburst to ‘crush the thought’. Possible visual hallucination. No auditory hallucination but did describe a ‘background singing soundtrack playing in his head’ and occasionally a ‘high pitched whine’ in his ear, both of which he was able to control with a little effort.

“Sleep”/Appetite: Initial insomnia, “early morning awakening,” diurnal mood variation.

Drug and alcohol history: 12.5mg of hand-rolling tobacco/every 2 days, smoked marijuana at university for ‘about a year’. Admits to ‘social drinking’ but categorically denied alcohol misuse.

Physical examination:

1) Slight subcostal tenderness was noted as a possible liver edge.

2) Mild tinnitus (inner ear damage possibly due to participation in Band.)

3) ECG and sleep deprived ECG both normal, CT scan unremarkable, MRI scan considered unnecessary.

4) Urine and electrolytes, calcium, phosphate normal. Full blood count normal.

“Insight”: Attributed his problems to a spiritual basis, although “amenable to the possibility that they could have a psychological basis.”

Matt let out a deep breath, and straightened his arms against the counter to stop him falling forward from the onslaught on his being he heard echoing around the auditorium in front of the thousands he felt burying their eyes into him like relentless lasers. Why? Why was he like this? He closed his eyes to pray there and then for forgiveness.

“Tell us, Doctor, do you think Matt warrants compulsory admission into a Psychiatric hospital?”

“Excuse me?” Matt interrupted, forcing himself against his polite nature with desperate urgency.

Backstage, the Stage Manager tapped the child on the shoulder, “Get ready, kid.”

“Fuck you!” Tony shook his shoulder away.

“Relax, Matt-my-mate, let the doctor answer.”

“Thank you, Chris,” she rebuked Matt with a disparaging look hiding a little smile, “I’m afraid none of the patients we will meet tonight, under section 2 or 4 of Her Majesty’s Mental Health Act of 1983 are sectionable as they do not present an immediate or direct threat to others or themselves at the moment.”

Matt let out a sigh, reminding himself it was a competition, and wondered what the other two contestants might be like. Perhaps a beautiful young woman? Perhaps his future? Perhaps his savior? Like some mad hope at a mad time.

“But is he crazy?”

“That is not a recognised diagnosis on any psychological scale I know, and I would be reluctant to describe him or any of them as having clearly defined psychiatric disorders, except possibly, and I’m talking generally here,” she fingered her ear lobe, “mild personality disorders or depression, which in all their cases would probably respond more favorably to psychotherapeutic techniques rather than medication.”

“Which is why he’s here! But do you talk like that all the time, Jacqui, I mean Doctor?” Chris asked her. She, for once, looked confused. “I didn’t understand a blinking word Doc, but come on, how sexy can a woman get I ask you?”

The audience applauded Chris, and Jacqui bashfully looked away and shimmied her shoulders at Chris playfully. Matt shook his head bitterly; A woman couldn’t be any prettier than trust and honesty, or any uglier than betrayal and false modesty, made her. He’d read that somewhere and it was true. How could Chris possibly find her attractive? The only comfort was that at least she wouldn’t be counselling him on the show. But then the terrible conclusion occurred; who would be? He started to feel more scared. The unknown is always the worst, he thought, as the trumpets of a pop song began maddeningly ringing in his ears.

“Needless to say,” Chris brushed his knuckles on the lapel of his jacket, “I haven’t a clue why Matt has these verbal outbursts but have the ladies got any guesses before his counsellor has a go?”

Dirrr, de, de, da ... Dirrr, de, de, da ... Matt tried but couldn’t stop it.

Cameras swung toward the audience.

“Male Stripper!” A lady shouted out.

“Stripping? Matt’s a good catholic boy. I admit he’s got the looks, but it couldn’t be further from the truth, could it mate?”

Matt looked blankly back. If you’ll be my bodyguard, then I will be your long-lost pal. Dirrr, de, de, da .... Dirrr, de, de, da!

Chris turned to the audience and pointed. “It’s all happening out there, nothing to do with me. I don’t make these people, you know. It’s not me! Any other guesses?”

“Toyboy!”

Backstage, Katy winced at the unsympathetic ferocity in the eyes of the ladies in the audience in close-up on the monitor like he was a piece of meat, an object, and then heard that same familiar sound of the key rattling in the lock. She sat up sharply and froze but couldn’t hold it back any longer. The door opened. The two giant security guards bowed their heads low under the doorframe to step in. A rivulet from the small puddle around her feet snaked its way across the floor towards them.

“Rent boy!” A man shouted excitedly.

“What do you think, Matt?”

I will call you Betty, and Betty when you call me you can call me Al, you can call me Al. Dirrr, de, de, da... Dirrr, de, de, da! “Excuse me? Did you say something?”

“Don’t despair, we’ll soon be giving you what TV was invented for: Good ol’ public counselling and boy does he need it? At this rate I think I will! A schoolteacher, huh? Would you trust him with your children? Seriously? There’s something very wrong here, but let’s see who he’s up against, and who else really needs our help on the show tonight, Trev?”

Matt followed Chris’ eyes above the cameras and above the audience ... Dirrr, de, de, da ... Dirrr, de, de, da! ... Gazing at the vast black cavern they were in ... Dirrr, de, de, da ... Dirrr, de, de, da! ... Monitors, speakers, lights and mics hanging from the roof like technological stalactites as the deep dispossessed voice reverberated around:

“Our next contestant is from East Brinkley, in the Midlands, and his clue symptom is that he wants to ‘kill everyone in the whole world’ and he’s still only eighteen-years-old—just might have time on his side—but can you guess the psychosexual cause? Let’s give a warm WyP? welcome and give it up for our very own slum city street kid, the rebel without a clue and wicked gangsta rappin Tony O’Brien!”

Matt turned in horror to the back of the stage entrance and the pretty photo of a baby in a pink jumpsuit; only eighteen?

Chapter 5

Our separateness is the illusion

Backstage, Claire Lamby and Helena Cosenza found the Porn Star’s dressing-room door marked, ‘High Priestess and Priest Pottersby’ and Claire was just about to knock when she heard the voice of a lady shouting inside and instead put her ear close up against it.

“What’s the point of writing a book if you don’t follow it? You’re supposed to be the expert!”

“In theory.” A male voice said quietly, after a thoughtful pause.

“But it’s a book on sexual practise!” The lady screamed back.

Claire frowned at Helena. “I think we should leave it.”

“Don’t be silly.” Helena said and was about to knock when Claire grabbed her hand and said “No! Wait a second.”

“Accidents happen.” Gareth shrugged to his wife.

“Don’t you believe anything you write?” Lucy stood and waved his book down at him. He sat still impassively. “How can other people fuck like you say if you can’t yourself?”

Gareth looked up at her. You’re worried about doing it on the show, he thought, all this is simply because you’re worried about doing it on TV. Why do women always argue about the thing they’re not talking about at the time? This has nothing to do with what mistake I made or my book, has it?

“Well? Don’t ignore me. It was your cock-up! Don’t you think I deserve an explanation?”

Gareth’s crime was orgasming too quickly during sex while they were demonstrating the techniques in his new book, ‘Sacred Pagan Sexual Practice’, for the accompanying video. He looked nothing like the stereotypical Valentino or Romeo; more like the stereotypical campaigner for British Real Ale with his hefty beer belly.

“Well?” Lucy asked irritably. “I’m waiting.”

All you want is reassurance, Gareth stared at her silently, all you need to hear is how much I love you but do you think this is the right way of going about it? If your strategy works this time, it reinforces your behaviour and you’ll do the same thing next time. You’ll never stop giving me aggravation about the wrong thing. You don’t want an answer, do you? You want to let off steam, let the frustration out, you’re not really angry at me at all. It’s perfectly natural when …

“Don’t just look at me!” Lucy slammed the book on the dressing-table. “Say something for God’s sake.”

Gareth hesitated. “Do you feel better now?”

“Are you joking?” Lucy cried out.

Behind the door, Claire pulled the corners of her lips into her cheeks in a painful smile and Helena rolled her eyes and went to knock again but Claire stopped her mouthing the word ‘Please.’

“How can I feel better when you haven’t said anything?” Lucy said, tight-lipped, brushing her long wavy red hair down in the mirror.

Gareth simply nodded with his hands together under his chin. I know it’s difficult in a TV studio, far from nature, but you should have known you would feel like this and discussed it earlier. You have to accept the principle of non-attachment, wu wei, we all do, and subjugate our lives to the will of the Gods. You should know that …

“What are you thinking? Talk to me.” Lucy demanded angrily.

Claire wished she hadn’t let Helena persuade her to come, she really wasn’t that interested in all this New Age stuff like her, and leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “I’m going.”

Helena grabbed Claire’s arm with one hand and knocked loudly on the door with the other.

Lucy made a startled glance for the door. “Come in?”

“Hiya?” Claire opened the door apologetically. “We just thought we’d pop in and wish you luck for the show, not that you’ll need it, of course.” She added guiltily. “I mean, will they?” She gestured expansively to Helena, for support. “They look like such a happy couple, don’t they?”

“We’re on later.” Helena said bluntly. “We must be as crazy as you.”

Gareth chuckled his little schoolboy laugh a little too eagerly, Lucy thought, watching him closely. Even she had to admit that both ladies were beautiful in different ways; the first one was going for the ‘hippy-blonde-save-the-planet’ look with her carefully disordered streaky blonde hair, beads, hardly any make-up and loose blouse over a long skirt whereas the other was going for the ‘Mediterranean-jet-ski-casino’ look with her dark short cropped hair, deep golden-brown tan, heavy eyeliner and red lip gloss in a sharp black trouser suit. She wouldn’t be surprised if they were catwalk models except the first one’s bosom was too big and although she was slim, her hips were too wide, but the other one definitely could be and they both looked like they, at least, Lucy thought with a hint of envy, spent money on themselves.

“I’m Lucy,” she said, “And this is my husband, Gareth. We …”

“And you are?” Gareth interrupted his wife standing and offered his hand to Claire.

“Claire and this is ...”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Gareth kissed her hand. “And?”

“Helena Cosenza.” She identified herself. “We’ve met.”

Gareth froze with embarrassment with her hand in his trying to place the face. “That’s right …” He said uncertainly.

Helena simply smiled her tight-lipped smile offering nothing. He was a Capricorn, she bet.

“In rehearsals!” Claire elbowed Helena for winding him up. “We weren’t formally introduced. I think we said hi or something … backstage … in passing.”

“I thought I recognised the face.” Gareth lied. “What do you do in the show again?”

“You’ve probably seen us in one of our films.” Claire laughed. “Lots of people do and don’t recognise us.” She shrugged at Lucy, then realised it probably didn’t help to alleviate the situation for him to admit that he watched blue movies.

“PQ and WFW?” Helena said obliquely, teasing him.

“The Pussy Quiz!” Claire exasperated at Helena.” Will you stop it?”

“Weren’t there four ... of you?”

“Dani and Monica are watching the show.” Claire explained.

“That’s right.” Gareth said thoughtfully remembering an extremely pretty short mousey haired girl and a stunningly attractive tall long curly raven-headed girl. So many beautiful empty young girls in search of fulfilment. Were they all satisfied with their love lives? Or could I ...

“Gareth is a spiritual man.” Lucy said flatly, crossing her arms at Helena.

“We know.” Helena replied flatly back, raising an eyebrow.

“But isn’t that interesting?” Claire said enthusiastically. “I mean we’re just here for the money but you do this kind of thing all the time in public for free!” She laughed. “Not in a bad way, I mean it’s great you’re still married. I mean you’re serious about it which is really good. All that religion … I’m not very, I don’t think I could …”

“I don’t think I could do what you’re doing.” Gareth quipped, “meaning bare genitalia competitively,” but he said it with such a straight face it created that awful strange silence among strangers who don’t know what to say next.

“It’s so nice of you to drop by.” Lucy said. “But we’re due on soon.”

“But ...” Gareth started prematurely. “Pop in anytime.”

“Break a leg …” Helena began, looked him up and down, and finished, “or whatever!”

“You too.” Lucy smiled, clutching Gareth’s arm.

A possessive Scorpion? Helena wondered; No wonder they fight. But smiled: “Don’t worry, I will.”

“Bye.” Claire said sheepishly pulling Helena and closed the door. Outside, Claire tapped her head with her finger and Helena laughed ironically at, not with, Claire.

Gareth stared wistfully at the closed door doubting the first one, Claire, was as dippy as the hippy blonde she pretended to be or the second one, Helena, as worldly-wise as she pretended. But the most important question was why had the Gods brought such beautiful creatures to his dressing-room?

“I don’t need to ask what you’re thinking about now!” Lucy pulled out of his arm.

Gareth simply shrugged. Then why say it?

“They’re pros and even they think we’re a joke, you know? They’re all be watching us and wanting us to fail. Don’t you see that?”

Gareth didn’t answer. This, he had to remind himself at times like these, was a lady with nigh on perfect legs and a butter-lipped pussy between them.

“Don’t you care if we look like fools in front of millions of people?”

“You have to think positively.” In a few minutes he’d be literally back on top again. “Look, are they more powerful than the Gods?”

“But millions of people aren’t having sex in front of everyone. We are. And you wrote in your book …”

“Think about it like this.” Gareth began excitedly, turning on his elbow. “We’re having their sex?” He asked it like an innocent question with open hands.

“We’re having sex for them?” She held the handle of the door.

“No. We are them having sex. There’s no break in the continuum, no boundary line. We all flow into the same thing and nothing. Our separateness is the illusion.”

“But they’re looking at us.”

“As much as we’re looking at them when we look at each other.”

“I give up! If you feel like you’re gonna cum, Gar, just stop moving! There are only twenty-eight positions to hold it for, O.K.? Are you ready?”

Gareth shrugged as if to say ‘if you say so’ and stood up. There was no need for a reply. Whatever she wanted to believe she would believe.

“No one’s going to notice if you take a rest and just say the words.”

“You know I can’t do that!” He said angrily, losing his patience with her. “The act is intrinsic to the prayer. If the actions do not accompany the prayer, it is just sex, like doing the washing-up, cleaning the car. It’s meaningless. We might as well be ...”

“Then don’t cum!” Lucy exasperated. It was different when they’d made the video - although she knew the crew had found it funny - Gar had blamed the alignment of the stars! The thing was he took it so seriously he didn’t realise how silly it looked for him, the professed expert, to prematurely ejaculate. He didn’t realise it invalidated the whole ritual. His book was sold on the premise that the technique worked, even if he’d only claimed that it should work, all other things being equal, like the bloody stars (!) “Or you’ll make me look stupid!”

“The only person who can make you look stupid is you.” Gareth turned his back on her to check his gown one last time in the tall mirror on the wall. Sometimes she talked to him like he had no feelings whatsoever. “If you don’t feel comfortable you should have said so before. You know I could have used someone else for the demonstration.”

“But you’re my husband.” Lucy said hurtfully.

“And you are my wife.” Gareth turned around suddenly and gently took her by the elbows. “And you are the Earth.” He put his arm around her, turning her towards the mirror and held his cheek beside hers. “And you are my High Priestess. And you are the Mother Goddess, Lucy Pottersby. And I worship you.”

Lucy searched his bright eyes in the mirror and knew he meant it. And God, she felt wet when he came on like this. Uncertain, confused, weak but wet. “Just don’t …”

In the top right corner of the mirror on the reflected monitor a life-size photo of a baby appeared.

Gareth touched his finger to her lips. “I won’t.”

And unfortunately, she believed him, as they stepped out of the dressing room, hand-in-hand, and made their way to the Porn Stage entrance.

Chapter 6

She called him her hero, no less

A fist suddenly punctured the life-size photo of the little bald baby smiling cutely in a pink jumpsuit at the Stage Entrance and a snarling little skinhead began tearing the rest of the photo to shreds clear of the frame until he stood squarely on his mark with the shreds at his feet and a nasty smile proudly leering at the applauding audience like a pee-wee Popeye.

Tony raised a fist in the air triumphantly, averting his head to the side, and then slouched shoulder by shoulder across the stage in his baggy jeans as if the heavy trainers he was wearing were sliding, slipping and sticking in treacle, to join Mathew behind the Counter while a caption appeared across the bottom of the TV screen, “Spoilt? Video-Nasties? Bad Parents? What’s your guess?”

“Tony O’Brien, ladies and gentleman, how’s it hanging?” Chris gave him a high five with an open palm but his smile faltered for a moment at the force of the pressure returned.

“Large, mate, sorted.” Tony smiled crossing his diving pointed fingers in front of his body.

Mathew couldn’t believe his eyes; they’d put him up against this? This was the competition? Him? A little boy?

“Wick-ed, wick-ed,” Chris flicked his fingers as if trying to shake away pins and needles.

Tony laughed at Chris and then the audience. “Respect!”

“Yeah, re-spect, brother, re-spect.” Chris half-eyed the audience as if in doubt. “Are your parents in the audience tonight or watching at home?”

“Don’t know.” Tony shrugged.

Chris smiled at the card. “Have you got a girlfriend?”

“′Course!” Tony grabbed a handful of cloth at his crotch, grinning.

“What’s her name?” Chris broke his own broadcaster’s rule to make the kid feel more at ease and avoid another contestant freezing up on him. “Do you want to say hello or give her a little wave?”

“Claudette.” Tony smirked and then as if the idea was too childish. “Fuck off!”

Claudette Byke was not his girlfriend in the adult sense of the word. They hung around together, they didn’t sleep together, but she did have a crush on him. She wouldn’t leave him alone. She was always coming up to him on the Estate and asking him embarrassing questions like, “What football team do you support, Tony? What do you want to be when you grow up, Tony? Who’s the best M.C in the whole wide world, Tony?” As if these childish questions meant anything to the mature eighteen-year-old Tony O’Brien.

Don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t a dog, or anything. She was skinny and her long hair was alright, but she had no tits like the older girls. She brought him a few of her mum’s cigarettes when she could. This one night she’d got changed three times because first Tony said they were going to play tennis, and then Tony said they were going hiking in the Himalayas, and then Tony said they were going to a disco. It was just one of his little jokes. Like dropping firecrackers through a Paki’s letterbox and watching them run out and hearing them scream, ‘Oh, goodness gracious me!’ Or, stuffing dog shit under some rich dick’s car door handle or pissing in an orange cider bottle and frothing it up for one of the girls. Tony liked a laugh when he wasn’t fighting. Instead, after she had changed this third time, and Tony had had his laugh he felt a bit guilty about her crying and to make up—without a clue about how disastrous the consequences would be for her—invited her to a party at ‘his place’, an empty flat on the Estate, with a few of his mates.

The dusty living room of the flat was bare, except for a scruffy sofa, a car seat and some odd pieces of carpet stuck to the bruised dirty floorboards like used sticking plasters, and a few discarded dirty needles and blackened tin foil in the corner. A single bare bulb illuminated the torn wallpaper and graffiti and reflected off the dirty yellow windows. The stale air reeked of urine. There were six boys there aged between eighteen and twenty-one, and Claudette and Tony, listening to Nigel’s ghetto blaster, drinking cider from two two-litre bottles, smoking and demonstrating their maturity and verbal dexterity by cussing each other.

“You’re a ... ,” Eric, burped loudly, “bum chum.”

“Your mum.” Dave replied.

“Fuck You, fanny-face.” Tony said.

“Stick it up your arse, Tony.” Eric, at twenty-one the eldest, said.

“I bet he hasn’t even done it yet.” John said.

“Fuck You limp-dick.”

“He has. I saw him kissing Tina,” Jason the youngest squeaked.

“Shut up nipple-tit.” Tony said.

“Prove it arse-wipe.” Eric dared Tony.

“Fuck Off, shit-brain.”

Such verbal terms of endearment were normal and necessary in the group to maintain status, nothing was so inherently embarrassing to these adolescents as the riposte, ‘You’re an idiot, or you’re stupid.’ This was so un-cool, so un-imaginative, so totally lacking in worldly-experience, even squirm-inciting, it could only come from a parent or teacher who, as they put it, had ‘never lived’.

“You don’t even know where to put it, pussy.”

“Yes he does!” Claudette said defensively, thinking they were talking about kissing.

“Put it here, virgin dick!” John said throwing the dirty magazine at Tony.

“You just fucking missed the bottle, John.”

“Let me see too, Tony.”

“Fuck off, nipple-tit.” Tony flicked through the glossy pages of naked women with their legs splayed upwards, outwards, behind their ears, in the splits and on their knees disgustingly.

“That’s what women look like without any clothes on.” Eric jeered, swigging back the cider. He thought he was a real smart-arse because of his age, Tony thought, but he didn’t even bunk school.

“Fuck You, I know.” He threw the magazine at Eric.

“Hey Claudette, does Tony put it there?” Eric fumbled with the magazine and then pointed to the belly button of a woman spreadeagled on the page.

“No, he doesn’t,” John grabbed the magazine, “he puts it there.” He pointed at the woman’s bottom. The boys laughed.

“No, that’s where Tony wants it himself!” Eric cried out.

“Fuck You, Wanker!” Tony stood up angrier than if someone had just poured the bottle over his head.

“They were only joking, Tony.” Jason piped up.

“Yeah, Tony,” Dave said.

“No one says I’m bent, you wet cunt.” Tony glared at Eric. Eric stood up, a whole three years the senior, and twice the height, of Tony.

“There’s your little girlfriend then, prove it. Go on, I dare you.” He prodded him on the chest.

Tony stood there, staring back at Eric and he felt the whole room waiting for him. He knew exactly where the needles were, in the right corner behind him, but in that moment of silence, he wasn’t thinking about how big Eric was, or how quickly he could get to the needles, it went deeper than that, his eyes showed a hurt far deeper than name calling.

“Come here, Claudette.” Tony ordered her.

Claudette got up and went to stand by Tony. Tony put his arms around her waist and kissed her on the mouth. Claudette tasted cigarettes and cider on his lips, which wasn’t nice.

“Go for it!” Eric cheered. Tony started kissing her face and neck, like a dog licking its owner. Claudette leaned her head back grimacing. Jason wolf-whistled. Dave clapped to himself like a clockwork monkey.

“Tony?” Claudette asked. Tony ignored her, rubbing his hands up and down her back roughly, before moving back to kiss her on the lips. Claudette tried to blot out the taste and kiss him back but he was moving too quickly, metaphorically and literally, for her to think.

“Toe-knee, Toe-knee, Toe-Knee.” Dave rattled.

Tony tried to wrestle her to the floor. Claudette tried to resist but her knees buckled and she went down.

“Tony!” Claudette muffled between his smelly kisses. “Stop!”

“Show us her snatch, Tony,” Eric letched forward.

Tony moved on top of her as she began to wriggle and struggle to get away from him. He continued to try and kiss her. Claudette moved her head away from his, “What are you doing Tony? Stop. I don’t like you anymore.”

“Give it to her!”

“Fuck you, then, Bitch!” Tony sat up on his knees and grabbing her pants and leggings around her waist, pulled them both down. Claudette screamed.

“Look at that! That’s like you, Jason.” Eric leered. Jason was too surprised to reply, there was nothing between her legs.

“I want to go home.” Claudette began to cry, rolling into the foetal position on her side, and fumbling to pull her knickers and leggings back up. Tony got up to fetch the bottle of cider.

“Cry baby, cry-baby.” Dave twittered.

“I’ll fucking show you how to do it, wonces.” Eric undid the top button of his jeans and unzipped the fly. “Want a bit of this, baby-bitch?” He waved his hard-on in his right hand, and kneeled towards Claudette, like a dwarf.

Claudette looked round, screamed, and started edging on her bottom towards the wall. “Get away from me. NO! Tony! Get away from me.”

Eric started to wrestle with her and his jeans fell down, his bum in the air like a red flag from the bent pole in front.

“Eh-rric, Eh-rric!” Dave gleefully chanted, as Eric pulled off her leggings and threw them inadvertently to Jason, who immediately threw them away again.

“Shut up bitch or I’ll fucking smash you.” Eric shouted in her face, removing her knickers completely and throwing them away like a crisp packet, and struggled into position between her legs, holding her arms down by her side.

Tony ran to the corner and wincing, grabbed two of the dirty needles, one in each hand, like knifes. “No you fucking won’t you motherfucker!” And suddenly lunged at him with the needle in his right hand, burying the blackened tip of one needle to the hilt in the cheek of his bottom, like a bull’s horn in a matador’s buttocks.

“I was only having a larr...” Eric began before clutching the plastic tip hanging from his backside and howling like a starving dog in a trap.

“Run, Claudette. Go home.” Jason finally found the courage to say.

Tony threw her, her leggings. “Go home.” She tearfully scrambled into them. He dropped beside Eric holding the black needle in his left hand up to Eric’s left eyeball. “You say one fucking word about this, or touch her again, and next time I’ll fucking stab you right here, do you hear me? I’ll fucking kill you, you CUNT!”

You see, it would have meant his foster parents getting the gripe and giving him more grief than he could afford. Eric was pretty good about the whole thing really, telling his old lady he’d fallen on a needle at the dump, especially when the hospital told him that meant he’d have to have another one up the bum. But it changed the pecking order around the place because he stopped hanging around with Tony after that, which just goes to prove what a sad case he was all along and as for Claudette, well after that, she hung around with Tony even more. She called him her hero, no less, which just goes to prove what a sad case she is, but Tony didn’t tell anyone he thought that because she was his girlfriend, like.

“So it isn’t that serious, then?” Chris said. “No plans to settle down and have kids just yet?”

Tony started to laugh back but then stopped himself. What was he getting at? “Fuck you!”

Chris’ smile suddenly cracked and the titters from the audience swung like a noose to boos. Matt couldn’t believe they were actually booing an eighteen-year adolescent up here on the stage, under all the lights, as if that wasn’t punishment enough. They were all cowards, safe in the anonymity of their darkness, and for the first time he felt defensive for the boy, more than for himself, and spoke out with what he thought was courageous strength:

“He’s only ... eighteen, Chris?” But it came out more like a whimper.

“I know.” Chris cleared his throat. And a little kid was gonna sink his show?

“Fuck you!” Tony pushed Matt aside, making him stumble.

Swearing doesn’t make you a man, Chris considered replying but it was too defensive and a punch below the belt in his case. He had to be aggressive back but how? “Ladies, ladies,” he said instead. “We’re all friends here, but if Claudette won’t have you, Tone, I’m sorry,” and winked, “but I’m already taken. Nobody’s fucking me - I’m a married man for chrissakes!” And Tony laughed with the audience to Chris’ relief. “Otherwise, I would, no—fuck me—yes, I might consider it, seriously, Tone, no! You’re very pretty for a boy but this show isn’t about bloody me, it’s about fucking you, Tone. So why are you here? Come on, seriously?”

“To fuckin win!” Tony punctuated the air with a fist, grinning defiantly, but the audience didn’t respond as he’d expected, crumpling his grin into a snarling smile and he gave one of the cameras the finger and imagined the mushroom cloud rising above the radioactive bloody remains of the audience.

Something had recently clicked in his mind; it was impossible to get in trouble for imagining inflicting the most heinous act of crime, murder or torture on anybody you liked and in however much detail you liked. Nobody could stop you and it was like opening the door on a new and beautifully anarchic world where policemen hung by their ties from the lampposts, their pale faces bloated and blotched by the acid rain or where old people were herded like sheep by a collie snapping at their heels as they hobbled on sticks into a muddy field to be mowed down by his mounted Gatling gun in one swift strafe from left to right, spines snapping like twigs as they fell, or where little girls in pink dresses and bows were lifted one by one by his crane onto a giant rotting hay stack filled with manure and peat and old vegetables and set alight screaming and crying for their mummies clutching their little dolls whose plastic features melted first, before theirs.

“I won’t ask you whether you’d prefer a little girl or boy when you and Claudette settle down.” Chris smiled.

“Fuck you!”

Behind the black curtain and ramp, watching the Stage Manager’s monitor now, Katy couldn’t believe her eyes. A hoodlum like that? What kind of show was this? And was she the only female contestant?

“Fair enough, Tone. But there were quite a few rather bizarre requests in your letter to say the least, if I remember?” The Contestant scoreboard flashed Tony’s letter on top of Matt’s part-1 summary, like a new window opening in a visual operating system. “I know I’m taking my life in my hands when I say this,” Chris winked at the audience, desperately hoping he was keeping them on side, “but why don’t you come and try reading it to us?”

Chapter 7

His precocious macho credibility

Tony slouched around the counter and over to the edge of the arena stage beside Dr Jacqui, and was amazed to see the wide scrawls of his own handwriting in foot-high letters on the Contestant Stage opposite, besides Matt’s perfect example, and began reading from it.

“Dear Sir,

When I beet all the other peepol and win alot of dosh on the show theez are my Top 10 dimands and the reezons why I do them, first best.

1) a ferrari reezon give my dad a lift

2) a computer reezon get brayns sorted

3) A quadrophonic 8-play cd stereo sistem with graffic eqolizer and remot control reezon Oasis

4) 2000 cigerrets (100 x packs of 20) reezon Smoking

5) 1000 bottles Alcopops (500 x Oringe, 300 x cola, 200 x lemonayd) reezon Get pissed

6) 1 yeers lot of Playboy reezon I’m a bro’

7) SA40 Assalt rifel/sub-mashine gun reezon Hunting

8) 200 rownds of ammunition (blanks) reezon Im over 18

9) 356 Georgio Armani soots reezon look cool everyday

10) Top Secret: AM/FMd!* reezon so he can call me if he wants

(* A Mobiel / For My dad!)

If you want, I can sort out catalog numbers for male order stuff. I am happy if it works like harf becorz this is a big list. I promiss I can win becorz I have a good reezon, and watch TV a lot so I know. your a good blowk to think of me and I’m a good blowk to think of you. no what i min? we both win me and you. I want youre show to be a sukssess, and you want me to be a sukssess, rite? I’m the best. Sorted. respekt.

Tony O’Brien.”

The audience clapped and a few smiled at each other repeating one of the requests in their neighbours’ ear patronisingly. Tony didn’t notice or care, his real dad would be proud of all that reading and writing. He confidently strolled back over to the contestants’ counter beside Matt, and elbowed him with a grin, as if to say beat that sucker!

“Quite a list.” Chris teased, “but I am not sure about some of those ‘ree-zons’, bro’. How important is it for you to really win, Tone?”

Tony looked bemused by the question and slightly worried, as if the opportunity to win was suddenly about to be taken away. “I’m deadly serious, mate. I need that stuff more than this pratt needs shoona saypa!”

“Je ne sais pas!” Matt instinctively corrected him.

“Fuck you!”

Matt opened his mouth to reply but no words came out. Fuck me? Is that what you just said to me? I used to be a teacher.

“And what if you don’t win?”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

“If you say I don’t give a fuck,” Chris said, “it usually means you do, which is why you said it. And I can understand why. Children’s home? Borstal? Prison?”

“Nah,” Tony laughed, shaking his head at the joke, “I’m not fucking stupid.”

“Well, let’s find out. Doctor, what did you make of Tone-the-bone?”

There was a giant cheer from an audience wanting some answers, some sense of order or normality that had disappeared with Tony’s chaotic arrival and behaviour and Dr Jacqui took the moment to smile to herself. “Hostile is not the word. As you can see from the chart...” Matt’s part-1 summary returned to view, but now beside his details, in the next column on the right, appeared Tony’s, which she began to summarise for, what seemed to Tony like the whole world, before he even had a chance to diss her:

Full Name: Anthony O’Brien

Date of Birth/Time: 2.12.2064 / 3.27pm

Star sign: Sagittarius

Appearance and “behaviour”: Initially extremely uncooperative, monosyllabic replies. Verbally aggressive. Good eye contact although “stared on occasions.” Difficult to establish a rapport. Sportily dressed.

“Affect”: Labile—unstable—liable to undergone change. “Irritable” affect.

Mood: Subjectively he described being quite angry. Objectively rather difficult to assess due to his difficulty in establishing a rapport.

“Speech”: Speech pressured with “raised volume and tone, sporadic in flow but no flight of ideas.”

“Thought”: Denied paranoid ideation, but extremely violent reaction to discussion of sexuality, provoking vague and unsupported homicidal thoughts towards me, describing me as a ‘useless quack’. “Denied ideas of self-harm”. In spite of his reluctance to respond at times, there was no evidence of thought broadcasting, thought insertion or thought withdrawal thus exhibiting no formal thought disorder.

“Perception”: Very antagonistic but patient denies having any auditory or visual hallucinations. Slightly “grandiose way of thinking” for an eighteen-year-old, ‘I can take care of it myself, don’t worry’ and ‘I’ll sort it.’ Extremely strong feelings of persecution, irritable and hostile. No psychotic features, denied perceptual abnormalities.

Sleep/Appetite: Unforthcoming

Drug and Alcohol History: Unforthcoming, though evidenced below.

“Physical” examination: Refused fully naked examination but stripped to boxer shorts. Self-made tattoo of heart with arrow on left bicep. Pupils dilated but reactive to light. Urine drug screen “positive for cocaine metabolites”, several injection sites in both arms, new and old and on legs. Pulse 60 per minute regular, BP 100/70. Hepatitis B and C status negative.

Cognitive function: Alert and arousable. There was no planning consciousness and he appeared fully orientated but this was not set formally.

Insight: Didn’t feel he was suffering from any kind of mental condition and irritated by the suggestion, pacing up and down and wanted to ‘get out now’ unwilling to accept the idea that the room he wanted to leave might be in his head.

“That’s crap!” Tony shouted at her. “I don’t do drugs, bitch!” The audience gasped. “I’m a fucking diabetic.” Tony rubbed the inside of his elbow.

“I can assure you, young man, your blood tests revealed no evidence of diabetes and there was no ...”

“Screw you! Your tests mean shit, you’re talking out of your fucking arse, you bloody minger!”

Matt’s eyes shot left and right. Somebody, call someone, he needs help!

“Hold on, hold on, hold it, Tone.” Chris fought to control Tony’s outburst. “There’s no need to get excited.” Hiding a secret smile as the audience rallied in response; This was great TV, this was bloody brilliant TV. Poker face! “In your opinion, Doc, even if Tony was taking drugs are they the cause of Tony’s problem?”

Katy struggled to pull free of the giant security guard’s grip on her arm at the stage entrance. “I can’t do it. I can’t go on. Let me go! I’ve changed my mind.”

“I could find no evidence of any perceptual abnormalities from substance misuse to account for homicidal ideation, but at the same time, Tony denies suicidal ideation. However, it is my opinion that Tony’s repressing an underlying self-destructive impulse that he is projecting onto others.”

Chris scratched the back of his head thoughtfully. “Does that mean ‘No’? Are you saying drugs aren’t responsible for Tony’s problem?”

Tony started punching the air and banging the counter with his fists with such a stream of expletives the Sound Engineer had to turn his mic down.

“In this case, yes.”

“And Fuck you!” Tony dismissed her. She wasn’t going to be his bloody counsellor anyway. This was all time-wasting bullshit! Bring the counsellor out—let’s get down to business.

“Good. I’m glad I got that bit straight, at least. So then why does Tony want to kill people, and deep inside, himself, if you’re seriously suggesting that?”

“That’s crap.” Tony waved it away like a bad smell. “You’re all full of shit! Go and have a period, Doc, you stink like...”

“There’s no doubt in my mind that he harbors an impulse to kill here, evidenced by his reaction to my remarks about sexuality, and a misogynistic tendency, he considers any suggestion tantamount to an assault on his precocious macho credibility. Without examining his personal and family history in depth over a series of interviews, I haven’t a clue why.”

“Can anyone guess why Tony’s so mad at the world?” He asked the audience. “Come on, he’s only a kid.”

“I said Let me go!” Katy struggled painfully against the grip of both security guards now.

“Child Abuse!” Someone in the audience cried out enthusiastically.

“Child Abuse?” Chris jokingly asked Tony, shaking his head. “No, miles off! This kid’s more likely to be giving the abuse, isn’t that right Tone?”

“Fuck you!” Tony spat back. “You’re all a bunch of fuckin’ ... ”

“He killed his parents!” Someone shouted at Tony hopefully.

“They’ve got no imagination have they kid? No, I don’t think you’re gonna get it.”

“Abducted by aliens!”

“Aliens? Doctor, could you have a word with that man after the show. No. But don’t worry, we’re going to give you all a bit of help when we meet his counsellor—God help them—and Tony if he or she can’t guess your problem—and let’s face it you’re one hell of an unhappy puppy for an eighteen-year-old - what would you do if he was your kid—so it won’t be easy—but you can guess theirs, you’ll win your top secret AM/FMd and all your other 'demands' and if you win the most forfeits and beat Matt or our mystery final contestant, we’ll give you a chance to win tonight's Star Prize! Ladies and gentleman, please give it up for brave little Tone-the-bone from Birmingham!” The audience booed and stamped their feet. “Trev?”

Mathew turned to the stage entrance just as the final contestant’s life-size photo fell and his jaw dropped. He elbowed Tony and pointed. Tony shouldered him off cursing him but when he followed his gaze his mouth froze between “Fuck” and “ing”, suddenly staring silently at the photo like an epiphany.

She was tall and slim, striking against the metallic blue background with her long straight black hair woven in little pearl shapes to her shoulders under a silver crown. Her wide deep brown eyes shone either side of a slender wistful nose ending in a bambiesque bud, framed by high cheek bones and full rich red lips. A silk red slash hung over her slender left shoulder, between her firm upstanding breasts—barely supported by the yellow bikini top—across the bare honey chocolate skin of her concave belly to settle on her narrow right hip just below the thin line of the yellow G-string tick at her tiny waist, with the loose ends of the ribbon trailing down her fine statuesque legs to the silver high heels she wore in the gorgeous life-size photo at the Stage Entrance.

There is a God, Matt silently studied the perfect curves and shape of her perfection.

Tony straightened his tank top at the shoulders, puffed his chest, and flexed his tattooed bicep proudly. “I’d fucking give her one!”

“Our final contestant on tonight’s What’s your Problem? Chris is ...”

“Don’t you understand English? I said I’ve changed my mind,” Katy struggled against Tiny's grip—feeling his holstered gun press against her back as he held her behind the photo, “Let me go!”

“ ... A former beauty queen from Humpstead, North London, who’s clue symptom is that because of her psycho-sexual problem she can’t have kids, but can YOU guess why? Please give a warm WyP? welcome to the staggeringly unique and tremendously wonderful Katy Lawrence!”

Matt’s heart was pounding so hard, thanking Jesus for answering his prayers, he thought he might faint as he held his breath for this vision of loveliness to step through the film of the frame and forever into his living breathing reality.

Chapter 8

Big on the inside too

“And it’s hard to guess why she can’t have kids with a figure like that.” Trevor ad-libbed as the drum continued rolling and Katy still failed to make her entrance through the life-size bikini clad photo of her.

Chris’ stomach was doing somersaults. For God’s sake, where was she? What was the audience going to think if she didn’t come out?

“I’m not going on, I told you!” Katy tried to pull away from the security guards with all the strength in her.

“I certainly wouldn’t mind helping her try. Ladies and gentleman, please give her a little bit more encouragement and give it up for Kayyy ... teeeee ... Lawrence!”

Chris’ oesophagus was blocked. He couldn’t breathe. There was no way he could be breathing. Not now. Not after all it took to get here. Where was she?

“Mrs ... Katy ... Lawwww ... rence!” Trevor repeated.

Matt was still staring at the picture as if he was in a trance. Looking at her beauty made him feel so small. She could choose any man she wanted and what was he? Her beauty was indescribable. The pupils of her eyes were like tiny infinite swirling black holes consuming him; her soft red lips made the perfect bow to the arrow of her straight nose whose tail spread thinly like two delicate feathers to form her soft eyebrows; her neck was as sculpted and slender as that of a guitar; her bosom like large soft ripe red pears; her concave belly the tanned taut skin of an African drum stretched between the rim of her pelvic bones just above the subtle quarter moon curve of her hips melting seamlessly into her disproportionately long and toned high narrow legs whose feet slid almost vertically into high heels as if she were standing on her toes like a fragile ballet dancer. There was almost the magical glow of an aura around her if you squinted at the photo, as if she was some kind of Angel sent down by God. He knew he wouldn’t be able to speak to her. Beauty made speech meaningless. What could you possibly say to someone like that? Hello? It was ridiculous. How are you? Even more so. Do you like music? It was too corny for words. She would’ve heard it all before. There was nothing he could say to her. But just standing in the same place and at the same time as her would be enough. There was suddenly a loud crack behind the set. “Why isn’t she coming out?”

“She must have seen your face!” Tony laughed.

Both security guards finally managed to get all their weight behind her, although one had his foot stuck in the ramp, and push her through the photo.

In one single piece the photo was torn from the edges of the frame enveloping Katy like a giant sack as she stumbled forward and it flapped down like a flag.

Tony said, “Ing hell!” Matt’s pupils dilated even wider open. Chris closed his eyes exhaling with relief. The audience collectively gasped and then overenthusiastically counter applauded, cheering with wolf whistles.

Katy’s hair was cut short and sparkled with glitter, gold diamond encrusted earrings hung from her lobes matching the gold locket that hung around her neck between her extremely full and tremendous womanly bosom, partially revealed by the deep V of her long black sequined evening dress and matching open half jacket with shoulder pads. Although she had aged twenty years and now weighed a smite over thirty-six-stone, she looked incredibly glamorous and sophisticated.

Tony couldn’t believe her size. She was like an elephant! Her cheeks were puffed out like they were full of marshmallows, her big fat red lips were painted on like a clowns’, her double chin was lost in her neck like a water balloon filled neck brace and her body was ginormous like two huge black bean bags filled with jelly and stuck together at her waist.

Katy fought for a moment to retain her balance, looking nervously off stage at the crossed arms of the security guards blocking her exit and then up and down between the audience and her clasped hands rubbing her wedding ring and then smiled weakly at the sudden applause that had engulfed her.

Matt recognised her from the eyes that hadn’t changed from the photo and felt a cold shiver run down his spine and his heart sank; How could she have let herself go like this?

A caption appeared along the bottom of the hanging monitors, “Infertile? Lesbian? Feminist? What’s YOUR guess?” As Katy made her way to the Counter and the theme music played.

Chris kissed her on both cheeks, “Welcome to the show, Katy. It’s great to see you. For a minute there I thought you’d cancelled!” Chris winked at the audience. “It says here you’re a forty-two year old former beauty queen, your mother comes from Mali, and your father was a British diplomat. Will they be watching and supporting you at home tonight?”

“No.”

“Our contestants don’t have ...”

“They’re in the audience.”

“Where are they?” Chris looked up excitedly from his cards. “Could you stand up? Spotlights please!”

Camera three scanned the audience until it focused on an elderly rotund white man holding the hand of an elegant slim old black lady smiling proudly back at the camera in row fourteen near the front.

“Great to have you with us. Now it says here your daughter enjoys reading novels and watching films, nothing odd about that!” Chris turned to Katy. “What’s your favourite?”

“I don’t know.” She twirled the locket around her thick neck nervously, searching the faces of the other contestants as if they might have an answer.

“Don’t be shy, you’re among friends here, she’s feeling a little vulnerable. Can we all give her a little support? Ahhhh.”

The audience ahhed back and Katy shifted her weight from leg to leg, uncomfortably. It was such a stupid rule; why couldn’t she sit on the stool, that’s what stools were designed for.

“Come on, we’re all here to help?” Chris said.

Tony was grinning so much it was like he’d already won. Mathew acquitted himself of his position in the line-up behind the counter now like he was some kind of freak in a sideshow—such a lovely place, such a lovely place, as the electric guitar rose—What was he doing here?—plenty of room at the Hotel California—With them?—Any time of year, you will find us here ... More worrying still, Matt thought, if these are the other contestants, what are the counsellors going to be like?

And then Katy suddenly started, wheezing between the words: “Gone with the wind. The Thorn Birds. To Kill A Mockingbird. The Colour Purple. Misery. Perfume. Ordinary People. Birdy. They’re all extraordinary. There’s so many I love.”

“Are you talking about books or films?”

“What?!?” She asked in horror. “I thought you asked me about books, I’m sorry. Is Perfume a film, too? I suppose it must be by now. Do you want to know my favourite films instead? But actually, they’re not different at all. Isn’t that weird?” Katy heard the disquieting hum grow in the audience, whispers in the dark, swapping secrets, sporadic nodding heads around the vast Arena—I know, I know—hushes for silence, fingers poised at lips, and she felt so small and wiped her brow with her sleeve, sweating under the hot studio lights. “They always say the book is better than the film, don’t they? I still read the books again and watch the films again. I’m not confused. I do both.” She paused to take catch her breath. “Sometimes it’s like I’m reading the film when I’m watching it ... and watching the film when I’m reading it? Then there’s no difference, but I don’t know how. What was the question?”

Chris eyed the audience with hands open in exasperation. “You spend all that time waiting for one and then three come at once! Stop it! No, stop it! I’m talking about answers not the wait! No. Stop it, now. That’s so cruel. Wait as in waiting for a bus. Not what you’re thinking. Stop it. I’m sorry, Katy. Where did they find this audience?” Chris laughed and was pleased to see Tony enjoying himself, too.

But Tony was grinning at Katy with the thought of her big fat body in the vice of a giant metal press squeezing until her body burst like a giant balloon and the blood and guts splattered the walls before the shiny metal plates pressed against her fat pursed lips and her cheeks finally cracked her skull and evacuated her brains in a squelchy mess like beige toothpaste through her eyes, nose and ears...

“Maybe you’d like to read out what you would do and why if you beat the other contestants, Katy, and perhaps won a lot of money on the show?”

Katy shook her head, getting more agitated under the expectant glare of attention, and flattened her dress below her waist distractedly behind the counter. What do you expect me to say? Everybody’s staring at me now.

“Don’t worry, relax Katy, I don’t want to put you under any pressure. I can read it for you if you’d like?”

“You didn’t fucking help me!” Tony objected.

Chris ignored him. “It’s no problem, Katy?”

Katy shook her head, “No. It’s alright.” And nervously pulled out a small piece of paper from her jacket pocket and leaning with her elbows on the counter, began reading almost to herself, wheezing, unaware that a six-foot high blow-up of the letter had suddenly appeared on the giant cinema screen sized scoreboard at the back of the Contestant stage, and began scrolling her words:

“Dear Chris,” Katy read hesitantly, but with a perfect diction, “if I beat all the other contestants and won a lot of money on WyP? I would buy an aquarium because I like aquariums. I like the aquarium at London Zoo the best. I like looking at the fish in the dark where its round and cool and only the fish can see you because they’ve got a light on. I don’t like looking outside because the sun hurts my eyes and people’s eyes hurt my eyes and it’s hot everywhere and it’s too far to walk and there’s nowhere to sit down and when there is the chairs are always too close to the tables. That’s why I would donate three golf carts to the zoo then people like me could see the animals without stopping for breath all the time and eat ice-cream without leaning on the table.

And I would buy brown fish, blue fish and green fish but not pink fish for my aquarium at home because I don’t like pink fish. They look so pale like they’re dead and it must be a big aquarium with lots of water so I can get in too.

I used to like having a bath because I like feeling clean and wet and you feel so light and you can move properly, especially when I was a baby. If I won a real lot of money then I would buy a big bathtub for the garden because there’s not enough room for one my size in the house. I haven’t had a nice bath in years because of my weight disability but I don’t smell like they say I do because I sit on the edge of the bath and shower my feet. Fish don’t smell like they say either, only old dead ones that aren’t fresh.

But I would need a big fence and a sign saying no children allowed because I used to like children but now, they make nasty noises and say nasty things and think I’m deaf, dumb and blind not to notice. Maybe they think calling me a beached whale or Loch ness monster is brave or maybe they think there’s so much fat to pass through their words would die before they made it all the way to my heart. Small fish don’t hurt big fish in real life, do they? I admit I am big on the outside but I feel small on the inside when I go outside.

So, if my dream came true and I won a lot of money on WyP I would buy an aquarium bathtub so I wouldn’t need to go outside I could sit all day without any effort with my little fish and feel big on the inside too.”

“Signed Katy. That’s it.”

There was a moment’s silence and then the whole auditorium clapped, following Chris, and Katy smiled bashfully but it felt so good to feel proud again. It had been such a long time.

“You fat fuck!” Tony snarled to Katy under his breath.

“Well, Mrs Lawrence, Katy, I’ve got to say that was a lovely letter and we’re going to give you all the help we possibly can, but if your counsellor can’t guess your problem but you can guess theirs you will be taking home your very own aquarium bathtub and much much more! How about that?”

Katy uncertainly clapped along with the audience, turning to the boy beside her. Everyone wants to be liked but if you’re too nice people walk all over you. If you don’t show them where the line is, they cross it, you don’t help a naughty misbehaving child by giving them ice-cream and saying they were so good last week. Everyone wants to be nice, but if you’re too nice, you’re not helping anyone, least of all yourself, however much you want to. You have to stand up for yourself. It doesn’t mean you’re mad, you’re just mad at what someone else has done. But before she could say anything to Tony, Chris said, “Can you give us a few clues to help solve Katy’s problem, Doc?”

Matt leaned behind Tony and gently put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t listen to him, Katy. You’re perfectly normal, we all are.”

Katy’s eyes caught Matt’s for a fleeting moment and saw the soulful desperateness there, before Tony elbowed Matt in the shoulder.

“Don’t touch me you fucking faggot!”

Dr Jacqui started.

Chapter 9

How she hurt herself

Katy suddenly panicked, desperately trying to remember what she’d said, as Doctor Jacqui began summarising her most private personal details from the following Part-1 Summary that appeared beside Matt’s and Tony’s on the digital scoreboard:

Full Name: Mrs Katherine Penelope Lawrence (nee White)

Date of Birth/Time: 2.2.2242 / 7.43 pm

Star sign: Aquarius

Occupation: Housewife

“Appearance” and behaviour: Black, obese female, BMI 32, slightly dishevelled but appropriately attired. Made poor eye contact. Appeared older than stated. Evidence of psychomotor retardation - very little spontaneous movement. “Scar noted on left-hand”. Some agitation.

Affect: Anxious and at times fearful though somewhat flat and frequently vague about exact nature of fears.

Mood: “Subjectively” felt to be ‘O.K’, “objectively low”.

Speech: Soft and monotonous, difficult to understand, but perfect annunciation, not slurred or dysphasic.

Thought: “Intermittent suicidal ideation. History of self-harm. Severe laceration to third digit left-hand requiring surgery (1994). Described her action as unpremeditated and impulsive with no intent to kill herself. Has displayed outbursts of a violent nature eg. kicking doors, throwing things, but they occur without her realising it until the crash of the falling object is heard, then she realises what she’s done. “Admits to feeling angry when under stress but, ’the rest of me feels blank.” She felt she sometimes loses track of time. Some slowness of thought. Denied once drinking half a bottle of bleach, ‘to kill the germs’ inside. Denied homicidal ideation.

“Perception: Admitted to occasionally hearing her own voice in her head in the form of a 2nd person auditory hallucination saying, ‘you’re o.k., you’re o.k.’ Not unpleasant voice. No visual hallucinations.” Direct questioning revealed that she was hearing a running commentary of her actions” and that there appeared to be mild thought echo.

Sleep/Appetite: Sleep distressed with frequent interruptions through the night. Spends large part of the day in bed. Possible chronic fatigue syndrome; mental and physical lethargy.

Drug and alcohol history: Overdose on 24 Nurofen and a can of lager (1987) Poisons unit said no physical treatment required.

Physical Examination: 1 termination of pregnancy, history of a/uterine prolapse repair. Refused to remove undergarments for physical examination but blood tests revealed:

Haemoglobin 13.4, white count of 10.3, Platelet 284, mcv 88.8, sodium 139, potassium 4.8 urea 6.1, creatine 72, calcium 2.23, phosphate 1.33 billyrubin 3, alkaline phosphate 142, alt 20, rbc folate 221 ug/l, serum folate 4 ug/l (All normal).

Cognitive function: Cognitively her memory was impaired, especially short-term memory and her concentration was poor. No biological symptoms of depression.

Insight: She described being able to enjoy some things like television, superficially, while feeling blank, and “not knowing her feelings makes it difficult to respond to people in social situations.” But she said, ‘that’s just me, I can’t help it.’

Katy was frightened to look up and see the doctor for fear of the hate and hurt her eyes might show. How could one woman do that to another woman, with everyone watching, never mind a doctor?

“I think there’s some very interesting clues there for our audience but what’s ‘homicidal ideation’ mean, Doc?”

Katy was shocked. They weren’t going to discuss it all now, were they? They couldn’t! Where was her counsellor? Where was she? She was supposed to be seeing a counsellor.

“A desire to kill, which as you can see, she denied, and I believe her. But Self-harm is usually, but not necessarily associated with a feeling to commit harm-to-others, like in Tony’s case - much as sadistic impulses accompany masochistic impulses, or, as you’d say, a peeping tom, has impulses to be an exhibitionist.”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP JO!” Mathew suddenly screamed.

And when Chris, Katy and Tony all turned round to stare at him he looked back at them as curiously. Why?

Dr Jacqui cleared her throat and continued, “it’s Doc-tor Jacqui, not Jo, thank you. These polar opposites are commonly found as underlying impulses, but not necessarily recognised or actioned by the subject.”

“Sorry, doctor,” Chris said, taking a second look back at Mathew before continuing, “one at a time please. I’m a bit slow, but you’re talking about how she hurt herself, self-harm, right? Katy, forgive my tactlessness, but can we see what we’re talking about here, can you hold your left hand out for the camera please?”

Katy nodded with all the strength in her, holding back her anger as she held out her left hand, and Camera three got a close-up of the shivering hand, and protracted straight lame finger with its ring of scar tissue marking where it had been sewn back on, and unfortunately where the nerves had been irrevocably severed never to feel any sensation again, below her still-present diamond wedding ring. For some reason, her finger hadn’t felt like it still belonged there without the wedding ring.

“Take a look at that!” Chris detested, as he watched the ugly wooden finger fill the monitor screen.

“OOooohhhh.” The audience sighed together, a burning blanket of sympathy.

“So, there you were, cutting the vegetables and all of a sudden, whoops, chop, chop, there goes another finger?” Chris grinned.

Katy shook her head, averting her eyes to the ground ashamed to look him the eye, naked as her wedding night, but twice the size - weighing a mere twenty-four stone eight pounds, then - staring at the unlit coal fireplace and shivering in the large tastefully decorated living room of her Humpstead cottage, Everdale. It was a shame, Katy had such a pretty face, everyone thought so. Goosebumps appeared on her coffee skinned arms, and the tiny hairs stood to attention like hay. She looked across from her arms to the large spread of her huge belly, hiding the sight of her pubic hair and, as she saw it, ugly genitalia. She was fat, there was no point in denying it; she had a beautiful smile and beautiful eyes and a beautiful face but she wasn’t heavy, she wasn’t large, she was FAT! She had to accept it after fighting with herself for so long; after trying every diet and submitting to short spells of bulimia where the throwing up only made her feel fuller. The more of the little she ate, the emptier she actually felt. Eating, in fact, made her feel emptier and emptier. That’s what she wanted. She didn’t really deserve to be happy.

Everdale didn’t think she deserved to be happy, either. She was as large, empty and devoid of sentiment as her own heart. She’d removed all the photos and mementos from her shelves and walls, like her clothes, but Everdale couldn’t forget. They were both like skeletons now, haunted by the clean undusted spaces of removed memories, as empty as the day they moved in, if only everything in between had never happened. If only…

Peace lay in not thinking, but the more she tried not to remember the more she did. It was like the nightmare where the faster you ran the slower the ground moved. Even the dark unlit coals knew. But they may have known what Mrs Lawrence did, but how did they know she was Mrs Lawrence? Mrs Lawrence wasn’t as slow as people thought. Mr William Lawrence wasn’t around to tell anybody, anymore, was he? She wasn’t wearing Mrs Lawrence’s clothes. There were no photos of Mrs Lawrence here now. Only Katy.

But, of course, there was still Mrs Lawrence’s wedding ring on her finger, the windows could see that, even the walls could see that. Everdale didn’t miss a thing. It sank, like a crown jewel in pastry, in the folds of her flabby finger; she’d even put on weight there, since she’d first put it on. She struggled to remove it but it barely even rotated. She heard Everdale scoff at her, coughing down the chimney in the silence, like a wicked old granny.

She pulled harder on it and felt the strain on the knuckle of her finger, like she was sucking the bones of her knuckles out of the flesh of her finger.

“I’m trying, can’t you see?” Katy asked Everdale in frustration.

Everdale held her silence, as if in doubt.

She walked into the kitchen, opened the fridge and pulled out a tub of margarine determined to prove it to her. She tore off the lid and stuck her left-hand knuckle-deep into it. She pulled her hand out covered in margarine and tried again to remove the ring, but her hand kept on slipping and losing its grip.

She grabbed a tea towel and felt the rock beneath it. She pulled and twisted the rock but although the ring rotated on her finger now, she still couldn’t pull it off.

You’re not trying hard enough, Katy, she heard Everdale in the jingle and clash of the hanging utensils and bronze-plated pots and pans mocking her, as a cold North Westerly wind blew in through the open backdoor.

She stopped herself, for a moment remembering how happy she had been when they both first moved to Everdale in 1983. It had been their ‘annus mirabilis’, she remembered Billy saying lawyerly, like a good white man. Whatever he meant, that year was something good while it lasted. How could these same walls contain such extremes of happiness and sadness now?

One day Everdale was all friendly, waving open doors in the sunshine, and another day she was all miserable and rackety, curtains closed for days, floorboards creaking whispers with every step. It had always been that way. But now she was stronger. Time had strengthened her. She twisted and pulled harder on the ring.

Nothing.

She held the awful swollen white-streaked finger to her face to examine it. It was turning the same colour as her husband, as if the ring was making her finger white-dirty like him.

It’s diseased, Katy. She spun around to see where the hiss was coming from. But nothing moved. She looked back at the ring, and bit it to try and pull it off with her teeth. The stone dug into her gums and she tasted the blood with her tongue.

Can’t you see it’ll make you ill?

“No, it won’t!” She sucked against the pain, her big black belly wobbling.

It’ll start to rot and then you won’t be able to do anything about it.

“It’s not!”

It will spread like a virus until your whole big black woman’s body is white-streaked with disease just like it...

“Leave me alone!”

You can never be free of it if you don’t do it now, never.

“I can!”

Suddenly Katy, with fearful pride, reached above the Aga and pulled down the heavy hanging cleaver. She stared in awe at it’s cool clean blade glinting in the light as she turned it in the air. It was clinically beautiful. She carefully laid her pale white diseased finger on the edge of the cutting board, and wrapped the other fingers into a ball in her palm, thinking it’s as hollow as a stick of bamboo, it won’t hurt, and it will be over forever, just like before. She had the strength, she told herself, she was still Katy inside. She still had some self-respect. She was a strong proud black woman, not a wispy crying little white girl with tin-foil courage like… She had a heart. She wasn’t Mrs Lawrence anymore. She wasn’t.

She bitterly lined up the cleaver between the rock and the knuckle and shut her eyes to concentrate. She lifted the tremoring cleaver slowly.

Only Everdale heard the awful crunch of cracking bone, Mrs Lawrence was already unconscious on the kitchen floor with her wedding-ring still on her finger except both were now lying on the wooden cutting-board with tiny sinews trickling blood into a little red tail.

“Waiter, waiter,” Chris laughed, “there appears to be something in my soup - Don’t say that or they’ll all want one! But seriously, Doc, why did Katy do something like that to herself if it wasn’t an accident and does it have anything to do with why she isn’t able to have children?”

“Where’s my counsellor?” Katy rubbed the front of her dress agitatedly between her legs like a child needing the toilet.

“As I was saying,” Dr Jacqui continued, “I’d suggest that there’s a possibility it’s symptomatic of her underlying desire to harm others, even if this was not acted on, or recognised, but exactly why that is I have no idea, and there is no medical reason why she can’t have children.”

“How about Devil Possession, Doc?” Dr Jacqui laughed at Chris. “You know like in that film the Exorcist?” Chris continued seriously. “Ever tried a three-sixty-degree spin of the head, Katy? Do strange things in bed with a crucifix?”

The audience giggled embarrassingly at the question.

“Historically speaking,” Dr Jacqui fought his levity, “it’s actually not that strange to seek a supernatural explanation for unexplained behaviour, but if it were that easy, I’d be out of a job.”

“So, we don’t know why?”

“Anything more at this stage is merely supposition.”

“Not superstition! Get it?” Chris held his upturned palms out and then waved them over dismissively. “Sorry, you’re absolutely right, doctor, we shouldn’t make snap—ouch!—judgements. Any guesses anyone?”

“You hate kids?” A man shouted at Katy.

“Sir, the question is why isn’t she able to have them? Please!”

“Did you have post-natal depression after the abortion?” A lady said enjoying herself.

“What do you think, Katy?” Chris held a finger to his lips.

Katy kept her chin to her chest, fumigating with loathing, the audience swelling and moving synchronously en masse foggily below her line of sight as if with one mind like a school of minnows. This wasn’t fair she was supposed to see...

“O.K. Anyone else? I mean look at this lady, she’s suffering?”

“Lesbian Fag!” Katy saw the catfish snap, eyes reflecting soullessly back between the boulders of the cameras on stage, before sliding back to his little crevice.

“Err ... I don’t think so, sir, and she needs help now! Boy, does she, let’s face it fellas, would you want her to be the mother of your kids? But don’t worry, Katy, we’ve got the finest, and most thorough counsellors in the business, to have a go at guessing exactly what is your problem and why? And if they can’t, and you guess theirs, and your forfeit points are fewer than Matt and Tony’s, you’ll be meeting the Doc for ‘make ‘em sane’ and if you succeed, get a chance to win that Aquarium Bathtub of yours and much much more!”

Katy visibly shook as the surf of the sound waves hit and washed over her, leaving her standing there, rocking against the counter, like a loose pylon attached to an insecure sea breaker.

“I doubt any of our volunteer counsellors will close to your staggering insight. What a sophisticated and beautiful lady, I mean it, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dr Jacqui McThorn!”

The audience went wild for her and she waved back with a smile wider, whiter and higher than the cliffs of Dover, basking in their sunshine applause, faking immodesty professionally, and left her podium. As she walked off stage, she turned cutely on her perfect hips to give a little wink and wave to the contestants. Not one of them clapped, waved or smiled back. Not even Katy, the only other woman there.

“If only I wasn’t already spoken for,” Chris said whimsically, “how many times does a man say that? None. Moving swiftly on, can we have a quick recap of the rules Trevor?”

“Certainly, Chris,” Trevor began.

“Now we’ve got our three patients, which one is the best

At making a mess, of the lives that they’ve led.

We’ve written them down, but you’ve got to guess

By asking them questions, just like in a test.

An opposite stranger for each one we need,

A shoulder to cry on in case they should bleed,

With emotional stress. You know it’s the best,

Forget all your worries, and lay them on these:

Three of the strangest contestants you’re ever likely to meet

Sharing their hang-ups for our nosey greed!”

“I don’t care what anyone says, you’re a goddamn poet, mate!” Chris said. “But I promised you guys some help, so let’s meet the counsellor who’ll be helping us to guess one of your problems, while you’re trying to guess theirs.” Chris yelled at the audience as if for help. “Is there a counsellor in the house?”

The audience, like a thousand children screaming together ‘he’s behind you’ at a Pantomime, shouted back at the top of their voices, “What’s your problem?”

Mathew didn’t need to look at them to know they were shouting at him.

“Our first amateur Counsellor,” Trevor began, “to get the chance to pick one of our lucky contestants is a seventy-three-year-old former Army Translator, from Buxley Heath, in Kent, ” a photo fell at the Stage Entrance and the audience suddenly started grunting, booing and spitting outrageously like herds of swine, "— a genuine Mr Military through and through—please give a warm WyP? welcome to Captain Stanislav Boglosovic!” A man? The dreadful thought hadn’t even crossed Katy’s mind when Tony nudged her in the side with a grin and raised his thumbs up in the direction of the Stage Entrance and the photo hanging there. It wasn’t a man. It was a disgusting full-length shiny photo of a red flag with a solid white circle in the middle containing the four black bent crossing elbows of a Swastika which a giggling Chris was waving two fingers up at as the orchestra played Wagner’s Cry of the Valkyries.

Matt hadn’t a clue what was so funny. He simply didn’t get it. Weren’t they here to be helped? And then he suddenly shouted out, his face crunching in pain. “STOP IT MUM ... JO ... SHIT I DIDN’T!”

“Who the fuck is Jo?” Tony pushed him in the chest. “Will you shut the fuck up!”

Katy stared at the terrible symbol—she was the only black woman there.

Chapter 10

Narcissistic Self-Indulgence

The photo of the Nazi flag was suddenly punctured near the base with a short sharp kick and the edge of an elderly hand widened the rip vertically up through the centre of the cross and Captain Stanislav Boglosovic stepped onto the stage and resumed his full height before nodding curtly at the audience, unaffected by the animosity of the fanfare that greeted him.

After a moment’s pause, and a disparaging glance at the contestants, he marched over to Chris’ rostrum and mechanically shook the proffered hand.

“Captain Stan my Man, good to meet you. Have you done much counselling?”

“No, I haven’t.” The Captain replied precisely, adjusting the left cuff of his jacket smartly.

“But Stan, just to reassure the contestants, and the viewers at home, have you ever worked in a voluntary or professional capacity as a counsellor, therapist, or psychiatrist in any shape or form?”

“Never!” Captain Stanislav Boglosovic replied, as if he objected to the suggestion.

Katy looked nervously at the other contestants to see if they were as surprised by this as her. Matt noticed but avoided the eye contact staring straight ahead. Tony snorted sarcastically with a wicked smile.

“I see.” Chris scratched his head in feigned puzzlement. “But Stan, what do you think about therapy and counselling? It’s a good thing obviously, you want to give it a try and help these people with their problems, don’t you?”

“Problems? Counselling is pure narcissistic self-indulgence, Mr Carrotte.” The Captain spoke measuredly. “Threaten to cut off the water supply and they’d be more concerned about not washing their hands or the toilet not flushing than not having fresh drinking water! They don’t know the meaning of the word, ‘problems’.”

“That doesn’t sound too good, does it Matt-my-mate? You’re not exactly, if you’ll forgive me Stan, a shoulder to cry on in times of need?” He changed his tone from sympathy to accusation. “But what about all the poor souls out there? What about a little human empathy? The war’s over! What about some understanding for Christ’s sake!”

The audience cheered his carefully scripted attack. The Captain started to answer but was drowned out by the response.

“No, let him speak, let him have his say.” Chris studied his cards briefly.

The Captain began again. “You asked me what I thought of the process of Therapy and I gave you my answer. That does not mean I am without human emotion. It simply means that I do not believe that endless wallowing in your own feelings is helpful in resolving a problem any more than thinking about food constantly is helpful in maintaining a diet.”

“That’s easy for you to say!” Chris crossed his eyes.” But some people can’t just carry on, they need help, like these three for instance. What about them? Don’t you care?”

“They’re very ...” The Captain perused Mathew like a soldier on parade, “sad.” And then Tony, “Perhaps Character deficient, but that’s hardly surprising.” He turned back to Chris. “Bleating sheep are a product of modern times. I only believe in survivors.”

The audience booed him.

“Fuck you, old man!” Tony hadn’t understood what he said, but he knew an insult when he heard one.

“OK, OK, but you know why you’re here, don’t you Stan?”

“I do.” The Captain smiled at Tony.

Tony imagined burying the old man alive with a tube for air and four hungry rats scurrying around the four corners of the coffin nibbling at his ears and toes and the old man screaming in agony unable to escape.

“You know you’re here to try and guess what one of their problems is?” Chris shuffled the cards.

“Do I need to repeat myself?” He turned to Chris fiddling with his left jacket cuff again and clenching the fist.

“No, that’s O.K. I’m sorry.” Chris turned to the audience in an aside, “I told you our counsellors had problems of their own! But just supposing you got Matt-my-mate here, do you think you could guess what his psychosexual problem is? And no helping from the audience please. Remember Stan hasn’t had any clues yet.”

Captain Stanislav Boglosovic turned to examine Matt again, who stared ahead as impassively as possible. “There’s a lot of restraint, maybe possessiveness there, not envy. Shame, yes,” his unblinking unwavering eyes caught Matt’s briefly as he looked across and they suddenly looked familiar. Had he met this man before? Stan couldn’t quite place the face though.

Mathew was stung by the cruel intensity in the man’s eyes, cursing himself, knowing that he would be chosen next and have to face them in the huge Arena alone.

“Fear! He’s hiding something he’s ashamed of.”

The audience began applauding him.

The Captain didn’t respond. He never forgot a face and it was nagging at him, now, like an upset stomach. Where had their lives crossed? It was such a long time ago, but the eyes were the clue. He tried to picture the place, and a Hall came to mind, but it wasn’t that, then a Church, oddly not a synagogue, it wasn’t that. He tried to hear himself talking to the man, what would he be saying, where were they talking and then in a flash like a curse, he saw himself sitting there in the jail and it wasn’t with Mathew, he remembered now, but the hair and, yes, the eyes, those same eyes, and he closed his own for a moment to try and recall why seeing them again now had disturbed him so much.

“When you open your eyes,” he put his pen down in the cell, “you will have forgotten everything you have told me. You will feel assured,” his lips drooled the vowel sound, “that the most important people in your life, your mother, your wife,” he checked his clipboard, “Melissa,”—Americans had such odd names for their loved ones— “and your … eighteen-month-old little girl, Belinda,” his smile cracked the crusty ragged dry contours of his face, “are all healthy and well, just like you. You will feel peaceful and calm. You will feel alert and aware of your surroundings ...” He looked up at the high steel-barred window, and paused for a moment to consider how far he could take it. If one didn’t go the extra mile there was no risk or fun in it, he concluded, and continued. “You will indeed feel grateful for having had such a deep and relaxing rest. On the count of three you will open your eyes. One... Two...” He clicked his fingers then, “Three!”

The man raised his ginger head and his eyes - no, they weren’t quite the same as Mathew’s, yet, but close - sprang open.

The room seemed to instantly materialise from nowhere; Hard, sparse, dull concrete walls; A heavy granite-rock-like grey iron door; A shiny Yugoslavian Tourist Board Poster with a beautiful smiling lady’s face superimposed on the corner of a sun-drenched white beach beside the high little cell window.

“Name and rank!” Lieutenant Boglosovic snapped.

Commander Bayer’s attention, like a taut elastic band released, whipped back and he spun around on the floor to the door behind him to see the ugly man with a prune-wrinkled dark complexion sitting with his immaculate though ill-fitting dark green uniform suspended from his skeletal, hanger thin, shoulders with its silver pip of authority.

“Sergeant Daniel J. Bayer, sir!”

“Regiment?”

Commander Bayer struggled to concentrate on his cover story and breathe in the nasty cloying incipient air of the room. There was this most god-awful rancid smell of urine and excrement and he looked down at his hands resting in the black sludge on the floor and suddenly remembered it was his own. “US Medical Corps, sir!”

“What is the name of your commanding officer, Sergeant?” Lieutenant Boglosovic asked with a faint smile on his lips, fully expecting the pat answer that would follow as it had when violence was the preferred weapon of interrogation.

“Under the terms of the Geneva Convention I am not required to provide that information, sir!” Commander Bayer replied automatically staring straight ahead at the cell wall, fighting to reassess the situation as quickly as it appeared to reassess him.

“Of course not, Sergeant.” And with an impeccable politeness the physically weak Lieutenant relished offering the strong, false, lying and honourless—typical—American, “will you forgive my impertinence, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir?” Commander Bayer’s eyes looked askance at his interrogator’s, without moving his head, confused by his politeness. The interrogator’s pupils were a deep black like pools of oil. He quickly looked away from their incongruently hateful stare.

“Good.” Lieutenant Boglosovic lied, enjoying the apparent confusion in his young victim; Americans arrogantly seemed to think they were so superior? Tanks against sickles—was that a fair fight? This American had quite happily just revealed how he and his five accomplices had murdered eighty-seven of his fellow countrymen defending their homeland with antiquated rifles against their high-tech grenades and laser-sighted weaponry. They were all fucking cowards! There was an almost beautiful irony in having a representative from the world’s supposedly most powerful country at your mercy; indeed, a triumph of Middle Eastern brain over unprincipled US brawn with their crass sentimentality. But worse than the excuse of just following orders here was a fuckin’ mercenary. Oh, how such animals pretended to care about people rather than more and more and more money. “So how are you feeling today, Sergeant?”

Commander Bayer’s eyes fell on his legs, straight out in front of him, to the floor and the pitiful dirty, soiled and torn fatigues he was wearing. He could see the swelling welts and bruising on his thighs beneath the tears. Images of fighting, yellow, orange and red flashes of machine gun fire, bodies falling, capture, beating, torture, sickness flew at him as if he was free-falling from two thousand feet in darkness and they were lighting the sky. He tried to think logically and pinpoint what was wrong, but it was as if he was behind a wall, and yet he was also on the other side and couldn’t reach himself. He touched his head and he could feel a bandage wrapped around his skull. He knew that he wasn’t normal – like that weird poster on the wall - but he heard himself say, as if he couldn’t help it, “Fine, sir. Thank you.”

“Very good Sergeant.” Lieutenant Boglosovic stopped the Tape Recorder, picked it up with his clipboard containing his notes on his personal background, family and address in addition to his Special Forces’ unit size, location, objectives, and ‘success’ and promptly wrapped on the door with his left knuckles twice, raising the left cuff of his jacket and for a fleeting moment Commander Bayer thought he saw something tattooed there.

The door opened outwards and the guard outside stood to attention stiffly, his nose twitching at the foul American stench coming from the cell and saluted Lieutenant Boglosovic, as one always must a superior.

“Ensure that this man receives the very best treatment you are able to provide, Corporal. That is an order.” Lieutenant Boglosovic turned back to his victim and, so that the guard might not have the slightest doubt by what he meant after giving his instructions in English, stood to attention, his fragile frame shivering slightly with the physical effort. “Good afternoon, Commander.”

Commander Bayer turned in shock—and there they were now, those same eyes—to see his reflected failure shining back before the guard’s boot caught him hard across the chin, knocking him sideways and face down into the slimy black cesspit of his own making.

Captain Stanislav Boglosovic suddenly opened his eyes and he was back in the studio facing Matt with his ginger head averting those same eyes, so unlucky for some.

“I’d like to try him.” Captain Stanislav Boglosovic slowly smiled for the first time. “Yes, I think I would very much enjoy that.” Matt refused to look back. “In my experience the soul is more revealing the greater the pressure.” Before confiding in Chris. “The face masks terribly in a crisis, you know.”

“You reckon he’s hiding something he’s ashamed of?” Chris studied his cards, “And he’s pretty damn close, right?” Chris addressed the audience before returning back to him. “I can tell you our resident Psychiatrist’s clue symptom was that Mathew suffered from guilt-full panic attacks or flashbacks so well done. Now any guesses what Stan’s clue symptom might be, Matt?”

Matt shook his head, staring at his feet.

“Then how about little Tony here, Stan?”

Matt suddenly looked protectively at the child beside him; Leave him alone.

“The kid’s still in his diapers.” Captain Stanislav Boglosovic replied without even bothering to look over.”

“But any guesses as to what his psychosexual problem might be?” Chris persisted.

“He’s probably got nappy rash.”

Tony held up a fist with his right arm, and cupped its bicep with the right. “Fuck You! Old man. Fuck You Motherfucker!”

“Now I didn’t ask you to tell us what his problem is yet, Tone.” Chris half-eyed the audience.

Captain Stanislav Boglosovic glanced at Tony from the corner of his eye and snorted dismissively. “Do you follow?”

Tony leered at him. A coffin with rats wasn’t good enough. He imagined connecting him to a heroin drip and chaining him to a post in an underground tunnel where the rats ran as freely as the sewer in the pitch-black darkness to help him dream more easily.

“Listen here, Captain, don’t be childish, answer me this: Do I NEED to repeat myself?” He asked ironically to applause. “Don’t stoop to his level Bone.” There was more applause. “Any idea what his psychosexual problem might be, please?”

Captain Stanislav Boglosovic slowly gave Tony and then Chris a dirty appraisal, before answering spitefully. “Not a clue.”

The crowd booed and jeered him. Captain Stanislav Boglosovic turned his nose up at them as if immune to a concerted mass of opinion.

“Please. Please. Thank you. Please. Not the most intelligent answer in the world, Stan. Listen, it’s my show and we’re going to play by my rules. Is that clear?” The crowd began stamping their feet and clapping. “Or I’m bringing someone else out to counsel one of them? Is that clear?” Chris glared at him. It wasn’t difficult; Sister Liz and Odin were waiting backstage if anything went wrong with Stan. He hadn’t put his fucking soul, and Mary’s, on the line just so that this old man could fuck it up.

The crowd were on their feet now chanting, “Car -rot, Car-rot, Car-rot ... ”

“OK? OK Stan?” Chris forced himself to be calm and not lose it wishing he was up in the Gallery right now and could read Mildred’s Summary Rating Stats for reassurance. “Thank you, thank you, let him speak.”

Matt didn’t think he could take five minutes never mind sixty minutes with this man—when I was younger - Whatever his problem was—so much younger than today—there was something weird about him. He showed no reaction—I never needed anyone to help me in any way—He scrunched his eyes tight to stop the maddening song playing in his head—but now those days have gone—In a packed arena? I’m not so self-assured—With all the TV cameras around them? That wasn’t normal—now I find I need you like I’ve never done before—That wasn’t human. He had to get out of this somehow. Please God—help me if you can I’m feeling down—bring someone else out Chris. Let the old dog dig dirt, please, please, “STOP IT!” help me, “MUM! Stop IT!” help me ...

The Captain waited for the chanting to die down and then began, “Mr Carrotte, if I have caused any inadvertent offense, I apologise, but I am sincerely unable to guess what’s wrong with poor Tony over there off the top of my head. Forgive me.” There was the merest hint of sarcasm but Chris felt a bit foolish for overreacting. “However, if he were to avoid foul language which I was led to believe was not, as you say,′ playing by the rules,′ I would be quite willing to ... counsel him. Is that clear enough?”

“Fine, you’ve got a fair point there, Stan. I’m not an unreasonable man. Tone, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.” He laughed. “Pipe it down, OK kid?”

“He started it.” Tony pointed at the Captain.

“Whatever.” And then Chris lost it. “I’m not having any more fucking swearing on my fucking show, is that clear? Is that clear everyone?” Chris laughed a little too manically, but the audience followed to his relief and he smiled more good-naturedly. “Now, Stan, last question ...”

Matt sunk his head in despair—I’m not so self-assured—his prayer unanswered—Now I find I need you like I’ve never done before ...

“ ... but hardly least, any guesses for Mrs Lawrence?”

The Captain scanned down from her pretty face to her vast upper body, she didn’t look up from her hands, palm down on the shaking counter. He followed her stare and noticed the wedding ring on her finger. If only he could see her eyes, a person’s life lay in their eyes, but her gaze was fixed down so determinedly.

“She’s a very attractive lady.” He said without irony. Mrs Lawrence looked up at him in horror. Captain Stanislav Boglosovic’s own pupils fully dilated at what they saw in hers, and he almost stumbled. The feeling was tremendous. Very almost lovely.

Tony didn’t know why, and he wouldn’t admit it, but the old man’s look actually scared him for the first time.

Katy was glued to his vision, trapped like a fly in the centre of the web of cracks in his face.

“Stan,” Chris pulled out a black velvet bag from the top shelf behind his rostrum, and shook it, “it’s time to Pick-a-Patient!”

The stage suddenly turned dark. Spotlights danced sequentially over the heads of the contestants in turn, illuminating their faces in stark shadows; Katy’s wide-eyed horror and open ‘O’ lips; Tony’s shifty narrow eyes and wedged smile; and Mathew’s downward stare and downturned lips, as the drum rolled and the audience shared their bets excitedly in urgent whispers.

Stan picked an envelope. He held the name in the palm of his hand. With the long fingernail of his right thumb and a duplicitous smiling curiosity, he opened it.

Chapter 11

Celebrating their own greatest fear

Mathew stood motionless, with a fixed stare in mid-air—the problem’s all inside your head she said to me. Mrs Lawrence clenched her knuckles so tight, her nails dug into the skin of her palms, turning them a blotchy white, leaning precariously on the counter. Tony rubbed his small tattooed bicep with one hand, “fucking come on, fucking come on!”

“And tonight’s first contestant is ... ” Chris said, unfolding the piece of paper Stan had handed him, and feigning surprise, “Mrs Lawrence, our forty-two-year-old housewife from Humpstead, North London, come on over and meet Stan, your counsellor on tonight’s ‘What’s YOUR problem?’”

The crowd went wild with anticipation, cheering approval of fate’s draw, flooding the studio with great whoops of joy. It never perhaps dawned on them that they might be celebrating their own greatest fear.

Camera 2 switched to a close-up of Mrs Lawrence, but nothing appeared. Camera 3 scanned along the contestants from left to right, again. Mathew exhaled very slowly—Just slip out the back Jack, make a new plan Stan, there’s no need to be coy Roy, just get yourself free. Tony looked down at her lying on the floor beside him with her fat thigh on his foot and surreptitiously kicked it clear.

Matt wiped his brow with his sleeve—Just hop on the bus Gus, there’s no need to discuss much, “Stop It!” Just drop off the keys Lee and get yourself free ...

Upstairs in the Gallery the Proddir screamed down the microphone to the AFM, “What are those bloody nurses being paid for, darling? What are they doing?” And checked the first Summary Ratings Stats from the Multi Information and Logistic Demographic Research and Evaluation Device above the bank of monitors, each number reading the audience’s mind on every aspect of the show so far: AUD: + 3%, CHR: -10%, POR: + 4%, HUM: - 9%, TON: + 7%, ODN: 0%, MAT: + 4%, LEX: - 8%, MOR: -5%, LIZ: 0%, STN: -5%, CNS: + 3%, SEX: - 1%, KAT: + 6%, M/F: - 9%, ENT: - 6%. It was ridiculous, the Porn (POR) strand hadn’t even started and Mildred thought it was four per cent above expectations? Unless that was the increased number of people waiting for it tuned into a blackened Porn stage and ignoring the counselling stage entirely? God, was the audience that sad? And Mildred thought Humour (HUM) was nine per cent lower than expectations? Get real! The show was hysterical. Mildred clearly didn’t have a sense of humour. “A contestant has just collapsed, did you see that? WHERE ARE THEY? They’re supposed to watch the monitor at all times! DIDN’T YOU TELL THEM THAT? What if she’s had a heart attack? CAN YOU HEAR ME? Are you still working for me?”

Behind the set the AFM shook his head from side to side, wincing and trying to stop the voice on his headset from blowing up his brain. He just managed to weakly answer, “Yes.”

“Then, Get Them Here NOW!” The Proddir yelled.

The noise in the headset stopped. He felt like he’d just stepped out of a disco; He could still hear the words ringing in his head, like a fading song, as the two hooded figures of Gareth and Lucy in long elegant robes hovered silently passed him in the corridor like apparitions.

Chapter 12

Simply divine

“Excuse me, Sis’!” Gareth tried to pass the nun blocking the corridor in front of the noticeboard containing the show’s running order but she spun around as if startled and her eyes suddenly narrowed on his in recognition.

“How dare something like you,” she surveyed him from the foot of his robe to the hood on his head, “call someone like me, ‘Sis’?” Sister Mary Elizabeth Xavier spat.

“Keep your hat on,” Lucy tugged her husband’s hand around her, and looked back over her shoulder at the smouldering eyes watching after them like a curse, “Christ!” And when they had made a little distance, “How bloody rude! Do you know her?”

“Forget her. She’s just another counsellor.”

Lucy looked back over her shoulder. “What? Her!”

This time Gareth had to tug on his wife’s hand to get a move on.

Mrs Lawrence’s nurse surreptitiously ran on to the stage with her medical bag. She checked her pulse and her breathing. It was O.K., she had only fainted. She quickly held smelling salts under Katy’s nose to revive her, and slowly, with Mathew and a reluctant Tony, helped her onto her feet.

“What ... What happened? Where am I?” Katy’s eyes dizzily searched the studio un-focusing and focusing on an orange alien and then the nurse beside her and then a little boy. “What’s happening?”

"What's tonight's Star Prize, Trev?" Chris looked up to the roof.

“Tonight's What's YOUR problem? Star Prize …" Trevor gravely intoned, "ladies and gentlemen, this classic 1965 red Ferrari.” The large studio doors opened on the Contestant Stage and two security guards led the gleaming red sports car into the arena.

The taller of the security guards was nicknamed ‘Tiny’, he was six-foot-eleven inches tall, and the other, ‘Tonky’, was six-foot-ten-and-a-half-inches tall, but an inch meant more to him than Tiny, so he always argued he was six-eleven, too, and Tiny let him. Both were heavily built with arms as thick as tree trunks and wore full face visor helmets, heavy-duty protective clothing, and carried holstered, but clearly visible, firearms.

Tony let go of Katy’s arm, dazzled by the sight of the searing red-cherry finish and sparkling chrome on the opposite stage and the sound of the subdued thrust of its engine bass-fully purring like a lion.

“Where am I?” Katy panicked.

“In racing red with a full ten years free insurance, and packed inside, gentlemen if you please, that’s right this beautiful gorgeous ...” Camera 6 got a close-up of the flat bonnet in focus as the car came to a halt. “Nubile naked nineteen-year-old blonde, our very own, Cherie Van Oupen!”

Cherie, wearing nothing but a smile, popped up from the bonnet as rehearsed on cue, but cursed as she banged her knee on the sharp rear edge. She struggled to look elegant and hold her smile scooping up the £50 bank notes around her as if she was taking a bath. “And that million in cash doesn’t the hide the fact—as you can see from the pubes fellas—she’s a genuine blonde, alright!” Cherie awkwardly climbed out of the boot with the aid of Tiny’s hand. “And she’s yours certified disease free—On arrival! And ...” Trevor waited for a laugh which didn’t come, before continuing, ’Her hymen has been medically confirmed intact, for ... ” Cherie now stood spreadeagled over the side of the bonnet while Tiny mimed sexual intercourse to her from the rear. “ … a sweet NINETEEN pleasure-filled glorious evenings of heavenly One-on-One!” Matt’s jaw dropped open like a glove compartment. They couldn’t be serious? Was this supposed to be funny? “A night for each birthday!” Trevor laughed and Cherie gasped as the clumsy Tiny had a sneaky unchoreographed feel of the lips of her labia with his hand, and rubbed his unexpectedly swollen penis against her bottom.

The Proddir cut to Camera five and a wide angled shot of the audience cheering, standing, jumping, and howling with enthusiasm.

“Everything’s gonna be OK.” Gareth tried to reassure Lucy at the Porn Stage entrance, she looked so nervous. “Forget about the nun, she’s Matt or Tony’s problem now, not ours. Trust me. The Gods are on our side.” And squeezed her hand, waiting for their cue.

The Proddir cut back to Cherie on Camera six, now lying on her side diagonally across the bonnet with a fixed smile, fighting the inner urge to want to scream after being so repulsively violated by Tiny.

Trevor’s voiceover finished, “And that’s ‘What’s YOUR problem?’ GUARANTEED! Is there a counsellor in the house?”

A chant rose in the audience, “What’s your problem, what’s your problem, what’s your problem.” Getting louder and louder and echoing around the arena, “What’s your problem, WHAT’S your PROBLEM, WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM?”

Upstairs the Proddir smiled at Derek, the trainee Sound Engineer sitting two seats away at the control panel, marveling at the effect of the acoustic delay on the audience microphones and their feedback to the audience and then whispered to him flirtatiously, “Simply divine, isn’t it?”

Derek smiled back gleefully - she had the Adam’s apple, broad shoulders and waistline of a rugby scrum-half—but a break in television was a break in television—before returning to the nun’s journal she’d given him to read.

“Camera two mixing and cut to Chris.” The AD, Assistant Director, instructed. ”Communication to warm-up man. Standby on four. Ready. And Cue 4.” The audience stopped clapping.

“What a prize, ladies and gentlemen!” Chris turned back to the arena and began to clap, watching Cherie waving at the audience. He almost wished he was one of the contestants on tonight’s show, but that would, of course, be crossing the line.

The Driver slowly reversed the Ferrari out of view behind the Contestant Stage’s two steel doors on the right which slammed shut like the gates of the great Wizard of Oz, at the touch of the Proddir’s button in the Gallery.

“Prizes have come a long way—I should rephrase that—since your time I bet Stan?” Chris said and Katy watched him do that post-ironic smiley thing again. “Wouldn’t you like to take her off my hands for a few weeks?”

Stan snorted dismissively. “The money might be a little more... handy.”

“Fair enough, my man, whatever cranks your drawbridge. But I’m sorry to say ...” Chris returned to face the contestants. “If your counsellor can’t guess your problem, but you can guess theirs then you’ll be the one winning one of these prizes as a consolation. Does that make sense?” Chris furrowed his brow, and the Floor Manager began winding his hand around for him to continue and Chris copied the motion. “I know, I know, they’re speeding me up so I’ll just try and read this. And the contestant/counsellor who has the least number of forfeits, and therefore the best chance of making a full recovery on the show, will go forward to the second round to play ‘Make ‘Em Sane’—who wrote this shit—and have a chance to win their ‘dream list’ and one of tonight’s top Star Prizes! But before we find out what Stan and Katy’s forfeit is, I promised you a Sex Spectacular, and this show wouldn’t be on PSC, The Porn Star Channel, if we didn’t have the Ultimate Close-up Sexy-sexy,” he rotated his hips, “Sexpectacular to show our contestants how it should be done. Are you ready?”

Gareth gently squeezed Lucy’s hand at the Porn Stage entrance, “Come on. We’re on.”

Lucy looked back disdainfully with a pleading look.

“Prepare yourselves for the WyP? Sacred Pagan Orgasmic Sex Ritual, the greatest FREE prize of all, and no less than the birth of creation itself!” Chris wiped his brow playfully. “Thank God for that!” Entirely unaware of the interest certain viewers at home, like the Judge, might be having in the show at this precise moment. “Trev?”

The Proddir grinned up at the POR figure in Mildred’s Summary Stats. “The moment they’ve been waiting for. And cue four!”

Chapter 13

Sacred Sexual Practise

Thunder crashed in the auditorium and Chris and the Contestants were suddenly thrown into pitch darkness. The Percussionist from the orchestra began to beat out a sinister jungle rhythm on the bongos.

“In the beginning, four thousand years before the birth of Christ, at the very dawn of creation, it is written in the Epic Enuma Elish,” Trevor intoned gravely, “there was a divine, infinite, formless, watery mass ... ” Trombones blew languidly, like two lonely fog horns seeking each other across a deserted sea " ... from which there emanated the first three Gods!” There was a loud clash of symbols. “Mummu, the womb of chaos!”

A loud explosion coming from the separate Porn stage to the contestants’ right, as they faced the audience, shook their counter, and threw the audience in that direction back into their seats as they were blinded by a powerful wall of floodlights. As their eyes adjusted, and the rising dry ice dissipated, they saw a thirty-foot high giant Ziggurat appear as if from nowhere on the Porn stage, enveloped at the left and right edges of the stage by two giant rich purple velvet curtains as high. Steps led up each of its four sides to an open temple at the top whose roof, engraved with writhing naked figures, was supported at the corners by four high pillars, with vase-size candles on the floor beside them, enclosing a large sunken silver silk bed.

“Apsu, the God of Rivers!” Cymbals crashed. “And Tiamet, the God of the Sea!”

Two hooded and black cloaked figures in bare feet appeared on opposite sides at the foot of the structure. Lucy, in deference to her stature as High Priestess, took the first step.

“In the Temple of Marduk,” she chanted nervously, climbing the first step of the ziggurat, “Most Perfect and High God of the Sun, Child of Ea, God of the Earth and Anu, God of the Heaven, Children of Lahu and Lahamn, Gods of the Silt, which emanated from the most-high Gods; Apsu and Tiamet.”

“In the Temple of Marduk,” Gareth followed, simultaneously taking the steps opposite, praying, “Most Perfect and High God of the Sun, son of Ea, God of the Earth, who was able to defeat Apsu and Mummu, but not the Great Tiamat, God of the Sea, or the Fearful Kingu, her lover, or the monsters she created to defend them, until the birth of the Most Perfect and High Son, Marduk, God of the Sun.”

By climbing the steps in this way, they paid homage to their ancient forebears, and their struggle, to sanctify the Temple in readiness for their sacred ritual. It was no less a Temple for being constructed of wood made to look like stone, Gareth thought, just as the Gods were no lesser Gods being personifications of Nature, rather than nature itself. Everything was a symbol of something greater, including this sacred ritual.

“In the Temple of Marduk,” Lucy finally reached the platform summit, and stopped. “Most Perfect and High God of the Sun, Child of Ea, God of the Earth, who defeated Tiamet, God of the Sea and finally slew her lover, the Fearful Kingu.”

“In the Temple of Marduk,” Gareth finally stepped up the last step and stood still facing her from the other side of the platform, “Most Perfect and High God of the Sun, Child of Ea, God of the Earth, who shaped the first man of divine blood and dust ...” Gareth undid the cord around his waist, tipped his head back and gracefully by the shoulders, slipped the robe off his back ... “I offer you, my body.”

He stood naked before her. Lucy’s gaze remained resolutely fixed on his deep green eyes and not his limp but sturdy thick five-inch penis hanging below.

“In the Temple of Marduk, Most Perfect and High God of Sun, Child of Ea who defeated the seven headed dragon Lotan, I accept your offering and sacrifice my body to you.” Lucy raised her head back, let the hood fall to her shoulders, shook her long rich red flowing hair free, undid a fastening at her neck, and slipped the gown over her bare shoulders to fall down around her slim body and stand naked before him, too.

Gareth’s eyes remained fixed on hers and not her thirty-two ‘B’ bust with small distinctive light brown standing pert nipples, twenty-four-inch waist, twenty-eight-inch hips or her pubic hair, shaved into a small ginger oblong above the tiny starting slit of her labia lips. Her legs were long, toned and smooth down to her small size 6 feet. And although she knew she was the High Priestess, her flesh was goose-pimply with nerves in front of all these people, and she tried to remind herself that the Gods of the Earth and the Sky were bigger and more powerful than millions of people. Her gaze remained fixed on his, trying to draw strength from his intensity, trying to focus and concentrate on the rites to remove the shame she felt standing there naked and remove the distraction of the bright floodlights to her right, the audience full auditorium to her left and the remote cameras fixed and hidden in the ceiling above them, as she took a bare step forward on the hot tiles as they approached each other. Just don’t’ cum, Gar, she thought, please?

Looking over his shoulder from the centre stage, Tony had to bend his neck right back to see them on top of the ziggurat. Shit, they were high up! Until Matt tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the Cinema screen on the Contestant stage opposite relaying the pictures and then felt guilty that he had. They were naked and he had pointed them out to a child?

The drummer picked up the beat from the bongos with matching syncopated hits of his snare drum before kicking in with the bass drum and producing a steady two-four beat that made the audience clap. The electric guitar chopped this in half with deadened staccato strums and finally the Bass guitar pounded in on an expectant single note shuffle. Spotlights whirled in the ceiling of the auditorium and sporadic bursts of laser flew above the heads of the audience.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Trevor began rousingly, “to officiate at the Greatest Sexpectacular this planet has ever seen, all the way from co-hosting the World Wrestling Championships in the U.S. of A., please give a warm WyP? welcome to your sexpert announcers tonight, Mr Bob Powell and Miss Stacy Peach!”

Applause flooded the auditorium as Bob and Stacy waved at the Camera, their sparkling eyes and teeth filling the huge Cinema screen-sized scoreboard at the back of the audience’s far right Contestant stage, before switching back to a close-up of Lucy and Gareth beginning to simultaneously kneel in front of each other, on the hot tiles in front of the expectant sunken silver bed.

“We’re up here!” Bob cheered, and the audience looked around the auditorium searching for them before noticing a thick stream of light falling, as if from an UFO, one hundred metres away from the Ziggurat into the audience. Bob and Stacy waved down from a forty-foot-high platform on stilts above the audience, wearing identical navy blazers, and he wore a striped tie with white shirt and cream slacks and she, a pink blouse with a cream knee length skirt without stockings.

“And are we excited to be here, Stace?” Bob said into the mic guard which touched between his nose and top lip, obscuring his famed smile and square jaw from view, turning to Stacy.

“We certainly are, Bob.” Stacy gleamed, parting her luscious black hair cut in a bell behind her ear and holding the earpiece there with the tips of her bright red fingernails. “This promises to be a truly amazing event and as far as I know, the first of its kind, Bob?”

“That’s right, Stace, brace yourself, while we follow Gareth and Lucy Pottersby, High Priest and High Priestess from the Wiltshire Coven of Pagan Worshipful Gods through the wildest, and I’ve got to say, some of the most daring sex stunts I’ve ever seen, published today in their new book, Sacred Sexual Practise.” He stared down at the glossy hardback in front of Stacy on the desk beside her script and Scoring Sheet, and glanced down at his own research in front of him: Firstly, a long typed list divided into two columns with words like ‘Credit Card, Parcel,’ and ‘Yin’ in the former, and ‘Cash Machine, Letterbox,’ and Yang’ in the latter; Secondly, a folder with a series of sketches of stick figures in boxes with ‘holds’ like, ‘Face Down Doggy Slam Dunk Fuck, Swivel Of The Century,’ and, ‘Double-back Reverse Cock Slam Fuck.’ Thirdly, his own script with penciled annotations, referencing the other lists. If you wanted to make it look easy, he thought, presenting was no different to any other profession: you had to do your homework. He was confident he’d done enough, but when you were Live on TV that was no guarantee of success. Little did he know, that it was the thoroughness of this very same preparation that would soon make him, like several others, a casualty of the show. He carefully turned over the page of his script following Stacy, kidding himself that if you got the start right, you get to the finish right.

“And they claim, Bob, that any couple who chant the nineteen holy verses they’ve written about Baal and Anat’s struggle against sterility to ensure fertility for the world, which will guide and inspire them through all the sexual positions diagrammed in their book, for the full one hour and twenty-six minutes, will achieve simultaneous mutual orgasm!”

“This I will have to see to believe, Stace, and we have a signed copy of the book, a video, a CD-ROM and a beautifully framed lifetime’s certificate of membership of the Coven to give away to the viewer who can tell us exactly how many sexual positions they manage to attempt, as defined in the Karma Sutra, during the ritual we are witnessing. Stacy will keep score and her decision is final. Finally, before we go back to the action Live, how about a quick word on ‘Form’, Stace. Marks out of ten for Gareth’s cock?”

Chapter 14

The show comes first

Empty voices and laughter echoed behind the steel doors, as Cherie picked up her silk bath robe and tied it tightly around her narrow waist. A little too tight, but the feeling was reassuring. Tonky was watching the show from a monitor by the garage doors. He turned to Cherie, “Did you hear that luv? ‘A quick word on form: Ten out of ten for his dick!’ And look at it!” He laughed across to Tiny. “It’s tiny!”

Tiny looked offended for a minute before quickly turning on Cherie. “Liked ya little feel didn’t ya?” She wrapped her arms around her, and walked towards the exit, passed him. “Ahhhh, my little baby don’t pay for sure.” He stalked her.

Cherie stopped and turned to face Tiny, inches away from his body. He put his hand on her mound, and felt the soft eiderdown feathers of her delicate pubic hair beneath the silk.

“Like a bit of this, don’t you luv? You see this Tonky?”

As he looked over his shoulder, she kneed him high in the groin. The stroking stopped. Tiny’s face momentarily registered shock and then turned purple as he collapsed on the floor with both his hands holding his genitalia, gasping for breath.

“I’m surprised you even noticed that, you big fairy!” She said snootily and walked away.

Tonky suddenly grabbed her by the arm from behind, stopping her in her tracks with just one hand in a wrench-like grip.

“What the fucking hell is your problem?” He shouted in her face. “He was only playin’ around, you snotty little bitch. Who the fuck do you think you are?” He pulled her roughly by the arm. “You’re coming with me.”

“No.” She tried to pull away. “I’ll call ... ”

“You’ll fucking call who? The Police? Security? I am security, you stupid fucking bitch!”

He dragged her down the corridor, past the Porn Stars’ dressing room towards the exit, almost lifting her up off the ground by the arm, ignoring her screams.

The AFM, kneeling on the stage entrance ramp trying to repair the two loose edges, heard a commotion and noticed them heading towards the exit. They were scheduled to be ready to go on stage in, he flicked a page on his clipboard resting by the roll of tape, less than twenty minutes. This was too much. He stamped on the tape and ran over to them. As he rounded the bend, he saw that the other security guard wasn’t even keeping an eye on the monitor. He seemed to be studying his private parts, rather than his professional one.

“Excuse me?” he asked Tonky, as he was about to leave the studio through the backstage door. “Just where do you think you’re going?”

Tonky stopped and turned to see which little jerk was bothering him. There’s always one, he thought.

“What’s your problem?” He smiled, “we’re only having a larf!”

Cherie pulled herself free. “You bastard!”

“My problem,” the AFM addressed the supposedly adult security guard, tapping the list on his clipboard, “is that you’re both scheduled to be on in sixty minutes, and technically you’re to remain on call waiting here, and watching that monitor throughout. You know that!”

Claire opened the dressing-room door opposite them a fraction to see who was shouting, and was shocked to see Cherie in such a state. She opened the door a fraction wider and was relieved to see the security guard beside her but there was also the man she recognised as the AFM standing angrily in front of them. What had the AFM done to her?

Claire closed the door very quietly and turned to the others in the Porn Stars’ dressing-room. “Cherie’s crying!”

“What do you expect?” Helena hung her blouse on a hanger in the right corner of the dressing-room and then undid her bra with her back to her. “She’s just seen what the clients look like.”

“But shouldn’t we go out there?” Claire asked with her back and palms against the door.

“We’re not her mother!” Monica, a tall, long wavy-dark brown-haired model laughed in a pause between fixing her bright red glossy lipstick in the mirror.

“She’ll be alright Claire.” Dani said impatiently in respect of her constant worrying, squeezing over her very ample bosom to rub a moisturising compound into her bare legs while watching the monitor and indicating Gareth with a nod of her head. “What was he like?”

“If he’s a High Priest I’m a nun.” Helena said dourly, facing them with her small upstanding breasts and pulling her tights down over her white G-string.

“Oh my God! Have you seen that nun?” Monica hushed like a secret. “She gave me such a dirty look in rehearsals you’d have thought she’d seen tidemarks in my knickers!”

“He was very friendly, actually.” Claire picked up her nail varnish from her dressing table by the door and sat down. “But a little bit … Like something’s going on inside his head but I can’t tell what.”

“And her?” Dani nodded at Lucy kneeling naked in front of Gareth on the monitor, as if her answer had explained him entirely.

“She’s nice, pretty, easy-going …”

“Like a rottweiler!” Helena exclaimed. “‘Do Not Trespass’“.

“She’s only young and they are married.”

“To him!” Monica laughed, puffing her cheeks and making her arms into a circle as if she was pregnant in front.

“It’s what’s underneath!” Dani raised her eyebrows twice, standing up in her knickers and pulling off her white T-shirt to reveal large breasts swelling her black support bra.

“Dani!” Claire rebuked her with a smile. “He’s a High Priest!”

“He can’t be serious.” Monica carefully applied her eyeliner with her eyebrows crinkling her forehead, and assumed a deep voice continuing. “Ahh ... Ahh … Ahhh,” she faked intercourse with her hips without moving her head, “Ahhhmen!” And giggled at her own joke.

“They could be in love.” Claire said unconvincingly, applying the purple nail varnish to the thumb nail of her left hand.

“They’re all the same.” Helena said. “And it isn’t love.”

“How do you know what she feels?” Claire said. “She was holding his arm. They seemed very close.”

“With him?” Helena said in astonishment.

“He seems to think so.”

“Any ugly fat man who wants to be convinced by a beautiful young girl of her love for him will be,” Helena said, “because that’s what he wants. But it doesn’t mean true love. I always think ‘I’m doing him a favour’ in the back of my mind and he knows it or he wouldn’t be spending all his money on me. Trust me, that ain’t love, honey. You can be fond of him, like him, respect him, even care about him but pulse-rising-butterflies-in-the-stomach-remembering-to-breathe-in-his-presence love? Give me a break! I don’t care how much money he’s got. He’s got to be kidding himself if he thinks that’s true love.”

“Tell us something we don’t know.” Dani said casually behind the clothes rail and Helena pinched her nose up at her.

“Yea,” Monica laughed, “like what’s your fantasy?” And this time they all laughed, including Helena, as if—for some reason—it was the funniest joke in the whole world.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Cherie shouted at the AFM. “You saw him holding me!”

“Hold on a second,” the AFM was distracted. “Excuse me sir, who are you ... I said, excuse me, where are you going?” He asked a short fat man wandering aimlessly past them towards the Arena doors carrying an Action man doll in each hand.

“I … I … I think I am …” And then said happily. “I think I am lost!”

“What’s your name?”

“Odin Folie.” He said approaching the AFM who was checking his clipboard for the name. “Can you see this?” He tucked one army man under his arm, and held his hand behind the others’ head proudly showing Tonky and Cherie. “His eyes move like real!”

“Miracles never cease.” The AFM said sardonically, returning to his clipboard. “Yep, Odin you’re in room three-oh-eight, back that way, down the steps, right then, second left… Back that way, I said, down the steps, right then second left, you got that?” He repeated the instructions twice more, gesturing with his hands in exasperation before the man finally understood. The bloody Counsellors on this show! “And Odin? Please stay there until I call you.” Odin nodded obediently before continuing on his way.

“Aren’t you going to do anything?” Cherie said.

“What did I do?” Tonky said. “I was only joking! Where’s your sense of humour, luv? She can’t take a joke. Did you see what she did to Tiny?”

“Stop it both of you and listen.” The AFM rubbed his temples with one hand. “You can’t just ...”

“Fair enough.” Tonky nodded before he’d finished and walked back to the monitor where Tiny was still preoccupied with nursing his crutch.

“How can you let him get away with doing that to me?” Cherie demanded, crossing her arms protectively over her robe.

“The show comes first. Can you please think about the show? Pretty please?”

She gave an exasperated moan, clenching her fists at her side and then stormed off irately, the back hem of the silk robe sliding up her cheeks from side to side behind. She was so stuck-up, he thought, but had to admit she had a great ass. Why did he always have to be such a nice guy? He smiled to himself. A nice guy even under pressure! He was too good for this job. Now what was he doing before? He checked his clipboard. The answer wasn’t there. The ramp! He’d almost forgot, and rushed back to finish the job.

“Standby one.” The AD said in the Gallery.

“It’s not quantity, it’s quality.” Stacy laughed.

“And tracing from PS7 to PS1 with Gareth and Lucy. Cue one. ”

Camera one on the end of a crane-beam, like the head and neck of a diplodocus poking out from the front of the audience, swung away from Stacy and Gareth, on their high stilted platform, and swept across the wide expanse of the arena, people standing and hands waving hello, before staring at the two naked figures kneeling in front of the sunken silver-bed on top of the giant Ziggurat beginning to stir.

Chapter 15

Squaring the temple

“In the Acts of Nature, act Gods,” Gareth intoned sacredly, his beer belly hiding his penis from her view and solemnly waved his straight left arm out in a wide arc to the left, raising his voice, “from their divine sphere we shed blood!” He copied the motion with his right arm to the right, bringing his hands together in prayer at his navel, pointing at her, which was her cue to continue, which is your cue to continue...

“Sacred imitation,” Lucy quickly began to repeat his movements jerkily, “restoring Creation.” She clasped her hands together pointing at him; their cue, our cue ...

“Against constant fear of the flood.” They repeated together.

There were a few giggles in the audience.

Gareth nodded devoutly to himself, pausing in prayerful contemplation, and then said standing. “Accept my weak humanity.” Lucy remained on her knees, facing his now visible flaccid penis. “As I man to woman give seed.” He held it in his open hand and stepped towards her.

“Remove sterility,” Lucy slid her left hand gracefully down her body and drew her fingers into a three-fingered claw to lift up the folds either side of her clitoris, “Ensure fertility.” Their cue.

“Make us like Gods we entreat.” They urged together, closing their eyes, and Lucy opened her mouth to receive Gareth and began to rub her clitoris with her middle finger.

“AND HE’S IN! NICE ACTION ON THE BUTTON THERE FROM LUCY, STACE?”

“That’s right, Bob, she’s letting her finger slip there, did you see it? There! Inside her vulva. Building up her desire gradually, circling that clitoris, teasing it, before gently slipping that finger down almost intimating the action of a cock, creating that vacuum of need...

“A common mistake when men finger women, is that they continue the same motion and speed on the clitoris ad infinitum, Bob, and that can really hurt, believe me! Notice how she varies the movement of her fingertip and the speed, toying with it almost at random.”

“NOW SHE’S STANDING UP ... AND TURNING HER BACK ON HIM ... AND GRIPPING HIS COCK IN HER RIGHT FIST, HER THUMB ON THE HELMET LIKE A TRIGGER ON A JOYSTICK! BUT WHERE’S HE GONNA FIRE FROM WITH HER THUMB HELD THERE I WONDER?”

Lucy began to take carefully choreographed steps forward on the black and white checkerboard carpet holding Gareth by his swollen penis copying the steps behind her: right step forward landing at ninety degrees, left inner sole stepping forward to meet the right heel, bending low on the knees, right foot stepping forward to land at ninety degrees again and the body half-turning, left foot meeting it parallel, right side step back turning ninety degrees and the left inner sole meeting its heel and finally right step forward and turning ninety degrees.

She arrived at the front left corner of the Temple at the edge of the platform facing ‘East’ and standing in front of the candle with Gareth behind it, and his penis in her grip over the flame. She waved her left hand out in a wide arc down towards the left of the auditorium and declared, “Asherah; Earth Mother we call!”

She turned and made the same sequence of steps towards the other front corner of the platform, Gareth careful to copy her pace, his testicles waggling between her grip and his body, and, stopping over the candle there, facing ‘North’, she waved her left arm up towards the right of the auditorium and announced, “Our father, El, High God of All!”

She turned and Gareth sharply followed her movements to the nearest rear corner where she stopped over the third candle facing ‘West’ and said, waving her arm across the floodlights, blinking, “Yam, brother God of Seas!”

She made her way to the last corner and candle, facing ‘South’ and said, “I, Anat, Earth Sisterly!” And having sanctified, by squaring the Temple at the four corners of the Universe in her role as High Priestess to appease the Gods in readiness for their sacred sexual ritual, and symbolically cleansing Gareth’s penis with fire she let go of it, to his relief, and walked to the bed in the centre and lay on her back, separating her arms and legs at perfect forty-five-degree angles.

Gareth walked to the front of the bed to face her and raising both hands in the air, with his penis swollen high in front, shouted, “‘Enter I, Baal, God of the Storm!’”

“A very very nice butt,” Stacy admired, watching it saunter over the bed as Gareth crawled and settled between Lucy’s legs.

“And the FIRST UP! THE MISSIONARY POSITION, Number One, Ladies and Gentlemen…”

“It’s actually position three in their book, Bob, which I’m gonna give them.”

“YOU’RE RIGHT STACE, THE FUCK FEAST IS ONLY JUST BEGINNING ... HE’S JUST ... NO, HE HASN’T ENTERED YET ... HIS ...” Bob looked between the monitors in front of him. “NO! THE TIP OF HIS COCK IS CLEARLY VISIBLE TOUCHING HER CUNT, BUT NO MORE ... ”

The Proddir suddenly looked up at Mildred’s second Summary Rating Stats to see what the viewers at home were thinking: TON + 9%, POR + 4%, ODN – 1%, CNS + 3%, MOR – 3%, ENT – 2%, AUD + 2%, LIZ 0%, MAT + 4%, M/F – 8%, STN – 5%, HUM – 11%, CHR – 12%, KAT + 8%, LEX – 8%, SEX – 1%. Porn (POR) was doing well but Humour (HUM) was eleven per cent lower than expected! Didn’t they understand Bob?”

“What IS going through her mind at a time like this, Stace?”

“Get a move on! But look, he’s tensing his arse, Bob, I think ...”

“Home Run! And that’s a GOAL! But what’s he doing now? He’s slowly coming out again. Notice Lucy’s sharp intake of breath and stomach muscles clenched when he went in ? I think he’s big enough for her? And IN! Yes IN! He goes again, BEAUTIFUL MANOEUVRE, no questions asked ... and out again!”

“She’s moving herself forward each time, Bob, can you see that? She definitely wants him.”

“Well spotted, Stace, but he’s holding himself back each time, making her pay for it.”

“That’s so selfish, but nice somehow.”

Very slowly but increasing in frequency, Gareth began to move himself in and out of Lucy until he was in time with her breathing, and as that quickened, at ever reducing intervals in between.

Just don’t, Lucy thought, don’t, don’t cum, but he was starting to feel so good now it was like she almost didn’t care who was watching or what they would think if he did; making love had always been a great way to cure her stage-fright and she should have known, she thought, once he’d begun, she’d feel … better.

“I think it’s fair to say, Stace, it took them a while—but they’ve started, and before we return to Chris, there’s just time to remind everybody we’ll keep you regularly updated with up to the minute news of the action as it happens ...” Bob read from the autocue.

“If you have a digital interface on your TV,” Stacy read her part after her name, “you can hear us and watch the action continuously in full screen on ‘E8’, if not, and you still want to count the positions to win the prize, did I already say that? Anyway, you can follow the action in the bottom left-hand square of your screen now ...”

“And for the studio audience, fuck they look small there,” Bob ad-libbed before finishing, “the action will appear throughout the show on the main Cinema-sized screen behind the contestants, but in the meantime it’s over to you, Chris?”

Katy held her hand over her eyes to hide her embarrassment at a couple actually doing it in front of her less than a hundred feet away.

“Hi Bob,” Chris waved from the Centre stage at his podium beside Stan and the contestants opposite, “it’s great to have you and Stacy on the show. But did you say it’ll only take Gareth and Lucy an hour and twenty-six minutes to achieve mutual orgasm?”

“Hi Chris, fantastic to be here, and you’re absolutely right. Simultaneous Mutual Orgasm, I must add, in one hour and twenty-six minutes, and Stacy and I will be bringing you all the graphic details and asking all those difficult sex questions you’ve been too afraid to ask throughout the show, plus, have we got time to mention, our private women’s fantasies segment later, and the Grand Orgy Finale? Oh, and I almost forgot the …”

“Excuse me?”

”… the W.Y.P.P.Q!”

“Excuse me? A one-hour-and-twenty-six-minute orgasm, fancy that?” Chris had to repeat the feedline because the bloody yank couldn’t stop talking. He scratched his chin, thoughtfully. “It actually takes my wife two hours ... yeah, seriously, it’s true, not to come in the room! But I’m proud of her, nothing stops that woman from not trying. If there was a gold medal for ...”

“Not even you, Chris?” Bob raised his eyebrows, knowing the question could be taken in two entirely different ways. Chris heard it the worst way.

“Not even the WWC, for what it’s worth, Bob! Fantastic sport. And who says it’s rigged? Like Bob said, we’ll be dropping back to see how he’s getting on later. But right now it’s time to invite Katy to come over and meet Stan to play Pick-a-Fun-Sex-Forfeit. You’re like this part, Stan, it’s a bit painful. In your own time, Katy?”

Katy nervously rounded the counter, looking back at Mathew for support, as if he could stop it all happening, but his gaze was expressionless, and back to Chris, desperately trying to avoid the eagerness and cruel intensity of Stan’s eyes following her.

Chapter 16

The only show that shares its care and shaves them bare

Chris held out three golden envelopes. “Help yourself, Katy, and Pick us a Fun Sex Forfeit!”

She picked one, and handed it back to him, barely conscious of what she was doing. He unfolded it.

“And the first-round forfeit,” Chris raised his eyes at the dauntingly silent Arena as the drum rolled, “for the woman who doesn’t know how to say ‘No’, a new kind of empowerment training; Strip Assertiveness!” And the cymbals crashed and a huge cheer rose from the audience.

Katy’s left knee buckled, her legs shaking, but she didn’t faint. She was a strong black woman, she told herself, not a wispy white bitch! It didn’t matter, she could win, she tried to convince herself, she could win, the din of the applause dying in her ears.

Matt suddenly pictured the old life-size photo of Katy in a bikini at the Stage Entrance and then looked back at Katy now beside Chris in her huge black evening dress. It was too cruel. They couldn’t?

“Every time Katy refuses Stan’s help or utters the word ‘no’ the forfeit is simply,” the farting forfeit sound effect echoed on the stage, “to remove a piece of clothing!”

“That’s fucking sick!” Tony spat out. “Who wants to see her body?”

“But if you’re wearing less clothes than you have forfeits, “Chris sadly eyed Katy’s sparkling outfit ignoring Tony. “Then, like I said in the beginning—we’re the only show that shares its care and shaves them bare—and you’ll be waving goodbye to your pubes for a while, oh,” he clutched his crotch, “I’m already beginning to feel the chill. But we can’t have patients disagreeing with their counsellors can we Katy?”

“No.” Katy fiddled with the front of her dress between her legs again unselfconsciously and an embarrassingly loud farting sound effect erupted from the stage again.

“What have you just done, Katy?” Chris wiped his hand in front of his nose, laughing. “Remember, ‘no dissension—no distention’, please?!? I know, I know, but Stan, if you fail to guess her problem correctly, I’m afraid it’ll be you doing the forfeit, but I promise we’ll be very careful with the razor!” Chris clutched his crotch again, “rather you than me!”

The Captain narrowed his eyes on Chris, rubbing his left wrist in the nook of his right palm, then clenching it as if readying himself for a fight. Standing naked in public again struck him as insulting, he thought, as it was probably intended to be.

“We got to be fair right? Now Katy and Stan you both know the forfeit for the loser. Do either of you want to back out now?” The audience booed. “No, don’t put them under any pressure. It’s very important that we know they’re participating of their own free will. Are you sure you don’t want to back out now?”

Katy hesitated; they wouldn’t make her do it really, really, if she lost would they?

“It’s a gamble.” Chris said. “Are you sure you don’t want to back out, Katy?”

Katy shook her head slowly dreading the forfeit but trying to keep her mind on her prize.

“Absolutely not.” The Captain offered curtly.

“Well, if you’re both clear about that, let’s all give them a round of applause at they make their way over to the gladiatorial arena!”

Katy shivered as The Captain briefly put his arm around her shoulder and whispered, “Don’t worry, you can trust me,” before Tonky and Tiny appeared to escort them by the arm over to the Contestant Stage.

Backstage, Sister Mary Elizabeth Xavier suddenly heard a knock on her Counselling Star dressing-room door rudely interrupting her prayer and she quickly made the sign of the cross and her eyes narrowed on the door angrily as it opened before she had even said ‘Come in’, but forced herself to smile politely.

“I think I’m lost!” Odin stood there with watery eyes, hugging both his army men dolls to his chest and then, recognising the black habit the lady was wearing from Church, he began to cry.

Sister Liz rushed to her feet, “You certainly are!” And, eyes aflame, slammed the door in his face.

“Now it’s time, ladies and gentlemen,” Chris started rousingly, “to find out if Stan can beat us to guessing Katy’s problem in the first round. Is there a counsellor in the house?” But as soon as the red light blinked off, his smile faded watching Katy wobble down the steps to the Contestant stage after Stan with the awful thought of what he might to do to her to win.

“What’s YOUR problem?” The audience shouted back, as the Contestant Stage began revolving to reveal two ominous large black leather chairs facing each other with giant monitor screens on stands directly behind them.

Chapter 17

Why she was expelled?

“Thursday 22nd February

Father C commented on how well Sister N sang after Mass, but then ruined it by asking her if she cooked as well as she sang? I told him the Sisters were far too busy at this time of year to be baking cakes, but if he would like a recipe I would be glad to go and fetch it for him. I shared the little secret about his plate with a spot on it not making it a dirty plate with Sister N, and when she laughed, I realised how amusing I had been. She has such an infectious laugh I couldn’t help myself joining in. From the stare I received from some of the other Sisters, I thought they had forgotten how to laugh. When Father C explained to Sister N that he wasn’t very good in the kitchen, I said, but you have such a strong voice, and it was all Sister N could do to keep a straight face.”

“This isn’t exactly hardcore stuff, boss.” Derek said disappointingly, turning over Sister Mary Elizabeth Xavier’s hard-backed Journal in his hands in the Gallery. “Who the fuck is Sister N when she’s at home?”

“What?” The Proddir replied disengagedly, preoccupied with the bank of monitors in front of them as Katy and The Captain took their seats and Gareth and Lucy’s lovemaking became more active on the screen behind them. God knows there were so many things to think about. Before turning to him; the sacrifices she had made for beauty.

“Oh, that’s Sister Nadine. But you haven’t got time to read it cover to cover, dear. Why don’t you just skim through the parts I’ve highlighted - that’s why she was expelled - that’s why I highlighted them?” She returned to the bank of monitors to follow Stan and Katy being led to the Contestant Stage, chewing on the end of her biro.

Because you didn’t say that, but Derek didn’t say that. He scanned the pages until he came to the first highlighted lines.

“Saturday 31st March

I don’t know if I’m feeling what I’m feeling or whether it’s just the joy of Spring turning into Summer, but I still feel guilty. It was so hot in the garden today my apron was damp with the sweat of my brow. Sister N brought us out a pitcher of iced water to refill our flasks. I cupped a little in my hands and held them to my face.

Sister N shook her head at me and gently took my hands in hers and extended my arms horizontally. She poured the freezing water over my forearms up and down between my wrists and elbows, smiling, and I felt a tiny icicle shiver run down my spine. It was so refreshing. Her slender fingers were cool from holding the jug. I held onto them with my hot sweaty hands for a few precious moments after she had finished pouring, to show my deep affection and gratitude. Gestures really do speak louder than words. We didn’t need to speak. All too quickly she was gone, and the oppressive late-morning heat was back.

When the bell rang to get ready for mid-day prayer, I was so grateful to come inside, out of the direct glare of the sun, and get out of my clinging vestments. I removed each layer one by one, peeling them free like layers of skin stuck to my body.

When I was finally undressed, I stepped under the warm shower. I felt the spray wash away the dirt and grime on the skin of my back and shoulders, but the muscles beneath still ached. I thought about the freshness of the iced water on my arms, and Sister N. The spirit of course is eager but the flesh is weak (Mark 14: 38). I gripped the temperature handle, swung it until it could go no further cold, and then I shrieked as an avalanche of liquid ice suddenly collapsed on top of me.

It was instantly invigorating like an electric shock sparking my dead body back to life. I was frozen to the spot as the icy sparks trickled down my body, snapping each muscle back to life. I couldn’t think of anything until I switched the shower off, and noticed my nipples were pert. I ran the warm palm of my hands over them and down my thighs. I had forgotten I had a body and so sensitive to the touch. I wrapped a towel around my flesh, grabbed my clothes and returned to my room.

I locked the door, sat down and took the towel off to dry my hair. It was so hot I wasn’t in any hurry to get dressed. I looked at myself in the tall cupboard mirror opposite; my bosom is small and sags too much; I have put on some more weight around the thighs, they are now like shot-putter’s thighs in spite of all my running around the garden, with these cursed ridges of cellulite. I shouldn’t complain, though, I think all women are naturally overcritical of their own bodies. I don’t know what Sister N would think if she saw me naked. She’d probably laugh. But the strangest thing was seeing myself and saying aloud, I am a woman. Underneath it all, I still am.

I know I am, it’s foolish. I think, behave and care like a woman, but for some reason until today I’d forgotten I was a woman on the outside, too. Is it possible for a woman to forget she’s a woman? I don’t think that men ever forget they’re men. I felt myself. I don’t know what came over me. I know I shouldn’t have. But each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin (James 1: 14, 15).

I got dressed and during midday prayer, prayed for forgiveness. I still feel a sense of guilt, but after writing it down, I can see all the links and realise it was not me, it was Him. First the morning’s Cause in the garden, and then His desired Effect. We know that we are children of God and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one (John 5:19) I will not let it happen again. Mother M says once the Spirit’s gone, there is no defence, but I know I’m strong. I know God will help me to be strong. I know She will.”

“And, darling, standby seven.” The Proddir interrupted him. “I know it’s joined-up writing but try and read a little bit more quickly, Stan’s about to start.” She returned to her mic. “Cue seven.”

Chapter 18

Your perfect place

In the flickering glow from the screen at the back of the Contestant stage relaying the Action on the Porn Stage, and otherwise surrounded by darkness, Tiny dropped Katy into a heavy black leather chair in the centre of a raised circular platform, in the middle of the Contestant stage, and hobbled off, limping. Katy averted her eyes from the screen on her left, and the sight of Gareth’s giant hairy bottom clenching and unclenching between Lucy’s giant legs, and turned to her right, where just below the perimeter of the circle, the audience sat gaping up at her like fish with open mouths as if waiting to be fed. Behind her, a huge monitor on a stand showed a giant close-up of her disembodied face. Looking anxiously around.

Stan shook himself free of Tonky’s arm and settled himself into the armchair directly opposite her, only a few feet away, and placed his hands, palm-down on the thick armrests to spread his old knobbed fingers.

Katy saw Stan’s giant bespectacled face dawn across the huge monitor behind him. His own body a tiny skeleton beneath, like the Headmaster in The Wall video, only too real, and with all that unspoken moral authority of age.

She slipped her hands together between her thighs feeling so small, like a naughty schoolgirl, preparing for the worst: every question like a trap; every answer given so tentatively, so innocently, he would suspect a lie; and that child-like horror of being stuck on a chair as if glued, unable to run away, the door and windows there but the floor like a moat around your chair; Nowhere to hide and the invisible guilt shimmering in the air like tremors in a brooding shark’s wake.

The Floor Manager in the stalls below the front of the stage dropped his arm in a cue and sharp spotlights suddenly lit the two figures from above like statues with small pools of light around their feet. A drumroll sounded as if forewarning of a public execution while Trevor solemnly intoned. “Captain Stanislav Boglosovic, and Mrs Katy Lawrence, for what usually takes therapists weeks, months or - once you start you know you just can’t stop - even years, you have exactly sixty minutes to discover the psychosexual reason preventing Katy from having children starting from...” A gong sounded from the orchestra as the big electronic clock beneath the central display screen behind them switched from 60:00:00 … “NOW!” To 59:59:99, 98, 97, 96 ...

Katy looked around fitfully. She felt the weight on her rib cage tightening her chest and making it difficult to breathe, unable to avoid the Captain’s stare as he began to speak.

“I hope you’re feeling more comfortable sitting down,” he began calmly. “Have you ever felt really alone, Katy? Or had the feeling that no one cares about you,” he almost sounded genuine, she thought, like he was talking from experience, “or that other people don’t really like you, they just pretend? Maybe they tell you that’s not true, but you know it is? You feel it but for some reason they can’t. Maybe they’re only trying to make you feel better with their lies. Maybe not. Some people just don’t belong. They’re a misfit. They don’t really deserve to be here. Take a moment. Can you think of anybody you know just like that?”

Katy stroked the nape of her neck with one hand as if checking her short hair remembering that she couldn’t say no.

“Think about how much they hurt. How long they’ve been hurting. Wouldn’t they really prefer not to hurt at all? Not to feel at all but simply be. Peaceful and at rest. At Peace. Can you close your eyes and try to imagine that, please? Yes, feel free to just close your eyes. It’s easier to think. Go on. Relax. Close your eyes.”

He waited for her and then continued. “No more endless worrying. No more anguish. No more pain. Just calm, like the open sea, or a gentle breeze ... that’s alright, keep your eyes closed, imagine it, imagine how free you’d feel ... light as a feather floating higher and more peacefully away ... looking down at all your troubles getting smaller and smaller ... further away, now, as your mind rises higher above the soft clouds and imagine that perfect garden of heaven you find there. Can you see it? Imagine yourself relaxing there in your perfect place under your favourite tree. Don’t fight it, let your need for that place take you there. It is your perfect place however you imagine it and you don’t have to tell me. Branches are shading you from the bright sun. Imagine the pretty wild flowers in the grass, smell them on the gentle breeze, lavender, lily and honeysuckle. Imagine the lake at your feet and hear the lovely waterfall in the distance and feel your body so at rest and at peace, you can hear every word I say so clearly there’s no need to see me, and your eyelids are getting heavier and heavier but you can still speak and answer me in your perfect peaceful place when I ask you a question—and your eyelids are getting heavier and heavier—and you won’t open them until I tell you to, because you’re perfectly at peace under that beautiful tree in your perfect place ...”

Katy’s chest was gently rising and falling now, he checked, her eyelids perfectly still—not a flicker.

“Are you feeling perfectly at peace, Katy?”

“Yes.” She heard herself say. She had found her perfect place under the tree sinking into a warm bubble bath, her head resting on the edge of the bathtub, and feeling that tingling calm all over her naked body. It was better than sex; she didn’t have to think move or do anything except lie there and enjoy it, cleansing, peaceful and happy, lolling her in the waves from the gentle swathe her thighs were making, clearing small pools between the clouds of frothy bubbles where she caught glimpses of the most beautiful goldfish tickling her skin with their soft feathery fins.

Mathew tried to stop himself from picturing the words, the tree, the flowers, the lake, resisting the comfort they offered, but it was as if his mind - he - was being drawn somewhere. He’d read somewhere that it was possible to hypnotise yourself without even being aware of it and his head felt lighter now, like the synapses in his brain were swaying like seaweed on a shallow beach with the tide of his breathing audible in his own ears, his mind oddly almost separate from his being.

“Now you’re remembering a safe place, Katy, where no one has ever hurt you, a young girl again. Nothing I say will shock you or feel untoward because you’re perfectly peaceful and at rest and we’re simply talking about love and making love. I want you to try and picture where you were the first time you ever saw or heard, however faintly, your parent s making love ...”

Mathew gripped the counter in front of him to feel something real and stop his mind pursuing the pressure of the awful suggestion.

“Just let the picture come all by itself, and imagine you’re back there now, that same little girl, seeing or listening to them, wondering what they’re doing without really knowing? Where are you? Can you see it?”

“Yes.” Katy was four years old sitting with her doll on a rug on the tidy back lawn of her parent’s house in the bright sunshine.

“Describe what you can see.”

Katy saw her mummy come running out through the French doors, and over the patio, stark naked and dripping wet, chased by her daddy.

“Mummy’s such a naughty girl,” daddy grabbed her. Katy stopped rubbing herself inside her knickers on the lawn, frightened of getting in trouble again.

Mummy caught her breath in the middle of the garden, laughing, her breasts rising and falling. “She’s too young to understand, but you’re not,” daddy said undoing his trousers.

Katy started rubbing again. She heard mummy’s voice shrieking excitedly, "NO! NOT HERE!” Katy looked up at her parents with her wide-open eyes, tilting her head to her shoulder.

Her daddy playfully pushed her mother to the ground and stood over her naked. Katy saw this horrible disgusting thing sticking out between his legs.

She couldn’t believe it belonged to her daddy, staring at it innocently.

She watched her daddy lie on top of her mummy and this thing disappeared in her, as he bumped up and down. Her mummy cried out, in what sounded to Katy like pain, and he still didn’t stop. He was getting more and more angry. A tear trickled down little Katy’s face. She was too scared to make a sound, frightened he would do the same awful thing to her, but so sore, she couldn’t stop rubbing.

“Did any man ever touch you down there, with his hand or his thing?” Stan asked.

“No man.” Katy’s childlike voice replied. “It just feels good to rub it. It’s itchy.”

Stan ignored her childish masturbation. “Is daddy hurting her with his thing?”

“Yes.” A tear ran down her face like a small stream on the huge screen behind her.

“How do you feel?”

At home, Mr Smith shouted at the box in his living room. “What is he waiting for, the fucking idiot! Shout at her you stupid bastard!” He shouted, and then to himself, or so he distinguished, “This show is piss pour this is.”

“Upset, frightened—I don’t know why daddy wants to hurt mummy?” It was so real—like she was actually there now and was helpless to do anything. “I just want him to stop!”

Chapter 19

Gravely and intrinsically disordered

“That’s very good, Katy. Now let it go. You’re perfectly safe,” Stan assured her, “you’re perfectly safe, breathe deeply, nobody’s going to hurt you. Nobody’s hurting mummy.” The most curious thing was she wanted to regress, almost in spite of herself, like the compulsion to eat or the urge to jump in front of a train. He couldn’t make her; She had to have wanted to. She couldn’t stop herself:

“Mummy insisted, daddy didn’t want to,” Katy rubbed her crotch frustratedly, and repeated in her childlike voice, “mummy insisted, daddy didn’t want to. Granny! Stop shouting at me!” She shook her head from side to side as if tied to the chair. “Let me go!”

“I’m not granny, Katy. Listen to my voice. You’re perfectly peaceful and at rest in your perfect place. Think about your perfect place, Katy.” She still seemed to be trying to masturbate over her dress. “You’re only looking down, and you’re not four years old anymore, you’re slowly growing up, that’s right, feel yourself maturing, the years passing, until you’re at that age now when it is the first time you have fantasised about having sex and actually doing it yourself. The very first time. Maybe it is during the day, or maybe, just before bedtime, in a room alone ... A bedroom? A bathroom? Wherever it is, picture it. Look at the curtain by the window, picture the wallpaper, the light ...”

Mathew didn’t know why he was thinking it but as he stared into the darkness he saw the racing cars on his bedroom walls, the light coming under the door, his brother, Luke, asleep in the bed opposite. He couldn’t stop himself thinking about what it would be like? And he was so hard down there.

The dreadful thought of touching himself reminded him of all the bullies in his first year at his all-boys’ Catholic secondary school shuffling their joined finger and thumb at him and calling him the W-word. He hated the idea of actually fulfilling their accusation physically with his own hands; He knew it was disgusting and wrong to do anything. His mother had angrily snapped back, ‘there’s plenty of time for that when you’re older’, after he’d only admitted to once fancying a girl last year in Primary school. But it was throbbing now like a sting that needed to be scratched and he couldn’t sleep for thinking about it and it wouldn’t go away.

He carefully rolled over onto his belly, and lay flat with it sticking into the mattress. It was like a cold compress. Then, uncertain, and with trepidation, he slowly began rotating his hips, rubbing it gorgeously into the bed. He felt the sensation ripple in waves through his body, as if his groin was a new centre of sensory transmission.

He suddenly imagined he was gyrating against Alison’s hips. It was a crazy, colourful experience, compared to the black and white puppy love experience of kissing Kim Craze, as he held her album sleeve on his pillow, in his arms as a teenager.

Just when he thought the pleasure would never end, there was a thrilling rush through his body, and it all stopped. Horrified, he thought he’d wet himself. He reached one hand down into his underpants, and felt a gooey sticky substance all over the cotton fly. He was so shocked that time seemed to stop, and the bedroom expand into the size of the school sports hall, filled by the rumble of his brother Luke’s snoring.

He quickly, but surreptitiously, got out of bed, and sat huddled in the corner of the room, back against the door. He needed to think logically, but thoughts were flying around his brain faster than the dancing broomsticks in Fantasia: Mummy will kill me; “But I didn’t actually hold it!” I will burn in hell; “But it was an accident!”

Tony suddenly turned to see what Matt was shouting about.

After what seemed like an hour of shivering, Mathew picked himself up, grabbed his track trousers from the chair, and went to the bathroom. He carefully cleaned himself with toilet paper. He sat on the toilet seat and stared at the fluffy semi-circle carpet. It’s a sin, isn’t it? He kept asking himself. He couldn’t sleep with the prospect of an eternity in hell hanging over his head. He was an altar boy. He needed to know, but he couldn’t wake-up mummy or daddy, because he knew they’d hate him forever. Think logically, Mathew.

And then he had it. “You don’t need to be clever to know all the answers,” he remembered his daddy telling him, “You just need to know which book to look in.”

Mathew crept down the hall, passed his parent’s bedroom like a burglar, careful not to make the slightest sound on the creaky floorboards underneath the carpet.

In the living room, he ran his eyes across the shelves of books lining the glass cabinets. He picked up his mother’s sky blue heavy encyclopaedic, “Catechism of the Catholic Church,” and turned to the Index as his father had shown him with the Encyclopaedia. He flicked anxiously through the W’s, but then cursed himself for being so stupid; He wouldn’t find the W-word in a Holy book.

He anxiously tried to remember the proper word, but he couldn’t. He was shaking. He put the book down on the sofa and carefully heaved the giant old Oxford English Dictionary down, and guiltily searched the W’s. If his mummy caught him doing this, he knew she’d never forgive him. He found the W-word.

It read: ‘Wank Brit. coarse slang, v.intr. & tr. masturbate. n. act of masturbating. (20th-century coinage)’

He returned to the sofa and anxiously searched the index of the blue book under the M’s. He turned to the referenced page, hoping with all of his large untouched teenage heart that it couldn’t be as bad as he thought it was. It read:

“Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action.”

The book dropped in his lap. He couldn’t read anymore. He slammed his eyes shut and crumpled his face tight like a gurner, holding back a dam full of tears for fear of being overheard.

He stared down at the book, out of focus, as if he was wearing glasses he didn’t need. He moved it closer to his face to make out the jumbled words: “‘Tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’”

He slammed the heavy book down beside him on the sofa. What he had done in God’s eyes was worse than homosexuality, whatever that was he thought. That was only ‘intrinsically disordered’, whereas what he’d done was ‘gravely and intrinsically disordered’. My life is over. It was too much. And he suddenly opened his eyes as if waking from a nightmare to see Captain Boglosovic and Katy sitting facing one another on the Contestant Stage opposite, and the audience beyond the cameras realising the nightmare was now, and he had to get out of it!

“But you aren’t frightened by the thought of his thing when you are fantasising about doing it? I mean,” The Captain frustratedly tried to rephrase his question to avoid her forfeiting, “you are only thinking about this ‘ecstatic love’ between you and ‘hugging intensely’?”

“Yes.” Katy heard herself say wistfully, Gareth and Lucy’s entwining image from the Porn stage flickering on her closed eyelids. “He is the most wonderful man in the world. I want to be with him forever.” She squeezed her hands between the top of her heavy thighs. “We are one.”

Stan leaned back, tapping his fingers on the arms of the chair. It didn’t make sense. Katy’s first teenage sexual fantasy was also set in a garden but she had definitely used the term ‘disgusting’ thing when she had referred to the actual sight of her father’s penis in her parent’s garden as a child. A child wouldn’t have formed a subjective evaluation like that on first sight. Ugly, perhaps, but not morally ‘disgusting’. It had had to be an impression she was attaching retrospectively, but then why would it vanish later in her teenage fantasies in a garden again? “That is ...” he silently cursed her for wasting valuable time, “good. You are perfectly relaxed, seeing all of this down there like living a movie, while you’re perfectly safe here, and the time is passing quickly now to the age when you were about to have sex for the first time?”

“She’s so fat.” Tony elbowed Matt in the ribs. “He must have had a horse’s dick!”

Matt looked down at him, shaking his head with pity in his eyes. “Do you think it’s a joke?”

“You fuckin’ faggot!” Tony leaned away from him and the counter to leer round on his stool at the couple at it on the Porn stage behind him, dismissing him with, “Go Fuck Jo!”

“But how do you know about ... ?” Matt started panicking paranoically.

Chapter 20

Let our father decide what will be

“Yam with angry jealousy,” Gareth recited breathlessly moving in and out of his wife at an increasing speed and picturing in his mind an Ocean swelling up to do battle with the Storm. “Demands from me rule of the sea.” He arched his back to increase leverage inside her.

“AND HE’S SLAMMING HIS TODGER INTO HER TWAT LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS, STACE, FUCKING HER WITH HER LEGS CLOSED TOGETHER, AND HIS LEGS OUTSIDE HERS, HOW CAN SHE BE FEELING ANYTHING?”

“She can feel everything, Bob.” Stacy assured him with a smile. “I love that position, it’s like you’re having sex but you can tell your mother ‘I didn’t do anything, honestly, I kept my legs closed all night!’”

“Baal ... have patience ... I tell,” Lucy recited, falteringly, taking short breaths between his heavy thrusts, and squeezing her knees together, “Ask... the Council... of El.”

“Let our father decide what will be.” They recited urgently together.

Gareth stopped, leaned on her chest, she opened her legs, and then he quickly lifted his legs together inside hers, to allow her to lift her legs first back, and then up onto his shoulders, without withdrawing from her.

“Baal rose to explain to the Gods,” Gareth raised his voice, straightened his back, and lifted his legs to kneel either side of her hips. Lucy felt a surge of moistness in anticipation of his next line. “Thundering my brother Yam’s plot!”

“AND YES, IT IS, NO, IT IS ... A REMARKABLE DOUBLE-LEG RAISE SHOULDER SLAM FUCK! Stace.”

While down on the Centre Stage, Chris sat on his stool avidly gazing at Stan and Katy on the Contestant Stage with his finger at the corner of his lips like a detective when he suddenly turned to face the camera in front of him.

“You know I can’t help thinking Stan overlooked a few things back there. Why was Katy rubbing herself in the garden when she was watching her parents? And why did she call Stan ‘Granny’? Are the two somehow related? When she was watching her father, she described his penis as disappearing inside her mother, didn’t she?” I tried to think. “I’m not a psychoanalyst but maybe it’s not literally true but a reference to losing something. And her own first sexual fantasy involved a garden, too, and she said ‘we are one’ which sounds to me like she’s saying ‘we are whole’. Did Katy lose something and tell her Granny? Is that why Stan’s moving her onto losing her virginity? They say, the grass is always greener on the other side? Sorry, she’s about to start.”

Chapter 21

G.O.R.D.O.N._ W.A.T.F.O.R.D

“Can you see where you are?” Stan asked Katy gently. Her forehead crinkled with the suggestion, eyes closed and her head leaning to one side. “You’re about to lose your virginity, Katy, try and picture the place. Remember you’re perfectly safe and relaxed—your eyes are getting heavier and heavier—there’s nothing to be frightened of—peaceful and at rest. I want you to remember exactly where you were the first time you made love and picture yourself there now, like in a movie of your own life, nothing can hurt you. Relax. He hasn’t touched you yet. Look around you, feel the place, feel yourself there. Can you see it?”

“Yes.” Katy saw herself sitting nervously on a playboy-quilted bed. She was a skinny little thing. She could hear Gordon brushing his teeth in the en-suite bathroom.

She heard him spit and rinse and then call through the open door, “You can do yours, now. Come in!” She walked in, and he looked up from his penis at her, momentarily urinating on the toilet seat. She heard it, but she didn’t look down.

“Go ahead, don’t be shy!” he said.

She picked up his used wet toothbrush and squeezed the long tube of toothpaste. A small white blob fell onto the bristles. She put it in her mouth, wincing, and began brushing backwards and forwards.

He finished, zipped up, and slapped her on the bum as he returned to the bedroom to get undressed. He hadn’t bothered to clean the toilet seat. She closed the door behind him, and finished brushing.

“What’s keeping you?” Gordon called out. She wiped the seat with some toilet paper and soap, before sitting down.

“I’m just powdering my nose.” She replied, trying to urinate, but ashamed he’d hear her. He laughed aloud, writhing naked between the sheets like a snake, enjoying the feel of cotton linen on his naked skin.

She looked around the small room for something to fixate on. She looked at his plastic framed amateur photography on the wall; a blow-up of glass reflecting rainbow prisms; a city night street with streaking lamp and car lights; a harsh two-tone black and red sunset; all printed with a white border, titled below: ‘G.O.R.D.O.N.-W.A.T.F.O.R.D.’ as if it were a name to remember adding some value to the work. But the pictures were too predictable to be distracting. She looked at the tacky gold painted door knob. She looked down at her feet and stared at the crosses of white sealant between the dominant black tiles. He was a white man and she was a black girl. She imagined inversing the picture in her mind so that there were only clean white crosses in the foreground, and black tiles in the background, like the black and white picture of vase and face changing depending on how you perceived it. Her bladder relaxed enough to empty, and her urine whistled in a tiny jet against the edge of the toilet bowl.

“I’m getting a hard-on!” Gordon called playfully from the bedroom, rubbing his penis in a ball against his groin.

She meticulously wiped herself dry, dabbing at her vagina. She thought it looked so ugly.

“I’m coming.” She replied.

“Bloody hell, that’s quick!” Gordon laughed to himself.

She walked into his bedroom, surprised to see him already sitting up in bed with his naked hairy chest and shoulders; The quilt covering his modesty from the waist. His clothes lay in a pile on the floor by the bed with his dirty white underpants and smelly white sports socks on top, mingling with body odour and the scent of cheap after-shave to create a sweaty rotten meat metal aroma in stark contrast to the fresh-mint taste on her tongue.

“Well, come on! Get them off honey.” She had, he thought, a fucking amazing body. Size eight and genuine thirty-six C-cup tits—no scars—now that was rare! “But, nice and slow, I want to enjoy this.” Gordon said putting his hand down the quilt and she saw something jumping under the covers.

She looked away and around the room nervously. A lowered fluorescent tube hung across the length of the ceiling making the edges of the surfaces in the room harsher: all the undusted hard computer equipment on the coffee-stained architect’s desk in the corner; the cowboy hat on the high wooden chest of drawers; the painted black outline of horses on the hard mirrored cupboard doors and the sharp chrome frames of his enlarged photographs: A series of three turning faces in close-up of the same women watching from the door, Fireworks in the night sky opposite the bed, and above the bed, a facing kneeling black man and white woman in shadow half-crossing the length of his giant appendage between them, all titled below with the words, ′ G.O.R.D.O.N.-W.A.T.F.O.R.D.′ “Do we have to have the lights on, Gordon?” She pleaded.

“What is this? Your first time, or something?” He joked.

“No.” She said defensively, “I just prefer it that way, that’s all.”

“You don’t want to let him watch you undress?” Stan asked.

“Yes.” Katy replied, oblivious to the wolf whistles in the audience.

“Ohhh... Kay, spoil-sport,” Gordon moaned, leaning across the bed to the side-table, and cutting the light. “Do you feel better, now?”

“Yes, thank you.” She said, her back turned on him in the darkness as she undressed. “Don’t look!”

“Good!” He said bad temperedly, turning away.

She carefully folded her blouse and placed it on a chair, and then her skirt, and then she laid her tights over them all. She shivered in her red bra and knickers standing on the cold wooden floor in bare feet. “Haven’t you got central heating or something?” She procrastinated.

“I am the central heating.” He laughed. “What are you waiting for? Get in!”

She pulled back the corner of the covers and lithely climbed in, before he turned around. A neon ‘exit’ sign flashed through the curtain casting red bars on and off the morose faces watching her by the door. She pulled the quilt up to her neck.

He slithered across the bed to her, and placed one leg and half his body across her.

“Fuck! You’re still dressed!” He snapped at her knickers.

“I’m sorry.”

“No problem, it’s no problem.” And he immediately began to French-kiss her, rolling his tongue around hers and rubbing her breast in circles. His leg yawed up and down hers frantically.

Katy didn’t move. She didn’t know how she was supposed to. She felt like the first day of school, exhilarated but nervous at the same time, filled with self-consciousness.

He stopped rubbing her breast, and she felt him gently take her hand and move it down his body. She touched his penis and physically recoiled from the sensation as if it might bite.

He stopped kissing her.

“What’s wrong?” he spoke into the darkness. She was pleased he couldn’t see her face.

“Nothing,” she replied, “Shouldn’t you be wearing something?”

“This is your first time, isn’t it?”

“No,” she lied nonchalantly, “I’m just worried about the risk.” She didn’t know why she had to lie, maybe because all the girls said they’d lost their virginity a long time ago. She felt foolish. She wanted to tell him, but she was embarrassed and she didn’t want to lose him.

“Stop worrying then, I can look after myself,” he began kissing her again. She turned her face away, and he kissed her neck and her ear. It felt nice and good to her. Very good.

“You do love me, don’t you?” She asked him.

“Of course I do Katy, of course I do.” He whispered into the ear he was gently working with his tongue and then gently slipped her panties down her legs.

“I don’t want to be pregnant yet, Gordon.” And then there was AIDS, and STD’s and all the other models he must have slept with in the past, but it didn’t seem at all romantic to bring it up.

“Don’t worry, I always use contraception, honey.”

“You do?” Katy asked innocently.

“Of course.” Gordon climbed on top of her. “Coitus Interruptus. Just relax.”

“Just relax, that’s right,” Stan reassured her, noticing her elbows drawing into herself in the chair, trembling lips suddenly welded. “You’re perfectly peaceful and at rest in your perfect place, remember your perfect place, nothing can hurt you in your perfect place, picture your perfect place again, breathe deeply ...”

But when she tried, she saw the little wet goldfish floating up and out of the cold icy water and rising in the air around her under the shade of the tree flapping their fins helplessly because they couldn’t breathe, and she was struggling to breathe too, because the ice was getting heavier on her chest now and she couldn’t move and the fish were floating down in the air on their sides now, mouths agape with their last dying breathe, their tiny bones broken through their scales like the skeleton veins of dead dry leaves falling onto the icy frozen surface of the bathtub entombing her like a coffin.

“Now go on Katy,” Stan pushed her, “So Gordon said, ‘Coitus Interruptus’, Coitus Interruptus, Katy, what did you do? So, what did you do?”

Chapter 22

Deep underground, far, far away

Watching them from the centre stage on his stool, Mathew tried to work out in Katy’s silence why he had been thinking about wanking? But, of course, he hadn’t been able to help himself from thinking about it at the time. It kept returning to taunt him like a ghost in the night, waking up in the morning with this awful gooey stuff in his shorts. There was something wrong inside his head. He couldn’t avoid it. He was sick or evil, or something, he knew that. If he fell asleep it would happen again. He rolled over onto his other side in the terrifying night, like all the others, with it still there, not knowing what to do.

He could hear Father O’Shea, “If one knows how to do what is right and yet does not do it, IT IS A SIN FOR HIM! What is it? A SIN!” Quickly followed by the rap of his metre rule on the desk.

But I’m not touching it, I’ve never touched it, I will never touch it, he repeated to himself, riding a bike with his legs to try and make it go away. He turned over in the all-consuming darkness like a Black Hole waiting to obliterate him, remove any trace of him from the Universe. So much he wanted to scream for his mum next door but that would mean waking her up and how could he explain why?

Stop thinking, Matt. Blank your mind. He squeezed his eyes tighter shut, but he couldn’t help seeing his penis in his mind. He opened his eyes. The darkness was unforgiving; What are you thinking about that for? Stop it! He closed his eyes again. Imagine something cool. Imagine riding a new racing bike down the hill in the park. But above the picture, cruelly superimposed, appeared first one, then two, then three penises. He couldn’t separate them from the scene. Please stop!

The more he tried not to think of penises, the more he saw them, sticking up in mid-air, disembodied in the blackness, like a surreal French puppet theatre. Go away! He turned back onto his other side squeezing his thighs together, trying to make the throbbing go away but it only made him more aware of it. He shut his eyes but he couldn’t remove the penises floating there. Why? I’ve got a hard-on and I can’t stop thinking about penises! And then the awful conclusion ... “I must be gay!”

“What?” Tony swung round on his stool. “Why the fuck did you just scream that out you fucking faggot!”

The thought was too shocking for his mind to contemplate, even with only the vaguest notion of what homosexuality actually meant. Homosexuality was worse than masturbation in the church’s eyes. Blank it out! He fought to control his mind in the continual darkness. Think about girls, Matt, think about girls ...

He tried to imagine a girl with no clothes on, but he’d never seen one. He concentrated harder. One step at a time. He saw her long black hair, her purple school uniform jacket, her skirt. His penis throbbed even harder, it wasn’t helping, but he couldn’t be homosexual, could he? Now take the jacket off. He pictured the white blouse. Remove it. It hurt. And now the skirt, but don’t. Stop! Don’t. Undo the skirt, but don’t ... It fell to the ground, and suddenly there was her penis! It revolted him and he quickly tried to imagine the only woman he actually knew: his mother. Before he realised how much sicker this was, he’d blanked his mind like the night sky and there were penises floating around again but this time the size of planets.

He had only ever seen his father’s penis once, and never his mother’s, while he was getting dressed one day, but he couldn’t help seeing it now in his mind. It loomed up on him from a great height like an ogre. He was losing control. There was nowhere to turn. What does a girl look like?

He punched his crutch and it hurt but did nothing to lessen the swelling. He felt sick even just touching it with his fist. He turned over.

The penises were everywhere in his mind now, spreading like a disease, duplicating like cancer cells, under the internal microscope of his mind’s eye. He had to do something quickly.

He froze the picture with a great force of will. He grabbed at one with an imaginary hand, disgustingly but only mentally holding it, and placed it in an imaginary black velvet bag. It disappeared. He did the same with the next and the next until they were all safely hidden. He pulled the little black magic bag shut with its drawstrings and imagined burying them deep underground, far, far away.

He was exhausted by the effort, and finally fell asleep without, thank God, having touched it.

“At last!” Tony mocked; Matt had finally stopped talking to himself. “I’m trynna fuckin’ watch the show!”

“Sorry?” Mathew turned to him, just as the red light flicked on the camera directly in front of him for a reaction shot to Katy’s horrifying silence to film the same expression on him.

Chapter 23

She’s talking about me

In the Green Room backstage, eight people sat on a blue horseshoe sofa around a red coffee table filled with two large platters of half-eaten sandwiches, little bowls of dips and spreads, crisps, biscuits and sausage rolls, most of them ignoring the show on the white wide-screen TV in the corner.

“That’s our boy,” Mrs Meaks briefly interrupted her conversation with Sister Nadine as the picture switched briefly to Mathew. “Not that,” she looked over at Mathew’s father sitting opposite chatting to a lady with a dreadful purple rinse and her cleavage on display, “he’d notice. But that was after Cambridge, sister. He baptised the boys, you know, including Mathew. And now he’s the Headmaster of St. Patrick’s in Grungetown. Do you know Middlesborough, Sister?”

Sister Nadine shook her head politely. “But my aunt lives in Norwich, is that far?”

“Oh yes, but Norwich is such a lovely place. I have a friend in Cromer who ...”

“She’s talking about me!” Gordon Watford elbowed Sister Nadine, nodding at Katy on the screen in his cowboy hat, in way of greeting beside her. “And if you don’t mind me saying, you could be a model!” His eyes ran down her slim figure in the black outfit. “You’d love it once you got the habit ...” He winked. “Off! Get it? Habit off?” He nudged her again.

Sister Nadine blushed a little and smiled awkwardly. She had an incredibly beautiful face, even without make-up, framed in her black headpiece with the white brow, and sympathetic warm brown eyes.

Mrs Meaks leaned over Sister Nadine to Gordon and fixed him with her stare. “Couldn’t we all?” And fingered her hair behind the ear, before leaning back. “Thank you very much.” And Sister Nadine laughed. “As I was saying, I have a friend ...”

Gordon flicked his eyebrows and lowered his lips, drawing one edge into a peach in his cheek, not really knowing what to reply and turned instead to the powerfully-built man with a tattooed dove on his left hand, watching Katy on the TV.

“She’s talking about me, you know—first time and all that. So who are you here for, buddy?”

“What the fuck do you care?” David Devlin leered at him.

“Don’t shoot!” Gordon threw his open palms up in front of him with a big grin, but Mr Devlin only snorted at him, returning to the box.

“Only asking, pal.” Gordon let his attention wander to the other side of the room and the pretty young and well-loaded long black-haired lady by the door with the kid.

“Whereabouts in France?” Joanne asked the young man with the spiky black hair beside her, while her six-year-old daughter sat quietly next to her, transfixed by the TV.

“Excuse Moi?” He asked.

“Where ... In .... France?” Joanne repeated more slowly. “Whereabouts?”

“Ahh ... Strasbourg!” He nodded smilingly. “Wh’air ... rabbowts!”

Joanne giggled at his delight. He had a lovely accent, even if he was a little wide around the midriff, but the opening door distracted her, as Luke pushed with a can of coke in one hand and a coffee in the other, and it bounced back off the folded wheelchair behind, spilling a little of the coffee on the Frenchman’s knee.

“C’est pas grave, c’est pas grave.” He tried to brush it off with one hand against Joanne’s urgent assistance and disparaging comment. “Oh, Luke!”

“Sorry. ”

“Now who put it there of all places?” Mrs Meaks shook her head and carefully took the plastic cup off Luke with her right hand, while the lame left one rested in her lap. “Thank you, son. Now take a seat and say hello to Sister Nadine. I told her your Uncle Kevin is a priest.”

“Hello to Sister Nadine.” Luke said dryly offering his hand with a nod and very self-aware grin for a sixteen-year-old, she thought, before taking a seat beside his mum and accidentally brushing against a slim blonde lady sobbing to herself on the edge of the sofa. “Sorry.”

“Leave me alone.” Fifi said.

Luke shrugged and listened while his mum gave Sister Nadine a potted history of his most embarrassing moments as a kid and noticed, out of the corner of his eye his dad across the room, chatting up the ugly lady with the nuclear hairstyle and Wonderbra. His dad was unreal. Usually, Luke thought, the person you fancied the most was the last person you talked to—like the slim blonde girl beside him—but there was his dad making stupid jokes and laughing at the punchlines himself, as usual, and, worse still, in front of his mum. It was cringe-inducingly embarrassing.

Luke looked disgustedly away from his dad to Joanne and the French bloke and then little Louise. She was the only one in his family who wasn’t ignoring the TV besides the dick in the Cowboy hat and the lady beside him. The rest of them were bloody out of order and didn’t even give a shit.

Sister Nadine couldn’t help noticing Luke’s anxiety as his proud mother kept referring to him. Her heart went out to him. She knew what it was like to be caught up in a situation not of your own making by somebody you loved and respected when you were too young to know any better.

Chapter 24

An apprenticeship in self-mastery

Tuesday 3rd April

Charming Sister N said that Origen, in the second century, was a Christian Platonist who believed there was a divine link between the soul and God. Originally, she said, we were all in the divine world according to him, but we had fallen into our bodies to stop us falling any further. Only by meditation and knowing God could our souls be transformed and we could join God.

Sister L rudely replied that there was nothing Christian about Origen who didn’t even believe we had been saved by the death of Christ on the Cross, but egoistically suggested we were able to save ourselves. Sister N sweetly disagreed, asking her if Origen didn’t have faith in Jesus Christ, why did he follow Jesus’ teaching in Mathew, Chapter nineteen, verse twelve, that ‘others made themselves Eunuchs because of the Kingdom of heaven,’ and go off and castrate himself? What greater sacrifice could he have made to prove his commitment to Jesus?

Derek looked up, trying to imagine this bloke Origen castrating himself. I mean how would you do something like that? With an axe? No way. He worryingly looked down at his lap. No. No way! Fuck off!

Mother M said that we shouldn’t judge Origen by this act but by his theology because castration was quite a common operation at this time.

What? Derek couldn’t believe what he was reading; Common? Like having your tonsils out? Chopping off your own manhood? Was she twisted or something? It was disgusting.

Sister Y argued if it was so common, why was a philosopher’s beard considered a sign of wisdom at this time? Origen, she said, would have looked a fool with his baby skin cheeks and a high falsetto voice when he preached.

I don’t think Origen was a fool at all. Sister N was perfectly right. He wanted to be a woman, a creator, like God, Herself. He wanted to perfect his form to symbolically represent the perfection of the soul. I didn’t tell the other Sisters this because I don’t think they have enough intuition to appreciate it, except perhaps Sister N.

Just as he’d suspected. You could tell by the name, Origen equals Origin! More feminist propaganda bollocks about ‘New man’. There was no way a bloke would do that to himself, he thought more confidently, probably never even existed. No way. And a religious bloke? Nah. Doing something like that to yourself was sacrilegious, surely? Against nature and all that. As if! No way! Never? He looked at the Proddir out of the corner of his eye before quickly continuing.

Sister K looked at me and said I’m sure Sister Mary Elizabeth would approve of his Eunuchification (my little joke for Sister N later!) because didn’t Augustine write,′ Indeed it is through chastity that we are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into multiplicity,′ even if he wasn’t a true Christian.

Mother M stepped in quickly to chastise her about him not being a true Christian, before I had a chance to reply, and said that chastity was indeed a moral virtue and a promise of immortality both for all Christians, because, she quoted, ‘At the moment of baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his life in chastity,’ and more specifically for the sisters themselves, because, she quoted, ‘some profess virginity (or consecrated celibacy) which enables them to give themselves to God alone with an undivided heart in a remarkable manner,’ as you do.

Sister L argued that this didn’t apply to Origen because he’d removed the choice, and Sister N most oddly agreed and quoted from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom.′

But Sister Y then asked the silliest question I’ve ever heard: What if Origen was homosexual, and couldn’t face up to it? It doesn’t take a genius like Sister K to work out why she asked That particular question, but it embarrassed me, and I’m sure poor young Sister N, too.

Sister K held back a laugh and a few of the other Sisters giggled. Mother M said it wasn’t a funny question at all, as she flicked through the Catechism. She asked us all to note, ‘Homosexual persons are called to Chastity... By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.’

So, she concluded, even if Origen was homosexual, there would have been no reason to take such drastic action, he just had to refrain from sex, and I realised Sister N was perfectly right about self-mastery, which applies to us all. She has such a beautiful smile.′

Yeah, right. Derek thought. He bet there was no debate about holy women sowing themselves up with a blunt knitting needle and shoelaces, or cutting their tits off to avoid self-mastery. He laughed to himself, but quickly stopped, feeling like a fool. Maybe that was the point. The boss did say this diary was sexsational. Maybe that’s why the mad nun was going on about the Eunuch so much. Maybe she did! Or the equivalent: a sewing needle to prevent sowing! It was quite funny on the other foot, and the picture of her doing that to herself oddly arousing. He began to eagerly flick through the pages, as if the leaves of time falling between had not even existed, to the next highlighted entry when Chris’ face suddenly filled the central on-air monitor.

“You know something’s nagging at me,” I whispered to the camera, “why would she remember that term ‘Coitus Interruptus’ so clearly? I’m not an expert or anything but why didn’t she just say he wasn’t using any protection? Was something in her life interrupted? Is coitus the Latin for cut? It sounds like it doesn’t it? Was something cut out of her life? What did she lose? What did she cut? Her finger off? Couldn’t that relate to her wedding ring? Her wedding? Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue? Hold on, sorry, she’s talking.”

Chapter 25

The hidden secret garden of womanhood

“So, what did you do?” Stan repeated. “He said ‘Coitus Interruptus’ and you said what?”

“I said ‘What does that mean?’” Katy panicked.

“Coitus means sex.” Stan said. “Interruptus is ... ”

“Gordon said, ‘It’s all about self-control. I’ll withdraw, stop worrying?’ Kneeling himself between my legs.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Of course, I am. Do you think I want you to be pregnant? Relax.” He said.

“No, but ...”

Gordon’s hand slid between her legs, and she gasped as his finger tried to dig inside her. “Christ, you’re dry!”

“I love you, Gordon, you know that.”

“I love you too, girl.” He held his penis and tried to guide it in with his thumb but something was wrong, he couldn’t get it in. Her thighs were rigid.

“Be careful, please.”

“Oh my God, it is your first time!”

“Please be gentle, Gordon.”

“Oh my God, I don’t believe it,” he let go of his penis and began kissing her more aggressively.

“Please, Gordon.” She begged, as she felt his anger rising, just like her father’s anger had risen with her mother all those years before in the garden. He seemed obsessed with something inside himself not her.

Gordon threw off the duvet with one hand, like tearing a reluctant wrapping from a present and forced her thighs apart with his own, placing his outstretched arms on either side of her body.

“I love you, Gordon.”

“Oh my God!” He stabbed his thing at her. She felt it bang against her rectum. He tried again.

“Oh Gordon!” She said, realising that there would soon be no return. She clenched her vaginal muscles tight.

He tried again. “Relax.” He banged without success. “I never usually have this problem, believe me.” He banged harder.

Katy gritted her teeth. Finally, he managed to pierce through with his huge thing. It was like her body was filled with him. A salt tear ran from her eye, a blood tear down her leg. She began to sob as Gordon drove his hot hard thing back and forth inside her and felt a gut aching pain each time, but also a hidden almost secret ‘funny bone’ tickled alongside, distantly, behind the pain.

She felt like she’d finally entered the hidden secret garden of womanhood from her irrational childhood nightmares believing it impossible. It was so violent, so physical in the flesh, so painful. There was nothing romantic about the act. She was surprised how mechanical it was.

“You were surprised how mechanical it was?” Stan sneered.

“Yes.” Katy spoke faintly, eyes closed, tears running from them down her cheeks.

“There was no pleasure?”

On the Centre stage, Mathew turned away on his stool, ashamed to be watching this and this stupid French song playing in his head incessantly - voulez-vous coucher avec moi—and followed Tony’s eyes to the ziggurat—Ce soir! Voulez-vous couchez avec moi. Surely a child his age shouldn’t be watching this—avec moi, ce soir—The couple were at it on top as if there was nobody around—voulez-vous—no cameras, no audience—coucher avec—and how they were doing it—moi ce soir—didn’t bear witnessing, but like witnessing a road accident—voulez-vous coucher—he was unable to turn himself away.

Chapter 26

Asherah pleads

“LOOK HOW HE MONSTER PRONGS HER AGAIN AND AGAIN WITH THAT HEAVY FUCKSTICK OF HIS, STACE ... USING IT LIKE A SLEDGEHAMMER— BLOW AFTER SEPARATE BLOW—AS IF HE NEEDED TIME TO SWING INBETWEEN! ... AND ... WHACK AGAIN, BOUNCING OFF HER BUTT CHEEKS THAT ABSORB THE IMPACT SENDING SHOCK WAVES DOWN HER SPINE. HOW CAN SHE REMEMBER HER LINES IN THESE CONDITIONS?”

“'Yam will NOT back down' .... ” Lucy faintly trilled between her teeth with her head jarring back each time he thrusted, heels rocking towards his ears and her eyes slammed shut ." ... 'All mankind will drown' ... ”

“Have I told you he’s got a great butt, Bob?” Stacy admired the dimples as the cheeks clenched and unclenched rhythmically. “And the power of those thighs?”

“'Asherah pleads',” Lucy began earnestly and Gareth halted in deference to the Mother Goddess and lifted Lucy’s right leg so it crossed her left at the ankle on his left shoulder. Lucy lifted her head to finish, but barely had time to utter, “'but STILL Yam will not!” Before he angrily resumed intercourse, acting mad at Yam, God of the Sea, for ignoring him and more importantly for ignoring the Great Mother Goddess, Asherah, as he took his frustration out on Lucy.

“AND INTO A LEFT SHOULDER CROSSOVER FUCK WITHOUT BLINKING ... ”

“Would you give her one?” Tony elbowed Matt.

Matt didn’t know how to take the question—voulez-vous couchez—it was beyond his belief—avec moi ce soir!—“Excuse me?”

“Why what have you done?” Tony laughed, turning away to watch Katy crying on the Contestant stage.

Lucy dropped her head back down and moaned staring up at the cameras that recorded her pained expression and wondered if the viewers had any idea how good it felt at home.

Backstage, Sister Liz’s eyes burned into Lucy’s on the monitor, dismayed that a woman could have so little respect for her own body she allowed it to be used for His evil purpose.

On the Centre Stage, Chris was watching Stan and Katy when he suddenly winked at the camera on his left, leaned over and whispered. “The key thing Stan didn’t pick up on was how long it took Gordon, let us suppose not a virgin himself, to physically enter her. Why? How was she holding him back especially when she apparently wanted him to? One hand washes the another, no? And he still hasn’t noticed the ring!” I put my finger to my lips. “Shhh ...”

Chapter 27

Smile for the birdie!

I was torn between excruciating pain and very vague glimpses of pleasure, repeatedly wondering when the act would it end. I wasn’t quite sure, from moment to moment, whether I was imagining any pleasure or not, and I didn’t know why I was still crying.

“Oh Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” he was groaning breathlessly, like an agonising mantra.

“Say you love me? Say you love me?” I begged, between sobs.

“Honey,” he stopped, “I can’t forget this.”

“Can’t forget what, my love?” I cried innocently.

He leant over the side of the bed with one arm, his body still inside me, and grabbed the camera from under the bed.

“He’s got a camera?” Stan asked.

“Yes.” Katy replied anxiously.

“Smile for the birdie!” Gordon rammed himself inside her.

And then, following like a frantic stroboscope in the first black and white silent movies, only in garish technicolour bursts, making slow motion, punctuated by the whirring of the automatic rewind and click of the camera’s shutter, Gordon saw: Click; shock opening her innocent tearful eyes wider; Click; long beaded hair flaying wildly like burnt cotton; Click; breasts straining against her bra as she tried to wrestle her taut belly free; Click; blonde and black pubic hairs meshing with the impact; Click; her wide open mouth and teeth concertinaing the rest of her face to make space for her scream; Click; arms punching wildly as one breast pulled free and the camera was thrown from his grip .

“You’re hitting him, he’s fighting you, you’re kicking him, he’s screwing you while he was taking the photographs?” Stan asked.

“Yes.” Katy cried out painfully. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Gordon dropped the camera and roughly manhandled her onto her tummy. She was too frightened to protest. He lifted her little shiny tight raw brown bottom up and after some anxious fumbling and cursing entered her vagina from the rear and began to pump faster and faster, his thighs thumping against hers and all she could think about was the pain now and wanting it to stop, for it all to be over, forever.

He finally screamed and collapsed, like a falling tree beside her, panting heavily, but the commotion in her head wouldn’t stop.

“He wasn’t using any protection and he failed to withdraw?”

“Yes.” Katy cried, tears running from her shut eyes, imagining the awful millions of tiny sperm swimming their way up inside her belly as she lay there in the darkness.

“You’re the fuckin’ best baby.” Gordon stroked her hair roughly with a limp hand, and she moved her head away and with a deep breath for courage, snaked her body over the side of the bed and onto the floor.

She crawled over to the chair and frantically kicked her legs into her tights, pulled them up, and clumsily slipped her skirt on. She picked up her pretty apricot blouse and tried to find the arm slots, but it felt like a puzzle. She eventually got it on inside out, and then ran to the door of the bedroom, and flung it wide open. She hadn’t the self-possession to slam it, proceeding to stumble, trip and fall, navigating with the banister rail, down the stairs.

When she reached the front door, she heard Gordon at the top of the stairs shout out, “What’s your problem, Katy? I was only ...”

Stan risked conceding a forfeit. “Were you pregnant?”

Katy felt the same rising bile she had felt in her stomach that night, imagining his tiny sperm piercing her egg. “He raped me!” Katy suddenly opened her eyes and stared out at the giant auditorium and the hundreds of people watching her. “I didn’t have any choice! You all think you wouldn’t but you don’t know what it’s like!”

“She didn’t fuckin’ say ‘No’!” Tony smirked but Matt wasn’t listening, he was just smiling to himself like a freak. At that time, in that place, Joanne was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Chapter 28

It felt too good to be wrong

Two tall candlesticks cast a warm glow over Matt’s nineteenth birthday cards and polished photo of his parents on the mantlepiece above the spiky battered metal gas fire in his bedsit, beaming on full like the warm orange breath of a steel dragon between its white grilled teeth, reflected twice as high in the shiny skirting mirror beneath. Although it wasn’t noticeable in the candlelight, the room was assiduously clean after three days of carpet shampooing, dusting and fingertip cleaning, every single hair and fingerprint removed and the room sanctified now by the two joss sticks burning from a pristine clear jam jar filling the warm air with the fragrant scent of jasmine. The candlelight seemed to round the hard edges of the ceiling like a cave and the bright fire lowered the eye level to the cushions on the floor in front where Mathew lay with Joanne, the radio softly playing golden oldies from the crackling speakers of his old stereo. No distractions from the wonder of being wholly with each other in this soft womb of a room he’d made only for her, and now.

Leaning over her on his side, staring down into her eyes as she lay on her back with her head on his arm—this wonder—now, was like holding all the birthday and Christmas presents he had ever had all at the same time. He gently brushed her long fiery black hair from her face.

She reached up and stroked his cheek. He could feel her fingertips trace the lumps and bumps of his acne, but he didn’t flinch or feel embarrassed. He closed his eyes and felt a small tingle behind his neck. It was almost like just by touching them she was making them disappear, healing the leper they’d made him feel.

Her hand continued to the back of his head and she stroked his silky hair before gently pulling his face closer to hers. His lips touched hers. Her mouth was warm and wet and delicious sucking for air in hungry gasps between returning to the lovely jawing vacuum seal of their lips.

He kissed her cheeks, her nose and licked her closed eyelids as she tussled with his hair, holding his head in both her hands. Their mouths locked again, and Mathew felt her breast beneath her blouse.

He felt so comfortable with her, and the room was so soft in the red light, it was like they were the only people alive in Masswell Hill, with all the time in the world their own.

Joanne suddenly sat up and began unbuttoning her blouse in front of him. Mathew stared dumbly at her for a moment. She threw her blouse away and before she could lie back down, he began kissing her neck as she sat there.

Her head angled back and towards him as he moved behind her neck, bringing her ear reflexively closer to his face. He began to kiss behind her ear, and then ran his tongue around the soft outer membrane of the outer shell, before moving to her shoulder, and biting the strap of her brassiere with his teeth to playfully snap it once.

His hands stroked her bony lower back. She gripped his T-shirt in her hands above the belt behind his back and pulled it out of his jeans. He sat back and pulled it up over his head and threw it away. She ran the flat palms of her hands down his smooth firm chest, and then over his shoulders and down his acned back, kissing his mouth.

He fiddled with the bra-strap’s buckle on her back. It was incredibly complicated, as if it was designed to prevent him from gaining access. It was just like in the teen coming-of-age movies. With no prior experience, they were his only education. He struggled determinedly with it, embarrassed to ask for help for fear of appearing inexperienced. When it finally seemed impossible, she simply reached behind herself, unclipped it in less than a second, let the shoulder straps fall forward and removed it.

He stared at her breasts, without moving.

“What?” She asked him.

He looked into her eyes, and then back at her breasts, and then back at her eyes before suddenly lurching forward on top of her, expiring, “God, I love you!”

She yelped excitedly, protectively bringing her knees up together as he passionately kissed her mouth, neck, collarbone and finally and gorgeously, her breasts; They were glorious designs, softer, prettier and more supple than any picture a magazine could prepare him for; They were real and more beautiful in the flesh than they ever looked trapped on film; They were life-giving, as if he were a new-born baby again, feeding. And she was letting him feel them for free, and he felt he had done nothing to deserve it.

He kissed her on the mouth with all the loving gratitude his mind and body could offer, hugging her body, and rolling them both across the floor.

He lay on top of her and as they kissed more passionately, he unconsciously began to rub his hip bone into her groin. He felt her hips bouncing up to meet his each time.

He began to move down her body, kissing and licking and sucking her flesh down to her belly-button, tracing his palms in the wake of each contact and then back up again.

He reached down and began trying to undo her belt, as they kissed. They had been out on five dates and this was the last point that she had previously allowed him to reach. He waited for her hand to cross his and gently move it away.

He undid her belt slowly. She didn’t stop him. He undid the top button of her jeans. She didn’t stop him. He unzipped her fly. She still didn’t stop him so he stopped himself and held her head tightly in his hands, spot kissing her on the lips like a woodpecker, repeating, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.”

It had to be O.K. if you loved someone. It felt too good to be wrong.

She laughed and pushed him onto his back, before reaching down and pushing herself out of her jeans and throwing them aside. He quickly climbed on top of her again but she pulled at his belt as if to remind him.

He jumped up and removed his jeans as quickly as if it was an emergency before lying back down beside her.

They embraced and he rejoiced inside at the touch of their naked chests and legs. He climbed on top of her and crushed his hips against hers. She began to kiss his neck and he moved up a little as she worked her way down to his chest.

Then suddenly her hands were peeling away the top of his boxer shorts behind him and gripping his bottom. He leaned on his side and pulled them off and for the first time in his life, felt totally free. She slipped out of her knickers and gently pulled him back on top of her.

He was dumbstruck as he felt his naked body over hers and could actually feel her pubic hair with his penis. All he could think of to say was, “I love you, Jo.” And he meant it with all his big innocent heart. It couldn’t be wrong, he truly loved her. Marriage was just a piece of paper, after all.

She opened her legs without a word and he continued to press his hips against hers as he had been doing throughout. She tapped her finger on his bottom and he immediately stopped moving.

“Sorry?” He asked nervously. “What have I done?”

She shifted an inch on her bottom and moved her hips a fraction. “It’s O.K.” She smiled and kissed him. He was relieved she was alright and kissed her warmly, but as he began to move his hips forward, to his surprise, and gleeful delight, he suddenly felt engulfed by a tremendous wet warmth as he moved inside her, as if the meaning of life had suddenly been revealed.

Each time he moved his hips he was gliding in and out of a literal heaven and it had happened like the answer to a prayer, without him doing anything. It was wonderful and weird. It was almost like their bodies could talk, and intuitively understood each other without them having to do any verbal translations. He wasn’t looking, wasn’t trying, one moment he just continued to be with her and became a part of her, and she him. It was so beautifully simple. And that part of them was still together, buried behind all the other stuff that had since got in the way, and always would be; They made a love he could never forget.

When they had finished, Joanne lay couched in his arms with her head on his chest. The music had long since stopped, and all they could hear was the sound of the occasional car speeding by in what seemed like a different time zone outside in a warm, wonderful and kind world.

“I LOVE YOU!”

“Fuck you!” Tony suddenly pushed him. “You fucking faggot!”

Mathew jumped with surprise. “What?”

“You fucking shouted out you love me, you fucking faggot, you touch me and I’ll kill you!”

Chris rushed over from his podium to the Counter. “Leave him alone Tony.”

“I’ve heard about teachers like him!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know ... ” Matt mumbled.

“You’re worse than a fucking priest! Why do you think I’ve got a cunt you cunt! My dicks bigger than yours.”

“He didn’t say that, Tony.”

“I’m sorry.” Matt pleaded. “I didn’t realise ... ”

“What you think I’ll take it up the bum, then, you motherfuckin’ cunt? Do you know what happened to the last guy who fuckin’ said that? Needles in the fuckin’ eyes! Do you want that? Do you want a fuckin’ needle in your fuckin’ eyeball, you fuckin’ pussy faggot minger! I’M NOT A FUCKIN’ CUNT, YOU ARE! Do you hear me? YOU’RE A FUCKIN’ CUNT, NOT ME!”

“Guards to the Centre stage, repeat, guards to the Centre stage.” The Proddir ordered into the mic.

“No one thinks you’re a cunt, Tony.” Chris said gently. “But if you don’t fuckin’ shut up you’re out of here, do I make myself clear?”

“Tell him to fuckin’ shut up, too, then.”

“Fuckin’ shut up too, Matt. Thank you. ”

Tony slouched back onto his stool giving Matt a dirty stare over his shoulder.

“I’m sorry.” Matt cursed himself. “Mea culpa! It won’t happen again, I promise, I promise ... ” He was so embarrassed as he looked back up at the spot-lit figure of Katy in the Arena. He suddenly felt very sad. Sometimes, he thought, it is more painful to remember something very good, than very bad, when you hurt so much where you are. Why do people have to end up that way?

In the darkness, alone in the centre of the Arena, their images magnified, their voices amplified, as if they were the only two people in the auditorium, Mathew shivered as he watched Stan stroke Katy’s hand without any love, it seemed, whatsoever.

Chapter 29

Life is the only problem

“You were so young.” Stan felt his limp penis throb with longing at Katy’s recollections, like the itch an amputee feels on his former leg. Her acquiescence was endearing. “It’s alright, Katy.” He stroked her hand. “Nobody’s judging you, Katy. Just close your eyes and relax.” She was obviously distressed by her recollections of Gordon. He studied the wedding ring on her finger and then saw the scar just above. Why hadn’t he seen it earlier? Was it because of Gordon?

“How did you feel about getting married, Katy?”

“I don’t know.” She smoothed her dress under her enormous belly between her legs and this time Stan noticed it again. She couldn’t seem to leave her crotch alone, it was like she was frustrated, constantly wanting sex.

“What made you decide to marry him?”

“I said I don’t know.” She was getting herself all confused, confusing starts and finishes and then nothing. “Can we change the subject, please? He’s dead now, it doesn’t matter. I can’t remember anything anyway!”

Gordon was dead? And she said it so casually. Had she killed him? She seemed to show no remorse whatsoever. “What do you think happens when you die?”

“You go to heaven. You become perfect like God. You’re whole again for the rest of eternity.”

Stan didn’t understand what she meant by ‘whole again’, but there was a more pressing question about retribution that she didn’t seem to comprehend; a founding principle of his own education since time began. “And what if you’ve done wrong? Do you go to hell?”

“I don’t believe in Hell. This is Hell. Living is Hell. If you do wrong, you pay for it here and now.”

“So, what have you done wrong?”

“You don’t need to do anything wrong for life to be Hell. Other people can make your life Hell for no reason. But when you die that doesn’t matter anymore. You’re perfect again like an angel and everyone else is perfect to you, too, forever.”

Stan thought about her life-size photo at the stage entrance. “But then why not commit suicide and be an angel now?”

There was a sudden outcry from the audience, making Katy hesitate and feel like she had said the wrong thing.

“Because that’s ... I don’t know, I think that would be Hell forever because you didn’t accept Hell here you couldn’t go to heaven.”

She was dancing around the question of responsibility as if it was a handbag she could pick up or drop at will. There was no point in trying to access her conscience; she didn’t seem to have one. She had married Gordon and now he was dead and she could have been talking about the weather! It was time to be a little more direct. “Why did you kill Gordon?”

Katy laughed. “I didn’t!”

“I’m sorry Katy. Let’s go back to your marriage. You said you don’t know why you married Gordon, it had nothing to do with the baby?”

Katy suddenly screamed. “I didn’t marry Gordon! I didn’t have a baby! I married Billy! I told you! I had no choice! He raped me!”

“Security guards on stand-by at Contestant stage.” The Proddir shouted into her mic.

“Your eyes are getting heavier and heavier. You’re perfectly peaceful and at rest, Katy. You have nothing to worry about.”

Katy’s nostrils flared and she was wheezing, struggling to breathe.

Backstage, the AFM was running down the corridors behind the set to the studio’s garage doors. The sports car was there, but there was no sign of Tonky or Tiny, just their empty chairs in front of the monitor.

“Breathe in deeply Katy, hold it ... breathe out ... Try and breathe in deeply Katy ... ” As much to calm his own anger as hers. “What are you getting so hysterical about? Living with rape? That isn’t the biggest problem in life! Life is the only problem in life. If you’re living, you’re fine ... Hold it again ... Breathe out ... ”

Chris was on his feet waiting for a cue, or should he just run over? He wasn’t sure of himself now—underneath he was the wreck of insecurity only Mary really knew. God, he loved Mary. He had forced himself to be strong for the whole world for her but what could he do now?

“What do you mean, they’re not there? Where the hell are they?” The Proddir flicked a switch to intercom. “Could all the Nurses please Standby at the Contestant stage entrance?”

“I don’t know. They know they should remain at their posts.” The AFM said. “Perhaps there was an emergency?”

“This is a bloody emergency, you moron! Find them NOW!”

“Were you really a teacher?” Tony asked Matt idly.

“Yes. Why?”

“I usually know a pratt when I see one.”

“Thank you. ”

“I can just imagine throwing you out of a plane at ten thousand feet with a ten-thousand-foot rope attached to your parachute. You’d try and climb it, right? You would, wouldn’t you?” Tony laughed and then bent over double at the counter giggling. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

Matt hesitated sadly. “Yeah, I probably would. ”

“You see?” Tony laughed. “You see? What a pratt!”

Chapter 30

I thought we were mates

Tonky shook out the last reluctant drops in the urinal, before carefully putting it away. He moved to the sinks to wash his hands but heard sniffling coming from one of the two occupied cubicles quickly followed by a short sharp cry. Security instincts aroused—Act now, think later—he kicked the door open.

Tiny looked up from the toilet seat, stunned, trousers around his ankles with his penis frozen in his hands. “Didn’t anyone teach you to knock mate?”

“What the hell are you doing mate?”

“Look at it! If I squeeze it, it bleeds,” Tiny squabbled nervously, as a little trickle of blood ran out of his little two-inch penis.

“Call that a penis? That’s a clit, you little pussy!” Tonky laughed angrily. “Do you want to see what a penis looks like, eh? Eh?” He jeered, undoing his holster belt and then his trousers, and pulling his Y-fronts down. “Look at this,” he said wobbling the ten-inch limp truncheon like thing in his face. “Eh! Eh! Turn you on does it, eh?” he sneered. Tiny grimaced, closed his eyes and moved his face away, like a wounded dog fearful of its owner.

Point made, Tonky pulled his Y-fronts up and over it, carefully, and left it to rest exposed down the side of his right leg half-way to the knee, before he pulled his trousers up and retied his holster belt, checking the gun was fastened safely.

“That’s what a limp penis is mate, you should see it when it’s hard!” Tonky barked proudly, and guffawed, “You’d like it better then.”

“You would, more like.”

“What? Are you saying I’m bent?”

“Probably.”

“Are you fucking saying I’m bent, you little bastard?” Tonky shouted in his face. Tiny did up his trousers and tied on his holster belt, handling the holster carefully into position on his right hip.

“Why do you want to show it to me, then, eh?” Tiny asked him, standing and looking down into Tonky’s eyes, just an inch, but it was definitely down.

“Are you fucking saying I’m fucking bent you motherfucking son of a bitch?”

Odin held his finger to his lips at the army dolls shaking in his left arm in the other cubicle.

“Yea, what are you gonna do about it, guitar dick?” He whistled, pushing him away.

“GUITARRR D-icK?” Tonky said in a high-pitched voice like a kettle whistling.

“Yea. Guitar Dick. What did you think I said?”

“G-G-GUIIII-T-T-TARRRR D-D-DEEEEEEK?” Tonky stuttered, his head bobbing forward with each stutter like a woodpecker.

“You stupid poof!” Tiny said nonchalantly, sitting down.

“I’m not a fucking POOFF!” Tonky said from a few feet away, “OK?”

“Fuck off, then!”

Tonky moved backwards in a daze and sat down on the sinks. “I can’t believe you fucking said that, I thought we were mates.”

“Fuck off!”

“I’m not a poof, OK?”

“OK. Shut up.”

“OK” Tonky accepted grudgingly. “But I’m not a fucking ...”

“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” The AFM shouted breathlessly, running into the toilets.

“Just talking,” Tonky replied, taken aback by the aggressiveness in the little man’s voice.

“Haven’t you been watching the monitor?” The AFM yelled at him. “Or were you too busy playing with yourselves?” He asked sarcastically, and you calling me a dumb prick.

“Has someone been watching us or something?” Tonky asked defensively, looking around at the urinals.

Odin held his hand over his mouth and the other over the faces of the Army Man dolls.

The AFM’s jaw dropped, as the implication of these words dawned on him.

“He started it,” Tiny whistled, pointing at Tonky, “don’t look at me! He’s the woolly woofter, old guitar dick, not me! No, sir.”

“Why weren’t you waiting at the Contestant Stage Entrance like the boss said?”

“Because the boss just told us to go to the Centre Stage and then Chris said he didn’t need us. What are you having a go at us for? She should make up her bloody mind where she wants us to go!”

“I’m not a poof?” Tonky said.

“Will you please save it till later, and wait on standby at the Contestant Stage. Mrs Lawrence looks like she’s losing it!”

The two men stood, towering over the AFM. “Contestant stage, right. Centre Stage, wrong, Contestant Stage, right, here we go again.” Tiny said. “Next thing it will be Contestant stage wrong, Centre stage, right! You need brains for management.”

“Yea.” Tonky said. “And I’m not a poof!”

“There are thousands of people out there who couldn’t give a damn about your sexual orientation, including me,” the AFM said desperately waving his hands in the air at him. “Now move!” They ran off to the Contestant Stage entrance barging one another on the way.

Bloody queers, he thought to himself watching them go, they only think about one thing and they only use that one thing to think! Oh my, he suddenly thought to himself, aren’t I clever? Forgetting he’d heard it somewhere before and pottered off—my talent is definitely wasted here— leaving Odin shivering in the cubicle with fear.

Chapter 31

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

“That’s better Katy. Breathe in ... breathe out.” Stan calmed her, holding her hand in his left, and after having wasted several minutes just focusing on her breathing, he was finally able to continue. “You’re looking down on the world, floating higher and higher above ... ” She couldn’t understand why but eventually she felt herself following his instructions, almost needing to.

“Now I want you to calmly and clearly describe how you met ... Billy, wasn’t it?”

“Yes ... Billy.” Katy leaned forward to rub herself with her right hand.

Stan looked down again at her hand. He’d seen people itching themselves down there because they had lice but this wasn’t itching, she was stroking herself like a pumice stone. She either had an insatiable lust or she was subconsciously trying to draw his attention to something. But what else was there? “Wait. Do you realise what you’re doing with your hand in front of me, Katy?”

Katy felt herself rubbing herself, but she didn’t know why.

“Are you aroused? Does it feel nice there?”

Katy shook her head.

Stan leaned closer towards her, gently stroking her arm. “Is it because you want someone else to touch you down there? Can you think of ...”

“NO!” Katy suddenly screamed, pulling him off his chair by the arm on top of her and grabbed his genitals with her other hand in a clenching grip, tugging them in a spasm as she shook.

“FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!” Tony suddenly howled from the Centre stage standing up on his foot-rests and punching the air with his fist.

“Fuck!” Stan slowly reached down through the agonising pain and sunk his nails into the hand below her knuckles. Like a clam springing open, she suddenly released her grip and he fell backwards and banged his head hard on the floor.

Katy rocked backwards and forwards in her chair, sucking her hand, tears silently falling from her eyes, muttering, “What did I do? What did I do?”

Stan slowly crawled to all fours, blinking to regain his vision in the light streaming passed his eyes like shooting stars, coughing for breath, and slowly climbed back into his chair nursing his belly with one arm. “It’s alright,” he panted, “it’s perfectly alright.” He started coughing again and felt his testicles swell up painfully each time like the body of a baby octopus making flight. He closed his eyes to concentrate on his breathing and after a few minutes, in spite of the pain, continued, “I’m sorry, Katy. Try and think about Billy. Where were you? What was happening around you? Remember you’re only looking down, nobody’s going to hurt you. Where did you meet Billy? Can you picture it?”

“Yes.” Katy sighed guiltily, aware she’d done something wrong but hopelessly unaware of what though eager to continue, to try and understand why. “It was a Christmas school reunion.”

“Bloody hell.” Tony sat down dejectedly on his stool, shaking his head. “Not more talk again!”

“Good. What can ... ” Stan coughed again and Katy knew it was hurting him to talk.

“There’s a Hall. I can see people dancing. Balloons everywhere.” Katy was twenty-six and nineteen stone four pounds. “He’s looking at me. I didn’t recognise him at first. I never used to talk to him much at school. He’s walking towards me. I look away and then he’s right in front of me. He’s blonde with these dazzling blue eyes and he’s very slim. I’ve never fancied larger or heavier guys, I don’t know why, because I know I am. Then he says, ‘Are you Katy White?’ And I nod a bit shyly because he has this big smile and he says, ‘do you remember me? Billy. Billy Lawrence? I used to have a crush on you. Do you want to dance?’ Nobody had asked me to dance all evening and I know it sounds stupid but at first, I said ... ”

“Good. Well done, Katy. I want you to stop there for a moment.” He edged back in his chair, coughing again. There was no point in continuing, there was nothing there. He stared back down at the scar on her finger. It was her ring finger. It must have something to do with her getting married or the act of getting married. Maybe she regretted getting married? Maybe she had to marry him for some reason? “How did you feel about marrying him, Katy?”

“How did I feel? I don’t know. It was much later, I can’t remember.”

“Yes, you can.” Stan said.

Tony imagined washing the old man’s dirty face with a flannel soaked in sulphuric acid and shifting the features with his thumb like a spoon in melted ice-cream.

“You’re perfectly peaceful and at rest. Picture yourself on the day of your wedding to Billy, Katy. You’re getting ready. See the dress you’re wearing. What is going through your mind? You’re perfectly relaxed. You’ve got plenty of time, plenty of time,” he reassured her.

Chris stared at the countdown clock which read 29:37:88;87;86 ... And counting, realising he hadn’t much time, and turned directly to the camera.

“The most important thing Stan didn’t ask her about is the same thing that’s most on his mind at the moment and he’s too close to see it. Why did she go for his balls? Does she blame his sex in some way? A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush?” I gave the camera my best ironic smile with a glint in my eye, I hope.” Something in her head caused her to attack him there. Why was she so mad at Stan’s confusion? Is it because she’d made the same mistake herself and confused Billy with Gordon about something? After all, don’t we all most hate the faults in others we hate most in ourselves?”

Chapter 32

Brother Jesus Christ

The Judge thumbed the remote to mute the black woman’s shocking scream, wincing at her hysteria and then suddenly in the still silence that followed he felt his subconscious rush to the surface with the answer he’d been waiting for and made his way over to the computer to get it down.

“Unprecedently ...′ He quickly terrattertytapped on the keyboard, and typing with two fingers at a furious pace as if there was no time to lose, completed the final sentence of the introduction: “ ... high at the prospect that Jesus may be ‘one of us’, ‘on the square’ and sharing our same high brotherly values of love for fellow-man.”

He stopped, tapped ‘Page-Up’ a couple of times and re-read to admire its beauty in context:

Memorandum

To: Commander Michael Hyman RN,

Grand Secretary of the United Grand Lodge of England,

Freakmason’s Hall

Great King Street

London WC6.

cc.: Major-General Sir Rudolph Greeves, Deputy Grand Master

Rt Rev. Archibald Cantwin, Grand Treasurer

From: Judge Sir George Prickles, Grand Director of Ceremonies

In re Brother Jesus Christ

Status: Private and Confidential

Worshipful brother, I have been reading two fascinating books: ‘Jesus the Man’ by Barbara Thiery (1992) and ‘The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered’ by Baigent and Leigh (1991). They both use the recently translated Dead Sea Scrolls to prove that Jesus Christ was a real historical figure and an Essene, living in the Qumran Community. Neither suggests on its own that Jesus was a Freemason. However, while I was reading them simultaneously, this curious thing happened: evidence seemed to merge in my mind and suggest that the Qumran Community was masonic in nature. I was baffled to explain why this happened and originally attributed it to an overactive imagination but then I began scribbling some notes to myself and the more notes I made the stronger the case grew.

It is, apparently, no wonder The Catholic Church caused delays, sine die, in translating these Scrolls. Apparently, they were frightened of what they might reveal to their members about Christianity, but I suspect, too, Christianity’s possible foundation in Freemasonry. We know only too well how the Vatican keeps its own secrets to itself, and how its eminent (!) cardinals and archbishops protect their own, so I must be cautious, in pari delicto potoir est conditio defendentis!

The Dead Sea Scrolls wrote of a ‘Teacher of Righteousness’ living among the Qumran Community who was Jesus Christ. If I can prove that the Qumran Community of Essenes were a masonic order of brothers, then Jesus Christ has to be a bone fide Antient Mason. (This would explain, as you can no doubt imagine, a lot of things. The ramifications are infinitely immense.)

Further, I also found possible evidence to suggest, worshipful brother, that Jesus Christ, The Great Architect, was the physical re-incarnate of our Principal Architect, Hiram Abiff, and therefore a spiritual descendant of The-Unpronouncable-Second-‘Person’-Of-The-Holy-And-Sacred-Ineffable-Name-Of-The-Grand-Omnific-Royal-Arch.

Here I shall present the evidence, and let you, my Worshipful brother judge. If my conclusions are correct the consequences for Christianity and our Brotherhood, are, of course, extremely far-ranging. Let us consider those for Freemasonry alone. Firstly, Jesus’ masonic status can no longer be considered ‘mythical’, (as some of our worshipful brothers of the ‘Soc Ros’ may consider it!) Secondly, I do not believe Freemasonry can continue to allow infidels into our brotherhood (not solely bar non-Christian brothers from the ‘Soc Ros’), any longer. And thirdly, there is an existing store of undiscovered Qumran Community treasure worth millions which I will try to identify and I think I have found a vital clue for its recovery, if, of course you accept the a priori evidence, that it is our right in rem.

What I find hardest to believe is that these two books are probably on the same bookshelf in the local library and anyone could have cross-referenced them as I have done and drawn the same conclusions. It is purely chance that I am the first.

My heart soars unprecedently high at the prospect that Jesus may be ‘one of us’ ... ”

Judge Prickles was too elated to finish reading the sentence. The fly was long gone, and now his brain felt like a honeycomb of worker bees spinning and buzzing their messages to one another; words were frantically beginning to climb over themselves to get out, and this death, the most famous of all, was tantalisingly waiting to be explored in the darkness seductively wrapping its arms around him, save for the silent glow from the TV screen as the picture switched innocuously to the Porn stage.

Chapter 33

Are you following the story?

“'My father, El, who heard both sides' ... ” High Priest Gareth intoned judgmentally, and ceased intercourse, uncrossing his wife’s legs on his right shoulder, which had previously been crossed on his left, so that each of her legs now rested separately again over each of his shoulders. “'Concludes we need war to decide!'”

“Now watch Lucy carefully here folks,” Bob began observantly, following the diagram in their book like a map. “She’s lifting her right, forgive me, her left leg and she’s lowering it besides Gareth’s right thigh, and now ... yes,” Bob’s voice picked up volume and speed. "He’s kneeling over it with his ... right leg and leaning his chest against her raised right leg. And ... YES! IT’S A DEFINITE BACK DOWN LEFT HOLD RIGHT LEG GRIP SHOULDER DOWN SLAM DUNK FUCK! STACE?”

Lucy gripped the silk bedcover in her fists as her husband began to tease her, rotating his hips with just the helmet inside.

“AND BOY IS HE RUBBING HIS SAUSAGE INTO HER SUNNY SIDE UP TWISTING IT ROUND AND ROUND TO GET ALL THE YOKE—THIS IS ONE HUNGRY FELLAR, STACE? AND I MIGHT ADD A TOUCH GREEDY TOO IF ONLY SHE DIDN’T ENJOY SERVING IT UP SO MUCH!”

“And he accomplished that manoeuvre without once withdrawing from her, Bob. Any idea of how many positions so far?”

“Not a clue but Nice point, Stace. Have you also noticed he hasn’t wanked himself off or asked her to do it for him since he started either?” Bob asked in all seriousness. “And that’s in spite of all the pauses, all the repositions, all the recantations? You know what? That plank of his must,” he said emphatically,” be made of WOOD! From this angle, it looks like the handle of an axe, but he’s using it like a screwdriver, round and round ... clockwise ... anti-clockwise ... I can’t see any probing going on, yet. How about you, Stace?”

“'But ... Yam’s ... bigger than YOU - OOooohh!'” Lucy whimpered as Gareth tried to prove that he wasn’t and moved forward to shorten the distance between their pubis bones to increase his reach inside her, still circling her, but waiting for her next line to begin, to change position. She knew this, and waited a while enjoying the sensation before finally continuing. “'You know that you will lose.'”

“'Right or Wrong',” he began and then they chanted together, “'the High God El said FIGHT!'”

Tony suddenly turned round on his stool on the Centre stage hearing the word ‘FIGHT!’ Like an echo of his own déjà vu as Gareth suddenly slammed into her, and Lucy’s eyes squeezed tightly shut.

“HUMPIN’ BUFFALO’S LOOK ... AT ... HIS ... HIP-ACTION NOW! RIDIN’ THAT LEFT LEG, SCRAP THAT, THAT ISN’T RIDIN’, THAT ISN’T A TROT, THAT BOY’S GALLOPING AFTER THAT PUSSY AS IF IT WAS A GINGER HARE BOBBING AWAY FROM HIM AS FAST AS HE CAN CHASE IT!”

“Are you following the story, Bob?” Stacy sighed and Tony laughed. “This is a sad time for Anat, her brothers have been told by their father, El, they have to fight to decide who rules and she has told Baal, that his brother Yam is more powerful than him and he’ll lose. If he doesn’t win, he’s dead, and she loses her love forever. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Tony tried to laugh again but his grin faded. It was that last line, ‘if he doesn’t win he’s dead’. It was like, shit. ‘And she loses her love forever’. It was like that Oasis song, ‘Don’t look back in anger.’ He knew what Stacy meant.

“YEAH, YEAH, YEAH ... LOOK AT HIM GO! TRUST ME, HE’LL HAVE NO PROBLEM WINNING, STACE, WITH THAT KIND OF ENTHUSIASM! FANNY-FUCKING-PHENOMENAL!”

Stacy shook her head as if to say why bother with him and Tony looked away to imagine what he could do to Bob.

Just don’t, Lucy thought, worried by Gar’s enthusiasm so soon—and with another twenty positions to go—cum! And she was frankly so annoyed with him that she couldn’t simply forget it and enjoy how he was making her body feel. This should have been one of the best nights of her life. If the bloody idiot ... but, oohhhh ... He did feel so good ...

Chapter 34

Like a wounded lamb

Tony had locked Bob in a decompression chamber in his mind, and was slowly increasing the helium to oxygen ratio of the air to see Bob laugh himself to death while pissing his pants. And then hooked Bob by one ankle to a crane and batted a pride of lions in a cage with his swinging arms and legs until limb by limb there was nothing left but his torso spurting at the joints. But the boredom remained.

Tony was bored with the pagan sex, bored with Katy’s non-fight and endless sob story, bored just sitting here. He wished they’d let him bring his phone, there wasn’t anything to do, except watch and listen which was so bloody boring! He bit his fingernail thinking about his stereo. It wasn’t as good as the one his mum had bought him for Christmas, though. And then he remembered that was when he’d got the Oasis single CD, ‘Don’t look back in anger’ which Stacy was talking about. He chewed the edge of his thumbnail, bouncing his feet on the foot-rest trying to remember the words of the song. That was a bloody brilliant stereo. He tried to remember.

The short metal wire-framed Christmas tree had sat in pride of place on the cabinet in the front window of their small living-room as if everything was gonna be nice for once. A few Christmas cards decorated the mantlepiece between the crucifix and the photo of a man in a dark green uniform holding a baby wrapped in pink. Tony was embarrassed by that last one, after all he was six-and-a-quarter-years-old, not a baby, and his mum had cut his lanky brown hair into a fashionable bowl-style, like his heroes, to prove it.

“You said you’d come here mum!” He shouted in front of the fireplace over the song playing on the new stereo for the umpteenth time that day.

She was busy washing their lunch plates in the kitchen. “Will you keep it down Tony? We’re going to get complaints.”

“Mum!”

“What is it?” She put the last cleaned dish in the rack by the sink, dried her hands on the tea-towel and checked her new purple rinse in the mirror before walking into the room.

As soon as he saw her, he pressed ‘Stop’ on the CD player. “Watch this!” He said happily, as if he was offering a present, pressed ‘Play’ and took a pose in front of the fireplace with a crayon in his hand, and began singing along, with word for word accuracy as he strummed an air guitar. “‘Slip inside the eye of your mind, don’t you know you might find' ... ” He pointed at his head, stressing the emphasis of words with dips of his shoulder, meaningfully, as if he was on stage performing. He had no words of his own, these were his words.

Mrs O’Brien watched her son’s performance thinking he was better than the band’s lead singer and in spite of hearing the song all morning, she could see how much he loved it. It was worth the sacrifices she had made to save up for it. Money couldn’t buy the way he sang or the way he danced. His little fantasy world was the best part of her real world.

Suddenly she heard the door slam shut, and immediately her soft expression hardened. “That’s enough Tony,” she quickly moved to the stereo and turned it off.

“But mum, I know it all off by heart.”

“What’s that bloody racket I heard half-way up the street?” Mr O’Brien entered the living-room, bloodshot eyes, thick handlebar moustache and the smell of alcohol leading the way.

“And what time do you call this?” Mrs O’Brien returned to the kitchen and took his lunch out of the oven.

“Are you still bloody nagging woman? Alright It? It’s Christmas day for Christ’s sake. Give it a rest.” He slumped into his armchair in front of the fire.

“Look at this Daddy!” Tony pressed ‘Play’ on the stereo and fiddled with the graphic equaliser, showing-off the variation in sound from deep bass tones to thin high treble.

Mr O’Brien smiled at Tony for a moment and then his eyes fell on the photo of them on the mantlepiece. Tony watched his dad’s face take on an expression of disgust as he looked away, searching for the remote.

“You promised, Jack!” Mrs O’Brien put the plate on a tray with a glass of water and carried it in. “One time. Is that too much to ask?”

“Whatever.” Mr O’Brien thumbed the remote he’d found and the TV sprung to life. “Knock it on the head, It!”

Tony sadly switched the stereo off. She lay the tray on her husband’s lap. “And you said that was the last time you’d call him that.”

“What’s this?” He held up the glass.

“Jack, it’s Christmas day, please.” Mrs O’Brien took her pinny off and went upstairs. “It’s only water it won’t kill you.”

“It” he ignored her. “Fetch me a beer.”

“But mummy ... ”

“What did I just say?”

Tony got up and went to the kitchen. He opened the fridge, took a can of beer out and leaned up to get a glass from the rack. He opened the can and carefully poured the beer into the glass half-way. Then he leaned over the sink and put the glass under the cold-water tap, and topped it up flattening the frothy head, thinking his dad wouldn’t notice because the colour looked the same to him and mummy would be happy.

Mr O’Brien was digging into his lunch as if he hadn’t eaten for twenty-four hours, when Tony handed him the glass. Chewing an open mouthful he grunted acknowledgement, took the glass from him and handed him the other glass to take back to the kitchen.

Half-way there, Tony stopped as he heard his father shout. “What the fuck is this, It?”

Tony dropped the glass of water in his hand and began running to the kitchen but there was no escape there, so he turned back to try and run out of the living-room but headed straight into his father’s legs. His father lifted him up by the collar of his sweatshirt, stretching it free of his belly.

“Is this any way to treat your dad? Is this what you think of me, It?” He shook him. “You fucking watered my beer, didn’t you?”

Tony shook his head dramatically. “No daddy.”

“Don’t lie to me. I can’t believe you fucking did that to your DAD! What did I tell you about respect? Tell me the truth, It?”

“I didn’t Daddy.”

Mr O’Brien let go of his son and moved over to the table to pick up his stereo. He held it above his head.

“No!” Tony screamed, jumping up hopelessly to reach it. “I didn’t, I didn’t.”

“Tell the fucking truth, or I mean it, It, I will.”

“What’s going on?” His mother suddenly burst into the room. “Jack! Stop it! Put it down. I paid for that.”

“Oh, did you woman? Well, I’ve fucking paid for you, too!”

“Daddy, no.”

“Jack. I’m warning you. I’ll go.”

“Fuck off then. I’m waiting. Go on, fucking go!” She didn’t move. He knew she wouldn’t.

“Daddy, daddy. It’s mine. Give it back.”

“You dress It up like a little girl, Nancy boy, tomboy - not a real boy. It’s a little girl, isn’t that right, It? Your mummy’s spoilt you, hasn’t she? You’re not a man, you’re a girly little liar!”

“Jack!”

“Did you fucking water my beer or not?”

“No daddy, no. ”

“Jack, I mean it. You can’t afford to get him another one.”

“I can’t afford it? Do you think I give a shit, woman? Fuck you! It needs to learn a fucking lesson! Did you or not, just tell me the truth and you can have it back.”

“Tell him, Tony, please just tell him.”

“I didn’t mummy. I didn’t daddy. Please!”

“It’s a fucking little girly liar. You see this, It? You think she’ll stop me? Think I’m scared? Well, fuck you!” He suddenly threw the stereo at his wife, she ducked and screamed as it smashed against the wall behind her head and dropped to the floor.

Tony rushed over to it and tried to re-attach the lid of the CD player which was hanging loose by a short string of black and red wires. The CD was still inside but when he pressed ‘Play’ although it still rotated the speakers just hissed. He began to cry.

“Are you proud of yourself now?” Mrs O’Brien followed her husband into the kitchen. “You’re a real big man now, aren’t you Jack?”

“It’s got to learn right from wrong.” Mr O’Brien opened a fresh can from the fridge and sunk half in one long solid gulp.

“Do you know how long I’ve been saving up for that? He’s got nothing. And you ... do that! Jack?” She began to cry herself. “On Christmas Day, you do that to him?”

“I’ll get him another.” Mr O’Brien wiped his lips with his sleeve. “It’s only a goddamn cheap fucking stereo, woman.”

“That’s all I could afford.”

“Yeah, well It shouldn’t tell fucking lies.” Jack O’Brien brushed past his wife and sat back down in his chair in the living-room. He turned to Tony. “That’s what happens when you lie, do you hear me?”

Tony picked up the broken stereo and carried it like a wounded lamb up to his room.

Mr O’Brien flicked through the channels with the remote. “‘Only Fools and Horses’ is on! You like that!” He shouted through to his wife as if nothing had happened, happy now he had a proper beer.

Mrs O’Brien dried her tears with the backs of her hands and stood straight with a resolve she had never felt so strongly before. It wasn’t only the broken stereo. He’d done worse things to her that she couldn’t tell anyone about, and afterwards he’d apologise so convincingly and assure her that they would never happen again she believed him each time. But he had never hit Tony. It was more to do with the fact that it was Christmas. Like a suicide can get through depression any other time of the year, she couldn’t take it at Christmas.

“That’s the last time, Jack.” Mrs O’Brien casually told him, passing through the living-room and heading up the stairs.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ll be back, just like the last time, and the last time before that.” He laughed and took another swig from his beer.

But for the first time, Mrs O’Brien didn’t stop to try and convince him that she meant it. There was no bargaining, no terms, no conditions left. She packed a suitcase promising herself only two things: She would never go back to Jack again, and she would return and collect Tony when she had settled. She would keep one of them.

At the top of the stairs now, carrying her heavy suitcase, she heard Tony in his room, sobbing the words to the song he’d been listening to all day rebelliously as if he didn’t need the stereo anyway. For a split second she wanted to drop her suitcase and comfort him but she knew she could never leave if she did and hurried down the stairs.

“Happy New Year!” Mr O’Brien called out cheerily.

Mrs O’ Brien gently closed the front-door behind her.

Tony didn’t remember hearing her leave and would never understand why she didn’t say goodbye. In a few years he would learn he fucking hated her, anyway, so it didn’t matter, and that’s when the real problems would start.

“Stop kicking the stool!” Matt suddenly grabbed Tony’s elbow. “You’ll break it!”

“Fuck you!” Tony shook his arm free tearfully and pushed Matt away. “Fucking, fuck you!” And turned to watch Stan stroking Katy’s hand on the Contestant Stage, and imagined stapling it to the arm rest with a nail hammer, and the other hand, and then the neck and then the feet and ...

Chapter 35

You’re angry at your mother

“Tell me what you see?” Stan said gently, stroking Katy’s hand. “Nobody’s going to hurt you. It’s the morning of your wedding day.” Katy inhaled deeply, she seemed to find comfort in repetition for some reason he noticed. “Nobody’s going to hurt you, that’s right. How do you feel about marrying Billy? What can you see?”

“I think ... ” Katy was beginning to see the bright sunshine through the Edwardian bay window of her bedroom at her parent’s home fall onto her whiter than white wedding dress. She was thirty-one again. After dieting solidly for a year she’d lost so much weight she doubted relatives in the church would recognise her; she was only thirteen stone and four pounds.

“Oh, go on tell us, we’ll hear it anyway.” Susie said.

“No, I won’t be able to keep a straight face in the church if you laugh.”

“We won’t laugh, promise.” Helen said resolutely in her most grown-up manner of reassurance. She was still so sweet and pure, Katy thought, unlike herself at that age.

“You promise?”

“Will you keep still, Katy.” Her mother said, kneeling at her feet and disconnecting the train. Katy’s dark Mali mother was as thin as Susie, as thin as Katy had ever been, in spite of having two children, and rose effortlessly to her feet. She used to tell Katy that a Diplomat’s wife had no choice about being slim, especially if she was black! And she still had that whiter than white smile, Katy thought, when she turned to face her, the one that hid a harder than hard heart.

“Why did you say that?” Stan asked. “She’s helping you, isn’t she?”

“I don’t know, it’s just ... a fact.”

“Good.” Stan said.

“Good.” Her mother finally beamed at her, touching her temples gently.

“Cross my heart and hope to die.” Helen jumped up and down for attention, tracing her finger across her little flat chest.

“O.K. it’s Harold.” Katy giggled.

“Billy Harold!” Susie laughed.

“I think it’s a very nice name,” Katy’s mother said.

“Harold!” Helen cried.

“Harold.” Katy laughed, hiding her smile with a hand.

“Miss Katy Penelope White,” Susie began, standing to attention, and imitating the deep voice of the minister, “do you take Mr Billy Harold Lawrence, to be your lawfully wedded husband?” And broke into giggles.

“Stop It!” Katy mocked indignantly, “I know I’m going to laugh. I know it!”

Helen flung herself on her sister’s bed, rolled and kicked her legs.

“Will you be careful with that new dress, Helen.” Her mother gently reprimanded her, packing the train away, “we can’t have our pretty bridesmaid all in wrinkles, can we?”

“What would Harold think!” Susie mocked.

“Susie!” Katy shrieked.

“I’m sorry, you’re right, it’s not funny,” Susie replied with a stern voice and face.

“Harold!” Helen cried, and everyone, including her mother, laughed, so she said it again, pleased with her new joke and the effect it was having, “Harold! Harold! Harold!”

“Oh mummy?” Katy pleaded anxiously.

“That’s enough, Helen.” Her mother said.

“Harold!” Helen cried, unaware that a joke stopped being funny the fourth time, although Susie was still giggling.

“Helen, did you know that it’s customary in England for a father to use their father’s name in their son’s middle name as their father had done?” Her mother was an expert on tradition, Katy thought bitterly, African and English but she wasn’t going to let it spoil her mood this time.

“You said it again.” Stan said. “You’re angry at your mother?”

“No.”

“No?” Helen asked curiously. It was a tactic her mother had used on many occasions to quieten her children; point at something or ask them a question.

“Well, it’s true. Billy’s father’s name is Harry which is short for Harold, and Billy’s grandfather,” there was a knock at the door. “Who is it?”

“Are you ready yet? The chauffeur’s waiting.” Katy’s father asked behind the door.

“Just a minute!” Katy’s mother replied, standing up and carefully placing the train over her arm and fluffing the skirt.

“Can I come in?” He asked.

“When you’re ready.” His wife said.

He opened the door and walked in with his hand over his eyes.

“Can I open them?” He asked with a smile. His white hair contrasted starkly with his freckled pink complexion, giving his face an undeserved severity when he didn’t smile.

“Like in the garden,” Stan said, “he wasn’t smiling then, was he Katy?”

“But Daddy was always smiling.” Her father had an infectious natural jolliness that suited his rotund appearance. “Oh daddy, don’t tease,” Katy said, clicking her heels together expectantly.

He peeked through open scissor-shaped fingers at her and saw; His daughter become bride.

“You look so beautiful, I could cry,” he said. And then for some reason Katy remembered the only time he had ever cried in front of her when explaining that it wasn’t his fault and he’d tried to stop her mother. It was so strange seeing him cry, like her own father was a little boy inside, all along, but she fought not to show it now, rushing towards him, and flinging her arms around his shoulders. “Oh daddy, I love you.”

“I love you too, Katy, more than words can say. Now don’t cry, precious.”

“I’m so happy, daddy.”

“I know you are,” her father put his hand in his pocket, “you’ll ruin your lovely make-up if you’re not careful. Here, I’ve bought you a little something.” He handed her a small box. She opened it slowly, and her eyes grew wider as they fell upon the heart-shaped gold locket.

“Oh daddy, it’s beautiful.”

“You can never predict the future, but you’ll always have the past. This is how I’ll always remember you. Open it.”

“Let me see, let me see,” Helen jumped up in the air beside Katy. Her father gently pulled Helen to him and held her still.

Katy opened the locket and saw a picture of two babies, one in each hinged heart. She recognised herself immediately, but gazed instead at the little white baby-faced Billy, her groom. He looked so vulnerable, so giving with his wide brown eyes, chubby cheeks and a few whiffs of blonde hair on his head. His eyes were blue now and the chubby cheeks had gone to be replaced by high firm cheekbones in a tall aristocratic face.

“It’s the most wonderful present you’ve ever given me, daddy.” Katy hugged him, trapping little Helen in between them.

“Let me see, let me see!” Helen muffled into Katy’s bulbous skirt.

Katy knelt down, and showed the open heart to Helen.

“I had a word with Harry and he dug out the old photograph album,” her father said. “I had it reduced myself.”

“Is that Billy?” Helen said pointing at the picture on the left.

“You don’t recognise your big sister?” Katy teased.

“You look like a baby!” Helen said. Everyone laughed. “She does!”

“Perhaps that’s because I was one,” Katy said and Helen looked a little hurt. “We all were once, I think, even you!” Helen smiled, pleased to be accepted into womanhood again.

Katy stood. “Oh daddy, you’re so sweet,” she said, “I should be marrying you!”

“Not so quickly,” her mother piped up, “he’s already taken,” she said taking her husband by the arm, and smiling up at him proudly. “And what about poor Billy, you’re not going to leave him standing at the altar I hope?”

“Oh my God, what’s the time?” Katy asked anxiously.

“I said that’s enough!” Stan finally raised his voice, losing patience.

Katy’s eyes sprang open. “I’m sorry!” And then hurtfully. “Did I say something bad?”

Stan rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. He looked under them to his right and noticed the clock was counting down as fast as the couple were going at it on the screen. It read 36:57:43,42,41 ... He had less than twenty-five minutes left. What the fuck was the psychosexual reason she couldn’t have children? Parents caught at it at an early age- big deal! Finger-clickin’ virginity- big deal! Hardly rape! School reunion meets old flame—hardly new! Happy family background and she married for love. What else was there? Her weight had a tendency to var—to say the least—and, clue of all clues, she had a scar on her wedding finger which was probably a bite from her cat! He was staring at one giant lump of poor me shit! Either that or she was manipulating him. Could she have been making it all up? Was she that good?

“Katy?”

“Yes.” She looked up at him with doleful wet eyes set in her pretty black face like an innocent little girl, hands between her thighs, except for her mammoth body filling the large chair like a walrus.

“That’s good. You’re very good, you know. How did you feel about marrying Billy?”

“I was in love with him.”

“A few minutes ago, you said you couldn’t remember.”

“I couldn’t!”

“But now you can?”

“It wasn’t always like that with him ... I’m not lying.”

“Cut the bullshit. When wasn’t it like that?”

“What do you mean the bullshit? I’m not lying! How can you think I’m lying?!?”

“When wasn’t it like that with Billy? It’s a perfectly simple question. When?”

“What do you mean? I don’t know what you want me to say?”

“You just said it wasn’t always like that with Billy. You weren’t always in love with him. Why?”

“I don’t know! I can’t remember. I can’t think when you talk to me like this. Why are you talking to me like this? What have I done wrong?”

SHIT! Why? Because she was acting like a kid, or acting like he had when he was under the fire of their insane questioning over an apple? Calm down, Captain. You’re the one in charge, remember. “Excuse me, Katy. I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that I thought you were lying.

“You are being extremely careful with your answers, Katy, and I do appreciate that. You were saying you weren’t always in love with Billy and you can’t remember why. That’s perfectly understandable. How long were you married to Billy?”

“Four years.”

“Only four years?”

“Yes.” Katy replied nervously, trying to twist her ring around her wooden finger.

“Why? What went wrong?” Stan asked gently.

“I don’t know.” Katy was becoming more agitated and she didn’t know why.

Stan wondered whether she’d find it easier to tell someone else? “Did you keep in touch with ... Susie after the wedding?”

“Yes, why?” Katy said defensively.

“Relax, Katy, you’re perfectly safe and at rest. Did you ever discuss your marriage with her?”

Katy hesitated. She couldn’t remember. “I suppose we must have. I don’t know.”

“Good. What I want you to do is imagine you’re talking to her now, Katy. Forget about the cameras, the studio, the audience. Your eyes are getting heavier and heavier and you’re with your best friend, Susie, just like old times. You’re perfectly peaceful and at rest. What did you tell your best friend about your marriage?”

“Oi! Listen up!” Tony said to Matt. “You know who’ll win?”

“No?” Matt said, turning away from the Contestant stage on his stool to face him and trying to dampen the song playing in his head - we’re on a road to nowhere, come on inside—“Who?”—We’re on a road to nowhere, come take a ride—

“Who do you think, you dickhead!” Tony almost laughed himself off his stool.

Matt turned away—And if my heart should beat so low, take me home, we’re on a road to paradise, here we go, here we go...

Chapter 36

She doesn’t seem to know what defeat means

“I hope you’re keeping score, Stace,” Bob rubbed his brow, “because I’ve lost count! That was the same position, right? But fucking her raised left leg—not right—over his shoulder and riding the right—not left—between his, am I right?”

“That is correct, Bob. And for the viewers at home counting for the prize, I can tell you it counts as another position, although it’s not really is it, Bob?”

“Don’t be cruel, Stace, what if your wife’s only got the one leg! But WHAT IS HE DOING NOW? THEY MUST BE USING SUPER GLUE!”

Gareth lifted his left knee over Lucy’s right leg, beside his right knee and then Lucy carefully lifted her left leg over his head—terrified it would fall out—and then lay on her right side with her legs together. Gareth held her thighs tightly to his body, without dislodging his penis, and proudly rose up off his knees, leaning on her. He let her right leg pass under his left as she moved to rest face down on the bed and he lay face down on her back. Lucy hid the bright glee on her face in the pillow.

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I DON’T BELIEVE WHAT I’VE JUST SEEN! A FULL ONE-HUNDRED-AND-EIGHTY-DEGREE TWIST AND TURN WITHOUT SEPARATION AND STRAIGHT INTO A FACE DOWN DOGGY SLAM DUNK FUCK!” He crossed off the diagram on his sheet with a flourish like Zorro’s signature. “THAT’S INCREDIBLE! AND THEY MADE IT LOOK AS EASY AS A PIROUETTE IN A WALTZ! Have you ANY idea how hard that is, Stacy?”

Stacy was trying to work out from the diagram in their book how Gareth’s penis—“very hard”—had miraculously rotated to accomplish the feat, turning the page at different angles to understand. It simply couldn’t, could it?

“'Baal turns to face Yam with his might',” Gareth said severely with an excited pique in tone, rising to kneel on either side of Lucy, and drawing her hips up as she moved her legs together, until he was upright and looking down on the shapely curve of her bottom. “'And attacks with all his PRIDE!'”

“AND HE SLAMS INTO HER, BOLLOCKS BOUNCING OFF THE BACK OF HER THIGHS LIKE RUBBER BALLS ON ELASTIC! LOOK AT HER BUTT CHEEKS REDDEN AS HIS SLIPPERY SHAFT PLUMMETS INTO HER FUCK FURROW AND HER ARSE JUST KEEPS COMING BACK FOR MORE. SHE DOESN’T SEEM TO KNOW WHAT DEFEAT MEANS, STACE?”

“'But ... Yam’s smothering ... YOU!'” Lucy gasped pushing her bottom back against each thrust to resist the pressure on her neck as her head lay on the pillow. “Yam won’t give...” Lucy started, desperate to finish the line, thrilled by her knowledge of what would happen if she did, but also wanting to resist the temptation as long as possible.

“'Yam won’t GIVE!'” Gareth repeated, thinking she’d forgotten.

Finally, Lucy couldn’t hold back, she needed more, “'Yam won’t give it’s no use.'”

Gareth didn’t give her time to join in shouting eagerly, “'But there’s something Baal hasn’t tried!'”

Bob turned to look at Stacy. She was too busy puzzling over the diagram to notice Lucy’s eyes open wide. “THIS IS A GREAT POINT TO REMIND VIEWERS THAT LATER ON IN THE SHOW WE’VE GOT NOT ONE BUT FOUR DRAMATIC RECONSTRUCTIONS—LIVE—OF GENUINE WOMEN’S BIZARRE PRIVATE FANTASIES, INCLUDING ONE WHO’S GOT A FETISH FOR FITNESS. BOY DOES SHE LIKE TO GET WET FROM A SWEAT AND SHE ISN’T PUT OUT BY A WORK-OUT AFTER WORKING OUT HER PUTTING-OUT! (If you know what I mean.) THERE’S NOT ENOUGH MUSCLE IN THE GYM TO SATISFY ‘THE GYM PRINCESS!’ AND THIS WORK-OUT IS THE ONLY ROUTINE THAT’LL MAKE YOUR MUSCLE AS HARD AS A ROCK WITHOUT YOU HAVING TO LIFT A SINGLE DUMBBELL. BE PREPARED SHE LIKES HER MUSCLES WELL-COOKED AND THIS GENUINE FANTASY IS A GYM-WITH-A-TWIST IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE SO DON’T GO AWAY ‘THE GYM PRINCESS’ IS ON HER WAY! PLUS, FOR THOSE VIEWERS WHO DON’T KNOW THEIR PUSSY FROM THEIR ELBOW WE’VE GOT THE W.Y.P.P.Q.—PUSSY QUIZ! AND IF ALL THAT ISN’T ENOUGH TO WET YOUR APPETITE,” Bob read from the script on his desk, “CUM-CUM-CUM-CUMMING UP, THE GRAND WYP ORGY SPECTACULAR, SO STAY WITH US ON W.Y.P; THE SHOW WHERE YOUR WRIST ACTION IS IN SAFE HANDS!” And looked up. “Isn’t that right, STACE?”

But Stacy hadn’t heard a word he’d said. She had stopped reading the book and, Bob noticed, was transfixed on the Temple in front. When he followed her gaze to Gareth and Lucy he could suddenly see why. “Even for them,” Stacy said, “surely what they are attempting next is impossible?”

“At last, he noticed it!” Chris turned directly to the Camera, “That ring has been sitting on her finger all this time and he’s finally got around to asking her about the wedding. But his timing is a bit off I reckon, assuming that cutting her finger off had something to do with the ring. She wouldn’t have severed the finger before she got married because she would only have the wedding ring on afterwards so he should be asking her about what happened during the marriage. But did you notice what he got spot on in her recollection of her wedding day that could be very important? She adored her father. If she had any subconscious anger about her father ‘attacking’ her mother in the garden as a child, it doesn’t seem to be the case here. Stan also picked up on the fact she’s hostile to her mother. A bride being hostile to her mother on her wedding day when she’s helping her? Don’t you think that’s a bit unusual? What could she possibly be blaming her mother for? Or her mother’s mother, extrapolating deductively, if she once called Stan ‘Granny’, especially since she was at least allowing her mother to help? They say Blood is thicker than water? There is definitely something fishy about this whole wedding, and Stan’s very crafty to make Katy think she’s talking to her friend, to tell him. Hold on, I think she’s about to tell ‘her’.”

Chapter 37

A perverse vicarious thrill

Backstage, even Sister Liz had to admire the cunning in Stan’s technique as she watched Katy on the monitor.

“You’re not talking to me, remember.” Stan said. “Picture Susie in the room with you. Look at what she’s wearing, what you’re wearing. You’re discussing Billy. Let it come to you, don’t force it, Katy. You’re perfectly peaceful and at rest. Don’t force it, Katy. Your eyes are getting heavier and heavier. Can you see it now?”

“Yes.” Katy looked out Everdale’s window at the storm outside. Stan watched Katy’s head turn to the right and her brow wrinkle. She was embarrassed. All she could remember them talking about was the size of Billy’s penis and the awful storm.

Hailstones were berating the window panes like a thousand pellets shot from rubber slings by cruel little children and the raging wind rapped against the shutters like loud clackers at a rousing football match. The cold wind seemed to sneak its way through the rooms and into the living-room like a snake around her shoulders to tease the crackling fire, making it cough down the chimney and spit red hot saliva from the burnt black eyes of the logs onto the cold brown tiles before the fire heartily sucked back the flame and smoke and the snake beat its cowardly retreat back over her shoulders. It was like a constant interminable cycle of draft unpredictability absenting the heat and making her draw her cardigan tighter over her large chilly bosom, sitting on the sofa, legs tucked under the high wooden coffee table, with a glass of gin and tonic held tightly in her hand.

“Sometimes I can go for weeks without gaining anything afterwards but then ... it’s like two steps forward one step back.” Katy was thirty-four and weighed twenty-four stone six pounds. “Billy says I put on weight because I don’t love him.”

Susie laughed aloud, her legs tucked snugly under her in Billy’s big armchair beside the fire as a flash of lightening suddenly lit the drive outside. “What? Laugh at it! Laugh at him! Don’t take it seriously.”

“But he gets so angry.”

“Imagine him on the toilet. That always works. Or I know.” Susie giggled into her gin and tonic. Thunder suddenly shook the roof, like the prehistoric roar of a giant crocodile with Everdale between its jaws.

“What was that?”

“Forget it! It’s just the storm. Listen, picture it hanging there like a wet flannel. That always makes me laugh. How long is it?”

“What?” Katy looked fearfully up at the wooden beams.

“How long is his willy?”

“What? How dare you! I wouldn’t dream of asking you how big Stephen’s is?”

“Seven and a half inches. I’ve measured it ... Oh come on, he is my husband! What if he had an accident or something and the hospital needed to know?”

“What for?” There was another streak of lightening outside and Katy counted, “three elephants, four elephants,” aloud when the thunder suddenly roared.

“I don’t know.” Susie laughed. “What if it fell off?”

“It can’t just fall off.”

“How do you know, have you ever tried unscrewing it?”

Katy poured more gin into her glass. “Billy doesn’t like me drinking. He says it makes me paranoid.”

“Screw him! You take everything he says so seriously, Katy. Billy says this, Billy says that.” Susie sighed. “You got to learn to laugh at men. Listen if Stephen’s fell off,” She rationalised drunkenly, “I’d make sure the hospital sewed back on every half inch, or else! If the doctor argued with me, I’d tell him, ‘You’re not the one who’s got to sit on it, darlin’ ’!”

“You’re so silly. What if they could hear us talking like this about them?”

“Who cares! I’m deadly serious! No half measures for me.” She declared boldly waving her glass in the air. She suddenly realised it gave her a perverse vicarious thrill to discuss Billy this intimately with her. “So how bloody long is it you confused girl?”

Katy watched for the lightening outside that didn’t seem to come, and then said absent-mindedly, “long enough, I suppose.”

The thunder suddenly rocked the rafters in the attic.

“There’s no such thing as ‘enough’!” Susie declared, and then more soberly, comme ci, comme ca? She asked pinching her forefinger and thumb together and opening them an inch.

“Don’t be silly!”

“This is not a laughing matter!” Susie rebuked. “Size is very important to a man. They need tender reassurance. You’re so, so, so ...” She breathed heavily, “sO BIG! Even if he’s got a thing the size of a thimble, he’ll believe you, they always do. Can you believe it?”

“It’s the person that counts.”

“Oh yes,” Susie mimicked in her best Schoolmistressy voice, “and does he have a clean collar, and does he bite his fingernails and please!” She dropped the voice, “I’m your best friend, Katy.” She leaned forward to the coffee table and prepared a refill for herself. “Even if it was like trynna get into Fort Knox here tonight.” First the spyhole, then the safety chain, then she had been required to make a declaration about the purpose of her visit. “It was bloody freezing out there! Who did you think it was Boadicea? I thought we were friends!”

“I know. I don’t understand. It’s supposed to be summer.”

“How long you silly girl?”

Katy laughed. “Oh, ok., three inches, I suppose.”

The audience cheered on her right and Katy turned to look out the window just as the lightning struck again illuminating the dark bushes in a blinding flash and she was certain she saw a face there.

Sister Liz glared at the monitor, her face turning crimson with indignation, her eyes crystalising into ice.

“Three! Only three! You poor thing. How wide?”

“Wait! Did you see that?”

“I’m only asking how wide for heaven’s sake? I didn’t ask where and when!”

“It’s coming, listen, it’s coming ... ”

“You can’t remember how wide, or you can’t remember where and when?”

“Either, neither, nothing, oh I don’t know.” And then the thunder suddenly broke again and she could see branches slapping against the window like disembodied limbs.

“What’s wrong, Katy? I was only fooling around. I thought we were having a laugh.”

“We were, I mean we are, oh I don’t know. It’s not your fault, it’s me.”

“No, it isn’t.” Susie said, getting out of her chair. She sat down beside Katy on the floor and put her arm half way around her, failing to hide her surprise at the stench of her body odour. She had to get out more often. How long had she been wearing the same dress? “What’s wrong? It’s only a storm. You don’t answer the phone for weeks ... I’ve been so worried about you.”

“Nothing ... It’s nothing. Oh, I don’t know,” she leant her head away from her. “I’m nothing. I’m useless. I’m boring.”

“No you’re not. We need to get you out of that rag and do a little something with your hair. You’ve got such a pretty face.”

“Billy says boring people get bored.” Katy leaned forward to pick up the bottle, hesitated, didn’t pour, and then rested it on her lap stroking it like a pet. “He’s right. I’m fat and boring.”

“Don’t say that. You always put yourself down. I’m sure Billy doesn’t think you’re boring.”

“He does.”

“Billy loves you, anyone can see that.”

Katy stared at him in their wedding photo on the mantlepiece, turning the flat bottle over in her hands. He was so handsome with his bow tie. She was repulsive, she thought, even then. “I’m not good enough for him. He’s perfect. He can’t bear the sight of me.”

“Why?”

Katy gulped and shook her head. “I can’t. I’m frightened of being scared all the time. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“What’s wrong Katy?”

“I can’t. ”

“You can tell me. I’m your best friend. ”

Lightening flashed.

“No!” Katy smashed the bottle side-down on the edge of the coffee table. The loud crack of breaking glass was followed by the gulping sound of gin pouring out and running over the table and onto their legs beneath. Katy collapsed into weeps on Susie’s shoulder.

Susie was too stunned to say anything. She was covered in shards of glass. “It’s ... it’s ... alright.” She stammered. “It’s alright.”

“She’s a fuckin’ nutter alright.” Tony laughed to Mathew.

“Go on,” Stan reassured a quivering Katy. “You’re perfectly peaceful and at rest. Nobody’s judging you. Go on. ”

Sister Liz suddenly struck the monitor off with the back of her hand.

Chapter 38

Horror, confusion and sadness all rolled together

Wednesday 11th April

I feel absolutely terrible and wholly responsible for what happened in the garden this morning, even though it was an accident and Sister N told me again and again it wasn’t my fault. She is so kind and sweet, but I can’t forgive myself.

I shouldn’t have surprised her like that when she was digging away so diligently, and working so hard as always. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning (Romans I think) How would I like it if someone crept up behind me and suddenly tapped me on the shoulder when I was least expecting it and stopped everything? It was an awful joke, and not in the least bit funny. I really thought something serious had happened when she screamed like that, like she’d chopped her foot in half.

I tried my best to support her as we made our way back to the Convent. I was in such a state I wanted to call her an ambulance, but she calmed me down and assured me it wasn’t necessary.

I sat her down in the kitchen and fetched a bowl of lukewarm water while she took her shoe and stocking off. I knelt at her feet with the bowl and then carefully held the heal of her foot in my hand to examine it. There was a nasty red lump swelling on top of her small delicate white foot. The skin had been scraped but there was no blood coming from the tear across the bump.

I shook the starched white tablecloth in the water and squeezed it over the swelling, before gently dabbing it with the cloth, to remove any possibility of an infection. I gently wiped both sides of her foot. It would have been just like a typical Maundy Thursday washing of the feet, except Sister N’s foot was so young, soft and tender, without the usual corns, bunions or hard skin of some of the other Sisters, and she had such even, clipped, pedicured toenails. Her feet have done ten years less walking than mine, but I doubt I had such pretty and well-kept feet even when I was her age.

I put her foot in the bowl, and she wiggled her toes. She said it was so soothing, she felt spoilt and I didn’t need to go to so much trouble on her account. I told her not to be so silly, it was the least I could do, and stroked her foot with the cloth, below the swelling, and around her ankle. I told her to mind her robe in the water, it was hovering dangerously above the bowl.

She reached down and pulled the hem up to rest on her knee. I playfully dabbed at her knee with the cloth and said, ‘Too late.’ She laughed. She has such a nice laugh, it seems to almost sing. Rivulets of water ran down her calf, and I apologised for being so immature and wiped them away with the damp cloth; down the shin bone; behind the calf-muscle; and under her knee.

She tensed and said it tickled. I apologised and then twiddled my fingers under her knee. She giggled like a little schoolgirl, and splashed her foot in the bowl. The water jumped into my lap, and speckled my face. I laughed and brought my hand down to flick some water back, but she moved her leg to stop me and then hit her foot on the side of the bowl.

Oh dear, I said, drawing in a breath, and gently pulled her foot out of the bowl. Are you hurt, Sister? I leaned in close to her foot, stroking it with a finger. I am so sorry, I said, and before I’d thought better, I closed my eyes and tenderly kissed the foot.

When I looked back up at her, she looked down at me anxiously. I can’t describe her look, I can only see it looking at me now; a mix of horror, confusion and sadness all rolled together. I felt ashamed, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. I told her I’d better get changed and left the room.

It is such a silly misunderstanding. It was only a joke, after all. I was only kissing her foot better, like a mother would a child. There really is no need to go into it in all this detail, I am far too busy, but the Devil is a constant reality to me. I am both repelled by Him, and compelled, in equal measure, to ensure that my spirit remains pure. I feel so protective towards Sister N. I’m sure she understands that. I really can be so silly sometimes. Sister K wouldn’t...

The highlighting ended and Derek paused. He heard Stan over his headset describing Katy with her friend Susie and he suddenly had a brainwave: What if Katy and Susie were lesbians? That would explain why Katy couldn’t have children; She fancied Susie. That’s why Stan was making her remember her. It was obvious!

“I can’t believe Stan.” The Proddir gawped at Mildred’s third Summary Ratings Stats scrolling above the monitor to a halt.

“Me neither.” Derek said.

“What? Look at his likeability ratio, it’s ten per cent below audience expectations.” Derek scanned the display: ENT: 7%, MAT 3%, STN –10%, ODN –1%, KAT 9%, HUM –8%, TON 7%, CHR –8%, POR 7%, CNS 7%, AUD –5%, MOR, -5%, SEX –5%, LIZ –1%, M/F –6%, LEX –5%. “Katy’s has gone up to nine per cent and poor Chris is down eight per cent.”

“Excuse me,” Chris suddenly appeared directly staring out from the on-air monitor startling the Proddir and Derek while the AD smiled quietly to himself. “But did you notice Stan didn’t pick up on why Susie, a so-called ‘best friend’ would have so much difficulty getting into the house to see Katy in the first place? Why didn’t Susie give up and go home? She obviously wasn’t welcome. With friends like these who needs enemies, right? And why did Katy smash the bottle in front of her like that? To do something like that isn’t normally the behaviour you would associate with being with a best friend just having a quiet chat. I wonder if Stan noticed how insistent Susie’s question about the size of Billy’s penis was? On the one hand she’s acting like she’s only playing a game but on the other she keeps on coming back to it. Maybe she’s not contradicting herself at all. Or maybe she’s just reciprocating for empathy because she told her about the size of Stephen’s? Or simply just comparing? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right? But I’m not sure.” I tapped the side of my nose with my forefinger to show the viewer I was serious. “I’ve got a funny feeling there’s more to Susie’s question than meets the eye and I think we’re about to see if I’m right.”

Chapter 39

Unwilling to leave her alone

Thunder roared in the distance like a retreating lion promising to return on a better day while the hail continued to tap against Everdale’s window.

“Why did you do that, Katy?” Susie asked her gently.

Katy picked tiny shards of broken glass from her cardigan and placed them in the ashtray, sobbing. “Everything just seems to repeat itself. It never goes away.”

“Oh God, you haven’t had another ... ”

“No.” Katy dried her eyes and opened them, and almost with surprise, added, “Oh Susie, I’m all wet?”

Derek suddenly leaned forward in the Gallery.

“Don’t worry.” Susie put her arm around Katy. “It’s only gin, it’s good for you.”

Katy leaned back into her comforting shoulder. “If I don’t feel like doing it ... ” She paused. ”But we’re married ... Then is it my fault ... If we do ... Or don’t ... Or whatever?”

“Of course not.”

“But I’m his wife.” She turned and looked Susie directly in the eyes. “Nobody forced me to marry him.”

“Is that you speaking or is it Billy?” Susie raised her eyebrows.

“You don’t understand. I want to make Billy happy. I can’t stand it when...I try so hard Susie but ... He’s my husband and ... ”

“That doesn’t mean he owns you.” Susie took her left hand in hers. “You’re still Katy underneath that ring.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” Katy bent her wedding-ring finger into her palm and rubbed it with her other hand absent-mindedly, like a genie’s lamp as if to try and make him magically appear and fix everything going wrong. “Maybe I’m frigid or something.”

“Why?”

Stan’s eyes narrowed on the rigid scarred lame finger and the ring on it that she was rubbing under the spotlights in the studio as she continued:

“It’s true. There’s something wrong with me. I just don’t feel like it. I told you Billy says I purposely put on weight to put him off. I can’t get it out of my head. Maybe he’s right!”

“He’s mad!” Susie laughed. “Who the hell does he think he is?”

Katy looked up. The wind whistled in the attic above her like a whining grandmother forever locked up there, unwilling to leave her alone, trying to make her remember ... But what? Nothing. “I know you’re right but ...” Katy suddenly turned on her. “What are you saying that for? You don’t know him like I do.”

“I was only joking. ”

“I love Billy. Why does he do this to me? I’m so angry with myself for letting him do this to me.” Katy screamed, “he knows what I went through! ”

Susie held her, keeping the ashtray on the table out of reach. “It’s OK Katy, just calm down. ”

Katy cupped her ears tightly with the palms of her hands to silence the whistling wind. “But I can’t!”

“Yes, you can, Katy,” Stan said, “you’re perfectly peaceful and at rest, let your hands come down and relax. What did Billy do to you? Come on, tell nice Susie, now.” Stan pushed his nails into the leather of the armrest. “Come on.”

Chapter 40

As if you think I would

In the Porn Star’s dressing room backstage, Monica harriedly searched Helena’s face for a clue as to what the Tarot cards she had dealt for her were saying. “Don’t tell me it’s bad news? Tell me I’m going to be a Hollywood star, please, no matter what they say!”

A typical Leo, thought Helena, studying the Hanged man card from the Major Arcana sitting between the Knave, from the Minor and the Moon from the Major, among the others on her dressing-table, which also meant she wasn’t going to take the news well. “Have you lost anybody close to you recently?”

“No?”

“Don’t worry you will eventually!” Dani said, looking up from her novel.

Helena shot the Piscean a distasteful glance. “Very amusing.”

“Ah come on,” Dani sniffed. “It’s only Tarrochi!”

“It’s the Book of Thoth!” Helena rebuked her, referring to the Egyptian god of learning, wisdom and magic. It all began in Egypt, even the word ‘Gypsy’ derived from ‘Egyptian’. Tarot wasn’t her only interest in the Spirit world though. When she had visited a field in Berkshire to divine Ley lines, she had actually felt her hands shake holding the rod and she knew she wasn’t doing it herself. Later, on the same day, she’d physically seen the lifeforce glowing from a man in their group like an orange halo all around his body beside a stone wall where the ley lines crossed powerfully. This wasn’t a story somebody had told her it was her experience and she’d seen it with her own eyes. She had to emphasise that to people or they didn’t understand.

“It’s not very spiritual, is it?” Claire said watching Gareth and Lucy on the monitor. “They’re just screwing like us.”

“This is my life, Claire!” Monica said.

“Oh, sorry.” Claire said regretfully thinking she must have offended her morals or something by what she’d said and quickly turned to Dani to change the subject. “What’s that?”

“She’s a Gemini.” Helena, the Cancerian, quietly offered Monica by way of explanation. “Just ignore them.” And explained that the Hanged man card itself didn’t necessarily mean someone close to her had died; the configuration of the other cards was as important and she pointed to the Wheel of Fortune Major card beside the Knave.

“Does that mean I’m going to be a star and then die?” Monica panicked.

Dani showed Claire the cover of Martin Amis’ ‘Information’ in reply, squinting her nose up.

“Don’t you like it?”

Dani shrugged noncommittedly and put it down on the dressing table. “It’s a bit slow,” and then by way of fairness, though she didn’t know why, “he’s usually really good.”

“Have you read Nick Hornby? He’s brilliant! What are your ten favourite books of all time? Come on, Monica, we can all play. Anything to kill the time.”

“Shoosh!” Monica wanted to listen to Helena’s whisperings about her life; it was her most interesting subject, after all, especially if she didn’t have long to go.

“In order?” Dani asked disinterestedly.

“It doesn’t have to be in order. It’s just a list: ten favourite books or ten favourite movies or ten favourite fantasies?” Claire teased.

Dani scuffed her chin a few times with the back of her hand at her. An Italian gesture implying ‘as if you think I would’. Claire laughed all the same; she knew they weren’t allowed to discuss their fantasies.

“Books! OK?” Dani said.

Claire nodded. “OK, The Little Prince, The Catcher in The Rye, that’s my favourite, Of Mice and Men, The Collector…”

“You don’t want to write them down?”

“Do I have to write them down?”

“No.” Claire shook her head amiably, regretting the remark. “They just did in the book. Sorry, go on.”

Dani repeated her choices so far, finally opening her fourth finger and holding the pinkie tightly in her fist until she continued, “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest,” and then the thumb of her other hand, “Jonathon Livingston Seagull, that should be near the top, Alive, The Alchemist, The Celestine Prophecy… what have I forgotten? Something modern, psychological…”

“Will Self?”

“Oh god no! I hate him. He writes like he’s eaten an Encyclopaedia. I was reading pages without a clue what they meant. I wouldn’t mind if there was a point, but please?”

“Umberto Eco?”

“Merda! He’s worse! The Name of the Rose!”

“That’s a great film.”

“La figa d’tua mamma!” Dani threw her hands in the air—your mother’s cunt, it is!

“It’s the only book I’ve ever ripped up after finishing it! He expects you to know Latin! The book’s supposed to be written in Italian,” she picked up her Martin Amis again, “it should all be written in Italian. Trust me, he’s got some fucking nerve!”

“Or a small dick. ”

“Who fucking knows Latin?”

Who knows Italian! Thought Claire, but she didn’t say it. “You’ve got one left. How about Julian Barnes?”

“He’s good, but Top Ten … who have I forgotten? I know I’ve forgotten somebody. Merda! On The Road! How could I forget that?”

“They’re almost all American.”

“Are they? No. John Fowles isn’t. ”

“Your right, one isn’t.”

“So what?” She shrugged. “Americans are the best writers.”

“And all men!”

“I’m interested in how men write about women.” Dani said defensively. “How else are you supposed to learn what they think?” And opened her arms like a teapot. “Do you really think they tell you?”

“I still can’t work what was going through her head when Katy smashed that bottle.” Chris suddenly appeared on the dressing table monitor. “I would’ve thought people only hit the walls or scream when they can’t find the words to express their feelings or the other person won’t listen to them, but Susie was listening. Couldn’t Katy find the words or was there a block inside? Maybe Katy thinks Susie wasn’t listening or maybe something worse she’s repressing and finds equally difficult to express. Actions speak louder than words, right? And another thing is I can’t help wondering where Billy was all this time. Was he out? Had he already gone to bed? Is that why Katy was so worried about letting her friend in? But then would Katy smash the bottle if he was in the house? All’s fair, I suppose, in love and war, but which is Katy really in? Maybe Billy could enlighten us? Stan could help us find Billy,” I shrugged at the camera,” but only if Stan realises it, perhaps?”

Chapter 41

The balance of telling the truth

“I don’t know what I think anymore without asking him.” Katy said. “You don’t know what it’s like! I don’t know who I am or what I’m supposed to be or feel or ... Susie, help me?”

“I’m right here, Katy.”

“That’s good, Katy, that’s very good.” Stan said. “Go on. What did you tell her?”

“I love him but ... Just look at yourself!” Katy crossed her eyes and her voice assumed a hateful bitter intensity. “You fuckin’ fat bitch’ ... ‘you fat cunt’ ... ‘go on a fuckin’ diet you fat pig!′ I’m useless.” She struggled to get up. “I’m ugly. I’m grotesque. I am hideous.” She finally stood. “He’s right. Why am I so bad, Susie?”

“Calm down, just calm down, Katy. It’s not true.”

“But it is true! How could he find this attractive?” She pounded her waist with her fists. “You don’t think I can see the way people look at me when they’re trying to be nice?”

“Do I ever look at you like that?”

Katy rubbed her forehead and looked at the gleam of sweat on her hand. “I’m so hot.”

“Would you like another wee drink ... this time how about one on the rocks?”

“No, I’ll get them.” Katy handed her a little key. “The ice is in the freezer.”

Susie quickly carried the broken shards of glass in the ashtray to the kitchen, and shuddered with the sudden chill. Copper pans, utensils, knives and cleavers were rattling from the ceiling and she suddenly saw the wooden barnhouse door swing open with the wind and dropped the ashtray and key on the counter to run to close it. Who opened the door?

“PLEASE DON’T EVER TELL BILLY ABOUT THIS!” Katy shouted through, opening the cocktail cabinet and placed another bottle of gin on the coffee table with a bottle of tonic water.

“Don’t be silly.” Susie returned with a dishcloth, glancing around the room nervously and wiped up the spill on the coffee table and carpet before returning to the kitchen, checking the hall and stairs on the way.

Katy stood in front of the fire watching it chopping and changing hue from red to orange to red to blue. “I JUST WANT HIM TO LOVE ME.” She called out. “I DON’T WANT TO FEEL FORCED! I want to be loved. What’s so hard about that? Oh, Susie, what can I do?”

Susie hesitated, checking the back door was closed before calling back. “What do you do?”

“Nothing. I can’t force him.” And called out louder to the kitchen. “I CAN’T DO ANYTHING IF HE DOESN’T WANT TO, CAN I?”

Susie pulled out two fresh glasses and opened the fridge. It was bare except for some carrot juice, skimmed milk, cottage cheese and half a tin of sardines. “MAKE HIM WANT TO.” She called back. There was a small padlock on the freezer below and she suddenly remembered the key she’d left on the counter and opened it.

Each of the four large plastic drawers was stacked full of little boxes. She pulled out the first large drawer; Turkey Roast Dinner, Cauliflower Cheese, Toad in the Hole, Beef Stew and Dumplings, Chicken in white sauce, Spaghetti Bolognaise, Shepherd’s pie, Sweet and Sour Pork, Steak and Kidney Pie, Beef Madras, Cod and chips, Sausage and mash, Ham and Pineapple Pizza slices, Meat Pancakes, Thai Green Rice; all microwavable in little miniature meals. She quickly scanned the other drawers for the ice. There were at least eighty little boxes in all the drawers and she noticed bizarrely that not one of them was a dessert. And she’d thought Katy had no willpower? “WHERE’S THE ICE?”

A low voice behind her suddenly said. “It’s right there. ”

Susie spun round and then exhaled, hand over her chest. “You almost scared the life out of me.”

“It’s just under the top, there. Why are you going through the drawers in my Freezer?” Katy asked softly.

Susie turned her back on Katy, pulled out the ice tray and pressed two cubes into each glass. “Just looking for the ice, what’s wrong with that?”

Katy paused looking up at the hanging utensils; the copper pots and pans, the clever, thinking to herself and then her eyes fell and she blinked. “Oh, OK I’m sorry. ”

“You’re fine. Just go and sit down. I’ll bring them in.”

Katy returned to the living-room, knelt down on the floor and then sat closer to the fire, back leaning against the sofa. “I can’t win. “And stared at the flames twisting the wedding-ring around her finger.

Susie closed and locked the fridge and returned with the key and the drinks.

“I despise him—‘it’—touching me, and then it all stops and then ... I’m losing him, and I don’t know why I care, but I do, and it’s all my fault. I can’t do anything.”

The fire was burning her calves and with a great effort, and after carefully checking the carpet for shards of glass, she leant on the sofa with the upper half of her body and slowly wrapped her legs behind her before struggling to sit up.

Susie waited and then carefully moved the table around her and placed the glasses on the coffee table and poured from the second bottle of gin. “It’s a lot easier if you love him, take it from me.” And quickly sank half her drink looking back into the hall before handing Katy hers.

“What do you mean?”

“You think it’s your fault that he doesn’t want to.” She said quietly slipping in easily under the table, beside her.

“I’ve told you at least ten times, Susie, Billy says I put on weight to put him off because I don’t love him, to—you know—so he doesn’t want to!”

“For fuck’s sake, Katy.” Susie whispered. “Keep it down. Forget about what Billy says or thinks for once. This is about what you want. If you’re happy with yourself, he’ll be happy with you.”

Katy mellowed with the approbation. “Is that how you make Stephen happy?”

Susie drained her glass. “That’s another story. ”

“No seriously, Susie. You’ve got to be honest with me. You’ve got more experience with these things than me. Tell me the truth.”

Susie watched the rain tapping the windows and branches swaying behind in the wind like skeletons trying to fight their way out of a mirrored closet. She suddenly felt way too sober, refilled her glass and whispered. “Oh well sometimes,” she looked over her shoulder back down the hall, “he likes to experiment a little. That’s all I meant.” She shook her head at the fire now, avoiding her direct gaze. “Not you. ”

“No. Go on. I’m interested. How do you mean experiment a little?”

Susie paused with her glass at her lips. She seemed to weigh the balance of telling the truth or not, Katy thought, which hurt her. It wasn’t fair. Hadn’t she been honest with her? Katy sank the rest of her drink. Hadn’t she told her about Billy? What more did she expect her to prove? “What do you mean by experiment a little?”

Susie put her glass down, looked away and seemed to think very carefully for a moment. Too carefully, Katy thought, sensing something wrong with her, like only a woman could sense in another woman by the way she wasn’t talking about it. “What do you mean, Susie, just tell me what you mean?”

“Is he there?” Stan said. “Is Billy with you in the house? Is he listening to this now?”

Chapter 42

The Asherah Pole

Ancestors hung in frames on the walls, staring blindly into the darkness. Beside the old organ sat gathering dust in the corner of the room (a remnant of the days when they’d once held their sacred rituals in this very room) a framed solid silver noose and dagger mounted on blood red velvet twinkled in the glow from the computer screen as the Judge’s knobbly hands awkwardly tapped the keys from the elbow, to spare his arthritic wrist joints.

It was like raising the dead. There was something spiritual about considering the words, thoughts and deeds of dead men, like summoning them from their resting places in a séance to speak through the mediation of their books as he sought their testimony in support of his argument that the Essenes were masonic and therefore Jesus Christ was a Mason, too. The mere act of recalling an individual name—Josephus—was like an invitation for him to join him in the room, and it was as if, in the pause between each sentence, he heard him necromantically whisper before recording his ideas:

Josephus, in ‘Antiquities of the Jews’ (XV.x), ab initio, explained that the Essenes, (Jesus’ community) were a sect or subsect of first century Judaism, familiar with the teachings of the Prophets and the Old Testament, but most importantly worshipful brother, also having gnostic training; they could foretell the future and practiced divination by studying holy and sacred texts in conjunction with specific rituals, as we do worshipful brother. (As I am, he thought, listening ... ) As maybe even Jesus did?

Josephus also claimed that Essene teaching was very similar to the Greeks. If he is correct, audi alteram partem, this may be significant because of the parallels between Greek, Canaanite, and Egyptian mythology which are so important to us, and would shed great light on Jesus’ true hidden teachings.

It is easy to understand how Jesus and the Essenes could have been influenced by Egyptian mythology when you consider Abraham and the sea-faring Phoenicians who spread the Word of The-Unpronouncable-Second-‘Person’-Of-The-Holy-And-Sacred-Ineffable-Name-Of-The-Grand-Omnific-Royal-Arch-Word to the Canaanites, but how could Jesus and this remote Qumran community living near Palestine have been influenced by the Greeks on the other side of the ‘Great Sea,’ as the Mediterranean was then known?

Let me explain. As we both know, Palestine was overrun by Alexander the Great in 333BC and ruled by Hellenistic dynasties for the ensuing one hundred and sixty years. Carbon radio dating of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which describes the Qumran community that Jesus lived in, dates them back to 200BC. Therefore, there is a clear line of contact to support Josephus’ claim of a link between Jesus’ Essenes and the Greeks, so we have to consider the impact of Greek teaching on Jesus and the Essenes to see if this approves, or disproves, my claim of the masonic nature of their practices and Jesus’. The Greeks, remember had rather extreme beliefs that would shock present-day followers of Jesus, if he were to have followed them himself.

They, for example, believed in a fertility cult based on the Mother Goddess Demeter,” he stopped to recall her beautiful white statue in the British Museum,” and myths about her life and the loss of her daughter Persephone to the underworld, to be saved by Demeter’s brother, Hermes, parallel, in consimili casu, the legend of Anat in Canaan.

Canaan was the main racial group in Palestine at the time of the Conquest, very near where Jesus and the Essenes lived, as I have already explained in an earlier report, (See ‘Hiram Abiff and the Supreme, Sacred and Holy Doome of The Enuma Elish.‘) and therefore Canaanite mythology must have influenced Jesus and the Essenes living in the region. This supports Josephus’ claim because this would mean the Essenes were predisposed to an interest in Greek mythology. Anat (See ‘Hiram Abiff and the Supreme, Sacred and Holy Doome of The Enuma Elish.) was the brother and lover of The-Unpronouncable-Second-‘Person’-Of-The-Holy-And-Sacred-Ineffable-Name-Of-The-Grand-Omnific-Royal-Arch-Word, who was the God of the Storm, and Chief God of the Canaanites.

I cannot overemphasise enough the fact that these are not mere ‘stories’ or ‘myths’ as some strange brothers may consider, for example Homer’s ‘Iliad’, these Antient ritual texts contain profound truths to explain the fundamental condition of life and the nature of the GAUTO. This was even recognised by classical writers such as Philo (30BC-45AD) a Jewish Philosopher, (and Platonist, incidentally) whose, ‘work was to go through the books of the law [the Old Testament], finding in them, in allegorical form, the insights of philosophy and science.’ Plutarch treated the Egyptian ‘myth’, ejusdem generis, of Isis and Osiris¹ in exactly the same way!

Judge Prickles stopped typing surprised at the picture of Cleopatra’s needle forming in his mind. Why? Freemasons Hall was exactly half-way between Cleopatra’s needle, as the crow flies, and the British Museum with its grand pillars. Then he realised he was thinking about the Obelisks representing Osiris in Antient Egypt. Obelisks also featured in the Canaanite legends of Anat. The ‘Asherah Pole’ was even mentioned several times in the bible he seemed to remember. And According to the Supreme, Sacred and Holy Doome of The Enuma Elish, Asherah was El’s wife and the mother of The-Unpronouncable-Second-‘Person’-Of-The-Holy-And-Sacred-Ineffable-Name-Of-The-Grand-Omnific-Royal-Arch-Word.

The more he considered the evidence the more intractable the case became. And the case was, maddeningly, all the stronger because the matching evidence came from entirely different sources. He wasn’t obsessed; these were the Facts!

Meanwhile on his TV Screen in the corner of the room Gareth and Lucy were doing unimaginable things in the name of offering their respect to the same Gods behind the Judge’s back which by a twist of fate in Chris’ favour he had so far missed. But time was short and the Judge’s memo nearing completion. He might not appreciate their form of worship, and what would he make of Bob and Stacy’s idiosyncratic interpretation?

1.1. Osiris married his sister Isis, and his brother, Set, plotted to kill him to win the throne. Set magically tricked Osiris into a golden chest and cast him off into the Nile, where he ended up dead beside an Acacia tree in Byblos, Syria. When Isis found out what Set had done, she was devastated and went off in search of him. She followed a vision to find him and brought the body back to Egypt. Set discovered the body and to make sure Osiris would never challenge him for his throne again, castrated him, cut his body into fourteen pieces, threw his penis into the Sea and scattered the other pieces throughout Egypt, Isis painstakingly searched the land for her lover’s body and recovered every piece except the penis; it had been consumed by fish. She was distraught by her dead lover’s incapacity and imperfection, and constructed an artificial penis made of wood which she lovingly attached to his body. She then committed an act of negrophilia on the corpse which produced two sons, whom she named Horus and Anubis. Horus killed Set in revenge. Anubis magically resurrected his father with a special handshake. Osiris, forever after, reigned as King and Judge of the dead. The artificial penis Isis had made for Osiris became the Egyptian basis for the man-made phallic symbol of the Obelisk, and numerous cults and festivals. Hiram Abiff, the Principal Architect, was the resurrected Osiris worshipped in ritual, and the Obelisk, a symbol of Osiris and therefore Hiram himself. These obelisks were also like the twin columns, ‘Boaz’ and ‘Jachin’ (secret passwords for junior masons) in front of Solomon’s temple which the Principal Architect had constructed. They were once the columns at the front of Egyptian Temples which were named Set and Horus in the ‘Egyptian Book of The Dead’, (a book which rich Antient Egyptians had buried with them in the hope of resurrection into the kingdom of Osiris.)

Chapter 43

Double in size inside

“YES! I THINK SHE IS … YES! LUCY’S GETTING UP, GARETH’S STILL PUMMELLING HER BEHIND ON HIS KNEES ... SHE’S UP ON ALL FOURS, NOW AND YES, IT LOOKED LIKE A DOGGY, BUT SHE DIDN’T BARK AND SHE’S NOT STOPPING THERE. WHERE IS SHE GOING, STACE? SURELY, IT’S NOT POSSIBLE? NO, I DON’T BELIEVE IT! IT LOOKS LIKE SHE’S SITTING UP ON HER KNEES? YES! SHE’S GOT HER BACK AGAINST HIS CHEST AND YES! IT’S AN UPRIGHT BACK TO CHEST DOGGY SLAM FUCK! AND LOOK... HE’S GOING FOR HER BAZOOKA’S NOW: AN UPRIGHT BACK TO CHEST DOGGY SLAM FRONT TITTY HOLD FUCK! IS THERE NO STOPPING THIS MAN?”

“Oh, that’s nice.” Stacy hesitated. “The nipple twist and squeeze trick action between thumb and forefingers can be a bit painful, though, but she seems to like it. You can see it in her body language, head purring back on his shoulder like a tamed wild cat, and ... well you can see it for yourselves...”

But Lucy still hadn’t received the reward due her careful efforts and was desperately awaiting Gareth’s recital of the next line in the ritual after making it this far without losing him, but instead it was Bob who continued:

“AND CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? HE’S STILL SHAGGING HER HOLY TWAT UNDERNEATH WITH HIS RAMADANA-DING-DONG! THE MAN ISN’T ONLY PLAYING A GOD ... HE IS A GOD!”

“'Baal fights ... with two Magic Weapons!'” Gareth shouted.

“He certainly is alright.” Bob joked. “If he’s not careful he’ll pull one of them off!”

“No that’s not it, Bob, look where his right hand’s going?”

Gareth stroked down his wife’s smooth abdomen, over her navel, until the tip of his index finger touched his own penis, and then bent it in alongside, entering her vagina.

Lucy wailed with relief and pleasure as she felt his penis finally seem to double in size inside. But she knew it still wasn’t complete until…

“I hate to interrupt,” Chris faced the camera on the Centre Stage, “but I can’t work out why Susie is reluctant to talk about experimenting to Katy now. I’m glad Stan finally asked her about Billy, though, and whether he was there and if he was listening (I’ve got a feeling that’s pretty damn important somehow). Unless,” I suddenly realised, “could that be why Susie was reluctant to talk? Because she knew Billy was there? Shit! I can’t talk now, I think she’s about to tell him.”

Chapter 44

Who do you pretend to be?

“Oh, you know,” Susie tried to avoid the question. “I thought we were talking about you and Billy. “The hailstones were beginning to desist but the wind was wilder, rattling the branches against the window panes like a dragon scratching its long nails trying to get in.

“No, I don’t.” Katy said. “Go on. Tell me! How do you mean experiment a little?”

“Like positions,” Susie looked over her shoulder, “you know. ”

“What do you mean positions?”

“Like ‘on top’, ‘doggy’, you know!”

“Susie!”

“Oh, come on, you don’t always do it in the missionary?” She moved the bottle away from Katy towards herself with two walking fingers, as if playing with it, “I don’t believe you.”

“Why not? I don’t like different positions. I’m not some kind of animal. I want to make love.”

“There’s nothing wrong with different ways of making love. It doesn’t even have to be different positions. Sometimes Stephen likes me to pretend I’m someone else.”

“That’s sick!”

“No, it isn’t. It’s only role play. You only live once!” Susie noticed Katy’s hand between her legs rubbing her crotch absent-mindedly. “You could at least wait for him!” And laughed looking over her shoulder back down the hall.

“What?” Katy stared at the fire, each flame, licking and whirling, spitting and morphing into something else. Nothing seemed that strange anymore, the fire made sense of it all. There was nothing to really worry about when you thought about it.

“Your hand!”

“Oh sorry.” Katy suddenly stopped rubbing herself and then laughed as an afterthought. “Like who? Who do you pretend to be I mean?”

“I don’t know, a nurse, a schoolgirl, his big sister ... I got to give him something different to look forward to when he comes back from Saudi each time. Imagine being stuck in the desert all that time? They’re very strict in Saudi, you know. They chop off your hand if you steal something.” Susie tried to change the subject. “You should see the dagger Stephen brought home. It’s got all these jewels embedded in the handle like the one Lawrence of Arabia had in the movie with this long curved blade ... ”

“Really? His sister?”

“What? Oh, come on! You can’t tell me Billy hasn’t ever tried something new in bed?”

Katy suddenly looked up in shock and spat back like she was talking to someone else suddenly. “But I don’t like it! I feel used, cheap, I don’t know, I don’t know why I’m like that and maybe it isn’t normal and I know I’m boring but I just don’t like it. Do I have to just because he does?”

Susie stared at the fireplace contemplating her next question and let the little devil inside her win, regardless of the consequences, it was too irresistible. “Have you ever cum?”

The chimney seemed to choke like it was laughing at her.

“That’s right,” Stan said, “ignore the audience.”

“What is this, Susie? I thought you were supposed to be helping me?”

“There’s nothing wrong if you haven’t, I just thought that maybe...”

“It isn’t Billy, it’s me! I enjoy kissing and cuddling him, I love him, I really do,” the floorboards creaked and she suddenly looked back towards the stairs, “but ... and, and I know I’m meant to enjoy it, but, but I just ... can’t! He isn’t making me do it when I don’t want to if I can’t, is he? But I can’t! I can’t can’t can’t can’t can’t! Oh my God!” Katy hid her face in her hands. “Help me, Susie, please help me, please help me be normal.”

“Nobody’s normal. It’s just a term they use in statistics. Usually, to describe the knob end of a bell curve!” She laughed, but then saw the hurt on confusion in her face. “It just means average, who’s an average? Like who has 2.4 kids?” But Katy wasn’t listening and Susie knew why she was like this. And a certain resentment of men meant she couldn’t hold back telling her any longer. “You can’t let one bastard you met over ten years ago fuck up your marriage, Katy? Billy doesn’t deserve that.”

“I’m not! I love Billy so much it hurts!”

“The simple fact is men are penises! What? That’s it. Big deal. I said it before: deal with it.” And then over her shoulder back down the hall more loudly with bravado. “Men are penises!”

Katy laughed falsely staring at the ice in her drink and said absently, almost to herself. “Like all women are cunts! ”

Susie gave her a strange look. “I hate that word.” And then whispered. “Which side are you on sister? It’s true I tell you. Penises have men rather than the other way round. Vaginas don’t talk for women. Women don’t think with their clitoris, do they?”

Katy buried her face in her hands ashamedly. “Stop attacking me, it’s not my fault!”

“Who’s attacking you?” Susie looked over her shoulder nervously. “All I said was you can’t blame the man, it’s his penis! It does all the thinking for him. Wake up and smell the coffee. It’s nothing to get upset about.”

“Relax there, Katy.” Stan said. “Just relax.” He thought he could see a pattern emerging: low self-esteem, loss of identity, non-self-referential thinking - never ‘I think’ - lack of self-respect, lack of confidence, fear. “You’re doing so well but I asked you where Billy was before and you never answered. Where is he Katy?”

Katy shook her head.

“Is he there with you?”

Katy shook her head.

“Then where is he?”

“I don’t know!” Katy suddenly cried out, fighting to refute him, this other stupid white man, just like Billy. But she knew where. She knew exactly where he’d been all along.

“I know you know Katy.” Stan said gently, stroking her hand. “I’m trying to help you and I can only help you if you help me. You can see it can’t you, you can see it?”

Katy shook her head again.

The audience started clapping in slow time, gradually speeding up.

She didn’t want to think about it but it was hopeless. He knew anyway.

Matt searched the audience, the sound of their clapping beating out of time with the maddening song in his head - they may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one ...

Tony grinned, imagining the mushroom cloud from the atomic bomb rising above the radioactive remains of the audience’s fried corpses.

It was so unfair, Katy thought, why did she have to tell them all?

Chapter 45

The Dead Sea was more alive

Judge Prickles briefly checked his completed memo and was just about to return to the TV set in the corner when he recognised an uncomfortable flaw in his argument that needed resolving or he would look like an absolute fool in front of his esteemed brothers and mentally kicked himself for not noticing it earlier. He let his mind search for the answer, listening, and then finally grinning with the knowledge positioned his cursor in the text and typed loudly and excitedly in the silence:

I anticipate your criticism: Greek religion couldn’t have influenced Jesus and the Essenes because it would have been dominated by philosophical rationalism by the time Alexandra the Great conquered Sidon and Tyre, (later Palestine), and therefore there can be no link between Greek ‘myths’ influencing them. But even if this were true, which I doubt it is, there is still the influence of Canaanite mythology on Jesus and Essene teaching, and I have already pointed out the parallels between Egyptian, Canaanite and Greek beliefs.

Further, it is curious to consider the almost masonic metaphors of the Greek philosopher, the Great Plato (427-346) who aside from his interest in epistemology, the nature of reason and vigorous defense of Socrates, described, in his famous ‘Myth of the Cave’: the darkness in which man resides on the Earth, only ever observing the truth in the flickering, dancing shadows cast on the Cave wall. Only by training his mind can he come out into the divine light. Lux e tenebris!

The Greeks regarded ‘progress’ or the ‘development’ of religious truths as anathema. Permanence was a quality of ‘The Truth’. Plato believed, ‘the most perfect motion, therefore, was the circle because it was perpetually turning and returning to its original point’ (Armstrong 1997). (This recalls to mind our own ‘Compasses to keep us in due bounds with all mankind, particularly our brethren in Freemasonry’.) And, therefore, the training of the mind that Plato described in his ‘Myth of the Cave’ was concerned as much with the understanding of legends and myths that had been around forever, as with the ‘nature of reason’. The two were not mutually exclusive. And neither are they in Freakmasonry, consensus ad idem.

As late as 200BC, the Greeks were still trying to implant their worship of their mythological Gods (like the mythology of Anat and Baal) into Jewish Temples. (The Seleucid Governor, Antiochus Epiphanes, caused a riot attempting to install a monument of Zeus into the Jewish temple!)

Even the famous Christian Evangelist Paul had been mistaken for Zeus in the New Testament, which would have been over two hundred years later than that. And then he remembered a curious thing about Paul that had never been properly explained: this man had walked from Jerusalem in Israel to Thessalonica, in Turkey, and back and forth several times spreading the word, undeterred by jail, twice shipwrecked on hazardous sea-faring voyages to Crete, and as far as Rome, undeterred. Abraham, one of the founding fathers of Israel, had travelled constantly to and from Egypt (and brought Egyptian mythology with him from Ur) but in all those years of evangelism Paul had never once visited Alexandria, a major city, or any other city, in Egypt which was practically on his own doorstep. What was he frightened of there?

There was too much to consider and he had to conclude the point quickly before returning to the show.

The classicists inform us of the roots of Essenic masonic learning and understanding. However, when you, my worshipful brother, consider the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls the masonic nature of their community becomes indisputable.

The name, the Dead Sea Scrolls, was bleakly poignant, he thought to himself, and imagined touching the antient fragments like lovingly caressing the texture of a dead butterfly’s fragile wings between his fingertips. It must have been wondrous to find them first, hidden in their dark cave, preserved in glass jars. But that was gone, he would never be able to touch them now, however there was still a chance for him to be the first to lay his hands on the Dead Sea treasure; tons of pure gold and silver, with the detailed instructions he had uncovered. The Dead Sea was more alive than the name implied. There was so much to do, and so little time. And what could be so shocking on a TV show that couldn’t wait?

Chapter 46

Spare his life

“WHAT DO YOU CALL THAT? THIS MAN IS A GENIUS! BUT DIDN’T HE SAY TWO MAJIC WEAPONS?”

... Until Lucy felt his other finger stroke down her spine over the cheeks of her bottom and then ...

“SIMULTANEOUS SPONTANEOUS ROMPBUSTION! HE’S HOLDING HER ARSE LIKE A BOWLING BALL WITH HIS COCK AND TWO FINGERS PLUGGING EACH HOLE! HOW ABOUT THAT FOR A DOUBLE WHAMMY WHOPPER AND A COUPLE OF CHICKEN NUGGETS! AND SHE’S HOLDING HER HEAD AND SHAKING THAT WILD FIERY RED HEAD OF HAIR ALL OVER THE PLACE LIKE SHE’S ALREADY ROLLING DOWN THAT ALLEY FOR A STRIKE! WHAT IS GOING THROUGH HER HEAD AT A TIME LIKE THIS, STACE?”

“Bob?”

“'Yam’s pounded and can’t carry on.'” Gareth shouted in Lucy’s ear, nearing orgasm.

“′Spare his life,′ Asherah screams,” Lucy screamed, enjoying herself at last but frightened by the tone in his voice suggesting how close he was and desperately hoping he bloody didn’t. “‘Have mercy on the Sea!’”

In the first place, it wasn’t that Gareth couldn’t, but that he didn’t want to, hold back any longer. In the second place, overexcited by Lucy’s genuine exhilaration, he knew that to stop now would make her furious and demanding of him even more and that almost turned him on too much to resist. In the third place, the new interpretation of the ritual finally convinced him and picturing the fluid victory of his, Baal, The God of the Storm’s, own victory over Yam, the God of the Sea: winds, hail and thunder from the four corners of the skies controlling the vast expanse and fathomless depths of the sea, with a tremendous and victorious yell, Gareth suddenly ejaculated.

And stopped.

A moment later, Lucy, unfortunately, knew.

And everyone was watching.

“AND OUT! THAT’S OUT OF PLAY! WE HAVE SEPARATION!”

“And another thing,” Chris turned in an aside directly to the camera on the Centre stage scratching his spiky green head, “the way Susie’s talking about sex seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with love, or is it me? Or are they two separate things? It almost makes me wonder even more about her own married sex life. I mean if this is what she feels comfortable talking to Katy about, how much more would she do with her husband? Or is that deduction too masculine? Sorry,” I winked at the camera, “can’t help that I guess. Maybe, though, two’s company, three’s a crowd? Don’t say I didn’t warn you! And the drinks are on me tonight if Billy’s up to any good? Where is he Katy? Just answer the man. Where is he?”

Chapter 47

What kind of accident, exactly?

“Where is Billy, Katy, where is Billy?”

“When?”

“When you were talking to Susie?” Stan said. “I can see you can see now. Don’t pretend you don’t know. What picture is coming to mind?”

Katy’s mind wandered against her will: Hard wooden benches, gothic wooden carvings, a man in gowns on a raised plinth.

“What are you talking about? He’s in a church?” Stan said anxiously, trying to keep up with her restless mumblings.

Katy shook her head, frightened to forfeit.

It was like a Church though: An old but kind face ... wearing a wig ... and a girl, I can’t make out her face ... sitting in a wooden box, talking to the man and ... a journey and these people in another box ... listening too and I keep on looking at them to see what they’re thinking because ...

“He’s in a Court? Billy’s at work? But it’s too late? Think Katy, are you sure? Are you sure he’s not in the house with you?”

“Yes, no ... Someone’s on the witness stand. They’re talking about Billy. Billy was driving home. That’s what Billy was doing, yes: He was driving home. Somebody was in the car with him. It was this girl but I can’t make out her face.”

“Where are they going? You’re very peaceful and perfectly at rest, Katy, in your perfect place. Breathe deeply. Think about what they might have done, or even want to do? Remember no one can hurt you here, you’re just looking down.”

Katy tried to concentrate on the conversation the girl was describing. Billy didn’t want to do anything, he was simply driving her home, “it wasn’t his fault,” she could hear the girl telling the Judge.

’”Look, not while I’m driving in this, honey,” Billy said ‘cause I was, well, you know, stroking his trousers, your honour, and it was raining or hailing or something.’”

“And cue Counselling audio.” The Proddir directed and Katy’s voice filled the arena. Katy was in such a deep trance, it didn’t seem to matter, nothing did.

“′And what did you say?′ Judge George Prickles asked her.”

“Just touching you makes me feel wet all over again.”

“Honey, please stop, you’ll get us killed in this.” Billy said.

“‘What’s your problem, Mr Lawrence, sir?’ I asked him.”

“My problem, as you so adroitly put it Fifi,” he said, “is that it’s bloody pissing down, and it’s a quarter past two in the morning and one, your parents expected you home at midnight, two, my wife expected me home at eleven o’clock, and three, we’re both expected to be in the office at a quarter past nine tomorrow morning. Who’d have a problem with that?”

“People shouldn’t have expectations, Billy, they’re so predictable.” She said as seductively as she thought Madonna might, while undoing the zip of his fly.

“Fifi, please...” She pulled out his shriveled little three-inch pink thing.

“Just concentrate on the road, Sir,” she pulled the foreskin away from the head and licked beneath the veinous rim. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes, just as soon as I’ve finished my ... err, what’s his funny name again, Hobo?”

Billy looked down proudly at it, feeling the warmth rise and seeing his penis hardening to five inches with her attention. “Hubble, after the Space telescope.”

Katy heard laughter in the court.

“That’s right.” Stan said, “you’re fine, just ignore the audience. ”

Why did he say that to me, Katy thought, they were laughing at Fifi?

“Shall I put your calls on hold, Mr Lawrence,” she slurped the engorging head, “while I attend to Hubull again sir?”

“Oh Fifi,” he looked down again, and to watch her doing it to him - like she held his whole body in her mouth—made him shiver, “it feels so good ... But please, baby, I’m terrified we’re going to have an accident. Oww!”

“Oh, I’m sorry Hubble, did I bite? What kind of accident, exactly?”

Chapter 48

Boy, have I got a moral dilemma for you!

“'Baal stops,'” Gareth panted, and slapped Lucy’s bottom playfully, “'but Yam’s mad that he’s won.'” And collapsed beside her on the bed with a satisfied smug grin. Lucy quickly spun around to face him.

“You son-of-a-bitch!” She grabbed his flagging penis and aggressively began to yank it. What will they think now? There are THIRTEEN POSITIONS TO GO! Gareth howled at the pain, rising from his back to stop her, but he was too weak, and Lucy simply pushed him back down and pitifully continued. “You fucking bastard, you promised!”

“Two seconds!” Gareth pleaded in agony.

“Oh no.” She yanked him harder. “You won’t. You won’t. You won’t!”

“ERRR … PERHAPS THIS IS A GOOD TIME TO REMIND VIEWERS THAT …” Bob found his place in the script. “YES! THAT WE’VE GOT NOT ONE BUT FOUR DRAMATIC RECONSTRUCTIONS—LIVE—OF GENUINE WOMEN’S BIZARRE PRIVATE FANTASIES, INCLUDING ONE WHO WANTS TO BE A LOVELY LITTLE PUBLIC SCHOOLGIRL IN HER LITTLE PUBLIC SCHOOLGIRL UNIFORM. BUT, OH DEAR, SHE’S BEEN A NAUGHTY LITTLE GIRL AND THE HEADMASTER OFFERS HER THE BRIBE OF A REAL MINK COAT IF SHE’LL APOLOGISE FOR HER WRONGDOING BUT IT’S THE CANE IF SHE REFUSES! OH DEAR, OH DEAR, WHAT IS A NAUGHTY LITTLE SPOILT PUBLIC SCHOOLGIRL GONNA CHOOSE? YOU’LL HAVE TO WAIT AND SEE ‘THE MINK COAT’ TO FIND OUT THE ANSWER TO THIS MOST TERRIBLE MORAL DILEMMA FANTASY, AND DON’T FORGET ‘THE GYM PRINCESS’ FANTASY—GYM-WITH-A-TWIST—WILL BE CUMMING UP LIVE TOO, PLUS ANOTHER TWO, PLUS THE W.Y.P.P.Q.—THE PUSSY QUIZ, AND IF YOU STILL HAVEN’T SHOT YOUR WAD BY THEN, PLEASE SEEK MEDICAL ADVICE OR WATCH THE W.Y.P. GRAND ORGY FINALE! BUT RIGHT NOW, WE’RE GOING BACK TO THE ACTION, STACE?”

“Bob?” Stacy looked up from their book. There wasn’t exactly any action.

“SHE’S STILL YANKING THAT THING …”

“Yes.”

“OOOOHHH, PAINFUL …” Bob really couldn’t think of anything else to say about it; nothing was happening, and they were Live! “TERRIBLE MORAL DILEMMA CUMMING UP IN THE MINK COAT, REMEMBER, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.” Bob tried to think up something, anything, they were Live, shit! They couldn’t just twiddle their thumbs and wait for something to happen. “Boy, have I got A MORAL DILEMMA for you! And THIS IS BAD! Let’s say, for argument’s sake, my wife has fantasies about going to bed with another woman, right? Or do you think that’s wrong, Stace? Couldn’t it lead to the real thing happening?”

Chapter 49

How many women do you need?

“Please, Fifi?” Billy said, trying to change gears with her head in his lap.

“O.K. I’m sorry Hubble but Mr Boring Boss won’t let me play with you today.” She said spitefully, kissing Billy’s penis once before sulking back to her seat. She fastened the seatbelt, crossed her arms and tried to look out of the side window but there was a blizzard, hailstones crackling against the glass.

“Don’t be like that, Fifi.”

“I’m sorry, what am I again ‘a spoilt little teenager’?”

“Why do you bring that up every time you don’t get your own way, Fifi?”

“You can’t deny you said it?” She challenged him.

“Last month, for Christ’s sake!”

“Who cares when it was?”

“I’ve said I’m sorry. What more can I do?”

“I was only trying to make you happy because your wife can’t.” She said like a snooty little white bitch.

“Don’t say that about her.” He said defensively, turning the corner into her parent’s street.

“Why not, isn’t it true?”

“You know I love her.”

“Then what are you doing with me? How many women do you need?”

The car pulled up alongside her parent’s house.

“We’ve gone through this before, Fifi.”

“She’s frigid.”

“Yes. Now can we leave it at that, please?”

“I’m sorry, Billy.”

“That’s OK”

“I feel so sorry for you,” she said earnestly, rubbing his thigh. He looked down at her hand and his now eight-inch penis still springing open from his fly like a midget master of the Universe. “Please?”

She stopped instantly, and recoiled back into her seat, like a rubber band springing back on a sling. “Damn! You’re so horny she must be mad!” She undid her seatbelt and opened the door. The rain was pelting down on the pavement and it gave her room to pause. “Lunch tomorrow?”

“Oh shit!” He said, pulling out his palmtop and pressing the ‘Diary’ keypad icon. “I knew it! I’ve got Fiona at 2.00 pm.” He read from the display, before flipping it closed and casually placing it back in the inside pocket of his Armani jacket. “Sorry!”

“Lucky Fiona!” She jumped out, slammed the door shut and ran with her head bowed against the heavy rain.”

“Goodnight Fifi.” Billy smiled to himself watching her legs shuffling down the path dripping wet in her tight rising short mini-skirt, like the proper letch he was.

“′And then he drove home to his wife, your honour, nothing else happened between us that night.′ She told the Judge. ”

“That’s very good, Katy.” But what was she doing in court, Stan wondered? Why was this girl describing this incident for the court? He stared at the clock. It read 22:44:55, 54, 53 ... And counting. Why did this mean she couldn’t have children?

Backstage, a tubby round-headed man with oily slick hair and carrying two Army man dolls finally found the courage to poke his nose around the exit door of the toilets. Spotting that the coast was clear, he made a run for it, only he didn’t know exactly where.

“And this was happening while you were with Susie?” Stan asked her gently.

“Yes ... YUKKK!”

“So, Billy did come home that night?”

Katy swayed from the waist in the big black chair, gripping the armrests. “Sick, sick, sick ... He’s ...” Her tongue hissing the words behind her locked jaw, wide lips straining to bare her teeth, “sick ... I’m ... Sick!” Her head shaking to formulate the words falling over themselves in her mind.

“Just relax, Katy.” Stan eased back in his chair, crossed his legs and rested one hand over the other on his thigh covering his crotch with his wrists. “What happened when Billy came home, Katy? Just relax and tell me what happened when Billy came home?”

Beads of sweat traced around her temples and she scraped her nails from her forehead down her cheek to her jaw, her eyes bunched tight. “I can’t!”

Chapter 50

The whirlwind of confusion

Monday 16th July

I am not well. I have an awful migraine, my nose is running and my throat is so sore, it feels raw. I have been worried sick about Sister N, and how she is coping with Sister L since she left the garden. I still don’t know why she left. This morning I couldn’t stand just lying here and worrying anymore, thinking I’d upset her again, so I waited for morning chores to start and crept into her sleeping quarters by the belfry.

I am at her desk now and her diary is standing beside her books on the shelf. I know that it is absolutely speaking wrong to read someone else’s private thoughts in their journal,” Derek coughed, “but in a relative sense, I am doing it for Sister N’s own good. Not for my sake, but for hers. Above all, we must, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).

I have borrowed her journal. I’ve only got it for ten minutes. This is what she’s written:

Friday 2nd February

...Sister Mary Elizabeth is very strict in the garden, and has told me precisely which area I am to cultivate, and how I am to tend it. I think she is right to set the standards so high, but I only hope I can come close to reaching them. Sister Mary Katherine told me to come to her if I had any problems with her. She is very understanding...

Tuesday 6th February

I do not mind getting up at 5.00 am but it is so difficult to obey the rule of silence every morning until 9.00 am, when I have so many questions to ask. Sister Mary Elizabeth is very direct and more disciplined than the other sisters, but she is very patient with me. She knows everything about everyone, which is such a help when you don’t know anyone, especially Sister Mary Katherine and Sister Mary Yvonne. I can’t believe they are...

Monday 12th February

I received a letter from Jack today, and it was like jumping straight back to Crowley. I felt so miserable, I recited Psalm 62 aloud to centre myself. I don’t know what makes him do it. This is the fourth course he’s flunked. I wish he would forget about his acting dreams and get a regular job. He’s going to put more strain on Mama like last time, and she already has enough to deal with all my other brothers and sisters. If Papa was as strict with the boys as...

Monday 12th March

The gardens are as beautiful as the Song of Songs, ‘Awake north wind, and come, south wind! Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread abroad’ Chapter four, Verse sixteen. If only that were all.

I don’t think I’d be able to cope if it wasn’t for Sister Mary Elizabeth’s help. She is always by my side, taking me through our orders, showing me where everything is. I think the other sisters are far too overcritical of her. Sister Katherine told me that Sister Mary Elizabeth worked as a missionary in Belize for seven years after taking her vows and when she is angry, she swears in French and thinks nobody understands, but I’ve never heard her, and I trust her more than a priest. Sister L creates beautiful ...

Wednesday 21st March

My mother called today and said Gillian couldn’t speak to me, but sent her love and hoped everything was going well. I can’t condone her actions just because she’s my sister, my real sister. Life isn’t a choice, and she could have returned to nursing when the baby was older, or Jason could have worked from home and looked after the baby himself. It makes me so sad. I don’t want to lose her. I wish I could ask Sister Mary Elizabeth what to do, but this goes against everything she believes, and what will she think of my family? I’m sure her ...

Wednesday 11th April

Sister Mary Elizabeth is too kind to me. I banged my foot with the shovel today and she soaked it for me, and was so gentle and considerate, I soon forgot about the pain altogether. I felt such gratitude and love for her, but I am so confused.

I think I’m still dealing with the family issues I thought I’d left behind, and when someone is so kind it overwhelms me. It’s not her fault, but I don’t think we should spend so much time together, anymore. Sister Katherine is right. It’s too much for me, on top of adjusting to life here, and family and everything. I need to be more secure in myself before I can develop my friendships. Sister Katherine said ...

I haven’t got time to copy any more. She’ll be back any second. But it hurts me to see the whirlwind of confusion inside Sister N’s head. I can’t understand why she didn’t trust me enough to share these feelings with me. I feel so sorry for her. She is so misguided by Sister K. I must speak to her, soon. I don’t know how I will ...

“Time waits for no man!” A voice suddenly interrupted. When Derek looked up, he saw Chris smiling at the on-air monitor. “And Stan, between us,” I glanced to my left and right quickly as if to check that no one was listening, “looks like he’s losing Katy. She’s almost crumbling before his very eyes and he’s so close, it’s a crying shame. I don’t know if you picked up on this, but I can’t help wondering why Fifi was in court? Who was she testifying against? From what she said it doesn’t place Billy in a very good light does it? But why would she testify against him? What had he done? And to whom? Katy? Or was Katy a witness? But she wouldn’t have been able to hear another witness’ testimony, would she? It doesn’t make sense. Maybe Katy was just making the whole thing up and Fifi’s just a red herring. Maybe that’s why she won’t calm down and won’t go on. She knows she’ll be caught out. Oh, poor Katy, she looks awful. Even if she could, she doesn’t look physically able to continue yet.”

Chapter 51

Confusing dreams and fantasies

“No. It’s all over. She’s not going to make it happen.” Bob suddenly shook his head at Lucy fruitlessly yanking Gareth’s member on the sunken silver bed in front. “I bet he’s breaking her heart, but THAT’S NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT SHE’S GONNA BREAK IF SHE’S NOT CAREFUL, right STACE?”

“Why did you ask about your wife going to bed with another woman?”

“Let me rephrase that, Stace—if my wife had a fantasy about going to bed with another woman that would be my fantasy—I should be thanking the Gods—but is it dangerous? I mean say … say a real woman’s fantasy, like she fantasises about a man with a ten-inch cock and I was only nine, right? (I wish!) But do you get the question? Should I be worried? Is it DANGEROUS to have a fantasy? Won’t she think I’m not up to the job and run off with the first guy she meets who fulfils her fantasy?” Bob held his hands parallel and two feet apart.

“Of course she will.” Stacy teased. “Not!” She laughed at Bob’s relief. “I’ve never met a woman with that kind of fantasy. Two or three men perhaps, but … ”

“That’s WORSE! I’m not doing it with … ”

“The point is a fantasy is just her imagination, Bob. I mean unless, I suppose, it’s a recurring obsessive-compulsive thing, but a woman’s fantasy could be about bunny rabbits or dwarves! There’s no relation to … ”

“DWARVES? Now we’ve got to compete with midgets?”

“I thought you didn’t like talking about size!”

“Sorry you’re right you said quality, not quantity.”

“You’re confusing dreams and fantasies, Bob.” Maybe that’s what men do, she thought to herself. “But women … ”

“So, it couldn’t be someone she knows in her fantasy, like the next-door neighbour?”

Stacy thought for a moment. “I suppose it could be … If she doesn’t know him that well.”

“IF SHE DOESN’T KNOW HIM THAT WELL? I thought women needed intimacy? What kind of answer is that? I suppose if she knew him well enough, she wouldn’t need to fantasise, she’d just pop round and get down to business right away!”

Stacy laughed, betting he was the sort of man who could laugh a girl into bed. “That would be her dream.”

“What?” Bob asked. “I think that’s SO … NO! STOP PRESS! Sorry, Stace! I THINK WE’RE ABOUT TO SEE … COULD IT BE … ”

Gareth leaned up in a futile attempt to make her wait but Lucy wouldn’t desist.

“YES? NOOOhhh, No, No, No - LUCY’S, OWWW! THAT MUST HURT! ERRR … I CAN’T WATCH BUT I’VE GOT ANOTHER QUESTION FOR YOU, STACE.”

“Let me go first—what’s your fantasy?”

“No, listen. This is still about your fantasy, Stace. Tell me honestly:” He smiled at the thought. “Have you ever wanted a Van Dyke?”

“A what? Oh, you mean the painter? Not particularly, why?”

“No, you know, a Dick—Dick Van Dyke! A cock instead of a pussy.”

Stacy gave him a strange look. “You’re obsessed!”

“What? I’m being serious! Do you think Freud was right? Aren’t you just a wee bit jealous of men because they’ve got one? Honestly, now, in the back of your mind, right, haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to have it?”

“Sorry. I’ve got it!” Chris suddenly turned to face the camera directly. “She’s not making it up. Katy didn’t need to be a witness. The two other people guaranteed to hear the testimony of others would of course be the defendant and the plaintiff! She could have been either, but which one? And maybe Billy too? Or how about Susie? It’s like trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet and only the clue that it will prevent Katy from having children. I think Stan’s finally got her ready to continue, but, quickly, I wonder if Susie knew that Billy was on his way home? Did she confront Billy with what Katy had been saying? Maybe Susie was Katy’s best friend, after all—I’ve been wrong before—maybe she stood up for her? Or did Katy stand up for herself? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth????? Shit! She’s started!”

Chapter 52

I know you’re hiding something now

“That’s very good, Katy. So, Billy’s coming home. Picture it. What can you see? What can you hear, Katy?”

She heard Billy drive into Everdale’s gravel forecourt. He quietly entered closing the front door gently behind him. He automatically dropped his keys and wallet into the tray of the Hall table, and tip-toed up the winding stairs and then tripped loudly. Katy didn’t move. Billy cursed under his breath, before continuing and quietly entered the bedroom to see her asleep under the sheets.

He slipped out of his loafers and walked to the side of the bed. Her face was so pretty and peaceful on the pillow. She really had been the prettiest girl in the whole school, and when they’d met years later, he’d realised she was also the nicest. She’d been so interested in what he’d had to say, thought, and done, it made her the easiest girl in the world to talk to. Now his eyes traced over her enormous bulk beneath the covers. If she really loved him, she’d have lost the weight, and he felt a little bit guilty for a moment, but hey, what guy wouldn’t when their wife had let herself go to this extent, even her best friend, Susie, he smiled to himself, sympathised with him on that.

But what he’d never imagined with a wife so big was how tight she was down there. That was rare. She was tighter than Fifi. Blokes in her own country still rubbed salt into their wives’ and they wouldn’t have been able to make it half as dry as Katy’s was. The thought of it aroused him now.

He quickly slipped his jacket and trousers off and let them fall to the floor by the side of the bed. He undid his tie and shirt and threw them behind him. He sat down on the bed, moved the fly of his boxer shorts to one side and pulled it out. So tight, he thought, rubbing himself and staring at the giant curve of her thigh half-way down the bed under the covers and tempted to the point of stupidity to pull the duvet back—knowing how much she hated him looking at her body even with the lights out—but being drawn, like being guided by an invisible hand, to take a peek. Arousal heightening his decision to the point of no return, he lifted the bottom edge of the blanket up. She felt her feet suddenly naked. Ever so slowly, so as not to wake her, he pulled it back from her knees, over her gargantuan flabby thighs, slowly off her mountainous hips to finally see her black negligee clinging tight in a winding stream between the bushy vegetation to disappear in the desert canyon beneath, attracting the touch of his fingertips.

“Billy!” Katy suddenly heaved up on her elbows, flung the duvet down over her legs and held her hand down on top between them. “What are you doing!”

Billy caught his breath before answering, “For fuck’s sake, what man can’t look at his wife’s... What’s that?” He sniffed the air. “Have you been drinking?”

“Susie popped round.”

“What?” Billy suddenly turned to face her. “Why? You know I don’t like people here if I don’t know about it. What did she say?”

“What are you being like that for? I thought you liked Susie. ”

“For fuck’s sake, if you’ve got something to say, just say it! Don’t play around with me.”

“I’m sorry.” Katy said coyly, tracing her hand down his hairy chest. “We talked ... ”

“Don’t play around with me.” Billy moved her hand away. “Just tell me the truth. I know you’re hiding something now.”

“We talked about making love. ”

“Jesus Christ! What are you talking to her about that for?”

“Why are you so angry?” She stroked his thigh with the palm of her hand. “She just gave me a little advice, that’s all.”

Billy searched her eyes for the merest hint of sarcasm beneath and then his shoulders slumped and he rubbed his neck. “I’m sorry. It’s all this working late—it’s just getting to me a bit.”

“We don’t need all this, I just need you. I just want you, Billy.”

Billy breathed deeply. “It isn’t for much longer, honey, I’ve already told you, I’ll be a partner in ... ”

Katy prized his hand open finger by finger and then squeezed his penis roughly with her stubby fingers and in spite of her lack of technique the thought of her dry crack returned and he began to feel aroused again, even if he was the only man in the world whose wife wouldn’t let him look at hers.

“I want you Billy,” Katy still felt a little dizzy but she wanted to do the right thing for him so much. “I really want you ... take me, Billy?”

Billy hesitated. It was so out of character for her it almost made him feel guilty again.

“Make love to me, Billy. Let Hubble show me the stars again. It’s been so long. You like it when I do this to you, don’t you?”

“Don’t talk like that, it’s disgusting.”

“I want you, Billy, please?”

He stroked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, and gently kissed her forehead. He stroked her shoulder with his hand, ever so softly, and then continued stroking down to her breast, and slid his hand inside the fabric, and around her right breast. It felt warm and soft as he squeezed it. He rubbed her nipple with the ball of his index finger.

“Oh Billy,” Katy said, feeling lightheaded as if she was still in a dream, staring into his baby soft blue eyes.

“You’re so beautiful, Katy.” He said placing his other hand behind her head, to stroke the nape of her neck.

She pulled the covers from under him, wrapped her arms around him, and drew him into a side-long embrace to lie beside her on the bed. “I love you, Billy.”

“I love you too, honey,” he said pulling the covers straight behind him and kissing her lips, the taste of lingering alcohol on her breath, and then her neck, the rising perfumed scent of cinnamon.

“I know. I know it wasn’t really you, now, Billy. Oh, Billy, you do love me, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, honey,” he said, his lips and hands working down her body and unfastened the negligee at her crotch. It reminded him of the fastening on Fifi’s, and he felt the blood rush in to him and his penis pulsate, gloriously harder still. All of his being, all of his energy, all his manhood focused in this his strongest pure muscled place.

Chapter 53

The pressure is so intense you’re going to burst

It excited Bob to watch Stacy considering the question. He felt a kind of pride at the thought of her imagining having what she didn’t have as if that somehow gave him something special. And all women secretly wanted one, he thought, no he knew, didn’t they? Of course. “So come on. What do you think it’d be like, Stace, honestly?”

“What’s the word?” She laughed. “Inconvenient?”

“Seriously?” Bob was shocked. It was the last answer he’d expected, and he was a little bit hurt by it. “Why did it take so long to come to that conclusion then?”

“I was just imagining myself running naked on the beach with this thing rocking like a pine cone beneath me, in every direction.” She laughed again. “It must be weird to have no control over it. It just goes in any direction it pleases. Or when you’re sleeping and you turn over or move your legs it’s like … in the way. Or when you ride a bike? It’s a bit of a physical embarrassment, isn’t it? And then they get hard … ”

“They get hard! That’s good, Stace. What do you think it’s like when they get hard?”

“I don’t know, I guess, like you’re bursting. All these things trying to get out, like a house on fire, and everyone wanting to leave at the same time, violently, pushing out to try and free themselves first, fighting to get out, all these things, the pressure, banging the door, ramming it, the pressure is so intense, you’re going to burst … Am I right?”

“I sort of see where you’re coming from.” Bob said awkwardly; she wasn’t even close! She’d entirely missed the pleasure of it. It wasn’t like you were desperately trying to relieve an overfull bladder. ‘Good’ didn’t do it justice. It was more like his bamboo shoot felt so good, you wanted to keep your bamboo shoot feeling so good and make your bamboo shoot feel even gooder still, until your bamboo shoot was too imaginably goodest, and your bamboo shoot couldn’t take feeling that impossibly gooderestest any longer, and your bamboo shoot finally shot! Yea, the stuff burst out, but the last thing you were thinking about was the stuff; the stuff was incidental; the stuff was a mere by-product of your bamboo shoot feeling-so-good, like a barely noticeable side-effect. And then he realised it was impossible for a woman to imagine how good your bamboo shoot feels, so why would she want one? Of course, to them, it was a mere appendage! God was a genius; they hadn’t a clue what they were missing: Why should they be jealous? And Bob smiled to himself knowingly (without a clue that women might feel even more impossibly betterestederest still with what He had given them and without the inconvenience of said appendage.)

“What are you smiling about?”

“Nothing!” Bob said lightly, and quickly drew her attention back to the ritual.” OOOHHH … AHH … EEEE-Ohhhhh …” He empathised with Gareth’s suffering as Lucy, still kneeling beside her husband, relentlessly continued to yank him. Gareth writhed on his back in apparently un-exquisite agony.

“He doesn’t look any harder than ten minutes ago?” Stacy enquired cautiously.

“OUCHOUCHOUCH-OWWW … Nope!” Bob grimaced. “OHHHHH.”

“Can he feel anything when he’s semi-soft?” Stacy asked having run out of anything else to ask.

“Are you kidding? AHHH … AHHH … AHHHH … OH! THE LADY HAS NO MERCY! TALK ABOUT HITTING A MAN WHEN HE’S DOWN! AND BELOW THE BELT! YIIIIKES!”

All Stacy could see was Lucy’s hand shuffling him rapidly in all directions and his big beer belly rolling around above like a jelly with a life of its own. What was hurting him so much? Especially since he had no erection and his thing looked like a soft short fat cold cooked Bratwurst without a will in the world.

“YA-YA-YA-YA-YOHHHHH … NOHHHHH … HE’S SLAMMING HIS ARM ON THE MAT, I QUIT, I QUIT, HE’S SAYING, BUT SHE WON’T!”

“Time’s against them?”

“OWWWW … YEP … BUT WHAT’S THIS?” Bob noticed Lucy raise her right foot on the bed. “I THINK LUCY’S ABOUT TO BEGIN AGAIN ... SHE’S LEANING UP OFF HER BACK ... WAIT FOR IT, READY ... HE MUST BE HARD ENOUGH … GARETH’S FACE IS GRIMACED IN AGONY AS SHE THRASHES HIS MEMBER IN HER GRIP ... THE ACTION’S ABOUT TO RE-COMMENCE … HE MUST BE … HE MUST BE READY … AND … ”

Lucy resettled herself sitting on the bed with her legs straight in front of her and continued yanking.

“Probably cramp, Bob.”

“Yep, Stace.” Bob shook his head disappointedly. “Something was clearly troubling her, but that’s NOTHING compared to what Gareth’s going through right now. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH … OW! OW! OW! IT’S WRITTEN ALL OVER HIS FACE! LEEEAVE MEEEE ALO-OHHHH-NE! I SURRENDER!”

“Jump to WYPPQ, darling.” The Proddir ordered in Bob’s earpiece.

“His cock’s not ready, Bob. That must be so frustrating for her, now. Look at her trying to work her own spot and him at the same time but he’s simply not responding. He hasn’t moved since he lay down.”

“EEEEEE-YESSSS, NO! You’re right, Stace. Someone’s going to have to re-think their strategy on this one and I don’t mean HIM!”

Bob desperately flicked through the script. Nothing was going to plan and now the Boss wanted them to bring the Pussy Quiz forward and he couldn’t even find it in the bloody script.

Chapter 54

I don’t mind whatever your fantasy is

“I love you more than I’d ever thought was possible,” Billy eased Katy onto her back, and her legs separated. He spittled onto his fore-finger and ran it between the crease of her dry vagina.

“I want you, Billy, I’ve always wanted you.”

“I’ve missed you so much,” he said, inserting his finger inside, and slowly pushed it all the way in, and half out and then in again. It was always so dry, he thought, tighter but nothing like Fifi’s. He leaned over and pulled the fabric off her breast with his teeth, and began sucking her giant nipple.

“Oh Billy,” she moaned.

“I love you, Katy.” He said, leaning further across her body to work on the other massive tit, and massaging the one he’d left with his free hand to try and make her wetter. Just a little bit wetter would be better than screwing sandpaper, even if it was tighter and even though her breasts were frankly revolting to him like soft rubbery water filled balloons when compared to Fifi’s firm upstanding breasts which he fought to retain in his imagination.

“Oh Billy,” she said, “you can call me anything you want, I don’t mind, whatever your fantasy is.”

“What do you mean, honey?” He stopped.

“I mean ... I don’t mind if you want to pretend I’m someone else.” She gulped, “I’d like it.”

“Why would I want to do that?” He resumed sucking her nipple gently, to hide his guilty face from her view, paranoically scared that she was reading his mind. “You’re so beautiful, honey,” he tried, “I don’t want anyone else. You’re perfect.”

“Oh Billy, I’m all yours.” She clung Billy’s face to her bosom with both arms. He squirmed in the dark at the proximity. “I can’t breathe.” He drawled jokingly, between clenched teeth. She released her grip on his head.

“I’m sorry Billy.” She smiled stroking his curly hair, as he slowly climbed between her legs. She separated them freely offering him her whole body and soul, and closed her eyes. He struggled to place himself in her between the cavernous mountains of flesh trying to picture Fifi beneath him; Her spiky short blonde hair, slender white waifish body, firm breasts and wiggling tight butt.

“I love you, Billy,” Katy said dizzily, “You’re so beautiful ... So horny, do you want me?” He heard Fifi say, as it became almost impossible for him to delay entering her any longer.

“I’ve got to Fuck You ...” Billy said, finally entering her in one hard stab, and before he could stop himself ... “Fifi!”

Katy felt her belly constrict, and she automatically clamped her buttocks together. She felt the bile overflow in her stomach, and rush up her throat. She threw herself over the side of the bed, disengaging herself from Billy, and vomited all over his Armani suit.

“I couldn’t help myself,” Katy snivelled. “I loved him. ”

“That’s fine, Katy, calm, you’re perfectly peaceful and at rest. What did Billy do?”

Chapter 55

What is It?

When you’re eighteen, eight seems an even longer time ago, but that’s how old he was when he lost his home.

His mother hadn’t returned to collect him. The first month was the hardest; Expecting her to be back every time he came home from school but she never was. Sometimes at night he thought he heard the front door open and he’d creep to the landing to see if she’d returned but it was just his imagination; those were the only times he cried himself to sleep.

A few months later his dad brought a woman with a baby home and told him it was his step-brother, and she was going to be his new mum. Tony didn’t like that. A few months after that he was being interviewed by an Educational Psychologist at school. A few months after that, and loads of meetings, he was about to be taken into care.

The seven-tonne removal van reversed up to his home. Two policemen got out of their car parked across the road and approached his front gate. He saw the next-door neighbours holding their babies on their doorsteps watching the scene and gossiping.

His dad opened the front-door with his pregnant girlfriend at his side. Two men climbed out of the van and opened its rear doors. The policemen talked to his dad and then his dad went back into the terraced house and returned with two big full black dustbin liners, which the van men loaded before following him back into the house. One of the policemen followed them into the house, the other stood idly by outside talking to his shoulder.

“Do you want to go in and get your things?” Mr Zindell, The Social Worker asked him softly from the anonymity and safety of his car.

Tony shrugged, fidgeting with his toy magnifying glass in his lap, head hung low.

“You can stay and wait here if you want and I’ll go?”

Tony didn’t reply. Mr Zindell took this as a no and got out. Tony watched him walk to the house and pass a van man with another full dustbin liner coming down the front path.

Tony carefully put away his magnifying glass in his pocket and started shutting and unshutting the glove compartment quicker and quicker and then with one final slam, stopped and got out of the car. He crossed the street to a disused builder’s yard where he used to play with his friends.

He found a rusted steel bar in a pile of rubbish and began to use it like a sword to hit the floor and then the horizontal bars of the wooden fence. The fence shook with each blow, which encouraged Tony to hit it harder. He wasn’t really looking or aiming just hitting something was enough. He moved down the fence banging it with each pace, and stepping back with the recoil as if he expected the fence to suddenly fight back. The blows landed on a weak link in the fence and Tony continued thrashing it until the wooden bar separated from its joints and finally fell to the ground.

He dropped the steel bar and picked up the wooden section and threw it towards the pile of rubbish. It cartwheeled over itself and landed short. He picked up the steel bar again and walked up to the section and angrily began hitting it on the floor. He stamped his foot in the centre and lifted the edge to snap it in two.

He quickly checked to see if anyone was watching and noticed his father’s girlfriend walking down his front path with a box of his toys to the van. He quickly dropped the section and ran over the road.

“Be careful!” Mr O’Brien shouted after the van man threw it in the back, overseeing the removal from the hall.

“Hi dad.” Tony said casually, running past his father, standing in the hallway, holding a baby, past Mr Zindell, and straight into the living-room.

“He likes that stuff. Alright?” His father asked his back.

His father’s girlfriend was kneeling on the living room floor loading more toys into a second cardboard box.

“I can do that.” Tony told her abruptly snatching a toy car out of her hand.

“He likes to do it his own way.” She half-smiled at the policeman standing by the fireplace. He turned his head away, feigning an interest in the photos on the mantlepiece. One showed Mr O’Brien in full army uniform a baby smiling securely in his arms. The policeman walked to the back of the room and looked out at the tiny garden.

“The Home has a lot of boys around Tony’s age.” Mr Zindell said to Mr O’Brien.

“I’ve got to get ...” Tony’s father turned his back on her without finishing the sentence and walked into the kitchen.

Mr Zindell walked into the living-room. “Everything O.K. Tony?”

Tony didn’t reply.

“He’s got so much junk.” Mr O’Brien’s girlfriend said standing-up, and leaving the room. Mr Zindellr acknowledged the Policeman with a nod, and both dumbly watched Tony attentively packing in silence. He examined each toy for damage before carefully placing it in the box.

Mr O’Brien’s girlfriend went to the kitchen and found him with his hand covering his face, their baby resting in its pram. She pulled his hand away and hugged him. He began to cry on her shoulder.

Tony finally picked up the box and carried it out of the house. The van man placed it beside the other box and full black dustbin liners on the floor of the van and was about to close the doors when Tony jumped in. He’d seen something hanging out of one of the open black bin liners. The bag was full of pink baby dresses and after rifling through it and then tying it up tight he carried it out of the van.

“I don’t need this one, I’ll just say goodbye to my dad.” Tony told him, before walking over to the tall black bin throwing the bag inside, and slouching back to the house.

Mr O’Brien wiped his face with his hand in the kitchen.

“He’ll be alright.” His girlfriend rubbed his arm. “There’s nothing you can do. He needs professional help. He’s out of control. It’s not your fault. They’ll be able to look after him properly there. You can’t change ... ”

Suddenly Tony appeared at the kitchen door, silencing his father’s girlfriend. “I’m going now dad. Seeya.”

“Wait!” His father called after him down the hall. “I’ve got something for you.” Tony stopped outside the front-door, as his father rushed up the stairs and came back down carrying a large box wrapped in shiny red paper with golden bells and holly on it.

“What is It?” Tony asked without immediately taking the proffered gift.

“I’m sorry I called you ... ” He struggled to control his emotions in front of the Social Worker, Policemen, Van Men and onlookers. “It ... It’s your new stereo ... for Christmas.”

“Ah, OK” Tony said matter-of-factly accepting the box which dwarfed him. “Thanks.”

“OK, son. You look after yourself, OK?”

Tony didn’t look back, as he joined the Social Worker at the foot of the path. She put her arm around him and walked him to her car. The van men turned their back on Mr O’Brien and climbed into the van.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Mr O’Brien.” One of the Policemen said without making eye contact as he joined his partner on the pavement outside the property.

Mr O’Brien’s girlfriend put her arm around him on the doorstep, as he watched Tony get into the car.

Tony watched the Van pull out and make a sharp turn to drive back down the street. The Social Worker started her car, strapped her seat belt, which Tony copied, and pulled off, following the van. Tony didn’t see his dad waving from the doorstep with tears in his eyes, he was too busy shutting and unshutting the glove compartment.

Chapter 56

Variety is the spice of life

“There’s a lot of pussy misconception out there, Bob, and I’m sure you know that there are as many different shapes and sizes as there are cocks but could you prove it?”

“I think I could, Stace. Let’s play W.Y.P.P.Q.—The Pussy Quiz; the only quiz where your lady’s lips down there mouth the answers!” A flashing banner scrolled along the bottom of the screen announcing the competition to the viewers at home. “All you have to do is take a look at these four young topless models for clues. Note their facial features and breast size to begin with.”

A photo of the faces and breasts of Helena, Monica, Claire and Dani reclining naked on their backs separated into quartiles filled the giant digital scoreboard behind Stan and Katy. Tony turned his eyes away from the Contestant stage in disgust but was careful not to move his head in case Matt noticed.

“They’re all aged between twenty-one and twenty-five,” Stacy explained. “And between five foot six and five foot ten inches tall, and although their busts and builds are different, they all weigh between eight and a half and nine and a half stone.”

“Shit!” Claire shouted at the monitor in their dressing-room. “They’ve started without us!”

“They can’t have, there must be … ” Helena started with a sigh but when she half-heartedly looked across the dressing-room at the monitor she saw her own topless picture in the top left quartile of the screen and ran over.

“Can you give us a brief description of each, Bob, and then I’ll tell you why.”

“Sure, Stacy. Up first, Helena, tanned, shy-looking … ”

“′Shy-looking’!” Monica said sotto-voce walking over to the monitor, where she was admonished with a ‘shoosh’ by Helena.

“ ... feline eyes, mischievous thin smile, short slicked-back dark hair and thirty-four A cup breasts.” He made a note beside his photocopy of the pictures in his script. “Tiny clitty pointy nipples on firm gently mounds, Pussy cat like submissive type?”

“Submissive!” Dani exclaimed with a laugh looking over Claire’s shoulder at the monitor.

“Next?” Bob asked and Stacy nodded.

“Is that it?” Helena said as if insulted. “Where’s the digital trickery—the swapping heads—why aren’t we even on stage? There was no point in getting changed!”

“Dani,” Bob studied the topless photo to the right of Helena’s.” Playful, wide-brown eyes …”

“Merda!” Dani swore in Italian—shit!—and put her hand over her eyes unnecessarily; she didn’t have her contact lenses in. “I’m not watching it now.”

” … petite nose, silk mousey hair and gorgeous thirty-six D cup bosom, now they’re impressive …” He marveled at the deep soft round swell of them hanging there like voluptuous gifts.

“He likes you!” Claire said.

” … nipples like archery targets … ”

“What?!” Dani exclaimed.

“Listen!” Monica said squeamishly.

” … kind of bubbly fun type, a bit naughty, Sexy Savvy Dani. Now Claire, Claire … ”

“Oh no!” Claire said faking embarrassment.

“Cuntry-looking Claire, open round opal eyes, narrow thick lips, upturned nose, natural curly long blonde hair, wild and free type, nothing worries her,” he examined her lovely loose orbs with their light nipples slightly pointing away from each other. “Cuddly thirty-two C boobies, Laissez-faire Claire, am I doing OK?”

“Fine, Bob. It isn’t easy describing the difference is it.” Stacy said.

“What does Lay-say-fair mean?” Claire asked the others nervously.

“Easy-going.” Dani said.

“Besides breast size?” Bob said.” No. But hey, it’s fun trying, Stace! And last but not least lovely Monica…”

“Listen!” Monica said although nobody was talking.

” … crystal green eyes, long narrow nose, wide full lips, high cheekbones, long straight black hair and,” he admired the upturned cups of her breasts with the nipples pointing skywards, “sculptured thirty-six B chest? Glamorous, sophisticated, rich and sexy presidential playgirl-type.”

“Sophisticated?” Helena repeated disbelievingly.

“Of course!” Monica cupped her long black hair in her palm with a big smile.

“What does Lay-say-fair mean?” Claire demanded.

“Now what?” Bob asked.

“Want to see their pussies, Bob?”

A close-up photo of four vaginas in separate quartiles labelled ‘a’ to ‘d’ filled the monitor screen; Each taken from the same angle, with Claire, Dani, Monica and Helena lying on their backs with legs bent open and outwards. The girls went absolutely silent in their dressing-room staring at themselves, except Dani who answered Claire again rather than see herself.

“It means easy-going.”

“Oh,” said Claire, disappointed that it wasn’t something more sensual. And then recognising herself on the monitor. “My God! I didn’t realise the camera was going that close. I’ll put the kettle on.”

“I’ll join you.” Dani said quickly. She was curious but there was something a bit lesbian about staring at theirs, with them there, that made her feel uncomfortable. It would have been different, perhaps, if she wasn’t involved or, if she was honest, alone. But Helena was right for once; they should have told them they were bringing the pussy quiz forward and the fact that they didn’t even bother offended her more than the extreme focus of the lens. She quietly left Helena and Monica at the monitor.

Tony leaned back in disgust on his stool at the sight of the four six-foot high parallel vaginas on the cinema sized screen behind the solitary figures of Stan and Katy, dwarfed beneath.

“That sure is a lot of pussy, Stace.” Bob said gleefully.

“All you have to do is guess which one belongs to which girl?”

“That’s impossible. They all look the same.” And they did. All were shaven. All had a ridge running between like, Bob tried to think, a pussy, for want of a better comparison. They were all so young, pretty, ripe and edible he was spoilt for choice. Having four of them to choose from at the same time was like asking John Mills, after trekking through the desert in that film to choose between Heineken, Fosters, Cronenberg or Bud! A cold beer’s a cold beer and sweet, beautiful pussy is sweet beautiful pussy! There were no birth marks, pimples, pubic hair, tattoos or anything to distinguish them.

“Can you see why Cock size isn’t so important to a woman?”

“Who’s she kidding.” Helena said to Monica.

“We’re all different, just like men.” Stacy explained.

“Cock size is obvious, Stace.” Bob said. “This isn’t. Forgive me, but a hole’s a hole. They are all identical, whereas a cock is the long and short of it.”

“That’s because you’re not looking, Bob.” Stacy pointed with the tip of her pen to the first mystery lady’s pussy labelled ‘a’.” The mound in ‘a’, as you can see is like two half peaches, with this thin gap in between, like, well, the cleft of a peach and the interior lips look like a tiny flag or a clothing label sticking out halfway. You can’t see the lips that clearly because the mound dominates.” Bob tried to imagine it below Laissez-faire Claire’s waist and shook his head. But it could be pussy cat Helena’s, he noted in his script with an ‘a’ beside her photo.

“So, the size of the ‘mound’ if you like is one criterion and the size or thickness of the lips is the second criteria. In ‘d’ the mound is less dominant, and the bigger lips protrude like soft curled rope or two oval soft Chrysalis snuggling together.”

“That’s more like Naughty Savvy Dani’s,” Bob said, “it has to be: big tits, long lips. When the ladies buy knickers, they should ask them whether they’re a four inch ‘d’, or a three inch ‘c’, a six inch ‘a’ or five inch ‘b’? You’re not sure? Let me have a look. What’s the problem, Stace? They do it for breasts! Imagine an eight inch ‘e’!”

Tony grinned imagining Bob with an eight inch ‘e’ himself; a slit right through his big belly with his knife and the fatty layer of flesh peeling away like the zip of a fur lined anorak to spill out his slippery blood wet guts all over his cream trousers.

“Thank you, Bob. Whereas here, in ‘c’,” Stacy pointed, “the lips are not as thick, but thicker than an in ‘a’, like two tiny fleshy flapping ear rims with the lobes trailing towards the anus.”

“That must be either Glamourpuss Monica’s or Laissez-faire Claire’s,” Bob calculated, “but which? If only they hadn’t bloody shaven them at least there’d be a pubic hair clue.”

“The third criterion is the shape of the lips.”

One middle-aged lady in the audience, Mrs Styles, hated to admit it, but she had no idea what type her own vagina was and couldn’t even remember Anais Nin referring to any ‘criteria’ when she’d examined herself in the mirror. Stacy talked about it so casually she couldn’t help wondering if all the young ladies in the twenty-first century now examined themselves in such detail and exchanged this kind of information. Or had she missed an issue of Cosmopolitan?” In ‘a’ the lips are very thin … ” Stacy continued.

“I know ‘a’ is Pussy-cat Helena’s, Stace.” Bob said bitterly. “I want to know about ‘b’!”

” … and run the full length in a straight line, whereas in ‘b’ the lips are thin but almost shaped in a figure of eight … ”

“I couldn’t guess.” Monica giggled. “Could you?” She asked Helena who shrugged dismissively in reply, more interested in what Stacy or Bob had to say about hers.

“Figure of eight?” Bob said. “Maybe they’re that shape because that’s how she moves when she’s on top! It has to be Monica’s glamour-puss! Which means lovely Laissez-faire Claire’s is … ‘c’! She has to be the one with the ears downstairs, there is no other choice!” He looked up at Stacy excitedly feeling like somewhat of a pussy expert now, with a tongue like a tape measure.

“Well, I’m not allowed to say … But like the petals of a tulip, some vaginas are more closed than others, and have different shapes.” Stacy said. Bob watched her glossy red lips as she spoke. “Of course, the length of the labia itself varies … ” Stacy’s lips magically mouthed the words creating sound and he couldn’t help wondering what her other pair looked like.

” … As well as the depth and width inside the vulva,” Stacy looked at Bob,” but we can’t see that from these photographs.” Bob looked down again pretending to look at the picture, but staring instead at the cream cotton lap of her skirt and trying to picture the flower beneath: designer label ‘a’, figure-eighty ‘b’, ears ‘c’, or walnut ripple ‘d’?

“Although the inside of the vulva in all women expands when aroused, the extent of this and depth inside are also variables ... ”

“ ... Of course ... ” Bob interrupted ingenuously, failing to catch himself in time.

“ ... that more effectively determine a woman’s perception of a man’s penis size whatever the ruler tells a man it is!” Stacy laughed and Bob faked it, unaware of what she’d said but pretty certain that Stacy wasn’t ‘ears’.

“So, men are wasting their time in worrisome comparison in the shower room.” Stacy explained the joke for Bob.

“You’re absolutely right there, Stace.” Bob nodded seriously. But maybe walnut-ripple?

“It serves men right for studying their own bodies more than ours; you deserve it,” Stacy elbowed him to get his attention and repeated, “for thinking your bodies are the centre of a woman’s universe. Your penis is just our accessory! I shouldn’t really be telling you this.”

Bob didn’t have a clue what she was going on about and smiled back broadly.” But like I said, to be fair, you can’t see this from outside, and like I said, or from these photographs, but there is another visible criterion.”

“Of course.” Bob repeated to himself, it made sense: C-cup titties, ‘c’-type pussy! She had to be ‘ears’! And stared down as if her skirt was invisible and pictured them peeking out between her gorgeous naked inner thighs.

“The length of this little cloak, which you can clearly see in photograph ‘d’, leads down to the clitoris before the lips protrude in this picture like soft curled rope. The length of this cloak, and the protuberance of the clitoris vary. If you look at photograph ‘a’ the clitoris looks like a tiny pearl, held in a diamond-like grip, where the lips make the lines like the flesh meeting between two forefingers and thumbs delicately touching. Whereas in ‘c’ the cloak extends over the clitoris to the lips making the clitoris invisible. Can you see, Bob? I’m talking about the centre of a women’s pleasure here.”

Bob’s attention suddenly snapped back to the moment and his eyes flicked between the images trying to see a cloak. He couldn’t. “Absolutely.”

“And, of course, the colour varies, too. In ‘b’ the lips alone are slightly beige, whereas the glimpse of the vulva peeking between them is pink, like the others.”

“What?” Bob said. “Beige? Beige as in tan?” He suddenly checked his notes. “Beige as in pussy cat Helena’s tan? Beige as in ‘b’ for beige? You’ve got to be kidding! Helena is ‘b’? Then which one is Glamourpus Monica’s? Needle slit designer label ‘a’? How’s she going to fit a cigar in that? Impossible!”

“The cheek!” Monica said, but grinned coquettishly at the attention.

On the Centre stage Matt was staring between Stacy on the cinema screen and Katy when he suddenly pictured Katy’s purple pussy with its long violet cloak and giant beige walnut ropey lips between her heavy black thighs. He knew it was just as disgusting to objectify a woman by her tits or pussy as a man by the size of his chest or penis; there was no equality in prejudice. But he couldn’t help himself. What was he picturing this for? What if he pictured all women like this? What about his daughter? And the shock made him squeeze his eyes shut and cry out, “Stop it Mum! I didn’t Jo!”

“What?” Tony stared at him. “You stupid cunt!”

“Maybe you were too busy trying to get inside to see how varied and pretty they are outside, too, Bob? I bet you can’t even identify which one most looks like your wife’s?”

“I bet he can.” Helena said with a raised eyebrow.

Bob tried to think, scanning the photos. They all looked totally different now.

“Of course, I’ve seen hers many times but...” He started and for once couldn’t finish, distracted by the thought that men had it both ways: God had given them the gift of dick and the gift of pussy, when you thought about it. What else was a young pretty pussy for but his dick.

Gareth, lying on the bed overhearing their discussion, tried to remember what his wife’s looked like to ascertain her type. It was really difficult.

“Can I try and guess,” Bob changed tack, with a naughty grin, “which one is most like yours, Stacy?” His eyes fell conspicuously to her smooth cream lap and he imagined her lips like a knife slit in red silk with the little lobey lips widening temptingly.

“Do you want to have a look and tell me, Bob?” Stacy said seriously, knowing he’d been sneaking inconspicuous glances at her body throughout, and stood up. “I’m not wearing any panties.” She gripped the hem of her skirt.

“Well, variety is the spice of life, Stace?”

Gareth suddenly opened his eyes and leant up on his elbows for a better view, and, to Lucy’s relief he finally began to feel harder in her grip and she didn’t want to waste a moment more.

Chapter 57

Tell me you want it

Katy spat out the remaining pieces in her mouth, and waited to throw up again, but just dribbled spittle. It hung from her lips and dropped in a dollop onto the golden heart-shaped locket hung around her neck, and slowly dripped from it to the green puddle in the clothes.

“I thought you asked me to pretend you were someone else?” Billy asked her angrily, with the speed of a barrister’s mind, deciding that the best form of defence was attack like in court.

She wiped her mouth with her arm. “I’m sorry, Billy.”

“You’re sorry?” Billy’s hard-on hit her thigh as he jolted up in bed.

“I drank too much, Billy. ”

“It’s OK. Just lie down!” He helped her by the shoulders onto her back. “Try and keep still.” He climbed over her leg, anxious to get back into position and relieve himself. He finally entered her again and moaned, “That’s good, you feel so good.”

“I love you, Billy.” Katy began to cry with clenched teeth against the pain of the dreadful soreness.

“I love you too honey,” he pushed back and forth, grateful now for the friction of her dryness that gripped his foreskin making her pussy tighter.

“Ahhhh! Ahhhh!” Katy moaned painfully.

“Yess, honey, yess, yess.” Billy panted, hammering harder, excited by her protestations, misinterpreting them for Fifi’s joy.

“Ahhhh, Billy! Ahhh, I feel sick! I can’t ... Stop! Two seconds. Stop!”

“You’ve been sick, Fifi. Relax.” He said, leaning up on his arms for leverage.

“I’m sorry, Billy,” she choked. Her head felt dizzy, like she would pass out. “I know it’s not you, really.” She dribbled the words. “I know it’s not you.”

“Tell me how much you want it, Fifi.”

Katy didn’t reply. Billy suddenly slapped her across the face. “Come on, Fifi!”

“I want it!” She shrieked, gasping as he banged her more violently. He was fucking her almost as hard as after she’d told him what had happened to her the first time.

“Tell me you want it more, Fifi. ”

“I want it, Billy, I want it, I want it, I want it ... ” She began, feeding his need, losing recognition of where she was, as if she were withdrawing to a different place, watching this all happen to someone else, as she chanted. “I want it, I want it ... ”

“No, Fifi!” He cried out.

“I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it.” She continued, desperate to get it over with. Thanking God he couldn’t read her mind at the moment. She gripped the sheets tightly to save her from falling away. “Yes, Billy, Yes, Billy,” and then inspired by something Susie had said, “You’re so big, Billy! SO BIG!”

“Ahhhhhhh FIFI!” He yelled, and the thrusting stopped instantly. She was amazed how instantly. And then: Nothing. He rolled off her. She heard him try to catch his breath, as she silently stared up at the spinning ceiling. How could he have enjoyed it when it hurt her so much? But Susie was wrong about one thing; It wouldn’t have made a difference if it was three or thirteen inches; there was no feeling in her secret place except pain.

By the time the room had stopped revolving Billy was fast asleep and snoring, with his back to her. Katy was still wide awake trying to think. She leaned on her arm to watch his sleeping face. He was so vulnerable asleep, like a little baby. Susie was right. It wasn’t really him at all. How could a beautiful man like him intentionally do wrong. It had a mind of its own.

She got out and kneeling down, carefully contained the green puddle within his suit. She picked the bundle up, carried it to the dirty linen box and dropped it in. She walked to the bathroom, undid the chain around her neck, and placed the locket gently on the shelf of the sink. She washed her hands and face with cold water and soap, and then picked up the locket and dried it carefully with a thick towel. She opened the locket with her thumb nail, and stared at the tiny photos of her and Billy. We were both born whole, she thought. Both of them looked so innocent, so fragile and totally unaware of this future; Large wide curious optimistic eyes open and honest as only a baby’s eyes can truly be. She closed the locket and tied the chain around her neck. She looked at herself in the mirror and straightened the locket. It was the most beautiful thing about her, she thought, switching off the bathroom light and disappearing in the mirror.

She snuggled up to Billy and stared at the pattern on the curtains; The ugly curves of the petals of flowers like freshly dug earth. He slept like a child, she thought, in a man’s body. He didn’t mean to hit her, he was just being a naughty boy. She stroked his chest, and put her ear against his back. She listened to his heart beat and it made her feel so peaceful and secure. She looked over Billy’s shoulder at the lowered ceiling of the bed and the curtain trim. It made her feel so small. She thought of them both then as two little children. She cuddled up to Billy. She would always look after him, and while he worked, make Everdale the warmest home for him to come back to. She couldn’t believe how happy such a corny idea made her feel. It was like a fairy tale to her, and Billy was her prince. Everything would be right for them now. She felt foolish for worrying all night and getting drunk, and she hated herself for crying so much. She wanted to wake him up, and tell him how relieved she felt to be wanted again. It was symbolic of his love for her, even if she wasn’t able to enjoy it as much as him. He was happy.

I kissed him gently on the neck and held him tight. Katy smiled beneath closed eyelids. “Never letting go of my baby boy all night.”

“Were you trying to hold onto something you had lost or knew you were going to lose?” Stan said.

Tony sniggered beside Matt. “She doesn’t know the meaning of the word loss with all that fat!”

“I don’t know. I can’t think anymore.” Katy pounded her thighs with her fists. “It wasn’t that. Tomorrow. I was. The mess. Stop!”

“Calm down, Katy, I don’t understand you. ”

“You don’t understand! The court. The mess. It’s ruined!”

“What about tomorrow?”

“I can’t. The court. He did. The mess. Susie! It’s the end. I made a mess.”

“When you were sick? Look, Katy, please calm down. You’re not making any sense. Are you talking about his suit?”

“The court! The mess! I caught him in the mess it wasn’t my fault. Leave me alone!”

Matt stood up at the counter on the Centre stage. “Why is he pushing her?”

“That’s the whole point dickhead!” Tony said.

“But she can’t take it anymore.”

“We’re almost there.” Stan reassured her. “Just one last time, what about the mess? Was he going to court? What happened the next day, Katy? I promise this is the last time I’m going to ask you to picture it. You have to go back and see it or I won’t be able to help you.”

Katy rocked her chair off the floor, swaying her head from side to side, as if a volcano which had been building up inside her for so long was about to explode.

“Guards on stand-by at the Contestant stage.” The Proddir ordered.

“One last time, Katy. You’re perfectly peaceful and at rest. One last time. It’s tomorrow now. Can you see it?”

Chapter 58

Like God’s cruel ripped tear

That night Katy dreamt that she was riding a horse across the plains. There was a herd of buffaloes up ahead. They frightened her and she began to steer her horse the other way but Billy galloped up to her, and grabbed the reins of her horse, and led her on towards them. She held onto the saddle, as her horse ran behind Billy’s. They rode straight into the stampeding Buffalo, which reared like giants around her. Billy’s horse was knocked in the side and he fell into a pile of manure. Her horse ran on. She looked behind her. The Buffalos were running at him, but avoided stamping on him, and continued around him. Billy was scrambling to get to his feet and pulled a gun on the approaching buffalo. He aimed and shot. He hit one. It didn’t have time to avoid him, and bucked at the last second, tripping on its hind legs. Its momentum carried it forward, and Billy just managed to roll out of its way in time. The beast fell in his wake. He had no sooner felt relief when another giant buffalo jumped over the fallen buffalo, and not seeing Billy, crushed his ribs as it landed, and continued galloping straight towards her.

Katy woke with a start, suddenly sitting up in bed. Light was pouring through the gap between the curtains. She checked the bedside clock. It was already three o’clock and she felt guilty for lying there.

She crawled out of the bed, walked to the bathroom rubbing her head and ran herself a bath. She climbed in carefully and lay down in the warm water. When she examined herself down there with the small mirror it still looked ugly to her, like God’s cruel ripped tear, but thankfully there was no blood this time.

She dressed, and opened the curtains in the bedroom. It was a beautiful day after all, the weather had this effect on her. She felt miserable if it was overcast, melancholy if it rained and lonely in a storm. Funny, she thought, how the outside elements could affect her inside so much. She was glad it was bright and sunny outside, it gave her the strength to face last night.

She went downstairs to the kitchen and pulled a black bin liner out of the drawer. She returned to the bedroom, and picked Billy’s suit out of the dirty linen box. She winced at the green wet mess which had congealed into a hard crusty coating, like a vegetable biscuit, pulling the suit jacket in strange angles, stuck to the trousers. She checked the trouser pockets, which were empty, and then felt inside the jacket. She pulled out his palmtop, and saw brownish stains on it. She panicked, thinking how annoyed Billy would be if it was damaged. She dropped the suit into the plastic bag, and then went to the bathroom.

She wet a flannel with warm water and soap, and then carefully rubbed the casing. The stains slowly came out of the hard patterned ridges of the plastic. She dried it with a towel and then opened it, praying that it would still work. Luckily, it looked like no fluid had penetrated the cover. She knew nothing about computers, and switched it on to check it was working.

The screen blinked and it whirred as if it had been resuscitated. It then began beeping continuously and a message flashed on the screen:

“CLIENT: Jo Lehrner 10.00am. Office.

CLIENT: Karl Johnson 11.45am. Office.

PERSONAL: Fifi 2.00pm. Thursday’s Place.”

The pocket computer fell from her hands and continued beeping on the bathroom floor, ringing its warning. She froze, assembling the abstract pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together in her mind, terrified to move, act, do anything until she saw the whole picture.

As the truth dawned on her, she began to see herself looking in the bathroom mirror. She fingered the locket around her neck, in search of comfort, while it beeped incessantly on the floor, reminding her. She picked it up and threw it at the mirror, as if she were throwing a baseball to the far end of a long bathroom, and screamed. “No!” It recoiled half-way, fracturing the mirror, hit the opposite wall and fell into the bath in two pieces, still beeping. She put the plug in the bath and turned on the cold tap. She left the water running and ran out of the bathroom, and down the stairs.

She picked up the phone in the hall and fumbling, tried to dial Billy’s office. She succeeded on the third attempt.

“Good afternoon, Dean and Co. Solicitors,” the receptionist answered.

“I’d like to speak to Billy Lawrence, please,” Katy said, fighting to control her emotions.

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“His wife.”

“I’ll just put you through.”

The phone went dead for a moment.

“Good afternoon, Mrs Lawrence,” Billy’s secretary answered.

Katy recognised her voice. “I’d like to talk to my husband, please.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs Lawrence, Mr Lawrence is out for the afternoon, can I take a message?”

“Where is he?” Katy demanded.

“I’ll just check, Mrs Lawrence, if you’ll bear with me.”

“Thankyou.” Katy waited, listening to the patter of clicks on a keyboard.

“Hello, Mrs Lawrence?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry Mr Lawrence is ...” The secretary hesitated. “Visiting a client.”

“Which client?”

The secretary hesitated again. “I’m afraid I can’t give out that information on the phone, Mrs Lawrence.”

“Why? Is it a Fucking Fifi?!” Katy hung up, and slunk down the side of the hall wall, dragging the phone with her. She began to cry, helplessly. She didn’t know what to do. She needed help. She raised the receiver in her lap and dialled her daddy’s number. There was no answer. She tried again. Still no luck. She dialled Susie’s number. It was engaged. There was no one to talk to. She was all alone in Everdale, and she couldn’t bear to just sit and contemplate the weight of it all on her own. She had to see Susie. Susie would know what to do.

She got up, walked into the lounge and found her handbag. She emptied its contents on the floor, and picked up the car keys. She ran to the front door, opened it, the beep-beep-beeping of the palmtop still in her head, and slammed it behind her.

Chapter 59

The prize for matching their faces

High up on the Ziggurat on the silver sheets of the sunken bed, Lucy clambered over Gareth’s body to sit on his face without letting go of his strengthening erection and inadvertently, to his chagrin, obscured his view of Stacy who was standing on the stilted platform opposite in front of Bob, and slowly lifting the hem of her cream skirt higher with her fingertips.

“Wait.” Stacy teased. “You haven’t guessed which type of pussy I have, yet.”

Bob lasciviously admired her long smooth satin legs from the heal of her shoes to just above her knees to her smooth thighs where the hem waited tantalisingly to reveal the luscious point of her secret buried treasure. There was a lot to be said for a beautiful female co-host, especially when they were so willing.

“I hate to tell you I already have, Stace. And I know,” he fondly imagined fondling her breasts underneath her jacket and that fragile crisp white blouse, ” you’ve got a c-type pussy, Stace. So damn it, prove me wrong!”

Stacy slowly lifted the hem one inch higher, where the flesh of her inner thighs came together, two, where it started to widen again, three, where the faintest pubic hair appeared ...

Bob felt it unwinding, the bamboo shoot stiffen, the bell end swell normally to a stiffened arrow...

When Stacy suddenly dropped the hem, laughing at Bob’s shocked expression before sitting down again and crossing her legs.

“Ahhhh shucks, COME ON!” Bob said painfully.

“Do you seriously think I am going to show you my pussy in front of all these people?”

“How do I know if I’m right?”

“Nice try jose but Uh-uh, noooo way! How could I be a ‘c’!” She laughed with mock indignity, and thought, I’m quite happy being a ‘b’ thank you very much. “Do you want to show them yours, instead?”

“So, what’s the prize,” Bob quickly began, changing the subject, “for matching their faces to their pussies, Stace?”

“Thank you. Set your video now, while we repeat the two sets of photos. Callers who correctly match every pair, will be computer selected at random and win a signed photo plus a video of each of the four girls performing in hardcore close-up. Plus stay tuned for the chance to win a date with either Dani, Claire, Monica, or Helena, the choice is yours, and they will all be joining us later in the flesh to show us which viewers are right, when they perform their own sexual fantasies.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Bob ad-libbed and then read the autocue. “So, start your video now, folks, while we fast flash the photos, or check out our website on www.WyP?com, or if you have a television with digital interface you can click on T8. Here they CUM!”

“And the number to call as always is 0044 + (UK) W-Y-P - 69 - 69 - 69,” which stayed on the screen for a moment after the photos had been fast-played. “Which pair would you choose, Bob?”

“You realise you’re adding a new meaning to the word pair, Stace.” Bob glanced between the two sets of photos on the desk. “I have to say if Country-girl Claire has Cunty lips figure-of-eight type ‘b’... THERE IS A GOD! That is TITTY-PUSSY-PURRRR-FECTION!”

“This is a good point,” Chris turned directly to the camera, “to touch base. Stan still doesn’t know why Katy can’t have children I think, but he knows that Katy thinks Billy’s been playing around with Fifi and she’s on her way to see Susie for some advice. What do you think Susie will say? What advice would you give to Katy? And why did it all end up in court? I think we’ve got enough clues to solve it already. Let me just summarise the Top Ten for you, and maybe seeing them all together, you’ll agree with me:

Firstly, the grass is always greener on the other side; rubbing herself and calling Stan Granny. Secondly, Coitus Interruptus; cutting something out of her life, the wedding ring. Thirdly, a stitch in time saves nine; But if you keep itching that stitch it can come undone. Fourthly, one hand washes another; how did she stop Gordon entering her for so long when she apparently wanted him to. Fifthly, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; Did she blame Stan’s sex when she went for his privates? Sixthly, blood is thicker than water; what could she possibly be blaming her mother for? Or her mother’s mother if she called Stan Granny (see Firstly!) Seventhly, with friends like these who needs enemies; Why wouldn’t Katy let her best friend in? Eighthly, two’s company three’s a crowd; If this is what she felt comfortable talking to Katy about how much more would she feel comfortable doing with Stephen? Penultimately, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander; Susie acts like she’s playing a game but she keeps on coming back to it: How big is Billy’s? And lastly, actions speak louder than words; something worse Katy’s also repressing about Susie and finds equally difficult to express?

“I’m not a hundred per cent certain but is it any clearer if I suggest that maybe what was done to Katy she did to others? Don’t worry, I don’t think Stan has got it either. Although he’s close, if I’m right, he’s closer than he thinks.”

Chapter 60

She’s dead!

Katy’s Mercedes skidded to a halt in the street outside Susie’s house. She sat there, hyperventilating, adrenalin pumping, telling herself to calm down. My husband’s having an affair, she thought, it’s just a fact. A cold undeniable fact, he’s having an affair. That’s all, nothing more. Because you didn’t want to. He’s sleeping with another woman because he doesn’t love you. He never loved you. He’s found a younger woman to sleep with and that’s that. My husband. Billy. Billy’s fucking another woman. She broke down into sobs, and her head fell against the steering wheel of the car. “Why me? What have I done to deserve this?” She tried to dry her eyes with the sleeve of her dress, but she couldn’t stop her eyes from running. “I don’t want Susie to see me like this all the time. I’m so stupid, how can I be so stupid?”

After a few minutes she sniffed and tried to breathe deeply. Susie would know what to do, all she had to do was tell Susie.

A mini-cab pulled up in front of her car. She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand. She felt so conspicuous sitting there. She imagined all the neighbours were looking at her and knew what had happened.

She got out of the car, and closed the door. As she crossed the road, she saw a girl she didn’t recognise leave Susie’s house, and close the front door behind her. Katy opened the gate and walked up the steps, oblivious to the girl coming towards her. The girl stumbled on a step, and Katy brusquely brushed shoulders with her as she passed.

“What’s your problem, man?” She asked her snootily.

“Kiss my arse.” Katy replied, continuing up the steps, without looking back.

Fifi shrugged nonchalantly, “I’ll bear it in mind,” and then more loudly, “a friend of Susie’s is a friend of mine!” She giggled skipping down the steps, over the road, and into the waiting mini-cab.

Katy heard classical music playing loudly as she approached Susie’s front door. She brushed her eyes with her fingers, straightened her hair and rang the doorbell. She waited. There was no answer. She doubted it had even been heard above the music. The curtains of the living room were drawn at the large front bay window as she passed, and as she came round the side of the house the music got louder. She was almost at the back of the house when she smelt something like raisin josticks wafting in the air, and the noise was incredible it sounded like the whole orchestra was in the living-room.

She turned the corner into the garden and she could see the French patio doors of the back of the living room wide open. She walked round the open patio doors and stepped into the living room. The whole molecular structure of her brain suddenly seemed to fly apart at once and she froze.

“Hiya,” Susie smiled beneath the din of the music, her cheek rubbing up and down against the tiger fur rug opposite the fireplace, her naked breasts swinging over the edge of a pouffe, her hips held in the air by two muscular arms, her naked legs tight together in a parabolic arc raised up before the hypotenuse of Billy’s naked body standing there facing her, her feet locked around his neck, his face fraught with concentration and beads of sweat.

Katy fell to her knees, surrealistically watching them in profile, like a little girl who didn’t understand what they were doing, as Billy’s hips gyrated against Susie’s, his buttocks tensing with each thrust, his disgusting thing disappearing inside her to the rousing strains of the symphony.

“You’re so big,” Susie moaned. “You’re so big!”

Stephen suddenly jumped out of his chair behind Katy, leaving his joint smoking in the ashtray, and thrashed his penis wildly in the air in every direction as he approached her.

“Billy!” Katy finally screamed shaking as the shock of the horror hit her, not noticing Stephen behind her.

“It’s so good to see you,” Stephen said between clenched teeth into Katy’s ear, standing naked behind her.

She spun her head around, and stared into his throbbing penis which suddenly spat into her face like a water pistol filled with cream.

Katy screamed and flung her arm out wildly and sent him flying across the room. Billy let go of Susie as Stephen collapsed on top of him, toppling them into a heap of naked bodies, like dying buffalos, on the rug. Billy lay underneath them all, his curly blonde head turned towards Katy, his arm outstretched, laughing.

“BILL-Y!” Katy yelled hysterically above the din of the loud music, swiping the white stuff off her face with the palms of her hands.

“What are you doing here?” Billy mouthed at her, giggling.

Susie suddenly saw the anger drawing across Katy’s face and nervously began untangling herself and pulled her husband away from Billy. “It’s not really Billy, Susie, remember?”

Katy picked up the vase on the table and threw it at her. “Fuck you, bitch!”

“No. It’s not me, honey.” Billy shouted. “I’m a dying soldier.” And laughed, crawling forward to the ashtray on the coffee table. “One last toke before I die.”

“You bitch, you ... ” Katy threw the ashtray at Susie and then began picking up the China ornaments from the corner stand and throwing them at her. “Bitch! You fucking Bitch!”

Stephen stood in front of Susie trying to block the throws, getting painfully hit on his body as he backed her out of the room then turned and quickly ran out locking the door behind them. Katy ran up to the door and banged on it with her fists and then grabbed the curved dagger off the wall and began stabbing at the door with it, chipping the wood into splinters.

Billy tried to stand up but his legs failed him and he fell back on the floor. “Honey, chill out, please?” He mumbled incoherently, as relaxed as if he was talking to an actress in a film playing the part of his wife.

“I’m calling the police!” Susie screamed at the splintering door from the hall.

“Call the Police you druggy HOARE!” Katy slashed at the door, and began kicking at the panelling.

Stephen looked nervously at his wife and then back at the door. The dagger was penetrating the door now, but not as much as her kicks were breaking a hole through the paneling below. He shook his head at his wife and handed her a coat and put on one himself and ran to the door in his bare feet.

“You frigid fat FUCK!” Susie screamed.

Katy gave one final kick and the bottom panel gave way.

Stephen and Susie jumped out the front door and he slammed it shut and scrambled with his keys to double-bolt it.

“Try and break this down you bitch!” Susie shouted through the letterbox smiling insanely while Stephen anxiously tried to pull her away.

Suddenly there was a tremendous crash to their left and Katy came smashing through the bay window like a bomb, splinters and shards of glass flying over their heads.

“Jesus Fuck!” Stephen stared at Katy’s body lying motionless on the grass beside them. “What … Shit!” And then rushed to unlock the front-door. “We’ve got to call an ambulance.”

“She’s dead!” Susie stared down at her friend in disbelief, her voice faltering. She looked up at the huge horizontal crack in the bay windows, the sharp edges of glass hanging up and down like teeth and the tongue of the curtains billowing between. “The fucking stupid fat bitch is dead?”

Stephen looked over his shoulder, his hands shaking. “Shut up!”

“She’s dead?” Susie carefully stepped towards Katy’s back, her face was turned away and Susie couldn’t see her eyelids suddenly open or the barely noticeable twinge of her hand on the knife she still held as she approached her.

“I can’t get this bloody door … ” Stephen’s hand was shaking too much to hold the key straight to unlock the front-door.

“She’s fucking dead?” Susie slowly leaned down to touch her back and Katy suddenly spun around.

“You bitch!” Katy screamed swinging the dagger in an arc at her.

Susie jumped back in time and the blade just missed her. “Are you fucking mad, you bitch!”

“Now … now, look, Katy.” Stephen tried to be calm holding his wife by the shoulders. Katy clumsily tried to struggle to her feet on all fours. “You shou-shou-shouldn’t move.” Katy wobbled precariously and immediately fell over her uncoordinated legs. She didn’t realise she had twisted her ankle; she was numb. And tried again. “We’ll… we’ll… call an ambulance, just stay there … ”

“Have you seen what you’ve done to my windows you bitch!” Susie screamed at her attempts in vein to find her balance, blood dripping down the side of her face.

“Come back.” Stephen pulled his wife away.

“You’re too fucking fat to stand-up.” Susie giggled hysterically. “And too fucking fat to fuck!”

“Leave her alone.” Stephen said, while Katy struggled to stand-up, but fell, yet again. Everything was dizzy, Stephen and Susie circling around, and the ground was like a rough sea, constantly rising and falling just when she thought she was stable. She stopped on all fours trying to breathe deeply and stop the world moving.

“You’re going to pay for that!” Susie pointed at the broken bay window, uncontrollable nervous energy shivering through her. “And the door and damages and everything! I’m going to sue your fat arse for everything you hear me bitch?” She shivered. “Nothing! You’ll have nothing! No Billy, no house, no Nothing. Billy hates you, he hates you, he hates you Bitch!”

But her voice was a blur to Katy, like she was speaking through a funnel with all the consonants merging with the vowels, Billy? ... Billy? … Was all she could make out. And then slowly the three Susie’s seemed to solidify into one and she felt the dagger in her hand and knew why she was trying to stand up: And Billy! Katy suddenly lunged at Susie.

“NO!” Stephen screamed, pulling his wife clear and down the footpath after him in bare feet, heading for their car.

Billy’s head was confused with all the noise and shouting. He crawled across the floor to Stephen’s half-smoked joint and fumbling with the lighter finally lit it. He took a deep breath and held it. This was heavy. This was too much. His eyes slowly closed as he exhaled and he collapsed like a punch-drunk boxer knocked out, falling flat on his back on the rug, his penis bouncing limply to rest on his right thigh.

Katy flung herself down the footpath after them, waving the dagger in the air at the retreating blurs. Stephen started the engine as Susie slammed the car door shut and Katy reached the gate.

“Fuck you Katy Fuck you!” Susie screamed out the window, unintentionally directing Katy to where she was; Katy rushed towards the voice and Susie wound the window up. “Go! Go!”

“I’m trying!” Stephen tried to shift the car into first gear, but couldn’t work the gears and the car jerked and stalled.

Katy’s vision was clearing and she reached the rear window in time to slam it with the base of the dagger, shattering it. Susie screamed. Stephen crunched through the gears and this time found first. The engine whizzed over-revving and coughed forward as the clutch was momentarily released. Katy fell on the ground beside the car, beside the wheel and slashed at the tyre hysterically. Suddenly the car lurched forward and down the street. Katy got up and limped after the car until it disappeared out of sight around the corner. In the distance she could hear the sound of a Police siren.

She turned, still panting, and ran limping back down the street to her own car, tears streaming down her face, crying, “Billy, Billy, My Billy.” The blood trickling from her chin and her right knee.

She stopped at her car and searched for her keys. She couldn’t find them. She smashed the side window with the blunt butt of the dagger and suddenly the high pitched car alarm went off, sounding like Billy’s palmtop only a hundred times louder. She began kicking the car, crying, “it wasn’t really Billy, it wasn’t really Billy,” over and over. The sound of the Police siren was closer and she gave up on her car and ran, still ranting and raving the lines, back down the side path of Susie’s house.

The Police siren was louder at the back of the house when she turned into the living room and saw her naked husband spread-eagled on the carpet, like a dead man. She stood above him and raised the dagger into the sky, but she stopped herself, staring at his sleeping babyface, and sunk to her knees beside him.

The Police Siren suddenly burst through the broken bay window, and abruptly stopped, and two Police officers slowly got out of the car and, fixing their truncheons to their belts like there was all the time in the world, casually strolled up to the house, observing the giant hole in the bay window like a clue.

“I’m so tired of being hurt, Billy.” Katy said. “But I know it wasn’t really you.”

The Police officers politely rang the doorbell.

“Even Susie said it wasn’t really you. ”

Katy lifted the curved blade, looking down at his naked body, the door chime ringing in her ears.

“It wasn’t really you, it was ...”

“And what did you do, Katy?” Stan insisted. “What do you do? Come on, Katy. You’re still in your perfect place, you’re perfectly safe, the sun is shining up here, what did you do down there? You’re still in your perfect place, Katy, under the tree, the smell of flowers on the breeze, what did you do?”

Katy didn’t reply. Her eyes were still closed but her head was jerking forward . She was sitting in the bathtub under the tree now with the dagger in her hand resting outside on the grass. When she looked beneath the reflection of the branches on the surface instead of her beautiful little goldfish she saw a school of ugly shocking pink bony penises, gills flapping below their engorged heads, swimming around her naked body - as if they had little minds of their own - trailing their bloody rudderless uprooted stringy tails behind and when she hugged her knees to her chest to move away from them, one of them tried to wiggle its way into her from underneath and she screamed stabbing at the water with the dagger, gashing her own legs, turning the water purple.

Chapter 61

Warning: This may cause offense

“This is a secret my uncle taught me but you can never tell anyone, O.K.? Have you heard of Excalibur’s sword?” Odin said with a giggle. “No, I can’t. I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“Please, Uncle Richard, go on. Please?” He said in his high-pitched voice, shaking the semi-naked army man doll in his right hand on the dressing table.

“Well, when you hold it in a special way it turns into a majic sword!”

“No!” He shook the doll. “Really?”

“You can do it, too, really, you can!”

“How Uncle Richard, show me how!”

“You must promise not to tell your mummy I told you?”

“Ahhh, Uncle Richard! Please! I promise! Please!”

“I’ll show you once and then you copy me.”

Odin stood up and undid his trousers and pulled them and his underpants down around his ankles. “Now it’s your turn.” He pulled down the dolls’ trousers. “My weenie’s the same as your weenie at the moment, but watch this!” He sat down and leaned the doll over the edge of the table to see, and started masturbating with the other hand, smiling, becoming more excited. “Can you see? Can you see? It’s getting bigger!”

He suddenly stopped, sat the doll up on the desk and picked up his arm. “Now you try, David.” He manoeuvred the doll’s hand over his groin. “Do it like this. That’s better, see?”

“Stop! It tickles!” David laughed.

“You do it then, but like this.” He began masturbating again, enjoying the attention.

“It isn’t as big as yours.”

“You need to practise, move your hand quicker.”

“It doesn’t work.”

“I’ll show you one last time.” Odin pretended to grip David’s penis with his thumb and forefinger and masturbate it. It made him feel even more excited. “Don’t fight. It won’t hurt, I promise. See? It’s getting bigger. It feels nice, doesn’t it? Just like Excalibur’s sword! And it can fire magic lightening!”

“Wow! How?”

“Like this!”

There was a sudden knock at the door, and without waiting for an answer, the AFM burst into the dressing room. He saw Odin sitting half-naked in profile on a chair in front of the mirror with his fat penis pointing up below his shirt and his head on the table between the legs of a spreadeagled naked army doll which he was licking with his tongue between the lips of his big grin.

“What the ...!” The AFM gasped.

“Please don’t tell, Please! I was only playing.” Odin wobbled urgently swinging around on the chair to face him struggling to pull his underpants up. The AFM couldn’t help noticing his penis like a stunted worm, beginning to shrivel up and disappear beneath the folds of his protruding belly. Odin wiped his oily hair flat with his dirty hand. The doll lay disjointed and twisted alone on the table.

The AFM was too stunned to speak.

“Please, please don’t tell them.” He begged, beginning to cry. “I’m Mummy’s favourite little boy. I am. I didn’t do anything. Ask David!”

The AFM winced. There was something ingenuous and manipulative about the tears coming from this grown-man.

“What you don’t believe me? David Devlin’s a liar, liar, pants on fire! I didn’t do anything!”

“Would you mind ... er, Uncle Richard, er, your trousers?”

Odin looked down glumly and swallowed. “Oh no, sorry.” He stood up and pulled up his trousers. He sat down again and still crying, quickly started to dress the doll on the table.

“Don’t touch the doll.” The AFM ran up with his clipboard in one hand and hastily snatched the doll away. He winced in disgust at the scribbled penis between his legs. “Shit!”

“Oh No!” Odin crossed his arms on the table and slumped down into them, hiding his face and began to cry even more loudly. “I’m in trouble again, aren’t I? You’re going to tell.”

The AFM pulled out the seat beside him and began to sit down. “Jesus Christ!” He suddenly jumped up feeling something nip him between the cheeks of his bottom. It was another doll but this one had no clothes on at all.

Odin suddenly stopped crying and stared at him. “You’ve woken up Alex!”

The AFM picked the naked doll up and dropped him on the table with the other one. “Shit!”

“Don’t you like boys?” Odin asked the AFM, trying to make him his friend, and wiping away the mucous from his nose on his sleeve.

“Excuse me?”

“The Romans liked boys, I read it in a magazine.” He’d got in prison, traded like the Children’s underwear pages from clothes catalogues, for his smoking allowance. The Romans didn’t get into trouble, he thought. “I’m not going to get into any trouble again, am I?”

“Just listen to me.” He began as slowly and calmly as he could. “In ten minutes, I’m going to have a nurse come and collect you to bring you on stage to play ‘What’s your Problem?’ Remember? You’re going to play a counselling game, remember? You’ll be on TV just like them.” He indicated the set in the corner showing Stan and Katy. “You have to pick Matt or Tony. ”

“Yes. I’m going to be on TV I know. When am I going to be on TV?”

“When the nurse collects you but you mustn’t ... As long as you don’t ... Play any more games ... Or,” he needed to say it for the nurse’s sake, ”take your ... Your underpants or trousers down again. Do you understand? Just wait quietly, watch the television and wait for the nurse? Is that clear?”

“In ten minutes, I’m going to be on television!” Odin grinned doing up his belt.

“That’s right.” The AFM said regrettably and closed the door. People like that should be ... And then he remembered Matt and Tony, God help them ... With him?

Chapter 62

Heavier and heavier...

Katy’s scream filled the auditorium like a supersonic boom and the crowd cheered. Camera 2 got a close-up of Katy as she collapsed in on herself in the big armchair and began crying uncontrollably, punching her thighs with her fists. Stan knew that she would never succumb to any further hypnotic attempts to extract information and she was unlikely to confess out of generosity in the last ten minutes so he had no other option; He had to get nasty.

“It’s all over, Katy.” He began softly, the crowd hushed. “It’s all over. Can you hear me?”

“I’m no good,” Katy sniveled, her body rocking backwards and forwards, “I’m just no good, no good.”

“You don’t need to picture your past anymore. It’s all over, I promise. You’re leaving that perfect garden now and becoming heavier and heavier...”

Katy leaned her neck back, hyperventilating through her nose at the bright studio lights and gripping the armrests for support.

“You’re gently floating down from the clouds, the earth is getting bigger and bigger as you float closer and closer, you’re seeing buildings and backyards, heavier and heavier, and you’re finally falling back into your comfortable seat in the studio where we started, feel your body in it, move your body in it, and you’re not at all surprised by all the studio lights and people watching when I tell you to wake up because you’ve had such a pleasant and peaceful rest. In fact, when I tell you to open your eyes, you will have forgotten everything you have told me but you will feel assured, ” his lips drooled the vowel sound, “that the most important people in your life, your mother and father, your little sister Helen, are all healthy and well, just like you. You will feel peaceful and calm. You will feel alert and aware of your surroundings…” He paused to look up at the high studio ceiling and around at the studio audience, how times had changed. Now he was the mercenary, but for an apple so big he would never live long enough to eat it all. He reminded himself that generations to come back home in the promised land would though, and exhaled. “You will indeed feel grateful for having had such a deep and relaxing rest. On the count of three you will open your eyes. One... Two...Three! Good evening, Katy?”

Katy opened her eyes as if startled.

“It’s almost all over now, Katy, where have you been?”

Katy took a deep breath looking around her chair for the security guard that had just dropped her there. She touched her cheek and wondered why it was wet.

“Look at the clock if you don’t believe me.” She looked up and couldn’t believe it but felt curiously relieved, as if she’d been running for miles, not sure where she was going, and had looked up to see a road sign, and suddenly remembered where she was going and it wasn’t far. She could make it, for once in her life, she could win.

“And you’ve hardly said anything wrong.” Stan reassured her. “Look at the metre, no forfeits in what ... fifty minutes?”

Fifty minutes? Katy marveled, fighting back the will to smile, to feel good about herself, to feel proud of something.

“Let me tell you a few things about your life, but try not to say ‘no’, remember, and you’ll be fine. O.K.?”

“Yes.” Katy replied confidently.

He let go of her hand and settled comfortably back in his chair. “Katy Penelope White,” he began. ‘How do you know my maiden name?’ She thought. “When you were a little girl, do you remember playing in the garden while your parents were having sex?”

Katy didn’t say anything. She tried to remember. She wrinkled her forehead, searching. It was so faint she could hardly see it. It couldn’t be true.

“ ... No!” Katy replied without thinking and then bit her lip as the farting forfeit sounded and the metre struck one. The crowd whooped with joy overexcitedly, playing into Stan’s hands, exactly as he’d planned.

Chapter 63

Freedom to grieve

Sunday 22nd July

We are all praying for Sister N in her time of grief, and deeply feel her sense of loss. She has such tremendous faith, though, and is so brave. To hear her sing this evening, Psalm 23, ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...’ almost moved me to tears. She told me how close she was to her mother, and I wanted to hug her like my own child, and assure her that I would always be there for her, but Mother M has told us all quietly to give her the space and freedom to grieve she needs on her own without any pressure from us, to heal herself. It is so hard for me but I must respect this.

Chapter 64

He knew, but how?

“When you were a teenager, Katy, you fantasised about having sex in the garden yourself and daddy-sub was ‘hugging intensely’ with ‘ecstatic love’ but the reality of sex the first time was a little different to your expectations, wasn’t it?”

“What do you mean?” Katy searched his eyes.

“I’m referring to the loss of your virginity. What was his name again? Don’t, it’s coming to me…” Stan pretended to think. “Yes, that’s right, Gordon, wasn’t it?”

“How did you ... ?” Katy assumed that she must have told Dr Jacqui McThorn, and he’d got the file somehow. There was nothing odd about that.

“I can almost imagine it. The playboy-quilted mattress, the lights off while your undressed, the red underwear you were too shy to remove. Did you enjoy it?”

She stared at him between slit thick eyelids. He knew, but how? She hadn’t told Dr Jacqui those details, surely? Something was wrong, something was very wrong.

“Yes.” She lied between gritted teeth, determined not to let him win when she was this close.

“Can you look at the camera and say that please?”

“Yes.” She said to him, “Yes,” then to Camera 2, “Yes,” then to him again.

“You like cameras, don’t you? I’m sure the pictures were very flattering. He wasn’t very careful, though, was he?”

“No.” She seethed as another loud fart was heard throughout the auditorium, and her forfeits digitally doubled. The crowd roared. Camera 7 cut to a close-up of the audience swaying their hands in front of their noses.

Backstage in her Counselling star’s dressing room Sister Liz glared at the monitor she’d belittled herself to switch back on and recited Proverbs 16:4 to herself; “The Lord works out everything for his own ends—even the wicked for a day of disaster.”

Chapter 65

God of Death

“'High God, El, is so pleased with his son,'” Lucy recited breathlessly kneeling on Gareth’s tongue, saliva dribbling on her lips, before quickly sucking Gareth’s erection again to make sure it didn’t go away. “'Anat is so pleased that he won.'”

Gareth moaned, slurping her more keenly.

Stacy quickly searched their book for the position and the words ‘pleased that he won’ but all she could find besides a picture of an ‘optional sixty-nine position’ was a reference to Anat being El’s concubine at some point, which not only confused her even more but it wasn’t even in this ritual. “I think they’ve resumed the ritual, Bob. But I haven’t a clue where they are.”

“'All is in harmony,'” Lucy licked the round smooth tip and dribbled, “'but Yam’s far from happy.'” Gareth gripped her calves tightly and apprehensively although he didn’t know why there was just something in the tone of her voice. “'And kills Baal,'” Lucy bit the head sharply in reparation for his orgasm and tightly squeezed his testicles in her fist. “'When he’s not looking on!'”

“'Gods Have Mercy!'” Gareth let out an anguished cry that wasn’t in the script, but the Gods had obviously willed it thus; He had to continue.

“'Baal descends to Mot, God of Death.'” He roared and quickly swiped her anus with his tongue before pulling back for air. “'No rain or winds blow without Baal’s breath.'” And heroically ducked back under and drew his aching tongue down the entire length of her lips to her anus, and back again, and again, wetting his beard, soaking it with her love.

“'Anat cries herself dry.'” Lucy piped excitedly, her body telling her that now there was a chance of them completing their ritual together as Gareth rapidly tongued between her holes before resorting back to long gentle licks and felt Lucy’s hips bucking with pleasure.

“'Desert and Infertile.'” Lucy lamented but with joy. Gar was right. Gar was Baal. And Baal was reminding her with his spiritual tongue of his former prescient glory, and the resurrection to come.

“AND HE’S SUCKING HER LIKE A TUB OF ICECREAM!” Bob was off like a starting gate raised, “SHE’S POURING OUT THE VANILLA LOVE SAUCE AND SUCKING HIM LIKE THE LARGEST CHOCOLATE FLAKE IN THE WORLD! THIS ISN’T A SIXTY-NINE, STACE, IT’S A FUCKING NINETY-NINE CORNET AND SORBET!”

Stacy leaned forward in her chair to angle her shoulders and arms out of her navy blue blazer awkwardly, while Bob was in full swing with his attention fixed on Lucy as she turned and began to reverse down her husband’s body. She put the blazer over the back of her chair, and then straightened her white blouse. She wasn’t sure why, but she had become hot and a little sweaty all of a sudden.

” … ALMOST … ALMOST … NAIL-BITINGLY NEAR AND REVERSING … ADJUSTING … A LITTLE LEFT … AND WILL SHE? SHE WILL BECAUSE … AND ... AND IT’S ONE SMALL STEP FOR MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MAN’S KIND!”

Stacy quickly picked her mic up off the desk. “She made it look so easy, Bob, it certainly isn’t the first time she’s tried. She must be,” She noticed Bob staring at her blouse as she spoke, ”incredibly focused which can’t be easy with all the cameras and audience around and people staring at you, Bob.”

“You’re right THERE, Stace.” Bob snapped his eyes away from the front of her blouse. “BUT DOES SHE LOVE IT OR WHAT? LOOK AT HER SETTLING INTO THAT SLOW COMFORTABLE EASY RYTHMN LIKE A RUBBER DUCK IN BATH WATER!”

“'El mourns … repentant … that Baal died,'” Lucy slowly recited in between short breaths, then lay her cheek on Gareth’s hairless chest, rocking gently back and forwards.

“She doesn’t fucking know anything!” Tony grinned at Matt on the Centre stage, looking over at Katy. “And she told him!”

“How would you like it?” Matt said sadly. “You haven’t got a clue what she’s been through have you?”

Chapter 66

I know everything about you

“Do you want to talk about the abortion?” Stan smiled.

“No.” Katy turned her head away, fighting the urge to cry, trying to force herself not to think and just concentrate on the countdown clock. “I don’t remember.”

“Fair enough. That’s a very pretty locket you’ve got around your neck, Katy. What’s inside?”

Katy ignored him. If she didn’t look at him, he wasn’t so frightening. Let him talk.

“Yes, it’s coming to me. There’s a picture of a baby, yes, that’s you inside!”

Katy suddenly grabbed the locket and stared at him. How did he know that?

“Sorry, two babies, one is you and the other one is a baby boy. It’s the locket your father gave you on your wedding day. It’s a picture of the man you were about to marry. It’s a picture of the man you met at the school reunion. He became a lawyer. What’s his name? No, don’t tell me, it’s coming to me ... Billy?”

“No!” Katy cried out. “You can’t see that.” She grabbed her hair in two tufts. “It’s impossible!”

The forfeit metre increased to four as the farting subsided.

“I know everything about you, Katy. You can’t hide anything from me. He used to shout at you, ‘You fuckin’ fat bitch ... ’, ‘you fat cunt ... ’, ’go on a fuckin’ diet you fat pig’ didn’t he?”

“NO!”

“Your little sister’s name is Helen, your best friend’s name is Susie, Susie husband’s name is Stephen ...”

“No! You’re evil! I’m not listening!” She locked her hands over her ears like a vice.

“Why deny the truth? You told your best friend Susie one night when you both got drunk. Remember that? You smashed a bottle of gin over the coffee table. I was there, I was watching you Katy all those years ago.”

“You can’t have been. It was only me and Susie.”

“How else would I know? Didn’t you tell Susie that Billy said you put on weight to put him off and Susie said all men were penises, and you said ... ”

“No! Stop it! Why are you doing this to me? I feel sick.”

“I’m only trying to help you remember, Katy. Tell me about your husband’s mistress, what was her name again?”

“I don’t remember. ”

“Let me guess ... Fifi? Didn’t you find Billy’s palmtop in his suit encrusted with your vomit flashing her name?”

“No!” Katy screamed moving back in her seat, away from him, as if he was some kind of evil spirit. How did he know?

Stan only smiled, “then you went round to Susie’s for support but found her with Billy instead?”

“No!”

The continuous farting sound around them echoed as the forfeit metre stopped at Nine for Nine pieces of clothing.

Stan closed his eyes. “I can picture you chasing Susie and Stephen with some sort of dagger. They’re in a car now, driving away.” Stan opened his eyes. “They got away in the car and you returned to find Billy lying naked asleep on the living-room carpet.”

“You were at the trial.” Katy sobbed. “You weren’t there. ”

The trial? Stan thought, of course. “So you finally remember now?”

“Yes.”

“You knelt beside him and you raised the dagger?”

Katy dug her front teeth into her bottom-lip painfully, her face bursting with the strain.

Chapter 67

How the devil inside was tempting love

Thursday 2nd August

Sister N came to my room in the middle of the night in a dreadful state. If I have ever needed to write it is now. I don’t know where to start. I feel absolutely awful. I can’t sit still, I can’t stand up, I can’t lie down, I’m tired of pacing up and down the room. I haven’t even got the strength to pray. My faith has abandoned me. It is the devil’s own work. ‘All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest we were by nature objects of wrath’ (Ephesians 1:23;3).

I feel like Satan himself is inside me and however hard I rub my stomach he won’t leave. I don’t know what to do. I feel like screaming but I can’t wake up the other sisters. I can’t have them see me like this. And what if Sister N tells them?

I simply couldn’t bear to live. But it wasn’t my fault. I said Sister N needs help. The Devil’s inside her, not me. She came to me, I didn’t go to her.

I asked her why she was crying and all she could say over and over again was why me? Why me? It was three o’clock in the morning and I didn’t turn her away. I got out of bed and sat her down on my desk chair. I tried to calm her down. She was shivering in her white nightie even though it’s such a warm night I was sleeping with one sheet for a cover. I told her to take deep breaths and relax. Everything’s going to be alright, I assured her. I didn’t know what else to say, I didn’t even know what was wrong.

Eventually, when it was clear that she was hysterical, I told her I keep a little medicine for emergencies like this and went to the corner of the room and lifted up the lino, and the floorboards right in front of her, without a further thought that she might tell someone.

I poured her a large brandy. She choked a little, but it seemed to settle her, and she thanked me. I gave her some tissues and she blew her nose and dried her eyes. She sat there, leaning forward, knees together, her heals splayed with toes pointing in, and her chin resting on her chest; She looked like a wooden puppet whose strings had just been cut.

You’re so kind to me, she said, I don’t deserve it.

I refilled her glass.

I couldn’t stop crying, she said, you’re the only person I can trust.

I remembered her journal and thought that’s a lie. She could have come to me before, if she really trusted me. Why did it have to be three o’clock in the morning?

I feel so alone, she said.

We’re all alone when the time comes, I told her. I was only beginning to think clearly. I’m a very heavy sleeper and not used to being social when I wake up.

She took a sip of brandy. Her nightie was soaked through with perspiration, sagging with dampness under the armpits.

You’ll catch a death of a cold in that, I said and fetched her a clean bed sheet.

Without a thought for modesty, she stood up and pulled the nightie over her head in front of me. Of course, she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. I know some women enjoy looking at other women out of curiosity but I have never felt so affronted in my life. There was nowhere else to look.

I couldn’t help but notice she had the full firm bosom I had foolishly expected in vain to come every single day of my adolescent little girl’s life. Or that she had a small feminine pot of a belly, but carried no weight on her hips, where it had disproportionately piled up on me in spite of my otherwise slim frame. And when she turned to swing the bed-sheet around her, I noticed that her thighs were taut without a trace of cellulite. I hate my thighs. I don’t know why she needed to show off like that in front of me, so unashamedly. She took all the time in the world to unfold and wrap around a simple sheet so I could observe.

Perhaps she was trying to make me jealous, sitting there like a little naked angel shrouded in brilliant white, beside my table lamp. I wouldn’t want a body like hers anyway. It would lead to pride, which would lead to envy which at least I know is a sin. But I couldn’t see what she was really doing, at the time. How the devil inside her was tempting me. I was looking at her face and her round childlike eyes, her physical features, unaware that he was working behind them, making her attractive in a cruel, unsisterly, almost sexual manner.

I can’t go on anymore. I can’t. I must sleep, I’m so tired. ‘Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all iniquity and cleanse me from sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me’ (Psalm 51). I will continue in the morning when I can think more clearly about what happened afterwards. I simply can’t bring myself to consider anymore right now.

Chapter 68

Perpetrated and Perpetuated

“You couldn’t help yourself,” Stan said, “you loved him so much, you stopped him from ever hurting you again, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” Katy saw herself with the dagger in her hand and Billy lying there in front of her naked.

“That’s good, Katy.” Stan realised she had lied to him before, but it didn’t matter now. “Just answer this last question. Did you stab him to death?”

She heard herself saying, “it wasn’t really you, it was your ... ” As she lifted the disgusting thing up, pinching the head between her left thumb and forefinger—and saw Billy smile distantly behind closed lids. “No.” Katy smiled faintly unaware of the forfeit sound or metre rising behind her.

“What?” Stan was taken aback. “Then what did you do?”

I smiled back sliding the curved blade over his pubic hair to its root, oblivious to the ringing door chime. I suddenly realised that it was such a simple thing to do. Anyone else would have done the same thing in my position. “I can’t remember, I told you. ”

“Don’t give me that fucking bullshit, Katy.” Stan flipped. “Tell me what you did!”

I pictured our innocent baby faces together side by side. I have to do it hard and fast I thought or it won’t be a clean cut. I slammed my eyes shut for courage, and then I yanked on the handle with all my might. “No!” Katy winced.

“You’ve got the fucking dagger in your hand Katy, Billy’s lying there like a helpless baby...”

“And he fucking told me off for swearing.” Tony said to Matt seriously.

“You know what you fucking did.” Stan stood up, shaking with rage. “Tell me!”

“Don’t! No!” I felt it slice through the flesh like hard cheese until the blade suddenly jerked into thin air and with a little pull and a snap it was all free. “I don’t know!”

“You fucking do know you fucking lying black nigger cunt! Tell me!”

And then it was there in my hand like a slimy wet fish slipping in my grip and I was falling backwards with Billy’s hand on my chest and I could hear him screaming at the vacant red gash between his legs. “Nothing. I didn’t do anything.”

You weren’t at the trial, were you? Katy thought smiling to herself and noticing the countdown clock flashing down to almost nothing and quietly observed Stan’s panic-stricken face. In the back of her mind, it was a huge release to do it to someone else, perhaps that’s why it is perpetrated and perpetuated. The aquarium bathtub was hers, she could already imagine floating in it, light as a feather, full of little brown fish, blue fish and green fish—but not pink fish, they look too pale—swimming around and then added dreamily. “Nothing except kiss it.”

“What? Kiss what? You kissed him, you said, it, you kissed it, his ... Penis?”

“Yes.”

Why the fuck would you do that? He thought. You hated it? It was disgusting?

“She’s done it.” Matt breathed excitedly to Tony. “She’s won!”

Tony sneered at Matt, cracking his knuckles, “who cares! Ready?”

“You don’t know what’s it’s like out there, do you?”

“Fuck you loser! Bring the next counsellor out, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“How could you have,” Matt said to himself, turning away, “you’re only a child.”

“Fuck you!” Tony pushed him.

Stan was rapidly recalculating. The clock whizzed 1:26:54, 53, 52, 51, 50, 49, 48, 47 ... Hundredths of a second, ever faster. He fought with himself mentally, forcing himself to replay the highlights of his interrogation as fast as he could. The clue, the clue, where’s the clue? Chanted like a mantra in his head, simultaneously reviewing their conversation, her replies flashing by at such speed like they were lampposts on the motorway; Yes, no, I don’t remember, I told you, I don’t know, nothing except kiss it, yes. What was missing?

Katy stared at the digital clock, feeling stronger with each passing moment. He would be doing all twelve forfeits for her—and take all his clothes off and have a nice little shave in fifty-five, fifty-four, fifty-three seconds ...

Stan focused on the last statement she’d agreed with ‘you stopped him from hurting you forever’. So he was right, she had acted, but how? What did she do that could possibly stop Billy from ever hurting her again besides murder? How did he hurt her? He had an affair. He slept with her best friend. Did she kill them? No. They were gone. It had to be something else. What else could stop her from having children? She kissed his dick. Why would she kiss it? It didn’t deserve a ... Stan suddenly pictured Katy kneeling in front of Billy’s naked body with the curved dagger at her side, and felt a cold shiver down his spine at the thought. He shook his head at her scarred lame wedding ring finger. It wasn’t Billy that hurt her at all, was it?

The clock read 00:23:06 ...

“Katy?” Stan began.

“Yes?” She smiled.

The display flashed, the final buzzer rang on 00:00:00 and Chris bounded onto the stage crossing his arms in front of his face and shouted, “DEAD On Time! STOP!”

Stan smiled back at Katy. “Did they manage to sew it back on?”

Chapter 69

Pause for thought

“DEAD!” the word whispered at him from the television set diverting his attention. When Judge Prickles looked over his spectacles to examine the cause he saw a man with green hair and an orange suit standing beside a rather tired looking old Jew facing a huge black lady in shock. Had he missed anything? He couldn’t have. He’d just tuned in. That was only, he checked his watch and disappointingly realised, an hour and a half ago! Old age had a habit of playing these nasty tricks on one. Annoyed with himself, he left his memo glowing on the computer screen to make himself a glass of port and stopped on the way back, by the tall unnetted window, to stare out onto the moon-lit lawn. It gave him pause for thought.

Above the hedges at the back, he could just see the faint orange glow of streetlamps in the distance. He wondered at the myriad of crimes being committed beyond; muggings, wife-battering, fraud, drug-dealings, rapes. It was an increasingly vile world that people chose to live in. They would say they had no choice, but then why did they commit the crimes? They didn’t think. It certainly wasn’t his sort that committed them. And spare one the protest of poverty! Their women clearly ate enough for three - judging by the look of that one on the screen - and their men drunk enough for ten; and more if they were on government handouts(!) He’d heard enough cases in his career to know it was genetic, there was nothing you could do to help them; there was no substitute for good breeding. One had to maintain one’s distance from that class of person for fear of catching something. Without authority they would, no doubt, tear themselves to shreds. Lots of bodies, lots of common dead bodies. He took a sip from his little glass. Not such a bad thought.

The greatest pleasure in the world was doing nothing except think, he admired his ghostly reflection in the glass pane softly lit by the glow of the computer screen behind him on his desk. But not any thinking. All such people as their women and men thought about was who was going out with, or what goal was scored by whom; A daily diet of thoughts as nutritional for the brain as fish and chips for the body, and producing just as many excess fatty cells in the wrong place. But their fat women weren’t interested in their men having a ‘six-pack’ in the brain department. Their men could have abundant folds of flab around their brains and their waists as long as they still looked like a footballer in their Saturday night best; a number ten shirt! And, more importantly, were able to ‘keep it up’ after drinking the barrel dry in order to reproduce a cackle of little blighters in their own image.

‘Shallow’ was too generous a description for them, he thought to himself. They had given up thinking altogether, and in their mundane jobs and with their mundane hobbies, they had stopped existing. Cogito Ergo sum.

On the other hand, there were those who thought too much. He smiled, reminded of a story told by his old Philosophy Professor at Oxford who had sadly passed on. The subject of his young student’s essay was,′ Where is the proof that I exist?”

He paused in his reminiscence to consider the solid gold statue of Osiris suckling Horus dimly lit in the display cabinet to his right; Her majestic crown of horns embedding a gold sun, her hair in two bands behind her ears over her shoulders to the front cut parallel above the breast like a Pharaoh. She was infinite and priceless. He wondered how many more similar golden treasures of the Essenes lay waiting to be discovered among their buried treasure before suddenly trying to remember what he had been thinking about before?

The student, yes, had spent all that night trying to prove to the professor that he was a man, that he actually existed; how could he prove that he wasn’t dreaming now or that his dream-state was in fact his true existence? How could he prove he wasn’t in fact the dream of someone else? The young student sweated and turned in his bed restlessly unable to sleep. By the morning he was exhausted and desperate. At class, with heavy grey bags under his eyes, he frantically asked the professor, “How do I know I am?”

The Professor simply replied. “Who’s asking me?”

Shame he was dead.

Thought for the sake of thinking was no good at all, and thinking about what wasn’t worth thinking about was even more stupid. If one thought too much about what the ignorant thought, one inevitably thought ignorantly. Why should he be disappointed about the show?

He turned his mind, instead, back to the safety and purity of his memorandum and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was impossible for him to imagine that there were people who had never heard of them or their plight and were more interested in other things; impossible to imagine that if one told them two millennia old texts had been found fifty years ago that their response might be, ‘So what?’ Unless he mentioned treasure! They wanted everything for nothing; Forget the hard work, ‘just give us the money’, forget the history, ‘just give us the clue’. It was impossible for him to imagine that they were probably more interested in TV than the spiritual insights of these ancient hidden scrolls.

But it was just as well.

He returned to the source of light in the room, the glow from his computer, and his worn leather-in-laid desk to write about what the Dead Sea Scrolls contained in his memorandum marked ‘Private and Confidential’, strictly for the worshipful brother, of course, who, like him, always thought about why, and what, he was thinking. Unlike, he snobberily reflected with his long nose parallel with the desk while he read the screen, some who would just have to wait a little longer for his consideration.

Chapter 70

Is that your final answer, Stan?

In the cyclic glare of the flashing lights Chris took his mark, standing between the seated figures of Stan and Katy, and on either side of them, Tonky and Tiny. “Wasn’t that marvelous, folks? Let’s hear it one more time for Stan and Katy!” The audience obliged, obediently clapping, but cheering Stan’s name.

“Now before I ask Stan what he thinks Katy’s problem is, I’m going to give you in the audience a chance to ask them any questions but remember Katy can only answer Yes or No. So, hands up? Let’s Meet the Peeps!” Chris ran up into the audience, while the WyP? jingle played. “I love this bit, wait I’m coming to you. Yes sir?”

“I think you should be ashamed of yourself woman, throwing up while your old fella’s trynna do the business.” The audience clapped egging him on,” What’s the matter with you? That’s sick! Get a life!”

Katy didn’t know what the man was referring to. She couldn’t and didn’t respond, but felt piqued by the anger in the young man’s voice.

“Madam?” Chris raised the microphone to the lady’s face.

“This is disgusting, and men like him should be ... ”

“Not Stan my Man?”

“Whatever his name is, he has no right to take advantage of a poor black woman like that. It is none of his business. He should be ashamed...”

“Nonsense! He should be borne aloft and carried on our shoulders. Wasn’t he excellent?”

The audience started chanting, “Stan! Stan! Stan!”

“One more, you’re the last one, madam.”

“Listen, sister, if you don’t love yourself, ain’t nobody gonna do it for you!”

“Thankyou ladies and gentlemen, now it’s time to solve our first conundrum!” The jingle played again and Chris rushed back to the Arena to stand shoulder to shoulder between Katy and Stan at the front of the stage. “Let’s welcome back the beautiful Dr Jacqui McThorn!”

Dr Jacqui came on stage to the theme from the Doctor’s TV Show smiling and waving an envelope at the audience in one hand and carrying a trophy in the other. Chris kissed her on both cheeks before turning to Stan.

“Now I’m going to ask you Stan my man,” his voice had an air of gravity to it,” a very simple question. Don’t rush yourself, take your time, an awful lot of kit, and possibly yours, is riding on this and that’s before we get the scissors out. Remember what everyone’s said. Are you ready?”

Stan nodded once.

“Cue drumroll.” The AD ordered from the Gallery.

“Stan my Man, please tell the audience here, and the viewers at home, in one sentence, exactly What Is Mrs Katy Penelope Lawrence’s Problem?”

The audience went silent in anticipation, as the drumroll reverberated around the studio.

Stan had no doubts when he answered, “She castrated her husband.”

Dr Jacqui smiled to herself sinking her chin to her chest to hide it, and pretending to study the envelope in her hand.

“Is that your final answer, Stan?” Chris teased. “We’ve already asked the audience but are you sure you don’t want to go fifty/fifty or phone a friend? But, seriously, Stan, can you tell us why you think she did something like that to him?”

“I think that’s obvious from what she said, need I repeat it?”

“If you don’t want to go home with a new haircut!”

“She castrated her husband because he was having an affair with her best friend and there was some evidence he had physically and sexually abused her.”

“Are you sure that’s all?”

“She also believes she was raped by her first boyfriend from which she may harbor negative feelings towards men and the male member which may be a contributory factor.”

“OK. For the last time, is there any other possible reason you can think of as to why she did it?”

Stan narrowed his eyes on Chris. Was he trying to wind him up? Or make him change his answer? “Absolutely not. I stand by what I have said.”

“Fine.” Chris breathed in deeply. “Then for our studio audience and the viewers at home,” he paused, “let’s find out now! Dr Jacqui, would you please open and read us Katy’s Revelation!”

Searchlights swept around the packed arena like helicopters searching for a missing suspect. Katy had waited ninety minutes to find out if being alone would be everything, that’s all, and now she would know.

Up in the Control Room, Derek stared at the monitor in disbelief with Sister Liz’s open journal in his lap. Stan couldn’t be serious? What kind of bitch would do something like that to a bloke? It wasn’t natural, surely?

Chapter 71

The turn of the means to pay

Saturday 3rd August

I didn’t see Sister N today. It has been two days since she came to my room. Today I re-read the books of Job and Ecclesiastes, desperately soul-searching for comfort, reason and help from Her Word, to bring me out of the blind despair I find myself in. I feel like a mole burrowing a tunnel underground, through the dirt of the earth, blindly digging deeper and further away from the light, unable to turn around and go back, trapped on either side by the walls I have created, on a path I thought was right, but only ever leads to a darker site. Because of things I did in the beginning, it is the turn of the means to pay for there is no end to justify them in sight. I am as empty as the earth, full of the tunnels I’ve dug, dreaming of the possessions of the sky.

I am sure I would have done something stupid to end this awful plight, had I not re-read Romans and found these lines, which express more clearly and precisely anything I might be able to write:

‘We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the Law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it’ (Romans 7:14 - 20). It’s not me. Amen. Goodnight.”

Chapter 72

The Revelation

Dr Jacqui opened the envelope with her nail, clutching the trophy under her arm.

Final Judgement rested on Katy’s right shoulder in the form of Chris’s pally hand, like a priest’s, patting all the good things she’d ever done like winning beauty pageants, getting married, making Everdale a home; and on the left shoulder, the invisible heaviness of all her mistakes weighing her lopsidedly down away from him like unforgiving her own mother, having an abortion, being an unfit wife unable to return her husband’s love and worse... She toyed with the locket around her neck, dreading what Dr Jacqui would say.

Chris’ other hand rested on Stan’s left shoulder, beside her, standing there like a skeletal groom, with a groom’s look of an anticipated pride of acquisition and quiet confidence as he waited on Dr Jacqui’s words.

Dr Jacqui pulled out the paper and unfolded it, “I just want to wish both of you luck whatever happens.” She cleared her throat and as she began to read it her words appeared on the cinema screen behind her:

“Mrs Katy Lawrence was circumcised at the age of three by her maternal grandmother in a non-routine and medically unsupervised operation to remove her clitoris and labia major and minor. This had the consequence of removing any pleasure she would have later been able to derive from sexual activity. She identified the pain suffered during sex, with her husband’s penis and following the discovery of his infidelity with her best friend, she irreversibly castrated her husband William Harold Albert Lawrence, removing the opportunity for them to ever have children together. After the High Court dismissed her plea of insanity and found her guilty of Grievous Bodily Harm, she served eighteen months at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, Holloway Women’s Prison, London, and was released after nine months for good behaviour. No action was ever brought against her grandmother, or her mother, although such operations are frowned upon by the government of Mali. Female circumcision continues to be practiced there to this day.”

The audience clapped and whistled wildly, as the W.Y.P. theme music played eight bars, although there were a few boos from some men seeming to question the leniency of the nine-month sentence.

“I’m sorry.” Stan tried to catch Katy’s attention, but she hung her head low, rubbing her lame wedding-ring finger, as if ashamed to look anyone in the eye.

“How could anyone do that to a child?” Matt said observing from the Centre Stage.

“How could a woman do that to a bloke?” Derek said watching them on the monitor in the Gallery.

“So, who’s right?” Chris asked Dr Jacqui.

Chapter 73

I told you so

“Can I just say,” I turned to face the camera directly, “I told you so. Call me a Genius, right, but let me explain why.

“Firstly, the grass is always greener on the other side; her parents were enjoying something that she would never be able to—sex—and maybe she was rubbing herself because the pain was still down there which would explain why she was calling Stan ‘Granny’; it was her Granny, after all, who had done this awful thing to her, not Stan.

“Secondly, Coitus Interruptus, well I admit I got that bit wrong, but come on, nobody’s perfect!

“Thirdly, a stitch in time saves nine; you keep itching that stitch to get where you want to go quicker, subconsciously maybe telling Stan that she wanted him to know what had happened and maybe underneath it all, her itching not only symbolised what had been done to her but what she had done to her husband.

“Fourthly, one hand washes another? How did she stop Gordon entering her for so long when she apparently wanted to have sex? Maybe she could neither help him or help herself because to begin with it wasn’t a normal setup downstairs, if you catch my drift, and she was not stimulated because of her circumcision and therefore there was no natural lubrication. One hand literally couldn’t wash the other, if you’ll excuse the crude analogy.

“Fifthly, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? Did she blame Stan’s sex? Maybe she freaked out not because she was mad at Stan but because she mentally confused Billy and Gordon, as Stan had done. Two figures from the past she could not attack now so she had to go for Stan. But why confuse these two? Maybe she blamed Billy for Gordon’s rape and maybe she even thought she had wrongly attacked Billy’s penis instead and just couldn’t handle it.

“Sixthly, blood is thicker than water; However much she wanted one hand to wash another, whether it was Gordon or Billy, she never could because her blood relative, her granny, had done this awful thing to her, which her mother had allowed to happen and her father had tried to stop. As Dr Jacqui said, female circumcision is still practiced to this day, not just in Mali, but other third world countries, too, and it is, ironically, usually perpetuated by female bloodline relatives. Women are sometimes their own worst enemy!

“Seventhly, with friends like these who needs enemies; why wouldn’t Katy let her best friend in? Maybe because Katy’s best friend was never truly her best friend.

“Eighthly, two’s company three’s a crowd? If this is what Susie felt comfortable talking to Katy about, how much more would she feel comfortable talking to Stephen about? The way Susie was talking about her husband and sex it wouldn’t surprise me if she was a bit of a connoisseur of sex, to put it politely, or a swinger. She even told Katy, and remember the condition Katy was in, to try being someone else in bed, a possible allusion to perhaps being herself, Susie, in Billy’s bed? Penultimately, I told you, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander; Maybe Susie had already had what Katy had. Susie may not have been contradicting herself by acting like she’s playing a game on the one hand and insisting on an answer to her question about Billy’s size on the other because maybe she was playing a game and knew how big Billy was all along.

“And finally, actions speak louder than words ; Katy may have smashed the bottle because the something worse that Katy was repressing about Susie and may find difficult to express was that she sensed that Susie was playing a game with her and couldn’t bear to think that, in spite of her keen interest in his anatomy, it involved her husband more directly. Ironically and subconsciously perhaps, Susie’s constant demand for details about Billy’s penis and her assertion that ‘all men were penises’ and ‘it was not Billy it was his penis’ may have contributed to its demise?′

“I keep on saying maybe because I am not a psychiatrist and I am only trying to explain the clues I gathered from Stan’s counselling session as I gathered them, although I must confess - and you’ll probably hate me for admitting this - I knew the outcome before Stan started.

“That is, I knew that Katy had been circumcised and castrated her husband, but that was all, I hadn’t a clue how or why, or the journey that Stan would take to try and get there. The rest is down to Stan and my guesswork and in all honesty, not that it’ll change anything, your guess as to why she did it is as good as mine. Although you got to admit my guesses were pretty good and my proverbs pointed to the outcome ages before it was revealed, right?

“Only Katy really knows why she did it, but then again, I doubt even that. Perhaps no one knows and we’ll never truly know why. There are probably, in fact, millions of reasons and if yours is better than mine, then stick with it. But, Dr Jacqui is itching to give hers now and by the looks of it, she doesn’t seem to have any doubts at all. She’s pretty cute, right, Matt-my-mate?”

Chapter 74

A Moral Dilemma

Dr Jacqui averted her eyes bashfully. “Thank you, Chris. If we look back at my summary,” Katy’s Part-1 Summary Mental State Examination re-appeared on the central scoreboard, “I drew your attention to her psychiatric history: Outbursts of a violent nature, you can see, kicking doors, throwing things etc.; Admits to feeling angry under stress; Memory impairment; History of self-harm, most notably her ‘severe laceration to her third digit’ and I even went on to point out the association between self-harm and underlying impulses to harm others. My prognosis would ... ”

“I’m sorry, doc.” Chris interrupted. “But the thing I don’t understand is why she put on so much weight. Can you explain that to us? Katy was a beauty queen!”

Dr Jacqui breathed deeply. “That’s a very subjective question, Chris. I couldn’t possibly ... ”

“Go on, just shoot from the hip for once!”

“Katy may have put on weight because she couldn’t find any pleasure in sex - food was her only pleasure in life. Equally, such a beautiful woman, and I suppose the first woman most men would probably dream of sleeping with could have subconsciously made herself become the last woman men would dream of sleeping with to avoid sex. Or because she didn’t enjoy it maybe she couldn’t imagine any other human being would. In her mind perhaps it was only natural to be castrated and everyone should be. Is that possible, Katy? Did you enjoy castrating him?”

“No.” Katy winced painfully.

Dr Jacqui smiled at Chris and raised her eyebrows, “Of course, not. ”

“Now we’ve got a problem here, doc, because Stan didn’t manage to find out that she was circumcised which may have been an important contributory cause.”

“That’s irrelevant.” The Captain objected. “So am I! It doesn’t make me prone to violence!”

“Male circumcision is an entirely different thing to female circumcision.” Dr Jacqui said. “Especially when it involves the removal of the clitoris! The foreskin is hardly a source of pleasure like the labia - it is merely a piece of skin, thus its name fore-skin!”

“FUCK YOU!” Tony screamed from the Centre stage, standing up on his stool. “I said FUCK YOU!”

“And what is the labia made out of Doctor.” The Captain argued. “Bone?”

“FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!”

“This is puerile nonsense! There are twice as many nerve endings in the clitoris than the glans of the penis and the labia are ...”

“FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!”

“What is actually puerile, doctor, is your assumption regardless, that this may have had any influence on her behaviour, unless you are able to enlighten me with any research evidence of the corollary?”

“If you can’t see the difference between male and female circumcision, Captain Boglosovic, I doubt there’s any medical research you’d understand.”

“FUCK YOU! CAN YOU HEAR ME! FUCK YOU!” Tony screamed ineffectually; his mic was off.

“Precisely, you can’t.”

“Stop! Peace! STOP PEACE!” Chris held his arms out. “Let me say Stan, that it was the show’s judgement that her circumcision had an effect on Katy’s behaviour and if we follow the Buddhist idea of Karma, every cause has an effect. No, no, wait, let me finish. You were so good I’m surprised you didn’t work it out actually, but maybe it’s like that analogy of the spot of dirt on your glasses, if it’s always there you don’t notice it, I mean, because you were circumcised yourself. But we have to decide a winner, and under the circumstances I think it’s only fair to let the audience decide.” There was a round of applause. Tony quit shouting and sat back down on his stool. “But can I ask you all to please remember that whoever you don’t vote for to win, will have to do the sex-fun forfeit. This does create a certain moral dilemma, I’m afraid.

“Some of you may think that whatever happened to Katy, no man deserves what she did to her husband, Billy. After all, two wrongs don’t make a right. Billy couldn’t help the fact that she didn’t enjoy sex because she was circumcised. He didn’t circumcise her. He didn’t even know she was circumcised because she wouldn’t let him see her. In which case, you should give Stan the benefit of the doubt - since he got most of it right - and vote for Stan, and make Katy do the forfeit, she may have done time but that’s over now and Billy still had to live with it, or I mean without it, until he died. However ... ”

“When and how did he die?” Stan interrupted.

“Six years later in a car crash.” Dr Jacqui said. “You didn’t work that out either!”

“However, some of you may think that Billy deserved what happened to him. Any man who is sexually and physically abusive to his wife and is unfaithful does not deserve to be a man. After all, they say, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It is important to stop men from ever doing that to another woman and the only guaranteed way to be sure, for sexual abusers and rapists is castration. In which case, you should also remember her circumcision was the loss of her entire female sexual identity and it made it impossible for her to enjoy sex so give Katy the benefit of the doubt when deciding if this didn’t have an influence on her actions and vote for Katy, and make Stan do the forfeit for failing to identify this important contributory factor and arguing that the loss of a clitoris is less than a penis.”

“Finally, you can’t vote for both of them. Any abstentions in the seats on the right of the auditorium will automatically be given to Katy and any on the left, to Stan. So you must vote and the decision is yours. I’m only glad that I don’t have to! Please decide and press your keypads now!”

Tony nudged Matt. “A fucking old man and that fat bitch?”

“What?”

“Who’d want to see either of them in the buff?”

Chapter 75

The audience’s decision

The house lights came up and the cameras tracked the audience pressing their keypads as the orchestra played a terse part to heighten the tension until the gong sounded.

Chris held Katy and Stan’s hands as they faced the cinema screen at the back of the stage and a giant bar chart. “Good luck both of you. Ladies first, could we please have the votes for Katy to win.” Underneath her name at the top of the chart a blue bar rose up the percentage vertical scale, passed ten per cent, passed twenty, thirty, and stopped at forty-three per cent to a giant round of applause. “That’s very good Katy.” Chris gripped her hand tightly. “It doesn’t include abstentions, you could still win. And the votes for Stan, please?” Underneath his name a red bar rose up passed ten per cent, twenty, thirty but stopped just short of forty at thirty-nine per cent, to an even louder round of applause.

“This is preposterous!” Stan objected, pulling his hand free from Chris.

Katy allowed herself a smile, trembling with excitement and gripping Chris’s hand so tightly he thought it would stop the flow of blood there.

“I don’t believe the fat bitch has won!” Tony choked on the Centre stage.

“Well done, Katy.” Chris beamed at her. She wouldn’t have deserved the forfeit anyway. She’d already been through hell with Stan, and in her life, and paid the price of time in prison for what she’d done to Billy; there was justice in the world, after all.

It took a moment for Chris’ words to sink in; after all this, after everything, she’d won? Her eyes swelled with tears.

“What’s wrong?” Chris asked her.

Katy turned her head away. “I haven’t won at anything for so long. It’s like being slim again.”

“Wait.” Chris smiled. “You’re about ninety per cent of the way there and it only remains for the record, and for that Aquarium Bathtub of yours, Katy, can we see the abstentions and have Katy’s first, please?”

A small box appeared to the right of the graph titled Abstentions and besides Katy’s name red neon symbols flashed: ‘6 %’.

“Oh my GOD!” Matt cried out on the Centre stage watching the smile spread across Stan’s face.

“What?” Tony said. “You haven’t seen the other votes for Stan yet you dickhead!”

Chris could barely bring himself to speak. “And the abstentions for Stan please?”

Besides Stan’s name the red neon symbol flashed: ’12%′ to a chorus of loud disapproving jeers and boos from the audience.

“The audience’s vote ... ” Chris swallowed and looked down to the right at the floor. “Makes Stan our forfeit free first-round winner.” He looked up with pitiful eyes. “With Fifty-one per cent of the total audience’s vote.” There were a few cheers and some applause but it was drowned out by a terrific hubble of dissent. Chris shook Stan’s hand without looking him in the eye, and Stan shook Katy’s hand.

“What? I don’t understand.” Katy panicked. “I won the vote, the people who abstained didn’t vote!”

“Which I suppose means ... ” Chris couldn’t bring himself to announce Katy’s forfeit. “... means that you don’t believe Katy’s circumcision had anything to do with why she did it or two wrongs don’t make a right!”

Women in the audience were on their feet shouting now. “FIX! FIX! FIX!”

“But I won.” Katy said innocently.

Chris glumly looked back. What could he do? “WAIT! Wait! Let me say something, please, that I probably shouldn’t but I will anyway.” He waited for the drone to die down. “I’m personally against this decision.”

A huge cheer rose in the audience

“Jesus Christ, Chris!” The Proddir immediately buzzed in his ear from the Gallery. “What are you doing? Get on with the forfeit!”

“I am. I am. Wait. I am against this decision. Not because it’s undemocratic but because of the abstentions.” There were more cheers. “Forgive me for getting moral for a second but if you didn’t vote you probably think the issue doesn’t affect you, but Katy, here, is the one that’s gonna have to pay, like all the little girls being forced to be barbarically circumcised against their will as we speak because we don’t do anything to stop it!”

The women in the audience clapped their approval.

“For God’s sake move on to the Forfeit, Chris.” The Proddir urged in his ear. “This is not the time or place for a lecture. Move on!”

“All of us ... Wait a second, listen up .... All of us are responsible for humanity, including me and including you, sir, and you, madam, and if we abstain we’re still responsible. It’s no use saying you were merely in the wrong place at the time.”

“It’s time to move on Chris.” The Proddir insisted. “Fifi’s waiting. They’re all waiting for you. Move on NOW!”

“Doing ... Let me just finish on this ... Doing ... Doing nothing is a decision with consequences. And the eighteen people or per cent of you that abstained or didn’t bother to vote are responsible for this outcome. You’re bang OUT OF ORDER!”

“But I won.” Katy cried. “It says abstentions!”

The audience were on their feet now giving him a standing ovation with cries of, ‘Car-rot, Car-rot, Car-rot. ’

Upstairs in the Gallery the Proddir rubbed her tired eyes with her hands, leaned her neck back and opened them on Mildred’s fourth Summary Ratings Stats, shocked that Katy’s likeability ratio (KAT) had dropped dramatically to practically Stan’s (STN) level and poor Chris (CHR) was still nine per cent less popular than expected, quickly perusing all the stats again from the start : POR: 5%, ODN: 0%, SEX 4%, MAT 4%, LIZ 0%, KAT –10%, CHR: -9%, ENT: 8%, TON 7%, MOR –1%, HUM: -1%, CNS 4%, M/F –9%, LEX 1%, STN –11%, AUD –10%. The Porn stage (POR) was slightly more popular than the Counselling stage (CNS) now but both were still above expectations. More women than men (M/F) were watching now but the overall share of the audience (AUD) had dramatically dropped ten per cent below expectations. If they didn’t do something quick how many more would go? “Chris,” the Proddir begged in Chris’ ear nicely, “you have to move on to the Forfeit, now. Please? Do it for me, darling? Please?”

The cheering died down with Chris smiling and nodding up at the Gallery.

“Thank you. Stop it! More! Stop it! More!” Chris laughed. “But I’m getting a message in my ear. What’s that? Why can’t we let them both win?” The audience began to applaud but Chris waved them quickly down, holding his hand to his ear. “I don’t care if I told them the rules before they voted ... How can abstentions be the decider? ... Well, you know I was against it? ... OK. Just this once. I’m sorry about that Ladies and Gentleman but the Producers had to make a decision. Katy,” Chris held both her hands in his and looked her in the eyes, “I’m sorry, I'm afraid you’re going to have to do the Forfeit, Trev?”

The men in the audience suddenly cheered and Katy didn’t understand why.

The orchestra began to play a gruesome funeral march, the lights in the Arena dimmed and thunder and lightning sound effects shook and lit the Arena as the Giant Studio doors slowly opened.

“You haven’t seen him for twenty-five years,” Trevor announced excitedly, but tonight we have invited a special friend of yours on the show to help you play Sex-Forfeit-Fun, Katy, any ideas?”

Katy couldn’t think, what was happening? It was all happening too fast.

“He certainly hasn’t seen you without your clothes on for at least that long.” Trevor quipped, “except in photographs, do you recognise this voice from the past?”

“Don’t worry, baby,” Gordon said into the mic backstage at the Contestant Stage Entrance and tipped his cowboy hat back. “I’m using contraception. Coitus Interruptus, remember? Smile for the birdy!”

Chapter 76

His former virgin front teeth

Katy stared into the flash of a camera bulb followed by the greedy bulging smiley eyes she recognised as Gordon Watford walked into the Arena in his cowboy hat and with his silver camera hanging around his neck, nestling like a giant medallion in the hairy chest of his half- undone shirt between the frilled beige suede of his cowboy jacket tassels.

Katy began hyperventilating as he cockily walked across the floor of the Arena towards her, clicking the heels of his cowboy boots on the studio floor.

Stan curiously observed Katy’s rising agitation and turned to study the cause of it approaching, in a cowboy outfit? How could such a trivial non-entity, he thought assessing the man, still perturb such a brave, sensitive and beautiful woman as Katy?

But what’s even more bizarre, he found himself thinking, is if that seedy low-life layabout lays so much as one exploratory finger on her, I will be obliged to ensure that it is the last conscious decision he ever makes. He squeezed his left wrist pressing his nails into the veins underneath to maintain calm and dignity.

“Welcome to the show Gordon.” Chris shook his hand with no more than politeness. “This is Stan.”

Gordon went to shake his hand but pulled it back to give a Hitler salute, with the finger of his other hand over his top lip above his fully displayed perfect white teeth. Stan turned his head away in disgust. “Only joking, buddy! Terrific work out there, old man. Spellbinding! Fantabulous!” His jaw jigging as he chewed gum.

“And you remember Katy?”

“How could I forget?” Gordon held his arms wide open inviting a hug, grinning widely. “Coitus Interruptus, eh? Eh?” He laughed to himself, self-mockingly. “Those were the days, eh love? Give us a hug!”

Katy was perfectly still, eyes expanding to take in the full sight of him; The face had aged but his look hadn’t changed, and like a catapult suddenly firing she lunged herself at him.

The audience stood up at once and began to cheer Katy on, their loyalties switched as quickly to her as they had previously to Stan. “Katy! Katy! Katy!” She clawed at his face with one hand, struggling over his cheeks towards his scrunched-up eyelids with two fingers.

Gordon tried to push her off him by the shoulders, and bend his head away from her reach, but he couldn’t see what he was doing. All he could think about was she’s going for my eyes. “Not my eyes,” he pleaded. “Shit! I need my eyes.” Before he was silenced by choking on her finger.

Katy pulled his head by the strands of his albino hair from side to side with her right hand as if it was a ball she was wrestling away from a dog, and struggled to penetrate his face with her left hand, determined to get her fingers into the socket holes of his bowling-ball like head as her wedding ring finger was being shoved in and out of his mouth.

Gordon felt the metallic taste of the ring as it slid on his tongue fucking his mouth and reaching down his throat. Panicking and gagging on it, he suddenly found that he couldn’t breathe, her palm blocking the airway through his flattened nose. Clamping his jaw on the bone between the knuckle and the ring as tightly as he could, and holding it immobile, he urgently waited for the pain to hit Katy, but she acted as if she didn’t feel a thing, and continued to thrash his head from side to side and grip deeper towards his eye sockets. He ground his rear teeth on the digit in his mouth as if he was a dog chewing a lifeless stick but she still acted as if she didn’t feel a thing; The surgeons had been unable to re-attach the nerves on that finger.

She pulled her finger out and he could suddenly breathe but as it did so he felt the diamond ring chip his front tooth, before re-entering as unwelcomely as it had departed, beyond his control.

The attack had happened so quickly that Tiny, who was standing behind Katy, had no sooner realised he was watching a fight than he realised he should be stopping one. And then he reacted, twenty-seven seconds before, but that’s still almost half a minute before - he would later argue - Tonky responded. Leaping forward to wrap his arms around Katy he tried to hold her still in a bear hug but she struggled in his arms, kicking her legs out.

Gordon, suddenly liberated, thrashed out blindly at where he thought she was but fell back into the body of Tonky like a slammed door. He lashed out a few more times before realising the attack was over, and then screamed, “My fucking eyes! The bitch went for my fucking eyes! I can’t see!” And then Katy watched the ‘Great’ G.o.r.d.o.n. W.a.t.f.o.r.d. start to cry, live on television, for all the world to see, bawling between the recently christened crack of his former virgin front teeth, as a little trickle of blood ran down his chin.

All Katy then did was wipe her finger dry on her smock and suck it clean but to Stan who was watching closely it was more. When she closed her eyes and gently inserted her finger into her mouth, to him, she was sucking it like Billy’s re-attached penis. Billy was complete again inside of her, like the other heart of the locket, and it didn’t matter how good Billy would have felt to be sucked like that because, like a baby’s dummy, sometimes it was reassuring enough just to do the sucking.

“He’s lucky she only went for his eyes!” Chris said. “I’m joking, of course, I’m joking.” Chris said returning from a safer distance.

Chris turned to Gordon. “Are you alright, mate? Just calm down, let him go.”

Gordon wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his cowboy jacket, and felt his chipped tooth with his tongue. “I’ll survive.” He spat, blinking courageously, tucking in his shirt and then pulled up his jeans by the large belt buckle. Tonky handed him back his cowboy hat. He put it on. “Let’s get on with it.”

Chris turned to the audience, “we all know that if you don’t win in life there’s always a forfeit—even if you don’t realise it.” Unaware that his wife, Mary, was urgently trying to speak to him on the phone to warn him about the show getting out of hand. “Let’s play Sex-Forfeit-Fun! Music Maestro?”

Katy wrestled helplessly against Tonky’s grip.

“Sweet Jesus, you can’t do this to her!” Matt suddenly blurted out. “It was all my fault!”

“You really are fucking nuts.” Tony cracked his knuckles. “You know that? You know that, you cunt?” And laughed. “You should have been a fucking abortion!”

Matt stared at the venom in Tony’s tongue and the snake-slit eyes staring back at him before he closed his own. What hope did they have now?

Chapter 77

Sex Forfeit Fun

At the nod of the conductor’s baton the orchestra began a seedy strip-club theme: wow-wow guitar strumming eighths off the beat, the drummer almost catching him with his cymbal as the bass drum and snare defined the groove and a double-bass plodded up and down stairs like a pimp strolling leisurely from his girl to his girl while the saxophone blew smoke rings like from an expectant lecherous pre-coital cigarette in between.

“Curtains please!” Chris declared. Tiny checked his mark on the stage and pulled Katy a little closer as a giant opaque Chinese screen descended before them, obscuring them from view.

“Lights!” Chris said and all the lights in the auditorium dimmed and suddenly powerful spotlights behind Tiny and Katy back-lit them so powerfully Tiny and Katy’s hard outlined black-shadowed bodies on the bright white curtain showed the edge of the creases in their clothes.

“They can’t do this!” Matt could see Katy on the other side of the screen shaking in Tiny’s grip.

“If you’d like to take your position.” Chris told Gordon.

Stan, standing in front of the curtain beside Chris, didn’t take his eyes off Gordon as he suddenly appeared larger than life on the curtain in shadow, facing Katy. Just one touch, kid, for the old man, he mentally threatened him.

“No!” Katy struggled to pull away seeing Gordon with a sick grin take a step towards her, half his face in dark shadow, but she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her shoulder as Tiny twisted her arm up even higher, and it hurt to move at all.

“This is for the people that didn’t vote.” Chris said bitterly. “Twelve pieces of clothing, not more, for Twelve forfeits. Got it? And I want to hear you call them out. Not one more single item than: Twelve. OK?”

“You betcha, Chris.” His eyes twitched uncontrollably as he smiled at Katy with his gapped teeth. “For old time’s sake, sweetheart.”

“You can’t!” Katy pulled back against Tiny and she felt a hard metal object stab her in the back.

“Let sex-forfeit-fun commence!” Chris said uncomfortably.

“That’s a pretty dress,” Gordon whispered in her ear, fingering the fabric of her jacket collar before tracing his hands lecherously over the buttons down the front of her sequined black evening dress. Katy flinched at his proximity. “It would be a shame to damage it.”

Carefully pinching the button and the buttonhole of the centre fastening between his fists he suddenly ripped the two halves of fabric apart, tearing the front into two ragged strips. “ONE!”

Katy shrieked and a huge cheer rose from the audience watching the shadow action on the curtain. Tiny looked at the large lit blank curtain with surprise as if he’d forgotten the audience was behind it watching them.

Just one touch for the old man, kid, please, Stan observed calmly.

“Please don’t, Gordon,” she said it like to a friend.

“Haven’t you put on weight?” Gordon looked her over with distaste, “you belong on a farm. But this,” Gordon delicately picked up the tiny locket that hung around her neck with his thumb and forefinger, “is nice.” Katy leaned her neck forward, and spat at him and before she had realised it Gordon had yanked the locket off her pulling out strands of Katy’s hair with it. “TWO! ”

Another cheer rose up from the audience.

“Don’t let them do this to me.” Katy pleaded. “They don’t know!”

“She doesn’t deserve this.” Her mother cried uncontrollably in the stalls, her father trying to comfort her. “She’s being crucified up there.”

“There is a screen, dear, she’s gonna be OK.”

“But you don’t know what she’s going through. She won!”

“You bitch!” Gordon wiped the spittle from his face with his sleeve. “You want this back?” He swung it temptingly in front of her on its chain, taunting her like a playground bully. “Well, you got to say please, sweetheart? It’s only polite?”

“Please.” Katy wheezed. “Please?”

The Proddir nervously reviewed Mildred’s fifth Summary Ratings Stats; Chris (CHR) was heading for disaster, and the audience (AUD) was similarly falling like flies: ENT 3%, CHR –12 %, TON: 7%, SEX 9%, AUD –12%, M/F 7%, MAT 4%, STN –9%, HUM 5%, MOR –4%, CNS –10%, KAT –5%, POR 7%, LEX –2%, ODN 0%, LIZ 0%. The only thing that had ‘improved’ was M/F which meant that more men were probably watching, but they were watching the other Porn stage (POR) not this Counselling stage (CNS). Counselling was ten per cent below expectations! They had to stop the forfeit!

“OK. Caught you ... ” Gordon stepped a foot back, “too late!” And threw it over the curtain. Stan bolted upright as it came flying over his head and into the audience. He turned to gaze at the kid in the funny hat with a cold renewed loathing.

“They are fucking grotesque, baby.” Gordon pushed the lapels of her jacket and the remaining sleeves of her dress over her shoulders to assess her bosom. “This is not a bra,” he fingered the taut straps decorated with tiny-laced bows, “it is more like industrial scaffolding. It’s got to,” he suddenly heaved the straps up, and over her shoulders, “Go!” And fought with a matrix of Katy’s and Tiny’s arms to pull the ragged bundle of her jacket, the sleeves of her dress and bra down to her waist. Katy struggled and Tiny tried to pull her closer to him but Gordon was in between jerking the bundle, and in the process clipped open the holster fastening on Tiny’s hip and the trigger and handle began to rub freely into Katy’s bare back painfully, the more she tried to move away. “THREE!”

Katy’s breasts flumped out like leather saddlebags over her enormous girth and the audience in the front row jolted back in their seats as their magnified image on the screen fell out at them.

Katy refused to cry out loud in front of him, but she couldn’t stop a tear running down her cheek. “Please don’t do this, Gordon?”

“Ah, that’s not a petticoat,” he ignored her, “that’s a parachute!” Snapping the elastic rim. “What have you got on underneath it?” He got down on his knees and lifted the laced hem to peep up.

Katy kicked out at him, but Gordon pulled back in time to avoid being hit. “Naughty, naughty, girl. Hey, that’s not fair, honey. I’m trying to do a job here.” He slipped his hand inside the petticoat and pulled the elastic beyond breaking point and ripped the thing off her. “FOUR!”

“Oh my,” Dr Jacqui stared at her cellulite ridden bottom in folds on the curtain which she thought looked like the silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock’s chubby face in reverse.

Gordon tipped his cowboy hat back, “God, you are an embarrassment, Katy White. To think I lowered myself to screwing you. Look at you? You’re a disgrace!” He kneeled in front of her again and took hold of the waist of her tights. “God, you stink!” He pulled them down. “FIVE!”

“No!” Katy couldn’t hold back any longer and began to cry. “This isn’t fair. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything!”

Suddenly there was pandemonium at the foot of the stage as the Floor Manager tried to placate, and Tonky hold back, a small but increasing group of women as another and then another clambered from the stalls and down the aisles to voice their protest.

Gordon took off her left shoe, and smelt it, “Eurrrrrr! What a whiff! SIX!” He threw it to the side and took the other shoe off and removed her tights from her ankles as she struggled to kick him. “SEVEN!” He stood back and pinched the bottom edges of her knickers.

“NO!” Katy screamed. “YOU DON’T KNOW ME! STOP!”

One woman screaming at the foot of the stage suddenly took off her own high heals and threw them over the screen at Gordon. Another began using the contents of her handbag like ammunition firing a hairbrush, compact mirror, lipstick and mobile phone over the screen before hammering Tonky with her handbag for trying to stop her. Another tried to attack one of the cameras with her hairspray before being wrestled to the floor by the shocked cameraman.

Gordon watched the items fall around him and grinned at the distant ruckus behind the screen, subdued by the orchestra. “This is going to hurt me, more than it is you, Katy. I can’t bear to look.” He turned his head away in a grimace, and shouted, “EURRRRRRRRR!” As he slid her panties down, and quickly moved away holding his nose as if disgusted by the stench. “EIGHT!”

Chris tried appeasing the protestors. “Please it’s only supposed to be a bit of harmless fun.” But he didn’t sound like he believed it himself and was more emotionally than physically hurt when one of the women threw her zippo lighter at him screaming. “Bastard!”

Gordon shook his head at the forest of her pubes nestling below the rolling mountainous escarpment of her waist and between the glacial valley edges of her thighs and then, looking closer, “Jesus H. Christ! I didn’t screw that did I? If you could see yourself, you’d vomit, Miss White. This’ll help ya”: He picked his camera up and the flash sparked as he clicked it in her face. “Terrible!” He moved closer and immediately clicked again, “Gross!” He came around to the side quickly, “Disgusting!”

Every time Katy pulled back away from him, she felt the trigger of Tiny’s gun pricking her like a spear in her side, just like when she'd resisted coming on stage, but without any clothes she screamed in agony as it began to cut into the skin.

“That’s IT!” Chris shouted. “Fucking STOP Gordon!”

The crowd began applauding as the lights rose in the auditorium and Katy’s chin fell to her chest. The curtain dimmed until Katy and her captors were invisible once more behind it.

Katy felt her insides turning inside out, saliva dripping from the corners of her mouth and blending with the tears falling down her cheeks.

Stan watched Gordon appear round the side of the curtain grinning and suddenly drop three times in size as he walked to join Chris.

“Alright chum!” Gordon stood beside Stan. Stan didn’t reply. He felt cowardly for not interfering and letting such an insignificant weasel of a man do this to her. Why? Because they were on TV? Did all human morality fly out of the window because of that? Surely it should have been the opposite. Surely, he should have felt a stronger desire to do the right thing if people were watching. But like certain Germans in the war, like an invisible hand, his fear of the concerted mass of opinion, had stopped him and he felt ashamed—even at such an elderly age—of calling himself a Jew.

“There were more forfeits than clothes.” Chris said slowly and stopped. He couldn’t continue.

“The show that shares their care and shaves them bare!” The Proddir prompted Chris in his ear, shaking her head, sticking to the script from fear more than anything else.

“I know what that means.” Chris seemed to say to himself. “But I just want to say something … ”

“Screw that!” The Proddir said worryingly staring at the statistics. “And cue Trevor Now!”

“You haven’t seen her since the trial,” Trevor’s voice boomed over Chris’ in the Arena. “Do you recognise this voice from the past, Katy?”

“A friend of Susie’s is a friend of mine!” Fifi said sprightly into the mic backstage at the Contestant Stage entrance hopping with scissors and a razor in one hand and a bucket of water and sponge in the other.

“That’s right, the lady who kept Billy warm while you were cold. Ladies and gentleman, please give a warm WyP? welcome to Miss Fiiiifffiiii Deeeeaaaan!”

Chapter 78

I see you’ve brought your own equipment

Fifi ignored the boos from the audience that accompanied her entrance on Stage swinging her hips in her short black leather mini-skirt water sloshing from her bucket in one hand and scissors in the other, remembering what Katy had done.

The first time she’d heard what had happened all she could think about was Billy not being able to have children now. She had met him after the accident when ‘he’d’ returned to work for a short while before the drink took over. ‘He’ was still a tall and strong-looking handsome ‘man’ in a smart suit but ‘he’ kissed differently, or maybe it was her imagination, but it felt like a brother, and ‘he’ joked that women didn’t need to remind him to put the seat down anymore, but ‘his’ eyes weren’t smiling on the rare occasions he looked at you directly. At odd times ‘he’d’ suddenly start crying inconsolably for no apparent reason. When she’d tried to reassure ‘him’ that there was more to being a man than having a penis ‘he’ was worse. And although her heart went out to ‘him’, she couldn’t help the fact that inside it did make a difference to her. When ‘he’ was angry it was like ‘he’ was throwing a tantrum; there was no real threat. And ‘his’ posture and stance had changed in subtle ways. ‘He’ wasn’t at all effeminate; it was just that when you looked ‘him’ up and down it was like there was no manly mystery there anymore. When ‘he’ told her the surgeons were going to build ‘him’ a new penis ‘he’d’ offered to show her how. And in spite of her squeamishness, she agreed.

‘He’ locked the office door, removed ‘his’ dark blue Armani jacket, lowered ‘his’ trousers and lifted ‘his’ shirt leaning back on the desk. When ‘he’ pulled down ‘his’ Calvin Klein black pants she could have fainted.

Instead of a penis, there saggy flaps stitched together in the middle like labia with a tiny three-millimetre plastic tube, held in place by a small round blue washer, sticking out in between, without any pubic hair.

When ‘he’ eagerly pulled the bare flaps down and pointed, explaining what they were going to do she stared obliviously at his hairy heavy thighs either side and his strong hands and his balls and a tear formed in her eye.

“What do you think?” Billy said, avoiding her eyes as usual and pulling up ‘his’ pants and trousers before picking up ‘his’ Armani jacket.

Fifi ran out of the room crying with her hand held over her mouth.

With her eyes set like a rottweilers on the curtain, she dropped the bucket in front of Chris.

He perfunctorily kissed her on the cheek once. “Thank you for joining us tonight, Fifi.”

“My pleasure!”

“I see you brought your own equipment. Have you got anything to say to Katy before you start?”

“Don’t worry, Katy.” She smiled at the screen, where Katy struggled against Tiny’s grip. “I’ll be as careful around your clit,” she snapped the scissors at her, “as you were around my Billy’s Hubull!”

Fifi didn’t know? Chris scratched the back of his head staring up at the roof of the arena and took a deep breath.

“The show that shares its care and shaves them bare.” The Proddir prompted him. “We’re losing them like flies, darling, if you don’t just get on with it. Do it!”

Chris swallowed. “I just want to say ... ”

“Jesus Christ Chris! It’s our money?”

Chris hesitated. But was it right? The house, Mary, Mr Coughlin, all the work he’d put in. But it wasn’t his fault. He didn’t vote, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time more than anyone! And this was his and Mary’s future. “I just want to say ... ” He had to say it, he had to and feeling sick to the stomach, finally did: “We’re the only show that shares its care and shaves them bare! If you’d like to take your place, Fifi?”

Gordon clapped loudly beside Stan watching Fifi’s cute little butt disappear round the curtain.

“And we’ll be back to see the finished masterpiece close up in all its glory but first we have to find out, Stan-my-man, what did you ask for if you won tonight?”

"A pension."

"Well, Trev?"

“Stan has won ... ” Trevor’s voiceover began and the TV screen filled with the VT replay of a safe opening in a bank, “ ... This fabulous $60,000 per year pension for the rest of your natural life!”

The Captain half-smiled at the irony for the first time in the whole show. It was better than the forfeit he'd suspected he'd get if he lost: prison, for the war crimes he suspected the show would have discovered he was wanted for. And that was a lot of money in Brazil where he was retired, far away from the eyes of the war crimes tribunals. But under the circumstances it felt like blood money.

"What about that, Stan-my-man?" Chris asked. "How do you feel, now?"

"Thank you." The Captain said and nothing more.

"Fantastic, I bet! Yes. Great. Now let's see Fifi's masterpiece in action!!"

Backstage in the Arena, Odin adjusted his tie by the Stage Entrance.

“Remember,” the nurse said, “you’ve got be strong out there, the contestants are very weak emotionally.”

“I know,” Odin grinned happily, “they’re like little boys, aren’t they? But I’m very good with little boys.”

Chapter 79

Now you’ll know what it feels like!

“Get away from me, get away from me!” Katy screamed as Fifi approached her.

“Now you’ll know what it feels like!” Fifi snapped the long scissors an inch away from Katy’s nose before kneeling and stroking the blunt edge of the blade down her inner thigh.

Tony winced and averted his head refusing to watch from the Centre stage.

Fifi opened the scissors and carefully lined them up horizontally across the tight black curls of her pubes. Katy stared down in horror at the sharp blades twinkling and then felt the cold twang of the blade touch her skin and her image of the top of Fifi’s head blurred in the dizziness as blood rushed to her brain super-consciously overloading it until the blur was her Granny facing her and she was eight years old being held down on the floor by her mummy and aunties in a back-room shack in Mali, weighing only five stones and two pounds. “Let me go! Let me go!” Katy screamed. “Don’t Granny!”

“I’m not your fucking granny you frigid fat fuck!” Fifi snapped the scissors shut. Lots of little black curlicues fell to the floor like plucked feathers. And she lined up the scissors and snapped again and again, horizontally and vertically, working inwards from the thighs.

“STOP! IT HURTS!” It’s diseased, Katy. “YOU’RE KILLING ME!”

Fifi ignored her incoherent ramblings switching to the razor now and lining it up at the centre to mow down the mocking Mohican she’d styled so carefully with a smile.

“PLEASE MUMMY NO!” It’ll start to rot and then she won’t be able to do anything about it. “NO!”

“I’m here baby.” Katy’s mother cried out in the front row, refrained in her seat by her father. “I know it was wrong, baby. I know.”

Fifi reached where the lips of her vagina should begin to appear where the clitoris should be ...

“NOOOoooo!” It will spread like a virus until your whole big black woman’s body is white with disease just like it. “NOOOOooooo!” You can never be free of it, if you don’t do it now, never!

Fifi carefully began to shave down the tiny curls an inch above her vagina, and then suddenly dropped the blade.

There was no clitoris just an ugly crude black scar and purple scabs around the stitches like beetles where it should have been. Fifi rocked back on her knees, crying, her arms wrapped around herself. “Who did this to you?”

“Is it over yet?” Katy said with resignation and then repeated herself as if she needed to be reassured. “Is it over?”

Katy was so still and placid Tiny released her arms behind her back and held her by the shoulders to steady her because she was trembling. Distantly Katy felt the gun stop digging into her back and her arms limply fell to her sides. The conflation of these two events was vaguely inspiring to Katy although she had difficulty drawing the conclusion. The physical relief of release from the gnawing pain in her back and the strain on her arms was overwhelming.

“I don’t believe what I’m seeing.” Fifi sobbed. “How could anyone do something that horrid to you?”

“What?” Tiny smiled, trying to look over Katy’s shoulders.

“Just look at her!”

“Turn around!” Tiny ordered, turning her by the shoulders and held his hands there, looking down at her body.

Katy stared at the ground, refusing to look to up, like a lifeless puppet.

“Fuck me!” Tiny said staring at the awful scar. “Wait till they see that!”

Katy raised her eyes to his waist without moving her head, staring at the gun in Tiny's unfastened holster and the conclusion suddenly hit her. She wasn’t a wispy white bitch with tin foil courage like Fifi, she wasn’t Mrs Lawrence, she wasn’t wearing Mrs Lawrence’s clothes, she was Katy, she was a strong proud black woman! And with a scream from nowhere she suddenly lunged her whole body at Tiny’s chest, her entire will intensely focused on a single intent with her hands outstretched.

“That’s enough to ... WHOAH!” Tiny’s elbows buckled against her sudden weight but with some force he straightened them. “What are you ... ?” But she was looking him straight in the eyes with such confidence and anger it seemed misplaced until he looked down and noticed what was in her hands and pointing straight at his crotch.

“Get ... Your ... Filthy ... White Fucking Hands ... Off me ... Now!”

Tiny immediately raised his hands in the air and stepped back. “Please ... ”

The fear in his eyes made her suddenly realise the power she had in her hands and she started shaking even more but had stopped crying. “And you!” She sniffed, waving the gun up at Fifi. “Get up!”

“Are you finished yet, Fifi?” Chris asked sadly from behind the screen.

“You answer him. Go on. ” Katy shook the gun at Fifi.

“What shall I say?”

“What’s the problem?” Chris asked with some concern.

“Answer him!”

“Yes.” Fifi squabbled nervously.

“I really don’t want to see this.” Chris said solemnly to the audience with one hand on his hips as if he was reconsidering but then shrugged and covered his eyes with the other hand as if it was the end. “Raise the final forfeit curtain!”

Chapter 80

A whole new parallel

“Do you know what they were doing all this time I thought they were only having sex?” Stacy asked Bob. “I think I’ve just figured out.” She put the book down. “This’ll blow your mind!”

“YOU’RE TELLING ME, STACE! AREN’T THEY BLOODY INCREDIBLEDIBLE?”

“Not that! It says here that the myths in the Enuma Elish were a verbal tradition handed on from generation to generation for thousands of years for a purpose, in a variety of different forms such as prayers, songs, dance long before they were actually written down. They were not considered fictional, people believed in them as much as their own existence and they were used to predict events far beyond their control. If you take out the sex because it doesn’t matter—it could be a dance or a song, it’s the myth that counts—you can actually see a whole new parallel meaning in the verses. And I think I’ve worked it out.”

“You want to take out the sex? But THAT’S THE BEST PART!”

“It’s all an analogy for what’s going to happen somewhere else, outside them, in the future. It’s a prediction, but about what?”

“What’s your point?” Bob asked, more confused than when she’d started.

“What could be they be predicting? And then I looked at the verses again.”

“Hold on. What has this got to do with sex?”

“Listen to the verses. “‘Baal fights with two magic weapons, Yam’s pounded and can’t carry on, Spare his life Asherah pleads, Have mercy on the sea, Baal stops.’ The wind is fighting the sea—it’s a storm—Could it be a season? Maybe Winter?”

“I don’t get it?”

“Listen. What comes next? ‘High God El is so pleased with his son, Anat is so pleased that he won, all is in harmony, but Yam’s far from happy, and kills Baal when he’s not looking on.’ All is in harmony, Bob. Couldn’t that be a season, too? What about Spring? And what comes after Spring? ‘Baal descends to Mot God of Death, no rain or winds blow without Baal’s breath, Anat cries herself dry desert and infertile, El mourns repentent that Baal died.’ Anat cries herself dry, do you see, desert and infertile? What season’s hot and dry like the desert? It has to Summer!”

“I’ve got a question, Stace. Are you out of your tiny MIND!”

“They’re predicting a cycle, a seasonal cycle. In those days they wouldn’t have known the Earth rotated, never mind around the sun, so how could they understand and predict the seasons? Why was there Winter and Summer? And if they can’t predict the seasons, how do they know when to plant or when to harvest? So they handed the reasons down in the myth. It all makes perfect sense. All the verses have been predicting what will happen next all along. It had nothing to do with the sex. I think that’s mind blowing, don’t you?”

“I think you’re mind certainly is blown, Stace. But just supposing you’re right, put us out of our misery, what do you think will happen next?”

“It has to be Autumn, when the flowers die. Listen.”

“It’s a bit like Katy’s story,” Derek laughed up in the Gallery listening to Stacy. “No, it is. Winter; Gordon rape; Spring; Meet new husband Billy; Summer; Desert and infertile - no sex; Autumn; Susie and Katy chops it off!! And Winter is pretty cold without no clothes on!! No, I think Stacy’s got a point, it was a prediction if you look for the hidden meanings.” He laughed.

The Proddir suddenly turned pale watching the monitor on the Contestant Stage. “Where’s the hidden meaning in she’s got Tiny’s gun!”

“What?!?”

“Do not, repeat, do not cut to Katy.” She ordered the AD. “Stay on the Porn Stage whatever happens! Chris, can you hear me? Do not panic, darling, do not panic! We’re coming to a Commercial break as soon as we can, as soon as we can. Don’t panic!”

Chapter 81

It wasn’t my fault

The curtain rose on the Contestant stage and in the sudden immediate silence of surprise that surrounded him especially after the Proddir shouting in his ear not to panic and feeling squeamish about looking at Katy’s scar, Chris lowered his hand from his eyes to see what all the fuss was about, and froze.

Katy stood there naked as if sacks of flesh were tied to her limbs between the folds of skin, sweat trickling from her brow and holding a shaking gun at Fifi.

“It was just sex between us, Billy loved you, Katy.” Fifi said urgently. “He told me he’d never leave his wife. He told that to Susie, too. Ask her if you don’t believe me. She wouldn’t leave him alone but he wouldn’t leave you. Everyone wanted Billy but he wouldn’t leave you, can’t you hear me? He said you were the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. You used to be a model, didn’t you?”

Katy’s eyes welled up and in her peripheral vision she saw the cowboy hat and suddenly turned the gun on Gordon.

“Don’t shoot!” He raised his arms in the air. “I was only playing you know that? What’s the harm in taking a few photos? Look! It’s gone.” He threw the camera on the floor.

“Please, you loved me once, remember?” Tears began to form in his eyes. “I never forced you to get in bed. I was only trying to make you feel more relaxed, you were so tense, remember?” He stared down at her half-shaven pubes and the tip of the awful scar. “I didn’t do that to you! It wasn’t my fault!”

Katy turned to the audience, searching the front rows for a familiar face.

The protestors at the front of the stage ducked as the gun stopped at them. They were not looking at her eyes, only the gun, but her mother was. Katy’s wet pleading eyes seemed to ask her mother why but her mother’s vacant crying eyes offered no comfort or remorse, just pity or shame, with her father’s arms around her and she leaned into his shoulder unable to look back anymore.

The gun began to shake in her hands, it was so heavy and yet so small.

“Put the gun down, Katy.” Chris took a step forward and Katy suddenly turned the gun on him.

“Hey! How can you blame me?” Chris said nervously.

“It’s your show mate!” Gordon said.

“I’m just the Presenter mate! Please put the gun down, Katy. It’s just a show, and you won. You’ve got the Aquarium Bathtub, I promise, you’ve got whatever you want. Just put the gun down. I remember your letter, it was such a lovely letter, Katy. You can have any coloured fish you want. Blue fish, pink fish ... ”

“NO!” Katy raised the shaking gun at him and the audience gasped.

“What did I say?” Chris put his hands up, looking between Katy and Dr Jacqui for support.

“This is not the answer, Katy.” Dr Jacqui said softly, more worried about Katy’s life, than protecting any on the stage. “Inflicting harm on others will never stop others inflicting harm on you, or yourself, you know that. It didn’t help with Billy, it didn’t help with your ... accident. ”

“STOP IT!” Katy’s finger shook on the trigger and then she turned back to Gordon, and then Fifi, and then the audience, and then her mother and then Chris and then Dr Jacqui in a whirlwind of confused attribution until Stan took a step towards her from the other direction as if from out of nowhere.

“It’s OK, Katy.” Katy held the gun on him with her back on the others. “Nobody’s guilty here. We’re all innocent. Do you understand?” He took a step forward staring intensely at her eyes. “Nobody can hurt you except yourself now. Do you understand?” Katy nodded fearfully as he took another step towards her, only a few feet away, firmly maintaining eye contact. “I want you to think about your perfect place. You’re perfectly peaceful and at rest, Katy.” He took another step forward, only another two. “You’re going back to your perfect place.” Katy nodded with a faint smile, tears trickling down her cheeks as he took another step. “Picture it, sitting under that tree, can you smell the flowers?” Katy closed her eyes and put the barrel of the gun to her head.

“DON’T!” Chris shouted.

Chapter 82

My need pains me inside

On top of the high ziggurat on the sunken silver bed like Gods in the clouds predicting mortal destiny, Lucy hugged Gareth’s lifeless body, eyes closed, her long red curls falling over his chest, gently rocking her hips on top of him. She lifted her knees to his thighs and slowly sat up drawing her fingers through his hair and over his chest. She lifted her knees to rest the soles of her feet flat on the bed either side of his chest, swaying on top of him. She arched her back, leaned her neck back, her hair falling like a veil before throwing her head forward and drawing her hair slowly over his face as she kissed his chest slowly sitting up again, back arching, leaning back, and forward again, getting faster, then slowly swaying in decreasing circles until she was still and he was still, filling her inside, whole. In the contemplative stillness that followed, with her eyes closed, they were one. And the same; Anat and her dead lover, Baal.

A loud explosion suddenly rocked the Arena from the Contestant stage.

Lucy was momentarily startled, her abdominals suddenly clenching her slim waist tighter, her vaginal muscles similarly squeezing Gareth underneath as if she was frightened of losing him and she opened her eyes. The bright light almost blinded her but as it diffused and her vision cleared, she saw him lying there as peaceful as a baby and safe and then remembered something he’d once said - We are them having sex. There’s no break in the continuum, no boundary line - and as she moved her hips she felt him alive down there again, too, so alive and the shock, like jumping in a hot bath, began to make him feel more invigorating and she felt a sudden wetness rush through her making her shiver.

“Denouncing thrown in sacrifice!” She dropped between his legs onto her back and moved her knees together over his navel, rocking slowly forwards. “What must I do?” She begged. “To redeem?” Urging his body to reciprocate with her own seeking release from this state of purgatory. She stopped to lift his left leg out and round and over hers, to lay on her right side, with her left knee on his chest and his penis still lodged inside.

“Anat despairs and wrought with grief,” She hugged Gareth’s left leg between her breasts and began moving her hips again her left foot pushing on the bed. “But seasons pass without relief.” She pushed harder, her wild red hair dancing on the silver bed like fire, but still he didn’t move.

She finally stopped, exhausted and breathing heavily. “This realm’s no more divine, my need pains me inside.”

Chapter 83

Whole Again

The stage had revolved and Tiny, Fifi, Gordon, the Captain and the AFM stood around Katy’s body backstage as the two nurses knelt at her side and tried to revive her.

There was a nasty bruise in her abdomen from the blank that had been fired from the gun, but it hadn't penetrated her skin. The warm-up man was desperately trying to reassure the audience that there were only blanks in the gun in messages on the cinema screen, and Katy had only fainted, and everything that could be done was being done and not to panic. But men were still climbing over women in seats and balancing along the backs of chairs to get out quicker; teenagers ducking under elbows and brusquely pushing in sideways to get to the front of the queue for the exit; couples getting separated by the mad push and waving directions where to meet outside. In only a matter of minutes at least ten per cent of the audience in the Arena had left to derisory cheers from those remaining. Some assumed that the gun Katy had was a stunt, rehearsed and planned as much as the rest of the show. Others stayed for the free refreshments that began appearing like the cases of sponsors’ lager being handed out aisle by aisle between those departing. Others moved forward to occupy the vacated seats in front for a better view.

Katy’s mother was a few feet away from Katy, crying into her husband’s shoulder backstage, and Chris was a few feet away from them crying into Dr Jacqui’s. “They didn’t fucking vote, Katy won!” He sobbed, instead of holding it together as he thought he would have done. It was just too much of a shock and he had too much riding on this.

Dr Jacqui patted his back. He wasn’t so confident, after all, inside, but she’d half suspected that all along. “It’s OK. Keep your voice down. Her parents can hear you. Katy’s going to be fine, I’m sure.”

“Why didn’t bloody Tiny say they were blanks? How am I supposed to know that! Did you see how real the gun looked?”

“It was real, Chris.”

“You see what I mean?”

“Is she OK?” The Proddir asked the mic to the AFM backstage.

“The nurses think she fainted, boss.” And then more quietly turning away from Katy’s parents. “But she's not moving, she’s just lying there.”

“This isn't happening!” The Proddir stared at Mildred’s sixth Summary Ratings Stats above the Control Panel; the audience figures (AUD) were falling through the floor alongside Morality (MOR): LEX 8%, SEX 14%, TON 8%, MOR –20%, POR 8%, CHR 6%, ENT –8%, MAT 6%, KAT 2%, LIZ 0%, AUD –16%, STN –8%, M/F 18, CNS –10%, ODN –2%, HUM –10%. She had to speak to Chris and punched through to his mic. “You got to go back out there and talk to the audience, darling. We’re coming up to the ad break now.”

“Fuck you!” Chris tore off his earpiece.

“Are you alright?” Matt asked Tony.

Tony wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “She was the same age as my mum!”

“That’s OK.” Mathew looked around at the empty stage they were on and the empty Contestant stage opposite, and the empty seats at the front. How long did they have now? “She’ll be fine.”

“I’m gonna kill, Stan!”

“You’ll be fine, don’t worry. “Mathew narrowed his eyes on the Stage Entrance. “We’ll all be fine.”

“Why does everybody pretend everything’s fine when it’s shit!”

“ ... AND, YES! AN ON TOP REVERSE SCISSOR SIDE SLAM DUNK FUCK!” Bob cheered from the platform as Lucy finally managed to hug Gareth’s left leg instead of the right between her breasts and began gyrating her hips again.

“'Must be a way,'” Lucy said. "'Anat believes' ... ”

“ ... IS THERE TIME, STACE? SOMEBODY CANCEL THE ADS! WHERE’S CUBA WHEN YOU NEED IT?”

The AFM marathon walked past the Contestant Stage Entrance, passed the toilets, passed the Porn Stars’ dressing room.

“We want a word with you about the Pussy Quiz!” Monica shouted after him from the open door.

“This is not the time.” The AFM panted, walking on passed the Cola dispensing machine and metal bin littered at its feet and passed Sister Liz and Odin.

“Take your hand out of there!” Sister Liz glared at Odin. “You’re disgusting!”

“Sorry.” Odin grinned and nervously pulled his hand out of the front of his trousers before patting his hair flat with it and lifting up the tip of his nose like a pig’s snout, shouting after the AFM. “When am I going on TV?”

“What do you mean?” And then Sister Liz started after the AFM. “I’m Not going on with this thing!”

“This is not the time!” The AFM made his way down the metal staircase towards the contestants’ isolation cells.

The Captain looked over at the huge thirty-six stone motionless body. She hadn’t really committed suicide. She could still go up to her perfect place, peaceful and at rest, wherever that was.

You go to heaven. You become perfect like God, she’d said. You’re whole again for the rest of eternity. And at first, thinking about the scar, he thought he finally knew what she’d meant by ‘whole again’. But that wasn’t it. She’d only truly be whole again with Billy. In spite of everything she’d always loved him and maybe she was with him now. That is, if he’d been good enough to arrive at the same perfect place as her in his perfect body and still wanted her now in her perfect body like an angel in the golden bikini and sparkling tiara. If you do wrong, you pay for it here and now.

“God, she was FAT!” Tiny guffawed.

“Doesn’t anybody know what’s going on around here?” Cherie stood fuming with her arms crossed beside the gleaming Ferrari in her skimpy dressing-gown. “Who’s driving this thing? We’re supposed to do my sketch!”

Katy's eyes blinked open.

"She's awake!" The nurse said quietly.

"I'm going to kill him!" Katy's mother cried, staring at Stan, and struggling against her husband's grip.

"She's ALIVE!" The AFM said into his headset.

"Thank God for that." The Proddir said. "Tell Chris, he's got to reassure the audience. Now!"

"Chris can't do anything." The AFM panicked. "He's out-of-it! Do you want me to … "

“It’s alright, I’m alright, I can handle it.” Chris walked and stood by his podium on the Centre stage opposite Matt and Tony behind the contestant stage, and wiped the corner of his eyes. The make-up artist gave his cheek one final dab of foundation and left the stage. “I’m fine. “He hopped up and down on the spot, rolling his head on the back of his neck and flicked his fingers loose from the wrists. Come on, you can do it kid, who’s the man, you’re the man, who’s the man? He felt his crotch for a little reassurance. Now, come on, Poker face! “I’m ready.”

“And cue Chris!” The Proddir ordered. “Standby graphics and jingle.”

“Thanks Bob.” I said, smiling directly at the camera with the little red light on. “Katy’s fine; she had her ninety minutes of fame at least, which is six times more than Andy Warhol would have given her and nine times more than most given her weight. A freak without a story is just a freak, but then who’s normal? And what stories do you hide inside from the preying eyes of the world outside, like Katy, deep in your hearts, in the early hours of the morning with the lights out. Don’t go away, we’ll be back right after this.”

“And cue graphics and jingle.” The Proddir spat, removing her headset and spinning around in the chair. “Jesus!”

Backstage, Dani, with her thirty-six-cup bosom and ‘c’ ears type pussy in a black bikini looked up from her book as the WyP? theme played and watched the cartoon of the little green sparring knights on the monitor before she saw the words appear in black bold capital letters at the bottom of the blank white screen:

END OF PART ONE

Afterword

Hi, and if you've just joined us, I really hope you enjoyed reading 'Katy's Loss', we almost lost Katy then, so it would have been 'Lost Katy' (!) but she's still with us, just about.
If you're as excited as us about the show, there are THREE ways you can actively get involved in 'What's your problem?' right away:

1. Write a Review

If you’ve enjoyed this book I’d personally be really grateful, particularly as a small independent publisher without a massive marketing budget, if you would be kind enough to help other people find this book and leave a few words on Amazon here. I can only advertise on the bigger platforms if I get a minimum number of high quality reviews so your doing this makes a really big difference. It doesn't have to be a novel (!), just a few words would really help.

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Thanks again for reading 'Katy's Loss', you are now initiated into a very special and exclusive club with many secrets.

Hope to see you again soon.

Max

The Show Must Go On.

Tony is eighteen, with an attitude problem; he doesn’t like yours.

Tony likes drugs, who doesn’t. Listens to gangster rap, likewise. Everyone’s on the make; dog eat dog; survival of the fittest; act before you’re acted upon and ask questions later. There’s only one person who counts: Tony. And if you don’t like that, you’ve got a problem. If he wins the TV show, he wants a Ferrari, ‘to give my dad a lift’ and an ‘AM/FMd’; A Mobile/ For My Dad, ‘so my dad can call me whenever he wants’.

Odin is very excited about being Tony’s counsellor because he is such a ‘beautiful sexy boy’. If he wins, he wants some pills to take Tony on a ‘special’ date.

But who will win? And is the prize worth the effort for one, and the forfeit for the other?

Chris Carrotte, the host, is beginning to lose his mind, too, with all his money resting on the show, after the first contestant’s unfortunate ‘conclusion’, and now he’s got this to deal with! Surely, it can’t get any worse, or can it?

Find out next, in the penultimate instalment of ‘What’s Your Problem?’ Part 2: Tony’s Cross. Buy it now on Amazon here.

More information and other formats available see: www.maxwellwinshire.com/TonysLoss