Ellen was too happy to be angry. She sidled onto David's knee and kissed him. `You're forgiven, you old sceptic. Let's not go out tonight. Let's get you cleaned up and have an early night.'
He smiled wanly. `I might just fall asleep on you.'
`I'll even forgive you that as well.'
`This town's never going to be the same again,' said David with a hint of sadness. `There is something that's bothering me about the mammoth painting, Ellen. Light. You'd need good light to get such even colouring over such a big area. You couldn't possibly get enough light from animal fat wick lamps, and the smoke from torches would've asphyxiated them.'
Ellen smiled and kissed him again, tracing the contour of his broken nose with the tip of her tongue. `Remember that bone needle you found last year and how we all wondered how they could've possibly bored the hole without breaking through the sides because the needle was so slender?'
David chuckled. `There was that student who said that maybe Erich von Daniken was right and that machines had been given to them by space visitors.'
`The willingness of loonies to deny the ingenuity of Mankind,' said Ellen contemptuously. `The answer was so bloody obvious that none of us could see it; they took a nice chunky bone, bored and shaped the hole first, and then rubbed the bone down to a fine needle around the hole.'
`So?'
`The obvious always eludes us.' Ellen made a rough sketch of the windtrap horn and its mammoth intestine ducting, explaining its method of construction. `They position the horn so that it's pointing into the prevailing wind and pipe the draught into the cave to where they're working. It provides the artists with plenty of fresh air and drives out the smoke from their torches at the same time.'
David studied the sketch and shook his head wonderingly. `That's got to be it. Bless me if they didn't invent air-conditioning.'
Ellen nodded. `It's a logical development of the forced-draught hearth. Those people gave Europe a technological and cultural superiority which it has never lost.’
Chapter 26.
SARAH GALE WAS A TALL, GAWKY, worldly-wise bottle-blonde brunette of 15 who had been the not wholly unwilling victim of statutory rape on many occasions since she was 12 with the exception of the first time -- one of her mother's more brutish lovers.
She sprawled on her bed, an awkward tangle of arms and legs, like a broken bicycle, looking enviously at Vikki, a ring-pull lager can resting on her ring-pull navel.
`Christ, Vikki. It looks better on you than it would ever look on me in a million years, but not with those stupid panties. Big black knickers -- white mini -- not a good idea.'
There was no full-length mirror in Sarah's friendly tip of a bedroom which was just as well otherwise Vikki would've been even more mortified at the shortness of the dress that Sarah was lending her.
`I could go home and get some white panties,' she ventured.
`Or go commando.'
`Sarah!'
Sarah laughed, she always took a perverse delight in shocking her friend. `For fuck's sake cheer up, Vikki. What's the matter with you? We're going to a fabulous party and you're being a miserable tosspot.'
Vikki fiddled nervously with her hand. It was something she rarely did and it didn't escape her friend's notice. `I'm sorry, Sarah. I'm not sure I want to go now.'
`After all those porkies we told your mother? I know. Those knickers.' Sarah bounced off the bed, rummaged in a drunken chipboard wardrobe, and tossed a pair of white thong panties to Vikki. `It's okay -- I've never worn them. A naff Christmas present. A set of seven from mum's latest. Cheeky sod wanted me to try them all on in front of him.'
Vikki held up the tiny garment. It had `Sunday' embroidered on what little there was of a gusset. `Sarah -- really -- I could never wear this.'
`Why not?'
`It's indecent.'
`Actually those bum floss tangas aren't as bad as they look -- they pull up tight over the hips and stay put. Try them. Oh, don't be such a blanket, Vikki. Go on -- at least try them.'
Eventually Vikki was persuaded to surrender the draught-excluding security of her elasticated panties and step into Sarah's offering. Once hitched into place the garment felt about as comfortable as a wire cheese-cutter but Sarah brushed aside her friend's protests about the unsuitability of underwear that hardly existed and tended to disappear.
`For fuck's sake stop worrying, Vikki. Wearing those means that you've got to learn to behave ladylike. Bend from the knees if you drop something.'
Vikki stared at her friend and managed a smile. Sarah talking about ladylike behaviour was like Hermann Goering discussing urban renewal in Coventry. `Sarah -- have you got a dress with pockets? So I can take the weight off my wrist without making it obvious?'
Sarah was more sensitive than her brash manner suggested. She slid across the bed and put her arms around her friend. `What's up, Viks? The old plastic pinkies don't usually give you gyp.'
`It's not just that... There'll be strangers there... We know all the boys at the Green Dragon and we know how to handle them.'
`'Specially Robbie Hammond. He's got a lot to handle.'
`Please be serious, Sarah.'
Sarah looked thoughtfully at Vikki. `Maybe you're right. How about long skirts tonight? I've got plenty -- and some with pockets. There's one that would look fabulous with your blouse.'
Vikki brightened.
There was the sound of the front door opening and closing followed by someone stumbling on the stairs, a splutter of giggling and heavy treads outside Sarah's door. The sound effects moved into the adjoining bedroom and degenerated into loud moans and a repeated two-word exhortation from Sarah's mother urging her lover to do her what he seemed to be doing anyway.
Sarah glanced at her watch. `Midnight,' she said disapprovingly, as though sex was something she had invented. `You can set your watch by them. They'll be dead to the world in half an hour.'
`You're sure it'll be all right in the morning?'
`So long as I'm back by eight to get Simon up and fed. They don't stir till about ten on Sundays. Anyway, we'll burn that bridge when we come to it. Come on -- let's dress to kill.'
An hour later, with heavy snores having replaced the sounds of patent infringement from the neighbouring bedroom, the two girls sneaked out of the darkened house and set off at a brisk pace through the gloomy streets of a depressing social housing estate. The night was so mild that they didn't need jackets. Both had pinned their hair up to make them look older. Vikki walked with her arms folded -- the classic teeny-trot that she usually avoided but it helped support her hand. The lump was even larger now and the hand needed frequent pumps to maintain suction. She was desperately worried about getting through the night without a humiliating disaster. But this concern was almost swamped by hunger pangs which had returned to torment her.
`Bloody street lighting,' Sarah grumbled. `Gets worse every year. Look at 'em -- dim as dishwater.'
`It's something to do with the electricity and gas problems they've been having today,' Vikki replied. `Listen, Sarah -- can we stick together tonight? Not let anyone separate us. Please.'
`That'll cramp my style. I fancied double-clicking my mouse on Nelson Faraday.'
Vikki had been thinking of the same person but not in the same favourable light as her friend. She remembered the way he had stared so openly at her breasts, and shivered.
A battered Escort full of hopeful, loudmouthed studlets sidled up to the girls and kept pace with them.
`Hey, Sarah. How'ya doin, girl? Fancy the Bognor chippy?'
It was a polite enough Lad Culture inquiry from the driver that received an equally polite Lad Culture `Fuck off, shitface' reply from Sarah.
`Aw, Sarah. And to think you're right at top of my girls to screw list.'
`Yeah -- well if you do and I get to find out about it, I shall be really mad.'
The ancient Escort shot off in a temper, its passengers laughing and catcalling at the driver's expense, leaving their aspirations behind
in a cloud of blue smoke from worn pistons.
The girls walked on in silence other than the clop of their heavy heels echoing off shop fronts. They quietened their footsteps when passing Ellen Duncan's Earthforce shop, and Vikki walked on the nearside with her head bowed, just in case Ellen chose that moment to look out of her bedroom window.
`SAS!' Sarah breathed as they neared the open gates of Pentworth House.
The black-helmeted, black-uniformed men were not members of the Special Air Service Regiment although the large SAS letters on their bomber jackets gave that impression and were the subject of a pending lawsuit being brought by the Ministry of Defence. They were well-trained heavies whose intelligence had run to muscle, employed by the Southern Area Security Company. There were 30 of them out of their cages tonight -- a small private army -- quartering the grounds of Pentworth House, all in touch with each other via their earphone and throat mike Motorola Handie-Com radios. They were on private land therefore they went about armed with weapons that were barely legal. That night several youths who had scaled the wall had encountered the terror of temporary blindness caused by the SAS's medium-power pointer lasers and handheld strobe blasters. The security men took no prisoners; the hapless youths were beaten-up and thrown out. The limited pay of these guardians of lawlessness and disorder was compensated by the promise of unlimited pussy. The two who took Vikki's and Sarah's invitations had not had that promise fulfilled as yet and looked the girls over speculatively before allowing them through.
`Too skinny,' said one as the girls were escorted into the house. `But her friend's got nice tits.'
`Over eighteen?'
`No way.'
The company that had fixed up the sound and lighting gear in Pentworth House's former ballroom had done a good job adjusting their power supplies to compensate for the reduced mains voltage. The skull-jarring beat and flashing strobes that greeted the girls would've sapped the will to live of most but they were used to it.
`Must get something to eat!' Vikki yelled in Sarah's ear. `I'm starving!'
`Not again!'
Groping their way around the tables that surrounded the packed dance floor gave them a chance to orientate themselves. There were as many drinking and laughing in groups at the tables as dancing. None of the revellers appeared to be over thirty and their clothes ranged from fancy dress and stylish evening attire to, in the case of a line of girls gyrating on a stage, no clothes at all other than head-to-toe changing patterns of livid-hued projected light painting. A near-naked black jumped onto the stage, a prodigious bulge threatening to burst the seams of his leather dance pouch as he seized a girl to him. She unsnapped a buckle which allowed his imprisoned erection to rush off in all directions.
`Wow! Some party!' Sarah shouted.
They found several seriously-ravaged but still well-stocked buffet tables at the far end of the ballroom where it was just about possible to talk. Nearby was a dais on which a beaming, white-gowned Father Adrian Roscoe and his close acolytes were seated at a long table, looking down on the proceedings with evident approval. Nelson Faraday was in the group, in sullen glower mode until he spotted Vikki. On the wall behind them hung a huge picture of Johann Bode whose expression was less approving. They all rose to applaud and cheer on the girl who, having exposed her partner's erection, was now on her knees before him, doing her best to hide it. His thrusts were in perfect time with the insidious beat from the giant speakers.
`Jesus!' Sarah yelled. `A tonsil hockey tournament!'
Rather than comment on Sarah's picturesque observation, Vikki started stuffing herself with vol-au-vents without bothering with a plate. She would've preferred the Pentworth Bakery French bread spread with lashing of butter or garlic mayonnaise but that would've meant using two hands. Sarah loaded a cardboard plate with slices of roast turkey and steered her friend to an empty table. She grabbed two glasses of champagne from a passing waitress.
Vikki was experiencing the same sensation of euphoria and well-being when she had raided the refrigerator the previous morning. She downed her glass in one gulp. `Please, Sarah -- do me a favour and get a plate of that bread and loads of butter. It would be difficult for me.'
Sarah was surprised. Vikki always coped with her disability and never asked for help, and she had never known her eat so much. `After all those sarnies you wolfed at my place?' And with her belief in always getting to the point added: `Hey, Viks -- not in the club, are we?'
`No I'm bloody not! Just get me some food please! Lots of that French bread!'
`Swearing, too. Not like our Vikki. They say being pregnant changes your personality.' With that Sarah fled to the buffet.
Vikki gulped down Sarah's drink -- she would've preferred milk -- and tried not to look at the goings-on on the stage but the roars of laughter and clapping that greeted the inevitable outcome of the girl's administrations thwarted her intention and reminded her all too vividly her of her daydream with Dario. A sudden flush of wetness added to the discomfort of her cheese-cutter, bum floss tanga.
Sarah returned with a mountainous pile of bread and butter that was intended as a joke. But Vikki started tucking in one-handed without comment. Sarah neatly heisted two more glasses of champagne and watched the girl on the stage smearing herself so that her breasts glistened under the strobes.
`I missed the climax,' she said regretfully.
`Vikki, my darling! You came! How wonderful!'
It was Nelson Faraday with four statuesque blondes in attendance. He was no longer the sullen, hungry-eyed panther that Vikki had met in Ellen's shop, but was all charm, and with a smile as wide and as genuine as a factory-made Tudor bed. He enveloped Vikki in his huge black cloak like a giant bat and kissed her. By the time she had got over the shock of realising that he was naked under the cloak other than his boots, he and the four smiling blondes had pulled up chairs. Their leader was the tallest, wearing a lace-up red vinyl bodysuit, as tight as she was, breasts spilling over the top, thick sensual lips that shone with wetness. Her name was Helga, Austrian. Vikki was uncomfortably aware of large brown eyes that seemed to be devouring her.
`So you enjoyed the little impromptu show, Sarah?' asked Faraday after the introductions.
Sarah laughed and sipped her wine. `He looked good from here.'
`Would you like to meet him?'
`Oh -- he wouldn't be much use now.'
Faraday grinned. `I wouldn't be too sure.' He stood, keeping his cloak drawn around him. `Theta -- introduce Sarah to Steve and his friends...' He turned and smiled down at the girls. `I have to go now. See you later, Vikki -- duty calls. Glad you came.' He turned and disappeared into the throng.
The girl called Theta took Sarah's hand and steered her into the melee on the dance floor. Vikki wasn't too concerned at being left -- not in the company of girls. She exchanged small talk and laughs with Helga -- the only one of the threesome who spoke English -- and drank two more glasses of champagne. She was enjoying herself and she had given her hand extra surreptitious pumps to ensure it stayed in place even though her wrist was beginning to ache. She needed to visit the toilet but it could wait.
Helga was telling a laboured joke when there was a crash as a neighbouring table collapsed. Vikki saw a laughing girl disappear under a swirl of eager males and looked around in some apprehension. The stage show had been bad enough but now the party was beginning to get out of hand.
`Have you seen around the house, Vikki?' asked Helga.
Vikki said that she hadn't, adding that she wouldn't mind finding a loo.
`But it is so magnificent.'
The girl's dress was ripped off and her breasts appeared, winking white and blue in the strobes. Her laughter changed to shrieks when champagne was poured over her and several eager tongues went to work licking it up.
Helga rose and took Vikki's arm. `Perhaps it would be a good idea to have a little look around before the band perform. It will all be better behaved then, yes?'
It seemed like a sensible sug
gestion so Vikki allowed herself to be shepherded through a side door and into a long passage. The floor rocked and spun which made her realize that maybe she had had a little too much to drink, but the other two girls were at her side.
Helga pushed a heavy door open, it was padded with green hide on the inside. Vikki was ushered into a spacious room dominated by huge divan bed covered with a crimson spread into which was worked a picture of Johann Bode.
`This used to be the small library,'said Helga. `It has a very beautiful panelled ceiling. You must look.'
Before Vikki could comment she was turned around and given a gentle push. The bed caught at the back of her knees and she overbalanced, flopping backwards. She was about to laughingly apologise when the girls were upon like lionesses at a kill. Helga ripped her blouse open with a single slash and yanked her bra up. She heard her skirt ripping and was about to scream when a hand was clapped over her mouth.
`Scream all you like, little sister,' breathed Helga in her ear. `It won't make any difference.' And then the girl crushed Vikki's breasts hard together and fastened her lips greedily on her nipples, moving from one to the other like a frenzied lamprey. Strong hands grabbed her flailing legs and forced them back. A pillow was rammed under her buttocks.
`Let the slut scream if she wants to.'
It was Nelson Faraday's voice.
Helga took her hand away and Vikki did just that when she saw his hard eyes staring down at her. His cloak was thrown over his shoulders and he was kneeling between her spread legs. She drew breath for a second scream but it was curdled to a terrified whimper by a stinging slap across the face. `Save it until you're getting something to scream about!' Faraday snarled. And then his venom was directed at Helga who was pulling Vikki's tanga aside. `Leave it, you fucking dike -- she yours when I'm done.'
Vikki's desperation and terror led strength to her frantic squirms but they were of little use -- the laughing girls pinning her down were strong.
Temple of the Winds Page 15
