by Heide Goody
He had left the courthouse that evening a free man and returned home to his flat. He had wandered around his home, touching things that he had left behind all those weeks ago. The half-painted soldiers from Antiochus’s Indian campaign. The now dried and crusted plates waiting to be washed in the sink. He had gone to Clovenhoof’s flat and Nerys’s to tell them that he was back but he got no response from either flat apart from a frenetic yapping from Twinkle behind Nerys’s door.
Put out that his friends were not only too self-interested to come see him in court but also had the cheek to be out when he called, he put on his coat, went out onto the street and walked to the pub.
The place was crowded and Ben had to weave his way to the bar, hoping that no one would recognise him, ask him awkward questions or try to start something with him. He got to the bar and found that the barman, Lennox, had already poured him a pint of cider and black.
“On the house,” said Lennox. “I think you deserve it.”
“Thank you,” said Ben, mildly uncomfortable with the generous gesture.
“So, it turned out to be a model corpse all along.”
Ben smiled politely.
“I did try to tell them. It’s amazing that it took Herbert returning from France to show his face in court to convince them I’m not a murderer. My neighbour, Mrs Astrakhan, was apparently so traumatised by the event that she’s run off to her sister’s in Shropshire, vowing never to return.”
Ben paused. Yes, it did seem amazing, implausible, even impossible. The whole business seemed incredible but that was the truth of the matter. Perhaps he would stick to miniature models from now on.
“Now the pint is free,” said Lennox, “but if you’d do me a favour.”
“Sure.”
Lennox pointed across the room to a chair by the window.
“Your friend there has been sleeping off the booze all evening. Can you see that she gets home safely?”
Ben looked, saw and then walked over. Nerys was slumped in a chair. A trio of wine glasses stood on the table in front of her. He sat down across from her and poked her on the shoulder until she stirred.
“Probably not the best place to sleep,” he said.
Nerys looked at him blearily.
“Ben?”
He spread his arms.
“Ta-dah. Sprung from jail by the slow-moving cogs of justice.”
She sat upright and touched her fingertips to her cheeks. They were wet.
“Crying in my sleep,” she said. “I had the strangest dream.”
“A sad dream?” said Ben.
“No.” She gazed at the table, trying and failing to remember. “Not at all.”
Dave came through from the hotel bedroom to the balcony overlooking the sea.
“You’ll get cold,” he said wrapping his arms around Blenda’s shoulders from behind.
She leaned back against him.
“I’m fine,” she said and then, “I’m very happy.”
Dave looked at a far off light in the darkness, wondering if it was a boat.
“Back to grimy Sutton tomorrow,” he said.
She shrugged.
“A nice full English and a leisurely drive. It’ll be nice.” She chuckled to herself. “Might skip the black pudding. Still can’t face the stuff.”
“Do you think about him a lot?” said Dave.
She tilted her head back and pecked him on the cheek.
“Nope. Maybe we’ll just skip breakfast and have a nice long lie in.”
“Sounds good. Peace, quiet and a long lie in.”
She turned to face him, staying within his embrace.
“I didn’t say it was going to be a quiet lie in.”
Clovenhoof went up to the bar.
“Lambrini?” said Lennox.
“The same,” said Clovenhoof. “How’s your grandma?”
Lennox laughed.
“False alarm. She’ll bury us all yet.”
Clovenhoof saw Ben and Nerys by the window.
“And the usual for those two reprobates.”
“No problem, boss.”
Lennox put the drinks on a tray and Clovenhoof was surprised to discover he actually had the money in his pocket to pay for them. When the barman passed him his change, Clovenhoof pointed to his head.
“The horns. Can you still...?”
Lennox grinned.
“Still there. Still ugly.”
Clovenhoof carried the drinks across to his friends.
“At last he appears,” said Ben, gladly taking his next drink.
“Where have you been?”
“Here and there,” said Clovenhoof. “Mostly there. And how are you?”
“Fine,” said Nerys. “Why?”
“No lasting effects from the electric shock?”
“Electric shock?”
“At Pitspawn’s?”
“Who?”
“Nothing,” said Clovenhoof, sitting down. “Nothing.”
Nerys stared at the palm of her hands and then prodded at one as though expecting to see something.
“It was a dream.”
“What was?” said Clovenhoof innocently.
Nerys looked at him for the longest time.
“Nothing,” she said and reached for the wine.
Darren Pottersmore (formerly known as Pitspawn) sat upright in bed, reading from his mum’s copy of the King James Bible. The naked bulb hanging in the middle of the room filled the room with stark, unloving light.
The room had been stripped almost bare. Darren had boxed and bagged up his entire collection of occult books. He had torn down his posters and pentagram. He had binned the statues, jewellery and candles. Even the satanic chair covers his mum had knitted for him had been removed and binned.
The only reminder of his lamentable time as a Satanist was the black paint on his walls. Darren, hours from ever finding sleep, had already made plans to go out the following morning and buy some tins of cleansing white emulsion. And maybe some crucifixes.
They tottered home drunkenly, arm in arm.
On one side of Clovenhoof, Nerys was explaining the importance of female empowerment and how women through the ages had expressed that through clothing. On the other side of him, Ben laboured under the false impression that his friends were interested in his opinion of the effectiveness of the Greeks as a fighting force.
“Take Joan of Arc,” said Nerys.
“Take her where?” said Clovenhoof.
“She wasn’t Greek,” said Ben.
“Tiny slip of thing,” said Nerys, “but put her in a suit of armour and the English were quaking in their boots.”
“No women allowed in the army,” said Ben. “Weren’t allowed out of the house in fact.”
“And here’s our house,” said Clovenhoof, fumbling in his pocket for his keys.
“All I’m saying... all I’m saying is that this...” She poked at her breasts although she might have been aiming for her spangly low-cut top. “This is my armour. See?”
Clovenhoof turned the key and fell in.
“Rubbish armour,” burbled Ben. “Doesn’t cover anything.”
“I was being meta... metaphysical,” she said, struggling to get her foot on the bottom step of the stairs. Ben put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her upstairs ahead of him.
Clovenhoof lay on the floor and briefly debated spending the night there. Ultimately deciding against it, he climbed to his feet and leaned against the door of flat 1a, which promptly swung open, spilling him into Mrs Astrakhan’s living room.
The lights were on but he dimly recalled Ben saying that Mrs Astrakhan had gone, left forever.
“Helloo,” he called in a drunken singsong voice.
There was a sound from further within the flat, the movement of furniture. Clovenhoof navigated his way round Mrs Astrakhan’s three piece suite and into the master bedroom. There was an old-fashioned boxy suitcase open on the bed. The Archangel Michael, wearing a modest linen suit, was unpacking p
ants and transferring them to a chest of drawers.
“You’re not Mrs Astrakhan,” said Clovenhoof.
Michael gave him a stony look of miserable self-pity. There was something diminished about him, less magnificent and more... human.
“Don’t utter a word,” warned Michael.
Clovenhoof looked round.
“You? Here?”
“I go where He sends me,” Michael sniffed, returning to his unpacking.
“But here? Permanently?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Clovenhoof nodded and then, without warning, the laughter burst from within him.
“Jeremy!”
“Michael,” snorted Clovenhoof, doubling up in hysterics. “Neighbour!”
“Not by choice!”
Clovenhoof howled.
“Have you no sympathy?” whined the earthbound angel.
Clovenhoof shook his head and collapsed into a fit of giggles.
Saint Peter found himself sitting in another seat. It wasn’t a throne but it was a tall chair and positioned at the head of a long table in a dim, redly lit room. There was smell in the air, something faint and not quite identifiable but certainly not very pleasant.
The chairs along the length of the table were filled with, well not people but... individuals. Peter was surprised to see he recognised most of them. Azazel looked at him with penetrating eyes, a needle-sharp quill poised in his hand. Berith had the hindquarters of some small animal stuffed in his huge mouth. He gave Peter a friendly wave. Directly to Peter’s left, the demon Belphegor sat in his puttering steam-powered wheelchair. To his right, the fallen angel Mulciber presented Peter with a stack of parchment over two feet in height.
“What’s this?” said Peter.
“We have a very long agenda to get through today, your lordship.”
Peter stared at Mulciber blankly.
The former angel gave the former saint a not unkindly smile.
“They say it’s better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven, eh?”
Peter tentatively reached for the first sheet of parchment and began to read.
The End
Million Dollar Dress by Heide Goody
In this modern-day Cinderella story, cutting edge technology gives Justine the body of a supermodel at the flick of a switch. She uses her new-found confidence and sex appeal to snare her ideal man. But hot on her heels are the police and the inventor. Can she avoid jail and humiliation? Can she keep hold of her ideal man once he discovers her secret? Most importantly of all, has she really found what she’s looking for?
Read the opening chapter here and if you enjoy it, the novel is available on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Million-Dollar-Dress-ebook/dp/B008GE3KRW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343371752&sr=8-1
Million Dollar Dress
Chapter 1
Justine pushed the vacuum cleaner across the floor, strutting to Slam Dunk’s newest hit. For the evening shift cleaning the studio, she rocked and shimmied her way from one task to the next.
She was usually alone in the evenings, unless Serge stayed late. Their routines could overlap easily, and they worked around each other like a carefully tuned machine.
The studio was near to Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, and Serge had said that he chose it because it used to be a ribbon-maker’s workshop, years ago, which was why it had such huge windows. Justine had tried to picture how you’d weave a ribbon and decided that it didn’t sound like a rewarding job. She reminded herself of the ribbon weavers when she grumbled at cleaning the large windows. There were definitely worse jobs. Occasionally Serge asked her to help him which Justine loved, it made her feel part of something important. Serge was a fashion designer. She didn’t think he was the rich, internationally famous kind, but she was confident that he was up and coming, so being his model was a huge treat. Serge didn’t mind that she was a bit lumpy in places, as most of his clients wore larger sizes.
“Justine, would you mind slipping the dress on for me?”
Serge had his head round the door and she smiled at him. He even looked like a fashion designer. Skinnier than most people thought was healthy, punky hair that steered just clear of being a mullet and he always wore stripes. Stripes were Serge’s signature and he combined them in ways that flattered and deceived the eye when designing for his ladies. For himself he used them to more attention-seeking effect and sometimes Justine thought he looked as if he needed tuning in properly.
Serge put his arm round her shoulder and whispered in her ear.
“I have a visitor tonight – we must impress him, he’s the money!”
Justine gave him a look.
“Money? You’re not hard up, surely? You’ve got loads of clients.”
“I have big plans, Justine, and he is a potential investor. Smile for the man Sweetie!”
She rolled her eyes and followed him into the workshop. She looked at The Money, who acknowledged her with a curt flip of his hand. She went to the dress stand with Serge who handed her the dress. She took it behind the screen and put it on.
This was different to Serge’s usual style of clothing; the dress was almost drab. It was a plain beige dress with a high neckline and a very low hemline. She had asked him on a previous occasion if he was making a sideline for nuns. She stepped out from behind the screen and did a twirl for them.
“Keep walking around, Justine,” said Serge.
He went to his desk and opened up a laptop. The Money looked rather bored.
“So tell me, did you see the James Bond film, “Die Another Day”?” Serge asked.
The Money shook his head.
“That’s a shame, because it might have helped. He had a car that could become invisible. It had tiny cameras along each side, with a corresponding projector on the opposite side of the car. So when James Bond hit the switch, the image from behind the car was projected forward, making it invisible.”
The Money shrugged and looked confused.
Serge pressed some buttons on the laptop and the Money gasped. It was the first time Justine had heard him make a noise. He was staring at her. She looked down at the dress and saw why – her body had disappeared.
The Money recovered his cynical snarl.
“So you made an invisibility cloak. But I can still see her head.”
Serge pressed some more buttons on the laptop.
“Well that is just one thing that this dress can do, but it’s not the real selling point. If I can make you see nothing then I can make you see anything!”
The Money rolled his eyes impatiently.
“If I choose to project Justine’s body as that of Angelina Jolie, then I can do that.”
He pressed a button with a flourish.
This time Justine gasped. She looked down to see the kind of body that she had always dreamed of. It wasn’t hers of course, but just for a moment she was prepared to believe that it might be. Hello-boys breasts that pushed out over a tiny waist. Hips that flared provocatively. And the dress that she was wearing, where had that come from? It was a shimmer fabric that hugged the curves as if she’d been misted with water. She looked up and saw the Money ogling her. She blushed. Even though she knew he wasn’t ogling her own body it was impossible not to feel that he was.
Serge cleared his throat gently.
“So, you see what it is I have done? I can give to women what they most desire. I can let them change their body as they want to. I am in the course of plotting Marilyn Monroe’s vital statistics into the computer, but they can be as curvy or as skinny as they want to be. They can also change their outfits to be anything that they can think of.”
Serge clicked his mouse and Justine was wearing a wedding dress. He clicked again and she was wearing a demure trouser suit. He clicked a third time and she was wearing the skimpiest bikini she had ever seen.
“Hey!” she shouted, seeing the lecherous smile on the Money’s face.
Serge clicked hurriedly and change
d Justine into a 1960’s Austin Powers mini dress with platform boots.
As she looked at herself and walked slowly around the room, Serge put his arm around the Money’s shoulders and led him gently away, seeing that he was going to get no reaction while he was transfixed by Justine’s curves. Serge indicated the view from the window where the sun was setting across the city.
“Do you see what we have here? This is so huge that I can barely imagine it myself. No woman will ever want to wear normal clothes when she has seen what this can do. I have never met a woman who is happy with her body. Even the ones that look great to me have some tiny thing that they worry about. So we sell them the dress, and we sell them the service of programming the changes that they want.”
Justine was grateful that the two of them were distracted. She studied herself in the mirror. Her haircut suited the style of the dress. She would never have even looked at clothes like this, but here she was wearing them! She felt as though her life had been changed in the last five minutes. She walked over to see what was on the laptop. There were icons showing the different outfits. It looked so easy to use.
Serge was still talking.
“And it doesn’t end there! Fashions change all the time. Women crave variety and individuality in their attire. We can release software for a ready to wear line. They can download those from the internet and we won’t even need a point of sale. And maybe we can even return to the golden days of couture. It can be more attainable because the work will be done by computer programmers instead of seamstresses, and the client doesn’t even need have to have fittings! There are so many ways that we can sell this to the world.”
The Money was nodding and looking slightly animated. Justine imagined he didn’t often get that way. Serge seemed to be encouraged by his response.
“The technology is fairly expensive right now, but I know we can drive down the costs with the sort of demand that we’re going to get. This prototype here is the only one I have at the moment, and it cost me as much as a semi in Solihull.”
