HOPE . . . because that's all there ever is.

by James Crow

  She drank from the whisky bottle all the way back. Pete thought that was a good thing.

  ‘Why ye no wearing a coat?’ she asks, then, without waiting for an answer, ‘When I blow ye, I swallow the lot. Don’t like spunk on me face. Virgin eh?’ The whore chuckled.

  ‘Forgot to bring a coat.’ Pete wants to tell her what he’s made for her in cabin 1. He tells her instead how he’s fixed it up clean and cosy, tells her he wants to paint her as well as fuck her. She tells him that’ll cost him more, chuckles again and swigs on the whisky as the high beam from the headlights draws them into darkness sprinkled with blue-glow pinpricks of sheep’s eyes and the grey road winds them in. ‘I’m going to wring your fucking neck,’ says Pete.

  But the whore’s asleep.

  1

  ‘I must warn you, Bethany, prepare your heart well, for when you see him, when he comes into your presence, your heart will fill and lift higher than ever before.’

  Beth’s hand, tight in Elizabeth’s, is almost touching the blackened arm of the rocking chair. Beth feels a tingle in the tips of her fingers, like the start of needles and pins.

  ‘Is your heart prepared, Bethany?’

  Beth isn’t sure how to do anything with her heart. ‘I feel it beating.’

  Elizabeth’s lips tighten. The needles and pins tickle up Beth’s arm.

  ‘You need to listen carefully.’ The girl lets go of Beth’s hand. ‘You must realise how fortunate you are. You have been chosen for good reason, and you must not do anything to spoil it.’

  ‘Chosen for what?’

  The girl blows out a breath. ‘To meet Master, silly child. He is Supreme. Do you think just anyone gets chosen?’

  Elizabeth’s cheeks seem to darken, and for the glimpse of a second her lips vanish and Beth sees all her teeth. Did that just happen?

  The smack across the face comes quick and Beth falls to the floor, hand to her stinging cheek and stars twinkling before her eyes.

  ‘You did not scream! Why?’

  Beth’s eyes screw up with tears and she tastes their fall. She’s sobbing, but the girl’s pulling her up by the hands. ‘I’m sorry, Bethy. But you must show gratitude for your important position. Master will surely pity you, but he will not love you unless you open your heart and let him inside. Do you know what being grateful means?’

  Beth wipes her tears. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then tell me what you are grateful for.’

  Beth tries to think, but all she can see in her mind are the girl’s vanishing lips. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  The girl shakes her head.

  ‘You must be grateful for something.’

  Beth takes a step back.

  ‘I’m grateful for my mum.’

  ‘Your mother is a lost cause. Try again.’

  ‘I’m grateful for Martin and Muriel, they teach me a lot, and they like flowers and nature.’

  The girl laughs. ‘I can tell you they’ve been lying to you.’

  ‘Lying?’

  ‘But I suppose their love of nature’s goodness is their one redeeming feature.’

  Beth’s not sure what this means. ‘I’m grateful for flowers.’

  ‘Good-good. I’m grateful for flowers, also. Their patterns are so perfect, even more so when they’re dead.’ The wood spirit takes her hand once more. Beth becomes aware of her own scent. She’s heating up, sweaty under the arms. ‘Now, imagine your heart opening like a flower and Master stepping inside. Yes?’

  How can she do this without knowing what he looks like? Beth’s befuddled. She imagines her heart opening like a flower, but it’s herself that steps inside. ‘Yes,’ she says.

  ‘And it feels so warm and wonderful?’

  ‘Yes, it does.’

  ‘And you willingly allow him into your heart?’

  A small bead of sweat runs into Beth’s right eye, ‘Yes,’ it stings, she blinks it away.

  ‘Then I’m pleased. It is time.’

  Beth grips the girl’s hand, they touch to the rocker’s arm and Beth screams as the room is suddenly filled with flapping wings; hundreds and hundreds of little birds. Then they’re gone in an instant. Sunlight slants through a small window and a fire burns happily in the grate. There’s a colourful rug on the floor and a pair of bare feet resting on it. The feet belong to the man in the rocker. He’s not dressed and appears to be sleeping. Shiny grey hair in a plaited tail runs down his chest. There’s a book on his lap with an eye inside a triangle on its front.

  The man opens his eyes, sniffs the air, looks directly at them with the darkest blue eyes.

  ‘He can’t see us,’ says Elizabeth, ‘but he knows we’re here.’ Beth flinches when the man sits up. ‘Be still,’ Elizabeth’s hand grips her shoulder. ‘Be still and feel his greatness.’

  The man reaches a hand towards Beth’s chest. She can’t move; Elizabeth’s hold is strong. She gasps when his fingers disappear through her dress. She can feel his hand inside, caressing her beating heart, and truly, just as the wood spirit had said, her feet are floating off the floor.

  He takes his hand back and Beth drops.

  ‘You felt him.’ Elizabeth’s eyebrows are up.

  ‘Yes, I did, that was – like magic. Real magic.’

  Elizabeth claps her hands and grins with glee.

  The rocking chair creaks and the man pushes to his feet. Beth looks away. There’s a rush of flapping wings, then silence.

  ‘Did you enjoy that?’

  The room is back to how it was. No sunlight, no fire or colourful rug, no naked man, only the charred rocking chair. She’s about to say she isn’t sure whether she enjoyed it or not, but decides not to. ‘Yes, it was total cooly-dooly.’

  ‘Good, I think Master likes you.’ The girl places a hand to Beth’s cheek. It still feels warm from where it was slapped. ‘Would you like to see Master’s work? He is so clever with his hands.’

  2

  With the prozzie still asleep in the jeep, Pete grabs a torch from reception and makes a trip down the hill to cabin 1 with the whisky, beer, salted nuts and baccy. Back at the jeep he shakes Moira Muldoon awake and helps her from her seat.

  ‘Needa pish,’ she mumbles.

  She’s light enough to pick up and carry, so Pete does. On his way to reception he notices a black shape on the guttering that wasn’t there before – a crow, silhouetted in the light from the doorway. He carries Moira over the threshold and sidesteps around the counter to gain access to his cabin door. When he turns, Moira’s arm scrapes along the counter and knocks the phone to the floor where it hits with a crack and a ding. He swipes it aside with his boot and takes Moira through to the toilet, dumps her on the seat.

  In the bedroom, the two keys of speed are where he left them on the bed. He picks up one pack and digs a nail into its corner, wets a finger, takes three dabs. He can hear the prozzie pissing through the wall and remembers about the laptop. With the pack of speed in his hands he hurries from the bedroom, intent on having a quick look. The naked man on the sofa skids him to a halt and the pack of speed leaves his hands and thuds to the floor, white powder puffing from the broken corner.

  The naked man doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. Pete knows the laptop must wait. He goes through the door to the toilet and returns holding the moaning bleary-eyed prozzie by the scruff of her jacket, her feet dragging along the floor. He drops her to her knees in front of the naked man.

  As if by prozzie instinct, she instantly claws at Pete’s flies. She cackles like a witch when his cock springs free. The naked man glides through the sofa and into the shadows behind, and watches. Pete feels the rush, the whizz kicking in. He takes Moira’s hair in both hands and fucks her filthy mouth.

  When he comes, she holds her breath and takes it all down. Pete pulls out, the prozzie licks her lips. The naked man has vanished. Pete looks in the direction of the laptop, on a table near the rear door. The naked man is standing in the shadows beside it. Pete knows it’s time to go.

>   ‘That was a good start,’ he tells Moira. He zips himself up and scoops up some of the spilt speed and forces it into the prozzie’s mouth.

  She makes sounds of approval and rolls her tongue around powdered lips. ‘Whisky,’ the whore says.

  ‘Soon.’ Pete puts on his wax jacket and stuffs the pack of speed into the poacher’s pocket.

  Outside, with a complaining Moira Muldoon balanced on one shoulder, torch in hand, Pete looks up at a scuffling sound. More crows on the roof, smaller birds too, starlings maybe. He pulls the door to and the birds jump and jitter. He locks the door and pockets the key.

  It takes a while to get down the hill. Pete has to slap the prozzie a good one across the back of the head before she agrees to keep still. The path is steep, the steps cut into the earth infrequent. Pete takes his time, keeps the torchlight pointing low. Finally, at cabin 1, he remembers the vision of the wanking prozzie and stands Moira against the trunk of the silver birch. She grins at him lazily and blows him a kiss. ‘Whisky,’ she says again.

  Pete unzips her jacket and pushes it from her shoulders. She’s wearing a thin shirt that only has one button fastened in the middle. He pulls the shirt apart and pushes that from her shoulders too. She has no bra. He shines the torch on her tits: small wrinkled bags with thick black teats. Moira kicks her trainers off and drops her jogging bottoms. No knickers, just a tangle of hair. The bark of the silver birch does not show through her scrawny form. Pete supposes he’s glad of that. He picks up her clothes and guides her through the door of cabin 1 and locks it behind them.

  He flicks on the light. She sees the bed, falls onto it and rolls side to side. She stares at him with bright eyes and blood in her cheeks; the speed’s kicking in.

  ‘Need a drink afore we fuck,’ she says. Pete hands her a can of beer. She cracks it open and guzzles it. ‘Whisky,’ she says, wiping beer dribbles from her chin. Pete obliges, hands her the whisky bottle. She drinks from the bottle then pats the bed beside her.

  ‘Not yet,’ Pete says.

  He sits on the small wooden chair by the bed and strokes a hand over the roughened skin on her stomach. He strokes each breast slowly, marvelling at the elasticity in the nipples as he draws them out and lets them go.

  ‘That’s nice,’ says the prozzie. She turns awkwardly onto her front and raises her backside. ‘Am horny.’ The whore chuckles then coughs. ‘It’s a long time since me fanny was afire like this. What’s ye name, sonny?’

  ‘Pete.’

  ‘Gerrus fucked then, Pete.’

  Pete takes his jacket off, hangs it on the door.

  3

  This time the belly flip isn’t so sickly. The scene clears into a sunny day. They’re standing outside a big house. It has three floors and arched windows and its stonework is a mixture of blues and greys. Beth recognises the steps and the double front doors: the house before it became a ruin. Something new, above the doors, a huge stained-glass window depicting lots of different flowers. It’s beautiful.

  An old black van rumbles into view and stops by the doors in a cloud of dust. Beth recognises the man in the black suit that gets out, so does Elizabeth as her hand tightens around hers. For this to be a memory feels so real, even the heat from the sun is making sweat form on Beth’s brow.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘This is the day the whore arrived,’ says Elizabeth.

  The man in black goes to the rear of the van and opens the doors. He drags out a bulky sack and lets it drop to the ground.

  The front doors of the house open and Elizabeth steps through. She’s not wearing a stitch and her bricks are glowing gold. ‘What’s a whore?’ Beth asks.

  ‘A desperate degenerate,’ Elizabeth says. Beth’s none the wiser.

  Now he’s undoing the sack. He tips it up by its base and a woman in jeans and T-shirt with bright ginger hair tumbles out, her face hitting the gravel. Beth gasps. ‘Is she dead?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  The man removes the woman’s clothes and the naked Elizabeth packs them into the sack before leading the way into the house. The man in black follows with the woman over his shoulder.

  ‘What happens to her?’

  ‘Let’s find out.’ They glide forward, hand in hand, the house opens up and folds around them and they’re in a room with a shower head that’s running cold. Beth feels the chill and hugs herself. The unconscious woman is lying on the floor, face up, and the naked Elizabeth is kneeling by the woman’s side, scrubbing her with a brush and soap. Beth knows the scent, it’s lavender, she doesn’t like it much because it catches in her throat. Mrs Bensche the headmistress at school smells of it all the time.

  Just as the sun had sweated her brow the fine mist from the water splashing the naked pair is catching Beth’s dress and dampening the material. ‘This feels so real.’

  ‘Of course it’s real, all memories are real, Bethany. We have a lot to teach you.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she waken up?’

  ‘She does, anytime now. Master cloths their mouths with chloroform, always knows the right amount to use.’

  Beth’s about to ask what chloroform is but the woman on the floor is moaning. The naked Elizabeth gets up and turns the shower off. The woman comes to, shrieks, scrambles to a corner and covers herself with her arms.

  ‘She has a strange face, don’t you think, almost like a skull, Master said. Master chose her especially, because her features were so interesting. Alas, she wasn’t a keeper.’

  Too many new words slip by because the woman is crying now, and the door opens and Master arrives. He has no clothes on. Beth looks away. The woman screams; a scream that shudders through Beth’s heart like a jagged blade. ‘I don’t like this.’

  ‘Watch and learn, Bethany. You will like it eventually.’

  Beth can only watch from the corner of her eye as Master pulls the woman to her feet. She’s not very tall. Beth instantly remembers her dream of the puppet on strings in a suit and knows without doubt that the man and the puppet are one and the same. He calls the unhappy woman my child and kisses her nose. The woman trembles and makes little sobs that Beth can almost taste.

  ‘Name?’ Master stares down at the woman. His deep voice echoes the room.

  ‘Name?’ he repeats.

  The woman looks terrified. ‘Moira Pollock. Please . . . please don’t hurt me.’

  ‘From?’

  Silence.

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Cross Keys.’

  ‘Occupation?’

  ‘What do you want from me? Please, I –’

  ‘Occupation?’

  The woman looks to the naked Elizabeth now sitting crosslegged on the floor, her back against the wall. She looks quite delighted.

  ‘Occupation?’ The man lifts the woman’s chin with a big hand. ‘What is it that you do?’

  ‘I – I don’t have a job.’

  He grabs her by the throat. ‘Master, you will call me Master.’

  She breaks into sobs and Master releases his grip. ‘Speak to me!’

  Running water – the woman is wetting herself.

  ‘Occupation?’

  ‘Please – I don’t have a job.’

  ‘Master!’

  ‘I don’t work, Master.’

  ‘Yes you do, you sell your cunt is what you do. Name?’

  ‘I told you. Moira. It’s Moira Pollock, Master.’

  ‘From?’

  ‘Cross Keys village. Please don’t hurt me.’

  ‘Occupation?’

  Silence.

  ‘Occupation?’

  ‘I do tricks.’

  ‘Tricks?’

  The woman glances to between the man’s legs. ‘I can do you. Just please don’t hurt me.’

  ‘You’ll do me?’

  ‘I’m tight. Really tight . . . Master.’

  ‘You’re a simple whore.’

  ‘I’m not simple.’

  ‘You sell your dirty cunt. Tell me what it is that you do.’


  ‘I sell my cunt.’

  ‘Master!’

  ‘I sell my cunt, Master.’

  ‘Name?’

  Silence.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Moira.’

  ‘Wrong. From this day you have no name. You are you. Only you. Name?’

  Sobbing again, ‘I’m just me.’

  ‘You are from here, from me, you are mine and mine alone. Occupation?’

  ‘I’m a simple whore.’

  ‘Master!’

  ‘I’m a simple whore, Master.’

  ‘You are no longer a simple whore. You are no name, you are from here, from me, you are mine.’

  ‘I am yours, Master.’

  ‘Good.’ The man places a hand above her left breast. ‘You will open your heart.’

  ‘Let me go. Please. I’ll do whatever you want, just let me go.’

  ‘You will let me in.’

  ‘Please let me go. I’ve a kid, a wee one.’

  A hand on the woman’s shoulder, she sinks to her knees. ‘You are so fortunate. Tell me that is so.’

  Silence.

  ‘Tell me and I will love you.’

  ‘Love me?’ She stares up at him, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Master gets to his knees, guides the woman onto her back on the wet floor. ‘You are so fortunate.’

  ‘I am so fortunate.’

  ‘Master!’

  ‘I am so fortunate, Master,’ she says as her legs are spread wide.

  Beth turns away as the woman screams, but the wood spirit grabs her head and forces it back round to watch. ‘No!’ Beth cries and the slap comes hard.

  4

  Timing could not have been any better. Bob started coming as the Fiat rattled over the last cattle grid before home; the juddering of the car made the eruption of his cum down Carol’s throat all the more pleasant; there was no option but to slow the car to a halt, the orgasm intense.

  Carol sat up, wiped her mouth. ‘Let’s get home, Bobby. I need to dance.’

  Bob drove on. When they reached the turn that would take them to their cabin, Carol told him to keep going straight on, and to take the turn after next. They left the car tucked out of sight by an empty cabin and walked quickly back to their own. They closed all the curtains and bolted the door. Carol said she didn’t want them to be disturbed.