Imbroglio

by Andrew McEwan

The fat whore told jokes to relax her customers, laughing as she stretched her pink knickers, flesh marked, indented, a script elastic, moulded to her thighs and belly the impressions of too tight silk and cotton. Her pale flesh was mottled, the fine mesh of pubic hair ensconced in its niche like a squirrel’s arse hanging out of a silver birch, all leafless branches. The bra came off last.

  Currently the subject of Herschel Byrd…

  Regarding her portraits, oblivious of her own work, her drinking of semen and slaking of thirsts, the adjudicator considered briefly his situation: eternity spent in dour criticism of other’s unearthly deeds.

  Tenure. That was the question. Whether one was worthy or not of a place at this most heavily laden of tables – and as food, furniture or guest? The table was large, immeasurably, those assembled for the most part mundane. Their evil was casual thuggery; foot soldiers, they pretended to greatness, while the truly great gorged themselves on lesser brains. The whore was one of history’s manipulators, drawing from her customers’ accounts both cash and information, the latter a more luxuriant currency, hers to indulge, the former simply necessary to grease the wheels of trade. And greased they were, in death as in life. The well of penitents never ran dry. Her confessors queued for miles.

  She would not tell him of her schemes, of course. She wished to see them bare fruit first. Then would she delight in juices cunningly squeezed; the more bitter the better, a taste for acid that was her very heart.

  Another client dispatched she dressed perfunctorily and sidled across to talk.

  ‘You seem preoccupied, Herschel. A little tense, maybe?’

  He frowned. ‘Spare me your wiles, please. As ever, I work.’

  ‘Admiring my paintings?’

  He closed one eye. ‘I’ve not seen their like. A recent recruit?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking. Am I under investigation, or is this, after all, a social call?’

  ‘Everyone’s under investigation,’ he replied.

  ‘Including you?’ She put a hand to her ample bosom.

  ‘Including me.’

  The whore giggled irritatingly.

  ‘But who judges the judge?’

  ‘A committee,’ he told her, straightening his tie.

  There fell a silence between them. Byrd shuffled, checked his watch, all six hands in three-dimensional motion, while the fat whore lit and chewed a cigarette.

  Sucking the last from the brand she flicked it over her shoulder, burning a hole in a chaise longue that had so many holes in it already.

  ‘Back to work then,’ said Herschel.

  ‘Back to work…’

  They weren’t so different, he thought. Neither was here for the good of their fellow man – quite the contrary. In all its manifestations, identical in number to its populace, Hell was a locale of traitors. Ducks with shotguns. There were standards to uphold; and those standards were base.

  Sixteen: Untitled