Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving (4 page)

Lilac made no reply, because he and everybody else knew that there were no jobs anywhere.

They departed quickly from thoughts of the real world and got back to studying their map.

“It would be nice to see a real farm.”

There were animals in the city. In nearby Clapham there was a stable with horses next to the railway, and there was a city farm somewhere in Hackney, but this was not the same. It did not satisfy the urge.

“There are still a lot of built-up areas around,” Cary pointed out, studying pages ten and eleven again.

“Yes, but remember each page covers a lot of ground. I'm sure if we made it to page ten, we could find a place that was real countryside, and you couldn't see a building anywhere.”

“How much would it cost?”

This was a major problem. As far as they could tell from studying the map, the trip would mean a long ride on the tube followed by a bus journey. The fares would be difficult for them to manage. They would also have to buy food for a few days unless they could happen across it locally for free.

Their only regular source of money was Lilac's income support. Cary, being sixteen, received nothing. This was not sufficient to support a couple, even a small couple with modest appetites. On the other hand, they had recently earned a little more from washing car windscreens and standing in Oxford Street giving out leaflets for the Bronte School of English. Unfortunately they had used this money to buy ecstasy and go raving all night, much the same as they had done with the last little sum of money they had had.

“Well, next time we get anything in we should resist the temptation to buy ecstasy and go raving. We should save it.”

This they firmly decided to do, and the thought of a few days in the country, even in a place in which the M1 motorway was no more than half a page of the map away, kept them amazingly happy for the whole day. They nuzzled their heads together so that their long blond dreadlocks became entwined. Elfish was fortunately unaware of this plan. Had she learned of it she might well have been driven to violence. Being small, and not brave, Elfish always avoided fighting, but she was quite capable of hurling heavy household objects out the window at any teenage couple she suspected of planning a happy future.

[ STAGE DIVING WITH ELFISH ]

MO HAD LONG brown hair, one thin strand of which was dyed yellow and held separate by black beads. It fell thick, matted and unclean around his broad shoulders and over his wolf-like face. He was a strong-willed and powerful young man, and in bed he was a wild and cheerful lover.

With Irene Tarisa, herself a guitarist in a local band, he used his tongue without subtlety, pushing it far inside her vagina, up over her clitoris, down over her anus. He licked her pubic hair, grasped it between his teeth till it glistened with his saliva then licked her cunt again with the energy of an animal at an oasis.

Irene Tarisa writhed, because this was pleasurable. She wrapped her legs round Mo's head and sank her fingers into his hair, forcing his tongue even deeper inside her.

Mo dragged himself free, grinned, and in a moment of understanding they reached for the beer at the side of the bed.

Now Irene grinned, and, matching Mo's energy, she plunged on to Mo's cock and sucked it as hard as she could, holding it tightly in a hand that was covered with cheap rings set with skulls and screaming eagles.

Mo's pubic hair ran in a thick diamond far up his stomach and as Irene Tarisa sucked his cock she ran her fingers through this hair, twisting and pulling at it.

After a while Mo, without speaking, sat up, pushed Irene down on her back and thrust himself on top of her. They fucked with energy, Irene digging her nails into Mo's back and buttocks and Mo twisting his head and shoulders to suck and lick her breasts with the same fierce movements he had used between her legs.

While they fucked Irene slid her right hand over her clitoris and rubbed it and in this way she made herself come. She did not make much noise but her left hand tightened on Mo's shoulder so that her nails left deep impressions on his skin. Mo lifted Irene's legs up over his shoulders, fucked briefly in this position then, without withdrawing his penis, turned her over, dragged her hips upwards till she was kneeling in front of him and fucked her even harder than before.

Mo's penis thrust extremely deeply inside Irene Tarisa. Though she would not come a second time, she enjoyed the feel of this, and smiled to herself, her face pressed into the pillow; this pillow, like everything else in Mo's bedroom, was filthy.

Mo, holding Irene's hips so tightly that she was completely unable to move, came in a long and violent shudder. He collapsed sweating beside her, and they lay together briefly before reaching over for their beer. Irene fumbled around in the bedclothes, looking for her cigarette lighter.

Mo was content. Unlike Aran, sex did not make him depressed, and unlike Elfish, he had no devious motives for participating in it.

“Elfish is plotting against you,” said Irene.

Mo looked at her suspiciously.

“How do you mean?”

Irene shrugged.

“She must be. She wrote ‘Queen Mab' on her front door. You know she won't give up the name for you.”

Mo dismissed Elfish's intentions as irrelevant, but his contentment was spoiled by the mention of her name.

STUNG BY SOME particularly biting criticism from Elfish concerning his failure ever actually to do anything, Aran returned to programing his computer game. Unfortunately he was still deeply depressed, so right from the beginning the game had a rather sombre tone, far removed from the optimistic action required by most game players.

In the opening frame the main characters, trapped on a raft, were floating on a vast grey ocean towards the far horizon. They were debating as to whether or not the earth was flat. The point of this of course was that if the earth was indeed flat they would fall off the edge.

Although Aran intended to populate the game with other important cultural characters, he started the game with a cast of four, these four being Botticelli, Cleopatra, Ben Jonson and Mick Ronson. As each of these characters was suffering from depression due to their dreams having departed upwards to the moon, the debate on the shape of the earth was desultory.

“I lost my kingdom to the Romans,” said Cleopatra. “It was all Mark Antony's fault. I don't care if we fall off the edge of the world or not.”

“Me neither,” said Botticelli. “I believed in the teachings of the priest John Savonarola and where did that get me? Into debt. I burned some of my finest paintings merely because he deemed them to be
immoral and then what happened? He gets burned as a heretic and I'm left looking like a fool.”

Ben Jonson was so gloomy about his theatrical reputation being entirely eclipsed by Shakespeare that he could barely utter a word. He sat on the edge of the raft, gazing mournfully at the waves and bitterly regretting that he had ever composed a complimentary poem as an introduction to Shakespeare's First Folio.

Mick Ronson was only slightly more cheerful. He had had some success when he was alive, notably playing guitar with David Bowie in the Spiders from Mars, but his later career had never fulfilled its early promise.

The inclusion of Mick Ronson, who was only recently deceased, seemed to be at odds with Aran's stated intention of not using twentieth-century characters in his game but Aran had a soft spot for his favourite guitarist and anyway he was generally too depressed to worry about being consistent.

Aran was programing in the hazards for level one. Traditionally in video games these early hazards should be fairly simple to negotiate so that players can get a feel for the game but Aran with his bleak view of the world had no time for easy obstacles. The raft was in theory meant to be making its way back to the shore but Aran programmed in some deadly rocks, hidden under the water. Try as the player might, the raft was unable to avoid these rocks and could not reach the shore. After a long series of frustrations a powerful wind came up, pushing the raft further and further out into the ocean and on towards the end of the world.

Meanwhile the occupants' dreams flew higher and higher above their heads, tantalisingly out of reach.

ARAN'S KITCHEN WAS rotting away. This rarely troubled him, apart from when he wanted to make tea and he could not find any cups, or a clean spoon. Aran did have many spoons but they were all in the sink with the rest of his dishes and cutlery. The whole mass was usually covered in tea leaves which stuck to the dishes when he emptied the teapot down the sink. Strong people, used to the poor hygiene of Aran and his acquaintances, would still blanch at the sight of this sink.

Unable easily to rescue a teaspoon, Aran poured a little tea from the jar into the palm of his hand then transferred it to the teapot. It struck him that he could eliminate the clean spoon problem by buying tea bags.

Elfish, having remembered that as well as being a good provider of beer, her brother was reasonably intelligent, had come to ask his advice.

“How can I prevent Mo from using Queen Mab as a name for his band, and use it myself?”

“Use it first.”

“I can't. I don't have anyone to play with me yet and his new band is ready to go. They're playing their first gig at the pub behind the
police station next Saturday. Once they walk on stage as Queen Mab I'm beaten. The name will be theirs.”