C H R I S T O P H E R P R I E S T

  Shore leave.

  The news circulated around us faster than the speed of

  sound. The ship was soon to leave its mooring outside the harbour and dock against the quay. We would have thirty-six hours ashore. I cheered with the others. I yearned to find my past and lose my innocence in Muriseay.

  Four thousand men were released and we hurried

  ashore. Most of them rushed into Muriseay Town in

  search of whores.

  I rushed along with them, in quest of Acizzone.

  Instead, I too found only whores.

  There in the dock area, after a fruitless quest that sent me dashing through the streets to find Acizzone’s beautiful Muriseayan women, I finished up in a dancing club. I

  was unready for Muriseay, had no idea of how to find

  what I was seeking. I roamed about the remoter quarters

  of the town, lost in narrow streets, shunned by the people who lived there. They saw only my uniform. I was soon

  footsore and disillusioned by the foreignness of the town, so I felt relieved when I discovered that my wanderings

  had brought me back to the harbour.

  Our troopship, floodlit in the night, loomed over the

  concrete aprons and wharves.

  I noticed the dancing club when I came across the

  dozens of troops thronging around the entrance. Won-

  dering what was attracting them, I pushed through the

  crowd and went inside.

  The large interior was dark and hot, crammed to the

  walls with human bodies, filled with the endless throb-

  bing beat of synthesized rock. My eyes were dazzled by

  the coloured lasers and spotlights flashing intensely from positions close to the ceiling. No one was dancing. At

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  points around the walls, young women stood on glinting

  metal platforms head-height above the crowds, their

  naked, oil-glossed bodies picked out by glaring white

  spotlights. Each of them held a microphone against her

  lips and was speaking unexcitedly into it, pointing down

  at certain of the men on the dance floor.

  As I pushed my way into the central area I was spot-

  ted by them. At first, in my inexperience, I thought they were waving to me or greeting me in some other way. I

  was tired and disappointed after my long walk around

  the town and I raised a hand in weary response. The

  young woman on the platform closest to me had a volup-

  tuous body: she stood with her feet wide apart and her

  pelvis thrust forward, glorying in the revelation of her

  nakedness by the intrusive light. When I waved she

  moved suddenly, leaning forward on the metal rail

  around her platform so that her huge breasts dangled

  temptingly towards the men below. The spotlight source

  instantly shifted—a new beam flashed up from behind

  and below her, garishly illuminating her large buttocks

  and casting her shadow brightly on the ceiling. She spoke more urgently into her microphone, jabbing her hand in

  my direction.

  Alarmed by being paid special attention, I moved

  deeper into the press of uniformed male bodies, hoping to lose myself in the crowd. Within a few seconds, though, a number of women had converged on me from different

  sides, reaching out through the jam of bodies to take me

  by the arms. Each of them was wearing a radio headset,

  with a pin-mike suspended close in front of her lips. Soon I was surrounded by them. They led me irresistibly across to one side.

  While they continued to press around me, one of them

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  flicked her fingers in front of my face, her thumb rubbing acquisitively across her fingertips.

  I shook my head, embarrassed and frightened.

  ‘Money!’ the woman said loudly.

  ‘How much?’

  I hoped that money would let me escape from them.

  ‘Your leave pay.’ She rubbed her fingers again.

  I found the thin fold of military banknotes the black-

  cap marshals had given me as I disembarked. As soon as

  I pulled them from my hip pocket she snatched them.

  With a swift motion she passed the money to one of the

  women I suddenly saw were sitting behind a long table in

  the shadowy recess by the edge of the dance floor. Each

  of them was noting down the amounts taken from every

  man in a kind of ledger, then slipping the banknotes out

  of sight.

  It had all happened so quickly that I had barely taken

  in what they wanted. By now, though, because of the

  close and suggestive way the women were standing

  against me, there was little doubt what they were offer-

  ing, even demanding. None of them was young, none of

  them was attractive to me. My thoughts for the last few

  hours had been with Acizzone’s sirens. To be confronted

  by these aggressive and disagreeable women now was a

  shock to me.

  ‘You want this?’ one of them said, pulling at the loose

  front of her dress to reveal, fleetingly, a small sagging breast.

  ‘You want this too?’ The woman who had taken my

  money from my hand snatched at the front of her skirt,

  lifting it to show me what was beneath. In the harsh

  shadows created by the aggravating lights I could see

  nothing of her.

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  They were laughing at me.

  ‘You’ve taken my money,’ I said. ‘Now leave me.’

  ‘Do you know where you are and what men do in

  here?’

  ‘Of course.’

  I managed to struggle away from them and headed

  back immediately towards the entrance. I was feeling an-

  gry and humiliated. I had spent the last few hours dream-

  ing of meeting, or even of simply seeing, Acizzone’s

  wanton beauties. Instead, these hags tormented me with

  their withered, experienced bodies.

  A group of four black-caps had entered the building

  while this had been going on. I could see them standing

  in pairs on each side of the entrance. They had with-

  drawn their synaptic batons and were holding them in

  the strike position. While aboard the ship I had already

  seen what happened to the victim if one of those evil

  sticks was used in anger. I faltered in my step, not wanting to have to push past the men to leave.

  As I did so, another whore forced her way through the

  crowd and took my arm. I glanced at her in a distracted

  way, fearing the black-caps more than anything.

  I was surprised to see her: this one was much younger

  than the others. She was wearing hardly any clothes to

  speak of: a tiny pair of shorts and a T-shirt with a torn neckline that hung low across one shoulder, revealing the upper curve of a breast. Her arms were thin. She was not

  wearing a radio headset. She was smiling towards me and

  as soon as I looked at her she spoke.

  ‘Don’t leave without discovering what we can do,’ she

  said, tilting her face to speak against my ear.

  ‘I don’t need to know,’ I shouted.

  ‘This place is the cathedral of your dreams.’

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  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Your dreams. Whatever you seek, they are here.’

  ‘No, I’ve had enough.’

  ‘Just try what we offer,’ she said, pressing her face so

  close to me that her curly hair lightly teased my cheek.

  ‘We are here for you, eager to please you. One day you

  will need what whores provide.’

  ‘Never.’

  The black-caps had moved to block the doorway. I

  could see that beyond them, in the wide passageway that

  led back to the street, more of their escouade were arriving. I wondered why they had suddenly appeared at the

  club, what they were doing. Our leave was not officially

  over for many more hours. Was there some emergency

  for which we had to return to the ship? Was this club, so prominently close to where the ship had berthed, off-limits for some perverse reason? Nothing was clear. I was suddenly frightened of the situation in which I had found myself.

  Yet around me the hundreds of other men, all presum-

  ably from the same troopship as mine, appeared to show

  no concern. The racket of the over-amplified music went

  on, drilling into the mind.

  ‘You can leave this way,’ the girl said, touching my

  arm. She pointed towards a dark doorway placed low, be-

  neath a stage area, away from the main entrance.

  The black-caps were now moving into the crowd of

  men, pushing people aside with rough movements of

  their arms. The synaptic batons wavered threateningly.

  The young whore had already run down the short flight

  of steps to the door and was holding it open for me. She

  beckoned urgently to me. I went quickly to her and

  through the door. She closed it behind me.

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  I was in humid semi-darkness and I stumbled on an

  uneven floor. The air was thick with powerful scents and

  although I could still hear the pulsating throb of the bass notes of the music there were many other sounds around

  me. Notably I could hear the voices of other men: shout-

  ing, laughing, complaining. Every voice was raised: in

  anger, excitement, urgency. At odd moments something

  on the other side of the corridor wall would bash heavily against it.

  I gained a sense of chaos, of events being out of control.

  We came to a door a short distance along the corri-

  dor—she opened it and led me through. I expected to find

  a bed of some sort, but there was nothing remotely of the boudoir about the room. There was not even a couch, or

  cushions on the floor. Three wooden chairs stood in a de-

  mure line against one wall, but that was all.

  She said, ‘You wait now.’

  ‘Wait? What for? And for how long?’

  ‘How long you want for your dreams?’

  ‘Nothing! No time.’

  ‘You are so impatient. One minute more, then follow

  me!’

  She indicated yet another door which until that mo-

  ment I had not noticed, because it had been painted in

  the same dull-red colour as the walls. The weak light

  from the room’s only bulb had helped disguise it further.

  She went across to it and walked through. As she did so I saw her reach backwards over her head with both arms

  and remove the torn T-shirt.

  I glimpsed her bare, curving back, the small knobs of

  her vertebrae, then she was gone.

  Alone, I paced to and fro. By telling me to wait for one

  minute had she meant it literally? That I should check my 1 7 1

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  wristwatch or count to sixty? She had thrown me into a

  state of nervous tension. What more had she to do in that further sanctum beyond, other than remove those shorts

  and prepare herself for me?

  I opened the door impatiently, pushing against the

  pressure of a spring. It was dark beyond. The dim glow

  from the room behind me was not strong enough to help

  me see. I gained the impression of something large in the room but I could not make out its shape. I felt around

  with my hands, nervous in the darkness, trying to extend

  my senses against the cloying perfumes and the endlessly

  throbbing music, muffled but loud. As far as I could tell I had come into a room, not another corridor.

  I went further in, groping forward. Behind me, the

  door swung closed on its spring. Immediately, bright

  spotlights came on from the corners of the ceiling.

  I was in a boudoir. An ornate bed—with a large, carved

  wooden headboard, immense bulging pillows and a pro-

  fusion of shining satin sheets—filled most of the room. A woman, not the young whore who had led me here, but

  another, lay on the bed in a pose of sexual abandonment

  and availability.

  She was naked, lying on her back with one arm raised

  to curl behind her head. Her face was turned to the side

  and her mouth was open. Her eyes were closed, her lips

  were moist. Her large breasts bulged across her chest, the nipples lying flatly and pointing outwards. She had

  raised one knee, holding it at a slight angle, exposing

  herself. Her fingers rested on her sex, the tips curving

  down to bury themselves shallowly in the cleft. The spot-

  lights radiated her and the bed in a brilliant focus of glaring white light.

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  The sight of her froze me. What I was seeing was im-

  possible. I stared at her in disbelief.

  She had arranged herself in a tableau-vivant that was

  identical, not close but identical, to one I had seen in my mind’s eye before.

  It was there in that sole fragment of my past: I re-

  membered the first day I was in the cool semi-darkness of the vault of the gallery in Jethra. I had pressed my trembling teenage fingers, my palms, my perspiring forehead,

  many times to one of Acizzone’s most notorious tactilist

  works: Ste-Augustinia Abandonai.

  (I remembered the title! How?)

  This woman was Ste-Augustinia. The reproduction she was fashioning was perfect. Not only was she an exact

  replica but also the arrangement she had made of the

  sheets and pillows—there were folds of satin glinting in

  the harsh light that exactly matched those in the paint-

  ing. The long gleam of perspiration running between her

  exposed breasts was one my lustful imaginings had

  drooled over a dozen times before.

  I was so astonished by this discovery that for a mo-

  ment I forgot why I was there. Much was immediately

  and trivially clear to me: that she was not, for instance, the young woman I had seen removing the torn T-shirt;

  nor was she any of the gaunt women in headsets who had

  seized me on the dance floor. She was more maturely de-

  veloped than the skinny girl in the T-shirt and to my eyes many times more beautiful than any of the others. Also,

  but most confusingly, the deliberate way she had spread

  herself on the smooth sheets of the bed was a conscious

  reference to an imagining only I had ever experienced. Or that I remembered in isolation! This was a connection I

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  could not explain or escape from. Was her pose just a co-

  incidence? Had they somehow read my mind?

  A cathedral of dreams, the girl had said. That was

  impossible!

  Surely it was impossible?

  It was madness to think that this had been contrived.

  But the resemblance to the painting, whose details were

  clear in my mind, was remarkable. Even so, the woman’s

  real purpose was plain. She was yet a whore.

  I gazed at her in silence, trying to find out what I

  should think.

  Then, without opening her eyes, the whore said, ‘If

  you only stand there to look, you must leave.’

  ‘I—I was searching for someone.’ She said nothing, so I

  added, ‘A young woman, like you.’

  ‘Take me now, or leave. I am not to be watched, not to

  be stared at. I am here to be ravished by you.’

  As far as I could tell she had not shifted position when

  she spoke to me. Even her lips had hardly moved.

  I gazed at her for a few more seconds, thinking that

  this was the time and this was the place where my fan-

  tasies and my real life could meet, but finally I moved

  back from her. I was, in truth, frightened of her. I was

  hardly more than an adolescent, almost completely inex-

  perienced in sex. Not only that, though: in a single unexpected instant I had been confronted in the flesh by one

  of Acizzone’s temptresses.

  Lamely, I did as she had told me and left.

  There was little choice about where I should go. Two

  doors led into and out of the room: the one I had entered by and another in the wall opposite. I stepped round the

  end of the huge bed and went to the second door. ‘Ste-

  Augustinia’ did not stir to watch me leave. As far as I

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  could tell she had not so much as glanced at me while I

  was there. I kept my face lowered, not wanting her to

  look at me, even as I was leaving.

  I passed through into a second narrow corridor, unlit

  at my end but with a low-power light bulb glimmering at

  the other. The encounter had produced a familiar physical effect on me—in spite of my apprehension I was tingling

  with sexual intrigue. Lustfulness was rising. I walked towards the light, the door of the room I had just left

  swinging closed behind me. At the far end, just beyond

  the light-bulb, a kind of archway had been formed, with

  a small alcove behind it.

  I came across no doors anywhere along the corridor so

  I assumed I would find some kind of exit in the alcove.

  As I lowered my head to pass through the archway I

  stumbled, tripping over the entangled legs of a man and