Paid and Loving Eyes

He was in paradise. I’ve been there, and knew instantly a million things I’d only ever guessed at. Until now. Katta’s vast naked form was kneeling beside him. Him supine, she hugely tumescent, working away, her head raising and lowering like a feeding animal’s. His hand was on her nape, his other cupping her pendulously swinging breast. His neck muscles were straining taut as he arched, striving towards the bliss that is oblivion. She was laughing. How she managed to, God knows. Her hands were on his hips, pinning him to the bed. It was a rape, a gift, Katta’s enormous fatness rocking flabbily over the recumbent man. I’ve made it sound repellent, I suppose, but it was beautiful. Poets should have been there. Was it the contrast, her spreading flesh and his lean length? Or the fascinating incongruity of Katta’s unbelievable mass seeming to chew him into docility? Or her shaking with laughter while he soared towards detumescence—?

A car door slammed nearby, and another. Footsteps scrunged gravel, and voices spoke casually down on the forecourt.

And I hadn’t heard a thing, so engrossed by the lovely scene on the bed. I froze, couldn’t for the life of me look away.

“… have six or seven of them staking it out,” a bloke’s voice pontificated.

“If that’s enough. You know what he’s like, Jervis,” Almira countered. “I have the key.”

“Not really,” Jervis said. A good try at wry humour. “You two should be able to advise!”

“Don’t be offensive.” Jingle of keys, sound of a lock. “Always the politician, Jay.”

“It has its advantages, my dear.”

Katta heard the door, quickly lifted her head, mechanically wiped her mouth using the back of her hand. She rose with the strange nimbleness of the gross, evaded Paul’s agonized, stretching hand, and trotted from my sight. Paul groaned, covered himself, put the bedside light off. I ducked away. God, I felt his deprivation, poor sod. Robbed, a second from ecstasy.

And that was everything. I thought for quite a few moments, up there on the moonlit tiles.

You see, I’d glimpsed Katta’s face as she’d lifted her mouth, spitting away joy unbounded, and it was wrong. Her face wasn’t right. Oh, it was Katta, sure. But her expression should have been anxiety, worry at being discovered, what the neighbours would think, et familiar cetera.

It hadn’t been any of those. It had been utter shock, almost fear.

The sort of revelation that tells all, especially about whom she’s suddenly so scared of walking in through the door.

When she’d heard the last of Almira’s sentence and Jervis’s rejoinder as they’d opened the front door, she’d been halfway across the carpet. And her swift fright had instantly evaporated. She’d even turned, given Paul a charming rueful smile, blowing his tormented features a kiss from a mouth suddenly formed into an exaggerated tantalizing pout. Katta had slipped out of the room much calmer than she’d shot away from their love-bed. So she’d been frightened to death of someone finding her and Paul—then suddenly not given a damn when the intruders were merely Almira and Jervis. How come?

It took me quite a while to escape from there, passportless. I didn’t care. I was almost pleased with life, as I made it back to the car and drove back to the trunk-road service station, to wait for the golden pair to come.

They captured me while I was having some grub in the self-service. The swine didn’t let me finish it, either.

CHAPTER TWENTY

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Lovejoy.”

Here he came, Narval the Throttler, plonking himself down opposite, extermination in mind. God, but he had the most electric eyes you ever did see. Killer’s eyes, staring, seeing only their own madness. She stood hands on hips, looking for a surfboard and a beach. Why did she have marks on her arms?

“Kee.” I had a mouthful. “What sort of a name’s that?”

“G.U.Y.” The girl was cool, languid in a warning kind of way. Bored witless. She’d be at least as much trouble as Kee. I spelled the name to myself. Guy. He was Guy, say Kee. “Guy Solon. S.O.L.O.N.”

“Up and come, Lovejoy. Now.”

“Right.” I seized a fragment of grub, and upped and went.

“You’re in trouble,” Guy said conversationally. “Veronique’ll explain.” This made him laugh, a whine interrupted by giggles that never made it. I felt in sore need of allies. Mercy Mallock?

“Trouble,” she said, laughing too. We were so cheery.

“Who from?”

“A high-ranking officer.” Veronique looked at me. I was shocked. Her eyes were a vigorous blue, so bright they seemed illumined from within. Standing beside this pair of clones as Guy unlocked his motor I felt like the coalman. I’m never well turned out at the best of times. After my climbing efforts, no wonder Veronique’s gorgeous radiant orbs scored me as a tramp.

“Someone with standards, eh?” I prompted. They only laughed. Their brittle merriment was getting me down. I hoped it wouldn’t last. I longed for Lilian’s seductibility, even Gerald’s anxious friendliness. (No, cancel that. No hunters, please.)

We took off in a Grand Prix start. Whiplash Willie hit the road like he had seconds to live. Veronique yabbered into some phone while I tried to find the seat belt, seemingly a triumphant account of their recapture of some