“Lovely, Timon,” she said. “Always lovely.”
He relaxed in her arms then and grinned. He kissed her, quietly and unexpectedly and how soft and full his lips were. His teeth gave her lips a playful nip and stayed there, just for a breath, then he pushed at her again, pulling her into his warmth, where she rested.
“If we make love,” Wendy said, “it won’t be…”
He hushed her and started to undress her, pushing the warmed clothes down onto the sodden ground. She felt her skin tighten in the cool air and tasted the soot that lined her throat. And tasted Timon’s mouth on her again. She smoothed his chest as his shirt dropped away, fumbled with his belt. Felt her knees crack as she bent to lie beneath him, heard his belt and keys and money jingle as he came to straddle her, his feet tangled and tied together. She laughed. “I’m fucking soaked now.”
He brushed her hair back, pulled leaves and twigs away and eased some feeling back into her. He tugged his cock free of his tangle of clothes and she thought, in a rush: old pal, hiya, you’re the first proper cock I ever saw and at last, after all this, he was sliding it into her and he lay on her breasts and sobbed as he held it there inside her. Wendy gripped his sides and felt his feverish sweat slick her thighs, her hands and she thought, not for the first time, that she and Timon had been each other’s consolation prizes all along, right from the start.
Katy pushed Astrid straight into the waiting party. More tents had been struck right at the edge of the glen. A less raucous gaggle of unicorn followers awaited them. Even the horses were quiet and watching. Astrid’s wheels squeaked and protested. “Shit,” Katy said.
Astrid never said a word.
The followers of the church lit torches and came out to meet them. With them came the Professor. He wore a neat black suit, but he was huge and lording it over everyone present.
He laughed, loud and deep inside his gullet to see them struggling, stuck in the rutted mud like this.
“Bring them to the camp,” he chuckled.
The followers helped Katy with the chair.
Katy clung on. “Take me to your leader,” she muttered.
“More for our happy gang, our wondrous breed,” the Professor laughed. “Our ever-expanding troop.”
Astrid’s face contorted in anger. She could have spat in his eye. “We don’t have anything to do with you. You are spoiling the memory of Belinda.”
“A rival faction,” he purred thoughtfully.
“Faction my arse,” said Astrid.
“My dear,” he said. “What are you like, riding that fine, steel steed of yours? You are like a little centaur. A plucky centaurina. Perhaps we could adopt you as our new figurehead. You can be an emblem of the challenges we face as we ride onwards, ever onwards.”
“Do you really believe all your own shite?” asked Katy bluntly.
“Oh, yes,” said the Professor. “And come morning, all the world will see how much we believe.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Katy.
“Take them,” said the Professor quickly, and Astrid was plucked wriggling out of her chair by willing, dead-eyed stagehands. Her chair—with its lacquer of nail varnish and twists of old tinsel—was booted into the fire.
“Cocksuckers!” screamed Astrid, held struggling and suspended. Katy was pinned to the ground.
“These two reek of the corrupted world,” glowered the Professor, raising his voice to carry to the others. “They are sullying the air and the chaste minds of the true followers. These two have renounced nothing. They are in our midst and they bring with them poisonous thoughts.” He clicked his fingers. “Bring them to my tent.”
His harem tent was larger than all the others. It was dark and smelled of fish and chips, which one of his lackeys had brought out for him from the hotel. Astrid and Katy were pushed down on the lumpy cushions and bound with coarse cloths.
“Jesus God,” said Astrid. “I think this is it.”
They were left for some moment while the Professor addressed his closest followers. They heard him through the canvas.
“I will teach these two myself and convert them to the purer way. Even though our journey is almost over and morning will see us reunited with the visitors and long-gone from here, we still have time for two more conversions. I shall take that burden upon myself.”
The rabble were clapping and jeering him on and he was ranting, spittle flecking his perfect, neat beard. He talked once more about the perfect, sexless visitors, all reason and perfection, who would pass by soon and take the purest home.
“They all want to be horses,” said Astrid.
Katy was thrashing about in her bonds to free herself and fell into a jumble of the Professor’s personal effects. His stinking clothes. She cursed. Tins of Heinz soup, a little stove, a portable Byron, a tin opener and a white sliced load, half gone. She twisted and swore and scratched the flesh off her wrists getting the tin opener into one hand.
Then up went the tent flap and the Professor was crouching over them while the followers guarded his read.
“Which of you lovely converts is going to be the first?” he grunted.
“Mandy was right about you,” Astrid shouted.
“Mandy?” he asked, mildly surprised.
“Everything she wrote in her book. Everything she said.”
“Do you know the beautiful and treacherous Mandy?” he smiled. “My Scheherazade?” He unloosened his suit trousers, closed the tent flaps behind him with a cough. Then he yanked down his boxer shorts and pumped furiously at his fat purple cock. “And will you two tell me stories to delay my coming? What elegant circumlocutions can you describe?” He advanced on Astrid. Hmm. No legs.”
“Leave her the fuck alone!” Katy yelled. “She’s got no fucking legs.”
“I know,” he said gleefully. “Isn’t it convenient? I’d prefer her with no arms
