Five to Twelve (4 page)

“Number three,” said No Name, fishing a key from his pocket. “Seven fifty the hour.”

“Oh, the high price of sin!” She turned to Harvil. “Can you last an hour, brave one?”

Harvil licked his lips. “For twenty a throw, I can last till close of play.”

She laughed. “Delusions gratis. For your sake, the deeds should match the words.” She took the key, threw an arm round Harvil in proprietory fashion, and called to her companions. “Sayonara, briefly, bosom friends. I go to test a little steel. Don’t drink the well dry till I get back.”

“In about ninety seconds,” prophesied a rich contralto voice.

“Go ride yourself! At least three minutes!”

The captive and docile Harvil was led towards the bedchamber level.

No Name carried drinks across to the doms. There was a burst of laughter, then two or three of them glanced meaningly at the bar. Presently one of them—a handsome and obviously bouncy specimen—came across to the bar.

She looked at Dion. “Care to?”

“It would be a privilege, but no,” he said carefully. “My fish fries elsewhere.”

“It was not so much a question,” the bouncy dom explained. “More of a regal invitation.”

“Abjectly declined,” responded Dion, “with profuse stereophonic apology.”

Her voice became hard. “Jack, when I invite, only a brave sport declines.”

“Felicitations. In this case a coward also declines. May I offer you a drink?”

There was a roar of derision from the watching doms.

“I am ugly, deformed,
persona non grata?
” demanded the bouncy dom in a hard voice.

“Not any. Eminently desirable, etcetera. But, alas, I prefer to drink.”

“Fifty lions should inhibit your thirst”

“It doesn’t. Please join me.”

There was a sudden silence.

Surprisingly, the dom laughed. “Courtesy, it seems, is the new vice of the peons. I’ll join you indeed, my courteous coward. Name the mental block.”

Dion signalled to No Name.
“Löwenbrau
, twice.”

The drinks appeared with some rapidity.

“Grüs Gott
,” said Dion, raising his glass.

“Salaam aleikum
,” responded the dom with a smile. Then she poured the
Löwenbrau
over his head. “And may God bless all who sail in her.”

Dion spluttered. Everybody laughed.

While he was vainly trying to mop up the mess with a kerchief, the dom—spurred, doubtless, by general approval—took the other glass and repeated the process. His discomfort seemed to be out of all proportion to the quantity of liquid that had been poured over him.

“The duality of mercy is twice blessed,” explained the dom. “It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.”

Through a veil of
Löwenbrau
, Dion gazed at the mocking woman. The sounds of hilarity increased on all sides. Pando and Tibor were killing themselves with mirth.

“Ho, ho,” said Tibor. “Stand three feet taller and be counted. How now, brown squire?”

Dion shook his head and took a deep breath. He gazed at the dom who had humiliated him and who now stood obsering his discomfort with immense satisfaction.

“That,” she said, “may teach you to be more of a man.”

“And this,” retorted Dion, striking wildly at her throat with the hard edge of his hand, “may teach you to be more of a woman.”

The dom was not expecting retaliation. The chop connected with her throat, and she grunted. Dion followed the blow with a straight finger thrust to her stomach. As she doubled, he hit the back of her neck for good measure.

She fell to the floor and lay there, twitching and groaning.

“Any more for the skylark?” enquired Dion savagely. “Any number can play.”

Again, briefly, there was silence. Pando and Tibor gazed at him in awe.

Then there was the sound of a chair being moved. It seemed to reverberate like thunder. One of the doms in the oubliette stood up and walked towards him. She was one of the most beautifully proportioned human beings he had ever seen. A full negress. About six foot six, but slender and feline. Her dark, muscular arms seemed to ripple with power.

“I’m afraid,” she said, in perfectly modulated English, “you have hurt my friend. That is a shade unsociable. I’m sure you must now be most unhappy.”

“Get her away,” said Dion, indicating the dom at his feet. “She has had too much to drink.”

“Certainly,” said the tall negress. “We have all had too much to drink. But first, without prejudice and if you will allow me, I’m going to break you in two.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Dion saw that two of the other doms had also left the oubliette. He glanced desperately at Pando and Tibor. “Now is the time for all good men to come to the party of the first part.”

“Nix,” called Pando. “Retroactive resignations effective instantly. Happy touch down, squire. Unto them that hath shall be given.”

In desperation, Dion snatched a bar stool. He held it with the legs pointed towards the tall negress. “Come one step nearer,” he threatened, bracing himself against the bar, “and I’ll teach you to stand on a barrel and sing God Save the Queen.”

The negress smiled, and continued to advance.

With an expert movement, No Name, who was immediately behind Dion, on the other side of the bar, snatched a loaded plastic truncheon apparently from nowhere and brought it down forcibly on the back of Dion’s skull. The world exploded, and he fell soundlessly to the floor.

“Good night, sweet prince,” said No Name gently. “The sentiment may be sublime, but a fracas is definitely bad for trade.”

Everybody laughed, and drinks appeared on the bar as if by magic.

Eventually, since Dion perversely refused to return to consciousness, No Name called for an ambulance.

T
HE
domdoc looked down at him disapprovingly. “Making inflammatory statements, creating a fracas, assaulting citizens with bric-à-brac and felonious intent—you’ve had quite a concerto, haven’t you?”

“Who neutralized me?” asked Dion, sitting up in bed too rapidly, then lying down again as the throbbing started.

“The bartender,” said the domdoc, “in a moment of divine afflatus. He possibly saved you from racism, first degree murder and a grade one. Give the man a cigar.”

“How fares the target area?” Dion felt his head gingerly. There was one hell of a bump.

“You’ll live,” said the domdoc despondently. “Regrettable, but someone up in orbit has an addiction for mysterious ways… You’re a critical mess, Dion Quern. I’ve checked your heart, brain and record. You were born for a grade one; if not now, then before you run out of time-shot programme.”

“Get stuffed.”

“Playback?”

“Get stuffed. It’s an archaic exhortation,” he explained patiently. “It suggests that the addressee should have recourse to a phallic symbol.”

She frowned. “You offering?”

“With concussion and a hangover? It would be unethical.”

“I see… Well, my clever little sport, it depends on me
whether you are recommended for treatment or not. I shall think about it—while looking for a phallic symbol.”

“Squire,” he corrected gently. “I’ve been downgraded to respectability.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Who the Stopes would be so sickinky?”

“Juno Locke, Peace Officer, London Seven.”

The eyebrows receded further. “Elaborate hoaxwise?”

“Sorry to disappoint. Quasi-legit. Suck it and see.”

“It isn’t registered.”

“You’re so right. Informal, recent and definitely protem.”

The domdoc sighed. “I’ll call her and see if she wishes to claim the body. Stopes help you, if negative. I wouldn’t offer you squiredom if you were the last man with a Y-chromosome.”

“We all have our funny little ways,” conceded Dion. “For the great non-love you bear me, please make the call.”

“I’ll be back,” said the domdoc. “If it fits, you can be out of hospital pronto. If it doesn’t fit, we may even have to get acquainted.” Surprisingly, she smiled. “Incidentally, don’t try the window. It’s laser linked. I’m sure you wouldn’t like a nasty blister on your psyche, would you?”

“I wouldn’t know,” responded Dion. “There is a death-wish that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.”

The domdoc, brightly efficient and on the right side of her century, departed from the room. She returned in a couple of minutes.

“You’re so right. Juno Locke, Peace Officer, London Seven. Now will I believe in Father Green Shield.”

F
ROM
the balcony, Juno gazed out over London. It was a warm, sunny afternoon. Half a mile below, autumn leaves were spiralling gently down to earth from colonies of semi-disrobed trees. The blue sky, though slashed with vapour trails and occasionally outraged by the dull distant crack of a strato-rocket on re-entry, was hung with a sad and tranquil blueness. To the east, it was possible to see where the great snake of the Thames became lost in the bleak stretches of the North Sea.

Sitting in the comparative darkness of the room, Dion looked out through the french window at Juno. She was wearing a blue and white sari. The blue matched the sky; the white matched the vapour trails. He was intensely interested in whether it was by accident or by design.

Juno turned to him. “I talked to the Quasimodo who neutralized you at the
Vive le Sport
,” she said evenly.

“No Name? I’ll talk to him myself in a day or two,” said Dion, touching the still large bump on his head. “We’ll see whether his
a priori
argument is as good as his
a posteriori
line. The bastard wields a mean instrument of sweet reason.”

“You’ll let him ride,” retorted Juno,

“Suppose I don’t want to?”

“I’ll persuade you. There can be no joy in squashing a vegetable.”

“This vegetable has spikes.”

“Avoid the spikes. You were an idiopath to go there in the first place.”

“I love you,” said Dion.

“Playback?”

“I love you. This grade one vegetable hits me over the memory bank, and you expect me to turn all metaphorical.”

“I interviewed him officially as a Chief Peace Officer. He claims you were conspiring with three itinerant sports to do fearful injuries to all doms. He further claims you inflicted grievous bodily harm on one dom and threatened another. Assuming a forty per cent truth quotient, your evening’s work shortlists you for a grade two.”

Dion roired with laughter. “If that’s the score when I’m an innocent bystander, Stopes help me when I really go to travail.”

Juno sighed, “Well, then, stripling, what is
your
story-board?”

Dion told her all that had happened. But, to his surprise, she hardly appeared to be listening. The air was still, and his voice carried clearly through the open french window. But she gazed towards the horizon without a flicker of expression on her semi-profile. When he had finished, she remained silent for a while. Then she took a scrap of paper from the top fold of her sari and read from it,

Dion gazed at her appalled. Then he dashed into the bathroom, unlatched the grille over the warm air duct and felt behind it. The antique writing pad was still there. So was the pencil. In a towering rage, he went out on to the balcony.

“You bloody great bitch! What do you do-search the box every night?”

“I’m sorry,” said Juno humbly. “I’m sorry. I hoped –”

“Don’t hope,” he snapped savagely. “You’ve got enough lions to rent my body, but I’m damned if you’ll ever even see enough to pay the rent for my psyche… That was no part of the bargain.”

He was gratified to see the watery brightness in her eyes. Impulsively, he snatched the slip of paper, tore it into tiny pieces and scattered them over the side of the balustrade. Presently, they mingled with the convoys of falling leaves.

“They were such strange and lovely words,” she said softly.

“Archaic doggerel in a worn-out style.”

“Lovely, regardless.”

“Crap. Verbal excreta—the sick imaginings of a vagrant sport.”

She turned to him. “You see, Dion, that’s why I don’t want you to walk into a grade two… Those kind of words will die. You know that. You must know it.”

He hit her. She didn’t move. The mark showed on her cheek.

He hit her again. Still she didn’t move.

For several appalling seconds they stood staring at each other.

Then suddenly he put his arms round her and kissed her on the lips. It was only about the third time he had ever kissed a woman because he really wanted to in his entire life.

Her blue sari pressed against him, her breasts pressed against him, her belly pressed against him. He was amazed that there was so much life in her body. It pulsed, it vibrated. It shivered and leaped.

He tasted salt on her lips; and the salt taste was sweet.

D
ION
sniffed the cool clean air of morning. It drifted in through the still open french window, combating the air streams from the room’s heat ducts and the subtle after-scent of sexual frenzy.

He looked at Juno, her eyes still closed, still lying naked and luxuriously crumpled like a great plastic doll by his side. She was beautiful—there was no doubt about that. But then all living things were beautiful. The great trick was to stand—or lie—where the beauty was visible…

Between them, they had made an afternoon, an evening and a night of it. They had made love until they were exhausted. Then they had ordered food and drink; and when it popped up through the vacuum hatch, they had carried the tray to bed and greedily energized their bodies to the point where they could face ecstasy again. So it had gone on; and now the party was over. Passion was spent, and there remained only tenderness. And much surprise.