The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine (2 page)

‘And that's what the cloudbuster does, isn't it Daddy?'

‘It makes orgone, yes, Nick.'

‘To chase away the spacemen.'

‘Aliens. Yes. Maybe they aren't men at all, hmmm? Maybe they are big green blobs
of jelly.' His father reaches down to tickle him on his tummy and Nick giggles, pressing
his hand to his mouth.

His father hugs him tight, and his voice becomes low and soft. ‘Dr Reich swung the
pipes and your grandpopa was there beside him, and if there were clouds up there
they would have all been busting apart—PEW PEW PEW, shooting silent notes up into
the sky and the clouds cracking open!'

Nick can almost see it. His eyes are closing, the smell of pipe tobacco, the sound
of his father's voice fading to the hiss
of rain, and he is in the room, watching,
transported into the story he has heard so many times.

Dr Reich is hunched over, Popa stands much taller but Nick can see who is in charge.
Charisma, that's what his father calls it. Dr Reich with his hair and his accent
and the way he says things and everyone jumps up to do what he asks.

The lights flash across the sky as if all the stars are falling. Dr Reich has a fine
layer of sweat on his forehead. He wipes it away and his fingers track through his
hair, so that it stands up in odd white peaks. Nick creeps out from the safety of
the corridor. He will be in trouble because he is not in bed in the guest room where
Popa told him to wait, but they are under attack! They need his help. He steps up
onto the platform next to the doctor. Reich turns towards Nick with his wild meringue
of hair and his eyes that look right through him to where his demons are lurking.
Above him the sky is alight with the enemy, falling.

‘For heaven's sake, boy! Take hold of the wheel!' And Nick takes the wheel from his
grandfather's hands and turns it hard to the right, feeling the swing of the platform,
the shining, screaming pipes dancing against the fireworks in the sky.

‘Good work, lad. Well done.'

‘Goodnight sweetheart.'

Nick opens his eyes. He is in his own bed. His father's breath is like flowers soaked
in alcohol and Nick squirms under the bristly kiss. ‘Goodnight,' says his father
again.

‘Good night,' Nick whispers. But he is already back in that other place, the house
full of twisting corridors, with the lights in the sky and the burny smell of orgone
all around.

A Spy in the House of Love

by
ANAÏS NIN

There is a point at any good party where an alchemic transformation occurs. The
mix of alcohol, music and sweat comes to a boiling point and the world tips over.
Dancing becomes less of a simple recreation and more like a prelude to sex. Clothes
dampen and cling to naked flesh, sweat becomes musk-laden, pheromonal. The waking
world startles into dream and things are not as they were only moments before. The
party is abruptly, irretrievably galvanised with the insistence of desire.

At the tipping point of this particular party, Holly realised she was short of breath.
She was suddenly aware of the unreasonable demand imposed by too many lungs sucking
at a limited supply of oxygen. She began to press through a knot of students to get
through the sliding doors. Strange hips intruding, her face pressed against a stranger's
chest, the cheeks of her arse caressed by someone's thigh. The pulse of sexuality
intensified and, with a rush of panic, she felt her body respond. Finally she pushed
out onto the balcony and into the night air and took a deep breath of relief. The
cold flooded her lungs and she was suddenly dizzy with it, only realising now that
she was a little drunk. She swayed, prised off her shoes and sank down on the comfort
of stockinged feet. The wooden floor of the balcony was a little sticky but it felt
cool under her toes. There were stairs leading down to the garden and she headed
towards them past the crush of bodies. Bourbon, perfume, sweat.

Down at the bottom of the stairs there was only the damp virginal smell of cut grass
after rain. Her stockings soaked up the dew but it was worth it to feel her toes
press into the ground. She moved into the moon-shadow of a clump of trees.

The Robinsons were rich. All her friends were comfortable, she supposed, but the
Robinsons were definitely rich. They had a bath-house downstairs. She had often enjoyed
the pleasures of their spa and sauna with her group of friends, wandering lazily
from the wood-lined room with the smell of hot cedar clinging to their skin and plunging
into the cold shock of the swimming pool. It was a saltwater pool, landscaped with
natural rocks and ferns and lit from under the miniature waterfall by a row of lights.
She knew there was a bench seat nestled in a bed of herbs here in the dark and moved
to it blindly, reaching out to brush the spiky branches of rosemary, the soft grey
caress of lavender.

She sat and gazed out onto the glow of the water; pulled one foot into her lap and
massaged the ache from perching on her high heels. She lifted the back of her hand
to her clammy forehead. Perhaps she was coming down with something. She shifted a
little on the bench and unpeeled her silk dress from her damp legs. Just a little
drunk. Not sick at all.

A gust of wind off the trees conjured the scent of grass and she found herself smiling
slightly. It wasn't so bad to be drunk after midnight.

A sudden sound. Holly leaned forward, squinting. A couple who thought they could
not be seen, moving with the ease of privacy.

The pool was hidden from the rest of the party by the overhang of the balcony. Holly
watched as they shushed each other, laughed into their hands; she was close enough
to see a blush on the cheeks of the girl, pretty. She had a short cropped bob and
a cute little fringe. She was slim as a child with tiny ankles, small enough to break
like twigs. The girl slipped off her sandals and delicately lowered her feet into
the water.

The boy was less petite, a little rotund. His solid chest and sloping shoulders made
him look rather like a bear cub. He had a beautiful smile, though, and winked at
the girl cheekily as he wrestled with his shoes. He rolled his socks off and threw
them behind and into the darkness with a clumsy, endearing confidence. He rolled
up his jeans and plunged his feet into the pool beside the girl, wrapping one foot
around hers and squeezing her delicate ankles between his thick calves.

The boy reached out and held her hand and it was sweet to watch her look up at him
and offer her lips. Holly was entranced as they kissed, gentle, closed little nuzzling
mouths communicating their attraction. The kiss continued and Holly saw the girl's
mouth soften, the lips open to surround the boy's. She watched the little snake of
a tongue disappearing into his mouth. She knew she should give them privacy, leave
them to their secret desires, but she was stuck fast.

They were kissing in a way that she and Jack had never
kissed. They were kissing
with a very naked desire.

And then, without hesitation the girl reached for the hem of her floral dress and
lifted it up and off her body. It tugged at her hair and when she was free of it
the short bob looked mussed up, harried. Her face was flushed and glowing brightly
in the dim light. She was wearing a white bra. Her breasts were small and it was
clear from the sag in the cups that the bra was unnecessary. Her knickers did not
match the bra and had thick elastic that cut into her tiny waist. They looked like
a boy's underwear. Holly's friends would have rolled their eyes at the sight of it,
but here, in the dark and without her friends to discuss the absolute necessity of
coordinating your panties, Holly could see that there was something strangely sexy
about the boyishness of this girl's body.

Her companion raised his hand and stroked the loose cups of the bra. She supposed
he was finding the erect ball of a nipple because she saw his fingers shape themselves
into a pinch and he focused on the bra with a rising interest clearly spelled out
in his lap. Holly could see a highlight growing there that had not existed before,
a certain tautness in the denim. She shrank back into the shadows, hoping that the
glint of her widening eyes would not betray her; watched as the boy unclasped the
girl's bra; heard his gasp as the two little breasts were finally exposed. Sharp
nipples, high set, pointing skywards, a tiny swell beneath them as if her body had
almost committed to growing breasts.

The boy did not seem disappointed. He bent his head, and one of her nipples disappeared
into his mouth without preamble. He reached with his hand at the same time and dropped
his fingers into the girl's lap, flicking back and forth with his
middle finger,
agitating the sensible cotton of her knickers. Holly saw the girl arch her back suddenly,
her chin stretching up, her mouth open to the underside of the deck on which a crowd
of party-goers were pressed, drinking and laughing and flirting, blind to the seduction
being carried out beneath their feet. But who was seducing whom?

Holly watched the girl respond to the stuttering fingers of her suitor. She watched
her raise her own hand to the other breast, plucking at her right nipple as the boy
sucked and licked at the left one. She saw her tip her hips back, wriggle them forward
as if it was her hips and not his fingers that were setting the pace.

Holly felt her own hips move, responding to the sight, shifting restlessly on the
bench. She interlaced her fingers, clutching them together on her knees as if she
were about to launch into prayer. She felt an odd pressure building in her groin
and as she stared at the rising tent of the boy's jeans she felt that this was what
he must be experiencing, this inner tension, half pleasure, half pain. She found
that pressing her legs together only inflamed this uncomfortable sensation; she forced
herself to sit with her knees a little apart. In this position she was suddenly aware
of a wisp of breeze travelling under and up, into her skirt, the openness of that
little place between her legs. She wiggled, and felt the little inner lips slowly
parting. No one was watching. No one could see. Holly slipped her hand under her
skirt. Her knickers were made of white lace, the same lace as her bra, edged with
a pale blue silk ribbon. The lace was damp. She pushed it aside. She let her finger
slip across but not into the lips of her sex, the snail trail of desire. She removed
her finger, shaded it with her other hand.

Her finger was glowing with a phosphorescence, pale cornflower blue like the colour
of the ribbon edging her bra. She held her finger up, shielded by the cup of her
other hand—the wartime gesture to hide a glowing cigarette from the enemy. Here was
her terrible secret, the unearthly glow that plagued her. Whenever she felt even
the slightest hint of desire there was this. This terrible blue glow from inside
her body that marked her as different, alien, deformed. Holly knew she was a freak.

She wiped the juices off onto her skirt and the glow began to fade. This girl, here
now, was obviously aroused by the hands of her boyfriend, her legs parted, her hips
thrusting, but when the boy removed his hand from inside her his fingers weren't
shining with any weird glow.

There was something terribly wrong with Holly. She knew it. There was something abnormal
about her moments of arousal. She touched the ring on her wedding finger. Her three
friends wore the same ring, a little silver band with the words
True love waits
engraved
on the side. She stroked the ring with her damp finger and the last traces of blue
lit up the letters there. True love waits. She wondered what Jack would think on
their wedding night when he lifted her skirt to find her glow-in-the-dark vulva providing
subtle illumination of the final act of love. She winced and furrowed her brow.

The skinny girl pushed suddenly away and slipped forward into the pool, silently
cutting the water with the arrow of her body, setting the surface to rippling away
from her entry. Holly heard the quiet little lapping of waves on the river stones
and heard as well the sound of her own glowing sex opening just a little to suck
in the night air. How cold the water would feel on that little place between the
girl's legs. The salt might ease the
heat in those slightly swollen lips. She longed
to slide into the pool beside her, to feel the water kicking up between her parted
thighs as she trod quickly to stay afloat.

‘Come in,' the girl whispered and Holly almost stood to obey her. The boy shook his
head shyly. He kicked his leg through the water and the wake travelled outward, lapping
at the girl's body, stroking the nipples which were just grazing the surface of the
water.

‘No one's going to see us.'

He shook his head. The girl travelled through the water, an easy breaststroke; she
clung to his calves, big thick meaty calves, the edges of his rolled-up jeans turning
dark with water.

‘What's wrong, Craig?'

Craig remained tight-lipped. Holly could see the swelling in his lap beginning to
subside. The girl lifted a hand, trailing a cascade of water droplets onto his thigh.
He flinched, but remained seated there at the edge of the pool.

‘Is it your body? I love your body. I love looking at your body.'

Holly watched as Craig folded his hands over the thick swell of his stomach. It had
never occurred to her that men might be just as shy of their bodies as women were.

‘I'm not going to take my clothes off, Tess.'

She laughed then, a small pretty sound, high and breathy. ‘Aren't you?' she whispered
and Tess floated closer in between his thighs, pulling herself along on the thick
trunks of his legs. When she was nestled firmly between his knees her fingers crept
out, making spidery steps across his crotch, settling on the buttons at his fly.