When Jezebel and Magdalena, a couple of whores of indeterminate sexuality, try to persuade her to host a sex party high class call girl, Passionaria, is none too keen. But when trumpeter Sal Pinksy puts her in touch with Kid McLean, a former child popstar, and Kid becomes her client, the party takes on a greater significance. Passionaria is a devotee of the pagan god Dionysos and the god needs to be sacrificed periodically. Kid McLean - sexually abused as a child - needs to atone for what he believes are his sins. Perhaps all these events can be combined?
Written in a quirky, tongue-in-cheek style, this novel explores the darker sides of gender, sexuality and self-delusion in a way that is both funny and tragic.
Published by Bastard Books (UsualReady Enterprises) 2001
Excerpt From
THE MAN WITH THE HORN
by Barbara Scott Emmett
The Kiss
The price of kissing is your life. RUMIJezebel and Magdalena are sipping tea and eating ginger biscuits in Jezebel's rooms in Paddington. They sit, side by side, on the little two-seater black and cream plastic settee. Jezebel has her saucer perched on her black-stockinged knee while she genteelly raises the fluted cup to her pink lips. Magdalena, long legs clumsy under the kidney shaped coffee table, shifts awkwardly. Sal Pinksy, china cup clutched in bony hand, sits opposite them in a matching armchair.
The clock cuckoos four times.
~Another bickie, Sal? says Jezebel, reaching the plate across to him. Sal takes one, morosely.
~How's things with whatsername? says Magdalena, spraying a mouthful of ginger crumbs over her silicon chest. Jezebel tuts and hands her a paper napkin.
~Zenobia? Sal puts his cup and saucer down on the edge of the coffee table and fishes about in his pocket for his tobacco tin. All right, I suppose, he lies.
Jezebel hands him a china ashtray in matte black with a pink and yellow spot and dash pattern on it and says: Hope you don't mind if we continue to eat whilst you smoke.
Ignoring her, Sal rolls up. Though I never knew how difficult living with somebody could be... You start off liking each other... but then...
Jezebel and Magdalena watch him intently and give synchronised nods.
~Yes? prompts Jezebel when he fails to respond to this silent encouragement.
~Oh, you know what it's like...
~No. I don't know. Jezebel nibbles her biscuit. Never having lived with anyone, and proud of it I might add, I haven't a clue what it's like.
~I lived with a woman once, says Magdalena, dipping her gingernut in her tea, when I was a sailor... 'Course I was away a lot...
~Yes, well, we don't want to know about that, thank you, says Jezebel. Keep your sordid past to yourself. Go on Sal.
Sal shrugs. She's a great girl, sometimes... He shakes his head. But she won't let me have any peace. She thinks I'm lazy, he adds sadly.
~Well, you are, aren't you? says Magdalena, dropping soggy biscuit into her lap.
~Oh for Heaven's sake... Jezebel takes the cup and saucer out of Magdalena's hand and sets it down on the table with a clatter. Clean yourself up and let Sal finish what he's saying.
~Not much left to say. Sal looks at his roll-up. Just didn't realise what it would be like, that's all. She can be really vicious sometimes... wasn't expecting that.
~Vicious? says Jezebel.
~We had a row the other night. Sal puffs at his cigarette. It's sorted now, more or less. But she certainly knows how to stick the knife in...
~That's the way it is with relationships, says Magdalena sagely.
~Don't see why I should put up with it. Sal takes a slurp of cold tea. Why should I take a load of crap from her, when she's not the one I really want? Wouldn't mind so much if...
~You're not still holding out for Passionaria, surely, says Jezebel. Don't you think that obsession has gone on long enough? She leans across and freshens his cup. How long you been chasing Pash now?
~I dunno. Quite a while.
~Quite a while? Eight or nine years to my knowledge. I can remember when you first told me about her. That would be in... ooh let's see...
~It's about eight years.
~I remember it clearly, Jezebel goes on, 'cos you were playing with the Banditos and we came down to see you at the Bass Clef... or was it the Bottom Line? Somewhere like that... anyway, you earbashed me all night about this girl you'd got your eye on. Wait 'til you see her, you said. You were besotted. Obviously still are. She wasn't called Pash then, though, was she?
~No. Her real name's Jane, says Sal quietly.
~And not long after that you left the band...
~I didn't leave... we split up.
~And you've never played since, have you? Funny that.
~Yeah, says Magdalena, you been too busy panting after Pash to get yourself into another combo.
~There's no connection, says Sal irritably. It's not so easy to get work these days... too many musicians and not enough gigs... and I'm getting old... it's all young kids playing music now.
~But you're good Sal, you got talent... hasn't he? Jezebel nudges Magdalena, who nods, mouth full. Shame you never done anything with it.
~Gimme a break, says Sal. You sound just like Zenobia... she's got me run ragged. I'm sick of it.
Jezebel takes a sip of tea and looks hurt. Then I can only agree with her, she says. How much longer are you gonna go on chasing a dream, hm? How many more todays are you going to waste waiting for that elusive tomorrow?
Sal shrugs. I fall in love too easily, he says, that's my trouble...
~You don't know what love is, says Jezebel. Do you? You don't know what love is.
~You can talk, says Sal. On your own admission, neither do you..
~No, but at least I do admit it. Jezebel sniffs loudly. I'm a natural celibate, myself, actually. Not really interested in all that messy... sex stuff.
~Celibate? says Sal. Celibate? What about your work?
~Celibacy is a state of mind, says Jezebel. Work doesn't count. Lots of whores are virgins that way. Your darling Pash for a start...
Sal looks at her, puzzlement sitting between his brows.
~Men and woman shouldn't live together, anyway, says Magdalena, butting in. They should keep to separate parts of the household, like in ancient Greece, or in Muslim countries. Men's quarters and women's quarters... and they only get together for...
~We know what they get together for, thank you, says Jezebel. Incidentally, has anything more been said about... She lowers her voice ...the party?
~Oh, yeah. says Sal, that's what I wanted to tell you. We're all meeting up at the Drumbeat next Friday night... to discuss it. You'll hear Zenobia sing as well.
~That'll be nice. Jezebel looks at the cuckoo clock which, thus prompted, strikes the quarter hour. Quarter past four, she says, time I was getting to bed. She gets up and glances out of the window. Almost dawn. The birds are starting to twitter.
~Yeah, says Magdalena, Better get myself home to bed as well. Coming Sal? Walk you as far as Praed Street.
At Praed Street Magdalena turns left and Sal turns right. He walks away towards the grey dawn of the Edgware Road. The Edgware Road--the caduceus around which his London wandering coils like a snake. The thyrsus about which his ivy twines. The grey gauntness under the Marylebone flyover hisses in the early morning dusk. Lone cars, wanderers in their own time-space twilight, glide past him softly, their headlights dim snake eyes in the coming dawn. A pondering roams his mind, questioning, probing.
Why did he let the music slip away? Was it because of Passionaria?
No, of course it wasn't. Why should it have been?
And is it now time for a resurgence? What is this feeling he has within, this urge? Is this it, coming back? If he tried now, would it happen, would he succeed? Into his aural consciousness comes a first haunting cry. Can this be it? Is this the music welling up inside him? Is this the long lost magic re-entering his soul at last? Is this his long gone lover returning to pierce his heart once more?
Excitement rises in him as Venus rises in the morning sky. He speeds up, hurries along, eager to cover the few miles of pavement which separate him from home. His feet carry him faster and faster. His crepe-soled hurrying takes him on and up and on, along the great sweep of the waking Edgware Road. He passes the St. John's Wood turnoff with only a momentary hesitation. Far too early for Passionaria to be up anyway. And for once, there is something he desires more. A first bus comes reddening up behind him but he, forgetful of his surroundings, lets it sputter on past --a miasma of diesel fumes in the cool grey dawn.
He tiptoes into the silent flat, into the bedroom, where the pearly morning light is reflected in the wardrobe mirror. The rumpled bed is empty. Zenobia is not yet home from her own evening's entertainment. Jealousy stabs at him briefly but he ignores it. Doesn't matter where she is, or who she's with, all that matters is--
He kneels down on the thin carpet, his right knee studded by a nail just proud of the uneven boards beneath. As he reaches into the bottom of the heavy oak wardrobe the smell of old wood and mothballs assails him. The mirrored door creaks on its hinges and will not stay open. It swings back to catch him on the shoulder. Nudging it away, he slowly pulls out the case. The shape gives it away. The flared bell shape of the moulded board and mock black leather hints loudly at its contents. His long fingers fumble momentarily with the tarnished brassy locks. Then he snaps the locks open with satisfying stereophonic clicks. He hesitates, his hands caressing the leatherette surfaces, the dips and hollows of the body of the case, the swelling, blossoming bowl.
It has been a long, long time.
He sucks in a deep breath, feels his lungs expand, his head swirl. He can smell her now. He can smell the musty dusty case and the brassy goddess within. Her metallic sweats, imperceptible to those who have never been intimate with her, rush towards his nostrils as, finally, reverently, he lifts the lid of the case to reveal her to the world.
He almost swoons.
He had thought this box was her coffin, that she would never now be disinterred. He had come to believe that she would lie there entombed, forgotten for long years more. But now is the moment of her resurrection. Now the stone rolls back and she can rise again. And the box in which she has slept this last octade is after all an ark, a sacred container, and not a sarcophagus.
Slowly, delicately, he slides his fingertips underneath the cold metal and slowly, lovingly, eases her from her tattered red satin bed. She comes up easily, leaping eagerly into his hands like a lover in the night. She slides through his fingers, sinuously, shimmering in the half light. Her dulled brilliance is heartwrenching. The first thing he must do--no, the second thing he must do -- is polish her. The first thing he must do, he now does. Rising effortlessly to his feet, almost levitating in his euphoria, he turns to face the window, the divine artifact resting lightly on his palms. The rising sun shoots a first radiant beam between the half-drawn curtains. Sal pulls them back to reveal an exuberant sky; a shaft of sunlight pierces the clouds like the pointing hand of God. Turning the instrument about, he takes a long deep breath and raises her to his mouth. He presses his vibrating lips together tightly and expresses a forced stream of air into the funnel of her mouthpiece. Lightly tonguing her, he moves in for the attack.
And the kiss is ecstasy.
Ah my beloved how could I have abandoned you for so long? Tears prick the corners of his soft brown eyes. How could you have abandoned me for such an age? For was that not truly how it was? Whose interest faded first? Not his. No, not his. Many a long night he had held her in his arms and suffered the torture of her indifference. Many a night seeped silently into dawn before he flung himself on his bed distraught at her lack of response. He brought her to his lips so many fruitless times, so many soundless nights, so many broken-hearted mornings, when she had refused to sing for him. No, he was not the one to turn his back. She left him. She abandoned him, turned away from him in the worst possible way, for she was still there, lying next to him, close, touchable, tantalising--but mute.
He lifts her to his lips again. She sings out long and gloriously, her voice filling the room with emotion, notes hanging on the dusty air. The tears roll down his inflated cheeks as he brings her to her climax.
It has been a long, long time--but Sal Pinksy has not forgotten how it is done.
******
© Barbara Scott Emmett 2005-6. No Unauthorised Reproduction. All Rights Reserved