‘Good, I mean. Very good. You look like one of those girls in that Robert Palmer video.’
‘Do I?’ I was flattered. ‘Just need a guitar to get me going.’
‘You’ll need a bit more than that tonight,’ James said, producing a hip flask. ‘Drink?’
‘Thanks.’ I took a swig and choked. ‘God. What the hell’s that?’
‘Hell is right, you innocent,’ he scoffed. ‘Never tried the green fairy?’
‘Fairy liquid?’ I was confused.
‘Don’t be bloody stupid,’ he laughed. ‘Absinthe.’
I obviously looked blank.
‘All the French Impressionists drank it.’ He was impatient. ‘Toulouse-Lautrec lived on the stuff.’
‘Toulouse who?’
‘Painter. Very short man, Paris, turn of the century. Dancing girls? Fucking genius.’
‘Oh, I know.’ I was relieved. ‘Cancan dancers?’
A church clock nearby struck midnight. James took another swig and pocketed the flask. ‘It’s time,’ he whispered reverently.
‘Time for what?’ I giggled nervously. ‘Are you going to turn into a pumpkin?’
‘Shh,’ James’s brown eyes were dilated in the candlelight. ‘He’s coming.’
The door opened slowly and Dalziel walked in. He looked ridiculously sophisticated in a tight-fitting black suit, a pristine white shirt, his blond hair sleek, his long bony face deathly pale apart from two spots of high colour on his cheeks, his eyes ringed with kohl. When he turned I saw he had attached to his back a pair of beautiful angel wings that looked like they were made from swan’s feathers. He really was quite unlike anyone I had ever met. Five or six beautiful boys and girls, all wearing black, all in varying states of undress, followed him into the room. He regarded us all, then turned off the music and, placing a cigarette in an ebony holder, lit it languidly. He was captivating to watch; I couldn’t tear my eyes away. We all waited.
‘Good evening, my lovelies. It’s wonderful to see you all here at the witching hour. Thank you for coming.’
We waited as he blew a perfect smoke-ring.
‘Now,’ we were treated to a smile, ‘if you could deliver your intoxicating materials for the good of one and all, that would be much appreciated.’
One by one we deposited our booty onto the table. James had a whole bottle of absinthe, but I noticed he kept the hip flask well hidden. I looked around for the beautiful peroxide girl who had always been with Dalziel before, but she wasn’t there. Lena put down a small plastic bag of white powder, another boy a couple of paper wraps, a tall girl a clump of straw-looking things, which I later discovered were magic mushrooms. More bottles and potions followed. Then Dalziel tipped a bottle of white pills into a small china bowl in the centre of the table.
‘One for all, and all for one,’ he murmured. ‘Never say my love is not shared between you.’
James pushed me forward and shyly I placed my Jack Daniel’s on the table.
Dalziel fixed me with a look. ‘Displaying a distinct lack of imagination there, my dear Rose.’ He inhaled through the ebony holder with wearied languor. ‘But as you are a Society X virgin, we will forgive your misdemeanour this time, although I might have to smack your bottom later.’
Low laughter rippled through the room and I flushed scarlet, staring at my feet.
‘Now,’ he looked around, ‘is that everyone?’
The room murmured assent. Dalziel whispered to Lena, who went to change the CD as he smiled slowly at us all. I had a sudden vision of us standing before him like lowly acolytes, mesmerised, a strange sense that we were all waiting to bask in his approval.
‘So. It is Commandments One and Seven we’ll be enjoying tonight. We’ve done Four most recently, we very definitely didn’t keep the Sabbath holy. It was most amusing, wasn’t it, Rose?’
I flushed under Dalziel’s scrutiny, nodding fervently, aware of the envy of some of the others. Lena shot me daggers.
‘Although the Bishop of Oxford clearly didn’t think so.’
‘No sense of humour, the bloody clergy,’ Lena was keen to join in. ‘Jesus in women’s underwear was fucking brilliant, I thought—’
‘Anyway,’ Dalziel cut her off, ‘tonight we will begin with Number One: You shall have no other gods before me.’ He cranked the music right up and unveiled a statue under a velvet cloth of a man with an enormous cock, festooned with a garland of thorns. ‘My dear friend Priapus. Let the party begin. Let us make darkness visible.’
Jimi Hendrix’s guitar screamed through the room and I felt a great surge of anticipation and, frankly, terror. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be here any more but I couldn’t drag myself away. Dalziel must have sensed my fear; he came to me.
‘You look very beautiful, darling,’ he said quietly, and he ran a finger down my cheek. ‘Very curvy and delicious.’ He put a pill in his mouth and then he leaned down and kissed me. I felt his tongue and then I realised the pill was now in my own mouth. For a moment I was about to protest but he handed me a glass and murmured ‘Swallow. I always do.’
So I drank and swallowed. Then he leaned down again and kissed me properly, and I felt the lust lick through my body like forest fire, and I pressed myself into his tall form and held his snake hips and kissed him back. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me: my wildest dreams coming true. Dalziel wanted me.
Abruptly he pulled away, grabbed the pink-haired girl and pulled her over to us.
‘Rose, meet Lena,’ and I smiled, and my legs felt a bit trembly in my very high heels, higher than I’d ever worn, and I went to shake her hand but Dalziel said, ‘Don’t be silly. Kiss her.’ I hesitated because I really didn’t like girls, not in that way, but Lena wasn’t so reserved; she leaned in and kissed me, and I just thought her mouth was very soft where a man’s is normally harder and there was no stubble, only soft skin, but it wasn’t so bad. I was starting to feel very strange, like the whole room was moving away and I was growing very tiny and then big again and then Lena was putting her hand on my breast and I pulled away because I felt a bit sick.
‘Don’t worry,’ Dalziel grinned; he’d been watching us lazily, ‘you’re just coming up. You’ll be fine in a sec.’
I stumbled to the French windows to breathe in the cold autumn air and after a moment or two the music started to overwhelm me. It had changed from Hendrix to something tribal, the beat of the drums pulsing through my veins, and I was beginning to feel like I was flying. I was ecstatic, in fact I was surely about to lift off the ground like a bird. The music was inside me, and outside me and then James was there and he held me and we danced and he got nearer and I pushed myself against him and I never wanted to let go.
‘This is amazing.’ I smiled and smiled, feeling my limbs were
