Gary spent his last 50 Euros the day his two children caught their flight back to England.
It left him broke and lonely.
Now, seventy-two Vodka fuelled hours later, he sat outside Damien Demon’s, Santa Gertrudis Home for Lost Souls.
The sky a bright orange, he and his host, stared forlornly at the panoramic views in the distance.
Ibiza town rose majestically above the heat haze, high on its hilltop overlooking the blue Mediterranean on which the Island of Formentera glistened and shimmered like a mirage in the late afternoon haze.
It was a sight for sore eyes unless, like Damien and Gary, the lens of poverty, inpuniary and too many years of broken dreams, did not color the iris and make all beauty a source of intense depression.
Nevertheless they tried to bear their respective burdens stoically.
On the terrace of Damien’s beautiful old Finca, Cassandra, the twenty-eight year old American educated Frenchwoman, with a penchant for MDMA and late night clubbing, flirted with her two new friends, Pete and Sunyin.
Cassandra liked a young girl and Pete, at only seventeen, was an added bonus.
They played ear shattering techno music and talked loudly.
She was a paying guest at reduced rates for the season, as Damien Demon’s dream of an Art/Yoga center became secondary to the needs of paying rent and Bar cuentas.
Cassandra’s dog, Mute, a brute of a slobbering mastiff, panted and yelped in the heat.
They were joined by Damien’s resident mongrel, Macho, whom he’d adopted from a now discarded gardener called Mental Mickey.
On the roof, Nag Champa, the resident Yoga teacher, stood on his head with his legs crossed, awaiting sunset.
Gary put his elbows on the table balancing his chin on his knuckles as he looked at Damien who was a sad sight.
He was hunched forward on his chair his face stretched and taut with stress and worry.
His right leg shook almost uncontrollably. Dried blood caked his bare feet.
The cost of his enterprise far outweighed any profit but mainly the desertion of his certifiable, younger girlfriend, Amber had left him bereft, bitter and full of vengeance.
“Could Amber have been faking?” Asked Gary, tentatively. “I mean, yesterday, when she collapsed outside the bar. It was quite dramatic. I once pretended to have a fit. I thought, at the time, if I pretend to be mad I’ll get attention. After a while I wondered if I was pretending to be mad, or if I really was mad.”
It was a time Gary preferred to forget.
“No. It’s happened before, several times. I’m surprised they took her to hospital she owes so many bills from the other times that the ambulance came. It isn’t cheap in Spain.”
Damien’s face creased into a charming smile that lightened his years.
“She should go home to her parents and get checked out. I told you, when you were first with her, she’d be trouble. If you love her, let her go.” Gary had been shocked by the incident.
Suddenly the trance music amplified. Sunyin and Cassandra giggled maniacally.
“I hear you,” said Damien before quickly changing the subject.
“Those dogs have ripped the mattresses on the roof to pieces.
“This morning Cassandra left a message apologizing for all the broken glass up there. I cut my feet clearing up.
“What was once a chill out area for clients to watch sunset has turned, literally, into a walking disaster area,” he paused.
“Amber is nuts Gary,” he stated definitely.
“She’s illogical, certifiable. She keeps sending me text messages asking me to come and watch a DVD, or have a drink.
“Why should I take her back after she’s fucked another guy? No. She blew it.
“When I sold the bar I gave her 10,000 Euro and now she drives a better car than me and thinks I owe her money! It’s madness.”
He shook his head at the apparent absurdity of his position.
Macho, lean and cowered tried to administer some comfort to his master by licking his bloodied feet.
He received a kick for his attempts at sympathy and slunk off followed by a fleet of buzzing flies.
“As I say,” said Gary, “leave her alone for both your sakes. You must let go.” He doubted whether Damien would follow his advice.
“Wow!” Exclaimed Cassandra from the terrace as she switched up the music to ear shattering proportions,
“I just love this track. Let’s go on the roof.”
She grabbed her two friends and they fell in a heap together laughing.
Her breasts cascaded from her bra and Mute, her dog, licked a nipple, which made her scream and cackle like a witch.
She got up and all three ran, barefoot, over the gravel and ascended to the roof, followed by Mute and Macho, yelping and barking with pleasure.
“Why not ask Cassandra for 20 Euro,” suggested Gary, furtively although she was well out of earshot.
“We could get something to eat.” His stomach ached.
“Not her, but Gloria. She’ll be done in a minute.” He spoke in a whisper and sure enough, almost on cue, Gloria appeared.
She was dressed in shorts and bikini top, her body, curvaceous and languid.
She was taking a sabbatical from her city job in Media, by being the stable lass at the local horse farm.
“You should do something about all the glass up there,” she suggested in her down to Earth cockney accent.
She was the sanest person at the Home for Lost Souls.
Each morning and evening she cycled up the dirt track for 5 kilometers to muck out and scrub down the thoroughbreds.
Her copy of the Sunday Telegraph was covered in shards of salvaged broken glass.
“Thanks, Gloria. I must have a word with Cassandra about that dog. It’s become a nightmare.” Mute’s deep-throated bark echoed Damien’s words.
“Well I’m off to get changed before I go to work. See you.” She sauntered off swaying her hips not allowing any requests to be made.
Beep! Beep! A text message on Damien’s phone sent his face into a contortion.
“She wants me to go and watch a video with her!” His right foot began shaking. “I sent her a text the other day, when I heard about this new boyfriend saying, ‘what’s it like to rump with a rhino?’
“He’s known, you see, as ‘The Rhino’.
“Well an hour later he rung me and said he was going to break my legs! Can you believe it?”
His face contoured as he clenched his jaw and his hand violently tapped a reply that amused him, for one side of his mouth curled upward, in a demonic smile.
“As my Mother used to say: This’ll all end in tears.”
“It already has,” replied Damien with resignation as he continued to tap the keys on his mobile phone.
Gary’s attention was taken by the distinct sound of an engine.
In the distance he could see a white motorcycle ridden by a man also clad completely in white.
It was an unexpected sight against the dry, parched, landscape.
Behind the driver, a slipstream of dust sprayed the plants and trees.
Eventually he turned towards the house and pulled up, with a skid, just by Damien and Gary. He got off, removed his helmet and came over to join them.
Orlean Mars, or Om for short, liked nothing better than a party.
His skills as a host were legendary and he was courted by the famed for his unique ability to add the vital ingredients, so that at any moment, Om could create a ‘happening’, of memorable proportions.
He was a man of immense experience.
Even before he began his now highly successful bar/restaurant/club, ‘The Temple’, he had been a pioneer of counter culture, with his extensive travels to the East and various European metropolises.
For decades he had, anonymously, bridged gaps in trade, knowledge and wisdom.
All this was extensively etched on his lined and contoured face that broke into a grin, as he strode over and kissed both Gary and Damien on the cheek, before joining them at their umbrella shaded table.
“Just thought I’d come and see the ranch. Its beautiful here.” He sat back languidly. “So, what’s happening with you guys?”
His voice was hoarse.
“Actually I just came to check on the daughter. But I see she’s in good hands.” His face broke into an endearing smile.
“Oh yes Om, she’s in very fine hands” laughed Damien.
He manipulated his hands sensuously to illustrate the point. From the roof Sunyin called down:
“Hey Daddy. What a place it is here. I stayed last night with Pete and Cassandra. It’s fantastic. Will you be going to Space later? I could see you there. We’ll be going out in about an hour.”
“I won’t be making it to Space tonight darling.”
“Come on Dad,” she pleaded.
“I’ll see how I feel later. Perhaps,” he conceded.
“It’s all go when your famous,” he remarked quite seriously.
“You have to be seen. I left Pacha at eight this morning and went to this Café for breakfast and it was as if the Party had just moved down the road. You wouldn’t believe what people were consuming.
“It was surreal and certainly not coffee and croissants. It’s hard work being well known. You boys have no idea.” He paused, a smile on his pensive face.
“You know,” remarked Gary who, like Damien, had known Om for 20 years,
“I’ve got to say your posture is all wrong. You used to be so upright and now, since your accident, you seem to stoop. Look….”
He got up and began adjusting Om’s back, shoulders, neck and head position until he sat straighter.
“Stand up and walk Om and try to keep the hips balanced.”
“Why yes,” exclaimed Om in his deep throaty voice. “It feels different.”
He was walking up and down, breathing deeply, momentarily upright, no limp, nor head shrunken into his neck.
“Why it is different,” he exclaimed surprised at breaking a habit.
He looked bright in his loose, white, cotton smock and trousers. They contrasted sharply with his swarthy, unshaven complexion, dark glasses and gold chain.
A year earlier, Om, after a night of hard partying, had jumped into a swimming pool with no water in it, breaking the heel of his left foot. His hallucination had physical repercussions beyond his wildest dreams and he had to struggle hard to regain his balance.
He sat down again with a slight hobble.
“Now that is a good lesson. You know of course a man of my position might need one of those people who follow them around. Films stars, Pop stars, well Stars of all types. What do you call it?”
“Psychic assistant or physical instructor?” Suggested Damien with a leer.
“Yea, kind of both. I might employ you Gary, just to follow me round so I don’t start stooping. I came here with nothing and was given something. I like that. It’s a good phrase.” He chuckled
“Join the, we have nothing club, Om,” laughed Damien.
“Yes, to receive something from those with nothing,” emphasized Gary.
“You know once when I was in India,” said Om, completely changing the subject.
“I went with my son, John, who was about six at the time, to visit this famous Buddhist Temple. People came from all over to see it. There was huge Bunyan tree where apparently the Buddha sat for twenty-four hours with out moving.
“I said to little John let’s meditate here like they suggest and we so we sat there quietly for a few minutes before John says to me:
” ‘Daddy, how did the Buddha sit still for twenty-four hours with Ants crawling all over his feet?’” He paused with a smile and looked at his watch.
“I must go and open ‘The Temple’.” He got up. “Once again I must thank you for something when I had nothing!”
“Not at all,” said Damien. “Any chance of eating some scraps at your restaurant in return? We can eat by the kitchen door even!”
“Come later, about midnight. Bye.”
He got on his motorbike and drove off a pale white figure, followed by a cloud of dust, as he disappeared over the horizon.
The sky had turned orange. You could not have asked for a more idyllic setting. Damien’s ‘Home for Lost Souls’ was high on a hill. The green Pines swayed in a slight evening breeze and the moon rose full over the slightly shimmering sea.
It would be to anyone a very gentle sight.
However it was not gentle on Damien’s inner or outer eyes.
They were like two black orbs dancing furtively in their universe. He poured himself a glass of cheap beer.
“When they’ve gone we’ll have a think,” he said, indicating with a nod the trio of partygoers.
They were nearly ready to leave.
“I want her to take the dog with her. Last night my Bed and Breakfast guests who pay 80 euros a night came back and couldn’t get out of their car. Mute wouldn’t let them. He snarled and growled the moment they tried to leave.
“In fact they were petrified and honked on the horn for half an hour, before I raised myself from a drunken stupor and called him off. “Anyway, they go back to Barcelona tomorrow.
“When they first arrived and paid me I went straight to Silentro got completely out of it on all sorts and ended up passing out on the kitchen floor.
“Well they had asked for the ‘Full English Breakfast’ at nine o’clock the following morning, that must have been when I felt this hand on my shoulder and he asked me if there was any chance of breakfast?
“I looked up for a moment and said ‘Fuck Off’ before collapsing again!”
Gary burst into laughter. “What did you say later?”
“Nothing, what could I say? I told ‘em it’s all part of the Ibiza experience.” He chuckled and stared into the distance.
“Come to ‘Damien’s Home for Lost Souls’ for the real Ibiza experience,” quipped Gary.
On the terrace of the Finca the trio appeared. Cassandra was dressed scantily in a see through green chiffon dress.
Her bra-less top barely shielded her nipples and wearing a white thong was nothing more than a token gesture in terms of underwear.
She balanced precariously on her high heels as she traversed, gingerly, the pebbled drive; one hand stroking Pete’s spiked hair.
He wore jeans and a loose shirt, though his eyes were wide and wild, his face, innocent and vacant.
Sunyin wore a tiny mini skirt and bikini top. She was small and slightly eastern looking with an exotic air of adventure.
Her movements were those of a dancer. Cassandra’s other hand rubbed Sunyin’s bottom erotically.
“Hurry up now,” said Damien as if he was a bus driver, “last bus for Space.
“Come along now, not much room, ‘Last Bus for Space;’ and take that Mute with you.”
“Oh come on Damien,” Cassandra began to protest.
He cut her short.
“You know what happened yesterday. The deal was for you, not you and the dog. Look what he’s done to the roof.” Damien spoke angrily.
“You’re a bastard,” she retaliated.
“We can leave him with my brother,” suggested Pete.
“Wow, yea. Let’s see his house it’s great there.”
“See,” she said looking bitchily at Damien.
“Come on Mute, Mummy loves you and so does Mummy’s friends.”
Mute jumped up and almost knocked her off balance in his attempts to slobber over her.
“Bye,” called Gary as they clambered into Cassandra’s rent a car and drove down the road, disappearing like Om, in a cloud of dust.
Damien, despite being middle aged, still retained the frame of a rugby player.
He was muscular and strong even though his diet was alcohol based. His deep brown eyes sparkled in their darkened sockets.
There was a threatening, almost vicious suggestion to his body language and yet his face could sometimes betray a gentle vulnerability. Women had been his downfall since the mental torture his Mother subjected him too after the suicide of his Father.
He became the butt end of her resent and contempt for the whole male species. She would reduce him to tears with his sense of uselessness then, in remorse, love him back as he sobbed.
Damien lived at the limit of his Mother’s madness, at the beck and call of her sado-masochistic insanity.
At Prep School his best friend was a lizard that he found in a field.
Eventually this reptilian companion was discovered sleeping on his pillow and subsequently tortured to death in front of him.
Later in life Damien sought and found a succession of women whom he gave his all too.
He wished desperately to rediscover a love beaten from him, before his voice even broke.
Unfortunately, owing to the cold cruel surroundings of his youth this ‘love’, although always beginning brightly, usually disintegrated into mutual discord and disharmony.
Often Damien ended up penniless and homeless in a foreign state.
It led to mental and physical violence, bitterness and battles, downhill for Damien and his so-called lover.
Amber was the latest in a life long succession of relationships that always reached the same conclusion.
He had met her five years previously, just after her release from the schizophrenic ward, diagnosed as not quite sick enough for a lithium prescription.
She became dosed up with serotin -enhancers and Damien fell for her youthful 28-year-old charms. He liquidated his half-successful, though nefarious, city dealings and for a pittance bought a bar in Santa Eulalia.
This was a disaster from the start, culminating in drunken riots and rows, before a fortunate sell, saved foreclosure.
Amber took as much as her lithe, sensual, body could extract from Damien’s bank account before seeking younger men, abandoning him to the doomed Yoga/Art Center.
Little did Gary or Damien know, as they watched the first stars glimmer in the paling sky and the last rays of Sun bow before the full moon; that now, in the quiet undisturbed Mediterranean countryside, the fateful crescendo to this love affair and project, began to be enacted.
The final, inevitable, scenes played out, before the moon reached its western limits and sun again rose, in a burning, eastern, dawn.
As they silently contemplated their horizons, some miles away in a small house, Amber lay almost naked on her bed.
Her legs were open, knees in the air, feet on mattress.
Her knickers were damp, twisted into a string and her left hand deftly held them away from her exposed vagina that she held open so her right hand could violently and feverishly circle, the distended and swollen clitoris.
The folds of her pink, slippery, flesh glistened with her juices as she massaged them skillfully with her fingers. Her tongue alternatively licked her lips or darted in and out of them, as she moaned, cooed, or grunted.
Her eyes rolled back in her head, ecstatically, madly staring at some unfocused world, in an orgy of masturbation.
“Please,” she grunted sliding her hand up and down herself. “Please,” she murmured, “ Oh please.”
Her body began to tremble and her hips began gyrating as she raised her backside.
“We’ve done it three times already and I’ve got a plane to catch.” It was the Rhino.
His voice was nonchalant and he merely glanced at Amber’s gyrations.
It inflamed her. She hated men and how they had treated her.
Even those who tried to give to her, she destroyed them. She imagined Damien inside her. She wanted more than the Rhinos horn, with its legendary potency, for she had shot its bolt, so to speak, drained his balls.
She loved to weave a web for a man, drive him wild with desire, using her child like youthful sensuality to strip him.
Suddenly she felt another hand on her, which was thrust, non-too tenderly, inside. It filled her and made her groan.
The Rhino blandly replied to her grunt, “I’m off babe, see you in a week.”
He kissed her on her lips, before, deftly, withdrawing his hand. He got off her, picked up his suitcase and without a second glance, left the room.
She was sore but warm as she watched his Mitsubishi drive down the dirt track road.
She had slipped on a long white robe that made her appear almost virginal. Her unlined wan face with high wide cheekbones and her slim frail body belied what lay inside. She looked out toward the bay at Benirass as the sun faded over the horizon.
The pale moon, glowing ominously, seemed to accentuate her translucent skin, with its ghost like luminous hues. It was as if she were a young child and yet, within lay something much older and darker.
From one of her mad, staring, ice blue eyes rolled a large tear. Voices had begun chattering in her head. They had started arguing, fighting like little demons.
She could hear them battling in her brain, filling her sight with imps and devils that whispered terrors. They suggested perpetrating a nightmare.
Her temples throbbed; she put her hands over her ears and went inside. After a while she reached for her mobile and began typing a text message.
Meanwhile at the Home for Lost Souls, Damien and Gary contemplated their limited options. The unbearable heat of day had dissipated now and light faded rapidly.
“Do you think Om meant it when he suggested we could eat at his restaurant? I doubt it,” Damien said rhetorically.
“He’s a tight bastard. Did you see how he changed the subject just as I was going to ask for money? At least you haven’t got debts. I’m minus 5000 Euros without counting Bar Cuentas. That bitch has ruined me.”
His leg began to twitch as if it had a mind of its own.
Suddenly his voice became softer. “I tried to give her everything. It was the same with Carol, years ago. I should have stayed with her. I can just imagine it. Her making a cup of tea and me, with my feet up, watching the rugby. It’s the companionship I miss. I just want to share really, not be lonely.” He spoke almost in a murmur.
“Perhaps we need to learn how to be with ourselves first. It’s hard enough trying to know who I am, let alone anyone else.
“Anyway for sure Om meant it. He walked away a lot straighter when he left than when came here and for that he’ll feed us.
“We need to eat. I’ve got hunger pains and tomorrow Om will be slouching again. It isn’t all doom and gloom.
“We’re a lot better off now than three hours ago,” Gary concluded optimistically.
“Have you petrol? I’m on reserve,” said Damien.
“Me too,” observed Gary, feeling the last few Euros in his pocket.
“I’ll gamble my last resources on it.” He was very hungry. He felt a huge gap between not eating but being able too; and not eating because one was unable, momentarily, through sheer poverty, to do so.
It gnawed in his stomach, this new knowledge bred out of forced experience. The remains of his seventy-two, vodka filled hours, churned in an empty chasm, behind his belly button.
He reached for another cheap Spanish cigarette.
Beep! Beep! The sound of Damien’s mobile intervened. He looked down with a furrowed brow as he opened the message.
His demeanor altered instantly as a devilish, but infectious, half smile spread across his face.
‘It’s a disaster with Rhino,’ said the message. ‘He beat me. Please. I’m so sorry. I can’t stand this life much longer. I need you. Will be at Silentro in two hours.’
“She wants me to go over and watch a DVD with her. No leg over! Nothing! It’s absurd,” he lied. He typed a sharp response, his eyes darting feverishly in their sockets:
‘You’re a bitch. I hope your first born is deformed,’ he wrote.
Damien’s glasses perched, precariously, on the edge of his nose as, after sending the reply, he looked up and grinned, fiendishly, at Gary. ‘That’ll get her,’ he thought as he spoke:
“Okay Gary. I’m up for it, if you are. Let’s go to The Temple. I could really use something to eat and you are right, the further I stay away from Amber the better. I’m not going to Benirass to watch a DVD. We’ll get ready, tie up Macho in the outhouse and get going. We’ve both got enough petrol haven’t we?”
“Absolutely”, agreed Gary assuredly.
When Damien and Gary met, for the first time it was in Ibiza, 20 years previously. Damien split Gary’s head open on their first encounter. The following evening he left Gary with no transport, at 3 in the morning, to walk 7 kilometers home, wearing no shoes.
It was the beginning of an auspicious relationship though Gary, from that day, vowed never to be reliant on Damien for transport, ever again.
Om had used all his skill and experience over a ten year period to turn a humble converted ‘Casita’ into a ‘Temple’ of hedonism that attracted custom without losing the fiery, unpredictable almost psychedelic edge, so tied to his own characteristics and perception. Numerous alcoves set discreetly, half hidden by bamboo, gave customers the opportunity for intimacy without interruption in darkly lit chill-out areas, though within distance of all kinds of exotic drinks, served by equally exotic waitresses.
There was an air of importance and opulence mingling with the sweet perfumes issuing from women with firm bodies, scantily dressed and attracting the left eye, of all males present.
The centerpiece, though, was his restaurant.
Here jet setters and tourists rubbed shoulders over food cooked and served in Om’s own, inimitable style.
He drifted, like the perfect host, from table to table, a permanent grin of welcome on his face.
As a constant companion he retained a beautiful photographer, who constantly took pictures of her employer, usually with his arms around some famous client.
Gary and Damien stood nervously at the entrance to the Restaurant area watching Om regale each table in turn before still smiling, despite scolding softly a waitress for not wearing a short enough skirt, he put, reassuringly, an arm round each of their shoulders.
He called the head waitress over as his photographer snapped him:
“I’m so glad you came. Look at me!” He stood back erect as he could.
His smile was Buddhaesque in its hypnosis, spreading from ear to ear and lifting the creases of age etched in the lines on his face.
“Why, what do you think!” He lifted an eyebrow suggestively.
“You look magnificent,” flattered Gary. “It was something for nothing.”
“You know, Gary, I seem to be living life, just an Octave or two higher than everyone else,” he remarked with a smile.
“Sasha darling I’m inviting these two for supper tonight. They can sit there,” he indicated a small low table, nearer the kitchen than his celebrious clients.
“They can only have the buffet and two beers,” he paused, “each. You like Tai food don’t you? I do what I do and I don’t know what other people do, or why they do it.”
He looked Gary deeply in the eye as if his statement contained some esotericism Gary might fathom.
“I love Tai food Om.”
“Good. Enjoy it. We must attend to other matters. Sasha will look after you.”
He walked off followed by the beautiful photographer.
Gary ate handsomely from the fine cuisine supplied by Om. It was an excellent meal after enforced starvation and he finally felt full. He had twice filled his plate with the Tai cuisine before, satisfied, he ordered his second beer.
Damien on the other hand had hardly tasted his food. He pushed it morosely around the plate. He had almost finished his second beer when the phone summoned him.
Beep, beep it sounded and Damien tensed up, as he searched for the message. It read:
‘Am in Silentro talking to Unga’s son, Jan. He’s very sexy. Why not join us darling?
“Please. Rhino, gone back to London. Save me.’ ”
“Gary, I think I’m going to go.”
“Go?” Responded Gary slightly shocked.
“Yea. Think I’ll try and get an early night. Will you be coming back to the house?”
“Probably, Damien.” Gary would try and avoid it.
He felt he was in Bombay station there, strewn amongst the lost souls.
He was in two minds as to whether the back seat of the car was more comfortable.
Having survived at all costs looking after his children, now he had to look after himself.
“Okay,” said Damien. He was already out of his seat and checking he had everything. He was edgy and tense.
“Like a chipito of vodka?” It was Om.
He flicked his fingers and a girl appeared carrying a bottle and three shot glasses.
“Why, certainly Om,” replied Damien, sitting down again, though keeping a good hold of his bag.
The young girl deftly filled the glasses with the clear liquid and, raising them together, the three men, drunk the contents down in a gulp.
It had a warming, embalming effect as it slid down the throat and Damien’s eyelids flickered momentarily as he nodded forward before pulling himself sharply upright.
“One more for the road?” He slurred. His voice had an edge to it.
Om fixed him with a stare as he had the glasses refilled and they silently repeated the performance.
“Thank-you so much Om,” said Damien getting up. His eyes were glazed and unfocused. “I must go now.” He was unsteady on his feet but neither Om nor Gary tried to persuade him to stay.
He departed, after the customary hugs, quickly and furtively, disappearing, wraith–like from Om’s Temple.
“Later,” said Om, “we’re having some music in the bar down there.
“You’re welcome to stay. That Damien, well, he has a doomed look about him. I’ve seen it before.
“I mean he drives a car that’s been wrecked by someone who has almost wrecked his life!” Observed Om sagely.
“Have another drink, Gary and then I’ll introduced you to some people.”
Meanwhile, Damien drove his car onto the road.
It had seen better days and Om’s comment was true.
From the time Amber drove it into a ditch, to avoid a hedgehog, the front bonnet had never been the same.
The petrol gauge indicated nearly empty, like its driver.
The engine was running on the last dregs of fuel it could summon from the hollow, echoing chamber of a tank.
Damien’s face was taut, deep-set, strained as he crouched over the wheel, knocking the gear stick into neutral at every opportunity, to preserve his dwindling resources.
The moon was so bright he could have switched his lights off and still seen the road.
After some kilometers he turned left so as to slowly drive passed his local Bar, Silentro.
It was late, one in the morning, but the light still burnt and he thought he could distinguish, the thin pallid face of Amber, talking to a group of mainly men.
He imagined her big staring, drunk eyes and her vulnerable, child-like sensuality. He stopped the car, parked and went to join them.
“Hello darling,” Amber greeted Damien loudly and enthusiastically, throwing her arms around him.
She wore a see through top and tiny denim mini skirt that barely covered her bum.
“We’re going to Space soon aren’t we Jade?”
“Sure are. You coming?” She asked Damien giving him another chipito of vodka.
“I’m too old for all that stuff,” he gurgled as he slouched on the bar.
“Jan’s coming, anyway,” said Amber. She put her arm around Damien tenderly and whispered in his ear,
“I’ll fuck him. He’s young and potent not old and bent. The only stiffness you have is arthritic.”
It looked as if she were consoling him.
He sat bolt upright and grabbed her pulling her lips to his and kissed them harshly.
“Don’t worry I’ll never touch your pussy again,” he replied.
“I’m going to powder my nose.” She broke his grip, got up, and went to the Ladies, followed by Jade.
“Why not leave her alone?” Suggested Jan.
“Leave her alone,” he repeated incredulously.
“She should leave me alone. What do you know? Eh? ” Damien looked at Jan with sheer aggression in his eyes.
“Leave him,” said a voice at a table.
“Listen I do what I like,” said Damien and to demonstrate the point he leaned over the bar, smashing several glasses in the process.
He grabbed a bottle of vodka and drank, till the contents began spilling out of his overfilled mouth, then he dashed it, violently in half on the wooden Bar-Top.
It shattered everywhere.
“Leave my Bar now!” Demanded Jade with a scream on her return.
But Damien was crazed now.
He waved the jagged remains of bottle around and shouted at Jan:
“You fuck her and I’ll put this in your face.”
It was a phrase he repeated, as he disappeared still waving his weapon but threatening, only the night.
He stumbled to his car a few hundred meters away, got in and collapsed in the driver’s seat.
His head slumped forward on the steering wheel.
Gary shook his frame violently to the Trance Music.
There were so many people that, in their enthusiasm, they began dancing on the Bar.
A giant of a Dutchman beat a huge drum, violently, in time with the hypnotic beat put down by the DJ.
The floor seemed to heave to the rhythmic, digitized, sounds.
En masse, the crowd seemed to move as a complete body. Gary felt warmth in his stomach. It coursed through his blood stream filling every part of his anatomy.
There was vibrancy to his every movement and yet each movement by another, seemed completely the result of their inner vibration, reacting to an external, musical, jolt. It moved them like puppets.
Gary wondered, as the whole room seemed to be heaving, whether Damien would survive his latest crisis.
It seemed an absurd, yet quite relevant thought, in the throbbing mass of bodies, that he could do anything for his friend.
Colors and the sensual gyrations of a nearby dancer distracted him. He didn’t care anymore.
The pulsation continued, the beat of blood in the bass note, was stronger than his suppositions and conjectures on the human race.
They gripped him taking him over, as he tripped the light fandango of his mesmerism and Om, smiling in a contained sort of way, raised a hand in recognition, as Gary rocked on, beneath the surface.
After Space Amber had driven back to Silentro to drop off Jan.
She did not let him go easily for she sat on him using his manhood though hardly reached satisfaction, before the protesting Jan, shot his load.
It had been a slippery affair in which she had took the dominant part, cajoling and seducing, using her female body to try and totally control the young but potent object of her physical desires.
“Let me go,” he said, twisting to get away from the vice like grip her thighs held him in.
He was bent and withered already wondering how Damien might react to his physical lust.
She fell back, letting her thighs relax and open, releasing him.
He grasped the opportunity as fast as he could, diving out of the car and running quickly through the dark, till he didn’t exist.
Amber didn’t notice his flight, she heard only the voices beating in her head. Life held no meaning for her.
All the hopes, fears, and charity she had expected were gone now.
The last ferments of her juices were upon her. ‘Kill’, called the voices in her head.
‘Cry for the dead ones.’
‘Be kind by beheading the demon.’
She could see their twisted, hideous bodies discussing her limited options. The stars grew brighter in her sight as she gazed at faces she made up and none that really existed.
She was alone and sobbing, sticky between her legs, yet feeling disgusted.
In the light of the full moon it seemed she could see Damien’s car not far from where she was parked.
It glowed in the sickly, silver, slither of lunar light and it hardened her soul. At her side she felt something solid. She grasped the heavy implement and opening the door walked toward the car.
It became more familiar with each step and although she felt trepidation her voices continued:
‘Kill, kill, kill,’ they commanded, insistently.
Slumped across the car seat in an inebriated state, Damien had no idea what awaited him.
A heavy blow to the skull followed by an iron bar cross the throat was more than enough to render him useless.
However before he was engulfed there seemed to Damien a moment of sheer unadulterated bliss in which his whole existence made sense. He didn’t see Amber’s mad, staring eyes, nor hear her screams as she smashed all the windows.
He did not even sense the trickle of blood, actually a flow, from his head.
It began dripping on the smashed vodka bottle that lay on the floor.
At last, he felt freedom.
He felt, or imagined, his Mother reach down, take his hand and look at him, with only love in her eyes.
It was just after this that darkness, blackness, descended.
He lost all sense of himself as an individual, and became totally absorbed, in the universe.
Gary found him six hours later.
The trickle had formed a red puddle.
Flies buzzed over the slouched head of Damien Demon.
Another project, perhaps his final one, had reached its ultimate destination, in the hot, St Gertrudis, sun.
