Rock n Roll Babes from Outer Space (13 page)

That’d impress those babes, hey?

‘Hey, don’t bite it, girl!’ cried Tristram. ‘Just suck on it!’

Torquil’s eyes flew open in alarm. What had he been missing? He looked around anxiously. Lati was seated on the sofa now. Tristram was bending over her, examining the bong for damage.

‘Haven’t you ever pulled cones before? No? You’re kidding. You
must
be from another planet.’ He handed it back. ‘Sorry. Anyway, you light that, yeah, that’s right, and suck in the smoke from the top. Nice and deep. That’s it. Now hold it in as long as you can before exhaling.’

This turned out to be a very long time indeed. Just as the twins were getting worried, Lati blew the smoke out her ears. In a series of perfectly formed rings.

‘Oh, man,’ sighed Torquil, shaking his head. ‘How
do
you do what you can do?’

‘I told you. I’m an alien. You just won’t believe me. And I recognise that line, by the way. It’s from Vesuvia.
Fear of a Flannel Planet
EP.’

‘C’mon, Lati,’ coaxed Tristram. ‘How do you know that?’ The effects of the dope were wearing off, and he was beginning to feel much more clear-headed.
Fuck,
she was sexy.

Lati shook her head. ‘I told you. I’ve got a perfect memory for music and lyrics, especially with any sort of galactic reference. Just have to hear it once and it’s here.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘And by the way, one of the advantages of being an ayle is that I can read your minds when I feel like it. So, to answer your unspoken questions, sure, Torq, I’m sure I could do that. I’d certainly be willing to give it a go. But you’d have to do the same with another feather boa. And Trist, what you’re thinking also
excites me a lot, but you’re going to have to guide me…O
H
, G
OD
!’

Yes, Lati?

What the fuck is happening to me, God?

Effects of the drug, Lati. You’ve just been smoking cannabis. Cannabis causes an intense bio-chemical reaction when it enters the Nufonian ichorstream. Prepare to shapeshift a few times and give off a lot of heat. I mean a lot. And, luvvy, don’t forget you’re half Earthling, so expect to be off your tits for at least an hour or so as well. If that’s all, I’ve got a UFO doing 80 googolplex in a 65 zone. Gotta book the bastard before he gets away.

Sure. Thanks. But, hey, hold on a minute. If it’s an
Unidentified
Flying Object, how do you know it’s a he?

He she it. I still think ‘he’ works as a universal pronoun. Call Me unreconstructed. But the feminists sure were wrong about Me, weren’t they? I get so annoyed when I hear them call Me ‘She’. As if. I just feel like visiting My wrath upon them, you know, smiting them or something.

Lati sighed. You couldn’t argue with God.

I thought you had something to do, she said.

I do. I’m outta here.

Lati blinked. She felt more than usually hot-headed; her antennae felt as though they were burning up. She realised the twins were now staring at her with a far more shocked expression than was warranted merely by the revelation that she had read their naughty minds.

Right before their eyes, Lati appeared to be self-combusting. Her red hair was aflame, and the air around her bent liquid with heat. Her features had begun to mutate: she had Bette Davis eyes, Chrissie Amphlett lips and Salt ‘N’ Pepa thighs; she was Prince in
Purple Rain,
she was Kurt Cobain; she was You Am I and Faith No More;
she was Jim M the Original Door; Annie Lennox and Madonna, Courtney, PJ, and Summers, Donna; she was Velvet as the Underground, a silver CD spinning round…

Doh!

Torquil and Tristram found themselves staring at the CD player, which was emitting a low hiss. They were alone in the room. They were sweating profusely. The windows were steamed up and condensation dripped down the screen of the TV.

Tristram pinched some mull between his fingers and examined it closely. ‘What
is
this shit?’

Baby, meanwhile, discovered Jake in Torquil’s room, appropriating a sock.

‘I’ve got this theory,’ he remarked as she came in and sat down on the bed beside him. He bent over and pulled on the sock. His big toe protruded through the hole at the top. He studied it as though he’d never seen a toe before. Truth is, Jake, the serial lady-killer of the laid-back set, playful playboy of the Newtown world, was utterly smitten. He was also confused as hell. He had
sex
with
her?
And
forgot?
‘You know how, like, one sock always goes missing from the pair?’ he remarked. ‘I’m sure that all of the single socks have been sucked into a black hole somewhere in space. The black hole then expels them onto a distant planet where the inhabitants have only one foot.’

‘It’s true,’ she confirmed. ‘The planet’s near Arcturus. I know someone who’s been there. He said that they hold weekly sock hops. They operate the clutch in their spaceships with their noses, which are extremely long, and play Twister by special rules. They don’t feel guilty about the
sock gambit cuz they figure if they can get by with one foot, the rest of the yoon can manage with one sock.’

Jake raised his head and studied her. She didn’t seem to be kidding. She stared right back. Eye-contact city. Jake felt like she was hoovering his pupils. With an effort, Jake sucked back his vision and applied it to his boots, which he now laced with full concentration. Baby liked how the lean muscles worked under the freckled skin of his long arms and how the big matted pipes of his hair flipped and flopped about when he moved his head. For his part, hot desire was burning off the marijuana mist in his brain. She read both his desire and his awkwardness and smiled to herself.

‘What’s so funny, space girl?’ Jake had sat up again. His head was now making an uncharacteristically nervous foray into the vicinity of hers. It hovered briefly but the landing gear didn’t seem to be working. Come on, he thought, put down those wheels, you can do it. By now, they were both staring at his hand. As nonchalantly as possible, he reversed the engines and piloted it back to base, where it taxied straight into the hangar of his jeans pocket.

Shit! What now?

Jake was a great believer in diversion therapy.

‘You know,’ he said, addressing her extraordinarily kissable lips, ‘I once took this incredible hash. At first, I thought I was God.’

‘You’re nothing like Him,’ she interjected, wondering why he didn’t seem able to speak his mind, particularly since she was so clearly on it. ‘Really. I know God. Believe me. You couldn’t be more different.’ And thank God for that, so to speak, she thought. Couldn’t really handle two of them.

She knew God? Jake considered the implications of this remark. She couldn’t be a born-again, could she? Born-agains were such a worry. Could never get them into bed and, from his experience, they didn’t even have great taste in restaurants. But he refused to believe that she was a born-again. For one thing, if she were, she’d have knickers on.

He’d come to the conclusion that she wasn’t wearing any underwear while he was bending over his boots. He’d noticed she was sitting pretty casually for someone wearing such a short skirt and he’d, uh,
accidentally
glanced up and caught a flash of flesh. Actually, it was a bit weird, now that he thought about it. No hair and, in fact, it looked like there was nothing else there either. Barbie Doll city. No, he shivered involuntarily. That was ridiculous. He hadn’t dared to
stare
or anything. She was probably just one of those kinky chicks who shaved her pubes. Of course. Or wore green underwear.

What’s this born-again business, who’s Barbie Doll and what the hell is underwear? Baby wondered to herself.

Jake dropped the religious problem into the too-hard basket and began again. ‘Anyway,’ he hazarded, ‘I realised I wasn’t God, but I had the feeling that whoever was God was trying to speak to me. And then I saw that God was, God was, uh, an alien.’ He paused for effect. ‘A female alien.’

Bullshit, thought Baby. Wonder what he was going to say before he decided he needed to impress me?

Wilma Flintstone is what he was going to say. He’d had a vision of God as Wilma Flintstone. This had impressed other girls, but he wasn’t sure it would work on Baby. What kind of name was Baby, anyway? ‘Shall we go?’ he said.

When they reached the lounge, they found the twins shuttlecocking a Big Mac carton back and forth between them. ‘Where are Lati and Doll?’ asked Baby.

Tristram winced. Torquil screwed up his face. ‘Doll’s downstairs with the girls,’ he mumbled. ‘Lati, uh, kinda, disappeared.’

Baby shrugged. She knew Lati well enough not to worry. And she was not sorry to have Jake to herself, either.

‘You two coming?’

‘Don’t think so,’ said Torq. ‘Think we’ll just hang around and wait for Lati to come back. Oh, and Doll said she’d catch up with you guys later.’

The phone rang. Before Jake had time to react, Baby picked it up. ‘Wanna suck my cock?’ she said, deepening her voice. On the other end, a woman burst into tears. ‘Jake, you’re a bastard,’ she sobbed, slamming down the receiver.

Baby turned to Jake. ‘Jake, you’re a bastard,’ she informed him.

‘So they say,’ said Jake, flinching. ‘So they say.’

‘They’re all bastards,’ shrugged Saturna. ‘But there are different sorts of bastards. There are lovable bastards, there are tolerable bastards, there are irredeemable bastards. The boys in this house range from lovable to tolerable, with occasional bouts of irredeemability.
Love
the spider tattoo, by the way. Are you sure you’re not a vampire? Sure you’re just an alien?’ Saturna, Skye and Doll were sitting cross-legged on their king-size four-poster, which was canopied in extravagant loops of black muslin. ‘Don’t
you want to make double-sure?’ Black candles placed around the room released a musky scent and glimmered through the muslin, creating an artificial gloaming full of mysterious shadows and unpredictable light. Saturna reached out and placed a soft hand on Skye’s neck. She pulled Skye’s hair back from her face and tugged her lace choker downwards. Skye’s bare neck glowed golden in the candlelight. ‘Don’t you?’ she repeated.

‘I do,’ Doll said huskily. ‘I really do.’ She placed her lips on the proffered flesh. Her devil horns of hair tickled Skye’s cheeks. Wrapping one arm around Skye’s waist, she buried the other in her hair, where it found Saturna’s hand and came to rest upon it. ‘Whaszavampardoagen?’ she queried through skin.

‘A vampire bites the neck and drinks the blood of his victim,’ instructed Saturna. The authority in her voice was undermined by a slight tremble. She shifted one black stocking-clad foot slightly so that the heel pressed against her stiffening clitoris. Reaching out, she stroked Skye’s thigh through the layers of lace and crushed velvet. ‘We’ve fantasised about this for ages. It should be totally transporting.’ Her hand slid upwards to tease Skye’s cunt gently through the soft fabric. Skye let out an uneven breath and closed her eyes.

Doll felt fully happy for the first time since they’d landed on this planet. There’d been altogether too much Earth boy this, Earth boy that for her taste. This was more like it. She bared her teeth and sunk them into Skye’s neck. These were the teeth of a girl for whom taking a mineral supplement meant crunching on a rock. Breaking the skin easily, she sucked on the salty nectar trickling out from the shallow wound. The taste of the blood caused a shiver to run up her spine, and her whole body was suffused with a
sudden intense warmth. Skye, panicking, tried at first to twist away. Saturna, however, held her firmly, and Doll kept an iron grip on her as well. Eventually, Skye stopped struggling. Trembling, she rested palely against Saturna’s breast, as Saturna continued her intimate caresses.