Rock n Roll Babes from Outer Space (8 page)

On this fine Sunday, the Rock Star in Residence at the Sebel was none other than Ebola Van Axel, lead singer of the American death metal band Twisted Mofo, on the final leg of his F*** the World Tour. Normally, Big Eb wouldn’t have been caught
dead
up at this hour, this hour being about three in the afternoon. But the combination of jet lag, weird drugs and the ministrations of a bevy of energetic young groupies saw him this afternoon lounging on a deckchair beside the rooftop pool, a pale, hairy sausage in a casing of black leather and dark sunglasses. Eb, feeling delicate, was scoffing peanut butter and oyster sandwiches from the room service trolley by his side and barely enduring the happy squeals of the evites cavorting
in the water and throwing caviar at each other.

Ebola Van Axel was having a hair crisis. The members of Metallica, probably the most important metal band in the world, had recently had their hair cut short. Did that mean, Eb fretted, that short hair now had more cred? How can you play heavy metal with short hair? What would you toss? Your ears? He’d feel ridiculous. He’d look worse than ridiculous. In fact, Ebola Van Axel, total guitar hero and idol to millions of troubled and confused teenage boys, was convinced that he’d look like a real estate salesman. That’s because his brother, whom he resembled, had short hair and
was
a real estate salesman. Maybe shaving would be better. But what if he turned out to have a pointy skull? The life of a major rock star was full of hard choices.

Oh
, Jesus.
Would these girls ever shut their silly traps? He had a
serious
headache.

Ebola was in the midst of these tortured reflections when he noticed something funny in the air: a vibration, an effervescence, a shimmering, a hint of mystery, a touch of magic. It was the sort of spiritually incandescent moment that in bygone days might have signalled to mortals that they were about to be enchanted by a nymph, or bewitched by a fairy, spell-bound by a sprite, close-encountered by an elf or leprechaun. It heralded a head-on collision of worlds in which neither side could ever have enough third-party insurance.

Whatever it was, it was making Ebola very horny. ‘Hey,’ he beckoned, ‘one of you chicks wanna come over here and blow me?’ They ignored him. They were hanging off the side of the pool and staring transfixed up at the rooftop water tower. ‘Hey.’ Still no response. Ebola burped and hoisted a bottle of Dom Perignon—the second
of the day—to his lips. He was about to take a swig when a flash, a gleam of sparkling light from the tower, caught his attention. He raised his shaded eyes to see what the girls were looking at, and was rewarded with a most extraordinary vision. Eb quickly looked down again lest he be trampled by a herd of pink elephants. The affluence of inkahol could be a scary thing. He squeezed his eyes to within an angström of shut and snuck another look.

There it was. Clear as day—and the day was very clear. God’s frisbee on the spire of Our Lady of Contemporary Hedonism. The hi-hat in the Infinite Drum Kit. The funkiest disco ball in the entire yoon. A 100 per centguaranteed-or-your-money-back, genuine flying saucer.

Atop the tower, Galgal pulsed and glowed and beamed in the sunlight. Whirrrr. Whirrrr. Sssssssssss. A crack appeared in the saucer’s apparently seamless exterior and widened to become a door. Weird green light poured out of the opening. Baby was the first to step into the light. Silhouetted there, with her Amazonian stature and hourglass figure, she looked like a heroine out of a Japanese comic strip. Doll and Lati emerged at her sides, variations on a theme of yoonal babedom. The antennae of all three were particularly striking in profile. With a loud hiss, a porthole beneath the door slid open and expelled a cloud of sparkling purple and blue gas. The gas formed itself into a grand staircase spiralling down to the pool deck.

Ebola dropped the bottle of champagne. Landing upright, it ejaculated a celebratory geyser of thick white foam into the air.

‘Yorp! Yorp!’ Revor shot out from between Baby’s legs, scampered down the steps, flew through the spurting foam and executed a perfect triple backwards somersault into the pool, plummeting down through the water and
coming up between the legs of one of the groupies.

Revor had excellent lung capacity. It had always made him a popular guest at pool parties in the outer.

The babes, meanwhile, descended their steps of ether, which dissolved behind them. Baby had changed into a hot pink fake fur miniskirt, skin-tight black lurex top, fishnets and knee-high lace up boots. Doll was still in black leather, though now she was wearing the asteroid belt and Doc Martens. Ladi wore her white t-shirt, jeans and Converse all-star sneakers. She’d tied coloured ribbons in bows around her antennae.

‘Oh,
baby!
’ exclaimed Ebola, scrambling to his feet and grabbing his crotch.

‘Yes?’ replied Baby. How had he known her name? She grabbed her crotch in turn, thinking, when on Earth…

‘
Phwoah!
You chicks sticking around for awhile? Maybe, uh, we could, you know,
do
something?’

Now what would he have in mind? Doll decided to find out. Scanning his thoughts, her antennae stiffened with annoyance. ‘I don’t think so, butt-face,’ she hissed. ‘Of course,’ she conceded, ‘I only speak for myself.’

‘Speaks for me too,’ Lati said cheerfully.

‘Me too,’ Baby nodded.

Shit! Chicks hadn’t reacted to him that badly since he’d become a rock star. It
had
to be the hair. He’d get it cut this afternoon. Maybe.

‘The hair’s the least of your worries so far as I’m concerned,’ Doll commented, smiling as the singer’s corpse-like countenance turned an even whiter shade of pale.

‘Look!’ cried Lati, gesturing excitedly. She’d gone to the balcony to check out the harbour view. There she noticed a bas relief on the wall depicting Cherubim at an
orgy, filling their cups and cavorting. ‘Guess who’s been here before us?’

‘
Cool
,’ enthused Baby. ‘We’ve obviously come to the right place. Now where’d Revor go?’

A stream of bubbles broke the surface of the pool, which was further agitated by the thrashing about of the groupies fighting for Revor’s attention. They’d take Revor over some hotshot rock star anyday—rock stars never went down on
you.

Not unless you were an alien babe from hell, of course. Baby felt something on her foot. It was Ebola’s lips. She watched, bemused, as the pair of pink slugs slimed up her booted ankle to her knee, followed by a lot of hair and squeaking leather. Gently, she kicked him off. Ebola, on his hands and knees, gazed up at her, a pitiful and questioning look” crinkling his stubbly mug. She shook her head. Funny, she thought to herself, wiping his saliva off her boots with the back of her hand. This Earthling was no less sex, drugs and rock n roll than Jake. Yet she felt no urge whatsoever to perform sexual experiments on him; in fact, the idea rather repulsed her. ‘Keck,’ she said.

‘Use me,’ begged Ebola, senseless with lust. ‘Abuse me.’

Lati approached Ebola from behind and, applying a sneaker to his upraised arse, sent him sprawling on the deck.

‘More,’ sighed Ebola.

Lati placed an obliging foot on the small of his back and shrugged at the others. Earthlings. Strange-o-rama.

Baby signalled to Lati and Doll and whistled for Revor. Revor wriggled out of the groupies’ collective grasp. Energetically shaking himself and spraying water all over the still stunned and supplicant Ebola, he bounded across
to where the babes stood waiting for the lift. The doors slid open and the party entered.

Emerging into the lobby, the babes sparked a near riot of erotic confusion. Normally staid matrons squashed their ample, pearl-covered bosoms against the thin, eager chests of green-uniformed porters. Businessmen in Armani suits crazily humped the columns on which hung plaques from Phil Collins and Cliff Richard. A pack of Twisted Mofo fans knocked the enormous floral arrangement off the lobby’s centre table in order to ravish and be ravished there by a pair of well-heeled honeymooners from Taiwan.

The babes noticed all this frenetic activity. Having no other experience of Earthling behaviour, however, they just took it as normal.

On the Sebel roof, meanwhile, Galgal, which had automatically shut down its Glow-matic lighting system after the babes departed, went largely undetected by passersby. Those who looked up and noticed the saucer didn’t think twice about it. If people gave it any thought, they assumed it was just another one of those trendy shampoo advertisements that had nothing to do with the product. What could an advertisement tell you about washing your hair that you didn’t already know anyway? Stepping out of the chaos of the hotel into the sun-soaked street, Baby fished in her bag for the homing device’s Locate-a-Tron. She held it up, and dialled in Jake’s code—
SPUNKNIK I.

Over in Newtown, Jake and Tristram were trying to convince Saturna and Skye that the bowl of chilli straddling the halfway line down the fridge was actually part
theirs by virtue of location when the homing device in Jake’s arse suddenly emitted a soft, flat beep.

‘Gross,’ commented Skye.

‘Mister Natural,’ Jake sang back, unfazed, scratching his arse.

‘That’s it,’ declared Saturna. ‘No chilli for you boys. It’ll only make you worse.’

‘Why
me
?’ Tristram complained. ‘I didn’t fart. Unfair as.’

Registering the signal, a light flashed on the Locate-a-Tron. Baby took a reading. From the Sebel Townhouse in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, Newtown, in the inner west, represented a major hike-o-rama in Earthling terms. To a pack of intergalactic jetsetting alien babes, it was a mere rocking stroll. ‘Unless you girls have something else you’d like to do,’ Baby said, as casually as possible, ‘I’d actually like to go find Earth Boy again. I feel like we haven’t really finished with him yet.’

‘Whatever,’ said Lati agreeably, licking her lips at a small grey cat. The cat turned into a tiger, growled sexily, and then, cat again, rubbed itself against her legs.

Doll shrugged. Earth boy shmearth boy. But you could never tell who else they might meet along the way.

Revor vaulted into Baby’s shoulder bag and the babes strolled along Elizabeth Bay Road, soaking up the rays of the sun. Amazing star, the Aussie sun. Its daily schedule of arrivals and departures prompted the sky to riot and party. While it hung around, colours sang and danced upon the sparkling beaches, the mirrored towers of the CBD winked at the sandstone edifices glowing softly
beside them, and a peculiarly Australian combination of physical vigour and sensual languor coursed through Earthling veins. Its impact on the ayles was even more dramatic. All three were visibly pulsing now with an erotic energy: the sunlight suffused their skin, made sultry their gaze and left a glossy dew upon their lips. It also left them looking less vividly green, which was probably not a bad thing in context.

Crossing through a small park, they found themselves in the heart of the Cross, a magnet for sleazebags and booners of every description. A carful of hoons revved by in a purple Valiant. ‘Oi!’ one shouted out the window. ‘What planet are
youse
from?’

The girls looked at each other, bemused. Was it that obvious?

‘Nufon,’ answered Lati.

‘I wanna lick your anus,’ shouted another, as the car sped off, the sound of raucous laughter thinning into the air behind them.

‘Did you hear that?’ said Doll. ‘Uranus? I mean, who’d want to lick Uranus? It’s a
disgusting
planet.’

As they passed by the strip joints and adult bookstores and doorways overhung with signs promising
GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS,
spruikers whistled, sex workers cheered, bikies revved their engines and all along the street men dropped to their knees. In Alien Planet, the video game arcade, baseball caps spun around on adolescent heads, virtual villains crawled out of their screens and surrendered, and plastic machine guns turned into plastic ploughshares before the dazzled eyes of the players.

Gone, perhaps, were the days when any old alien crew landing on Earth could count on being received as gods or having monumental temples or cave paintings dedicated
to them. But rock n roll babes from outer space could still make a fairly big impression.