Walk on the Wild Side

Little Lessons in Gardening



The benefits of discovering the hanged man were not immediately apparent to Darren Grover.

Shocked, then suspecting a prank, Grover cautiously approached the hanging object. It was not a prank, and Grover was doubly shocked.

Sunlight pierced the wooded glade and dappled the pallid body. It was that of a young man—possibly a student from the nearby university campus. He was quite naked except for some sort of black latex hood stretched tightly over his head, and Grover was relieved that he was spared from seeing his face. A length of cotton rope was affixed to a padded leather collar, looped over the outreaching limb of a large oak, and tied to one gnarled root. Beneath the trunk lay a neat pile of clothes, and inches beneath the dangling toes lay the stained grassy earth. Some distance away a short section of log had rolled.

Although badly shaken, Darren Grover quickly hiked the half-mile trail through the woods to his house and phoned the police.

In the end, the death was ruled accidental—some small consolation to the student’s parents. A search of his discarded clothing revealed no suicide note, but did discover a small quantity of crack and attendant paraphernalia. Publications of dubious and pornographic nature were found in his dormitory room, and an alcohol level of .2 was found in his blood. The forest was a short walk from campus and traditionally was an area favored for clandestine and often questionable activities. Whether others had been present at the time of the student’s death was never determined.

However, on the basis of the evidence and the absence of other physical restraint, it was concluded that the unfortunate young man had hanged himself accidentally while engaging in a bizarre sexual experience under the heavy influence of drugs and alcohol, either by himself or in conjunction with unknown participants who had fled.

Case closed.

Regardless, it had been an unnerving experience for Darren Grover, a solitary man who enjoyed his salutary walks through the woods. Pine Hill was itself a quiet university town—“a bastion of learning amidst the untroubled fields and forests of the rural South,” in the words of William Jennings Bryan at a graduation ceremony. This had been said well before Grover’s day, and before the town and university had begun to sprawl across the untroubled fields and forests, but much of this ambience persevered, and it was entirely suited to Grover’s tastes.

Darren Grover was professor emeritus of medieval history at the university. Coronary bypass surgery had prompted his early retirement; his health became robust again subsequent to recovery, owing to regulated diet, exercise, medication, and his less stressful schedule. He was a regular at faculty teas, a frequent guest lecturer, and often at work on some scholarly treatise for the journals. Still in his middle sixties, he appeared rather younger: a bit over six feet tall with no trace yet of a stoop, thin and quite wiry now, with much grey in his once bright black hair and beard. His face was long of jaw and nose—the latter capped with bifocals assisting bright brown eyes. He was a temperate man, and after his second and final glass of sherry he would tell the history majors at the faculty smokers about when he and his students had occupied the dean’s office in 1968. Until now, this had been his greatest adventure.

A bachelor of the old school, Grover lived in a cluttered and book-laden cottage in a wooded glen, only a brisk walk to the campus where he had spent some thirty years instructing students in the fascinating history of medieval and early modern Europe. Forbidden now his pipe, he still enjoyed his constitutional, weather permitting, in his baggy tweed jacket and shapeless hat, to chat with former colleagues and putter about the university library. Darren Grover was fondly liked by both students and peers, and he was a man at peace with himself and with life. Except for one thorn.

One terrible thorn.

Her name was Clara Perth, and some ten years before she had buried her husband in Passaic, New Jersey and moved south to enjoy the untroubled fields and forests of Pine Hill. Bryan’s florid comments had been preserved in real estate ads in The New Yorker,; and Pine Hill was rapidly becoming a retirement community for acidulous Yankees who wanted a climatic compromise between Northeastern winters and Florida summers. Mrs Perth used her late husband’s insurance money to purchase the cottage next door to Grover’s.

The grounds of both properties were small. Both landowners liked to garden—Grover was himself quite the amateur botanist. All should have gone well...

Their war began over the English ivy.

Now then: Hargrove Terrace was a wooded cul-de-sac. The street itself ran along the bottom of the glen up to its head, where there was a small turnaround. Some two dozen small houses perched along either slope—most of them two-bedroom brick cottages of similar pattern and built cheaply just after the War. By now most of the houses along Hargrove Terrace were held as investment properties and rented to students and young couples. Groundskeeping was therefore not a high priority, and tenants changed from year to year, and the forest was reclaiming much of its former range.

When Clara Perth purchased her house, its former landlord had bothered with its upkeep about as little as had a succession of student tenants. The grounds were a tangle, the small lawn weed-grown, and the various plantings of shrubbery in a dismal state.

So it was that Darren Grover noted with approval when Mrs Perth began directing workmen to clear her yard. His own grounds would never make the cover of Country Living, but he had a fine mass of shade-loving plants and flowering shrubs that melded pleasantly with the returning forest, and he was delighted to have a fellow gardener as neighbor. True, his several attempts at introduction had been greeted stonily, but he shrugged this off as typical New York manners.

And one bright morning, there she stood on his doorstep rapping at the glass pane.

She said, “I want to know what you’re going to do about all that ivy.”

Clara Perth was a lumpish, stoop-shouldered thing of sixty-some winters, clad just now in a shapeless grey warm-up suit. Blued curls framed a pinched face set in a perpetual scowl. Her beady eyes, behind thick glasses, radiated suspicious hostility—on the rare occasions when she did make eye contact, and this was one such occasion.

“The ivy?” Grover had just started to ask her in.

“That English ivy you’ve got growing all across my yard.” Mrs Perth turned and led him to the offending vine.

Where their lot lines converged, Grover’s side garden was at a higher level by a few feet, owing to excavation at the time their houses were constructed. A lush cover of English ivy grew over the bank and extended into his neighbor’s yard. Grover had planted it on his bank years ago to stop erosion. Little else would grow in the poor soil and dense shade. He was quite pleased with its success.

“What’s the problem with my ivy?”

“It’s full of snakes, and I won’t have it growing in my yard.”

“All right, then. Have your workmen clear it away.”

“Why should I pay to clear away your ivy?”

“Because it’s your ivy in your yard.”

“I want it all cleared away.” She had that abrasive nasal accent that set his teeth on edge.

“You mean mine as well?”

“Of course! I don’t want it growing back into my yard”

“Look,” said Grover firmly, thinking of his morning coffee now growing cold. “You do what you like with whatever’s in your yard. I’ll do as I like with mine.”

They did not part wishing one another a good morning. Later workmen ran a string along the property stakes that marked their mutual boundary, and by evening there was only bare earth on Mrs Perth’s side of the string.

And so the war began.

The English ivy was not the only innocent martyr. Mrs Perth’s gardening was, in fact, a massacre—a bare-earth policy. Granted that some of the shrubbery wanted trimming, the iris and day lilies should be thinned, the roses and azaleas needed feeding... But everything went: chopped down, uprooted, carried away by the harassed workmen—until at last there remained only barren soil and a few fatally over-pruned ornamental evergreens.

Grover watched the destruction in horror. On pleasant days he liked to sit out in his side yard listening to his stereo, and over the years he had grown fond of the haphazard gardening efforts of previous tenants, had come to rely upon the late-blooming azalea set out by a newly-wed couple (Mick and Nora, was it?) a dozen years back, had marked the advent of spring by the naturalized bed of yellow daffodils that had been there since before he had moved to Hargrove Terrace, had admired the tangle of wild rose that sprawled almost into the street. Eradicated. All.

As Grover mourned the murder of old friends, he consoled himself with the thought that his new neighbor was indeed a serious gardener. No sooner was the earth laid bare than she began to replant. Workmen under her sharp-tongued direction planted dozens of flowering trees and ornamental shrubs, bulbs and perennials were set out everywhere, flagstone walks and concrete bird baths appeared, patches of river gravel and clusters of native stone transformed the former unkempt lawn into a sprawling rock garden, tufts of periwinkle and liriope replaced grass and weeds. It was a total transformation, mounted at great expense and considerable energy.

Grover decided that he had misjudged Mrs Perth and that his behavior toward her had been churlish. Quite clearly her intentions were good, albeit she was planting too much and too closely together. Six flowering cherry trees in a ten-foot row would never do. When she began work on her rose garden, Grover felt it only neighborly to give her the advantage of his good advice.

The workmen were at lunch. Mrs Perth, in a shapeless dress and pulled-down straw hat, was regarding their work with disapproval at their progress. She was preparing a bed of tea roses along their mutual property line.

“You’ve certainly put in a lot of good work here, Mrs Perth,” Grover observed. Since the English ivy matter, they had barely spoken.

Mrs Perth favored him with her habitual lowering expression. “I’m paying enough for it.”

Undaunted, Grover persisted. “I’m sure you are. That’s why I thought I might suggest that you consider a sunnier location for your rose bed. You see, it’s dense shade along here. Shame to put all this work into—”

“I’ll plant my roses where I please, thank you.” Mrs Perth straightened her lumpy body and glared at him. “When you do something about your jungle of a yard, then perhaps I’ll ask your advice.”

Grover retreated, and the chill set in to stay.

After that, it was an unending series of skirmishes.

The roses, of course, did abysmally in the deep shade. Mrs Perth fed and sprayed and pruned them mercilessly, but by end of season the roses appeared more sickly than when they were unpacked as sticks and roots from the nursery.

A letter to Darren Grover, placed (stampless) in his mailbox: “Will you please remove that thicket of trees at the edge of my lot. It is shading out my rose garden.”

Grover had a row of dogwoods, taken from the wild, which he had planted along their lot line. They were now handsome small trees: graceful drooping branches, large white flowers in the spring, bright red berries in the winter. True, their branches overhung Mrs Perth’s property. Grover ignored her letter.

Not long after, workmen came and pruned away every branch that violated his neighbor’s airspace. It was, after all, the law.

Next season, the roses did equally poorly In a mass execution, Mrs Perth had them all uprooted and flung into the rubbish heap to be carted away.

She then began work on a dahlia bed. Grover was past explaining to her about shade and drainage, and the dahlias died horribly. Somehow it weighed upon his conscience.

The flowering cherries were too crowded to do well, and they soon shaded out her peonies. Mrs Perth had the lot cut down and uprooted, replacing them with a bed of iris and a great mass of forsythia. The forsythia struggled gamely to please her, but after a few seasons they were ripped up and replaced by flowering quince. The surviving iris gave place to day lilies. The dahlia bed became a tulip bed, which became a row of clematis vines along the newly erected rail fence, which became a rose garden once again.

The shorn evergreens had died that first year.

And so the years passed.

Darren Grover no longer enjoyed sitting out in his side garden, face to face with the glowering lump as she prowled about her grounds wreaking slaughter. He began to think of her as the Wicked Witch of Hargrove Terrace—a malevolent creature constantly setting out innocent vegetation, then summarily executing it. Of course, weeds were her special prey, and she roamed her grounds daily, peering nearsightedly for anything that might be a weed, pulling it up and placing it in her basket. Leaves were also a target. No leaf fell into her yard that Mrs Perth did not hear and find and remove.

It would have been a brilliant garden, if the old witch had any clue as to how to garden. Instead she flung plant after plant into the soil, only to cast it forth once it failed to meet her expectations. Grover thought of a bad general hurling his troops against impossible odds, then executing the survivors for cowardice.

All of this leads into the matter of the deaf dog.

The acquisition of the deaf dog came about not long after the murder of the maple.

The tree that Grover prized above all others on his grounds was a large and aged maple, probably well settled in at about the time the American colonials were sniping at British redcoats from behind fencerows here. It was gnarled, sprawling and ungainly, and it had the most wondrous red and gold autumn foliage of any maple in Pine Hill. Of course, Clara Perth hated it. Hated it for the shade it cast upon her garden. Hated it for the leaves it shed across her well-picked yard. Hated it because it was wild and unfettered.

There had been many notes in the mailbox and surly conversations, all to the point that Grover should do something about that half-dead tree. Grover ignored her dire warnings of lawsuit, should the tree topple on to her house, as he ignored the witch in all other matters—having by now forsaken his quiet interludes in his side garden.

When a large branch blew down in a storm and crushed a birdfeeder and a despairing magnolia in her yard, Grover agreed in the out-of-court settlement to pay damages and have the tree removed. The tree fought gallantly for two days, but it had never faced chainsaws before. Mrs Perth watched its dismemberment from a lawn chair.

A stranger in his own yard, Darren Grover sought refuge in his daily walks through the forest. It had been close to a year now since he had encountered the hanged student, and Grover usually avoided that particular wooded glade. On this day his steps were aimless and automatic, and the westering sun found him wandering along his once-familiar path.

As he crossed the glade, Grover paused to study an unfamiliar plant—unusual, in that he could readily recognize most of the local flora. The short-stemmed plant had ovate leaves and bore attractive solitary flowers with a purple bell-shaped corolla. It grew lushly in the loose forest loam and dappled sunlight of the clearing, and it was only after he straightened up from his examination that Grover realized that he was standing beneath the oak limb where the unfortunate student had hanged himself.

In some agitation, Grover hurried back to his house and began to search through his various reference works. While he was a fair amateur botanist, he was a noted medieval scholar, and it required only a short time to interface legend with scientific observation.

The mystery plant was clearly a mandrake— Mandragora officinarum— found in southern Europe and northern Africa, not to be confused with the May apple, native to the United States and also called mandrake. No matter: exotic plants often adapted to other climes, and this could easily be a stray from the university’s botanical gardens or someone’s flower bed.

On the other hand—and this fascinated Grover—according to legend, mandrake was commonly found beneath a gallows—supposedly grown from a hanged man’s final ejaculation as the rope wrenched out his breath. A plant spawned of the earth and a dead man’s seed. A plant whose root was shaped like a human—legs, torso, arms, its head hidden beneath its foliage. A plant said to hold all manner of magical properties. A plant that uttered a human-like scream when pulled from the earth.

A deafening scream that brought stark madness and death to those who heard its cry.

Darren Grover paged through his books throughout the evening, learning more. Formulating a plan.

It took rather less time than Grover had anticipated. The workers at the local animal shelter were curious as to why Grover wished to adopt a deaf dog. Grover explained that his recently deceased dog had grown deaf during its final years, and that this was a blessing of sorts in that the dog then no longer barked at every odd noise. This kept the neighbors from making complaints and made for a more pleasant companion. Besides, he had grieved so over his pet’s passing that he wanted a dog of familiar habits and behavior to replace that loss.

The animal control officers had been prepared to put down the aged bulldog immediately after she was brought to them, but someone remembered the eccentric professor and phoned him. And so Grover acquired a deaf dog.

Her name was Precious, and she was a white English bulldog. Her elderly owners were moving to a retirement condo in Florida (no pets or children allowed), and they had tearfully left her for adoption, not realizing that euthanasia was the usual policy of the local APS. Grover prided himself on her rescue from her politically correct executioners.

Although aged and deaf, Precious retained the ungainly strength of her breed, and the years seemed only to have increased an already voracious appetite. Grover found that his new pet would readily eat anything he offered her, from expensive dogfood to leftovers of any sort. Beef bones or boiled carrots—their fate was certain once dumped in to her bowl. Precious quickly took to her new master and made it a point of honor that the cushions of his favorite chair should not grow cold during his absences. When not eating, the dog usually plopped down and slept close to where her master might be. Grover formed the opinion that Precious’s snoring was the cause of her deafness.

More to the point, the bulldog was incredibly strong. On their walks, Grover was virtually dragged along by the panting bulldog as she strained at her leash. Grover was by no means a small man. Once again, fate seemed to have provided him with the proper tool.

And on one moonlit night...

Darren Grover had already soaked the earth about the mandrake. Gingerly he made fast a nylon cord to the base of the plant, scraping away as much loam as he dared. He had not fed Precious all day, and this bothered his conscience.

The bulldog regarded him with curiosity, as he fastened the nylon cord to her leash. Was she meant to stay here? Then why had Master placed her food dish several feet out of reach? That mixture of barbecued chicken and cat food—her very favorites—smelled awfully good. Precious barked loudly as her careless master hurried away. Perhaps he also was growing deaf?

Well, clearly the food was intended for Precious. She dug in her stubby legs, hunched her massive shoulders, and kicked some eighty-five pounds of bulldog into gear. At first there was some resistance. Paws scraped at earth. Muscles strained. Then the leash pulled free. Precious experienced a sudden twinge, but this did nothing to put her off her feed as she plunged into her dish.

Almost home, Grover suddenly felt ... something. He stumbled and fell, crouched upon the trail for breath—wondering whether this might be the predicted final heart attack. He supposed he lost consciousness for a moment, as his next clear memory was that of Precious anxiously licking his face. Her breath stank of catfood and the bulldog was dragging an uprooted plant at the end of her lead.

Grover gathered up lead and bare root, and he and Precious fumbled homeward through the dark.

The mandrake root did look like a tiny man. Small arms hung down beside a fleshy torso, and the tap root was closely bifurcated. A knobby bit at the bifurcation caused Grover to think of the root as male. Abroad tuft of foliage crowned its head.

Grover quickly wrapped the mandrake root in wet towels. Next he selected a gardener’s trowel from his shed, and crept with the mandrake root into the bottom of Clara Perth’s garden. There, by the light of the moon, he replanted the mandrake, taking care that it blended in with an anemic patch of hosta lilies. Undetected, he returned home to a snoring Precious.

Darren Grover might have relented. It was, after all, just a malicious prank: a harmless experiment, no doubt, based upon foolish legend. Catharsis. It wasn’t as though he had laid land mines about her garden— although this thought, too, was pleasant.

A day or so after he had transplanted the mandrake, Grover was accosted by Mrs Perth as he carried letters to his mailbox. He smiled. She returned her fixed querulous grimace.

Clara Perth said, “It’s time you did something about all this mess in your yard.”

Grover looked quickly about, saw nothing. “Mess?”

“Weeds. Overgrown shrubbery. Ivy everywhere.” Mrs Perth pointed in agitation. “Your lot is an eyesore.”

“Thank you, but I consider it a naturalized wooded slope with native trees and shrubs pleasingly intermingled with chosen plantings.” Grover had used such language before, but always with sympathetic admirers of his grounds.

“Well, it’s a jungle of weeds, and it breeds rats. I’ve already spoken to my lawyers. There’s a town ordinance that requires property owners to clean up their premises, in case you didn’t know. I can give you the number of the firm that keeps my grounds clean, if you like.”

“Thank you, but I can use the exercise,” said Grover with studied calmness.

“Just don’t be too long about it.” Mrs Perth next turned her scowl toward Precious. “And keep that dog away from my yard. She’s been fouling it every night. We have a leash law here, you know. I’ll phone the animal control people next time I find a pile in my yard.”

Grover protested. “But I walk her myself. She’s never in your yard. After all, there are a dozen other dogs in this neighborhood.”

“One thing more,” Mrs Perth had bent the ear of her lawyers that day. “Turn down that stereo of yours. There’s a noise ordinance, you know. I moved here expecting a clean, quiet neighborhood, and that’s what I’ll have.”

After that Grover made a token effort at trimming back some wild roses and a row of boxwood. He kept Precious on her lead, and he always walked her on the other side of the street—feeling the baleful weight of Mrs Perth’s glare. As the autumn turned the leaves, he returned to his side garden—silently lounging with a book, a tethered Precious snoring contentedly beside his lawn chair.

It took about a week more to happen.

Grover rather wished for a dark and stormy night, or at least a gathering tempest with looming black clouds and the approaching growl of thunder. It was, however, about four on a pleasant, sunny autumn afternoon.

From above the pages of his book, Grover watched. Mrs Perth: shapeless smock, horrid hat, death basket, shears and trowel, on the prowl. He thought suddenly of A Tale of Two Cities. Her malignant eyes stabbed each square inch of her yard, as she remorselessly approached the bottom of her garden—snipping and uprooting all that offended her. Another aristocrat’s head rolls. And another. Snick, stab, clip, rip.

Grover held his breath as Mrs Perth zeroed in on the mandrake. It had recovered nicely from its uprooting and was clearly at ease amidst the hosta lilies. None the less, it was a weed.

Clara Perth grasped the short tuft of leaves with both hands, braced her stubby legs, and heaved with all of her lumpy strength.

The mandrake easily tore free from its freshly dug planting.

Precious twitched in her sleep.

Clara Perth clasped her hands to her ears, evidently screaming. Bright blood gushed slowly between her clutched fingers and jetted from her mouth. She spun about dizzily—her eyes wide and unseeing. Grover would never forget her face: total horror expressed upon a lifetime wrinkled mass of disapproval.

Mrs Perth staggered several more steps—clawing at the air and mouthing shrieks, as she careened through her garden of martyred plants. She tumbled into the street. For a moment she clutched at the barren asphalt.

A van rounded the curve, honked futilely, and tried to brake in time.

There was an impact, but the coroner’s ruling was death by massive cerebral hemorrhage previous to the accident. After all, an elderly lady, straining at the task of her gardening. Moreover, the esteemed Professor Grover had witnessed the attack.

That verdict came later. Just now Darren Grover did two things quickly.

He switched off the Walkman that had plugged his ears. No loud stereo to annoy Mrs Perth. He hated rap music, but it really was deafening.

Then Grover replanted the mandrake in his own garden, patting down the soil with a loving touch.





A Walk on the Wild Side



Leslie Lancaster sat on the edge of the steaming tub, painstakingly shaving his legs with a pink disposable razor. He was not quite nineteen, but his fine blond beard was enough of a problem to require use of an Emulsifying Ointment BP to soften it for a close, smooth shave, and later some Savlon antiseptic cream to soothe the burn. Toweling dry, he wrapped himself in his terry cloth dressing robe and sat down to make up his face.

Leslie Lancaster’s parents lived prosperously in Colorado, and they assumed from his cards that their son was enjoying his summer abroad at a youth hostel in London while taking in museums and art galleries and the Changing of the Guard; perhaps a walking tour of the Cotswolds or wherever to perk him up after his nervous collapse at school. In fact Leslie had sublet a small flat in Crouch End for the summer and was supplementing his monthly allowance in a manner his parents could scarcely approve of or understand.

His hair was blond and straight, and Leslie had had it styled in a pert pageboy that fit well beneath a wig if he chose to wear one. Mostly he left off the wig and relied upon his rather pretty features and his skill with the cosmetics his sister had shown him how to use. Lydia was three years his senior and very pretty, and Leslie had burst into tears that day when she had come home unexpectedly and found him dressed in her clothes. She had thought their mother had been shifting her things about.

Dad had taken him to football games in Denver, which Leslie found boring and incomprehensible. When Leslie threw up over the carcass of the deer his father had just shown him how to field dress, Dad had called him Momma’s Little Girl. Momma was preoccupied with her church work and often remarked that her life would have been far simpler had Leslie been born a girl and could wear Lydia’s hand-me-downs. Lydia had wanted a sister and resented Leslie with all the usual nastiness of sibling rivalry.

When she found him dressed in her clothes, the two held one another and cried much of the afternoon.

After that, she took him shopping for a feminine wardrobe of his own and taught him how to dress up.

Lydia was starting law school now. Leslie was having an educational holiday in London after his little breakdown at school. Next year he would be a senior at Colorado State (his parents had enrolled him in a grade school program for gifted students, making him younger than his class), and this summer he was considering slashing his wrists rather than returning home.

For now, Leslie tied on a semitransparent latex gaff to hide his male bulge. His cock tucked securely away, he pulled on a pair of black silk French-cut knickers and checked the result in his wardrobe mirror. Credible. Perhaps he’d get the operation someday.

The estrogen seemed to be taking some effect meanwhile. Leslie hoped to have real breasts in time. He squeezed his growing breasts hopefully. Maybe soon, with a padded platform bra. For today he struggled into a soft black bra, fastening the hooks in front and then sliding the cups to the front, fitting Spenco Soft Touch Breast Forms into the cups as he shifted them over his own small breasts. He inspected himself in the mirror. The bounce of the breast forms felt real; the darkened areola and preformed nipple protruded from the soft nylon to good effect. Someday silicone implants. Damn the risk.

Leslie Lancaster was slight of build—another failing for which his father had never forgiven him. The 38-C padded bra fit him well, and he could sometimes slither into a size 8 dress. He had been secretly cross-dressing since puberty, for three years now with his sister’s help, and he was not a virgin except with a woman. After his breakdown, Lydia had urged him to make the transformation here in London, away from Mom and Dad and Colorado. Long pendant earrings framed his face and made the short pageboy look sexy.

Preliminaries completed, Leslie tugged on a pair of opaque black tights and a very brief black miniskirt. Then a loose black silk blouse that allowed his silicone breast forms to bounce with his gait, and a black cotton jacket with minimal shoulder padding. His shoulders were small, and he looked very sophisticated in an off-the-shoulder party dress. His legs were good, and the jacket and micro-miniskirt made his slim hips less obvious. Black stiletto pumps finished the ensemble, and Leslie had already learned to walk on five-inch heels on London pavement. He examined his face in the mirror, decided a hat wasn’t required, and picked up his handbag. No trace of Colorado.

And he was a she.

Leslie usually turned her tricks on Soho when the tourists were about. Arabs paid well. When money was tight, it was Nightingale Lane and Ramsden Road and Oldridge Road and hanging around The Grove. No Arabs in limos. Quickies in side streets. Maybe a beating. Best to work Soho. Or Kensington. Quiet park bench and a knob job. Chase down the come with a half lager at The Catherine Wheel. Ten quid extra without the condom. Sometimes she got extra when the John groped her cock. Sometimes a bloody lip. She carried mint-flavored Mates, not-lubricated, reservoir tip. Kept her breath clean and fresh.

Now then. Leslie Lancaster was sitting inside The Munchkin on St Giles High Street off Charing Cross. The pub had earlier been named The Munchen and had just been renamed The Conservatory, but would always be known as The Munchkin. Leslie had three friends she often met there before strolling over to Soho or wherever.

There was Samantha Starr, a lovely transsexual just beginning to show her age, which was probably twenty-five but old enough to advise Leslie on her chosen path; she was Leslie’s best friend and everything Leslie wanted to become. There was Jo Crowther, a slim dyke who had her suspicions about Leslie, but who was too caught up in her abstract paintings to bother pressing further. And there was Philip Anthony, a graying poet, extensively published, peripherally distributed, eternally inebriated, who was clueless about Leslie or he would have been interested. Leslie had met the latter two through Samantha, and she had met Samantha whilst crouched over the toilet with an unsecured door one evening at the Ladies’ in the Munchkin. Yes, women are far messier: never sit down on the seat. Samantha had become her mentor and guide, and sometimes Samantha arranged special sessions for better money than the streets.

Samantha said “You’re looking very trendy this afternoon. Very much the London office girl.” Samantha had on a long blond wig, but was otherwise dressed almost identically to Leslie—thus the joke.

“Yes,” said Leslie. “I fear it’s catching this season.” Her low American accent translated well as a woman’s voice to British ears, accustomed as they were to overseas mauling of their language.

“It suits you well,” Jo commented, lighting her cigarette. She weaved the smoke away, remembering that it made Leslie cough. Jo was Irish and had lovely auburn hair, shorter than Leslie’s. They were of a similar size but Jo was wearing a black leather jacket and artfully torn jeans.

“Thank you.” Leslie had never made it with another woman, although Samantha had shown her what to do. She sensed mutual interest and made her eyes wide and innocent as she finished her half lager.

Philip stood up and pointed at their glasses. “Same again, ladies? ” He and Jo were drinking pints of bitter, Leslie and Samantha half lagers. Philip saw himself as an aging cavalier poet, surrounded by a court of adoring young ladies, and as such he was good always for more than his share of rounds. He was fond of doffing his tweed hat and bowing over their hands, and he was harmless.

Leslie scanned the rest of the patrons. Early in the evening, and mostly the science fiction crowd who hung out here. No money there, although several of the guys had tried to pick her up. Leslie kept it on a business level, although there was the wicked thrill of it. Turn a few tricks every other night or so. Found in the street: over and above her parental allowance. Paid for the flat and a growing wardrobe. On the street she gave only head. No undressing. Unzip his fly, and face in his lap. Quick and easy and out of there. Twenty-five quid for five minutes, ten extra without the condom, swallowed or sprayed over her face. She much preferred a condom. No aftertaste, no sticky mess to ruin her makeup. And no choking. With practice she could now deep-throat an entire cock and hold it there as he ejaculated, feeling the warm spasms of come pulsing into the condom against the back of her throat. She enjoyed the sensation, and the sudden detumescence that meant job over and money in hand. No taxes withheld.

“Here you are, ladies.” Philip was back, sloshing glasses. He resumed his chair and lifted his pint. “A toast to the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.”

“Is that today?” Leslie could not believe that she had been here in London nearly three months. Two months more, then back to Colorado. She couldn’t do it.

“Bad time to be a vampire,” Jo said, concerned at Leslie’s sudden dismay. “Or to be a Druid sacrifice.”

“Oh, the Druids never sacrificed anyone,” Philip jumped in, blissfully uninformed as usual. “You know, I’m thinking of joining Wicca. When I was a bit younger, I used to participate in Morris dancing.”

“And got hit over the head by a stick.” Jo was on a roll, and she got Leslie to giggle.

Leslie got beer up her nose in the process and made for the Ladies’. Samantha followed her in and watched as she fixed her face.

“Look. Do you have any real plans for tonight?” Samantha knew well she hadn’t.

Leslie blew her nose. “What did you have in mind?”

“I have an address. Private session.” Samantha had dubious connections and had taken Leslie under wing.

“Have you been putting those cards into phone boxes again? The ones that read ‘Ultimate Mistress For Lovers Of The Bizarre. Dial 2 2 9-something’ and that sort? Because the last time you talked me into participating in one of these sessions, I was made to wear a gym slip and to take ten strokes of the cane from a nasty old man—among other things.”

“And your share for the evening was fifty knicker.”

“I had serious welts for days.”

“At five quid a welt. Besides, it was safe sex.” Samantha’s sex change had been expensive, and her heroin habit wasn’t cheap. The weirdos paid well, and she considered their money hers for the taking. Leslie ought to feel more grateful for the work.

“This isn’t going to involve water sports, is it?” Leslie drew the line at getting pissed on. Once a geezer had fastened her head in some sort of portable toilet while Samantha squatted over her face. The Brits were a kinky lot, she thought, but then, who was she to talk. She just wanted their money, quick and easy.

“There may be a little B&D, perhaps some spanking. Look, they’ve seen you with me and asked about you. I told them you were a submissive teenage model who only posed and nothing more. Well, I hinted that you might give a little head for the right knicker. And anyway, I’ll be there with you. Safe as houses, and we split two hundred quid plus tips.”

“Two hundred quid! That’s more than just spanking!”

“Well, there will be several participants.” Samantha put her arm around Leslie. “Come on, love. They want the both of us, but I can always phone up another friend.”

A woman entered the loo then, so Leslie adjusted her lip gloss while she thought about it. Probably mean a bright red bum in the morning, but a hundred quid plus whatever extra the geezers paid was better than trolling for Arabs in Soho. And Samantha did know the ropes. Literally.

And there was the strapless black leather minidress she’d been dying for in Kensington Market. With the right underwired push-up bra, she’d look smashing in it.

Back at their table, Philip was entertaining Jo with much lurid misinformation about primitive fertility rites performed at the changes of seasons. Jo was very happy to leave Leslie and Samantha to Philip while she bought a round. Philip was a dear old poofter, and at least he hadn’t begun to recite his poetry. Yet.

Later, as they were leaving The Munchkin, Jo caught Leslie by the arm. She said in a low voice, “Will you listen to me? Just mind yourself following about Samantha so much. She’s wild, and she’s, well, clueless.”

Jealousy? Leslie wondered. She left the pub with the trace of a blush. She had also had a bit more lager than she’d intended. Philip had recited three of his latest poems, and drink was required.

It was a warm night as they stood out on the pavement for a taxi. Taxis used St Giles High Street as a shortcut, so even this close to nine they had no difficulty. The sky was still bright, owing to the summer solstice, with shadows now dissolving into deeper shadow.

Leslie studied her face in her compact mirror, feeling anxious. “Do they know about me?”

Samantha shared some of her Valiums. She was in a giggly mood. “I just said that you were an American teenage runaway out for a spanking good time!”

That was the funniest line either of them had ever heard, and they hugged one another in a fit of snorting laughter. The driver wondered if they were likely to get sick in his cab. Probably sisters having a reunion, he decided, although the younger one had picked up a slight American accent while abroad.

They got off in Battersea at a pub called the Northcote, as Samantha wanted another half lager and both needed a slash. Also they were early, and the driver couldn’t find Auckland Road owing to the car dealership that had obliterated the street sign at this end of Battersea Rise. After, they clopped quickly down the pavement like giddy schoolgirls, clutching their handbags to their middles, laughing away as they talked, paying no mind to their surroundings. Leslie envied the bounce of Samantha’s implanted breasts. She’d have hers done at the same clinic.

“Shouldn’t we have dressed better for this?” Leslie asked. She had had three of Samantha’s Valiums together with the lagers, and she was no longer on Planet Earth.

“I don’t think our clothing will long be a factor,” said Samantha, starting another run of giggles.

Leslie felt wonderful. Colorado was only a bad dream.

Then Auckland Road began to oppress her. It was a tiny side-street of row houses, brown bricks showing urban decay. Some houses showed diffident potted plants upon the stoop, others appeared abandoned. Leslie could smell curries cooking somewhere. Reggae music thumped in the gathering darkness. The pub at the end of the street looked cheerless and silent.

“Here! They’ve said two hundred pounds? Look where we are.”

Samantha took her arm. “Obviously they’ve let a flat, love. Hardly discreet to plan their gatherings where their neighbors are all watching, is it?”

They rang a bell near the end of the street. Leslie was reassured when a young man in pinstripes welcomed them inside. The houses on either side were dark and appeared vacant; this house had an empty feel to it, and Leslie told herself that it was one of those places sublet by the hour or night for special needs. Once Samantha had taken her to a sinister flat in Clapham where Leslie had been dressed into a latex maid’s costume and required to give head to a similarly clad Japanese gentleman, while Samantha pranced about in a leather corset and whipped them both with a riding crop. Afterward the John had given both of them head. Whips and costumes left with the management. Most hotels did not offer this service.

Leslie sighed as she entered. Just do the trick, take their money, go home. Beats working the burger-doodles in Colorado.

Outside, it was finally dark.

Upstairs, there must have been a dozen people scattered about the large sitting room and kitchen: men and women, mostly well dressed with a few leather-clad punkers. A skinhead in knicker boots handed Leslie and Samantha cups of some hot mulled punch from a bowl in the kitchen.

“God, it’s an orgy!” Leslie whispered to Samantha, smiling graciously as she sipped her punch. “Why do they need us? Looks like we’re to put on a show for them.”

The punch was well laced with rum and probably much more. It hit Leslie between the eyes after the earlier imbibements. She swayed and found herself hanging on to a professional gentleman, who listened to her every word. Samantha was quickly counting fifty pound notes and shoving them into her handbag. She nodded to Leslie and patted her bag, then headed for the loo.

Someone gave Leslie another cup of punch. The walls were decorated with primitive masks and paintings that reminded Leslie of ancient cave drawings. There was a ballet barre standing in the center of the room, sturdily fastened to the floor. A spanking stand, Leslie guessed. The whips and leather gear were likely in another room.

“Just over here,” said the professional gentleman, leading her to the ballet barre. “Have you quite finished with your punch?”

“I think I’ve had a glass too many.” Leslie sensed more at work than the alcohol and Valium, and she began to feel panic.

“Just lean against this barre,” advised the kindly gentleman.

Leslie placed her hands upon the barre, trying to keep on her feet. Two women were tying her ankles to the uprights of the barre, while the skinhead bound her wrists together to the horizontal bar. One of the women fitted her with a collar and chain, pulling her head down so that she was bent over the barre, legs widespread, ass exposed, and totally helpless. The other woman expertly strapped a rubber ball-gag tightly into her mouth, then thoughtfully rearranged Leslie’s hair and earrings over the strap.

She sensed this had been done here before. Often.

Here’s where I earn my hundred quid, thought Leslie, wondering why the Brits had this thing about spanking. The school system probably. She looked about for Samantha. People were removing their clothes now. Well, she couldn’t give head with this gag in place. Samantha would look after her if things got rough.

“Shall I strip her now?” asked the skinhead.

“Leave that for Him to enjoy,” said the professor.

Leslie blinked, trying to stay alert. She tottered in her stiletto heels and would have fallen, but her bonds held her in a fixed position, and she could only slump forward. She felt someone pull up her miniskirt, then hands groped her ass. Someone poured some sort of warm liquid over her tights. Was that blood? It smelled like a goat pen. Sick.

She hoped they wouldn’t use canes; that one session had been enough. She chewed on her rubber gag, looking about for Samantha. Everyone was quite naked now, except for Leslie. They were circling about her now. She turned her head. She couldn’t see Samantha anywhere. This wasn’t Colorado.

Leslie managed to count. There were thirteen of them in the room.

Naked men and women. Someone was drawing a star in a circle about her as she clung to the barre. She supposed the words at the points of the star were Latin, just as she supposed their chanting was Latin—or something else unintelligible. Leslie hadn’t a word of Latin, and she knew absolutely nothing about either witchcraft or Satanism; but she had seen horror films, and she couldn’t see Samantha. Maybe she was off getting into some dominatrix gear.

They were copulating now as they circled her—women bent over and men riding their backsides like herd animals mating, shuffling all around her, chanting.

It wasn’t just a weird orgy with a lot of kinky perverts after all. Through the veil of drugs, Leslie knew real fear.

A moment later, the horned man appeared with the pentacle behind her, and then Leslie knew real fear.

She strained helplessly at her bonds, trying to tell herself it was the drugs, that it was only a man with very much body hair and some fake antlers tied to his head. This was like watching Rosemary’s Baby. Surely the enormous erect phallus was fake—at least a foot in length and dart-headed like an animal’s. Leslie caught a glimpse of his eyes and knew none of it was fake. She lowered her face and moaned into her gag. Maybe this was the bad dream.

He snuffled the animal menstrual blood and urine that had been poured over her buttocks. Flat-taloned hands then ripped apart her black tights, shredded her silk knickers, exposing her ass to the chanting coven and its master. Her gaff still concealed her shrinking cock and balls from their sight, and Leslie felt a strange sense of relief that they still hadn’t guessed.

The enormous head of the penis rubbed impatiently against her, seeking an opening, skidding across the crack of her ass. Leslie had only been sodomized on occasion—usually by Samantha’s double-ended dildo—and she hadn’t liked it at all. But needs must when the devil drives.

The room was dimly lit. As the taloned hands pulled her hips closer, Leslie wriggled her ass to meet the questing penis head, felt it lodge in her a*shole, and pushed back against it quickly.

She screamed as the pointed head popped suddenly past her overmatched sphincter muscles. She kept screaming as the twelve-inch cock brutally penetrated her rectum, glanced off her prostate and pushed deep inside her colon. She kept on screaming as the horned man began to thrust vigorously in and out of her ass, grasping her hips and grunting with each stroke.

But, of course, that was the reason for the ball-gag.

Only the ropes and the horned man’s hands held Leslie from falling. She had bitten deeply into the hard rubber gag, her sobs and gasps replacing her useless screams. She began to echo the horned man’s grunts with each thrust, angling her hips as best she could to accommodate his assault. The huge animal phallus was stuffing her, ripping in and out of her insides, as she jolted helplessly in her bonds.

The others were circling them, switching partners, copulating like rutting animals to match the movements of their deity and his virgin bride. Leslie knew she could never pull free from the horned man’s grip on her—not until his seed had been spent within her. Despite the terror and the pain, Leslie was joining into their sexual frenzy She knew Johns. She knew she was giving this one a terrific f*ck. She rocked her hips into his loins, wanting every massive inch of him inside her body.

When the horned man came, Leslie screamed anew against her gag—screaming now in passion rather than pain, although the pain was intense. Molten iron seemed to be gushing into her rectum, filling her insides with a rush of inexpressible energy. She thought of an endless cocaine enema, shaking her total being. In that same surge, she felt her own orgasm shudder through her, as her penis jetted spurts into her latex gaff.

As the horned man slowly withdrew from her bleeding ass, Leslie collapsed against her bonds. She was barely conscious when she felt a taloned hand explore her wet gaff, then rip it away. She thought she heard an outraged snarl—like a chainsaw hitting barbed wire in a dead oak.

She was totally unconscious just as the real screaming began.

Dawn came early with the summer solstice, and dawn found Samantha sprawled upon the bathroom floor. The last hit of smack had been over the top after all the rest. She collected her works, amazed to find it all there, and went to look for Leslie.

Leslie was where Samantha had seen her, slumped over the barre. From the look of it, things had become a bit too wild during the night. Samantha untied her, wincing at the blood and semen that had dried on Leslie’s torn tights and thighs. She pulled her skirt down to cover her and helped Leslie to a couch, then went into the kitchen for tea. She settled on a bottle of brandy and shared some with Leslie.

“Rough night?” She inquired sympathetically, as the brandy brought Leslie around. They must have all done her ass. Tough on the kid, but it was just a job. Actually they’d only wanted Leslie for the night, but Samantha had insisted on coming along to chaperone and to collect.

“You bitch,” said Leslie. She wanted to strangle her but was too sore.

Jo was right: Samantha was clueless. “Look. I told you there’d be a little B&D involved. And now we have our two hundred knicker.”

“Half of which you got just to set me up.”

“That’s still one hundred pounds to your gain. And you’re no virgin—though I swore you was. And I meant to help. Really! ” Samantha looked about, unrepentant, still well knackered. “Where did they all go? Look! They’ve left their clothing all about!”

“I’m certain they’re all warm enough without it,” said Leslie.

Glancing down into her blouse, she felt her enlarged nipples pressing against her breast forms, pushing them uncomfortably against her tight bra. Her silk blouse, unscathed through it all, was about to burst open. Leslie tugged out the forms, and her breasts filled the bra cups completely.

Her black miniskirt covered her thighs and torn undergarments.

Soon Leslie would have to look.