A Chip off the Bloc | Allen Ashley
Stupid, poxy period.
Every time I have something important to do my menstrual cycle knocks me down with its two bloody wheels and I’m confined to bed with comfort food, apothecary papers and the Baroquephone. Play me something soothing whilst I imbibe these fast-dissolving powders and luxuriate in the creamy aroma of choc. Or, more correctly, Bloc – the snappy new flavour that’s being sold underhand in alleyways and down by the unkempt bushes. Yet to taste confectionery finer.
The only part of my life that was presently fulfilled. Work? I get some but not enough and what I do get these days is a bind. Home? Scrubby little first floor flat above a tailor’s like I’m still a student or a cadet. Love? Susan, the sow, seems to have gone for good this time. She was never a proper lesbian anyhow. I ought to have seen it from the start. I said to her: “The ways of Sappho are for life, not just for the holidays.” Her puzzled silence should have been a red flag.
Crimson, like the stain on the white underwear I was caught unawares wearing. Stupid monthly curse. If it happened to men they’d surely have invented a cure by now.
A warm bath always helped so long as I didn’t soak long enough for my skin to start crinkling like an ill-fitting body stocking.
There were flags on the Baroquephone. Black field with a white skull and crossed bones as lately the RBC signal had been regularly jammed by Radio Buccaneer and their piratical play list.
“I goes a-Jolly Rogering but I can’t tell you when,
I don’t say my doings to the excise men.”
Jingles that were the usual juvenile drivel. The play-list was old school blasts from the past charts. Fair enough and pretty much what I wanted in my present condition; but where were the real songs of rebellion and their seductive, seditious singers?
All locked up a while ago. Mostly with my assistance.
*
“Bryony, my love, I’m off to Hannah’s hen party weekend,” she’d stated, already sporting a pink plastic boater and too short mini dress. Hark at me, I’m sounding like my Grandma!
“You’ll just get a load of grief from guys who are even drunker than you,” I told her.
“I know,” she answered and I’m sure her eyes did actually twinkle. Or maybe my vision was filling up with betraying teardrops.
No use moping forever. Get your own glad rags on, girl, have a little groove to whatever was hot on the Baroquephone, then get out there and take on the world.
It was Whitebeard tonight: “Spinning me piratical platters”. Everybody loved him, seeing him as some saucy old sea dog whose lascivious quips were dismissed as “just a bit of fun” or “charming” rather than creepy or predatory.
“Nah, then, me hearties, I ’as me big telescope out straight and firm tonight, ah. An’ what’s that I spy? Why, it be a fanny boat a-coming my way…”
I just wanted some good tunes to sing along with, not the DJ’s sexist drivel. But hang on, suppose the nonce was telling the truth?
Susan, stay strong my darling, I’m on my way to save your soul. And you didn’t even know you’d sent an SOS.
*
Bloc. It’s darker than the regular, regulation, rule-abiding chocolate. Contraband. The sort of stuff smugglers and ne’er-do-wells deal in. At prices that would do any ne’er-do-well quite nicely. Purchase it, pocket it and watch out for peelers on your way home.
And me such a law-abiding good girl, a one-time soldier of the Amazonian Guard.
You never leave the Guard and it never leaves you. I had notice of some radical riff-raff that I should have been calling in for questioning even though I’d officially quit the profession five years ago. They could wait; they weren’t actually about to blow up the House of Answers this century or the next. I needed a chocolate fix. Only palliative for period pain.
*
I packed an overnight bag with sanitary towels, a couple of changes of underwear, some pain killing powders from the apothecary and a precious slab of Bloc. Then I made my way down to the dockside in search of a likely seaman. The area was its usual cornucopia of the unfortunate dregs of humanity trying to make a living from whatever patronage the rich sods sent their way. Beer cellars offered all day happy hours; a couple of urchins were leafleting with money-off vouchers to “The Sleaze Ball”. I took one, folded it without reading, tucked it in my ski pants.
“I’m for resting up today, missus,” Kevin the river taxi man informed me. “Got an appointment in a tavern later.”
“That can wait,” I informed him, flashing a few gold coins along with my now expired Queen’s inner sanctum ID card. “You are to take me out to where the pirates are broadcasting from.”
His young face puckered. “Are you sure you want to go there?”
“Why else would I ask, knave? Do you know the way?”
“The vicinity, sure.”
What is it with cab drivers and boatmen these days; don’t they do the knowledge anymore? Still, we got under way with much diesel belching. I had an idea of how we could get a definite fix on the Buccaneers’ boat.
“Have you got a Baroquephone?” I asked as we reached open water.
“Sure. I keep it for the shipping forecast. It’s the wind-up variety.”
Ever the gentleman, Kevin put it into my dainty hands to generate some power. RBC came on, playing their usual drivel that passes for music these days. I retuned and picked up the last ten minutes of Captain Fisheye, followed by the ever reliable Jamie Bones and I was soon singing along with “Seven Nation Shindig” and the heartbreaking anthem of “Beneath the Willow Wall”.
“Enjoy your karaoke while you can,” the boatman advised, “there’s some stormy seas ahead. Did you eat breakfast?”
“Sure, a couple of hours ago.”
He grimaced. “We can turn back if you like.”
“No siree; and while you’re at it, have you spotted any pink boats full of drunken women headed this way?”
“Ah a fan- I mean a hen boat. Yeah, I think I saw a couple last night but they were only cruising round the harbour, no one wanted to get too queasy too early. Oh hang about, I saw one called “Gloria’s Gutbuster’ a couple of days back. But it wasn’t pink.”
Result. I knew the scallywag who operated that vessel and I’m sure I’d heard Susan and her so-called mates mention it a couple of times. “Can’t this rig go any faster?” I demanded.
“It can and I can make it do so, my dear, but you might regret it.”
I flicked my thumb over my blade and he made haste.
During my time faithfully serving the Amazonians, I faced, as the saying goes, many deadly perils. However, they were all land-based. Gradually the constant up and down swell played heavily on my current feminine condition. In the early part of the voyage, I’d sneaked myself a couple of slabs of the dark red illegal Bloc chocolate; oh how I regretted that now, watching the bloody substance leave my guts and join the rest of my vomit over the side of the unsteady boat.
I felt as angry as a riled wasp but about as dangerous as a sick kitten. Kevin was decently solicitous, offering me sips of water and a cold towel for my spinning head; I suspected that he was chuckling inside at the lily-livered lady landlubber I’d been revealed to be. I would decide the value of his gratuity later.
At last a two-masted rigger emerged to north starboard. As we drew closer, I perceived that the wood panelling, the stubby but still penile cannons, and the bare-breasted beauty on the prow were all for show and that the ship was oil-powered like most other vessels these days.
Talking of other vessels, there were several craft anchored within a half-mile of our target, a veritable Sargasso of the Olennial coastal waters.
“I’ll row you over, then I’m out of here,” Kevin stated. “That place is haunted. Everybody at Jack’s Tavern says so.”
“Listen, I’ll pay you more to just moor up and wait for me.”
“No way, mistress. Hey, here’s a flare; let it off when you’re ready. Maybe the coastguard will come and rescue you.”
*
Ascending the rope ladder was the business of a few moments. I felt a twinge in my lower regions and knew I should seek out the toilet pretty soon to change my tampon.
Maybe nervy Kev was onto something because I searched the whole of the top deck and there was nobody about. Never mind the lack of basic security, the vessel was more ghost ship than going concern. My boatman had left in a hurry and had neglected to ask for his mini Baroquephone to be returned; the songs still played but from where? Had I inadvertently boarded the wrong boat?
I tripped over an oily rope, grazed my wrist slightly as I fell. Investigating further, I determined that this was the rather flimsy fastening for the ship’s anchor. How ancient was this tub? Shouldn’t they have upgraded to a metal chain by now? I tried the sharpness of my blade against the hemp. The slight fraying became a deep cut, a parting of the ways. Oops. Today the waters in this region appeared to have calmed but the next storm would prove interesting.
After that, I hurried to find the bathroom facilities. They were in a reasonably well kept condition for an all-male crew, although the cream coloured pungent bar of soap was of the cheaper variety. There was even a container in which to deposit sanitary items. Wow, the sisters’ revolution had reached the high seas! I borrowed a not too crusty comb to brush out my hair that had been knotted by the sea breeze. I’ve never shaken off my old military training and therefore don’t draw undue attention to my appearance. I keep my hair short. All that blow wave, blow dry, blow job… who needs it?
Susan had revealed to me that she had once dated a pirate back in her straight days. The guy’s catch phrase had been, “Agh, me beauty, it’s all about the lower decks.” We’d adopted the slogan during our early courtship. Lately such action had been pretty much off the agenda. Still, with Topmast Tom’s adage in my head, I set about exploring the rest of the “Saintly Buccaneer”.
*
Revelation after revelation.
Now, I’ll have a go but don’t rely on me to name every part of the ship correctly. In the aft quarters on the top deck I turned up some interesting boxes. Pristine white cardboard, stamped with the legend “Medicinal Supplies” but, crucially, lacking the royal seal in any of the cuboid’s corners. Or vertices, whatever… went for the alliteration there rather than exactitude.
Clearly contraband, I conducted a little investigation with what I like to refer to as my Swish army knife. Prising the lid up like a pearl-seeker with an oyster shell, I revealed bar after bar of beautiful, foil-wrapped, deep red-tinted, dark flavoured Bloc. Wow, surely these guys wouldn’t notice if one little block went missing… maybe even a box could be said to have fallen off the back of a boat. Into my grateful, waiting hands. It’s a truism but I’ll repeat it anyway: the best things in life often come with the stain and taint of crime attached to them. Diamonds. Precious metals. The drugs that are actually worth taking. And this pain-killing, endorphin pumping, lip-smacking, period negating condiment was no exception.
I still had Kevin’s Baroquephone at my feet and, as if on cue, the next song was one of my all-time favourites: “Blueberry Castles” by The Fine Band. Whither now, lost minstrels?
I began to suspect, however, that some jumped-up DJ had remixed the classic because I could hear ghostly female voices long after the final chorus had faded. It seems these days that nothing is sacred and secure from re-jigging, reinterpretation and the latest buzzword “re-imagining”.
Some songs are gold but others are simply old. When that turgid ballad “My Heart Forgives You” followed on, complete with unnecessary and grating key change, I switched off the device. And not before time as the thwacking of oars alerted me to another visitor arriving portside.
I hid behind a wooden beam that smelt of lubricant and watched a half-familiar figure clamber aboard. Bald, snowy-whiskered, and badly tattooed around the well-developed upper arms. Not my idea of a sex symbol. Also… well, maybe my upbringing has imprinted more upon me than I usually admit. My expectations of pirate couture are pantaloons, thigh-length boots and double-breasted jackets with rows of brass buttons; this guy was topless with his lower half encased in tracksuit trousers, beneath which he was clearly nursing a sizeable erection. Whitebeard, the dirty old perv. I’d always known it. Keep him where I could see him.
Recalling my Amazonian training, I followed him at a slight distance as he pottered about the vessel. Eventually he paused by the gunwale and relieved himself briskly over the side, adding a dab more salty water to the quadrillions of gallons below. My ovaries decided this was good moment to go into disgusted spasm and my knickers filled with globs of red liquid mush and I lost my balance for a moment.
“Agh, darling, you shoulda crept up a moment earlier and finished me off, eh?” he grinned.
“Do I look like I’m interested in the doings of your puny little penis? With this face and this haircut?”
He sneered back, “They could write an epic about my conquests. I’m up to well over a thousand now and some of them were even consensual. Still, while you’re here, let me show you around.”
He extended his right hand. I kept my arms by my side, fingers lightly brushing my weaponry. He shrugged, turned, walked and, divesting myself of Kev’s Baroquephone, I followed.
First stop was his sleeping quarters. He tried it on again here. Clearly his Gaydar and Lesbian laser was not up to scratch; else, he was one of those Lotharios who believed he would be the dick to accomplish the mythical conversion. The plush fittings of his cabin held some appeal – satin sheets, Arabian style wall hangings, aromatherapy paraphernalia. Even the handcuffs were a fetching shade of faux fur pink.
“Form an orderly queue, ladies,” he was muttering. “One or two at a time, me hearties.”
“Show me where the music comes from,” I demanded.
Finally, I discerned a spark of true intelligence in his bloodshot eyes rather than the low animal cunning he habitually displayed. “It comes from the heart, my dear,” he answered. “From what the mystics like to call the soul. Aye, and from talent and imagination.”
He was a difficult cove to believe but he seemed to have a genuine love for the hits from the pit and the floor fillers of yore. “I meant: where is it broadcast from?” I answered.
He glanced at my knife, pursed his lips and stated, “Prepare to be a tad disappointed, ma dearie.”
As we headed towards one of the lower decks, I fancied again that I heard the strains of a few off-key female voices. Maybe a choir was warming up for a performance in a rehearsal room amidships somewhere. I hoped they might do “Bridges over the River, Bridges over the Sea” – I loved that song.
We passed a few storerooms stacked high with glistening black quarters, the oblong slabs of plastic that held our world’s musical heritage. Wow, what a treasure trove. Then a click of a door handle and Whitebeard was beaming, “Meet my hard-working colleagues.”
They were neither of them alive. One was a skeleton sporting a jaunty if slightly faded tricorn hat. Bubble-bursting bastard.
“This…is Jamie Bones?” I stuttered.
“Sure is, babe. I does the voice with a slab of Bloc in me chops. Makes him sound right posh.”
The other DJ I took to be Captain Fisheye and this character did actually speak for himself, although only with pre-programmed announcements. As the beat kicked in, his head spun like a car on the waltzer. His hand movements were awkward and spiky; his lower jaw bounced up and down like a fish with hiccoughs. When still, his ping pong ball eyed gaze was most disconcerting. I knew, of course, about the automatons who serviced clients at Madame Coppelia’s. The PM King had lately ruled that his kind was not technically alive and, therefore, not eligible for community housing, social benefits or, crucially, energy packages.
“I didn’t know these monstrosities came in the male variety,” I stated.
“Let’s just say that the sex or gender of these babies is a moot point.”
I slumped against the highly polished cabin wall. “OK, Whitebeard, spill. What’s really going on here?”
“We’re in international waters. Untouchable. And with my love of world culture, you could say that I’m keeping the music alive, lovely lady.”
“And?”
For answer he reached up to the top shelf, above the flat disks of today’s chosen songs. He pulled down something else rectangular and desirable: Aztec gold quality Bloc. He broke me off a slab and even though his fingers had touched parts that would creep me out for decades to come, I still took the taste of El Dorado from his hideous fingers and luxuriated in the flavour of heaven on earth.
“You want it,” he said. “Everybody wants it. Many things go to make this greatest ever narcotic. We’re part of the supply chain.”
“There’s a secret ingredient. I know it. Tell.”
“You might be surprised. Even a little distressed.” He laughed. “But you’ll come back to the chocolate. Everybody does.”
“Stop procrastinating, you pimp.”
“Righter than you realise, my dear. It’s not such a big deal. Hey, I bet you’ve read all those vampire stories that are so popular with you chicks these days. Amongst the higher classes, there used to be a call for virgins’ blood; but now there ain’t even that much call for virgins. Everyone wants a woman who knows a bit, who does a bit… hey, darling?”
I was thinking, Dream on big guy I ain’t been with a bloke since I was 14. And even that was only fumbling. I answered quietly, “You’re saying the secret ingredient in Bloc is blood. Shit, I should have known. I’ve tasted blood enough times.”
“Ah, it’s not just any old red plasma, dearie. We use menstrual blood, sieved for solids. We keep a supply on tap.”
Suddenly everything was crystal clear. The – I hesitate to use the epithet – “fanny boats” – moored within rowing distance. The feminine murmurings. The brilliant cover story of playing all those songs that everybody loved. Come and join the endless on-sea party. Dance yourself stupid until you don’t care what Whitebeard and his probable cronies got up to. I felt absolutely sick.
Whitebeard was instantly aware of my swoon as he took me by the left hand and said, “What will perk you up is an invitation to The Sleaze Ball.”
He led me along a downward sloping corridor to a locked room. He punched in a few numbers. As the door swung open I was almost overpowered by the smell of oestrogen and overcooked femininity. A whole heap of women, many of them in their underwear or less, swooned about the centre of this prison grabbing at a large, viscous spherical object. I recognised Susan, her friend Hannah and a couple of other fallen maidens but tried not to betray such knowledge. Whitebeard stepped comfortably into the midst of this female frenzy, minding not a jot when one of the captives pulled at the drawstring of his trousers and briefly exposed a growing semi. He removed the disgusting orb from the midst of the group and presented it to me with a hypnotist’s leer:
“Welcome to the Sleaze Ball.”
I felt its magnetic pull. I had to touch it even though it had helped mesmerise the unclad beauties in Whitebeard’s sex hold. I let my fingers do the walking, closed my eyes, inhaled…
Nah, it wasn’t happening. The contraption was simply a greasy sphere of unpleasantness. It wouldn’t work on me because I am 100% lesbian. Thank fuck.
Before that depraved pervert could pull any more tricks out of his metaphorical sleeve, I reached into the back pocket of my ski pants and pulled out Kevin’s distress flare. Caring not a jot for any collateral damage I might cause, I pulled the release cord. Ears ringing, orange smoke clouding my vision, I somehow managed to grab hold of Susan and drag her away along the corridor, heading for the comparative safety of the top deck.
It was mayhem, every woman for herself; escape the clutches of the evil predator while you can.
Susan was barely conscious and something of a dead weight. I may be an inch or so shorter than average but I’m a strong girl. I hauled her behind me. I figured a short, sharp shock might restore her awareness; besides which, who knew what was going down next on this junk tank? I ran for the edge, launched the pair of us over the side and into the icy froth of the sea beneath.
We could have drowned. I could have kept us both afloat with my life-saving skills for half an hour or so before weariness intervened. Whitebeard could have shot at us with his harpoon. We could have drowned.
Instead, we surfaced and after a couple of frantic strokes on my part bumped against the hull of Kevin’s boat.
“What are you doing here?” I spluttered.
“I came to retrieve my Baroquephone.”
“Never mind that now, I’ll buy you a new one. I’ll give you gold aplenty. Just get us out of here as soon as.”
His eyes were darting from Susan coughing her guts out to the busy top deck of the “Saintly Buccaneer”.
“Hey, isn’t that old Whitebeard up there shaking his cutlass?”
“Yes, and we need to make tracks. Come on, I know it’s not usual to show chivalry to lesbians but we’re two damsels in distress and I’ll explain it all later and make it worth your while.”
He grinned, like a pale imitation of the cursed DJ; but he said, “OK, hold tight while we make for the shore.”
*
I had to reveal a little of my secret past to my erstwhile lover. She wasn’t happy to learn that I was less rebellious than I’d let on.
Still, the Queen’s Guard paid me handsomely for my troubles and offered me a new official commission. I told them I would chew it over. I was chewing a few things over, including some contraband that I’d taken as part of my fee.
Despite a bout of hypothermia, I made myself scarce by leaving the flat whenever Kevin said he would call. For the moment, I wanted to avoid him and his awkward questions about replacing his wind-up Baroquephone. I hid myself in the tavern across the street, tricorn hat pulled low to affect a decent disguise. He called once. He called twice. On his third visit, Susan decided that it was he who had saved her worthless life and went off with him. Wearing hot pants, halter top and a smile I remembered from our early days.
The goings-on aboard the “Saintly Buccaneer” caused a mighty stink but Whitebeard wriggled out of all charges on various claims that the women had come to him willingly and all his evil doings were taking place in international waters. The Royal Broadcasting Company developed some technology to jam his signals. I felt awful about this. I hated everything Whitebeard stood for, but the songs… oh, I still loved the songs. How could someone who spun “Bridges over the River” act the way he had?
The RBC had lately re-targeted itself at what they called “the youth market”; no one would be playing “Blueberry Castles” and the other aural classics anymore. The “youth” didn’t know what they were missing.
The hard mermen of the coastguard waited. And waited. Finally, they judged that the prevailing currents and my dainty handiwork would have brought the pirate boat into Olennial waters. Time to impound the equipment and throw all our cuckolded judgement at the bare-chested sex pest. A loosened anchor had undone the wanker.
I should have been part of the landing party. However, the arrest came one lunar month after my original adventure and that day I couldn’t even get out of bed.
Still, I was able to indulge in a little box of something I’d half-inched from the pirate boat. I know I shouldn’t but… Even knowing exactly how they make Bloc… actually, it’s made it even tastier in my opinion. Certainly, I would do the right thing and refuse this manna. If I wasn’t in so much pain. Stupid, poxy period.
Stupid, poxy period.
Every time I have something important to do my menstrual cycle knocks me down with its two bloody wheels and I’m confined to bed with comfort food, apothecary papers and the Baroquephone. Play me something soothing whilst I imbibe these fast-dissolving powders and luxuriate in the creamy aroma of choc. Or, more correctly, Bloc – the snappy new flavour that’s being sold underhand in alleyways and down by the unkempt bushes. Yet to taste confectionery finer.
The only part of my life that was presently fulfilled. Work? I get some but not enough and what I do get these days is a bind. Home? Scrubby little first floor flat above a tailor’s like I’m still a student or a cadet. Love? Susan, the sow, seems to have gone for good this time. She was never a proper lesbian anyhow. I ought to have seen it from the start. I said to her: “The ways of Sappho are for life, not just for the holidays.” Her puzzled silence should have been a red flag.
Crimson, like the stain on the white underwear I was caught unawares wearing. Stupid monthly curse. If it happened to men they’d surely have invented a cure by now.
A warm bath always helped so long as I didn’t soak long enough for my skin to start crinkling like an ill-fitting body stocking.
There were flags on the Baroquephone. Black field with a white skull and crossed bones as lately the RBC signal had been regularly jammed by Radio Buccaneer and their piratical play list.
“I goes a-Jolly Rogering but I can’t tell you when,
I don’t say my doings to the excise men.”
Jingles that were the usual juvenile drivel. The play-list was old school blasts from the past charts. Fair enough and pretty much what I wanted in my present condition; but where were the real songs of rebellion and their seductive, seditious singers?
All locked up a while ago. Mostly with my assistance.
*
“Bryony, my love, I’m off to Hannah’s hen party weekend,” she’d stated, already sporting a pink plastic boater and too short mini dress. Hark at me, I’m sounding like my Grandma!
“You’ll just get a load of grief from guys who are even drunker than you,” I told her.
“I know,” she answered and I’m sure her eyes did actually twinkle. Or maybe my vision was filling up with betraying teardrops.
No use moping forever. Get your own glad rags on, girl, have a little groove to whatever was hot on the Baroquephone, then get out there and take on the world.
It was Whitebeard tonight: “Spinning me piratical platters”. Everybody loved him, seeing him as some saucy old sea dog whose lascivious quips were dismissed as “just a bit of fun” or “charming” rather than creepy or predatory.
“Nah, then, me hearties, I ’as me big telescope out straight and firm tonight, ah. An’ what’s that I spy? Why, it be a fanny boat a-coming my way…”
I just wanted some good tunes to sing along with, not the DJ’s sexist drivel. But hang on, suppose the nonce was telling the truth?
Susan, stay strong my darling, I’m on my way to save your soul. And you didn’t even know you’d sent an SOS.
*
Bloc. It’s darker than the regular, regulation, rule-abiding chocolate. Contraband. The sort of stuff smugglers and ne’er-do-wells deal in. At prices that would do any ne’er-do-well quite nicely. Purchase it, pocket it and watch out for peelers on your way home.
And me such a law-abiding good girl, a one-time soldier of the Amazonian Guard.
You never leave the Guard and it never leaves you. I had notice of some radical riff-raff that I should have been calling in for questioning even though I’d officially quit the profession five years ago. They could wait; they weren’t actually about to blow up the House of Answers this century or the next. I needed a chocolate fix. Only palliative for period pain.
*
I packed an overnight bag with sanitary towels, a couple of changes of underwear, some pain killing powders from the apothecary and a precious slab of Bloc. Then I made my way down to the dockside in search of a likely seaman. The area was its usual cornucopia of the unfortunate dregs of humanity trying to make a living from whatever patronage the rich sods sent their way. Beer cellars offered all day happy hours; a couple of urchins were leafleting with money-off vouchers to “The Sleaze Ball”. I took one, folded it without reading, tucked it in my ski pants.
“I’m for resting up today, missus,” Kevin the river taxi man informed me. “Got an appointment in a tavern later.”
“That can wait,” I informed him, flashing a few gold coins along with my now expired Queen’s inner sanctum ID card. “You are to take me out to where the pirates are broadcasting from.”
His young face puckered. “Are you sure you want to go there?”
“Why else would I ask, knave? Do you know the way?”
“The vicinity, sure.”
What is it with cab drivers and boatmen these days; don’t they do the knowledge anymore? Still, we got under way with much diesel belching. I had an idea of how we could get a definite fix on the Buccaneers’ boat.
“Have you got a Baroquephone?” I asked as we reached open water.
“Sure. I keep it for the shipping forecast. It’s the wind-up variety.”
Ever the gentleman, Kevin put it into my dainty hands to generate some power. RBC came on, playing their usual drivel that passes for music these days. I retuned and picked up the last ten minutes of Captain Fisheye, followed by the ever reliable Jamie Bones and I was soon singing along with “Seven Nation Shindig” and the heartbreaking anthem of “Beneath the Willow Wall”.
“Enjoy your karaoke while you can,” the boatman advised, “there’s some stormy seas ahead. Did you eat breakfast?”
“Sure, a couple of hours ago.”
He grimaced. “We can turn back if you like.”
“No siree; and while you’re at it, have you spotted any pink boats full of drunken women headed this way?”
“Ah a fan- I mean a hen boat. Yeah, I think I saw a couple last night but they were only cruising round the harbour, no one wanted to get too queasy too early. Oh hang about, I saw one called “Gloria’s Gutbuster’ a couple of days back. But it wasn’t pink.”
Result. I knew the scallywag who operated that vessel and I’m sure I’d heard Susan and her so-called mates mention it a couple of times. “Can’t this rig go any faster?” I demanded.
“It can and I can make it do so, my dear, but you might regret it.”
I flicked my thumb over my blade and he made haste.
During my time faithfully serving the Amazonians, I faced, as the saying goes, many deadly perils. However, they were all land-based. Gradually the constant up and down swell played heavily on my current feminine condition. In the early part of the voyage, I’d sneaked myself a couple of slabs of the dark red illegal Bloc chocolate; oh how I regretted that now, watching the bloody substance leave my guts and join the rest of my vomit over the side of the unsteady boat.
I felt as angry as a riled wasp but about as dangerous as a sick kitten. Kevin was decently solicitous, offering me sips of water and a cold towel for my spinning head; I suspected that he was chuckling inside at the lily-livered lady landlubber I’d been revealed to be. I would decide the value of his gratuity later.
At last a two-masted rigger emerged to north starboard. As we drew closer, I perceived that the wood panelling, the stubby but still penile cannons, and the bare-breasted beauty on the prow were all for show and that the ship was oil-powered like most other vessels these days.
Talking of other vessels, there were several craft anchored within a half-mile of our target, a veritable Sargasso of the Olennial coastal waters.
“I’ll row you over, then I’m out of here,” Kevin stated. “That place is haunted. Everybody at Jack’s Tavern says so.”
“Listen, I’ll pay you more to just moor up and wait for me.”
“No way, mistress. Hey, here’s a flare; let it off when you’re ready. Maybe the coastguard will come and rescue you.”
*
Ascending the rope ladder was the business of a few moments. I felt a twinge in my lower regions and knew I should seek out the toilet pretty soon to change my tampon.
Maybe nervy Kev was onto something because I searched the whole of the top deck and there was nobody about. Never mind the lack of basic security, the vessel was more ghost ship than going concern. My boatman had left in a hurry and had neglected to ask for his mini Baroquephone to be returned; the songs still played but from where? Had I inadvertently boarded the wrong boat?
I tripped over an oily rope, grazed my wrist slightly as I fell. Investigating further, I determined that this was the rather flimsy fastening for the ship’s anchor. How ancient was this tub? Shouldn’t they have upgraded to a metal chain by now? I tried the sharpness of my blade against the hemp. The slight fraying became a deep cut, a parting of the ways. Oops. Today the waters in this region appeared to have calmed but the next storm would prove interesting.
After that, I hurried to find the bathroom facilities. They were in a reasonably well kept condition for an all-male crew, although the cream coloured pungent bar of soap was of the cheaper variety. There was even a container in which to deposit sanitary items. Wow, the sisters’ revolution had reached the high seas! I borrowed a not too crusty comb to brush out my hair that had been knotted by the sea breeze. I’ve never shaken off my old military training and therefore don’t draw undue attention to my appearance. I keep my hair short. All that blow wave, blow dry, blow job… who needs it?
Susan had revealed to me that she had once dated a pirate back in her straight days. The guy’s catch phrase had been, “Agh, me beauty, it’s all about the lower decks.” We’d adopted the slogan during our early courtship. Lately such action had been pretty much off the agenda. Still, with Topmast Tom’s adage in my head, I set about exploring the rest of the “Saintly Buccaneer”.
*
Revelation after revelation.
Now, I’ll have a go but don’t rely on me to name every part of the ship correctly. In the aft quarters on the top deck I turned up some interesting boxes. Pristine white cardboard, stamped with the legend “Medicinal Supplies” but, crucially, lacking the royal seal in any of the cuboid’s corners. Or vertices, whatever… went for the alliteration there rather than exactitude.
Clearly contraband, I conducted a little investigation with what I like to refer to as my Swish army knife. Prising the lid up like a pearl-seeker with an oyster shell, I revealed bar after bar of beautiful, foil-wrapped, deep red-tinted, dark flavoured Bloc. Wow, surely these guys wouldn’t notice if one little block went missing… maybe even a box could be said to have fallen off the back of a boat. Into my grateful, waiting hands. It’s a truism but I’ll repeat it anyway: the best things in life often come with the stain and taint of crime attached to them. Diamonds. Precious metals. The drugs that are actually worth taking. And this pain-killing, endorphin pumping, lip-smacking, period negating condiment was no exception.
I still had Kevin’s Baroquephone at my feet and, as if on cue, the next song was one of my all-time favourites: “Blueberry Castles” by The Fine Band. Whither now, lost minstrels?
I began to suspect, however, that some jumped-up DJ had remixed the classic because I could hear ghostly female voices long after the final chorus had faded. It seems these days that nothing is sacred and secure from re-jigging, reinterpretation and the latest buzzword “re-imagining”.
Some songs are gold but others are simply old. When that turgid ballad “My Heart Forgives You” followed on, complete with unnecessary and grating key change, I switched off the device. And not before time as the thwacking of oars alerted me to another visitor arriving portside.
I hid behind a wooden beam that smelt of lubricant and watched a half-familiar figure clamber aboard. Bald, snowy-whiskered, and badly tattooed around the well-developed upper arms. Not my idea of a sex symbol. Also… well, maybe my upbringing has imprinted more upon me than I usually admit. My expectations of pirate couture are pantaloons, thigh-length boots and double-breasted jackets with rows of brass buttons; this guy was topless with his lower half encased in tracksuit trousers, beneath which he was clearly nursing a sizeable erection. Whitebeard, the dirty old perv. I’d always known it. Keep him where I could see him.
Recalling my Amazonian training, I followed him at a slight distance as he pottered about the vessel. Eventually he paused by the gunwale and relieved himself briskly over the side, adding a dab more salty water to the quadrillions of gallons below. My ovaries decided this was good moment to go into disgusted spasm and my knickers filled with globs of red liquid mush and I lost my balance for a moment.
“Agh, darling, you shoulda crept up a moment earlier and finished me off, eh?” he grinned.
“Do I look like I’m interested in the doings of your puny little penis? With this face and this haircut?”
He sneered back, “They could write an epic about my conquests. I’m up to well over a thousand now and some of them were even consensual. Still, while you’re here, let me show you around.”
He extended his right hand. I kept my arms by my side, fingers lightly brushing my weaponry. He shrugged, turned, walked and, divesting myself of Kev’s Baroquephone, I followed.
First stop was his sleeping quarters. He tried it on again here. Clearly his Gaydar and Lesbian laser was not up to scratch; else, he was one of those Lotharios who believed he would be the dick to accomplish the mythical conversion. The plush fittings of his cabin held some appeal – satin sheets, Arabian style wall hangings, aromatherapy paraphernalia. Even the handcuffs were a fetching shade of faux fur pink.
“Form an orderly queue, ladies,” he was muttering. “One or two at a time, me hearties.”
“Show me where the music comes from,” I demanded.
Finally, I discerned a spark of true intelligence in his bloodshot eyes rather than the low animal cunning he habitually displayed. “It comes from the heart, my dear,” he answered. “From what the mystics like to call the soul. Aye, and from talent and imagination.”
He was a difficult cove to believe but he seemed to have a genuine love for the hits from the pit and the floor fillers of yore. “I meant: where is it broadcast from?” I answered.
He glanced at my knife, pursed his lips and stated, “Prepare to be a tad disappointed, ma dearie.”
As we headed towards one of the lower decks, I fancied again that I heard the strains of a few off-key female voices. Maybe a choir was warming up for a performance in a rehearsal room amidships somewhere. I hoped they might do “Bridges over the River, Bridges over the Sea” – I loved that song.
We passed a few storerooms stacked high with glistening black quarters, the oblong slabs of plastic that held our world’s musical heritage. Wow, what a treasure trove. Then a click of a door handle and Whitebeard was beaming, “Meet my hard-working colleagues.”
They were neither of them alive. One was a skeleton sporting a jaunty if slightly faded tricorn hat. Bubble-bursting bastard.
“This…is Jamie Bones?” I stuttered.
“Sure is, babe. I does the voice with a slab of Bloc in me chops. Makes him sound right posh.”
The other DJ I took to be Captain Fisheye and this character did actually speak for himself, although only with pre-programmed announcements. As the beat kicked in, his head spun like a car on the waltzer. His hand movements were awkward and spiky; his lower jaw bounced up and down like a fish with hiccoughs. When still, his ping pong ball eyed gaze was most disconcerting. I knew, of course, about the automatons who serviced clients at Madame Coppelia’s. The PM King had lately ruled that his kind was not technically alive and, therefore, not eligible for community housing, social benefits or, crucially, energy packages.
“I didn’t know these monstrosities came in the male variety,” I stated.
“Let’s just say that the sex or gender of these babies is a moot point.”
I slumped against the highly polished cabin wall. “OK, Whitebeard, spill. What’s really going on here?”
“We’re in international waters. Untouchable. And with my love of world culture, you could say that I’m keeping the music alive, lovely lady.”
“And?”
For answer he reached up to the top shelf, above the flat disks of today’s chosen songs. He pulled down something else rectangular and desirable: Aztec gold quality Bloc. He broke me off a slab and even though his fingers had touched parts that would creep me out for decades to come, I still took the taste of El Dorado from his hideous fingers and luxuriated in the flavour of heaven on earth.
“You want it,” he said. “Everybody wants it. Many things go to make this greatest ever narcotic. We’re part of the supply chain.”
“There’s a secret ingredient. I know it. Tell.”
“You might be surprised. Even a little distressed.” He laughed. “But you’ll come back to the chocolate. Everybody does.”
“Stop procrastinating, you pimp.”
“Righter than you realise, my dear. It’s not such a big deal. Hey, I bet you’ve read all those vampire stories that are so popular with you chicks these days. Amongst the higher classes, there used to be a call for virgins’ blood; but now there ain’t even that much call for virgins. Everyone wants a woman who knows a bit, who does a bit… hey, darling?”
I was thinking, Dream on big guy I ain’t been with a bloke since I was 14. And even that was only fumbling. I answered quietly, “You’re saying the secret ingredient in Bloc is blood. Shit, I should have known. I’ve tasted blood enough times.”
“Ah, it’s not just any old red plasma, dearie. We use menstrual blood, sieved for solids. We keep a supply on tap.”
Suddenly everything was crystal clear. The – I hesitate to use the epithet – “fanny boats” – moored within rowing distance. The feminine murmurings. The brilliant cover story of playing all those songs that everybody loved. Come and join the endless on-sea party. Dance yourself stupid until you don’t care what Whitebeard and his probable cronies got up to. I felt absolutely sick.
Whitebeard was instantly aware of my swoon as he took me by the left hand and said, “What will perk you up is an invitation to The Sleaze Ball.”
He led me along a downward sloping corridor to a locked room. He punched in a few numbers. As the door swung open I was almost overpowered by the smell of oestrogen and overcooked femininity. A whole heap of women, many of them in their underwear or less, swooned about the centre of this prison grabbing at a large, viscous spherical object. I recognised Susan, her friend Hannah and a couple of other fallen maidens but tried not to betray such knowledge. Whitebeard stepped comfortably into the midst of this female frenzy, minding not a jot when one of the captives pulled at the drawstring of his trousers and briefly exposed a growing semi. He removed the disgusting orb from the midst of the group and presented it to me with a hypnotist’s leer:
“Welcome to the Sleaze Ball.”
I felt its magnetic pull. I had to touch it even though it had helped mesmerise the unclad beauties in Whitebeard’s sex hold. I let my fingers do the walking, closed my eyes, inhaled…
Nah, it wasn’t happening. The contraption was simply a greasy sphere of unpleasantness. It wouldn’t work on me because I am 100% lesbian. Thank fuck.
Before that depraved pervert could pull any more tricks out of his metaphorical sleeve, I reached into the back pocket of my ski pants and pulled out Kevin’s distress flare. Caring not a jot for any collateral damage I might cause, I pulled the release cord. Ears ringing, orange smoke clouding my vision, I somehow managed to grab hold of Susan and drag her away along the corridor, heading for the comparative safety of the top deck.
It was mayhem, every woman for herself; escape the clutches of the evil predator while you can.
Susan was barely conscious and something of a dead weight. I may be an inch or so shorter than average but I’m a strong girl. I hauled her behind me. I figured a short, sharp shock might restore her awareness; besides which, who knew what was going down next on this junk tank? I ran for the edge, launched the pair of us over the side and into the icy froth of the sea beneath.
We could have drowned. I could have kept us both afloat with my life-saving skills for half an hour or so before weariness intervened. Whitebeard could have shot at us with his harpoon. We could have drowned.
Instead, we surfaced and after a couple of frantic strokes on my part bumped against the hull of Kevin’s boat.
“What are you doing here?” I spluttered.
“I came to retrieve my Baroquephone.”
“Never mind that now, I’ll buy you a new one. I’ll give you gold aplenty. Just get us out of here as soon as.”
His eyes were darting from Susan coughing her guts out to the busy top deck of the “Saintly Buccaneer”.
“Hey, isn’t that old Whitebeard up there shaking his cutlass?”
“Yes, and we need to make tracks. Come on, I know it’s not usual to show chivalry to lesbians but we’re two damsels in distress and I’ll explain it all later and make it worth your while.”
He grinned, like a pale imitation of the cursed DJ; but he said, “OK, hold tight while we make for the shore.”
*
I had to reveal a little of my secret past to my erstwhile lover. She wasn’t happy to learn that I was less rebellious than I’d let on.
Still, the Queen’s Guard paid me handsomely for my troubles and offered me a new official commission. I told them I would chew it over. I was chewing a few things over, including some contraband that I’d taken as part of my fee.
Despite a bout of hypothermia, I made myself scarce by leaving the flat whenever Kevin said he would call. For the moment, I wanted to avoid him and his awkward questions about replacing his wind-up Baroquephone. I hid myself in the tavern across the street, tricorn hat pulled low to affect a decent disguise. He called once. He called twice. On his third visit, Susan decided that it was he who had saved her worthless life and went off with him. Wearing hot pants, halter top and a smile I remembered from our early days.
The goings-on aboard the “Saintly Buccaneer” caused a mighty stink but Whitebeard wriggled out of all charges on various claims that the women had come to him willingly and all his evil doings were taking place in international waters. The Royal Broadcasting Company developed some technology to jam his signals. I felt awful about this. I hated everything Whitebeard stood for, but the songs… oh, I still loved the songs. How could someone who spun “Bridges over the River” act the way he had?
The RBC had lately re-targeted itself at what they called “the youth market”; no one would be playing “Blueberry Castles” and the other aural classics anymore. The “youth” didn’t know what they were missing.
The hard mermen of the coastguard waited. And waited. Finally, they judged that the prevailing currents and my dainty handiwork would have brought the pirate boat into Olennial waters. Time to impound the equipment and throw all our cuckolded judgement at the bare-chested sex pest. A loosened anchor had undone the wanker.
I should have been part of the landing party. However, the arrest came one lunar month after my original adventure and that day I couldn’t even get out of bed.
Still, I was able to indulge in a little box of something I’d half-inched from the pirate boat. I know I shouldn’t but… Even knowing exactly how they make Bloc… actually, it’s made it even tastier in my opinion. Certainly, I would do the right thing and refuse this manna. If I wasn’t in so much pain. Stupid, poxy period.