A Soldier Erect: or Further Adventures of the Hand-Reared Boy. Brian Aldiss

yes, the place was fecund, so fecund it was impossible to understand how everyone did not respond to it! I thought briefly, with contempt, of the constipated little CO with his silly speech about being morally pure. The sod was dead from the balls up!

      After only one wrong turning, I found myself standing again in the amazing courtyard, where the twisted tree died against the twisted houses. Which door? Of course, the candle and the flower! The candle burned there within its niche, the blossom was fresh: a white flower lying on its side, without a stem. In an hour, it would be withered.

      I knocked on the door. I was almost shitting myself. Perhaps nobody would come. A bolt clanked, the door opened slightly. A grunt within. The door closed again. I stood there. It opened again, again closed. Could they be going to phone the cops? Phone? In this dump!

      I had half made up my mind to leave when a chiko emerged from the door. It was the kid who had run on ahead last time I was here.

      ‘You like lady, Johnny?’

      ‘Yes – the one I saw the other night!’

      ‘Police, Johnny. Many trouble, police come, many hit, all cry!’ He went through a pantomime suggesting that the Battle of Bannockburn had been fought on his doorstep.

      ‘The police didn’t see me coming here, I promise. Where’s the bibi?’

      ‘Thirty rupee, Johnny.’ He held out his hand.

      ‘Thirty rupee – you’re off your fucking head, Johnny! Look, me no pips, no stripes, just BOR, malum? Poor man!’

      ‘You rich man! Give thirty rupee, get lady.’ He might not speak English as well as his big brother, but he was a tough little sod in argument. Eventually I knocked him down to ten rupees for a short time. Only when he had the notes in his hand did he let me through the door. When we were inside, he bolted it behind us.

      Two oil lights were burning on the floor, beside an old man who sat in a ragged turban nursing a hen. A stick lay beside him. Hen and man regarded me with mistrustful eyes as the boy, with a muttered word, took up one of the lamps and moved to the stairs.

      I looked about me. What a ruinous place it was! Bare as a barn! A small door at the foot of the stairs had a grill in it. I peered through the grill. I was staring into the interior of a dim-lit shop. Perhaps it was a tailor’s of sorts, for bundles of fabrics stood on the stairs, impeding our progress. I looked eagerly ahead, tripping up as I climbed.

      The boy led me to a door and stopped.

      ‘Lady in here, Johnny.’

      Gently – nervously – I thrust open the door. There was a woman inside, the end of her sari over her head. The lamp, another small wretched thing, stood behind her, so I could only see that she was beckoning me. I grabbed the boy’s light and held it up so that its beams fell on the woman’s face.

      ‘This isn’t her, you little bastard! Who’s this old bag?’

      It was probably his mother. She was aged and wrinkled, her gesture of welcome a grotesque parody of seductiveness. In a fury of disappointment, I began to bellow at them both. They grew alarmed and screamed at each other.

      ‘Okay, Johnny, I get. You no make shout, police come, many hit, all cry!’ He went through a repeat of the Bannockburn massacre.

      ‘You’ll fucking cry if you don’t get the girl!’

      He came back with her along the landing. She was barefoot. She looked fearfully at me, and my anger went at once. Christ, she was young!

      The mere sight of her was enough to wake desire in me. How long had it been! Those liquid eyes again! She looked absolutely terrified – indeed, they all did. The old woman was plucking at my clothes and saying something incomprehensible to me which the boy did his best to translate.

      ‘She say, you no fuck, she suck.’

      ‘Look, Johnny, you’ve got the ten rupees, thik-hai? Then piss off, will you, fuck off!’

      ‘No, no, no fuck off, Johnny. This girl she small hole, you understand? Small hole?’ He showed me with two fingers. ‘She call out, police come, many hit, all cry!’ Bannockburn re-fought.

      ‘I’m not going to hurt her!’ What sort of place was this? I grabbed the girl by a fragile arm and pulled her into the room. I slammed the door, yelling to everyone to stay outside. Without any further hesitation, the girl undressed. When she was naked, she saluted me with both hands together and motioned to the bed.

      ‘You first,’ I said, gesturing. I could hardly speak. Had she got any hair on it? Her breasts were so small and sweet – the size of mangoes. As I pulled my uniform off, I could feel my prick come up and knock against my belly. The heat was stifling in the little room – it was no more than a cupboard; there was no window to it. I began to sweat.

      Watching me, the expression of fear still on her face, the girl climbed on to the bed, which was a hard wooden platform with a rug over it. She went on hands and knees and waggled her bum at me as I approached.

      ‘Don’t be filthy, you little cow,’ I said tenderly, sliding my hand between her thighs. ‘I don’t want your arse.’ I crawled beside her.

      In those days, I was so ignorant about positions that I never thought it possible to have intercourse like the animals; I mistakenly assumed that she wanted me up her back passage. So I turned her over and looked at her face. Her cheeks were burning; perhaps she was blushing.

      ‘You’re beautiful!’ I said. She did not answer, just looked helplessly at me, her lips slightly parted, her hair combed neatly back, and tied so that a tail of it hung over her shoulders, oiled jet black. I stroked her breasts, her hips, and a twinge of anxiety took me in case I shot my bolt before I got in. I slid my arm down into her crotch. Her little twot was burning hot and became juicy as I rubbed it.

      She said something in a whisper, sighed, and made one or two little voluptuous movements, as if to herself. The scent of her was delirious. I smelt the coconut oil or whatever it was as she leant forward and rolled the french letter I had brought down the length of my prick.

      I had the image of her cunt in my mind – my fingers supplied it – and I longed to gaze on it, but lust was spurring me on. I pressed her back and lay for a moment with my body against her. She was so small and so hot, and the whole atmosphere of her, merged with my dreams and desires – even the intense fantasy-like strangeness of our surroundings – was so overpowering that I did not actually realize that I had slid into her and that we were tangled together fucking until her slight pelvic thrusts made me aware of the fact. That mere awareness – or the blazing heat of her, which ran through and through me – or the sheer delight of clasping a female body – or the joy of getting it in at last – or the blossoming of life itself into cunts and flowers and orifices – was enough to slip me into a spurting world of orgasm.