Aurora - Way of the Goddess Pt. 03

Maya craned her neck and looked out the window. “Wow. Did you see the look on that jet pilot’s face?”

“Zoo opened half an hour ago.” Tanya said flatly.

“Did you know,” Caddy told Watson, “Tanya holds the world land-speed record, in the middle of winter, for Adaminaby to Thredbo? What was it in, Tan?”

“Dad’s Merc, wasn’t it?”

“The one you always did burnouts in?”

“The AMG...” Tanya nodded, then squinted in thought. “Hang on, no he’d already sold that. Because the tyres kept wearing out. Poor old boy. He never did figure it out.”

“No, that’s right. It was the Beamer. The V-eight.” She wrinkled her nose. “The naughty girl didn’t even have her driver’s licence.”

“Did so!” Tanya said hotly. “I had that diplomatic licence, remember?”

“That dodgy one from Brazil?”

“It wasn’t dodgy. It was the real deal.”

“But you weren’t Brazilian,” Caddy paused to snort with laughter, “you only had one.”

“I’m surprised you remember. You were in the back seat with Jacinta.”

“And that Mario boy was in the passenger seat, watching us over his shoulder. He couldn’t straighten his neck for a week. Do you remember the-”

“Hey, hey, HEY!” Tanya yelled, “WHAT THE FUCK!” Everyone cheered as she clipped the roundabout, deftly sidestepping a taxi that had failed to give way. Everyone except Watson who, as a driver, was far more comfortable inflicting terror than enduring it. “Nice fucking driving, you fuckwit!” Tanya raged at the rear vision mirror, “Pity road rules haven’t been invented wherever you come from!”

“He probably didn’t see you.” Watson suggested, “Up here in hyperspace.”

“Driving without a brain, fucking!” Tanya said in a huff. “There’s gotta be a law against that.”

“Those were good times.” Caddy sighed, the near-collision already fading from memory.

“Do you miss it, Tan?” Watson asked, a tremor in his voice. “Driving like a maniac I mean?”

Oblivious to the sarcasm, Tanya gave her head a sad shake. “I killed a poor old wombat that night. He looked exactly like this lovely old law professor I used to fuck.”

“It’s true.” Caddy nodded. “She was so upset she made me drive the rest of the way.”

“While I ate-out Jacinta.”

“Every cloud.” Caddy sighed.

“Except her lining wasn’t silver.” Tanya wrinkled her nose, “It was pink.”

* * *

Storming the ferry like pirates boarding a treasure ship, Beck and Maya made their way forward to take up prime position, as close to the bow as officialdom allowed. Beck was resplendent in her yellow floral sundress, with thin straps over her broad, bony shoulders. With the sun behind her it was all but transparent, revealing the curves of her legs and an alluring glimpse of mouth-watering thigh-gap, while in another light her knickers were plainly visible, white cottontails decorated with tiny red love hearts.

Maya was similarly dressed for a day on the town, casual yet stunning in a short, striped skirt and pink cotton polo shirt, the buttons undone to expose her shallow-ribbed sternum and picture-perfect cleavage. While beck was wearing her beloved lace-up gladiator sandals, Maya had opted for a pair of low-cut, purple Converse, topping her outfit off with a pair of gold-mirrored Bolles.

Caddy and Tanya were no less eye-catching, Tanya in a short, light blue, backless cotton dress that contrasted stylishly with the fluoro pink cast. She was wearing a pair of see through black lace boylegs underneath- Watson had seen them- and the very thought was cause for smug amusement. Caddy was dolled up in a simple, white, sleeveless, scoop-collared see-through dress with a white silk shift underneath, and ganged gold bracelets slung around the wrists of her thin, well-toned arms.

Together with the older, somewhat rangy looking male, clad in a dark grey T-shirt and well-worn canvas shorts, they could have been any one of ten thousand happy families enjoying the magnificent weather of a Sydney summer Sunday. If only those milling swarms of innocent bystanders knew the truth, Watson thought, about their supercharged sexual dynamic. And now he came to think of it, how many more of these milling individuals were harbouring their own dirty secrets?

It was the weekend and most of the animals were on a day off. Beck dragged her entourage straight to the Tiger enclosure but the big, striped cats weren’t having a bar of it. They wanted nothing to do with the vile little primates, who had torn them bodily from their jungle homes and banged them up here, in a steel, glass and concrete prison, with prey animals within sniffing range, there to pace out the rest of their days, twenty steps to the left, twenty steps to the right, a life sentence with no hope of parole. Beck’s first impulse was to commit the Tiger’s scientific name to memory- Panthera tigris. It was only when she caught a glimpse of a splendid striped coat, under a spray of tropical shrubbery, did the bottom fall out of her heart. Her hand slipped into the old man’s. “Do you reckon they’re happy?”

Watson shrugged. How could so magnificent an animal, an apex predator no less, unrivalled in its natural domain, used to freely roaming hundreds of square kilometres of jungle in search of delicious prey and the occasional fuck, not be happy in a fifty meter by fifty meter concrete- and glass-walled cell, provided daily with cold, dead food that didn’t require stalking and throttling? He shook her hand. “It’s the safest place for him, I hate to say.”

“How do you mean?”

“Too many humans, Moosh. Where he comes from there are over a billion human beings, all competing for space and resources. Imagine. That’s one million people, one thousand times over. If the poor old tigers aren’t protected in places like this, pretty soon there’ll be none left.”

“But are they happy?”

“He’s a cat, Beck,” Tanya said dryly, “and he’s asleep. That’s the quintessential epitome of happiness.”

Beck nodded, unconvinced and still feeling hollow.

“My, Grandma,” Caddy said under her breath, “what big words you have.”

“Uh huh,” Tanya nodded, “those four years at Uni weren’t wasted.”

“Imagine.” Caddy carried on wistfully, “If someone offered to keep me. And all I had to do was eat, sleep, fuck and give the odd little roar. Man, I’d be in it with bells on.”

Tanya cast her sister a quick scowl. “What the hell are you talking about? That’s exactly what you do now.”

“Oh yeah? When was the last time old Stripy here had to host a company dinner? Hmm? For a bunch of dissolute old businessmen and their botoxed mistresses?”

Maya had already lost interest in the sleeping feline and was standing in front of the enclosure next door. “Beck!” she called in a hoarse whisper, then beckoned, “this one’s awake!”

Beck studied the metal plaque. Ocelot. Leopardus pardalis. A dwarf leopard. It was stalking to and fro like the inmate of some institution, pausing every now and then to peer at a sliver of bright blue sky, as if lost behind enemy lines and waiting for rescue. The adults caught up, the two women chattering. “Oo look,” Tanya pointed. “An ocelot. Here, Becky. How do you titillate an ocelot? Give up? You oscillate its tits a lot.”

Caddy groaned while Maya giggled into her hand. The joke went in one of Beck’s ears and out the other as she faced the stark realisation of this magnificent little cat’s lot. Prisoner. For life. For not being human.

Anxious that Beck’s zoological adventure might founder in the seas of disenchantment, Watson hastily consulted a crumpled map. There had to be at least one or two creatures in the place who didn’t return human scrutiny with an expression of deep, abiding and justifiably shaming indictment.

It was the monkeys, naturally, who fit that bill. Only creatures so closely resembling humans could make such a situation- life imprisonment without charge, conviction or hope of parole- look like some sort of endless simian picnic. The spider monkeys were first, fine boned and agile, long limbed and graceful with slender feet and long, elegant hands. And that amazing fifth appendage, the prehensile tail, that gave them almost gravity-defying range of their rope-slung play pen. While the girls thrilled to the little acrobats’ antics, Watson stood back studying a different species of primate, the ones crowding the safety-rails outside the enclosure.

Most were from Asia, smartly dressed and prosperous, whistling and gesticulating at the brachiating inmates. Some of the men were grunting and hooting in some sort of dominance display, and one took it upon himself to hurl a half-eaten orange at the largest monkey male. The creature- the one inside the enclosure- skilfully dodged the missile, then did a swinging lap of his playpen before landing on the platform closest to the crowd. While it sat there scratching its rear, a look of simmering intent in its little beady eyes, Watson hastily shepherded the girls away, so that when the retaliatory monkey-fist full of shit hit the fans, the three of them were safely out of range.

Watson had to sit for a moment, braced against a century-old stone wall, unable to stand for laughing. The spectators moved off in a babbling huddle, the irate orange-thrower being vigorously rubbed down by three or four tissue-wielding females. The rabble disappeared, tossing aside poo-stained tissues as they went. Just like Hansel and Gretel, Watson thought, leaving a trail of shit behind instead of breadcrumbs.

He caught up to the others outside the mandrill enclosure, his ribs still aching from so much laughter. The glassed-fronted viewing area was under a big, stone arch, wide enough for eight or nine visitors. When he arrived, he found it occupied by the four females of his own troop, plus another young couple and a mother with two small children. A huge, powerful male mandrill with a striated red and blue snout, was sitting on the rocks on the far side of the window, keenly scrutinising the creatures outside.

“Mandrill...” Beck read out loud. “Mandrillus sphinx.” She looked up at Watson who was still wiping his eyes. “Sphinx. That’s that Egyptian thingy, isn’t it?”

Egyptian thingy indeed. The mandrill yawned and there was a collective gasp of admiration for its dagger-like canines. “Woah,” Tanya whispered, “what would you do if he started humping your leg?”

Caddy cupped a hand to Tanya’s ear. “Faaake an orgasmm!”

Mister mandrill got up and wandered over to a dowdy looking female who was up on all fours, scratching the ground, fossicking for titbits. Without so much as a by-your-leave, the big male commenced fornicating with the utterly disinterested female, while she continued daintily winnowing grains of rice from the well-trammelled earth. There was one of those instants of utter silence where a needle could be heard hitting the floor of the vet clinic a few hundred meters away. And as inevitably as night follows day, one of the children, a dear little girl of about five, shook her mothers hand and asked, “What’s he doing?”

The mother looked around, hoping someone might set themselves on fire as a distraction. “He’s... err... she’s... umm... That’s his wife, Darling. She’s feeling a bit flat so he’s pumping her up.”

“Will she float away soon, Mummy?”

Caddy spoke to Tanya out of the corner of her mouth. “I usually do.”

Standing beside Beck, holding her hand, Maya commenced imitating a porn guitar. “Boww... chika boww-woww... chicka bow-wow-wow.”

Beck joined in. Gesturing with her chin at the rutting couple, the beady-eyed brute with his tail in the air, the bored-shitless female sifting grains of rice out of the sand, Beck said, “Just look at that dirty little strumpet! She... is... going... off!”

The mother with the children made a tactical withdrawal while the male with his frumpy young girlfriend staggered around, clutching his ribs. Playing to her audience, Beck launched into a voice-over to the strains of Mayas mouth-guitar. “Ooh baby,” she cried, “ooh yes, that’s it. Give it to me. Ooh yeah, that’s right, fuck me baby, pound my nasty monkey pussy!”

Maya fell away, shrieking with laughter. “Monkey pussy!” she squealed, slapping her knees. “Help, I think I wet myself!”

The frumpy female stormed off in a huff leaving her apoplectic boyfriend behind. The mandrill, having done his duty, pulled out and wandered off, leaving his wife with monkey-cum bubbling out of her privates. Beck and Maya slapped palms, and were just about to leave when Mister Mandrill, not yet replete, seized another young female and commenced fucking.

Beck jammed her fists on her hips. “Well I never!”

“You two-timing asshole!” Maya fumed then rapped the glass with her knuckles, trying to get the first female’s attention. “Quick! Look over there! Look what your husband’s doing.”

Tanya put a fist to her ear, thumb and pinky extended. “Give me a call.” she told Mrs. Mandrill. “I’ll hook you up with a divorce lawyer.”

“You know,” Caddy sighed, “fucking a monkey is like eating Chinese. Two minutes later and you’re horny again. Come on, let’s find something that doesn’t throw shit or fornicate in front of little children.”

Passing an outdoor café, Tanya called for a quick respite to soothe her aching leg and grab a caffeine hit. Pressing on short distance, the girls pulled up in front of the otter enclosure, to watch the animals zoom around underwater behind the glass. “Lutra lutra.” Beck intoned, then flipped her pad open and scribbled it down.

“That’s a bit lazy, isn’t it?” Maya said.

“What do you mean?”

“Well how’d you like to be Rebekah rebekah? And how about me, Maya maya? I mean they could have given the poor things a decent surname.”

“Let’s rename them.” Beck said, stowing her notebook. “Lutra aquaticas?”

“Lutra zoomus!” Maya suggested, watching the critters dart past, twisting and rolling in unfettered joy. “Look at ‘em go!”

Beck parked her elbows on the steel handrail. “ I know. Lutra celeritas. As in ‘C’, the speed of light.”

Suddenly sensing a presence, Beck looked over her shoulder. And there, standing over her, a tall, swarthy male had Maya’s hem between finger and thumb and was raising her skirt to reveal her violet, blue, and purple-striped panties. Gathered around him, four or five cronies were jostling for position, cameras raised to get the best shot.

“HEY!” Beck spun round as the male half-turned turned to face her. Drawing her arm back, she punched him as hard as she could in the middle of the chest, setting him back a step and forcing a grunt from his lungs.

The male raised his hands as Beck re-chambered. The furious little blonde barely came up to his chest but that punch to the sternum stung to the core. “Hey, hey, hey, Little Sister, why so aggressive? We wasn’t hurting anyone.”

“Keep your filthy hands to yourself.” Beck growled, arm back, fist clenched, breasts rising and falling as she panted for breath.

The male looked at his buddies and gave her a smile. “Or what?”

Maya tried to shoulder her aside. “Watch out, Becky. I’ll front-kick this fuckhead’s balls into low Earth orbit.”

Beck repositioned, shielding the smaller girl. “These are the pricks who’ve been stalking us.” she told Maya. “Remember? We saw them at the hippo, then the penguins, and then at the seals.”

Maya spat on the ground with a theatrical flourish. “You fucking dogs.”

“Girls!” the male pleaded, as his cronies gathered around the diminutive pair. “Just chill. We was just doing a survey, that’s all. In the name of science youse could say.”

“Survey?” Maya sneered. “Bullshit!”

“Honest to god. We was just trying to decide if youse two was virgins.”

“That’s a coincidence.” Beck quavered, shaking like a leaf and still breathing hard. “We were trying to decide if you had eight inches of dick.” She twirled a finger to take in the gang. “Between the four of you. Sorry. Between the five.”

One of the alpha-dog’s minions weighed in- a short fat individual with a few day’s growth on his prominent jaw and close-set, dark beady eyes. “You punched my bro, bitch.” he said, puffing himself up. “That’s assault.”

Beck put up her dukes again. “You want one, too, fat boy fat?”

All heads turned at the sound of running footsteps. Caddy had seen the group pass and her Caddy-senses had started tingling. “What’s all this?” she shrilled. “What do you think you’re doing standing round my girls?”

“It’s okay, Mum.” Maya said, “Becky and me have got it all under control.”

“Mum?” the ringleader snorted. “So youse must be the whore mother?”

Caddy read the situation in a heartbeat. “Sorry,” she smiled, forcing her way through the cordon to gather up the girls, “you must be confusing me with your own mother.”

The mood was rapidly turning ugly. “The country I come from...” Big Mouth announced, “if a girl went out in public, dressed like this, they’d throw her in jail.”

Another voice added, “And gang-rape her.” to mutters of agreement.

“The shithole you come from,” Caddy said, with the casual authority of a seasoned traveller, “men fuck goats. If it’s a female goat and she gets pregnant, they always give birth to a male.” She poked his chest. “Just... like... you.”

The cordon tightened. “Ever heard of the rape-game?” another male asked, just as Watson waded into the fray.

“What the fuck? What’s going on here?”

“Well now, looks like we got the whole fucken’ family. Grand dad, mum and the two little whores.”

“These lovely young men were just telling us about their culture.” Caddy said.

“They’ve actually got one?” the old man’s eyebrows arched in surprise. “Well I’ll be damned.”

“Is that your daughter’s pussy I can smell on you grandpa? These two hoes must be inbred they’re so ugly.”

Watson opened his mouth to reply but Caddy beat him to it. “Well inbreeding is something you’d know all about. Anyway, I’m surprised you can smell anything, after sucking your brother’s shit off your old man’s penis.”

The five males had an angry, incomprehensible exchange. The alpha-male’s minions were demanding their honour be satisfied and the time had come to put up or shut up.

“Come on people,” Watson said, trying to sound conciliatory, “come on. Let’s not get carried away. This clearly just a case of mistaken identity.”

The surrounding males traded glances. “Mistaken what?”

“Identity. You see, it appears you’ve mistaken us for people you can fuck with. And get away with it. Honest mistake, I grant you, but lads, do yourselves a favour. Fuck off.”

Maya was shaping up to lay down some righteous jujitsu. “Let me have a shot at him, Mum.”

“Now, now Darling. We don’t want another visit from the coroner.”

The taller male put his face in Watson’s. “I got a knife, cunt.”

“No, really,” Watson raised a hand, “that’s very kind. But I’m all good for knives just at the moment.”

Another body joined the melee. Tanya, bringing up the rear at a painful hobble. She was on the phone. “That’s right.” she said, “Over by the otter enclosure.”

“Who you calling, sis?”

“The men in black.”

“Who’s on?”

“Steven and Mike.”

Caddy sucked air through her teeth. “Oh dear. You boys really don’t want to meet Steve. He’s pissed off enough cos’ he had to work Sunday. And seeing one of his buddies was killed in Iraq...”

“Men in black?” the ring-leader scoffed, “As fucken’ if.”

Phone to her ear, Tanya raised a hand. “Hang on. Five minutes? Awesome.”

None of this was going to plan and the males looked at each other, nonplussed. The two diminutive girls had looked like an easy target, now here they were, trading insults with the whole fucking family. Where was the fear, the cowering, the terrified calls to triple-zero? All the things that made the sport so enjoyable.

The alpha-male weighed his options- take a shot at the smiling old man, inflict some quick, token violence to shore up his authority. Or dismiss the conflict as simply unworthy, cut the fuck away and count his blessings. “Know what?” he snorted, “This is your lucky day, cos’ grandpa here doesn’t have too much longer to live. So guess what? I’m letting youse off.”