The Mirror Ch. 05

And, looking at the scene, as depicted by the mirror's two-foot high, four-foot wide ultra high-resolution 'screen', he didn't know who was the more stunned, and the more disbelieving: himself, or the flabbergasted folk he'd just left behind.

Left behind, in the reflective-walled gymnasium aboard the Sunshine Holidays cruise ship, the Lady Caroline.

James had safely returned, he now realised, by means of having passed through the mirrored lower wall of the ship's gym. The reflective surface of which, apparently having served as some kind of gateway. Some kind of ... portal.

Stunned, and shaken to the core, by his incredibly narrow escape – and by his fantastical experience – James gratefully plonked himself down in his favourite chair; his black leather, well-padded armchair.

There were a lot of puzzled people in the ship's gym, and that was for sure.

There was Sandra and Chuck, and their mostly female volunteer-force posse of sunbathers, and the leotard-wearing ladies of the aerobics class ... And now, the ship's Captain, who'd apparently been called to the scene by the aerobics instructor.

"What appears to be the problem, here," inquired the calm-voiced Captain. And, at the resultant clamour of overexcited voices, he held up both arms in placation and said, "One at a time, please."

"The athole dithappeared!" blurted Chuck.

"Who disappeared?" said the Captain.

"He was ... just some guy," explained the splendid Sandra. "But he just vanished ... right through there," she said, pointing to the exact spot where James had inexplicably gone through the gym's mirrored lower wall. "Oh, and he sounded English," added Sandra, as though as an afterthought.

At seeing the expression on the Captain's face, Sandra gestured to those around her and shouted at him aggressively, "We all saw it! And we all heard him!"

Upon everyone voicing their emphatic agreement with Sandra, the Captain sighed deeply and replied, "All right, all right ..."

But the Captain's patronising tone only angered Sandra all the more. She stood confronting him, hands on hips.

To Sandra, the Captain said, "Hmm. You say he was ... just some guy. And he just vanished ... right through there," he said, gesturing to the exact spot in the mirrored lower wall that Sandra had pointed out. "Oh, and he sounded English."

Sandra asserted, "Yes, he was. And he did ... You got a problem with that?" she challenged the ship's Master belligerently.

"Well ... there are no English people listed on the passenger manifest, for this voyage," the Captain informed Sandra.

Sandra was stuck for a reply to that.

Thinking that humour might be the best way to calm his obviously agitated and unsettled passengers, the Captain said, "Well, we shouldn't be too surprised, should we, if someone disappears? After all, we are in the ... Bermuda Triangle."

But the Captain's attempt at humour didn't work – fell totally flat. In fact, he'd only succeeded in agitating and unsettling his passengers further. It was obvious, in the expressions on his freaked-out passengers' faces. Expressions, that clearly said: Will I be next, to ... disappear?

The scintillating Sandra, frustrated at so mysteriously being denied her vengeance against James, blurted angrily, "What the hell, Chuck! Where is the little jerk-off? I mean, I just don't get it. How can he be here, and then just not, be here?"

"Thyuckth! I dunno, Thandra!" replied the equally bewildered Chuck. "I thyure don't know. There'th no thign of the thyoo-kithing, thyoo-licking lother! He'th jutht dithappeared – ith ath thimple ath that."

* * *

The mirror then panned out of the reflective-walled gymnasium, along the corridor, and out through the door to the sundeck.

James observed the rows and rows of sun-loungers, most of them occupied by young ladies.

Some of them were topless. While others wore skimpy, nothing-to-them bikinis ... so they might as well have been.

Those of them who were lying on their fronts, causing the brilliant Bermudan sun to glint off their bare soles at ever changing angles as, with their lower legs languidly raised behind them, they absentmindedly waved their feet in the air.

And, James saw, as they read their novel, or newspaper, or magazine, some of the young ladies absentmindedly scrunched, or splayed, or wiggled their toes, as they did so.

And all of the sunbathing ladies, James noticed, were superbly tanned. The sort of tan, that they'd had to 'work' on ... And were still, 'working' on.

Now the mirror started to pan out.

There, James saw, was the cruise ship's flag. Fluttering and flapping in the breeze atop its flagpole, it displayed the well-known travel company's logo: a cheery bright yellow happy-faced-sun background and, printed upon it in bright blue letters was the legend: Sunshine Holidays.

The mirror panned out further ...

And, as if he was listening to it through some ultra high-fidelity sound system, James heard the tremendous, realistic roar of the cruise ship's boiling wake, as the Lady Caroline's enormous propellers churned the blue-green waters astern to a seething white maelstrom.

And the mirror panned out further still ...

Until all James could see, was the most beautiful blue sky that he'd ever seen. And the endless expanse of blue-green ocean; misty spray, breaking free from the whitecaps of the larger swells ...

And the receding spectacle of the majestic cruise ship.

She was the pride of the fleet.

Her name, James could still make out on the graceful lines of her stern: Lady Caroline.

And then she was gone.

* * *

But James remained seated in his favourite chair; his black leather, well-padded armchair.

Because the mirror was pulsing, now.

Pulsing its eerie white light. The eerie white light, that emanated from all around the mirror where it fitted into its ornately carved hardwood frame.

Pulsing.

Which signified, as James now knew well, that ... something, was about to happen.

James stood up, and quickly pulled off his pair of white, all-muddied-up football shorts.

So that he would be unrestricted and unrestrained, unencumbered and unhampered – liberated.

With nothing to get in the way of his ... movements.

No impediment, to ... pleasure.

The mistress of the mirror was once again summoning James.

Summoning her latest, in a long line of 'sex' slaves, to ... service.

Summoning him, to offer his 'devotions' ... In her honour.

So that, through the essential ingredient, nutrient-rich nourishment of James's 'willing' sacrifices, she would continue to flourish ... And develop.

James waited ...

The mistress of the mirror wouldn't keep him waiting for long, he knew.

No. It wouldn't be long.

It wouldn't be long, before the mistress of the mirror once again brought him to such peaks of almost unbearable pleasure, that, frantically pulling and tugging and yanking away at 'himself' in yet another frenzy of climactic ecstasy, he would duly deliver up his 'devotions' – the precious seed, of his 'willing' sacrifice.

And deliver up, to the mistress of the mirror, a little bit more of himself.

As James waited, his fingertips sensuously caressed what he lovingly cradled in his hands ... The sensational Sandra's right, bright yellow high-heeled mule.

And, especially in the dark, black-on-yellow imprints, made by the undersides of the stunning Sandra's tanned toes, and by the bottom of her golden heel, the little residual ... something, of herself.

The Mirror continues, in chapter 6.