Saltskin (17 page)

It was a still night. The moon held her roundness proudly
like an all-seeing eye. The Qualm's Arms was chunky with
meaty men, seven to each woman. The sweat of so many
people was mucus musky in the room. Tobacco smoke
hung low and seedy. The door kept flying open and more
sailors staggered in.

The whalers were celebrating their successes and their
survival, and with the remaining herd moving onward up
the northern coast the crews were preparing to sail after
them, leaving Jacob's River bruised and exhausted, like a
bride on her wedding night.

Angelo's limbs jigged and jittered of their own accord,
his crystal blue eyes feverish. His skin was sun- and windburnt
red, rashed where he'd scrubbed himself with sand.
His mad hair rose high on his forehead, as if it, too, were
infected with the peak of his excitement. He wore leather
trousers laced at the crotch and tucked into his jackboots,
and a linen shirt open to his torso. His clothes itched and
he felt hot and sweaty. The minutes dragged — a voyage
away from midnight, when he would have the mermaid of
his fantasy alive in his arms.

Davy and Angus stood with him, false smiles plastered
on their faces. Each wished the other would go away so he
could enact his individual agenda. Davy checked the room
for Angie and poured more alcohol into Angelo's mug.

'Drink, drink,' he kept saying, and each time he said it
Angelo swallowed mindlessly, already drunker than he had
been for a while, and each time he gulped Captain Angus
saw Angelo's Adam's apple rise and fall and speculated
about what Angelo might know of the mermaid.

'Have you found your precious lady yet?' asked Angus
in a too jolly voice.

Angelo choked on his beer; coughed so hard that both
Angus and Davy had to thump him on the back.

Aha! thought Captain Angus.

And Davy, in a fever of his own, reasoned bitterly, that
yes, Angelo had found a lady. A surge of resentment went
through him with a rage he could barely control.

The captain caught the heat of Davy and thought: He
knows too.

Angelo saw the glint in Davy's eye, yet he had no
prior information with which to interpret it correctly and
so dismissed it. However, he was uneasy and desperately
wanted the time to rush forward to midnight. He turned
around on the spot and faced the bar.

Davy refilled Angelo's mug.

Jake lounged nonchalantly at the bar. He raised his beer
mug with his left hand and with his right put his thumb
behind his top teeth and flicked it out in a gesture of crude
challenge. He sneered and Angelo turned from him, back
to the weird faces of Angus and Davy. Angelo felt hot,
bemused, trapped. Something was going on underneath
everything, a shark in a shallow pool. He had to get out.
He lurched drunkenly towards the entrance.

The door swung open dramatically and framed within
it, pausing for effect, stood Miss Angela Swan in her
gleaming yellow dress. A cheer went up, whereupon the
pianist played a bawdy tune and the centre of the room
erupted in a spontaneous jig.

Angelo's eyes met Angie's. With his heightened senses,
with the erotic charge of his mermaid rendezvous in his
mind, with the joy and the sensuous promise it represented,
he could not help it: his penis stiffened. And, as if there
were a wire cord from him to her, his pupils grew large and
a flutter like fright stirred in his chest. Angie, for her part,
felt a tightening of her womb and a pulse between her legs.
His virile air was a stench to her: pungent and fungal and
irresistible. She tossed her head and sent him, with all her
force, a mesmerising smile.

Time stood still.

Davy, witnessing the exchange, almost burst into tears.
Eggs once broken are impossible to repair.

Then Angie winked lasciviously. Simply closed one lid.
Angelo's knees buckled as though someone had kicked one
in from behind.

Davy, in a panic now, threw up his hands as if to ward
off locusts. Then he manoeuvred himself in front of Angelo
and shook him violently about the shoulders. Angelo was
like a puppy until he came to his senses and shrugged Davy
off, straining his face back towards Angie.

Captain Angus, alarmed, held Davy's wrists at his side
and stood between the men.

Angie moved through the crowd to the bar, exaggerating
the sway of her hips. Jake opened his arm wide and drew
her along on its current, positioning her beside him. The
possessiveness of the movement perturbed Angelo out of
all proportion; his face sank into an expression of worry.
He gulped from his beer and it frothed over his chin while
he tried to still the beat of his body. He was sickened by
his response to her and wondered what black magic the
girl possessed. He adjusted his crotch and tried to focus his
mind on the mermaid. But with rising dread he discovered
he could not find his vision of her. His beloved mermaid,
the only creature he would die for . . . He reached for her
like a forgotten name.

'Why?' Davy moaned. 'Why her? Why not anyone
else?'

'What?' Angelo blinked.

'Choose someone else,' Davy begged.

'There is no one else! There never was and never will
be.' Angelo lashed Davy with a look of incredulity, a deep
furrow in his brow as he desperately searched for the sense
of his mermaid. Only the mermaid was real. He stumbled
and his hand went to his throat; he could not breathe. The
fever he'd caught from his ordeal at sea made him dizzy:
he gripped at his hair, pulling at the roots.

Davy, his mouth slack in horror, began to weep in
earnest.

Angelo peered at him, confused. His empathy went out
to his friend, prompting him to put his arms around him,
patting him ineffectually. 'Why are you crying?'

'I love her — don't you see?' sobbed Davy.

'You love the mermaid?' intoned Angelo and Angus
together.

Angelo, stricken, gaped at Angus. How could he know
about the mermaid? The captain's mouth worked and
chewed on all the words he had to say that had so long
been stoppered inside him, gas in a bottle, but he could
not make a sound. Davy held his breath. The three men
stared at one another.

Sparks of light floated in Angelo's vision; he needed
to sit. But there were no free seats so instead he leant his
weight on Davy. Everything seemed irrelevant except his
need to sit down. The captain was talking but Angelo could
not make it out. He wished he'd shut up — too loud. And
then, he felt nothing but a puppet, his attention pulled in
Angie's direction.

Davy's face went pale as he pushed Angelo off and
staggered towards the door.

Jake was leaning intimately into Angie's body. Angelo
wished his own face was in her neck. Heat flared under his
sunburn as he plunged through the crowd, pushing and
shoving all out of his way until he found himself gripping
Angie's arm, the satin a surprise to his touch. Angie had
felt his advance as a rising thrill in her belly and looked
up at his shocked face, her brown eyes glazed. Angelo
registered the sprinkle of freckles on her nose, the simple
prettiness of her; he wanted to rip her clothes off then
and there.

Suddenly he felt he was going to be sick. He blinked
as his body swayed forward into Jake, pulling Angie with
him.

'Tut tut,' said Jake, shoving Angelo off. 'Play nice and
let go of the lady.' He forced Angelo's fingers to splay apart
and release her.

My lady, thought Angelo deliriously. 'I don't like you,'
he slurred to Angie, and glanced longingly at the door,
which seemed so far away. The floor undulated.

Angie, with mock hurt, pouted and rubbed her arm.
'You are a beast,' she purred, making Jake smirk and thrust
his pelvis at her. She laughed, her head coquettishly to one
side, but her eyes never left Angelo.

Angelo gaped about him. His arms flayed about,
knocking the men on either side, spilling their drinks. A
cry of protest went up and peeved faces turned on him
like gargoyles. Angelo let out an emotional bellow: he
threw his head back and roared. It briefly silenced the
room. Then he lurched for the door, followed by Captain
Angus.

Horribly drunk, Angelo stumbled to the beach.
Whale skeletons loomed in the night and with the large,
angular lumps of driftwood gave the appearance of a
land of monsters. Angelo's penis was still hard; he was
overwhelmed by its insistence. His sense of smell was acute
and the reek of the rotting whales assailed him. Vomit rose
in his throat, acidic and pulpy; he gulped it down, gagged
and swallowed some more.

He stretched his arms out before him like a blind man
and the black sand rose up and dipped away, as if he had
ingested wormwood. He tripped over a whale skull and
fell, scraping his face on the salty sand. The pain of it stung
him. He rolled on his back, sand in mouth, his breathing
high and shallow in his chest. He scratched at his face in a
lunacy of shame and began to sob.

The captain bent over him, at a loss. He spoke words
that did not reach Angelo, and, after some deliberating,
decided to fetch help.

Angelo closed his eyes to the moon and tried to steady
his senses, but it was worse with his eyes closed: the spinning
increased. He got to his knees and began to crawl in circles.
As the circles grew wider and wider his erection lessened,
lending more blood to his brain. He began to reorient
himself. He could see the lights of the Qualm's Arms and
he knew he had to get away from them. He crawled along
the beach in the direction of the lagoon.

The incoming tide dowsed him with its licks, and still
he crawled, each small wave splashing him. He was soaked,
thirsty and exhausted, but he knew it was imperative that he
get to her. Reaching the rocks, he stood shakily and began
to climb. Like the sour shock of a mouthful of vinegar
his purpose became clear, strengthening him, powering
his arms:
mermaid, mermaid, mermaid
. Masses of tangled
kelp surged like Medusa's snakes around his limbs, trying
to suck him down. Seawater stampeded him, filling his
mouth with its brine. His stomach clenched and spasmed
and he vomited.

The mermaid bobbed in the water just over the next mound of rock, her locks
bejewelled with sea snails of festive colours. Her fish tail swirled and,
at full length, she could just touch the bottom. She felt like singing.

Angie Swan in her elegant yellow gown excused herself
from Jake and stood outside the Qualm's Arms, looking
left and right. She called out Angelo's name. She saw the
captain walking towards the village, and then spied Angelo
on the rocks. She ran towards him, breasts bouncing, feet
shifting in the sand, cool air gusting up her legs. A surprise
wind blew up, tangling its passion in her gown and hair
and thrilling her like prophecy.

She reached Angelo and positioned herself above him
with the intention of being saucy but, observing the state
of him, instead hooked him under the arms and pulled
him off the rocks and onto the sand, falling on him as she
pushed him back.

'Is it you?' whispered Angelo, blinded by skin, scent
and hair. He raised a heavy hand and plonked it down on
Angie's shoulder, dragging her gown off its slope. Her flesh
glowed white in the moonlight.

Angie saw her moment. She dived in for a kiss. The
lubrication of her mouth was like water to Angelo and he
lapped at it. She untied the lacing at his crotch and he
sprang out engorged and purple. She whispered soothing
sounds, hoisted her skirt and staked her self on him.

Her hot wetness flummoxed Angelo, whose eyes bulged
in incredulity, then awe. Then suddenly he realised it was
Angie and tried to push her off, and yet he was irresistibly
drawn . . . He began to sob, to bawl, overwhelmed. He was
in the wrong place! He pushed her off, then lustily pulled
her back; off then back, groaning. He shook his head in
frustration and cried, 'Get off! Not you! I don't like you!'

But Angie ground herself down harder, and so they
struggled. He rolled her on her back and partly withdrew;
she wrapped her legs around his back and he made an
anguished sound, then instinct bade him push with his
feet in an effort to get deeper into her, shoving her around
in an arc, her hair floating in the lapping water.

Angelo was mindless, eyes vacant, face set in
concentration as he rocked from his hips, pivoting in and
out, in and out, in and out, in and out, a steady rhythmic
rut, his back rounded like a hunchback's, his forearms
rigid, pounding the virginity out of him, head bent down,
breathing ragged. His eyeballs quivered and rolled with
pleasure; a vein in his neck thickened.

Angie's arms twined around his neck while she shoved
up with her pelvis. The wind swirled the black sand in a
tornado around them and stung as hard as thrown rice.
With eyes squeezed tight she pulled his mouth to hers and
made her own loose and slack. He sucked on her lips, tongue
thrashing, grunting sounds of gratification, of exertion.
Propped on one arm Angelo increased his tempo.

The mermaid slithered towards the enticing grunts and moans.
She saw bodies stuck together on the beach. Curious, she came
a little closer and cocked her head to one side, inquisitive. The
physical act of lovemaking was as foreign to her as pepper and
salt.

She liked the resonance. Ah, ah, err. She mimicked, first
quietly and then louder. She enjoyed the vibration in her throat
— it entranced her, like a drumbeat — and she matched the timing
of Angie's grunts. Ah, ah, err.

Engrossed, the mermaid wiggled closer still towards the
slapping flesh, until her upper body was on the sand and the upper
part of her tail was visible. Her scales shimmered like taffeta, only
a body length away from the rutting couple.

The mermaid looked at the top of Angelo's bobbing head and
suddenly she recognised him. He's here! she thought euphorically, and impulsively
she emerged further out of the water and extended her arms towards Angelo.