The Brothel Creeper: Stories of Sexual and Spiritual Tension by Rhys Hughes Read Free Book Online

clear, the third very faint. All at once he realised that these already contained babies. Every gas giant in the solar system, in the cosmos, was crammed with infant flesh. It explained the experience Herod had confessed to having in the hoisting of big items from one dimension to another.
    The lifeless planets could be exploited without permission, but to use Earth as a similar dumping ground had required the consent of one of its representatives. That was he.
    Now he saw something appear through the gash that was the portal between the universes. The head of an unborn baby. It seemed far too large for the gap.
    First one head. Then a second.
    Conjoined twins! A freak of nature. There was a tearing sound. Heaven was rupturing. Tennyson resumed running.
    Ahead sat a man with a long beard. A tramp or escaped lunatic. One of those derelicts from the vicinity of the damaged church. He had his legs crossed under him and his breath smelled of cider. He was playing with a crossbow. Tennyson guessed this was his own discarded weapon and raised his hands and said:
    “Shoot me if you want. I’m tired of running.”
    “I have no interest in that,” mumbled the man. “In fact, I know exactly how you feel. I’m tired of running too, which is why I stopped. Besides, I don’t have any bolts. Only golf balls.”
    “Help me. Please.”
    “I am Saint Peter. How may I assist you?”
    “The whole planet is against me.”
    “Then hide in this.”
    Reaching under his robe, he pulled out a shapeless mass of hair and skin that moved spasmodically and seemed to be in pain. Then he unfurled it completely and smoothed out the creases and Tennyson saw it was the pelt of the donkey, still alive. A complete donkey but without bones. A glove for his identity.
    “It’s hollow,” urged the man.
    With a sigh of disgust, Tennyson fell to his knees and struggled to draw the flapping skin over his head. It was warm as he wriggled deeper inside, like a birth in reverse, for the opening was in the beast’s lower abdomen. When he was fully concealed, he lay still, summoning the courage to stand. He finally did so.
    The man stroked his mane. “You’re my pet now. We’ll ride into the New Jerusalem together. That’s how Swansea must be called from now. Truly the most childish city of all.”
    Tennyson didn’t reply in words. He brayed. He knew that from this moment he would be too busy to be considered unemployed, but that he would always remain unloved.
     
     

One’s a Crowd
     
    When the first demonstration was broken up the people ran from the park in all directions. In those days the police rode horses and everything still stank of reality. I hurried down a narrow street and took refuge in a bicycle shop, entering as casually as possible and pretending to examine the displays of wheels, gears and chains while the owners pressed their faces to the window to discern the nature of the fuss. I remember leaving without saying a word. I strolled back to the park and smoked a cigarette among the fallen banners.
    Moona had fixed the radio by the time I returned to my apartment. We turned the dial together with the volume very low, lingering for a few seconds at each foreign music station before finding the official news channel. We had missed the beginning of the broadcast but it was obvious what had happened. When the static became unbearable I switched the device off and rummaged in a cupboard for a bottle of cheap brandy. Our mouths burned as we drained our glasses miserably.
    “Colonel Bones has declared martial law,” I said.
    “Because of general dissent,” Moona replied.
    She was like that, my girl, always able to find humour in tragedy, a lightness in oppression, even though she took politics more seriously than did I. We moved into the bedroom and worked out our frustration in a nice way, the pressure of our tangled futures eased by the tangling of our limbs. But certain parts of our bodies seemed disconnected from the whole, as if the