Meteor: Part One (Paladin)

~Edit (Susan)... Paladin said I could edit this. I had some ideas, but after wrestling with it for ages, nothing stuck. So all that's been changed has been some line-spaces added.~

My cousin James and I spent most of our holidays together as we grew up, trying to prove who was the bravest and the toughest or as our mothers’ would say who was the most reckless and who had the least brain cells. Our mothers never appreciated the amount of planning that went into each adventure and challenge. They never understood that amount of fine-tuning it took to convert a pram into something that could nearly jump a creek or the military precision required for sneaking into the neighbours back-yard to strip their apple tree of every piece of fruit without waking their rottweiler.

Turning down a challenge was never an option. The penalties were severe. Failure at seven, meant letting a girl kiss you thereby catching girl germs. By age nine we’d progressed to peeing on an electric fence as the ultimate deterrent and who knows where we would have gone from there given enough time but James and his family moved to the U.K and to a city with more people than my whole country. They did come back a couple of times during our early teens but the visits were always short.

I was 22 when I finally got the opportunity to visit James in the U.K. I was still very much a country boy and this was only second time I’d been in a plane and the first on an international flight. While I’d stayed on learning to manage the folks farm James had followed his father into finance and banking and he was adamant that he was going to show me just what life was like in a real city.

James wasn’t at Heathrow to meet me but there was a guy holding a sign with my name on it and he seemed to know what was happening. We got into a genuine limo, David the driver told me it was the company car James’ father worked for. When I got settled he handed me a brand new iphone and told me James had left voice memos on it. As I settled back into the seat and watched the lights, cars and people stream by I activated the first message.

“G’day stranger,” his accent was more English now than kiwi but still recognisable. “Dad and I are meeting with clients from Germany so we’ll be catching up with you tomorrow. In the meantime David here will take excellent care of you.” David glanced up at the rear vision mirror and grinned. “Firstly though in time honoured tradition he will be taking you on a scavenger hunt. You may have to take pictures or collect objects and you will most certainly be humiliated. Of course you can always chicken out but I must warn you the penalty will involve tourists, a fountain, nudity and youtube.”

I groaned, not sure if this was the best idea after a long flight. “Alright I’m game if you are David?”

He laughed, “I’m paid by the hour mate so I’ve got no complaints.”

I activated the next voice memo. “David will now take you to a bar famous for it’s Av gas shots. The record is five in one minute without passing out. The tab is under my name. You have to smuggle one of the shot glasses out when you leave.”

I made it through three and somehow made it passed a door-sized bouncer with a glass. The second challenge involved eating a kebab from a dingy hole-in the wall which David informed me was a long standing English rite-of-passage. He also assured me the spirits in the Av gas should kill off anything in the kebab. I complained to David and to my phone that I doubted there was anything even closely resembling real meat in it. 

Two young women started scrapping on the footpath. Slaps turned to hair being pulled and then they were on the ground rolling over each other their skimpy outfits in disarray. The smaller of the two girls grabbed a decent handful of hair and forced the other down. She quickly straddled the other girl and gave her two decent slaps with her free hand. “Say you quit bitch,” she yelled. The girl on the bottom mumbled something that didn’t satisfy the girl on top because she again slapped her opponent. The girl on the bottom quickly yelled out that she quit. Then to the delight of the other kebab patrons the girl on top began making out with her beaten opponent. David clapped me on the shoulder and continued recording the girls on his phone. “Welcome to London son.”

Somewhat dazed I crawled back onto the car and turned on the next memo. “I’m sending you to a very exclusive club,” James said and I could tell from his tone that this wouldn’t be somewhere you’d tell your mother about. “You will show this phone at the door and once inside you’ll get your next challenge.”

“Any clues?” I asked David. He just grinned and shook his head.

The car eventually stopped outside the cobbled entrance to a gothic styled church. The spires and curves were lit with lurid red and purple lights. From the sounds of house music I doubted mass was in session. “Good luck son.”

I nodded to him and got out of the car. As I walked across unfamiliar cobblestones I could see a substantial crowd coming and going. As the lights grew brighter I could see this wasn’t your typical New Zealand crowd of party-goers. As I joined a line waiting to get in I realised I was definitely the odd one out. Around me were styles ranging from cyberpunk vampire to gothic cowboy and steampunk catwomen. Jeans and a leather jacket suddenly seemed very out of place.

I got to the front of the queue and a slim black girl with eyes like a tiger wearing a skin tight catsuit confronted me behind a barrier of what looked like chromed razor wire. “Are you lost?” Her tone was challenging and when she smiled I could see she had fangs to go with the amazing contact lenses she was wearing.

“Yeah you could say that,” I replied. I held out the phone and opened it to the page David had told me to use. The girl examined the image briefly then examined me for much longer. I have to admit the way she ran her tongue lightly over her teeth made me think of a cat contemplating a mouse.

“The Mistress will need to be consulted,” she announced and then held up a silver studded collar. I studied it uncertainly. “No-one sees the Mistress unfettered. Of course if you’re scared just run along like a good boy.”

She had me there. If I quit now James would have his penalty. I bent down so that she could put the collar on. “That’s tight,” I gasped. She laughed and patted my cheek.

“Do you know how to be led?” she asked. My face must have been answer enough because she leant forward and whispered, “walk two paces behind me at all times, keep your eyes down. If it helps you can stare at my ass. She winked and clicked something into place and I realised that a delicate silver chain now trailed from the collar to her hand. She turned and began walking. I followed before the chain could yank on my neck. I had to admit to myself that keeping my eyes on her well, rounded rear end did ease the discomfort somewhat.  

We walked up the steps to the church, me at my two paces behind and her walking with a sway to her hips that emphasised every step. We passed that way through the double doors before turning left into a room so elaborate I could not take in all the details. My guide, escort, walker or whatever she might have called herself stopped in the centre of the room and knelt before a raised dais. I stood behind her because I didn’t have a clue about what else to do and also because the view in front of me was like something out of a Roman epic.

Men and women in various states of dress stood around the edges. Passing through gauzy curtains at the back of the dais a tall blond woman dressed in Victorian, steampunk finery rode a massively muscled man. Really rode him, like a horse, right down to the bridle, reins and dark leather saddle. She rode the man around the arc of the dais and reined him in before a marble bench. A vampire girl helped her dismount and a voluptuous red-head lay down on the marble bench without a single word being spoken. I felt like I’d walked into a play where everyone but me knew the lines and the plot. The Mistress, I assumed that’s who she was, sat on the red-haired girls’ stomach and leant slightly against her thighs as if against the arm of a chaise-lounge.

My guide stood and approached the dais. While they spoke I noticed the Mistresses’ lace covered hand was lazily tracing the contours of her seats chest. No-one else seemed surprised by any of this. The black girl gave the chain a tug and I guessed this was some kind of instruction to approach. She held out her hand and I gave her the phone, which was passed up. The Mistress adjusted her position turning so her back now rested against the red-head’s thighs and swinging her legs up so they lay along the other girls body. The girl on the bottom began to softly caress the blond’s feet with her lips and tongue.

The Mistress looked at the phone then at me. “A big country boy far from home,” her voice was cultured and husky. “Look how big your eyes are,” the others laughed and she smiled. “Do you like what you’ve seen so far?”

I glanced at the black girl and at the red haired girl who was currently doing things to another woman’s toes that I had never imagined possible. “Uhh, there’s been a lot to take in but it’s certainly impressive.”

“Impressive?” Now she laughed. “You look like you’d have stamina country boy. How would you do under a saddle and crop I wonder?” She looked at me and again I had that mouse invited to a cat’s dinner feeling. I glanced at her current mount who looked like he could bench-press ten of me but who hadn’t moved from the spot where she’d left him.  I shrugged, “okay I suppose but it’s not something I’ve ever done before.”

She sat upright, drawing a little gasp of breath from the girl beneath her. “Mmmm, that may well be worth exploring another time. For now you have our freedom to explore our little world. Emma here,” she indicated my guide, “will show you around.”

“Do I have to keep wearing this?” I pointed to the collar.

The Mistress reclined once more and proffered her other foot for her seat’s attention. “Emma if you would please attend to our guest.”

Emma gave me a little growl as she undid the collar.

“Just be careful,” the Mistress advised as I turned to follow Emma out. “You country boys have a tendency to fall very deeply under the spell of our darkness.”

I wondered if she were talking about James or kiwi boys in general. As I followed Emma’s swaying behind out of the room I hoped I’d make it through tonight just so that I could kick my cousin's arse.