Pages Torn From a Travel Journal Read Online Free

only as a rising signalisation of the times. It is concrete & unanimous morality that breeds order & culture, not the fear of the wrath of August’s deity. (& should I be in error? That same God will damn me to eternal torment, no doubt complete with pitchfork-wielding daemons & smoking labyrinths of brimstone!) Nevertheless, my quandaries are enough to solicit the devil; yet I do not believe in him , either.
    I frittered time in the office as the sun westered, while Nate worked on smaller jobs in the garage bay. Via small-talk w/the bus operator, I came to learn that the 3 “roughs” were brothers, venturing south back to their home somewhere in Florida, while nothing was known of the Brit. I jotted out some postcards, then worked on this travelogue till the small, drear-paned windows began to tinge with darkness. Sometime later, the pregnant Briton drifted in & made the strangest comment: “There’s something in the air tonight, eh?”
    Apparently I’d begun to drowse. The gravid woman appeared blurred, while her features of fecundity (i.e., her breasts, her curvatures, & of course the life-gorged abdomen) appeared exaggerated as of a cartoon. “Pardon?” I mumbled.
    Her face beamed, though her eyes looked flat, & in grainy half-light she turned to a small window to peer out, seeming to see more than was there. Her English accent sounded sputtery, like a suet-candle. “Sometimes the way the stars are . . . It’s Fate choosing us.”
    The bizarre words roused me. “Whatever do you mean, Miss?”
    “Oh, you know, Mister. Seems its chosen you today. Like a radio antenna, hmm?”
    “Or lightning rod?” I croaked without forethought.
    She turned, grinned right at me, & nodded, but then ever-so-slowly the grin turned devilish. “Those three blokes–they’re still sodding about at the lake, fishing. I’m gonna go fuck ‘em all again for a free fish dinner–that is, if their Yankee Hamptons got anything left to give up. Hope that previous fucking hasn’t left ‘em too airy-fairy for another go.”
    I gulped at the comment.
    “A bird’s gotta do what she’s gotta do in these bad times, eh? What with ackers bein’ rare as rocking-horse shit,” & then she giggled in a sound like a drove of rodents.
    The moment’s strangeness filled my head with a drone. Her pose drew my gaze such that a part of me grew frightened, as though the spirit of some other had transmigrated itself into the vessel of her flesh. My stare locked me in rigor as she brazenly smoothed her hands up the corpulent belly, then caressed her bosom; & after a moment of this she actually lifted her sundress up over the breasts to reveal all to my eyes. Yet it was the grin above all that nailed me to my chair.
    “It chooses me a lot”–her words seemed to cluck–“but tonight it’s definitely chosen you.” The fingers of one hand twisted a nipple substantial as a baby’s pacifier; her other hand played with deliberation amid the fur between her legs.
    I squirmed. “Really, Miss–you’re causing me quite a bit of discomfort . . . ”
    “Oh, I’m sure I am, love. Taken quite a fancy ta me Bristols, proves you ain’t an arse-bandit,” and then she laughed. “I saw you today–hiding behind that bush at the lake. You were havin’ quite a look, weren’t ya?”
    With instantaneousness, my face reddened.
    “Aw, yeah, dearie, I saw you watchin’ them three gutterscums fuckin’ me ta hell and back, and stickin’ that pole up me minge, and you fancied what you were seein’, didn’t you?”
    For the life of me I could not respond, & I can only hope that her entire hand did not really disappear into her sex. No, it was merely my imagination, jaded by the queerness of the moment . . .
    She ceased the self-molestation, then righted her worn gown. Did her great, tight belly quiver as I watched? It was to something as faintly audible as the wind that her words now reduced themselves to. “You should’ve joined in–I hoped you would,”