Devil's Valley Read Online Free PDF

clothing. It was one of those nifty little jobs that can fit into a shirt pocket. The red light went on when I pressed the button, but the tape was stuck. So much for technology. A journalist’s fate worse than death. I pressed it to my ear but there was no sign of the familiar reassuring hiss. Even a few vigorous shakes made no difference. I’d shaken other things with more success in my life. Furious with frustration I gave it a slap, my stock solution for hitches in anything from a PC to a parking meter; and for once it actually worked. The little wheel was turning again, its whisper music to my ears. I pressed Record, went through my alphabetised repertoire of synonyms for the female pudenda (more satisfactory than the standard one-two-three-four-five), rewound, then pressed Play, and listened approvingly to the recitation, in my own voice, of what years ago had still been within my range of the accessible; just after the letter ‘p’ I switched off.
    Kitsch
    Now follows an event that gets my knickers in a knot. It doesn’t reflect well on me, but what the hell. I’ve hit rock-bottom anyway, as Sylvia or the kids or any of my colleagues would be only too happy to testify. A hairy turd is worse than any second-hand car dealer. So here goes, and devil take the hindmost.
    Just as I’m bending over to do up the clasp of the rucksack again there is a splash. I straighten my back to look. On the far side of a small thicket of withered underbrush and reeds I discover a long deep pool that somehow escaped my notice earlier. A movement in the pool catches my eye. Now for the kitsch part. I know it sounds like overdoing it, but I swear by my mother’s corns that this was how it happened. Crime reporter signing on. A naked girl comes scrambling from the pool, her back to me. She bends over to wring the water from her hair, then sweeps it back over her shoulders. A long black mane that ripples in shiny wet waves all the way down to the bulge of her buttocks. In the interests of truth I must specify that her body is a bit on the thin side to my taste. If this had been my fantasy I’d have filled her out a bit, more curves, more moulded kind of thing. But this is the point: it’s not a dream, she is real. So I have to take her as she comes.
    Then, like an obliging model, she turns to face me. She throws her head back, both arms raised, her feet wide apart to steady her on the slippery surface of the wet rock. Long legs, if kind of sinewy. The thing about legs is this: no matter how thick or thin they are, how short or long, they meet somewhere. And there’s nothing wrong with the bush that marks this meeting point. Black tufts sprout abundantly from the armpits too, something I’ve always had a weakness for. Altogether, it’s the total wet-dream image. Except, as I said, the girl’s not exactly the Birth of Venus. I did my stint of Art History at varsity, don’t underestimate me, and Botticelli clearly had no hand in this one. Even so, beggars can’t be choosers.
    Gentlemanly Thing
    I just stand there, kind of dumbstruck, like Lot’s wife. After a while she lowers her head again, but remains standing with her hands stuck in her thick dark hair, the points of her elbows raised to the late light, looking straight at me.
    Jesus, now I’m really flexing the old purple-veined stylistic muscles. I’ll soon be the man I used to be. Watch this spot. But I can’t keep the girl waiting: she’s still standing there at the edge of the pool, looking straight at me. Yet there isn’t the slightest hint of embarrassment or shock in her gaze; nothing exhibitionist either, I should add. She simply stands there, looking at me, right into my face as far as I can make out through the threadbare screen of brittle twigs and reeds and stuff between us. I can see the late sun glistening in the droplets on her skin, touching like brush-strokes the elevations of her nose and cheekbones, her collarbones and shoulders, et cetera.
    The one who