Consider now Herod who, no matter what path the White Willy pioneered, was ever immediately behind that repulsive albino dildo. Absent-mindedly did those pale digits and that opposing thumb caress the opaque inscrutable thing jutting from the wretch’s loins. An unstately and irregular progress through every floor and every room: present for a time in the basement, where the gorillas and chimpanzees sweated and … er … squatted and spat and swore; present poolside where he was to be found lurking and fiddling as Psorietes beluga-stroked up and down the bilge; present in the empty treatment room, adjoining that in which Supavadi of Muaeng Chiang Rai caressed and rubbed and altogether relaxed the stiff muscles of Caliban, and Svetlana of Tashkent aroused to something approaching stiffness the altogether more self-effacing muscles of Psorietes; present in sundry gloaming cubicles as the White Willy ground into the glory holes adjoining those purlieus to sundry adjacent gloaming cubicles, where hominids joyed wingwangs and feminids enjoyed pampering and me-time; present all the way upstairs in the mezzanine where Pheidippides eternally ran and ran and ran, pressing against the balustrade as Herod leaned over and distractedly gazed down upon the lycra milfs where they bent and stretched and flexed according to the urgings and promptings of ageing Hippus the yoga god. —
Herod
And present finally one late morning, where this perversion of a centaur was supposed to be present: in the spa Elysian, by Charybdis, ready for the next assault against that colony of A.hydrophila, where it brooded and bred in the fastness of the pipes which were the entrails of that infernal contraption. The assembled throng held there with them a pinioned captive, who struggled and groaned and chafed against his bondage, as was mete and condign – at least, we all thought so. This was of course Farokh the Engineer, who since his apprehension had been confined in the windowless office of John Virgil, and reasonably enough that manager with his nebulous portfolio had vigorously tortured him, and also shown him the contents of his bucket. He wore yet his scuba suit, although this by now considerably dirtied and torn vestment no longer clung so sleekly to his previously barrel-chested form, but hung off his body, considerably attenuated as it was by his recent starvation. Besides the aforementioned struggling and groaning and chafing, he shook and dribbled and appeared to be mumbling inchoate nonsense to himself. —
Scuba suit, Farokh, Charybdis (Pex ‘n’ Quads), John Virgil, Spa Elysium, Aeromonas hydrophila
Herod beheld with some evident indignation the travails of Farokh the Engineer. Petra Mountjoy noticed his expression, and ventured to explain: —
Petra Mountjoy
Colloid looked as though he was choking. —
Colloid
Just as I felt that that I was about to blow some sort of fleshly gasket, haply fate intervened. There was a murmuring and a parting of the crowd, and there was in foro publico unveiled – literally, figuratively and metaphorically – the newest mezzanine/penthouse prize candidate, this person being bestowed with the honour in question by virtue of adopting the number 12 in our system. This was Strapon my accountant, as of course I well knew, having myself devised the numbering system and the algorithm for mezzanine/penthouse prize selection, as well as having presided over the original Spartacist choosing of numbers. —
Strapon, Mezzanine/Penthouse Prize
To repeat an earlier intimation, I liked and to some extent admired Strapon. Down the years his diligence with off-setting capital gains against losses, and personal allowances, and legitimate off-shore avoidance schemes had kept a great deal of my shit from the taxman’s ravening maw. Moreover, he always leavened his professional courtesies with good cheer, not to say a certain dexterity of wit, which quite belied the dour reputation of his profession. In short, his embroilment in Herod’s squalid quest for vengeance occasioned on my part no little sorrow over the terrible fate to which this in some ways quite noble man had unwittingly consigned himself. A secondary consideration of mine was that, being a sole practitioner, his intimate knowledge of my financial affairs was not replicated anywhere else, and I anticipated that the task of finding a trustworthy replacement would be a tedious affair. I noticed that I was not alone in my sorrows, for mirabile dictu Colloid also shed a tear; an access of emotion rarely observed in one with his psychopathic tendencies. Withal, Strapon was 12. He made his choice, the algorithm was devised, and in such wise the fates spoke. —
Colloid, Strapon
Herod eyed a tad enviously Strapon’s arrangement. The only man to do so, the rest of that company being struck as I was by the dignity of Strapon’s bearing. A low dirge or keening emanated now from the Chorus. This being taken up in turn by of all people Colloid, which rather seemed to corroborate the suspicions I entertained relating to possible services rendered by Strapon with respect to Colloid’s corporate nematodes. A shiver ran down the spine. Farokh the Engineer lifted his head then, and saw John Virgil approach, masonically wearing a rubber apron and bearing scissors and his bucket, and set up a moaning of his own, which seemed to us to form, betimes an unison with, betimes a counterpoint to, the wails of the Chorus. However, John Virgil was only severing his bonds, withal Farokh the Engineer shook and quivered and cringed as the blades worked next to his scuba skin. —
John Virgil
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