It's Friday night and Parlo is drinking with the boys at the Fairfield Hotel.

This is not his real name. It is a name he awoke to with a fancy years ago, like a stray kitten found in an alley, and adopted on the spot. A few of his sloppy bunch know his real name. Kevin in particular, with his cabernet-stained leer, he'll insist on dragging that dead baby out - " Michael! Michael my darling I saw the most tittersome thing" - He did this because he was a fucking drama queen, and he liked to remind Parlo that he knew the wood under this silver plated visage. This failed actor who now hammed it up three nights a week at the Baron of Beef Cabaret Restaurant had to dangle his one cheap medal from the past. As wine tattered as he got even Kevin knew not to mention Karen. The subject of Parlo's ex-wife had been exiled to some outer territory in his recall, the secret police of his intuition informing him that this knife stay sheathed out of some abstract sense of self preservation twisted in with a meteor pocked notion of friendship. Kevin didn't want to really upset Parlo, but he wished someone else would. All the same Kevin had been turning plain nasty lately, the slip from cavalier to cunt happening quicker than usual. The booze was taking him - Parlo thought - Good. Kevin was loosing his looks and he knew it, his peccadillos where getting more desperate"... and he smelt, I mean, really. I gave him ten dollars and said let's just call it even. I think that's fair, you know, considering the state of the carpet!" Thomas piped up that he knew Kevin's penchant for Persian's would end in tears."umm", agreed Kevin, cheeks sucked in, assuming an even more cadaverous appearance somehow enhanced his appeal," I just can't say no to a good job done by hand." A ripple of rich fruity laugher warmed the air. "Touch darling, touch." Parlo ordered another champagne, and partook of his Marlboro light in delicate puffs while he laid waste to every notion of goodness and decency he could muster. The boy's bravoed his smooth monotoned efforts to tear heaven from the sky, lay it on the table, and fuck it up the arse. Amid the limpid clapping Parlo gave a regal wave. None of them knew about the dead boy. The Fairfield was starting to fill up. Parlo and his grandly decrepit gang were fixtures acknowledged by the incoming student's and ne'er-do-well's that made the Fairfield their Friday night. Thomas read Proust in French and would launch into heavy lidded gurgles of Gallic recitation. Charles had lived off an allowance from his father's estate for thirty years. Daniel wore rouge, and was sure his dog's groomer had stolen his Cartier watch. Occasionally a greasy haired boy would sit and talk with them, a curious and respectful boy working on a play, or fancying himself as a poet. They were fascinated by these relics from a camp golden yesteryear fading in the back corner of the refurbished bar. It was all Cheetah skins draped over stuffed furniture with these boys. At fifty two Parlo seemed a good deal younger than the other's, including Kevin who was younger still, but in an effort to keep up had drawn himself into some thoroughly odious place. "My genitals"- Daniel once announced to a young man curious about the current state of his sex life - "I have set aside in salt somewhere." When a boy joined them Parlo took it upon himself to be his guide from one world to the next. Though his body did not leave the barstool, apart from manifying his posture a little, Parlo took a step back from his cohorts, and a step towards the Genet - in - waiting; his easy smile and effortless charm a sort of half way house for the visitor to step through. On the occasion we are interested in it was not the young man in with the frizzy hair and Ramones t - shirt earnestly enquiring of Charles his opinion of Corinthian architecture that interested Parlo, but his friend, who hung back sullenly between two worlds himself. Parlo caught his sipping eye and waved him over. " Good lord!" Thomas announced, " It's like a barbeque! All this sizzling meat!" The two young men laughed and Parlo ordered more drinks.

"Perno" Daniel stated, " If I do not receive a Pernod this very moment I shall perish and leave you my perfumed corpse!" "I didn't know impotence was a scent!" retorted Charles, and in the berry coloured laughter that ensued Parlo again caught the youngster's unsure eyes. They crossed the bridge into the parklands. " Feel that", Parlo said, placing his hands on the railing vibrating with passing traffic. " Feels like your legs just before you come." The boy touched the railing and sort of laughed. In the Jasmine scented darkness Parlo leant against a tree and took the foil wrapped powder from his pocket. He didn't use himself, but was abreast of fashions. " You don't go to the park without a little bread for the ducks now do you?" he said by way of explanation to Kevin who enquired, and then scoffed, at the price."Good God!" - Kevin had said -"Why not just get a crate of good scotch!" But then that's why Kevin ended up with crying homeless teenage drunks ransacking his flat. After the boy snorted the powder the night flooded thickly upon him. When it was clear he could not be roused Parlo headed towards the lights on the other side of the old stone wall, leaving the boy where he lay. Parlo had kept in a cotton strand of contact with Jane over the years. Letter's that chronicled the melt of the young woman's aspirations from poet to editor to manager of a photo copying business in a wash of what cologne she now wore and where she got her hair done. The few replies Parlo bothered with came hastily typed under academic letterheads that chartered his own meander from English teacher to Professor of film studies. He managed, despite himself, even in these sparse missives to make repeated mention of what he euphemistically called " my weakness". He was surprised to hear her voice on the phone, and not glad at all, for his weakness was like a fever of late, and Jane's voice had not changed enough to not drag him back to it's cold filmed nascency, when it was a baby shark bumping against a cage, not the night prowling thing that was now dragged him on it's tail. But yes, he would come to her house, and see her beautiful things, out of the blue - Why not? Things couldn't be stranger then they already were. Maria, his colleague, watched smirking as he put down the receiver. " Hot date?" Parlo smiled as an iceberg of pale anger heaved up through his blood vessels, you stubby little cunt, he thought and willed her out of his sight. "Mayhaps", he drawled, knowing this would satisfy her for now. Maria duly picked some papers from her desk and his satisfied eyes followed the exiting sway of her meaty nylon wrapped behind. Alone in the office Parlo abscently tapped a morse turbulence on his desk with a pencil. The Wellingtons were too big. Jane had trouble keeping up with her teacher's trudge, but didn't want to ask him to slow down as she'd heard herself asking too many questions already. Not that he'd really mind, after all, she was here to learn. "Ask away!" he beamed over breakfast at the hotel. "What, what are these?" Jane whispered poking at her plate. Michael flashed the smile she bathed in and laughed, "Kippers!" he exclaimed," Good lord Jane, We have to orientate you around the English breakfast before we orienteer you around the English countryside." Alarm sat tight in her whippet frame until she realised her teacher was joking. The deep wooded wisdom voiced in Jane's poems was not apparent in her jumpy sixteen-year-old person, all the same Michael was glad to be having this little adventure with his favourite student. It was certainly a holiday he needed, half a world of ocean between him and the divorce for the anger to finally drown in. In a souveinger shop Jane tried to touch a quartz swirled black stone through the glass. It was apparently from Merlin's Cave. Michael purchased the stone while she wasn't looking and hid it in her lunch box. He was leaning against a tree, his mouth juicy with apple when she discovered it squashing her corned beef sandwiches " First lesson", he said, " The world is to be had, not observed."

They were tramping about the Lake District like Wordsworth and his sister. Michael's temper was strange this day, he seemed impatient and distracted, no, best not to ask him to slow down. He turned off the track and headed up through the shaggy heather towards a barn. It was meat locker cold in the barn. She could see her breath smoky against the wooden slats. He was in there somewhere; his voice leading her in, "Jane...Jane." What on earth? She called his name, her nervousness turning it to starling song Mich - ael? "Jane...Jane...I'm over here." What was he doing behind the hay? "What are you doing?" "Jane, please, come here." "Are you hurt? Michael what's going on" To the sound of duck squabble she saw him. A look on his face, oddly, like he'd just missed a train, and he was all sort of crooked over, Jane thought of one of those muscle man poses. The arm not engaged grabbed at her, and the urgency of it all compelled her to let her knees meet the ground under the guiding force of Michael's hand. White fluid flew like batter from an eggbeater and coronated her shoulder. Neither seemed to know what to do next. Jane looked up at her teacher's face and couldn't decipher whether he was angry, or about to cry.

Jane's parents liked Michael. He dined at their house often. All the things Jane despised about her father came to flower when Michael was around. Her father would sip port he bought on special with obscene indulgence. He would offer Michael cheap cigars, he never smoked cigars! which Michael would always politely refuse while his father mocked his abstinence and then puffed away red faced in an acrid cloud. His tawdry musings endured by a captive audience of stifled yawns. A baton relay of eye contact was passed between teacher and pupil that kept Jane afloat in the embarrassing nightmare of having been fathered by Bottom from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Her efficient, unobtrusive Mother had to contain her pecking around the edge of Michael's personal life to comments like "fancy a smart handsome man like that not being able to keep a wife" while she and Jane did the dishes. Her curiosity creaked for a drop of information. Jane didn't know that much about it himself. There was a photo on his desk, him and a woman on holiday somewhere cold, in a square, wrapped up in scarves, surrounded by pigeons. And then there wasn't. "Who's that?" she once asked pointing at the silver frame. Michael looked up bemused from the papers he was marking, "The Czech Republic", he said and returned to his work. It was the only time it ever came up. From the living room Jane could hear her father and Michael talking, well, her father talking. She was glad for the noisy traffic putting the dishes away made, because at least it broke the drone. And then the noise of her father ceased. Michael must be asking him now, she thought. The washing was finished but mother and daughter idled around the sink, wishing they'd washed slower. Her mother put the kettle on and went to the toilet. Jane stared through a Woman's Weekly on the breakfast bar; waiting for some sound that it was safe to go back in. For the first time her father's abrasive cackle was a pleasing experience. It meant that everything was ok. Jane found it hard to believe that her father had agreed to let her go. More accurately she couldn't believe he had agreed to pay the airfare. Jane had squirmed around the financial aspect of the idea from inception, her unspoken but seismic tumult easily read and alleyed by Michael's cryptic utterance, " A fisherman does not know where his fish has come from, but he knows when it has come." Jane half understood this to mean that her father wouldn't be paying, but should be allowed to pretend that he was.

Kevin arrived later than usual at the Fairfield. He was in a fluster, and still wearing his Beefeater costume and make up. " Fucking amateurs!" he bellowed, " It's the same fucking show, week after fucking week. It's been the fucking same since my granny first fingered herself, and still -

still - that fucking retarded waste of a name forgets her lines!" When it was clear that he had finished the boy's gave him an appreciative round of applause, he smiled, gave a little curtsy, and then thudded down onto his appointed stool. "Ummm, you should wear that more often darling" Thomas considered, " Where's your pike then?" " I'm still armed, don't fret dear heart!" "You should wear some lippy love", Daniel offered, "If your going to wear all that red, but I'm not sure if Revlon still make Begging Fireman" "Don't worry darling", Charles broke in, "You can always do what Madame here does, a big smooch with his own collapsed arse! Be like a sock made out of liver by now I'd imagine." "At least I've still got something to fill a stocking at Christmas sugar cakes." Kevin pointed coyly below Charles beltline," Pebble in the Grand Canyon darling!" Parlo ordered another champagne and a double bloody Mary for Kevin. "You've got to get some meat on you sweetie, Christ you look like Joan Fontaine arisen from her wheelchair!" "Michael you really are too kind sometimes", Kevin smiled, just, "I must remember to give you that cancer of the balls I've been saving, apparently I won't be needing it." Parlo's eyes idled on the boy collecting glasses. Bugger me, the old bugger's really dying he thought. The boy's t-shirt had ridden up, revealing an innocent slice of tight young skin above his jeans. Kevin looked like a crestfallen clown, his mascara'd eyes glittering vacantly. Parlo made some quip and left on the riant ripple it stirred. Parlo remembered the long yellow petals twisting in the spring breeze. Kevin trotted up to him across the winery garden. "Oh it's just like a fairy tale!" he gaily reported, pushing back his fringe. It was a picture book wedding: Everyone said so. They'd had a go at it, Parlo and Kevin. An unexpected drunken fumble. The feel of stubble on his friend's clean-shaven face, and the smallness of everything surprised Parlo. The small hard thing in his trousers, the small hard angles of his body. And Parlo was surprised by how hungry he was for all that smallness, the desire it swelled in him pour over it, to thicken and smother. Karen and her father stepped from the bridal carriage. The string quartet struck up, long yellow petals caught in the cello player's hair. Parlo turned his wife over. Her behind thrust up. He manoeuvred himself but was soft as a sand filled sock. He tried to imagine away her fullness, to melt her soft curves. They came to an understanding; he had a problem with his blood pressure. Stepping up to the doorway Parlo noticed the black stone. It sat among some other stones in a clay pot, a pretty piece in an empty decorative affect that seemed obliquely awful and yet not surprising. And this feeling on seeing the stone slotted into a larger queerness that had accompanied him walking down Jane's street, for neither her nor his neighbours had favoured to trim back the withering bushels of star shaped flowers hanging over the fence, and the smell of Jasmine, though late in season, was strong. A compact woman answered the door. "Hello Jane." "Hello Michael." Her hands were red and sticky. He followed her into the kitchen where she continued to rub spice into duck flesh and chirped away as if they'd only seen each other yesterday. Her singsong voice biting at his ear as he noted the expensive prints of bad paintings; the casual weight of a cut price collected Shakespeare on the coffee table. He turned smiling, she's got no idea he thought, willing whatever it was she was waffling on about would quicken to a close. Her boyish frame had filled out; womanly bumps lurked beneath her clothing. What the hell was he doing here?

Jane washed her hands and grabbed a bottle of vodka from the freezer. He supposed she'd want to hear all about it. About Karen crying when she found the magazines in his study. About the students at the university he made do with, discussing their papers in his office over a bottle of wine at first, then adding a crushed stupefying pill when seduction proved too time consuming. She'd want to hear about the brown boys in Asia, about the photographs and coded computer passes. And he supposed he was going to tell her, he supposed he'd splash her wicked grin with the ripe fruit of detail, because slinking back to the naughty Eden of these antics pushed the dead boy in the park further into someone else's dream. *** Jane is little - let's get this straight. She is petite, she is small boned, not freakishly so, but enough for it to be made an issue of. Not miniature, but verging on it, not like a shrunken skull or a party frankfurter - but close. Figurine like, but bigger, but not that much. Even her name is short. Yes indeedy, Jane is very little. But she has some big - as in extravagant - ideas. My god does she ever! If you could step into her toy skull, carefully untangling her meticulously gelled hair of course, you would be astounded by what was churning around up there. It would be like you where standing in some vast empty concrete pool secreted in some far flung desert, surrounded by what would looks like the preparation for a world war as organised by the flying Zindango Brothers; and they would be the less alarming bits. But you're not going to step into her head because, well, that's a ridiculous notion - but you've bumped into her at Tash's party while your looking at the paintings, and you've laughed and said something like " oh sorry I didn't see you down there!" And she's laughed as well, one of those air laughs that people that find themselves laughing a lot need - like decaf at the office. For she has a punishing laugh schedule, generally to placate people laughing at situations augmented to hilarity by her minuteness. Like this one. Your laughing and she's laughing while she wipes at your spilt wine on her shoulder with the back of her sleeve - [and it is a beautiful sleeve by the way, sheer translucent material showing off those perfectly formed action figure arms] - Tash is passing by, sees what's happened and has a bit of a chuckle as well. Tash is not little, infact she is quite large. She is certainly buxom - Her proudly buoyant bosom is the stuff of local myth, there are scattered around us now a few Tash Bosom scholars. Douglas for instance, later when he and Perry are drunk enough they'll drop their academic rivalry on this matter and compare notes...again. She is voluptuous without straying over to the Rubinesque, but close to the border. She has a loud throaty laugh and long handsome fingers, check out her nails, have you ever seen such healthy nails! Tash is glad that Jane is here. She's still feeling tender about the last party when Jane asked for a Panadol and Tash accidentally gave her an ecstasy. You sort of know Jane and you like her. She's a bit like Olives: they don't cross your mind until you come across a bowl of them, and you have this little love affair for a couple of minutes, but then, someone brings out the Babaganush and it's like they never existed. So now Tash has an arm around Janes shoulder, she's kissing her on the cheek, squeezing her close, calling her " My little chicken wing". And you; your in good form, still cracking little jokes; letting them fly: you've done the midget stuff of course, the pixie, the leprechaun, so right now your in the middle of some improvised sausage dog / doll house analogy, your excitement is growing; Tashs' excitement is growing - she's egging you on, she's throwing bits in, your catching them, your both adding to the construct, and your both trying to prolong the screamed gallop towards the punch line, tuning in for the final sweet release. And it crosses your mind: Blimey! I could sleep with Tash tonight. Meanwhile, in the secreted desert location of Janes' mind, a new drop have been added to the bizarro blend - you don't know it but you're up here now - and it's not pretty. You wouldn't want to sleep with Tash up here, it would be physically impossible anyway; what with your dick cut off

and all that torn flesh - and she certainly wouldn't want to sleep with you even if it where possible - because your also covered in shit.

You didn't sleep with Tash last night, but you felt a spark that has become an ember you awake to today, and your feeling fizzy about it. You've wanted to sleep with Tash for ages, but the Dougs and the Perrys kept getting in the way. But now you feel the amber light has changed to green for some reason and your scratching about on your bedside table for your tattered address book. It's an overcast day, and when the sun does break through it grates against your hangover, it looks rude spread all over the lawn from the kitchen window while you dial the number. 8839 3936: even Jane's phone number is compact. You've disturbed her Yoga, that's o.k. though, she doesn't mind. You make a couple of stretching jokes, "shame you haven't got a rack!" you offer - 'cause your a jokester, a jester, a good natured pesterer - " yeaah it's a shame isn't it" she gets it. She's a good egg Jane. Anyway...down to business. It's a simple plan. You want Jane to invite Tash to her place, and you want to be invited as well. But you need her help. Why the hell would she just invite the two of you over for dinner out of the blue like this? You ask her if she's got any ideas. See 'cause the way you figure it's just nature, nature and timing. " Oh I've got plenty of ideas" Jane says, and laughs. It's a bit odd you think, but then she's a bit of an odd girl really isn't she, lovely, but you know... She says she'll see what she can do. "On yu' Jane!" She's a good egg, and you tell her this, adding you mean a finch's egg - yu' know 'cause they're so.. "Yeah I get it" She says, and thanks you for ringing. You slump on the couch feeling quite the fox. Nature and timing.

Your getting ready and you've just spoken to Perry on the phone. He rang you accidentally because he hasn't worked out how to use the menu on his new mobile yet, and your glad he's rang because you can tell him your having dinner with Tash in about an hour. Perry's envious, and you love it. You both imagine Tash ladling those lovelies into that red dress of her's and you can hear the pang in his voice. You crank the stereo up and dance about while selecting a shirt from your hanging collection, your skin feels clean and spiced - you are a machine that generates desire and your feeling pretty fucking good about everything.

The green shirt. You know Tash likes the green shirt, but that would be too obvious, so you go for the one you bought last week, it still feels crisp and new. As do you : this is going to be a great night! Your drumming on the steering wheel and singing along to the c.d - for your own good call me tonight / don't you think you / should call me tonight - smooth dark metal beats propelling you to Jane's house, fuck you feel good, this was so easy... Never been so close to heaven / never been further away... Sing it boys! You pull into the bottlo and get a couple of red's and some champer's. " Yu' look like yur in fu' a biggie mate" the guy serving you says, not by what you've bought so much as your demeanour. " Fuck yeah!" you say, "a celebration d'amour!" He's got no idea what your talking about, he looks like he's about sixteen and he just looks at you with a big frozen smile and goes "on yu' mate" and you wink and roar off into the night. Your night. You cross the street and happily note the scent of Jasmine, it bodes well, a little nod to the sensual surfeit of previous summers, a sly smile to the good times ahead. Jane answers the door. She's looking good and smelling great. She's got a drink in her hand and a smile like she's just told a dirty joke. What you don't know is that Tash isn't here and won't be. Tash has no idea what's going on because Jane hasn't rang her. Tash is at home watching The English Patient on Video with her housemate and a bag of CC's. There are candles on the table and Japanese pipe music on the

stereo. You admire the prints on the wall and scoop some dip onto a rice cracker and sit on the couch. Jane sits next to you, close, like you're in a rocking carriage. She smells great. There's a duck roasting in the oven and a marinaded salad in the fridge. "Champagne!" she sparkles, clutching the beaded bottle in her perfect little hands. You want to wait for Tash. "Why wait?" Jane reasons, at work on the foil around the cork. This is all you need; Perry's big frizzy head bobbing up to you at the bar. Perry's gap toothed grin widening as you fill him in. He agrees; Jane's fuckin' crazy! You tell him it was like being molested by a little monkey. His laugh rattles like a bag of marbles. He hands you a pint shaking his big frizzy head with those ridiculous teeth, and he's loving it because you've been had and cheated and ambushed, and Jane standing there all white and angry in her little black underwear and you thinking even while she's yelling at you that it's like being told off by a doll, and he's loving most of all that your ticket to Tashland has been cancelled, and your bewildered and pissed off, but you can see the funny side and you concentrate on that, because if he spits on you one more time your going to smash his stupid fucking face in. Perry points to the old poofs in the corner. "Yu' gotta meet these guy's, they're hilarious!" he says and heads over.Your not in the mood, you'd rather skulk over your beer. Where was Tash? You hear Perry laughing and look over. Maybe she's started seeing Douglas again? Perry's thrown himself right in the middle of them and is having a great old time. Perry, even fucking Perry! You catch the eye of the least faggy looking one, you've nodded before, one regular to another, but now he's really smiling at you.You smile back and he waves you over.