He shivered and pulled the blankets up round his chin. The air felt damp and cold. One of the first moves of the occupation forces had been to turn down the city’s generators so the weather was set at a perpetual grey drizzle.
Billy leaned back against the wall and stared down at the still sleeping Carmen. He knew he was getting tired of her. She was beginning to treat him like her private property. She got mad when any of the other girls came up to visit him in his hiding place. And Carmen was making too many demands on him. Primarily sexual demands. The occupation had all but shut down business at the Tarnished Flowers. The only customers who came to the house were a few, furtive afternoon callers who dodged the police patrols to slip inside for a piece of quick satisfaction, and groups of swaggering, high placed thieves who had been made part of the new puppet government. They could afford to ignore the curfew, and came and went as they pleased.
It meant that Carmen was left with a lot of time on her hands, and most of this she spent with Billy in the tiny attic. She had a full soft body, and, as far as Billy was concerned, full hard needs.
At first, Billy had thought the occupation would be a time of action and breathless excitement. He soon found out that it was actually a period of boredom and nagging fear.
It had started out exciting enough. When the enemy had burned their way into the city, Carmen had taken control of the situation. She had led Billy, the Minstrel Boy and Olad the Siderian through the panicking crowds to the Tarnished Flowers and found them secure hiding places. At the time, Billy had thought she was going a bit far in insisting that they stay locked up in the tiny, undetectable hiding holes. When the Ocpol started rounding up all the male population, either for labour gangs or impressment to what they called the Volunteer Legion of the enemy army, Billy had been grateful for her caution.
After that first rush, the excitement had stopped. The only exception had been when a group of resisting aristos had holed up in a gin house across the square and tried to shoot it out with the police. Even that hadn’t amounted to much. The aristos had started shooting. The Ocpol had withdrawn to bring up regular troops with fuse tubes. They had simply burned the building to the ground. The aristos, and everyone else inside, burned with it.
From then on, the population of the Court of Angels had nothing more to do with the aristocratic resistance, despite their romantic rhetoric, their elegant manners, their rapiers, their muzzle loading pistols and their plumed hats.
Apart from the short siege of the gin house, life had settled down to a constant round of sex, drinking and boredom. Ordinarily Billy wouldn’t have objected, but he knew deep down that, as fugitives, they ought to be moving on. Every day they remained in Feld increased their chances of being caught by the police.
Another thing that had started to annoy him was a feeling that he was getting the worst of the deal. The Minstrel Boy was in another part of the attic. Olad had a room in the depths of the cellar. Right then the Minstrel Boy had two girls with him. Lola, a small fiery girl with dark flashing eyes and a coffee coloured complexion, and Chloe, a slim redhead with pale, almost transparent skin. Olad had two more girls with him. They could change their partners whenever they liked. On the few occasions that Billy had spoken to them, they had shown little inclination to risk the escape from the city. They seemed more than content to spend as long as possible screwing and drinking. All Billy wanted was to get away.
He leaned over the side of the bed and picked up his shirt. He swung his feet on to the floor, and quickly pulled it on. He padded across the floor and looked out through a small chink in the outside wall. The Court of Angels, which once had been busy and bustling, was now empty, deserted and dismal. A thin drizzle fell steadily on the cobbles. Billy shook his head and turned away.
Carmen had woken. She sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes.
‘What are you doing?’
Billy shrugged.
‘Just stretching my legs.’
Carmen let the sheet drop, revealing her full breasts with their dark red nipples.
‘Why don’t you come back to bed and stretch them here?’
Billy looked sullen.
‘It’s kind of early.’
Carmen smiled blandly.
‘Nothing like a fuck to start the day.’
‘And finish it, and after lunch, and most of the night. Really, I don’t feel like it right now.’
Carmen’s eyelids dropped, and she gave Billy a hard look.
‘You don’t feel like it, huh?’
‘Not right now.’
Carmen began to get angry.
‘And what if I feel like it?’
Billy sighed.
‘Surely I’m not the only man about.’
Carmen’s voice became coaxing.
‘It’s you I want, Billy.’
‘Don’t I know it.’
Carmen’s eyes flashed.
‘There are men who’ve paid me fortunes for what you’re getting free.’
Billy started to get waspish.
‘They ain’t paying you now.’
Carmen scowled.
‘You building up for one of your moods?’
‘I don’t have moods, goddamn it.’
‘You’ve been having moods for the last five days. I’ve been more than surprised they haven’t turned into tantrums.’
Billy abruptly sat down on the bed and looked deflated.
‘I realize you’ve been good to me, Carmen. It’s just that I got to get out of here. I can’t stand being cooped up any longer.’
Carmen stared at him calculatingly.
‘Your friends don’t seem to mind so much.’
Billy said nothing.
‘Of course, they swap women much faster.’
Billy still said nothing.
‘I guess it’s me that you’re fed up with.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
Carmen snorted.
‘Fuck you, Billy, you don’t have to. It’s written all over your face.’
Billy tried to placate her.
‘I just want to get out of here.’
Carmen wasn’t about to be placated.
‘What am I supposed to do about it, go out and get you a set of travel documents from the Ocpol?’
Billy let his head drop into his hands.
‘I don’t know. Just get the other two up here. We’ve got to work something out.’
Carmen leered at him.
‘Come back to bed first.’
Billy shook his head.
‘I ain’t ready for it.’
‘Come back to bed.’
Carmen’s voice changed slightly. It left no room for argument. She did, after all, have the whip hand. She could always turn him over to the Ocpol. Bill reluctantly pulled off his shirt and obediently climbed in beside her. Carmen smiled sweetly at him in triumph.
Billy had discovered on about the eighth day of hiding that he was able to make love to Carmen virtually by numbers. She liked to be kissed on the mouth. She liked to have her breasts rubbed, and then she liked Billy to spend a long time working on his knees with his face between her legs. The order rarely changed. She was so experienced that she never allowed him either to alter the sequence, speed things up, or switch one of the sections. It would always end with Billy slipping inside her, and working up to orgasm with slow steady strokes. Carmen knew exactly what she wanted and made sure that she got it. Occasionally, by way of a variation, she would turn over before Billy moved inside her and lie face down with her knees drawn up beneath her so Billy could take her from behind. Once in a while, she would condescend to suck him off.
The whole performance took about forty minutes. Billy had no means of telling for sure, but he was almost certain each session ran pretty much to split second schedule. After it was over there still remained another twenty minutes of lying quietly in each other’s arms.