Paid and Loving Eyes

CHAPTER ONE

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The lovers were making the van sway. I had to get out, from seasickness. The night was perishing cold. Donk found me sheltering under trees in the drizzling dark. He’s the antiques trade’s only profit-making messenger, has a rotten old motorbike.

“Lovejoy? Your pot’s tonight. Nine o’clock in the harbour barn.” My heart fell and rose. Armageddon time, and me minding a pair of illicit fornicators in a furniture van.

“Sure, Donk?” I looked at the van as it reached orgasm. Just my luck. First paying job for a fortnight, and paradise—antiques—spoils the money. No, that’s not right. It’s gelt that does for antiques, not the other way round.

“Josh said hurry. That’ll be a tenner, Lovejoy.” Donk’s messages are all ten quid, payable on delivery. I climbed up into my passionate van’s cabin and fired the ignition.

“I’ll owe you,” I called as he yelled after me. People don’t understand. Antiques are urgent. Anyway, the lovers inside wouldn’t notice that their trysting-place was barrelling through the rainy night at sixty. Passion is mostly oblivion. I’m an antique dealer, the only real one left. I know passion, and passion knows me.

There’s a wharf in town. Not much of a harbour, but its access to the sea is well used these two thousand years. Four furlongs of paving overlooking an estuary, two cranes, a few warehouses. Ships come from the Continent—two thousand tons, max. They bring fertilizer, we send grain. The system, and the cargoes, are unchanged since before Caesar landed. I drove slowly into the barnyard, and parked by the railings. Five posh motors, I saw. The gang was all here.

The orange cabin light had buzzed on miles ago, querying the journey. My lovers must now be replete, ready for off to their separate homes. I sighed, reluctantly pressed the release. Just when you wanted ardour prolonged, lust lets you down. I’d wanted them to orgy on so I could referee the battle of the pots in the barn.

“Where are we?” the woman was asking as they stepped down, looking about.

The man said, “I felt us moving.” I should hope so. They came at me together, under the shelter of the loading bay. I’d not seene either of them before. Secrecy’s the hallmark of Gaunt’s Tryste Service.

“Driver!” the bloke snapped, tapping my chest. I hate that. “What’s the meaning of this? We… boarded at a countryside lay-by. And you put us down… in a harbour? Where are our limousines?”

Door-to-door limo service is included in the price with Gazza Gaunt’s luxury fornication pantechnicon. You get a well-stocked bar, an opulently furnished interior, and cosy privacy wherein to wreak your savage sexual desires on your lover’s willing body. (Lover, like batteries, not included.) Then you primly return home to your husband/wife/children worn out saying you’ve had a hard day at work/college/committee. It costs a mint, though folk keep coming back for more. Well, a woman wants first a lover, then a husband, then a lover. It’s love’s roundabout. Guess who confessed that her nature was ‘too passionate’, her desires ‘violent’? Queen Victoria, that’s who. Gazza, the shrewd operator who runs the waggons, says four-fifths of his customers are regulars.

“Lovejoy?” somebody called from the barn doorway. “Fight’s on. Josh says come now.”

“Get me your head office!” The bloke was outraged. He was a stout glary sort, with the familiar non-face of a TV politico. “I’m supposed to be at a sales conference in Nottingham.” Well, lies stay cheap.

“Look. I’ll bell you taxis,” I offered desperately. Two bulky goons loomed in the light. Silhouettes threaten, don’t they?

“Lovejoy,” one goon intoned, quiet with menace. “Life or death, lad.”

“Coming,” I cried, shuffling anxiously on the spot. Threats make me do that. “Look, mister. I promise—”

“Fight?” the woman asked. “What fight?”

There was relish in her mellifluous, husky words. I recognized the response. Women love conflict more than men. In the oblique light of the loading yard she looked stark somehow, black and white yet languid with the serenity of the well used. Lovely. Money’s easier to spot on a woman. They like it to show more. Smallish, slender, intense, voluptuous. I loved her.

“Diana.” Her bloke was furious because of my prolonged stare at the bird. “You can’t surely —”

“What is life or death?” She actually licked her lips.

“Counting, Lovejoy.” The goons were moving down the loading bay. Diana glanced at me, at them, her excitement growing and showing. God, but women interrupt your thoughts.

I swallowed, looking from him to her. You can’t help wondering how they made love. I mean, her on her side, her back, hands and knees, with him…? “You can wait in the van. I have to go.”

“Can we watch, Lovejoy?” She was thrilled.

“They’ll wait inside,” I told the heavies, passing them the van keys to prove I was obeying. The goons shrugged as brains failed to raise the game. I went up the wooden steps, the man behind me expostulating every pace.

“What’s the contest?” Diana asked, eyes alight.

“Between two pots, love.” I added sardonically as she exclaimed in disappointment: ‘The prize is everything.“

“You said life or death, Lovejoy. Whose?”

“Always mine, love,” I said, and went into the light where the contest was to be fought.

“Wait—” the woman was saying behind me. I heeled the door shut in her face.