CHAPTER TWO – OUT OF THE FRYING PAN
Although it was usual to feel nervous and excited after a long trip away, Alan had to admit to himself that he just didn’t feel quite right. He’d commented during the flight to other workers returning to Aberdeen from the oil wells and refineries of central Africa that his stomach was churning with anticipation at getting home and going on the prowl for a lassie, but they had laughed and nodded. “You’re telling me,” an older guy, Scott, had agreed. “Four weeks away without a shag? Bloody murder! I’ve the wife to go home to though, so I’m alright,” he added sagely, “but you’re a young boy, you’ll be alright, eh! Plenty of lassies looking for a guy that works offshore.” Alan had just nodded. He had worked in distant countries and their various oil platforms before, and knew the condition called “the bends”, that gnawing sense of anticipation at retuning home after a lengthy trip away form home, the urge to get out for the night and seek out female company for carnal riot.
But never had it been so strong! His heart beat tremulously, rapidly but seemingly arhythmically, he could barely swallow, so thick was his Adam’s apple, and visions of sexual conquests to come floated around his mind, tantalising and enthralling: breasts, asses, fingers, pouting lips. If he didn’t get any sex, and soon… well, he just didn’t know what he’d do.
Fortunately, there were others with him who felt the same, if less intensely, and they had agreed to get home as soon as possible, get their gear away and changed into their pulling clothes, and meet up for a night on the town. So Alan found himself with three others men who had been working with him, unattached and seeking a night of pleasure. It was quite simple – either they’d find a girl to take home and shag senseless, or they’d drink until they were incapable, and return home with a consoling kebab. Either way sounded good after four weeks at work, away from the temptations and pleasures of city-life. John, Craig and Phil were, like Alan, in their late twenties to mid-thirties, all dressed in smart shirts and hair slicked back with gel, watches and rings denoting their financial security and desirability.
The first port of call that warm July’s Saturday evening was “Chicago Rock”, a cattle-market of an establishment in the West End, attended by the desperate, optimistic and deluded. It advertised itself as “ABERDEEN’S ULTIMATE PARTY VENUE!” and with staff dancing on the bar, a selection of dancy chart songs familiar to all, and drinks promotions was normally a place where those elements could disguise the basic function of the bar. However at 7pm on a Saturday night it was relatively quiet, and the atmosphere in the large cavernous bar seemed pitiful, the occasional glib exhortations of the DJ futilely optimistic. The men surveyed the scene, sipping their Budweisers with contemptuous scorn.
“This place is shite,” pronounced John, who at thirty-five and already divorced considered himself the elder of the group. “It’s not bad when it’s busy mind, but this is too early-doors.”
“Where to then?” queried Craig, fiddling with his mobile phone. “There’s all them places on Justice Mill Lane,” he said, naming a nearby side-street filled with party bars and cheesy discos.
“Ach, it’s still to early for all that,” John said. “We should go to a pub and get a lash on, so we’re in the mood for it later on.”
“The Bells is just up the road,” offered Phil.
“That place is shite!” John barked. “Filled with schemies and neds. Maybe your cup of tea, but no mine.”
Phil backed down quickly. “I’m just making suggestions,” he said. “There’s Paramount as well, down the road, or Soul.”
Alan, who had been sitting quietly and scanning the place intently, said, “What about Private Eyes, that strip place? Get a show before going out in the pull, eh?”
They looked at each other for a quick moment. “Why no?” Craig said. “It’s only about seven, plenty of time yet.”
“Aye,” Phil agreed, “some decent tits and that, gets you in the mood!”
“You’re always in the mood, you dirty bastard,” laughed John. “But why not? I’ve not been there in a while, but there were always some fine-looking birds when I went. Fuck sake, I mind one time, we took my brother-in-law there, before he was married, likes. We got him this gorgeous bird but he was totally terrified in case Shirley, my sister, heard anything of this.”
“And did she?” grinned Craig.
“Did she! Did half of us not have cameras!” John laughed, his beefy stomach rising and falling. “He had a hard time talking her round after that, he was in the doghouse for weeks!”
“Come on then”, Alan urged. “Let’s head round!”
“We’ll finish these drinks first,” John said. “Hold your jets.” Alan promptly downed his Bud and got his jacket on.
“Whoa!” laughed Craig. “Check the boy! Have you got the horn something bad!” However, the rest of them quickly polished off their drinks and made their way to Private Eyes.
At the club the doorman, sixteen gruff stones topped off by a fiercely shaved head and handlebar moustache, saw them approach and eyed them carefully, establishing their socio-economic status. Clothes, bearing and age quickly identified them as fairly young oilworkers or professionals. He then made eye-contact with each of them as they entered, determining levels of drunkenness or potential for trouble; but they nodded respectfully as they went in. They wouldn’t be trouble. Funnily enough, he thought, it was that very age-group which caused most trouble in nightclubs that was the least bother in the stripclub; the real bother was with drunken students, acting like idiots, or with the richer men who were besotted with particular girls, giving cars and diamond rings in efforts to buy their affections. But men of that age generally weren’t under any illusions about the dancers.
The men stepped inside, leaving Phil to get in a round of drinks, and sat on an ample, yielding sofa. They surveyed the scene. The club was luxuriously decorated, richly painted in reds and golds, with heavy, expensive drapes cast over a group of doorways on one side of the club, a bar with fine malts and a selection of the rarer spirits tended by a enthusiastic young female student, and sofas fit to burst were placed strategically around, ensuring that anyone not at the bar was available to be chatted to. Scantily-clad women, busty, long-legged and sultry, sat around on the sofas, entranced by the conversation of men telling them about their jobs or wives who just didn’t understand. Several sat about idly chatting amongst themselves, casting avaricious eyes on anyone entering. The men weren’t top catches – corporate entertainments were generally the most lucrative - but young men with plenty to spend weren’t to be sniffed at.
Quickly they found themselves joined by four alluring ladies keen to enjoin them in conversation. One was lusciously dark-skinned, a red dress flowing from nipple to thigh, while another was pertly-bosomed and blonde, haughty lips lustily marked out with blazing red lip-stick; the third red-haired, with pale, blemishless skin, while the fourth was tall and Amazonian. Entranced and enraptured, Phil, Craig and Alan found it difficult to strike up a conversation, letting John assert his dominance by leading off about how they had just come back from a month in Africa – “Oh, wow, Africa!” the women cooed sweetly – and were in town for a good time. “You’ve come to the right place, sweety,” said the first girl, in a tone so suggestive that Phil had to cross his legs to hide his straining erection.
When the dancers suggested that they give them private dances, John agreed affably, “Oh aye, go on then.” They all stood up – except Alan, sitting looking into space, nervous and twitchy. “Alan, mate,” John said quizzically. “Come on mate, there’s a dance for you!”
The dancers giggled nervously as Alan stood up and Craig remarked, “First timers, eh!” The red-head took him by the arm and lead him into a booth, closing the drape curtain behind her.
Inside the booth Alan felt as though he was on the edge of something, barely unable to control himself in the throes of extreme lust. The girl sat him down on the chair, introduced herself as Suzy and said, “You can’t touch me, alright? But I can touch you.” Alan paid up and nodded, unable to speak, his blood thundering through him like sexual desire on a bullet train.
Suzy turned round and bent over, wiggling her ass in the air like a ghetto hooker. Alan eye’s locked onto her like heat-seeking missiles on a Baghdad hospital. She turned to face him, running her hands over her body, dancing to the inane chart beat for all she was worth, thrusting a finger in her mouth and sucking on it suggestively. She turned on him again, bent over and slowly started to peel her dress off, revealing black silken knickers.
All of this had an intense effect upon Alan. All evening he had been sitting, trying to contain the furious lust within him, the raging desire to thrust himself deep into a woman, even to ravage and rape if his instincts were denied. The pouting, extremely attractive woman posing suggestively in front him sent these emotions within him haywire. Unbeknown to him, the DNA of the flesh-eating monkeys had mutated with the commingled unknown compounds dredged up from the very crust of the earth, creating some deadly pestilence ready to strike with savage virulence. His human immune system had fought it valiantly, denying the bloody urges surging through him, until now, leaving him teetering on the brink of possession by a demonic plague. Ignorant of all this, and assuming that she had simply acquired a customer who was a gangling mass of nerves, Suzy danced on. She turned to face him, noting with professional disappointment that Alan seemed less than enraptured by her. She pushed him back a little so he leant against the wall behind him, and sat on top of his thighs, her pendulous breasts swaying in front of his face, their sweet scent tickling his nostrils like the smell of apple-blossom in a spring-blooming meadow. Now Alan looked as though this was having some effect upon him; his breathing grew more rapid, and he looked with incredible intensity at her breasts dangling before him. She started to move rhythmically, encouraging him to do similarly, moaning in a rapt pretence of sex.
Encouraged, Alan thrust his head into her breasts. Suzy sighed, feeling oddly maternal – when all of a sudden Alan bit down ferociously on her right breast, piercing through the skin and the soft flesh, almost biting right through. Suzy screamed in sudden agony and appallede terror that she might have encountered a raving nutter, and quickly stood up, picking up her dress and fleeing to the safety of the staffroom. The duty doormen registered her terror-struck run from the booth and three of them walked forcefully through the club to Alan’s booth. Alan sat there stupidly , blood and gore dripping down his face, an uncomprehending look on his face.
“Sir! You’re going to have to leave!” barked Colin, the head doorman. “Can you step out the booth now, please?” It was no request, but the words and their vigorous tone somehow failed to register with Alan. “Sir, stand up right now, come on now!” he tried again. Nothing. He furrowed a ginger eyebrow, then moved into the booth and grabbed Alan by his shirt collar, and dragged him through the club towards the door. The other doorman followed in case he gave any trouble; which was just as well, for Alan suddenly turned his head round as he was being frogmarched out, and bit Colin in the ear, tearing off a piece of his upper earlobe.
Colin yowled in agony. “Cunt! Cunt! Fucking bit me, the cunt!” he cried. At such times, professional standards and bearing went out of the window, and the three doormen got Alan out the doorway and beat seven shades of shit out of him, booting into his prostrate figure with vehement force. After a minute or two, Colin pulled up Barry and David, his junior doormen, stopping them after several brutal kicks to Alan’s ribs.
“Whoa there, boys,” he said, dabbing his ear with a tissue. Breaking any bones could easily lose all three of them their professional licenses. He pulled up Alan’s fetal figure to his feet, holding him steady. “Now you, sunshine,” he said, smiling with lethal menace. “If I see you anywhere near this place again, you’ll wish you hadn’t been born. Is that clear?”
Alan was clearly dazed, and could barely focus on Colin. Yet somehow it seemed to Colin that the bloke was suffering from more than a kicking, like he completely out of it on drugs, or something; his pupils were enormous, his fingernails seemed unusually long for a bloke, and there were burst blood vessels up and down his cheeks. But that wasn’t Colin’s concern: he had to keep the club orderly, and find out how Suzy was. He pushed Alan away, watching him stagger off to be swallowed up by the night. “Alright Barry,” Colin said. “You stay on the door, we’ll head inside and find out what happened with Suzy. Radio the other doormen about and give them a description.”
Back inside, they found Suzy in a dressing gown, recovering from crying, being comforted by Emma and Nicky, two of Suzy’s friends amongst the dancers, and Tracy. Tracy was rather older than most of the dancers, being in her thirties, and acted as an unofficial shop-steward for them with the club owner, as well as a sounding board and giver of good advice. She turned to Colin as soon as he entered. “Who the fuck was that guy? Suzy’s been sitting here crying here eyes out for the past ten minutes.”
“Well, he’s away now,” Colin replied, trying to soothe things. “Come one now Suzy, you’re okay now, eh?” Suzy nodded, snuffling. He added, “He must have seemed alright if she went with him into the booth.”
“Well he damn well wasn’t!” Tracy cried out angrily. “That fucking prick went totally ape! Have you seen what he did to her?”
Colin had to admit he hadn’t, so Tracy tried to pull aside Suzy’s gown to reveal her breast. Suzy seemed suddenly shy and reluctant to let them see. Colin chuckled; he had seen all of their tits more often than he cared to remember. “C’mon, Suze, there’s no need to be shy, it’s nothing we haven’t all seen.”
She let it fall. Tracy lifted the pad from her breast, Suzy gasping in pain, to reveal the dreadful gouge, a good half of a mouthful taken from her, with ugly, savage teeth marks scored right through. “Holy Jesus fuck!” Colin said, aghast. “If I’d’ve known he did that to you… well, he wouldn’t be walking down the road just now, put it that way.” He softened his tone. “I’ll phone a taxi to take you to A and E, quine. Do you want anything just now?”
“Just a fag, if you’ve got one,” Suzy snuffled, covering herself back up.
“No problem.” He took one out, lit it and handed it to her. “Anyone else?” he asked, offering them round. Emma and Nicky, sitting nearby, took one, whilst Colin popped into the office to call a taxi and inform the manager what had happened.
Suzy sneezed, unable to cover her mouth with the cigarette in her hand. “Christ,” she said, “That’s the last thing I need, to come down with a cold as well.”
“I hope you haven’t caught anything from that guy!” joked David. The thought settled upon them all uncomfortably, like a blanket of dark fear. Their faces fell as grim, raw anxiety fluttered its wings around the room. Realising that he’d spoken their unspoken thoughts, David quickly tried to backtrack, saying, “You can’t really catch anything from sneezes, eh. It’s just dust in this place.”
“They did say they’d been working abroad,” Suzy said, as fear threatened to crumble her briefly-regained calm; her eyes, glistening with damp eyelashes, were large and deerlike.
“Ah, but you’ve to have all your shots before you go offshore,” Emma said.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Tracy added supportively. “You can’t really bring anything nasty back.”
Colin returned. “The taxi’ll just be a couple of minutes,” he said, smiling, dabbing his ear with fresh tissues to stop the blood from dripping onto his white shirt.
*
Alan made his way down the road and onto Justice Mill Lane. He was lusting to consume human flesh; bestial thoughts of murder and cannibalism pounded through his destroyed mind. No longer subject to rational thought, he had become a demon, a zombie, one of the undead and undying. Stiff and shambling, he shuffled down the street, lips split, head tumultuously bruised, ankle twisted, mouth bloodied. Things were happening to him that would have horrified him, had he been able to realise what was taking place. His fingernails had split, hard and samurai-sharp claws coming through, inches long. His front teeth had fallen out, dislodged by fangs Dracula would have been proud of, whilst his incisors had grown incredibly, jutting out past his lips. His eyes were either entirely bloodshot or had taken on a grotesque blood-red hue, whilst luminous-green drool dripped from slobbering lips onto his shirt.
He reached “Dusk”, a cocktail bar aiming for a stylish clientele. Though it missed by some way, it was still choosy with its door policy, appearing to aim for a sunbed and fake handbag look. As Alan ambled his way to the door, the doorman took a brisk look at him. “Sorry, mate,” he said. “No goths. There’s a night on in Moshulu, on Windmill Brae, for you lot”
Alan looked at the doorman, eyes smoldering. He grunted gutturally, “Let me in, now.”
The doorman, Pete, looked bored and impassive. There were always more arseholes during the weekend. “Sorry mate. You’ll just have to head somewhere else.” His CB radio went then, warning of a male, drunk, and potentially very dangerous. As he was listening intently to the description, and starting to realise that he had that very man in front of him, Alan made a burst for the club, trying to push past and run into the darkened club. But as he ran, he slipped on the tiled floor and landed painfully on his back. A meaty arm turned him over and pulled his own arm sharply up his back.
“Right!” Pete barked, roughly escorting Alan from the premises. “Get out now! Move it on!” Defeated, Alan had no choice but continue on down the road. He shuffled on, dimly aware of the potential danger to him but suffused by the overwhelming desire to kill and devour. He avidly gazed into the eyes of those passing by him, but none would meet his glance. The hunting instinct was evident all around him. Dolled-up packs of young women gave predatory eyes to men in smart shirts, who themselves sought out vulnerable flesh and solitary victims. It was no place for Alan; it was far too exposed, far too busy. The West End of the city was no use to him. He had to go deeper. He would go further down towards the harbour, where the animals roamed free and the baser instincts could be given free rein. He continued his painful zombie walk, down Justice Mill Lane, down Windmill Brae, as the streets declined and led down to the older, less commercialised parts of the city. The air changed. It no longer smelled of perfumes and sugary alcopops, but of sweat, labour and the coarser spirits. That was the place for him. He shuffled on, slowly, inexorably.
