Free Deity by Steven Dunne Page A

portfolio of portraits, professionally done and paid for by her father, filled the walls.
    A tear fell as Becky turned to face herself on the wall. She couldn’t meet her own eye and was tempted to trash the shrine, tear down every corrupting image and deconsecrate the pink room completely. Avoiding her own gaze, she looked instead at the few remaining posters fighting for space, posters that spoke of Becky’s graduation from thirteen-year-old wannabe to the luminous cynicism of the eighteen year old. Thus the lacy chutzpah of Gwen Stefani was juxtaposed with the brassy sexuality of Christina Aguilera, the perky whole-someness of Hannah Montana with the brooding promise of Rihanna.
    With a sigh Becky stood in her silk slip as another tear fell. Calmly, methodically she toured the room taking down all the photographs her father had paid for then slid them under her bed. She flipped up the lid of her laptop and clicked off Facebook to load the document she’d written a couple of days previously.
Dear Becky, I am pleased
. . .
    She finished reading and spotted the spelling mistake underlined in red but it was too late to correct – it was already two days in the post. As she closed the brief letter, a casual glance back at her mirror caught a movement outside in thedarkness. A second later her eyes widened in disbelief at the sight of Rusty Thomson, Geek Boy, shinning his way along the branch of the large tree outside her window. Her initial impulse was to turn and vent her spleen, but to her astonishment she found herself watching him in the mirror, unable to move, as he slithered into position.
    Instead of rushing to the window to scream abuse, Becky busied herself on her laptop keyboard, keeping her back to the window but her eye to the mirror to observe the gawky Thomson. A moment later Becky watched him lift his right hand. The faint dot of red light emanating from the object in his palm was confirmation of his intent. He was filming her. Geek Boy was filming her in her bedroom.
Cheeky fucker
.
    She took several deep breaths then put her laptop aside on the bed and stepped over to her make-up bureau. She moved the chair so she could stand closer to the reflection and the lights. She stared at herself in the mirror again, this time with heightened interest. Her nipples had hardened under her slip and she brushed them with her forearms as she ran her hands through her hair.
    Slowly, very slowly, she began to sway her hips from side to side, throwing back her head and opening her mouth invitingly. She cupped her breasts in her hands through the soft silk and massaged her nipples with fingers and thumbs. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and flicked the thin straps of her slip from her shoulders and down her bare arms.
    Little by little she lowered the slip until, with a faint wobble, her breasts wrestled themselves free of the material and she pushed the garment to her waist. Swaying more urgently now,she eased her hands down her stomach before pushing the shiny slip to the floor, standing naked before the mirror. Finally she turned towards her bedroom window and stared intently at the red dot.
    PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK –
A FILM BY PETER WEIR
    In the 1975 film
Picnic at Hanging Rock
, set in Australia in
1900, a party of girls from a local college set out for a day at Hanging Rock, a local beauty spot. The film begins in Appleyard College and introduces us to the girls as they dress, wash their hair and press flowers. They are all very ladylike and it is clear that the college is private and parents have to pay to send their daughters there.
    Early on we meet the beautiful Miranda, who is compared to a Botticelli Angel by the French teacher from a book she’s reading. Botticelli was a painter in the fifteenth century. We are also introduced to Marion and Irma who are also pretty, but it is Miranda who steals the film with her looks and also her sadness. She seems to know that she’s not going to live very long