Free The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine by Krissy Kneen Page A

cars. Cars that were gifts for graduation from
private schools.
    Holly walked through the car park and waited for a blocky black vehicle to edge in
front of her. There was a dead flower hanging from the mirror, a withered reminder
of a kiss, perhaps, now shrivelled and no doubt smelling slightly of decay. She could
imagine the girl at the wheel looping string around the single bright iris. The colour
of it singing in the harsh light. Now, with the passing of a day or two, the purple
was almost grey. The girl at the wheel shifted a lock of orange hair behind her ear,
bit the corner of her lip. Holly was startled by the immediacy of everything, the
scent of exhaust buffeting her. Her own shadow draped on the asphalt in front of
her. The dead iris swinging back and forth as the girl parked the car inexpertly,
a little crooked, a little too close to the car beside her. She had to squeeze out
of the vehicle with the door half closed. She slid along the side, throwing the locks
with an unconscious flick of her wrist. The car barked like an abandoned pet.
    The dead iris mesmerised Holly, the way it turned its languid circles, petals tipping
into and out of a small patch of sunlight. The iris was somehow significant, special
enough to be singled out for preservation. Some story behind it, some hint of love.
A vision rocked Holly, sudden, brutal, the girl with her thighs spread wide like
the woman in Mandy’s needlepoint. The single still-fresh flower outlined with a blaze
of orange pubic hair, the stem electric green with life dipping between the almost-hidden
folds of the girl’s vulva. A man’s hand pulling the flower slowly from its makeshift
vase of flesh.
    There’s enough passion in the world already. Everything trembles with it. The words
had leaped suddenly from the page as she read them. She heard them now, not in Salter’s
voice, which she imagined to be soft and wise and masculine, but in the deep treacle
of Mandy’s tenor.
    Holly blinked. The ginger-haired girl was just a smudge of colour at the very edge
of her vision; in a minute she would disappear completely. The iris now hung motionless
from the rear-view mirror. Just a flower fading away from the memory of its origin.
Sooner or later the girl would cut the shrivelled plant down from its thread and
throw it away. Holly re-shouldered her book-bag and climbed the steps towards the
buildings.
    When a group of students brushed past her their short skirts caught a breeze and
tugged outwards. There was a hint of soap in their wake, a delicate trace of perfume,
the schoolyard whiff of bubblegum, ‘—at 5 a.m. Can you believe that—’ the scrap of
conversation as they passed. Holly was suddenly imagining this girl awake at the
first hint of dawn, 5 a.m., her bare arms colouring with the gorgeous amber light
of early morning, her hair a liquid measure of gold poured over her delicate shoulders.
The world seemed closer than it had ever been and it had something to do with reading
the illicit book.
    It was different somehow. Something had changed since she had begun to read A Sport
and a Pastime. It was as if just reading the book had changed her relationship to
time and space . Holly steadied herself on the railing and felt it sharp and cold
on her fingers. The very steps had somehow become more solid and defined. As if some
exterior designer had touched the world with light and shadow, making everything
more distinct, sharpening the edges, smoothing and polishing every flat surface.
    The Angels always sat on the hill beside the history block. None of them did history
and this place was like a small island of anonymity. The girls stretched gorgeously
out, their limbs tan against the lushness of the lawn. Holly saw her own group of
girls now as others must see them, a sweetness of perfection. The history students,
a shorter, stockier, more bookish breed, stomping past them in heavy boots and various
shades of khaki, glancing enviously in their direction, appreciating