Free The Brothel Creeper: Stories of Sexual and Spiritual Tension by Rhys Hughes Page A

voyage he assumed it had belonged to the vessel’s previous owner. Now he knew differently, because Isabel splashed over to it anxiously.
    She rapidly unrolled it. The man inside fell out.
    Isabel caught and caressed him.
    Jason glared in his direction. “It’s difficult to judge height when we’re all treading water,” he observed sourly.
    “True,” said Isabel, “but he’s considerably taller than you.”
    “Your secret lover, I presume?”
    “Naturally. If you are allowed to have one, so am I.”
    “That’s symmetry,” said Luana.
    “It is,” agreed Isabel, “and his name is Pedro.”
    “Hello Pedro,” said Henrietta.
    “Pleased to meet you,” replied the newcomer.
    Jason shuddered, then spoke with admirable restraint. “This is ridiculous. I’ve never heard of anything like it before! But we’ve more important things to worry about. We’re drifting south and that’s the wrong direction. The next southern landmass is Antarctica.”
    “Very cold all the way down there,” said Carlos.
    “And it’s many thousands of miles away. I’m not dressed for those kinds of conditions,” complained Pedro.
    “None of us are, not even myself,” added Henrietta.
    “But it is a nice dress!” said Isabel.
    These trite comments were interrupted by another surfacing object. It was a sack this time, supposedly filled with coffee beans but actually containing a man by the name of Fábio who was quickly retrieved by Luana. As if the situation couldn’t get any worse, it soon emerged that the lovers of the lovers were also allowed illicit lovers. Luana had anticipated the cynical attitude of Carlos and neatly pre-empted him. She kissed Fábio tenderly and stroked him intimately while her first lover fumed and slowly opened and closed his mouth like a sunfish in moonlight.
    “Now you know how it feels,” smirked Henrietta.
    “I do,” conceded Carlos sadly.
    “Fábio is more trustworthy,” explained Luana.
    “Actually I’m not,” said Fábio.
    “Who is?” grumbled Jason.
    Then he lowered his gaze and barely recoiled at the no longer unexpected surfacing of yet another piece of submerged flotsam, a wicker basket stuffed with a green eyed woman called Elena who seemed to rouse the chivalrous instinct in Pedro. She was his secret lover, it turned out, but she was only the centre of attention for half a minute or so, before that special honour went to the occupant of the next rising capsule, an old tea chest that contained a man by the name of Sergio, who was followed by Giovana, who was followed by Joaquim, who was followed by…
    Thrust up from the uterus of the deep ocean, birthed out into the golden glow of the waning day, new lovers kept arriving like the breaking bubbles of a drowning mother goddess, her divine breath seeding the sultry world above with fully grown children.
    Luiza came up next, followed by Roberto, Flora, Filipe, Eunice, Rynaldo and the aptly named Marina. Then there was Caetano and Jussara, Nilo and Alda, Bruno and Cristina. They arrived in a variety of mundane wombs that returned to the unknown deeps the instant the passengers were disgorged, in much the same way that highly polished and enduring ideas are delivered by offhand remarks that fade back into silence. But in fact the idea that entered Jason’s mind now wasn’t propagated by any words. It came unbidden, out of nowhere, that favourite destination of nobody, and it began fermenting until he was drunk on its odd promise.
    He regarded the growing collection of floating bodies that were forming a rough circle around him and realised that the current had rotated him until he was no longer facing west but south. They were all facing south in fact. Yet he waited in silence, nervously.
    They all waited, but the surface of the sea remained unbroken. Clearly the final lover had been disgorged…
    Jason continued to say nothing. He hadn’t finished thinking, drinking the brew of his idea. The others grew less restrained, babbling