Gatherers and Hunters Read Free Page B

‘She was born on Friday the 13th and I think that made her think she had an affinity with witches and wiccas and wizards. She used to scare me shitless – hmmph – when I was a bit younger than you are, Marcus.’
    â€˜Mark,’ he murmured, but under his breath.
    And he did remember the Friday the 13th party just after his own 13th birthday, last year. Aunt Olga had insisted he come over, alone, no parents, no friends, just himself. And as soon as he opened the door to their cottage he had been bombarded with the full Addams Family stuff, there were even cobwebs, real cobwebs that he had to somehow push through to get inside once he opened the front door. He still felt them tangled in his hair sometimes. And later that evening, after the blood-coloured cakes and the black teeth and the skull that he had to drink black cordial out of and Uncle Pat dressed as a corpulent skeleton in luminous bones, and when he had thought everything was over, and he had gone to the bathroom to clean his teeth, Aunt Olga had insisted he take a bath.
    Okay, he said, and when he turned the tap on in the bath the water had come out dark red too. How did they manage that? He had laughed and crowed and Uncle Pat had come in to giggle with him then and had manhandled him out of the last of his clothes and dropped him into the red bath. It turned out to be a bubble bath and the bubbles rose and frothed almost immediately, though the water still felt oily and rather invasively slippery all over his body. Aunt Olga, too, had come in for a laugh at his Hollywood Sex Bath, as she called it. It had been sort of close and intimate but also a bit embarrassing and he was afraid to show what his body was doing down there under the bubbles. He was not like some of the kids at school who swanked round showing their horn in the dressing sheds. ‘Stiffie! Stiffie!’ they would boast and everybody would laugh. When Aunt Olga laughed at him in the bath he had to join in but rather wished they would leave him alone. When they did, somehow he did not enjoy it that much anyway. The water had grown cold and the bubbles were flattening and only the oily feel all over him remained. Uncle Pat was the last to go and he made much fuss about leaving the big towel for Mark to dry himself on. ‘When you are ready.’
    That had been the real shock of the night. That towel had been half covered with cobwebs too. Mark had hopped out of the bath and he grinned at the size of it: until he wrapped it round and began drying his genitals. That was when the cobwebs stuck. It was horrible.
    He had let out a shriek (and he only realised, later, that his aunt and uncle were just outside the door, waiting for just that moment). He had dropped the big towel instantly, of course, and began rubbing himself hard with the ordinary one that had the blue stripes.
    â€˜Just you wait!’ he had called, ‘I’ll put spiders in your bed!’ but the very thought of that, and of the possible spiders in his own bed, were enough to stop his gob instantly. He dried himself quickly and dressed again. But he could not lose the sensation of those cobwebs sticking to him, down there, and all over his parts, especially his testicles. He took down his pants once more and rubbed again carefully. No, there was nothing visible. But it felt like it. It was ages before he was able to relax and forget that sensation down below.
    They had called him a spoilsport when he said he would go home that night, not stay at their place. Aunt Olga promised on her bended knees that there would be no spiders or cobwebs in his bed or in the bedroom. Uncle Pat brought a hot mug of Milo and promised to sit down by his bed and read him a calming story, like he did once when Mark was a little boy. The story would not be about ghosts and monsters, it would be a fairy story, but an adult fairy story. Mark was an adult now. Uncle Pat had seen that and was sorry he hadn’t realised. Aunt