35053668-Empire-of-the-Soul-Paul-William-Roberts

‘A FLAME OF FAITH’
appear to blink, her eyes dark and empty, locked on mine. It made
me uncomfortable. You have to be careful with people on drugs:
one wrong word, a sudden movement, even a facial twitch, and
they’re on top of you, chewing a hole through your neck . . . or
hammering a stake into your heart.
‘Who’s your friend?’ David inquired. ‘Ask her . . . nicely.’
Esther paced off in a huff.
‘Hi,’ David tried, raising a palm in greeting to the girl. ‘What’s
shakin’?’ But it was me she stared at. Or I thought it was. Edging
away, however, I realised she was still staring at the spot where I’d
been standing. She was still staring at it three hours later.
There was a Dionysian frenzy building in the air by now,
something old and dark and decadent. Couples rolled languidly in
the sand, exploring each other’s bodies minutely, fascinated by every
inch of flesh, of hair, of teeth, of clothes and jewellery. Lips and ears
and eyes were touched with the wonder of beings who had never
seen such things before. Some were making love – but with a strange
and dilatory deliberation, pausing to gasp and shudder as waves of
chemical euphoria gripped them. There were not only twosomes,
but threesomes, foursomes, moresomes – great squirming piles of
coiling limbs, heaving sinewy torsos, swinging breasts, shuddering
arses, and twitching, proboscis-like erections. There were also many
solitary acts of sex. There were also cries of ecstasy, cries of yearning,
cries of delight, cries of surprise, cries of sorrow . . . and cries of
primal fear.
David and I swigged wine from a bottle someone had passed us,
aware of whatever Ray had really spiced our dinner with now
coming on far stronger than mere hashish. Colours were getting
more serious, more colourful; strange echoes pulsed in the smoky
air; the sand beneath my feet seemed oddly sentient, alive; and
powerful electric currents ran up my spine, making me shiver with
delight and smile involuntarily.
‘That bastard,’ David suddenly said, his voice resonant, on reverb.
‘I don’t know,’ I thought I was saying. ‘I haven’t visited the cosmos
in ages. I’d forgotten how pleasant it could be.’
He looked at me as if I’d been speaking Venusian. Then he started
to giggle. The giggle became a laugh, doubling him over, splitting
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