Glasshouse Gasses
Mrs. Larindale's party was the big event in Liverpool's social calendar that month. Her family wealth could be tracked back over three hundred years to when Liverpool was one of the busiest shipping ports in the world, her ancestors had risen to notoriety and fortune on the backs of thousands of African slaves, a family history that she obviously kept as quite as she could but was known widely amongst the other old families of the city, many of whom were here tonight. Loraine had lost her parents to cancer when she was still a young woman in her twenties and had managed the family's estate ever since. She was briefly married to the father of her son until a heart attack at the young age of thirty eight had taken him from her also.
Her guests were mostly gathered in the main reception room which had been emptied of furniture and had had its elaborate rugs rolled up to reveal beautiful old varnished wooden floorboards. A five-piece set of modern art tapestries hung on the wall, consisting of a sequence of vertical panels that may have been trying to portray what a bumble bee would see from inside a red rose. Heavy dark curtains hung from ceiling to floor across three large bay windows that would look out onto the gardens during the daytime. A small crowd had gathered around an enthusiastically burning fire set in an enormous black marble fireplace that dominated one wall; preening women checked their makeup and hair in the arched mirror that hung above the mantelpiece. In one lonely corner a DJ had set up camp and was quietly filling the room with some gentle jazz as two sets of traffic lights flashed impotently from red to amber to green either side of his spinning decks.
Mrs. Larindale, Jessica and Dick, were stood close to the open double doors leading into the disco room. Mrs. Larindale was meeting and greeting her guests as they arrived. Dick knew many of the faces, but not so many names. Jessica knew only Dick and Mrs. Larindale, who had been terribly attentive to her and introduced her to many exotic looking people. Everybody was dressed to impress. It was the most sophisticated party Jessica had ever been to and she was excited just to be there.
Dick made quite a good facsimile of Sherlock Holmes, in an all tweed suit with a matching deer stalker hat and ridiculously oversized smoking pipe. Jessica, at Dick's request and not to Mrs. Larindale's annoyance, was quite the sauciest Dr Watson either of them had ever seen.
Jessica's hair was pulled back into a neat and formal looking bun at the back of her head, showcasing her white, slender neck; a frosting of freckles danced down from her hair line towards her shoulder. A stethoscope's contoured metal arms framed her delicate neck; its black, rubber trunk resting across her bosom and the mirrored chest-piece nestled enviously between her breasts. Her white doctor's jacket was generously unbuttoned at the neck and gathered into her waist by a wide, black belt; her thighs and bottom flourishing outwards from its constrictive grip. Black, high heeled shoes, and slender stocking clad legs, rocketed up from the floor to disappear mid-thigh beneath the starch white of her jacket. Exactly what Jessica was wearing under the jacket was a thought that was passing through nearly every man that saw her.
Dick already knew just how good Jessica looked, and felt, under that jacket, having already downed a swift pint, poured from her love bar, at the office before they left for the party. The outfit had a practical purpose, more than just fulfilling his fantasy, and Jessica was looking forward to carrying out his instructions.
Mrs. Larindale's lithe body was exhibited in a full length opened-backed, black sequined gown which created the illusion that liquid oil had been persuaded to cling to her without flowing downwards to the floor. Her breasts moved freely under the dress without a bra to restrain or distort their natural shape, her small nipples distorting its shimmering surface and acting as tabooed focal points for the careless eye. Her long deep auburn hair had been neatly tied into a complicated French braid that hung down almost to the middle of her contoured and delicate back.
It was nine o'clock and, dramatically, an argument broke out between three of the guests. Two men and a woman were shouting at each other, the woman speaking in a thick, French accent. A hush fell over the room and a space appeared around the threesome; everybody watched eagerly as the first of the evenings, Murder Mystery scenes, was enacted.
The larger man, Mr. Tackle, addressed the woman as Ms Bouché, announcing that she had seduced him, in order to steal his rare and very valuable Chia Lin Pau hybrid pink orchid and sell it to Mr. Block. Ms Bouché denied the accusation, saying that she was in love with Mr. Tackle and wouldn't know an orchid from a rose.
"I have never seen this woman before in my life," bellowed Mr. Block at Mr. Tackle. Mr. Block then turned to Ms Bouché and said, "I suggest you leave the emotionally stressed, and delusional Mr. Tackle to calm down and escort me outside to the terrace for some cool air and a cocktail, before he insults me again and I am forced to swing for him."
At which point, mincing into the clearing stepped a small Spanish looking man; dressed in red suede and ribbon piped kitten heel shoes, black leggings, a mauve tank top exposing skinny hairy arms and several different hand bags all hanging off one shoulder.
"Yes?" bellowed Mr. Block. "What the fuck do you want?"
With one hand on his hip and the other pointing at Ms Bouché, the small man said, "Well, Ducky, if you're going to shout, I won't feel obliged to tell you what I know about Sally!"
"Sally? Who the fuck is Sally?" Mr. Tackle asked, infuriated at being called Ducky by this legging wearing, eight stone weakling.
"Sally is that woman there," said the little Spanish man, and again pointed at Ms Bouché. "Sally Duckett, the woman you are being so beastly to."
"Her name," said Mr. Block, "is Yvonne Bouché and she is from Paris, you pathetic little man."
Dick guided Jessica over to where Mrs. Larindale now stood, tapped her on the shoulder and whispered to her, asking if she could look after Jessica for a short while. Dick then indicated to Jessica that she should stay with Mrs. Larindale and wandered off to the other side of the hall, where he discreetly left the room and headed for the front door.
Mrs. Larindale smiled at Jessica and linked arms with her. Jessica appreciated this; she suddenly felt rather alone and out of her depth as Dick strode out of sight. The two women stood shoulder to shoulder as they watched the actors develop their plot.
The small, mincing man, had just explained that Yvonne Bouché was, in fact, Sally Duckett and had been working in his florist shop for the past year. Sally, or Yvonne, was denying this, but her accent was starting to slip.
Outside Dick headed into the garden and down to a glasshouse he had seen as they had driven up the long gravel drive earlier that evening. It was a wet and windy night, and he needed some shelter. The glasshouse was a large, Victorian structure with wooden shelves running around the sides at waist height and a central bench for working on. It was strewn with terracotta seeding pots, split bags of compost, trowels and water trays and potted plants of various varieties. There were wooden handles that turned cast iron worm drives which could open window panes in the roof for temperature control; all very old world and decadent; a functioning environment that serviced the house's extensive gardens.
Once in the warm and humid atmosphere of the glasshouse, Dick tapped out the remnants of tobacco ash, from his pipe. He then put in a fresh bed of tobacco and reached in his pocket for a small tin. Opening the tin with care, Dick tapped out crumbled grains of Hashish, and spread them evenly over the bed of tobacco. "Hmm," he sighed, anticipating the sudden hit this large dose of hash, once lit and inhaled, would deliver to his brain.
He spread his weight evenly between his feet and leaned back on the wall, forming a tripod. This position offered good stability and would need very little mental effort to sustain whilst he enjoyed the effects of his smoke. Two, small puffs on the pipe was all it took until the whole area of hashish glowed red within the pipe bowl, followed by a third, long, slow suck on the pipe. Dick inhaled a lung full, of almost neat hashish and, once locked inside his chest, this cloud was now delivering its considerable, psychotropic pay load into his blood stream.
The sensation of the drug spread out like a bomb blast from his brain. Drool started to seep from his lower lip as he exhaled slowly, his eyes closed and his mind expanded. Dick could feel a deep, pulsing resonating from within his body and he let this rhythmic beating seduce him. Not a single thought formed in his mind. Nothingness enveloped him.
"Flight control to Captain Dick,
Your spacesuit's tweed and your pipe is lit."
Dick's subconscious was as bad as Dick when it came to remembering lyrics.
A short time later, Dick recovered from the initial shock wave, and he became aware of his body again. The noise of the rain droplets pounding on the glass roof had intensified. Dick noticed it had become possible to hear the impact of each individual droplet explode against the glass, and then, he focused in on the length of time between that rain droplet and the sound of the next. That gap seemed to have a tangible substance and, if he tried, he could feel himself being drawn into the quietness in between the impacting rain drops.
Dick, realized he was losing himself into the abyss, and shifted his awareness. He had jumped down that white rabbit hole once before and remembered the consequences; 'Dick in Wonderland' had been a psychotically painful chapter in his life; a drug fuelled, chaotic and emotionally created landscape, driven by the wild conjuring of his imagination where the dreaming world had become as real as the waking world; where the soap opera of his life continued uninterrupted whether he was asleep or awake.
Dick had explored both and felt trapped by the laws and rules that restrained him in each. Eventually, sat high up on a cannabis wall, the waking world on one side and the dreaming world on the other, Dick had jumped and fallen a long way; all the king's horses and all the king's men had then made a very reasonable and incredibly time consuming effort of putting him back together again. Dick shivered to his core remembering the time and knew he didn't want to explore that rabbit hole again.
