Summer 1975, Grand Union Canal, England

“Read my Tarot,” Celia implored Joe as they sat on the aft deck of the narrow-boat in the sullen evening, ignoring the cries and grunts issuing from the cabin where Charlie and Rosie, their respective partners, cuckolded them.

Silently, Joe dealt the cards, weakly brushing away midges and curly, black shoulder-length hair from his bony face. He dealt with his right hand only; between the nicotine-stained fingers of his left was an expertly rolled “English style” joint — a large cigarette of tobacco mixed with Moroccan hashish, with a cardboard filter, which glowed dully.

The Tarot deck was the classic Rider Waite design, which Joe had bought on an impulse in the Student Union Bookshop. The rich symbols on the cards were beautifully and cunningly designed to create the greatest ambiguity. He had immediately felt attuned with the cards, and he had soon become an accomplished reader.

The layout he used was his personal variation: Four cards, face down, in a diamond-shape.

“This signifies you,” he intoned, as he turned over the card at the top of the diamond. It was ‘The Star’, showing a naked woman emptying water into pond, beneath a huge yellow eight-pointed star. “Loss, theft, abandonment.”

Their eyes met.

Celia’s full red hair cascaded down in flaming waves, framing her long pale face, before sweeping behind it to end in a waist-length braid. She seemed a forlorn anachronism from a time that never existed, a Pre-Raphaelite damsel cruelly thrust into a disillusioned age, the no-longer swinging Britain in the last quarter of the twentieth century.

“She’s lovely. Pity she’s not into revenge sex,” thought Joe for a moment.

But he knew that that wasn’t Celia’s way. And anyway she’d rejected Joe’s advances before. Maybe she just didn’t fancy him. She was probably in love with Charlie.

Taking a huge drag on the joint, Joe turned the second card, at the southern point of the diamond.

It was The Six of Swords. The card depicted a ferryman on a river.

Keeping the hot smoke down in his lungs, he explained, “This is your House – this is your environment.” He laughed, exhaling smoke. “Textbook interpretation is: Travel, usually by water.” He flicked a glance at Celia, who, visibly impressed and a little scared at the accuracy of the reading, stared raptly at the card.

Her eyes widened, and she looked up anxiously at Joe as the third card was turned up, a fierce woman on a throne of stone, the Queen of Swords.

“The card in this position signifies your Dreams — or your Fears. Queen of Swords normally means widowhood or loss, but she’s ‘reversed’ here – the card’s upside-down. That means a Bad Woman, or Witch. Know any witches?”

The question was punctuated by the sound of long moaning sigh from the direction of the cabin. Charlie had just reached orgasm. It was impossible to tell if Rosie had too. She was always silent in her lovemaking.

The fourth and last card, ‘The Emperor’ was revealed. Joe paused, musing. “This signifies What Will Befall. Strange. I – I don’t know what this card means, babe, though maybe you’ll see a meaning there. Standard interpretation of The Emperor is Strength, a Good Man, Order.”

There was a clattering as Rosie and Charlie emerged from the cabin.

Rosie walked quietly over to Joe and sat down beside him, legs to one side. She put her arms round his shoulders, to placate him, but without remorse. He didn’t resist; he didn’t react.

Without turning his attention from the cards he held out his outstretched arm and proffered the joint to Charlie. Accepting, Charlie rubbed the top of his head, tousling his hair affectionately (“Good sport, old chap”).

(Yes, this was the mid ’70s, when jealousy and possessions were un-hip, when passive men had as almost as good a chance of getting laid as their more assertive, sexist and less cool contemporaries, when AIDS, still nameless, was quietly planning for a harsher decade.)

* * * * *

Rosie took Joe to their bed after nightfall. His dick, more honest than his brain, was limp with anger and resentment at first, but the first touch of her perfect skin aroused him instantly.

Like cobwebs her ethereal hair brushed against his cheeks, as she licked his heavy, stoned eyelids dreamily. They glided and rolled in slow motion. He sucked her full, unmilked teats. Her arms and legs curved slowly around him, a daisy at sunset. She lay under him, her body wrapping him in pinkish-white petals, folding him inside her.

She guided his head down to her black-haired cunt. He kissed and suckled at it gently, inhaling the scent of her urine. With parted strawberry lips she watched his mane of black curls stroking and caressing her groin and thighs.

He rose and fucked her. Her sense of touch was dope-enhanced; Her blood-filled vulva felt every ripple and vein in his hard-on as he played it back and forth slowly, smoothly, a violinist’s bow. She lay breathing lightly under a spell, a Sleeping Beauty that he alone could awaken, he alone could awaken.

* * * * *

They approached the Lock early next morning. Rosie and Celia were on the forward deck cooking egg, bacon, sausages and mushrooms. Charlie was at the tiller. Joe had disembarked and jogged along the towpath, rope in hand. He moored the boat to a post, inexpertly.

Beside the lock was an old white-painted lockkeeper’s cottage, which looked inhabited: The front wall, bathed in sun, was adorned with nasturtiums and runner beans. Nobody was around.

The lock gates were shut.

“Shall I open ’em, Charlie?” Joe called.

“Knock on the door.”

Hoping to find nobody at home (Joe enjoyed managing the lock gates himself), he knocked at the black knocker, briefly taking in its curious design: A screaming medusa.

The door was opened by a large dumpy-looking woman of around sixty, with her black-and grey hair in a bun. She wore a typical Middle-England dress of pale blue cotton, patterned with roses. She was surprisingly tanned and wrinkled, almost Mediterranean.

Her eyes startled him: They had tiny pale green irises, so small that the white was visible all round them.

She spoke immediately, but apparently only to herself at first: “Students, studiers, studying life in a mist, love in a mist, two misses and two misters. And here’s me with only four cups for five to drink from.”

Then to Joe: “Good morning, little skellington.” She sniffed the air, and then wrinkled her face with pleasure. “Ahh, I smell breakfast! Mr Scarecrow, let an old lockgirl share your bacon, and she’ll give you and your pals a taste of her new berry brew.”

Joe, initially taken aback by her appearance and speech, quickly recovered his composure and amiability. Here was a lonely and slightly dotty old crone eager to enjoy the morning sun breakfasting with some young travellers, sharing a few slow moments in idle chat.

“Certainly! We’ve plenty of stuff, and sausages and mushrooms too – only we’ve no bread left, I’m afraid.”

She smiled and nodded. She began to chant softly, almost under her breath:

“Stay and sup her honeydew,

And Ann’ll open up her gates for you.”

* * * * *

The five of them sat on the grassy bank of the canal a few yards from the cottage, mopping egg and pig-fat from their plates with the hunks of bread-and-butter that the old lock keeper had provided.

Her name was Ann.

Her dog, a slow black Labrador had joined them expectantly, and was now lazily gnawing a bone. Rosie, stroking its sun-heated back, asked Ann the dog’s name.

“He’s a Gongoozler, so I call ‘im Gongoozler.”

“Gongoozler?” asked Rosie.

Celia looked reproachfully at her. Couldn’t Rosie see that the old woman was batty, and that attempting to make sense out of her replies was useless?

But Charlie, lying back on the grass with his hands behind his head said, “Gongoozler. It’s a canal man’s term. Means someone who sits idly and watches the boats go by.”

Joe laughed. “Gongoozler. Perfect. I’m telling Mum and Dad I’ve decided on a profession.”

But Ann looked seriously at him with her frightening eyes and said. “Oh no, Joey. You’ll be a-fighting Cyclops on the hilltops.”

“I’m no fighter, Ann. Really. I’m a born Gongoozler.”

Ann still looked so comically anxious that Joe felt inclined to promise her never to embark on a gongoozling career.

But she suddenly rose and smoothed her dress, saying, “Now you’ve fed me, maids and masters, I’ll insist you drink with me. A sip’ll make you tipsy, and a drop’ll make you dropsy!”

She almost skipped back to the cottage, and shortly emerged with a jug and four glazed clay mugs.

Celia, naturally cautious, peered inside the jug. “Mushrooms!”

She tilted the jug for Charlie, the resident herblore expert, to inspect. He took the jug, sniffed and sipped.

“Yup. Psilocybin soaked in Elderberry wine. This could explain her weirdness.”

He turned to Ann with a twinkle in his eye. “Well Ann, are you tripped out on magic mushrooms? Maybe we’ll talk like you after we’ve had a drop ourselves.”

He passed Rosie the jug. She shrugged, and took a “what-the-hell” swig. Then Charlie poured himself and Celia a beaker each. They toasted each other’s health and downed their draughts and lay back on the grass, smiling.

Joe abstained, choosing instead “a plain old cup of tea”. He had decided to stay straight and catch up on some University coursework. He fetched a book from the boat while Ann went to the cottage to brew him a mug.

Half an hour passed. Charlie and Celia had returned to the shade of the cabin to fuck and sleep. Rosie already dozed in the shade of a willow tree not far from where they had breakfasted.

Shortly after serving Joe his tea, Ann had disappeared into her cottage, having explained, in her riddling way, that she had household chores to do.

Joe, after reading a few pages of his book distractedly, became suddenly fed up with it, and walked quickly over to the cottage. He was dimly puzzled as to why he was walking so quickly and purposefully. He raised the knocker, once more noticing its strange design. (Had the mouth on that hideous face moved just then?)

Ann appeared. “Hello, Joey Stick. Are you all fussed and fidgeted?”

Without warning, she put her hands to her chest and rotated her large breasts through the fabric of her dress.

Joe became suddenly frenzied with lust. His rapidly withdrawing forebrain guessed his tea had been spiked, but not with mushrooms; nor any other hallucinogen he knew of. Ann gripped his arm with a gnarled hand. “Come with me, my bony, let’s look for monsters up on Clay Hill”.

* * * * *

They climbed a low-walled path beyond the cottage, which led them up through empty fallow meadows, dotted with buttercups and poppies. Now he was at the hilltop, though he had already forgotten how he had arrived there. He stared in wonder at the dazzling rolling countryside, the tiny trees swaying like submarine reeds beneath the wide hazy bowl of liquid air.

Then he turned, and beheld the Cyclops. She was naked. Her breasts were great pendulous U’s. Her thin, wide-set legs were bare, loose muscled, veined and furred. She had undone her hair from its bun, and it hung in tangled curtains to her waist, not only behind her, but before her as well, arranged so that it covered her face almost entirely; save one keen, unblinking eye, seemingly in the middle of her head. She approached him stiff-legged, hands on hips.

When they were about a dozen feet apart she stopped. Joe stripped completely and walked towards her. He felt the soft breeze on his back. His hard-on wagged as he advanced.

She pushed her hair behind her ears and puckered her creased and hair-lined lips. She opened her mouth, revealing dangling beads of saliva. She protruded and waggled her tongue, jutting out her jaw like an ape.

With both her hands, she pushed his erection down and held it between her thighs.

He grabbed at two large clumps of her hair on either side of her face.

Heedless of her cry of pain, he pulled her locks till his hands were behind his head and their mouths forced into contact.

She kneaded her thighs, rolling his erection between them like a cigar-girl. She pushed him from her and spat in his face. Enraged, he snarled like a dog and bit her lips, till she bled. She sucked, put her fingers to them and fed him her blood.

She cursed him in an endless stream, inflaming him: “You fucksucking cuntsucking skinny little skittlebone I’ll shove you up me and squeeze you to into a straw and keep you up my hot shitty ass and fart you out when it’s time for you to fuck me”

She sang to him, teasing him:

“Joey drinks a pot of tea,

“Mixed with Annie’s tot of pee.

“Sleeping soundly in the cratch

“He wakes up in her forward hatch!”

He pushed her away, springing his cock to vertical.

She grabbed his erection and pushed down again, this time guiding him inside her. Her cunt felt like ice, numbing him, freezing his ardour at a plateau.

She tensed her abdomen with an odd movement, almost as though she were doubling with cramps, securing his dick tightly inside her. So firm was the hold this gave her, that she could lead him without hands, slowly backing up step by step, down the hill past the cottage to the canal bank near the Lock. Each step twisted her pelvis this way and that. She groaned deeply in rhythm to the motion. Down she led him, climaxing with each crooked staggering stride.

At the canal’s edge she released him. She spoke to him.

“Now that I’ve tasted your meat, Joey, I’ll give you me dugs for pudding. Oh, if you’d had supped the milk they once contained, you’d have wished to stay and be my pussycat forever!”

She sank to her knees and hoisted her massive breasts. She drooled over them and licked them to lubricate them. She pressed them together, enveloping his erection and balls. She slid up and down squeezing his cock snugly between them till he came, looking up blindly at the pale blue sky. He ejaculated onto her cheek. She wiped the semen from it and, with a sudden sly laugh, flicked some of it into one of the empty mugs that still lay there. He crumpled and sank to the grass.

His book lay open beside him.

* * * * *

Sunburnt and groggy he awoke in the mid afternoon. His clothes were strewn about him. The evidence pointed to a very heavy bout of drugs and sex.

The clearest indications of the sex were the various aches in his limbs and groin, and his definitely post-coital calm.

After quizzing the others he reluctantly concluded that he and Rosie must have both got so wasted that neither had a clear recollection of having sex. But he was dissatisfied with this explanation. As for Rosie, she burst out laughing when she heard it, saying that she for one never forgot any sexual encounter with anyone, no matter how hard she tried.

Even the emergence of Ann from the cottage didn’t stir any memory.

Ann opened the lock gates. Charlie, Joe and Rosie helped manoeuvre the boat into the Lock.

Celia stayed on land to help the old woman closing the gates, pushing alongside her at the balance beams.

When they had closed them they opened the far gates a little way, to slowly fill the Lock.

As they waited for it to fill, Ann beckoned to Celia conspiratorially. Out of sight of the others she pressed a matchbox into her hand. She spoke to her quickly in hushed tones, speaking uncharacteristically clearly and distinctly:

“Listen, Miss Firehead. I was the one that had ‘im. Little Joey. I had ‘im on Clay Hill. I took a fancy to the boy, and used my charms on him. Listen to me, Miss Firehead. He loves you. He told me when he was in his cups.”

Her face grew softer. “I see you want to love him but you’re scared. Scared that he’ll hurt you, because he’s not a big grown-up yet. Well, he might. And you might hurt him. But he’s not so much of a child as he was yesterday.”

She put a hand to her groin. ” I growed him up for you in me hothouse.”

She continued, urgently, like a mother giving last-minute advice to a daughter on her wedding night:

“Give him what’s in this matchbox, and then he’ll know he loves you. He’ll tell you so. And after he’s told you, you’ll know whether or not you love him.”

Celia took the matchbox.

* * * * *

Later, Celia casually asked Joe if he’d remembered yet who it was he’d had sex with in that morning.

Joe thought, then saw her teasing smile. “Stop Smirking! No idea. Not Rosie. Maybe I just had a wet dream…Stop laughing, Celia… But listen, seriously: Wasn’t that was an amazing Tarot last night! Ann’s a witch, isn’t she? Isn’t she the perfect Queen of Spades, though?”

Celia pretended innocence. “I don’t know about being a witch, but she’s pretty freaky. Hey, maybe she fucked you in your sleep!” She laughed.

“I wouldn’t put it past her. Celia, any ideas about the last card The Emperor?”

“A few ideas, yeah. But I’m not sure yet. What about you, do you know what that last card meant?”

“Not a clue Babe, it’s your future you know.”