Elizabeta Brooke - Never - an erotic retelling of Peter Pan

Dee’s hands tightened against her thighs, her breath quickening in the dark and silent room, her eye steady against the telescope. The boy/man she was watching had perfect skin, velvet black enhanced with an intricate pattern of ochre stripes. He was seated in the traditional position with his didgeridoo stretched out before him as he played, and against the backdrop of a colourless, grey dormitory wall he looked startling primitive. Like a time traveler.

The only other occupant of the room was a pale, naked dancer, her arms writhing above her head in a sinuous parody of the corroboree he had danced earlier that evening as his visiting troupe had performed for the graduating arts students. Her feet stamped the soft carpet in a mimicry of his dust-raising movements, her full breasts jiggling provocatively above him.

She was at one moment a striking snake with her head and arms stabbing the air, her long straight hair a swirl of arctic white. Then a hunter stalking, crouched low to the ground with the enticing curve of her buttocks thrust backwards.

The boy's gaze followed her around the room as he played, yet their eyes never met. Her attention seemed always on the intricacies of her dance. She was the hunter returning with a kill, throwing it beside the fire for the women to prepare.

Then in a side-step the hunter was gone, his power melting away to reveal a shy young lubra, touching her unkissed lips, trailing hesitant fingers down the pale column of her throat to rest on new-budding breasts. She cupped them, offering them as she finally met the boy's eyes, and on her face was an expression of such innocence, Dee caught her breath and the musician faltered, his lips falling away from the didgeridoo.

For a moment they were still. Then he scrambled to his feet and stood ready, only to have her draw back, enclosing her breasts and pubis in a chastity belt of splayed fingers. Blonde hair fell forwards as she nodded at the instrument still held in his hand.

He frowned, returning the end-piece experimentally to his mouth and was rewarded by the immediate removal of her hands. More, she raised them and shimmied her shoulders, setting her full breasts into motion. Their rolling progress mesmerised him as he resumed playing, the didgeridoo now angled sharply down to the floor, at an opposing angle to his thick black penis.

Like a gun barrel, it pointed waveringly at the girl as she danced closer, feet shuffling astride the instrument until her blonde pubic hair brushed its solid length. Hers arms wide and undulating, she rode the hard vibrating wood, pressing her pubis against it in an ecstasy of trembling thrusts. Then gradually, her gyrations became slower, more voluptuous, and her head fell back, lips parted. The musician laid his instrument carefully on the floor he knelt before her, and the girl, hips thrust forward invitingly, remained still. A virgin on the altar.

He steadied her, his fingers like black piano keys against the ivory of her hips, then he leant in, his tongue spearing out to invade the nest of blonde curls between her thighs. She trembled, then -

Thump.

Dee and she swivelled her chair to face the door, instinctively tilting the telescope she'd been using to angle it away from the student dormitories towards the night sky.

Light from the hallway flooded her office, making her blink.

"Sorry, Dr Williams."

Simms, one of the cleaners, stood in the doorway, his stooped shoulders and grizzled head haloed in light. His face was completely shadowed.

"Didn't mean to disturb you," he said, lowering his head a little as though he was squinting. "Must have knocked something down."

"I’ll fix it up," Dee answered calmly, her quickened breathing already coming under control. It wasn't the first time she'd been disturbed, although the last had been over two years ago. The book balanced on top of the door had saved her from discovery yet again.

She allowed herself a few seconds to calm the adrenalin rush before she slipped deliberately into what James called her lecturing tone. "I'm working late on some observations." She nodded towards the telescope. "My Third Years have been studying the latest Internet pictures of the Hubble telescope's observations of Europa. I wanted to reacquaint myself with the amateur view."

An escaped strand of hair had fallen across her eyes and she poked it back into her deteriorating ponytail as she waited for Simms reply. It took some time.

Finally, he said, "Right. Astronomer stuff."

"Precisely." In the ten years she'd practiced her hobby, Dee had discovered the best way to conceal something was to distract attention from it. And not only to distract, but to attack if necessary.

She swiveled back to her telescope, frowning. "I'm sure I've bumped this off target." Glancing at the luminous dial of her watch she added, "That moon will be behind Jupiter shortly. I hope it doesn't take me another half an hour to find it."

Her implication hit home and Simms started to back out the doorway. "Sorry, Dr Williams. I know I'm supposed to do the offices in the afternoon. But I had this emergency, and when I came back and it was dark in here, I thought — "

"Understandable," Dee cut him off, pretending to be absorbed with adjusting the view-finder. "The darkened room was necessary. If I don't eliminate the light it reflects off the lens, somewhat like driving with the interior lights on in a car." She kept her voice deliberately vague, listening to the shuffle of retreating feet.

"Right. Well, I'll come back tomorrow — "

"Fine." She waved a dismissing hand, continuing her charade with the telescope.

A second later the room was in darkness again, and as the door clicked softly, she allowed herself a quiet sigh. Footsteps echoed along the passageway and down the stairs, fading into silence. Only then did she move to reposition the book.

Feeling her way across the room, she retrieved the sprawled volume and eased the door ajar, balancing it atop the opening. Then she paused, her sensitive nostrils detecting a stale beer odour hanging in the air. Mr Simms' emergency had obviously involved alcohol. A wake? She was probably being generous. She’d heard the other staff talking about him, and while she felt a measure of sympathy for his loneliness, her main sentiment was relief that it had been Simms who’d disturbed her. A drunken old man was unlikely to be taken seriously if he chose to discuss her nocturnal activities with someone more perceptive than himself. Her secret was safe. But a niggle of guilt pursued her back to the telescope, marring her complacency.

You should be working, it said as she sank back into the soft leather of her chair.

Silhouetted mounds of student lab book occupied one corner of her desk, awaiting assessment, and within her dormant computer lay unfinished reports on her research project — reports that were already overdue. She should make a start somewhere. But the telescope was like a lover she couldn’t resist, so she thought instead of the couple she'd been watching. They'd shown such promise.

Unfortunately a quick adjustment of the view-finder revealed a disappointingly darkened room and Dee cursed Simms' timing. Friday night in the dorms was normally a bonanza for the avid voyeur, but a rock concert in Brisbane had all but cleared the building. And now, the only couple who'd been active had either gone out or were continuing their cultural exchange under cover of darkness.

Sighing, she scanned the rooms again, hoping for late arrivals, but the pickings were slim. It was either back to the paperwork or settle for observing of a young man alone in his room. The lab books called to her, but the solitary form lying reading on his bed piqued her curiosity. She knew this boy. He was Billy McKenzie, one of her First Years — a particularly diligent student who wrote brilliant assignments but sadly seemed to have no social life.