Geoff Ryman - Lust Or No Harm Done

'Anything I can do for you before you go?'

Her mouth did a disparaging downward turn that was also somehow amused. 'You keep talking about Angels. When I was a little girl, I always wanted to see an Angel.'

There was a swelling in Michael's heart that seemed to flower out into the world. There was a crackling sound in the air, as if roots were growing in speeded-up time. The air in the room blossomed. Petals of light unfurled.

In the centre of them stood Henry. The unfurling continued. Wings rose up behind Henry's back, silver and fleecy. Henry wore a 1930s dinner jacket, and on his arm, ready, was the silver fox fur.

'I'm just your foil for the evening,' said Henry.

Billie dipped slightly, calm smoothing her round high brow. She did her downward smile, pleased and gracious.

In December of 1938, Billie played downtown in a club called Cafe Society. Her new style transfixed the President's son and white society ladies who had married for money. In 1939, she recorded a draggy song with the Cafe Society Orchestra about a lynching. Columbia had refused to record it. In Britain the BBC banned it. Nevertheless, the first time the world heard 'Strange Fruit', it ground to a halt.

'My stole, please,' Lady Day asked the Angel.

Henry held it up for her and she slipped delicately backwards into it. Henry said, 'I'll take you to where the band is playing.'

The two of them walked arm in arm towards Michael's wall. He could see them walking well into the distance beyond the wall. Could he hear an orchestra? He saw Billie laugh and place her head briefly against her escort's shoulder. Girlish and ladylike, she did a little skip of joy, and told a joke that made the Angel laugh.

Do blondes have more fun?

So.

Michael finally went out and had some fun. There really was, on the face of it, nothing else to do.

He got his final marks for the first year of his degree in Computer Science and they were surprisingly bad: a 68 per cent overall. Despite his hours of programming, Michael had not performed well on the final.

I don't have the time to study, Michael realized. Suddenly he knew that he wouldn't start the second year in September. It was as simple as that, as simple as a flower opening. It didn't even feel as if he had made a decision. He felt relieved by the simplification of his life. He had other things to do.

Michael called up the entire New Zealand All Blacks rugby team. They looked so big and beautiful from a distance. Up close they were bulky and hairy and broken-toothed.

Michael pulled down one pair of black shorts to reveal a round, hard tummy and perfectly ordinary white genitalia. Michael knelt in front of them. The favour was returned. 'They're kinda sweet,' said the player, in mild surprise. 'It's not that bad.'

Michael called up a famous Maori player as broad as he was tall. The Maori's eyes glittered with something between rage and panic. He kept jumping; the miracle spooked him; desire was an affront. Michael assured him that all would be kept secret, that no one would ever know. In practice, the Maori was far more passionately accepting than his teammate had been. To Michael's surprise, the warrior presented himself face down on the bed. Crowned with a Viagra headache, Michael prised open the boulder buttocks and pushed himself inside. It was like fucking a turtle; the brown back was sectioned with so many muscles it looked like a shell in patterns. The body was not used to being penetrated. The sphincter clenched and squeezed. This had an unfortunate effect of trapping blood in Michael's cock, making it bigger. The drag of inner wall across the head of the penis made Michael gasp. The Maori's face was contorted in pain, and suddenly, in one lunge, he extruded Michael's dick. Michael came while being pushed backwards.

The Maori left Michael with a quick post-coital word. 'Maori men don't sleep with each other. It messes us up. We sleep with white guys, and there is less contention. Thanks.' The Angel gave Michael a hearty athletic slap and rolled to his feet. His air of expectation left Michael no option but to fade him out.

It was a madness of the spirit to call up Harry Houdini. Michael had seen a nearly nude photograph of him in a review of a new biography. Houdini had loved his mother and loved being photographed wearing as few clothes as the law of his day allowed. The body in the photographs was without fat in a way that modern bodies never are. Despite the rounded muscles, Houdini looked malnourished, pale, and as hard as polished marble.

Michael called him and Houdini somersaulted into Michael's sitting room wearing baggy bloomers. He smelled of the past: sweat, hair oil and sauerkraut. Houdini pulled down his bloomers and begged, 'Photograph me! Photograph me!' The genitals were lost in a tangle of fur and looked unused. Michael coaxed him to the sofa. Michael touched his chiselled chest. No, no, it was all too awful, he could not contemplate it, though he writhed in Michael's grasp with the thrill of being exposed.

All Houdini wanted was to be stripped and bound and photographed. It was a bit cruel, but Michael explained to him, in halting German, that he could never be photographed. Then Michael sent him back to his mother.

Michael's greatest mistake was great indeed. He conjured up Alexander the Great on a wet Sunday afternoon.

It was just after a phone call from Philip. Philip hadn't found a place to live yet. Would Michael mind keeping his things a while longer? Michael now wanted nothing more than for every trace of Philip to be gone from his life. 'I've bought a whole new set of crocks,' Michael said. 'I need the space. I'll put yours in the basement, OK?'

'Yes, all right, thank you,' said Philip and his voice still chimed: take care of me, protect me. 'Could you pack them carefully? I mean it would be great if I could just come and collect them and they were all packed.'

'Come and pack them yourself,' said Michael. 'I won't break anything, Philip, but I do have other things to do!'

The call left him shaken and annoyed. No doubt they both wished their old lives could evaporate painlessly. It wasn't going to be like that. Michael found himself reaching for the whiskey bottle. He stopped himself. No, Michael, those are the old days.

Energized by anger, he did the craziest thing he could think of. Years before he had read, in floods of tears, The Persian Boy, Mary Renault's novel. As if tearing the reality of the London flat and his old life into tiny pieces of paper, Michael reached down in time, for Alexander the Great.

He could feel time, its depth and chill, as if he were reaching down the air vents of a seven-storey underground city. He could feel its dank breath on his face. The London air in his flat rumbled and rolled back like a giant stone in a tunnel passageway.

Something tiny and hard and alien thrust itself into his sitting room. Its eyes were wide and staring. It wore a crown of green and its skin was a battered, polished brown like an insect's shall. For just a moment, Michael thought he had called up a Martian by mistake.

Then he blinked and the thing came into focus as a human being. The crown was blonde hair, filthy and in spikes; the shell was leather armour. The saucer eyes still stared.

Alexander moved like a lizard, in swift halting gestures. Michael almost expected him to flicker a serpent tongue. He demanded something in a high, harsh voice that reminded Michael of dried and broken grass.

When Michael didn't answer, Alexander strode to the window and looked out. A car sighed past below. It was Alexander who honked like a horn in amazement, and his head jerked upwards, looking at the top of University Senate House, towering high. Alexander turned, glanced once at the ceiling, marched towards Michael, wrenched Michael's arm behind his back and pressed a sword against his throat.