boys can, if you like.’ ‘What about it, Des?’ said Lionel. It seemed wimpish to decline after having set himself up as an expert on saunas. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Are you sure it’s a good idea, darling?’ said Winifred. ‘You might catch a chill.’ There was a steely edge to this ‘darling’ which he pretended not to notice. ‘Impossible, if you have a cold douche afterwards,’ he said airily.
Jakki had already switched on the sauna to dry their swimming costumes, and Desmond turned up the thermostat before withdrawing to the bedroom to undress and wrap himself in a bath towel. When he came out Lionel was waiting for him by the glazed patio doors, similarly garbed. Winifred, who was washing up the tea things in the kitchen area, looked at him disapprovingly. ‘I hope you don’t regret this,’ she said. ‘We won’t draw it out,’ he assured her. It was dark outside, and the lights were on in the living room. ‘Pull the curtains together behind us, otherwise we’ll be lit up for the whole of Gladeworld to see us under the douche,’ Lionel said to Jakki.‘And no peeping,’ he added.‘As if we’d be bothered,’ said Jakki. She came to the patio door as they went out. ‘Brr, it’s getting cold. Rather you than me,’ she said, sliding the door shut, and drawing the curtains behind them. There was already a touch of frost in the air. He and Lionel went quickly into the sauna, which was not much bigger than a sentry box, and sat down on their folded towels on the raised bench, haunch to haunch. The sauna was dimly lit by a small bulb in one corner but not so dimly that he could avoid seeing how well endowed Lionel was. He sat with hands on his parted knees, his flaccid organ hanging down like a rubber cosh between his thighs, and began talking, something to do with computer software for accountancy. ‘I’m afraid I can’t follow, Lionel,’ Desmond said. ‘I haven’t got my hearing aid in.’ Lionel nodded and signalled his understanding. Perspiration ran like rivulets down his face and disappeared into a thicket of hair on his chest. ‘This is the real thing, a lot hotter than the spa,’ he shouted into Desmond’s ear. Desmond, who was also sweating profusely, wondered if he had perhaps turned up the thermostat too high. After ten minutes or so, Lionel indicated that he had had enough, and went out into the night, fanning a breath of cold air into the sauna with the door. There was a pause of about ten seconds and then, even without his hearing aid, Desmond heard the splash of water hitting the deck followed a second or two later by a bellow from Lionel as he recovered his breath sufficiently to register the shock. Desmond waited several minutes to allow the tub to refill, and went out himself.
Lionel had gone back indoors and drawn the curtains behind him.The scene was washed by a chilly moonlight.To his right there was a grassy bank which led down to a stream and a pond from which ducks and waterfowl came marauding for food in the mornings, waddling boldly up to the patio door, and on the far side of the pond there was a dark mass of trees and shrubs. Nothing stirred there now, and the neighbouring chalets were screened from his sight. It was a curious sensation, standing naked and alone on the cold, wet boards, directly under the tub, grasping a thick hemp rope in one hand, knowing that one firm jerk would bring several gallons of freezing water down on your defenceless body. It wasn’t like pressing a chromium-plated button in the spa’s multisensory shower, but something much more existential and perverse. It was like committing suicide. The rope and the gibbet-like beam from which the tub was suspended combined to make the act resemble a self-administered hanging. His whole body seemed to cry out: Don’t! But the longer he hesitated the more difficult it became to act. Already he could feel the inner fire stoked up in the core of his body by the sauna beginning to die down. If he didn’t do it now, he would never do it, he would have to creep back indoors, still sticky with perspiration, to the jeers of his companions. Now. Now! One, two, three . . . HEAVE!
It was the weight as much as the temperature of the mass of water that shocked