‘Dor-jeh.’ A deep voice. Mature. But what was he saying? ‘There will be only three courses to dinner,’ she said and her voice was soft. Melodic. Almost.. . subservient? ‘And before each you must satisfy your innermost desires so that you may enjoy the meal to its fullest.’
God damn! Sharky lit a cigar, held it between his teeth, and pressed the earphones so he could hear better. Was this the same woman he had followed to Moundt’s? Who had joked with him about being an elevator man? Served him soup and wine and seemed hypnotized by his broken nose?
‘Only two courses, Ho Lan Ling. I am afraid three might be more than enough.’
He heard her laugh. Well, shit, Sharky said half aloud, they’re off and running in Peking!
She led DeLaroza to one of the Savoy chairs, stood behind him, began massaging his temples. Her touch was so light he hardly felt it. She pressed her thumbs in the middle of his forehead, held the first three fingers of each hand just inside the depression of his temples, and began rotating them in circles, widening the circle until her fingers moved over his eyelids. He sat with his hands resting on the arms of the chair. Her fingertips relaxed him. His head grew light under her touch. He eased into the chair. The music filled his head.
She poured him a glass of dry white wine and offered him a white pill on a satin pincushion. He washed the pill down with the wine, watched her do the same. She opened a long, shallow antique box, removed a pipe from it. Its porcelain stem was eight inches long and the rosewood bowl was well worn and scorched black. Then she took a piece of what appeared to be black putty and rolled it between her thumb and forefinger into a perfect ball. The Quaalude began to work on him, he felt his organs being stroked as though her hands were inside him. The room was a warm, protected place for him. She knelt beside him, humming in harmony with the music, put the ball in the bowl of the pipe, and held a match to it. As it glowed red, she offered him the pipe and he took it, drawing deeply, feeling the smoke burn his throat and lungs. He took it deep, holding it in until he thought his chest would burst. She turned the stem to her own mouth, drew deeply herself, closing her eyes, letting her head fall back. Then she offered the pipe back to him.
The first rush of opium engulfed him.
His body began to vibrate. He seemed to be sinking into the pillows.
The music engulfed him.
His skin was caressed by invisible feathers. His groin began to swell.
Domino lay back in a bed of pillows she had arranged at the foot of the chair, the Quaalude and opium etching her desire, defining her prurience. She felt another presence outside of herself, like a second skin, shimmering, protecting her and caressing her. The dress slipped down between her legs, rested against her hair and she felt its weight along her vulva. Her thighs began to tighten and relax. Tighten and relax.
The chimed music filled her head, flowed down through her throat and filled her chest. Her nipples grew until she thought they would pierce the gauze that enslaved them. The music began to flow again, down through her stomach, deep inside, and finally into her vagina. Her body spasmed, very lightly, and again. She stared at DeLaroza through eyes already fogged with passion. Her mouth was open. She was beginning to breathe in a long pattern, inhaling to the count of seven, holding to the count of seven, exhaling to the count of seven. It enhanced the music inside her. She put her hands on her stomach, searched lazily, lightly, for her navel, found it and brushed her fingertips around and into it. She looked at DeLaroza and the swelling, between his legs excited her even more. She crossed her chest with her hands and began moving them up her sides, exploring her armpits while the palm of her hands grazed her nipples. She rose to meet the hands but they were elusive, rising as she rose. Her nipples swelled to meet them finally — the touch. The thrill shot through her, like electricity, firing sparks into her breasts, her stomach, her neck, into her vagina, her rectum. She caressed her neck, slid her fingers under the gauze dress, savoured the roundness and then felt the dimpled ridges of her nipples. She held them gently between her fingers, began to squeeze them. DeLaroza now was breathing with her, his erection straining against his zipper.
She took one hand from under the dress and moved it down between her breasts to her stomach, slid it over her thigh, reached the bottom of the skirt, and pulled it up, slowly. Her hand disappeared under the skirt, slipped along her thigh, brushed over her hair and moved back down.
She began to rock up and down to the rhythm of her breathing, rising up to meet her hand as it grazed her thick patch. She let her hand slip between her legs, her finger probing, closed her eyes, stretched her head back, and gasped, then began rocking and breathing faster and faster and faster....
Sharky listened to the sounds. First her singsong humming, then the breathing. He tried to picture the man. Deep voice. Probably large, not fat, but large. The voice was mature. A man in his forties, possibly early fifties. And there was a trace of accent or perhaps the lack of an accent. An Americanized foreigner. German?
Then he envisioned Domino. Naked.
The Big Man was touching her, kissing her, possibly going down on her. The Big Man’s hands caressed her, stroking her tits. He was touching her now, his hand stroking the dark fur between her legs. Now she rolled him over and got up on her knees and straddled him and he was hard and he reached out for her.
Only it wasn’t the Big Man anymore, it was Sharky, reaching out for her, touching her.
He pulled the earphones off and dropped them on the bed. His pulses were jumping in his wrists. He wiped sweat oil’ his forehead with a corner of the blanket. He felt guilty, embarrassed, humiliated. And then he began to question his feelings. Guilty? Of what, getting a hard-on listening to a beautiful woman screwing another guy? Hell, who wouldn’t? Embarrassed? For whom, by ‘whom? There was nobody else there but him. And why should he be humiliated? They were not even aware he was listening; they certainly were not trying to humiliate him. He lit another cigar. And thought again about Domino.
As Domino began rocking faster, she began chanting, at first very faintly.
‘Hai. . . hai. . . hai .. . hal...’
She felt her lips swell and open, her fingers slide down across her trigger, felt it harden and grow under her touch, just as DeLaroza was growing. Her finger slid inside her, was entrapped by the moist muscles which tightened around it, held it, then released it. She rocked faster, increasing the tempo of her cries.
‘Hai...hai...hai...’
DeLaroza gripped the arms of the chair until his knuckles were swollen white. His pulse thundered in his temples and the muscle under his testicles jerked in spasms.
He was hypnotized by her fingers, grazing, brushing, their whispered touch urging her lips up through the forest of her sex. Her cries urged blood up into his swollen penis. He slid down in the chair. His legs stiffened.
