The Hunt

Drinks were provided by three men and three women, their bodies oiled and glistening in the gloomy light of a half dozen blue spotlights. The women, although heavier than Americans preferred, were young, voluptuous and handsome. The men were built like Charles Atlas and looked like they had a combined IQ of twelve. All were blond and wore loincloths. The women were bare-breasted.

They took orders and delivered drinks without expression, their robotic attitude ingeniously designed to separate them from the audience, to assure their inaccessibility and heighten the erotic expectation of the show that was to follow.

Vanessa immediately responded. Her cheeks flushed. Her breath came a little faster. Mesmerized by the promise of the evening, she was the perfect spectator, an affirmation of Weil’s perverse creation. And she did not escape his eye. The moment they entered the arena, Weil saw them, watched her as she walked to the couch and sat down, her dress twinkling, reflecting the blue lights like stars on a clear night. She sat with her chin up, accentuating the long, regal sweep o f her neck. She was keenly aware of her allure, flaunted it in fact, and Weil was hooked and reeled to her like a trout on line.

“Francis, an honor to see you again,”’ he gushed, without taking his eyes off Vanessa. And to her, “I am Conrad, your host,” as he kissed her hand.

“Conrad, this is Vanessa, a friend of nine from the States.”

“Ah, Fraulein Vanessa, what a marvelous distraction,” he said. “You will make life difficult for our performers. No one can take their eyes off you.”

She was properly dazzled by his schmaltz.

And Bert Rudman was dazzled by her. He sat across the room next to a heavy-set, Teutonic man with a thick mustache who slumped on the couch with his chin on his chest, nodding as if by rote as Rudman jabbered in his ear. Then Rudman saw Keegan. He looked at him with exaggerated surprise. And then he saw Vanessa and his mouth gaped.

Keegan smiled, first across the room at Rudman, then at Vanessa. When their eyes met, he realized the room and the anticipation of the show were having an effect on him, too. He wondered if the sudden hunger showed on his face.

The music began softly, built slowly’. It was Oriental, an eerie melody dominated by bells and drums. Its tempo, slow and sensuous, segued into a soft, steady beat and two blue spotlights faded on, each focused on one of the pallets. Three women and three men wearing yellow silk robes seemed to materialize from the shadows, emerging into the spotlight, standing back to back. They were all dark-haired, not an Aryan in the bunch. The women, more sensuous than beautiful, looked French. The men were more Mediterranean-looking, possibly Greek or Italian.

Weil had selected the cast of his erotic show personally. During a search that had lasted several months, he had assembled six women and six men for his show, rotating the members of the cast each night since only three couples were required for each performance. Weil himself had choreographed the exhibition, sitting in different places in the auditorium and giving directions as the sex-actors performed for him.

At first their moves were subtle. They began to sway slightly with the music. As the tempo picked up, their movements became more pronounced, more provocative. They brushed briefly against each other at first, barely touching, then moving away. In the soft light of the masked spots, they looked at first like a moving sculpture.

Vanessa stared at them transfixed.

They moved out slowly, widening the circle of the spotlight, and broke into groups rather than pairing up. Two women and one man, two men and one woman. The two men began stroking and petting the most petite of the three women, moving their hands lightly over the silken robe, touching every part of her body. She swayed with them and began to hum very slowly as they kissed her neck and shoulders, slipped their hands under the robe, burnishing her body with oil. Finally, they removed her robe. One of her partners stood behind her, glossing her stomach and breasts with oil. Her breasts swelled, the nipples hardening. The other partner used the oil to glaze the insides of her thighs, moving up slowly, slowly, higher, until .

A tiny cry slipped from her throat. She fell back against the other man while the one continued to knead oil into her with the flat of one hand, his fingers tantalizing her. Her knees buckled and they lowered her to the mat, never losing a stroke, always massaging her breasts and mound. The tempo of the music increased.

The other two women concentrated on their subject, who stared unblinking as their fingertips flitted across the silk.

One of the women opened her robe and moved against him, swaying to the music. The other girl dropped her robe off her shoulders and stood naked, caressing both their backs, also swaying in cadence with them. The first woman shrugged her shoulders and dropped her hands straight to her sides. Her robe slid down her back and fell away.

They removed the man’s robe slowly until it too fell away. It was obvious he was aroused. One of the women leaned down and took a bottle of oil from under the corner of the mat. Both girls oiled their hands, then began to spread the oil over his body, starting just under his chin and moving down to his fingertips, across the flat of his stomach and down to his groin. He closed his eyes and his head fell back and they lowered him to the silk sheet. Hands and lips seemed to devour him, stroking, kneading, urging him toward a climax.

“Seen enough?” Keegan whispered in Vanessa’s ear.

She opened her mouth but nothing came out, so she just shook her head, never blinking or taking her eyes off the sexual gladiators. The music grew faster and with the increase in the beat, the activity in the center of the arena became more frenzied. Vanessa’s fingers dug into Keegan’s thigh and she sank deeper into the down cushions of the sofa.

The two menages a trois became totally impassioned, oblivious to the room full of voyeurs. The two women urged their male performer erect with lips and hands while he felt for each of them, touching them, arousing them until they stretched out beside him, one stroking, the other kissing him.

On the other silk pallet, the woman began to moan, rocking her hips slowly back and forth while the men kissed and petted and stroked her entire body. She arched her back, her breathing erratic and labored. Finally one of her partners lay on his side, lifted her leg over his hip and entered her. Her cry—half anguish, half joy—shocked the spectators. But only for a moment. She moved with him, head back, eyes closed, mouth slightly open, her lips trembling as the other partner kissed her body, first her breasts, then her stomach, moving down until all three were moving in concert.

“Oh my God,” Vanessa muttered under her breath. She moved tighter against Keegan, began to stroke his thigh