beckoned her frivolously, like an indulgent father fighting his daughter's shyness, toward them.
'And here's the career girl! Carol, you look marvelous; how exotic tonight!' extolled Lady Llewellyn.
'Tell Carol what you've been saying about me, Margaret dear.'
Phillip excused himself with a slight bow, winked at Carol with an expression in his eye that said, 'She's all yours now, baby.' Carol's eyes appeared even more mysterious as they accused Phillip of his betrayal.
'Carol darling, I was telling your wonderful father what a dreadful snob he is.' She started to giggle again fitfully, when her eyes were diverted by the pendant Carol wore.
'Carol, I thought you never wore more than a pair of little pearl earring! How lovely!'
'Thank you, it's very old. I wear it sometimes.'
'It's just right for you, darling.'
Margaret Llewellyn touched her own heavy necklace tenderly, in a reflex movement. 'It's an actual feat to keep one's objects close to one these days. You have to be smarter than the crook! Helen Braithwaite lost her every stone, my dear.'
Carol was already slightly drunk and a bit bored. She looked distractedly past the babbling mouth. She watched Phillip manipulate his virulent charm. He knew she was watching him. Yes, Phillip
always amused her. His imagination was so ingenious. She was curious to see how he would be now that he was going to retire.
The one person she knew would not come out of the shadows, because he wasn't there to emerge, was Harry. No matter how diverted she became by Phillip's frolicking, by her own appearance, which everyone marveled at, by the splendor of the ball and the potential surprises it would offer, behind it all was her nagging preoccupation with Harry. If he came, it would show he cared for her. How could she even think in those terms? She was not even sure he was still at the house.
Yes, everyone was decidedly enjoying the party. Mrs. Llewellyn's voice floated back to her. It was like coming up from under water.
'And it's exactly what I said to her at the time: 'You have to be smarter than the crooks.'' The relentless babble continued, and Carol was locked in like a bubble that doesn't burst. 'Now that we're on the island most of the time, I keep my precious possessions there. I wouldn't have them here for the world. Thank goodness we've been spared the island!' She paused and put her little pig paw to her mouth and giggled for the hundredth time. 'You'd never guess where!'
At her last remark, Carol looked at her with mild curiosity. Mrs.
Llewellyn leaned forward and whispered with a bobbing of her head.
The bubble burst. Carol gave Mrs. Llewellyn an odd smile. 'That is unique,' she said.
'Smarter than the crook,' Mrs. Llewellyn gaily bragged.
As the ball went on, the atmosphere became more frenetic and drunken. The frolicking was rampant, and in a sense it was a part reminiscent of the old days. Mrs. Llewellyn went behind the exotic screen where the orchestra played, took the microphone and announced that the servants were to be dismissed, and for everyone to gather in the main room as there was to be a choosing of the best masks, and of course, the surprise, the highlight of the evening.
Mrs. Llewellyn was famous for her surprises. This is what usually made her one of the strongest figures socially. Hubert, her husband, was an incurable alcoholic with a lovable disposition. He usually had to be carried away long before the party ended. While his wife was setting up the surprise, he was busy forcing one of their tiny toy Pomeranians to drink a glass of champagne. Hubert had lasted long this evening. Even he was affected by the element of anticipation in the air.
The lights went out, except for the candles in the sconces and the one elaborately tiered crystal chandelier that threatened everyone. Hanging tenuously from the middle of the high ceiling, it burned sensuously.
The orchestra played very softly, but loud enough to be noticed, going from tangos to slow rumbas. Margaret Llewellyn was holding her black half-mask as a
A giant of a man, the kind found only in the circus or on some basketball team, came forth. The large muscles of his well-proportioned body were painted a gleaming bronze, and a silver loincloth encased his genitals, the size of which no one dared to guess.
Mrs. Llewellyn drew him forth from the shadows like a genie from Aladdin's Lamp. She came up to his thigh bone. 'Ladies and gentlemen, tonight we are going to have a new kind of 'pin the tail on the donkey.' Only after we have all had a few drags from this hashish hookah in front of me — and it is large enough to give all of you a new sensation — while you are inhaling this divine smoke, we shall watch a dance.'
The light thrown from the chandelier turned a pale violet and green.
The giant helped arrange the long tubes of the Indian hookah.
A man and a woman, dressed in reddish gauze, came dancing out from behind the screen. They did a slow, sensual, Latin dance. It was exciting to watch, their olive-skinned bodies shone through the transparent material of their costumes. His face was sculptural, with black shiny eyes and long sideburns. Her hair was as short as his, but her face was delicately featured and heavily painted. Her body had the voluptuousness of an East Indian sculpture. Breasts extended directly out, but enormously round, the waist so tiny it was impossible to imagine how it supported them. The black curly hairs of her pussy were sprinkled with golden dust that sparkled beneath her costume.
They moved sensuously together, their bodies eager to be more intimately joined.
The dancing was only a sort of play in which they came very close to touching one another, but always missed. At one point the man caught her by her delightfully decorated pussy; his hand came masterfully underneath her and raised her high into the air. While suspended she removed all of her costume except for the lower half, out of which she leaped rather magically, leaving him holding it in his hand like an exotic flag, as she gracefully fell to the floor and lay on her back.
He danced a slow rumba up to where she lay. Then he danced around her, glaring greedily down at her body. Her eyes were closed, and her voluptuous body breathed heavily up and down. Somehow, as he danced around her, she caught him with her leg, and he fell softly on top of her eager cunt and began to fuck her.
No one could figure out how in that instant his cock had thrust itself into her. She smiled with her eyes closed and moved her hips rhythmically around his cock. Then, with his prick tight in her pussy, they rolled together all over the floor, and when they stopped, he was completely naked. Some of the gold dust from her cunt had caught on his pubic hairs, and they were like two nymphs cavorting in the fields.
Their audience, a bit subdued from the hashish, had allowed themselves to be taken up by the sensual movements, and though nothing extraordinary had occurred as yet, it acted upon them as a powerful aphrodisiac. They reclined on the thick, pillowy carpet, and allowed themselves to be influenced. One of the masked men reached lecherously to his partner and pulled her strapless gown brutally to her waist. The huge beautiful breasts popped fruitfully into his grasping hands.
The hashish thickened the air. The women stared at the half-naked girl. Soon, in a feverish rush of naked competition, they had stripped themselves to reveal their luscious gleaming bodies. Mrs. Llewellyn, in her evening wear, slipped about with the giant, her prize, taking care of things. Indeed, the show was just beginning.
Now the young couple had become a bit more erotic. They were lavishly eating each other for all to see. The light on them was violet.
Despite the intricacies of sex the guests were quietly involved with, this action excited them more than the fucking act, and certainly more than what they were doing themselves. Everyone watched the two soulfully.
The music had ceased except for the distant chant of a bongo drum.
They tongued each other noiselessly, her cunt moving much the same way against his ready mouth as it had against his prick.
As she simulated an orgasm, the audience oohed and ahed, and he came directly after her. The instant he started to come, what looked like a little girl dressed in a Bo Peep outfit, but who was really a forty year old midget, came tip-toeing quickly out onto the floor carrying a gold Henry VIII goblet, and caught his overflowing sperm into the ornate antique receptacle. Then she disappeared, having captured all of his release.
When they had finished with their orgasms, they rolled over on their backs for a second, and jumped up and bowed. While the audience clapped softly and assuredly, the beautiful man unstrapped something from around his waist, and in the delicate light, he was seen to be removing his cock and balls, very gracefully. The beautiful woman
