Last Licks

by Troy Conway

Our nearest neighbors asked M. Ambert where he had hired the new performer. He denied it, spreading his hands and swearing upon le bon Dieu that I was a mere visitor, a friend of her highness the baroness. And her highness agreed, explaining once again how I had knifed a shark to death in the waters beyond the harbor this very afternoon.

  A woman in a low-cut evening gown, her shoulders and breasts all but bare, leaned over and pressed her hand to my upper arm. “Your must be very strong. Let me feel your muscles.”

  I bent my arm for her obediently. She gripped my muscle but her sly eyes told me she would much rather be gripping something else. I leaned forward to kiss her soft throat.

  Zia had paused in her recital of my heroism to listen. So I obliged her by whispering into the perfumed ear with the diamond earring just above my lips, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Ou est la chambre a coucher? The bedroom, honey—where’s it at?”

  Zia kicked upward between my legs. Fortunately, she missed. “Not before the soup, you barbarian!”

  Everybody thought that was Comedie Française stuff.

  By this time our kitten was back with our double brandies and was standing right next to me; in hope I’d give her tail another yank, I think. But as president of the League for Sexual Dynamics, I have always adhered to my own motto: In fight or frolic, always keep them off balance.

  So I caught her by her slim middle, drew her toward me, and kissed both her bright red nipples. She gasped, Zia gasped, they all gasped. Then I drew out a hundred-franc note, turned her around, lifted her cat’s tail and wedged it in place.

  There was a burst of applause. Zia glared daggers.

  I hunched my chair close to hers, and said in a stage whisper, “Vous avez un de ces corps, c’est incroyable! Your shape is absolutely unbelievable! Certainment, que c’est du chique! Certainly it can’t be natural!”

  “Buffoon!” Zia snarled.

  The people were laughing. M. Ambert was beaming. Zia was mad.

  I lifted my brandy glass, swirled its golden contents, and sipped. I knew she kept glancing at me stormily as she pretended to stare haughtily about the room. It was my cue to woo her, to make her understand that the kitten and the lady in the evening gown were mere incidentals.

  “You see, I was nervous,” I explained.

  “Hein?” she exclaimed, startled.

  “Ever since I was alone with you in the boat this afternoon, I have been in a state of perpetual excitement. I took three cold showers, but it didn’t help. You are the most desirable woman I have ever known. As a result, I am nervous near you. I don’t know how long my self-control can last.”

  “Hah!”

  No woman alive can resist flattery like that. She sniffed and stared off into space, but the lips that had thinned with anger were relaxing into their familiar, sensual pout. For a moment I thought the evening was going to be a fiasco, but she turned a flushed face to me, and after a hesitant moment, she began to speak.

  “If you are telling the truth, I would be the happiest woman in France, but I know you are a buffoon, you are a comedian. You will do anything for a laugh You are probably laughing at me right now.”

  I caught her hand and drew it to my lap. It pressed into me firmly for a long instant, then withdrew. Her cheeks were flushed, even in the candlelight, and her eyes were brilliant behind the long brown lashes.

  “That’s no laughing matter,” I told her.

  “The sight of that kitten’s derrière made it that way.”

  “The kitten wasn’t around in the boat.”

  She remembered all right. She sighed and let a fingernail march across the tabletop. “Perhaps I shall make you prove what you said . . . later.”

  I was fishing around for an answer to that when the black curtain behind us started to swish back. A red light came out into the candlelit room I turned my head casually, and stiffened.

  I was staring at a stage made up to look like a bedroom in hell. There was a big easy chair at the left of the stage, a straight-backed spindle chair next, a huge bed seemingly carved out of ebony and gold, and finally a piano and a long, narrow bench. A handsome, blonde young man sat at the piano, playing softly.

  A sigh went about the room. Chair legs scraped as they were turned so the audience might see the stage from anywhere in the room. There are four such stages in the Diabolique. No one knows which stage is to be used on any given night, so nobody can decide where they want to sit for the best view. Unless, of course, M. Ambert seats them close as a mark of favor—as he may or may not have done with the baroness.

  A sepulchral voice spoke offstage.

  “You are damned, Danielle Richefeu You must pay the penalty to his Satanic Majesty, forever throughout eternity!”

  Now you could hear a woman sobbing. It was very realistic, and you really seemed to be looking on into some lost comer of Hell. After a moment you heard a female voice.

  “Please, no. I haven’t sinned that much! Please, let me go. I will do anything.”

  “Exactly. It is why you are here. You’ll do . . . anything.”

  “Please! Please, I beg you——”

  The sepulchral voice grew crafty. “There is a way. We have been honored this night by an attendance of future victims of hellfire”—nervous titters and laughter from the people in the audience at that—”and it has come to me that if you can win a reprieve from them, I shall send you back to Earth to live out the rest of your days.”

  “Yes. Yes. I agree. I do, I agree.”

  There was a silence, then the sound of dragging footsteps. From the right, where the blonde young man played the piano, a girl came into view. When she saw the young man, she gasped and turned away, hiding her face with her hands

  “Yes, that is Paul, your piano teacher.”

  The girl turned and stared at the audience. She was wearing a child’s dress that was all frills and lace, belted with a white satin sash. She had a matching bow in her long blonde hair. The audience knew this was no child, but she was so costumed and was such an excellent actress, that they began to believe it.

  “Must I?” she whimpered.

  “If you would go back,” said the mournful voice.

  She was a pretty little thing, there was panic on her grotesquely twisted mouth and in her wide blue eyes. Her legs beneath the micro-shirt were amply curved and rather exciting, all pale white flesh above the Baby Jane shoes and small white socks. She really did seem to be only twelve years old.

  She ran to the piano bench, her hands reached out. In an instant, she was playing a duet with the handsome young man. They played very well together.

  “Paul, I saw you the other day—with Maman,” she murmured suddenly.

  “Did you, Danielle?”

  “Oui. She was doing something to you. . . .”

  The little girl swallowed hard and hung her head. The blonde youth turned his face to her. Their hands slid from the keys. His hand touched her blonde hair and ran down it to fondle her soft neck

  “And?” he prompted.

  She cast one terrified glance at the audience, then swung to face the piano teacher. She appeared to gather courage as his hand went up and down her back.

  “I shall tell Papa—unless you let me.”

  The young man started, then whispered, “You are blackmailing me, little one. But—very well, I agree.”

  Danielle gave a happy little cry and put her hand on her companion. His body shuddered in reaction. His eyes watched her little hand grasp the zipper and run it down. Then he cried out sharply as her hand disappeared from sight. They had swung around, so that his front faced the tables. Everyone could see the hand moving under his trousers, everyone could hear the shrill cries of excitement and watch her bare legs move together.

  Then everyone saw her hand emerge, gripping its prey.

  “Paul, Paul,” she babbled, staring down.

  “Easy, little one,” he panted.

  She let her head droop, until she could press her cheeks against him. She turned
her head so her blonde hair pressed into his belly, and she began to kiss him. The audience was staring, some of the women were making low, moaning noises. Everyone could see very plainly what was taking place. Her hand gripped, her lips caressed. The young man began to shudder.

  His hands shoved her around and down between his thighs. I could hear a woman laugh harshly, somewhere behind me. The candles on each table flared; this was the only light outside the crimson glow of the room in Hell.

  The girl was kneeling before her piano teacher, head burrowing into him. The young man had his head thrown back, he was making groaning sounds with his throat. Then he bent forward, spasmodically, and his fingers grabbed hold of her white lace dress. They began lifting it upward.

  The girl had nothing on under the short dress. Her pale buttocks made twin moons above her full thighs, quivering as her head lifted and fell. Slowly those thighs parted, until a golden puff could be seen. The young man bent his head far forward, staring, but he did not hide anything from the view of the audience.

  The climax was coming swiftly. The young pianist was gasping, his hips were stabbing, his hands slid down to bury their fingers in the soft buttockflesh. Then when he cried out thickly, his hands went inside the bare thighs, lifting and spreading them.

  The girl was raised up off the floor, completely visible.

  They froze that way for long minutes.

  The stage went dark.

  The sepulchral voice intoned, “This was the beginning, Danielle. Can you deny it?”

  “No! No! I don’t deny it. But I was so young—scarcely twelve. I didn’t know what I was doing” There was a pause, then she whimpered, “Ask the audience.”

  The audience applauded until the cave cafe rang. A few male voices cried, “Bravo, Bravo.” Here and there a thickened female voice chimed in with its vocal approval.

  The deep voice said sarcastically, “Apparently my domain will have to find liebensraum to accomodate all those who belong here.”

  A cheer went up from the tables.

  The red light began to glow again. Now we could see the woman as she really was, smartly dressed in a black satin evening gown that bared her full white shoulders. She was entering the bedroom, a man in evening clothes at her elbow. The man seemed very nervous, giving occasional glances over his shoulder.

  “Are you sure we’re all alone, Madame Bussy?”

  Danielle, fully grown into a glamorous woman, laughed softly. “Certainly, my dear Alphonse. My husband is away on business.”

  He seemed so nervous, the woman advanced upon him, plucked at his black bow tie, unfastening it. Her hands went to tuxedo jacket, pushing it down his arms. She undid the shirt studs until the stiff-bosomed evening shirt gaped to reveal a hairy chest.

  "You finish the rest,” she murmured, and went to lift a pack of cigarettes from the night table and strike a match. She breathed in smoke as the man slid out of his trousers, his shirt, until he stood there in his shorts. His body was very excited.

  “Now you,” he cried.

  She laughed at him, making her hips bump, blowing smoke. “Make me want to strip myself for you,” she taunted him.

  He ran for her, lifted her, dropped with her on the bed. His hands were under the long black satin skirt of the gown, raising it, showing handsome legs in gun-metal nylons to the audience. Up went the skirt, now you could see the full, trembling white thighs and the red lace garters. The man bent and began kissing those soft thighs, up and down.

  The woman moaned and lay back. Her legs were lifted, spread wide, the better to permit those worshipping lips to caress her flesh. Occasionally her hips bucked savagely, up and down. When the man settled his mouth into her most intimate parts, she screamed wildly.

  Her hands caught his head and held it

  The audience was breathing heavily now as men and women turned to one another, hands lifting skirts and opening trousers. I could hear a woman crying softly. begging her partner to do that to her. I heard knees thump on the cafe floor.

  I was not idle myself. My hands had gone under the shaven armpits of the baroness, closing over her heavy breasts. I squeezed them, loosened my grip and then squeezed them again until I had established a rhythm to coincide with the movements of the head buried between those naked white thighs on the stage.

  Zia was groaning, letting her hips dance.

  The evening gown was on the floor now, the woman on the bed was naked except for her nylons and a red lace garterbelt. The man was thrusting himself between her legs. Her arms, white and lovely with diamond bracelets on them, were clasping him, bringing him to her. Their bodies joined, a cry forcing itself from her lips, a bellow from his. His lips went wild with her stockinged calves protruding on either side of his hips.

  I lifted Zia, I ran my hands up under her skirt, discovering that she was wearing only the patterned stockings, held taut by wide frilly garters. Above them and below the micro-skirt, her body was stark naked. My hands went lightly up and down her thighs.

  I put pressure on one leg, to get her to lift it. She shook her head, saying swiftly, “Non, non! We must not waste your espadon.”

  “Honey, you don’t know me. I’ll be this way practically forever. It won’t go down.”

  Her head jerked as she looked into my eyes. Her voice was sharp as she asked, “What’s this you’re telling me? It won’t go down? Pah!”

  “It’s true. You see, I happen to be afflicted with priapism. As any doctor will tell you, I can keep a perpetual glow on for an indefinite period of time. No woman can exhaust me. It’s a medical thing.”

  In the red glow from the stage, on which the man and woman were still pumping away at one another, Zia’s face looked diabolical in its lust. Her tonguetip emerged to lick about her swollen lips as she stared down at my bulging lap.

  “I don’t believe it. Chiche! Prove it!”

  “What do you think I’m trying to do?”

  My hand went to my zipper, but she caught my fingers. Her head shook back and forth. “I don’t believe you. Besides, I’m so excited I don’t dare take the If You failed me, I’d kill you!”

  She freed herself from my hands, slid back into her chair. I sighed. I would have to suffer for a time. The thought touched me that she might be right, that it would be better to wait, that if she too were excited when we got to her bedroom, she might blurt out what I wanted to know about the mermen quickly in order for me to indulge her needs.

  I settled back to enjoy the stage show.

  The man and woman were shuddering into the orgasmic climax of their act, writhing, using that play of hips and thighs called culetage by the French.

  As I sat beside Zia von Osterreich, I realized as a secret agent, my priapism was like a secret weapon with which to smite the women with whom I must come in contact. I would make Zia beg for my attentions, compel her to tell me more about the mermen, then give way to our desires.

  The performance overhead went into its third stage. The man seated on the straight-backed chair was a different one than he who had performed on the bed. He was a Frenchman with perhaps a trace of Moorish blood in his veins, his skin tones were so swarthy. He held a nude Danielle on his lap, facing away from the audience as her pallid hips went up and down and around in a paroxysm of pleasure.

  The sepulchral voice had asked its question, and had been answered with shouts of negation and a thunderous applause. Now we were seeing Danielle at a later time in her life, with her young chauffeur.

  I began to suspect Danielle Bussy of being a nymphomaniac.

  Frankly I was a little bored. As the Founder of L.S.D., I see enough of this sort of thing without going to a cave cafe for it, but the baroness was enjoying it. She was shifting in her chair, drinking steadily, moving her thighs together. Under the mist of shirtwaist her breasts were swollen hard, with rigid red nipples.

  Eyes glazed, mouth a little open, she watched as the woman on stage lifted a thigh and gently, so as not to. disengage her attachment to her fellow perf
ormer, turned like a chicken on a spit, until her breasts and golden verger faced the audience. She picked up the swing and sway of her cutelage without missing a beat.

  Then we could see the expression on her face: eyes squeezed shut, nostrils vibrating, mouth a little open. Twice she bent her head and her hips pumped madly before an orgasmic shiver rocked her body. Twice she recovered her cool, twice more she let her loins grow amorous.

  I began wondering about the young Frenchman. Was he a priapist like myself? I was just about to welcome him mentally to the brotherhood when he gave an ululating scream, his hands fastened like claws in the smooth shoulders of the woman who rode him in the Venus aversa position, and he appeared almost to shudder out his life on stage.

  The woman leaned forward and fell to the stage floor so everyone could see what was happening to her pleasure partner. Zia moaned and her tongue came out to flick around her lips. There was a faint film of perspiration about her temples where the strands of rich brown hair were plastered.

  “I cannot stand much more,” she moaned.

  I inched my chair closer. “Silly goose, why didn’t you say so? I’ll give you one of the L.S.D. special treatments in situations like this—when your maidenly modesty refuses to join in the festivities.”

  Her molten eyes swung sideways. There was a quiver to her lips that smiled faintly. “I forgot you are the passione, the expert in sex.”

  I let my fingertips brush across her left nipple. It did not bend, it was too hard, but her hips shot forward so suddenly she slid to the edge of her chair. Her mouth came open and her eyes squeezed shut. She was breathing harshly and her breasts seemed to dance to that breathing. My fingertips danced across her right nipple.

  Zia von Osterreich moaned and shook her head.

  “Look around you,” I advised. “See for yourself what our fellow drinkers are doing. They don’t have any inhibitions.”

  Her eyes slid to a man who held a woman, fully clothed in a black taffeta evening gown, across his lap in imitation of the stage happening. The woman moved her hips like a hula dancer. To their right a woman had her head buried on the lap of her more youthful companion, while his hands clasped her neatly coiffured hair with tugging fingers.